'Urchin Songs for a Universe' by Kate Hawk

1.

Life forms appear on the sand
like warm blooded animals.
Like spinning moon blood that
rises and falls in the pulse.

2.

The red moon humming
like a hissing beetle,
walking on a heartbroken sea,
of naked black urchins.

3.

The sun falls down onto civilization
like a spaceship and hits
during lunchtime while people
sit and eat Watermelon gazpacho.

4.

The red ball sits on the horizon
like the ominous thrill
of a stranger’s hands
ending up on your waist.

5.

A million black needles
tease you
when the water rushes by
with closed eyes and an open mouth.

6.

Little spines make love
with pieces of stars
so the sky doesn’t fall away.
So the night seems long and soft.

7.

Someone dropped cherries
on the sand when they came
and made footprints,
under the moonlight.

8.

Deep in your body,
the dark pulsates
like a prisoner who killed you
years ago and can now finally die.

9.

Holy water rushes into the city.
I hold holy water in my hand
and borrow it’s salt for a minute
so I can remember how the planets taste.

10.

At the edge of a city the
tide breaks, like
like the fishing lines
of helpless mystics looking for luck.

11.

The sound of vastness,
is the silent clashing of
atoms further away than
your life a second ago.

12.

The total unity of the sea and sky.
All that travels above and below,
that nighttime swallows,
before releasing the gold of the sun.

13.

Emotional ecstasy,
when the harshness of space comes
and strikes your face
with dark starlight.

'... And All That Jazz', by Ahmed

Smoke, warmth and mirrors,

felt and velvet, laughing love,

brothel gently sways.

Dark man fingers chord,

pulse and beat syncopate yet,

unsympathetic.

Sip dry liquid fire,

mix darkness sound and colour,

lost in C sharp blue

A minor flavour,

a taste of lips and tobacco,

D per the silence.

Baby it’s cold out,

Let me pour that drink for you

While the record plays

Fiddling with the mood,

Trumpeting the quiet ragtimes,

ragged heart sorrow

Contrabass patterns,

they underline the gaping

maws of broken oak.

'Water and Air' by Ahmed

Bubbles,

How can you say “bubbles” with gravity?

How can you imbue the word ‘bubbles’ with anger, and sorrow?

There are other words with less levity,

There is froth, froth is great for fury, fizz is much more hollow,

and then spume sounds slightly vomit-y,

scum, now, scum is downright vile; a word of filth and horror,

scud is swft and cold and without sentimentality,

spray is domestic and horticultural,

with perhaps a whiff of cetacean breath

suds, now, suds are downright sanitary,

and spin-drift, tightly combinational

a fresh mix of twisty, whirling health,

and listless, gentle scantuary…

To be honest, I don’t feel I have the vocabulary,

to describe the simple, banal epic,

that plays in my ears, and in my sinews,

when I crawl on the waters swiftly,

and my hunger for speed and force renews

as the wather thunders and crashés

silencing my mind in this dampened sancutary.

A poem without a name, by Cameron

the experience of self as separate

as entity

we have a word

at least

but to transmit the experience itself –

how imperfect our means,

even in trying to recite an instant

                a painting, a moment

                constructed from hours

                of labor and thought

                or a photograph

                pieces of pose and exposure

to feel only one

in a sea of other selves

and barely that,

so much of the self

trapped in semantics

to forget

we fuck, we love

to feel someone else

and to be felt

wordless

'Blossoms of Brevity', by Cameron

blossoms of brevity:

scent, and impermanent glow

floating nectars awash in meadow and straw

see how several moons hang

there, and there

breath becomes prayer

a gong in the ghost monastery

so ephemeral, this crystal

of memory worn out of the edges

sheering and sheered by time

transformed through use, by water

passing through the lattice of fingers

what could be gained in reversal?

the pathways repolarized, cortex to thalamus

light projected out to face, to sun

untasted, and unforgettable

'No Names' by Nemo

You bones are exotic

As dark as the light 

Beneath your trace skin 

I drink your blessing slowly 

Nursing each sip, as on our final bed 

I kneel beneath your rosetta stone, 

Plumed like a stolen dove

Breathless I learn you're a tax accountant. 

I love your figures, your exponential curves, 

Your firm grasp of numbers 

I feel as safe as a sonnet 

After we learn, we yearn, for love.

'The Shaman' by Ahmed Amine Ramdani

The shaman paused, the shaman knew,

You wish to escape, and yet remain true.

The road you walk is small indeed,

The route is a circle, we call it routine,

Listlessly you go down your tidy little lists,

Acupuncutring your heart,

one bullet-point at a time,

drawing circles like fences;

isn’t it so nice of you,

to keep yourself in check?

Your manager esteems you, are you not fulfilled?

Your spouse respects you, don’t you pay the bills?

Your children, however, are not impressed,

your inner child, your greater man, they rattle their bars,

they scream their hunger, they feed on your heart,

out of starvatation, to stave off cold death.

This hollow heart makes for a poor tutor,

for your tender saplings to grow on.

Come with me, says the Shaman,

Gaze with me, says the Mystic,

Cast with me, says the Mage,

Word and verb and speak,

Stand and stay and grow,

But don’t you dare to let it go,

Don’t you hide yourself alone,

The Hermit’s cave is stifling,

a hermetic, sealed coffin,

You’re a living treasure

those can’t hide

in leaden safes

no bars, but feathers;

under the sky

is where you’re safe.

A club of lonely hearts,

is an oxymoron;

we sit around the hearth

and we know love again,

we sing together,