Unlikely 2.0


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Editors' Notes

Maria Damon and Michelle Greenblatt
Jim Leftwich and Michelle Greenblatt
Sheila E. Murphy and Michelle Greenblatt

A Visual Conversation on Michelle Greenblatt's ASHES AND SEEDS with Stephen Harrison, Monika Mori | MOO, Jonathan Penton and Michelle Greenblatt

Letters for Michelle: with work by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Jeffrey Side, Larry Goodell, mark hartenbach, Charles J. Butler, Alexandria Bryan and Brian Kovich

Visual Poetry by Reed Altemus
Poetry by Glen Armstrong
Poetry by Lana Bella
A Eulogic Poem by John M. Bennett
Elegic Poetry by John M. Bennett
Poetry by Wendy Taylor Carlisle
A Eulogy by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Vincent A. Cellucci
Poetry by Joel Chace
A Spoken Word Poem and Visual Art by K.R. Copeland
A Eulogy by Alan Fyfe
Poetry by Win Harms
Poetry by Carolyn Hembree
Poetry by Cindy Hochman
A Eulogy by Steffen Horstmann
A Eulogic Poem by Dylan Krieger
An Elegic Poem by Dylan Krieger
Visual Art by Donna Kuhn
Poetry by Louise Landes Levi
Poetry by Jim Lineberger
Poetry by Dennis Mahagin
Poetry by Peter Marra
A Eulogy by Frankie Metro
A Song by Alexis Moon and Jonathan Penton
Poetry by Jay Passer
A Eulogy by Jonathan Penton
Visual Poetry by Anne Elezabeth Pluto and Bryson Dean-Gauthier
Visual Art by Marthe Reed
A Eulogy by Gabriel Ricard
Poetry by Alison Ross
A Short Movie by Bernd Sauermann
Poetry by Christopher Shipman
A Spoken Word Poem by Larissa Shmailo
A Eulogic Poem by Jay Sizemore
Elegic Poetry by Jay Sizemore
Poetry by Felino A. Soriano
Visual Art by Jamie Stoneman
Poetry by Ray Succre
Poetry by Yuriy Tarnawsky
A Song by Marc Vincenz


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MOMMA
by Tom Obrzut


One

I am humungous
Are you a photograph?
Her loins were hot as the rat in the rack
Check on the post steeple
No bills
No bull
Oils
Every day I calls, I phones
Every night I dream, I fold
An eight ball lands in your hands
Take out your veil
A Marxist room ekes skin
This weakness before daybreak
Before pessimism
Avoid ail
Eat shit, you land
Let’s open past the tusk wall, toots
Let’s rope her for a wind fall.


Two

Tenement Raymond Roussell
Ambiguity noir
Construction love behind register
Eel
“Fish,” said a cat
Head baby crying “Magritte”
Derange baroque, so rococo
The strangest swirl
Help typo
Hypothetical


Three

Raymond photographs her register
No check
No bills
Her loins were the hypo
Tenement dream
Eat rope derange type
Before construction
Baby calls sham weakness
Fish love your music
Open strange, ambiguous toots
Rack the eight ball
Take out nowhere
Hope for a behind
Start out folding dreams


Four

This experiment in rye
Like it said on the cross
He was hanging around like a mendicant
But holier
This one’s a love story
Starring another apostle
I’m an artist
You can tell by my funny mustache
My fish
The way these candles won’t blow out
Pretty soon there’s a caretaker
Funny name for a guy don’t give a shit
I’m gonna come right out and say it
Okay I warned you
I tried to stop before the nuclear option
So this time listen up
Learn something more than your case number Kafka
Like I said, peel those ears back
Point them
This is my secret word:
Newark
How’s that feel?


Five

Now you get my politics
How fish don’t remind me of anything
Art is a rat
A door to door salesman
With pizza growing cold
There’s a guy on the phone
Rapping about his car got jacked
Spinning vinyl in prison
Let’s open these dreams
So much wind, so little fall
They sometimes put a name
Every day
A snippet, the newspaper horoscope
At least until the next one
The one after that is vinegar
The way Anthony talks to himself on the street
Not when he’s smoking
After


Six

Particles that dissolve into dream
I’m sending out a search party
You’re lost already
I can’t help but think about slipping
There’s nothing to fall to
I’m so solid
A pessimist daybreak in the hypo tenement
That’s where the phones go
Is a photograph art?
No one answers in the library
They know they can’t disrupt a service
All these rules that we’ve followed so well
Are changing while we’re speaking
Written in a realer hand


Seven

There’s no home where the home went
There’s no phone smoking
These words don’t dissolve
They started out in a medium
Floated angry out of modern art
I’m sleeping with a prostitute
A hell in a place called Toots
Only ticket is a one way in
Only word is end
I say it again and again
Don’t make me begin


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Tom says, "I run a shelter for homeless mentally ill in midtown Manhattan. I also run a magazine called Arbella that has been publishing for the last twenty years irregularly. I have been published in Long Shot Magazine, Brooklyn Review, The Brooklyn Rail, poetz.com, Big Hammer, and a zillion other small small magazines. I was the curator of The Proletkult Poetry Circus and have spent considerable time teaching poetry to children, disabled, elderly, and just about every conceivable 'special needs' population."