KWJ

VOL. 3

Contents

From The Editors2

Contributors3
Puke Rimbaud4
i hurt trees5
At The Museo de Antioqua7
Front Doors8
Life9
Some Good Excuses10
Chapter 1611
The Apocalypse Cha-Cha12
Buddha & Co13
Beach In Winter14
The View From The Crack In The Alley15
Inanimate Seduction16
there you go again17
a beaver wrote me18
dnt yu b givin up19
& when they let us b20
At The Bus Stop21
Fibbing Sun22
Sharp Countys First Machine House23
Whale Fall25
Intendemnify26
Bios27

KWJ

VOL. 3

From The Editors

Its the magic number(ed Vol.) The solstice has passed but the nights arent drawing
in. Read this Vol. on your rooftops, balconies, in your gardens, yards; read it always
outside. The poetry contained moves across dams and excuses and museos and
branches and ends at the bottom of the ocean. And thanks to Will Preston-George
for the art direction and cover layout, and Titus Groan for the cover illustration,
and Jeff Dahlgren and John Lowther for the art youll find dotted through the Vol. I
will admit this Vol. was long in gestation lots of things surfacing simultaneously.
No excuses next time. Its a finer vintage for it. To all the poets featured: You
complete us. To the state of California: Close Seaworld already.
Samuel Rowe

I often say Sam and I compile our Killer Whale Journal because we can, which has
become a motto of ours. But I am not so selfless. We open new submissions three or
four times per year because we enjoy it. What a great excuse to look at the superb
work our peers create through words and images year after year. I want to thank
everyone who submitted, even if we could not find room for your art or poetry. We
kept this one short and sweet, unlike volume two, because KWJ is meant for online
consumption. Reading through your submissions was a distinct pleasure. We hope
you enjoy volume three as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Yes, the future
is bright for killer whales everywhere. Except Sea World. Maybe next year well work
with audio files to boot. And sorry for the wait--the killer whale is a master of
suspense, as well as self-insulation and waiting for sea lions to leave their puny
icebergs.
Alessandro Mario Powell

https://killerwhalejournal.wordpress.com
https://facebook.com/killerwhalejournal
killerwhalejournal@gmail.com
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VOL. 3

Contributors

Marissa Lucchesi
Leo Temple
Daniel de Cull
Joseph Bradshaw
Marie-Claire Serou
Howie Good
Michael H. Brownstein
Christine Lyons
Vanessa Saunders
Strider Marcus Jones
Connor Crawford
Johnnie Bicket

Titus Groan
Jeff Dahlgren & John Lowther

William & Thats On My Mom Preston-George

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VOL. 3

Marissa Lucchesi

i hurt trees
1
it's easter sixteen springs
ago and my mother tugs
my hair, pressed thin
with coconut oil and
eucalyptus drops. we
have a book of
braids (only white
girls are pictured) &
we pick the fishtail to
fin down my pink satin
church dress. at Mass
i press plucked
magnolia buds into
my palms, inhale the
premature green
dissect the furry
hearts, the tucked
underbellies of
unopened petals
almost a sin

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2
on repeat, the 2000
enya album and
my mothers warm
thigh pressed to
the noncurve of
my waist. her hair
curlier, thick &
smells like wild
flowers, lychee
the sweetness of precigarettes.
when i am older i
remember the
tightening. i
braid it into
the new
synapses

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Leo Temple

At The Museo de Antioqua

I have laughed constantly, grieved of myself,
like rain both being and puddling.
BOTERO! feeds me evening on memory
emollient sleep; butter spread on nightmare;
BOTERO! casts time in endless sexual position,
sleeps me well the paunch of Medellin.
She, the Mona Lisa, is so fat inside Colombia,
BOTERO! says.
Time is a belly that grows like nails.
I have puddled, like time, in words like morning,
contained time in language like cysts in the air;
I have heard myself laughing far off uncontrollably
the rain laughs constantly grieves of itself.
Outside, a large man skirts his wet shirt
around his belly;
the paunch of Medellin grows in the rain.

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Daniel de Cull

Front Doors
Baby O dynamite
mistress of the Star fish
swimming in my ears
where often a Wo/Man
remains alone
long to listen
Doors singing my business daily
dead as a door nail
into all this Channel
O.O. % Ecstasy. No
showing me a door
opening by itself
at the End of lives forgotten
when Sun is a dog cart
botted with gay dogs
of the dooms day
sit and dreaming
of the floor of our
Nothingness sentencing:
"Bakers dozen talk
19 to the dozen".

