esoteric magazine 2004

7/29/2019 Esoteric Magazine 2004

1/12

Esoteric 2004

"Seven Seventy Seven" by Efrat Arbel

"Bon-mots et bon-bons"

The Oscar Wilde Society is havinga fund raising affair

At which there is to be awrite-a-poem-on-a-young-boy booth.The sophisticated members sneerat the newcomersWho plan to buy up all their own boystimeAnd fill him full of lovely quipsand sweet bon-mots.Sweeter still - no bitter sweet -to have him writ upon by othersAnd read him later by yourself.


2/12

"Board Meeting" by Hasini Palihapitiya

"Evolution" byAlexis Eve Magi

Eating apple slices in the kitchenStanding in an electric sunbeam,My mind remembers harvesting applesSomething I have not done in a lifetime.October sun is not like this one,Not like the Frigidaires bulb,Not like this season of false brightnessThat is appropriating my hunter-gathererskills.The crisp cold taste of the fleshChilled by tens of nights under theautumnal moon.The mice do not inhabit the furrows of thelinoleum,Waiting for a windstorm to shake the metalboughsAnd tumble steel-touched apples into theirsharp mouths.In their stead are the housebroken, dustbred spiders,The crawling, soil-born baseboard earwigs,


3/12

Who become silver-precious powderunderfoot.

"London 1920" by Petra

Fisher

the ghosts and dreaming storiesof a past that whispers of dead menkilling girls(sodden and mad with drink - my excusewas whiskeyfor the yesterdays that those tomorrowsbecame)the voices sigh like Novemberdry and tight and breaking and not evenmemories any more,but someone must have cried to learn thatthe watchman was drunk,one night


4/12

"Seeds" by Beayue Louie


5/12


"Translator ofRights"by Kat Kinch

soft, these written wordswaiting for adherents and advocatesdependent on the continued memoryof the meaning of letters in a row

on the continued construction of wordsinto a vital ideasilent, these written words,in the absence of a readersoft, these words, without a translatormaking the page say somethingin the language of concrete, motiongrasping, transmission, incantationinvocationwithout a translatorthe words will not walk


6/12

away into the citys frantic currentshard alleys, haunted walksunder bridges and among the factoriesinto luminous streetlightsinto tap waterinto dripping foundationsinto the wires and nails and brickswithout a translatorthe words will not go

to fill the veins and the fissureswoven boughs, braided rocksin the chemical earth, the furrows, theworthinto the cast of starlight on snowinto clear waterinto starved rootsinto the clods and pools and clayquiet and heavy, these written words,bound togetherwith the gravity of religious texts,

and here, now,a whole generation brought upunder the weight of that first inscriptiontaught to read them and seek them,training their tutored tongues to speak themthe loving tongue, the reverentthe affected and inspired,the writer of lyrics,the swooning defenderthe sterner tongue, the steeledthe burnished and lined,the banisher of mist and moss,the champion of martial rigourthe mouther of shadow, the cavitied,the void and the drain,the mourner of coherence,the mapper of riddled territoriesonce thought wholethe voice of offense, the corral,the trammeller and the wheel,a wielder of knives,the summoner of opposing fortificationthese shouters and their rumbling

their making of noiseout of what was soft, silent and quiettheir scrum, their aggressionthe vigorous ownership of the translatedthe congratulations of their teachersthe sly envy of the books keeperstranslators who would be gladiatorstranslators who would be property holderstranslators walking abroadfull of dizzied youthtranslators hissing at the rocks and alleys


7/12

translators kissing at the earthtranslators breathing the wordsin all that surrounds thempitted against the translators who believethe words live only in the booksand outside the flurry and the furyis a softer, quieter terrainand the people there tell storiesabout some words

that were written downand taken away,meaning strippedat the first inscription,they tell stories about before the wordsabout the whispered goalsthe dearest needs,the gifts of birth,the rights of being.They tell stories of a language,an exquisite alphabet,

that wrote meaning,soft and quiet,into their efforts,their lives,their work.


8/12

"The Millenium Footbridge" by Hasini Palihapitiya

"One Place" by Lisa Kerr

When I decided to staythe man who sold me coffeewas suddenly interesting behind thecounterif were going to do this everymorningwe should talk.And I know that soft voice

will never meet me thereor study monkeys at Oxfordand Hannah wont stroll bythe clear front windowbeautiful and so haphazard.Enough has happened now, getting older,just staying on makes things plenty full.I prefer those fleeting livesthe grip of our flown dancerbearing down at each street crossingto take things on proper


9/12

not for sorrow but good weight.I quit considering citiesin terms of probabilitiesof you ending up there;if we have a morningyou should see my coffee shopand these other places.

"165 South" by Patrick Climaco Dos Santos


10/12


"Logical Reasoning" by Shelley Balshine

"Xerox Me Softly" byNatasha Durich

Standing at the Xerox machineCreated by our love,I watch you countlessly copyMe effortlesslyInto that perfect replicaOf (H)er.

Huddled by the Xerox machineCreated by our love,


11/12

I hear the whir of the copier as it counts thechange you have to spareUntil the total despairOf the impossible-possibilityOf such (re)creationMaterializes in your mind.

Crushed by the Xerox machine

Created by our love,I see the fuzzy-smeared copyOf the me-herAs it gently floatsInto the recycle binOf your hearts desire.


12/12

"Best Photo of Me Taken in Berlin" by Laing Brown

"Tokyo - Shinjuku Station" by Brian Jung

esoteric magazine 2004

Documents