NOTHING BUT GRUEL
by Christopher Stetson

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Christopher Stetson plays a mean guitar.


art&wit.com

MY WORLD AS I KNOW IT, 10/18
by Gillian Sze

A finished espresso crusts the afternoon

someone tosses popcorn out the passenger window
and pigeons ignore traffic

the raised pant leg of a cyclist bares
a Herculean calf, just as it presses on the pedal

a puppy leads the way

deserted ice sits outside the grocery store,
bits of broccoli find their way through as it melts

someone buys yesterday’s newspaper

a man grieves for his father

the fossilized tire print in mud becomes brittle

the sun throws a milky gaze over
all that pales.



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The author of two chapbooks, A Tender Invention and This is the Colour I Love You Best, Gillian Sze's first machine-bound collection of poetry, Fish Bones, published by DC Press, was nominated for the QWF McAuslan First Book Prize. Say it like C.

Aura1: Tess

AURAS
by Aaron McConomy

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I don't know where Aaron McConomy is. But he sends letters with his news:
my arm just fell off leaving a festering stump. is that bad?

Aura2: Jen

MINIAURAS
by Aaron McConomy

Aura3: Dessa

MINIAURAS

by Aaron McConomy

SAGITTARIUS A
by Cornelia Mars

The misleading appearance
of a solid entity
is the result of a slight hand.
Micro-expressions emitted quick
don’t betray a porous nature.
In actuality, these bodies
are maimed remnants
of an irresistible attraction
to something bigger and darker –
torn apart by an exponentially
stronger grasp.

To exist, they attached themselves
to a bright core, however elusive
(a ghost, maybe a furious child
bred from perturbation),
stretched their needy arms.
The orbiting embrace
has positioned a kernel
that will eventually (by the velocity of its desire)
rule as a heart, an impenetrable master,
a horrifying raison d’être.

Starved in a constellation
and at the point of no return
you won’t reveal any information
beyond your horizon –
you are a bright compact emission
that leaves nothing. You might kill,
grow, collapse me into this.



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Crowned Miss Sweden in 2003, Cornelia Mars can unknot linguistic tongue twisters and wield knives in a pub kitchen AT THE SAME TIME.

(click to enlarge)

SPACE! DAD!
by Ian Sullivan Cant and Melissa Bull

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Ian Sullivan Cant is the author of Papercut Hearts, a collection of zines published by Conundrum in 2009. He works on a variety of projects with his printing press. See his work at www.unkindnesspress.ca, or visit him in Toronto.