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Joseph Bradshaw

Life
How many Bart Simpson dolls
have I seen in the trash,
lying in piles of trash
on the street, the heads
of Bart Simpson dolls?
Only beautiful trash lies
in the street as I walk past
a split open condom, a few Bart Simpson
heads poke blankly out.
I love creating beauty in life.
What makes Bart
Simpsons head appear so big?
One Bart Simpson head is at least
the size of two of mine.
Or one Bart Simpson heads the size
of one of my heads plus three, no,
two of my penises.

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VOL. 3

Some Good Excuses

Ive been apartment hunting
Ive had mono
I had a bad childhood
Im not that gay/straight
I dont believe in self
Im trying to be honest
I assumed you hated me
I dont wish for anything
This body is all I have left
Eventually it will be gone
Eventually my name will be gone
And then I will not have existed
Its a dress perfect for any occasion

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Marie-Claire Serou

Chapter 16
When the gradient of f is equal to F it is said to be independent of path. This is
useful in fluid dynamics. Supposedly. Physics works out beautifully whether or not
there is a God. However, when you get into applications of math none of the
variables are purely independent. Where x intersects the y-axis, it can only intersect
z where y and z both equal 0. There are practical applications. When Mary kisses ---and ----- in the same day, she thinks only she matters. Nihilism is a self-fulfilling
prophecy, you too can be too cool forToday, I decided to make a friend less
arrogant than myself. I saw a girl so skinny and washed she looked nothing like an
animal. She was wearing only true black. I wanted to tell her, but I had bangs and a
math joke written on my wrist: A vector field that is independent of path is called a
conservative vector field. I address a Bible to God. Dear Lord, I dont know if youve
seen this. Signed, MC. PS. Are you a wool sweater or Superman? I receive no reply.

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Howie Good

The Apocalypse Cha-Cha

Often eyes become red, and all because four-hundred bullets per minute go roaring
off on joyrides. Thats when I start thinking, Whatever happened to the right to be
lazy? The world has developed a taste for the miserable, the beheaded Christian
prisoners who cant quite get things together. Theres actually a kid in full goalie
pads outside the Stop & Shop collecting money for a pantheon dedicated to them.
He might be better off if hed been shot in a fracas and instantly killed. My life also
seems kind of Laurel and Hardy, a kiss of fire accelerant, the whole jamboree
vulnerable to the odd stick of dynamite. Souvenir hunters wont even bother to wait
until the ashes cool before they begin searching through the wreckage.

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Buddha & Co.

Exposure to long winters has erased the face
of the garden Buddha. I shouldnt compare,
but Van Gogh also had most of his teeth pulled.
In the dark subzero hours of early morning,
I have been woken up by yips & squeaks,
coyote pups trying to keep warm. I lie there
and listen, & then I am no longer the color of tears.

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Beach in Winter
Nothing here,
and no one,
only seashells
and pebbles
and pretty ferry lights
casting shadows
that form a sentence.

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Michael H. Brownstein

The View From The Crack In The Alley

A wild moon over the timber wolf trees,
the injury of silt within their branches,
plastic sawdust forced into block and stone:
Here is the arithmetic for everything mammal,
the vagina curl in waves hitting scorpion sand,
ancient trees carved out of mud and brick:
One boulder leans against pebbles for support.

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Christine Lyons

there you go again

chewing through the forest like
you own the place
snapping trees
the way id snap
your neck
i couldve used that lumber
filed it into
a toothpick
picked flesh
between pearly whites
& i could use you too beaver
wear you like a hat
serve you on a spit
sell you for a buck twenty

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a beaver wrote me
a song once
when our bellies were full
& the moon was full
coyotes howling
at the bone eye
her fingers
plucked
the grass
tail
slapped the water
she sang about last thursday
hiding her mouth underwater
to keep herself quiet
when trappers trapped
her momma
sheared her mommas fur off
& left her naked
floatin round somewhere
now this beavers
pluckin grass like a guitar
& im the only human
who hears her song
the others just dont listen:
bievers r jus aenimels
they say
tht wil nvr chanj

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dnt yu b givin up
on me now
beaver
i kno it gets cold up here
nd water drops
freezin
be low
but yu jus keep swimmin
even wen yur feet get tired
nd the hair on yur back
freezes
yu jus
dive
d
o
w
n
cause we all need
a little break
but keep on workin
beaver
chomp down on wood
build yur dam
tuck yourself
into yur lodge
nd when yu sleep
yuk no ill wake yu up
S M A C K my tail
gainst the water
when sumthin floats by
h
old
yur breath
nd hide underwater
lil beaver
lets hope
this is the day they let us b

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& when they let us b

lets meet in the forest
somewhere in northern ntario
wher thers only
w
i
d
green space

d
e
e
p
blu waters
listen to cars / crickets
watch satellites / stars
remove the distance between

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Vanessa Saunders

AT A BUS STOP, a blind man puts his head into his hands. Why has this
happened? I don't know. A tree is truncated in the storm, but there is no great
surprise. Do you prefer function over form? The body collapses in the street. I
prefer form, he said. I'll take my dinner in the dry Pacific.

