The second issue is out, featuring the Greek poet Alexandra Mouratidou, who lives and creates in Malmö, Sweden. Again, if you can't get your hands on a printed copy of the pamphlet, either in The Hague or in Malmö, you can still enjoy its content here:

 

 

Panorama

 

Oh, I get the Flemish masters, now. Why

it’s always three quarters rampant sky or

a biblical sea crashing ships filled to

the gills with apples from China. I get

the art-nouveau postures of disfigured

trees reaching towards the promise of a

future sold through foolproof far-fetched words like

bioscoop and magnetron, and regal

swans chasing seagulls in rainy cobbled

streets – a mental note of life’s absurdity –

the rulers of the waterways losing

feathers like pillows dusted with long rods

letting off shrills carried through loud, defunct

chimneys. This is the place I’ll learn to miss.

 

 

Intentions

                by Alexandra Mouratidou

 

I’m scared of secrecy, silence, and sighs

the muted thoughts, the faceless sounds

and what does the unuttered hide.

Do words die out with time like past’s incense?

Soon, “I love you” will become a shroud you wear,

forgetting when or how­.

Dad died. But since the years have passed

it’s like the phrase has died.

Words die.

Just like a fallen star, an embryo, that hope,

the tears that have gone dry, the years behind –

Words wear banalities mostly when they’re cold.

Sometimes, they’re bored and tend to lie.

Words fly. At times, they choose to abandon all

their fateful sense.

The rebellious ones diverge:

They fall from poetry’s cliff revived.

Adolescence in Small Town

 

They were coming back from the church:

None of them believed in much of anything

but it was Good Friday. From around the corner

there ringed the laugh of the easy girls,

a silver bell calling paupers to charity supper.

Eager, the boys turned their untempered backs

on the spring wind, to light hand-rolled cigarettes

bought for a copper and a half each

by some older brother. They were fixing

their baby rockabilly quiffs,

ready to make an entrance and if there needed be

a scene, when a father’s bobbing belly came panting

and chased them down the road

thrusting insults mixed with warm spit.

The poor bastards ran like demons on that holy night.

 

Morbid Sensitivity

 

The crippling effect

of human interaction:

I take it all in.

 

I’m like sunglasses

with no filter to reflect

those carcinogens.

 

No good can ever

come from a self-image clung

on passer-by frowns.

Dear Contemporary Art Gallery

 

You are unequivocally clinical,

with blinding whites and cold spotlights,

and your wine is lukewarm and papery dry.

Your Django Reinhardt live nights

are of conservatorial principle

and your well-ironed guests will kindly abide

by smoking only outside. But art is a log cabin

in the thick dark woods, not a sterile science lab

for measuring and tagging pure consumer goods

– and it’s known for being moody and quite cynical.