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Strider Marcus Jones

Fibbing Sun
when this fibbing sun,
dips below this planted plate
of fieldsand waits
to bob back up tomorrow:
solitude, sucks the colour
out of crimson clouds,
and stars begin their movements
over night's black curtain.
thinks.
this dance of being bornto live and die
in sacred elements
swirling in dust and gas,
in beauty and folly
that repeats itself
to what purposedoes this engine and design
make civilisations form then fade
with gods and demons.
there must be more to Michelangelo's ceilingthan creating orphans
and leaving them, to grow old
in fostered orbits.

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Connor Crawford

Sharp Countys First Machine House

they bought the new house at Sears,
the morning it got delivered down Campbell road,
Ravenden, Portia and Williford all watched
tip-toed from behind the tin fences,
little ones atop the cattle straining
to see the tractor tugging the machine-made home

its floors drooping over the trailers edge,

bowed plywood scraping unbranched red
leaves and side mud when the road narrowed so
the neighbors took bets
on which corner it would crumble,
but no one made a cent

these farmers and their families

also watched from the front row the night
the old house burnt down
their faces lit up like sunset
Rapa Nui, flames in their pupils
no seaworthy buckets around to fetch, to douse
that night, the chimney got the only life raft,
reached land charred and gasping
for air in his black brick lungs
the post office girl gave
him water and a bath,
and boiled his clothes out back

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the burns cooled quickly,

he got back to work for his meals
hayed the field with his pops
tilled in imperfect circles until there was just a mattresssized patch dead center of the field where all the bunnies
slowly relocated, but he spared them

he yielded buckets of bear oil into the tree trunk

trough by the Spring river preparing for cold,
dipped his raw hands in the frigid current to wash
up for that nights Spamburger supper
on the patch of rubble where his grandfathers
old kitchen and stove had been

an Ozark winter with a new house

picked out from a catalog: not ready cut
Honor Bilt Natoma, Modern Home No. C034, $191.00
she cleaned him up and ragged him down one last time,
built a fire in his guts
the night before the Sears house came.

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Johnnie Bicket

Whale Fall
The boughs of ribs, a sculpted skull,
vertebrae dissembled, a column toppled to sections:
imprint of hugeness. When living,
it saw through the glum aphotic with music it made
through organs, thundering across centuries,
sounding out the murky globe.
It sang through internal chambers with
air stolen away from the breathing world.
When swimming the ring of the southern ocean, whales
chant ballads about the sometimes sun,
the moon silvering the shallow waters,
songs that outlast the chug of ships.
But, this whale recanted descends
through miles, through currents,
before nudging the sea-bed with a slack jaw, the body falling in behind.
Quiet in abyssal squeeze,
its bones are quarried by worms
burrowing for food, no darker plan.
Smell water and gather; they say out over the bed,
well build a city out of this.

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Bios

Marissa Lucchesi
is an economics graduate student at Tulane University, 22. She is just
beginning to self-identify as a poet. She hopes to publish a book of poems
someday.
Leo Temple
grew up outside Bridgwater, Somerset in the Quantock hills. In Liverpool he
broke a budding football star's ankle. The boy now plays for England. This
incident threatens to be Leo's most notable act. He writes poems.
Daniel de Cull
is a Castilian and Aragon poet. He is highly involved with natural life and
love. He is popular and often quoted. He is editor of the cultural reviews
Gallo Tricolor and Robespierre.
Joseph Bradshaw
is a caca Jesu
Marie-Claire Serou
is a forth generation New Orleans native. She likes poetry, f(r)iction, boiling
summer days and civil disobedience.
Howie Good
s poetry collections include The Complete Absence of Twilight from MadHat
Press, and Fugitive Pieces from Right Hand Pointing Press.
Michael H. Brownstein
has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. In
addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks. Brownstein currently is the English
Specialist at Lincoln University.
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Christine Lyons
is Canadian first. Writer second.
Vanessa Saunders
is a graduate from the University of East Anglia. She enjoys green tea and
Paul Celan.
Strider Marcus Jones
is a poet, law graduate, ex civil servant and Salford born and bred. His five
published books of poetry are modern, traditional, mythical, sometimes
erotic, surreal and metaphysical.
Connor Crawford
is AWOL.
Johnnie Bicket
is unemployed and lives with his mother. He dislikes contemporary jazz, fish
from rivers, and moral objectivism. He likes Tony Gash, dumb-phones, and
defecating in open country.

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