Maggie

[maggieamagazine]

maggie a magazine

                                                                                Drawing by Emily Pettit

  Maggie is a little magazine about dogs, inspired by Maggie Zurawski’s Companion Animal (Litmus Press 2013).

Featuring poems by: Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Jen Coleman, Leopoldine Core, Peter Culley, Ethan Fugate, Carol Mirakove, Stacy Szymaszek, Kevin Varrone, and Magdalena Zurawski.

Editor: Sue Landers

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[Dog is a way of thinking.] by Magdalena Zurawski

My language, which likes to prove I am not 

alone, wants to talk to me again today. It’s

telling me, Don’t forget: you want to be less like Homer and not at all like Milton, but more like your dog. Your dog, my language says, knows things are there, doesn’t want blindness to see a world, only a nose to know what’s knocking now, who’s on her way home. There’s no yesterday. 

Your dog, if he could talk, my language tells me, would, every day, like a radio, catch an air wave and say, ‘Today…’

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pack by Carol Mirakove

              Being a pet seems to me a pretty demanding job for a dog                            — Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto

          pigeons on notice                          you don’t                make sense in terms                of your parts & neither                          do any of us                     little mutt big yawn      you have come                from all over, Georgia even,      to eat this crowded sidewalk candy           missy(**wants)                     I am learning                my animality, co-           conspiring to hunt, what,                     sometimes simply cuteness,                     a laugh I didn’t know                     I had          plus our not-selves, emotional reactivity &           your inconsistency           reflects my inconsistency,      e.g., late again, bad domestic                     person may I be so                                    forgiving           of imperfect obedience do you know your name Söder?                          you’re so tired go                          dream of sleeping

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call in late by Jen Coleman

In the rainy morning, the keyboard already clicking, the little dog, his body 

stretched atop my legs,  soft ears on my feet,   sighs, settles.

The traffic,  the rain on the window   and the dark. 

And why bother go, when  there is so much to do here,  in the mind, with the sleeping dog.

Every day I observe.  Every day I think rigorously  about it. 

The part of the story where   I wipe my glasses on my t-shirt, wait in line at the post office,

watch a man on tv  put a tarantula in his mouth.  These are unreliable.

Part of it is that the story  is so vastly told. Part of it is that there is no such story.  

There is so much work  to be done here, the window  full of soft flares of rain

in the streetlight  before they disappear, comets into a black hole. 

I have too much to do here in the morning in the dark  than to ever get up and go to work, 

because fingertips on letters,  letters are the tips of my fingers. What needs this lap

snores and kicks furry feet at the keyboard of finite possibilities  at the edge of the galaxy.

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from A Letter to Hammertown by Peter Culley

& in sleep the furious forest reconstitutes itself the ringing silence thick fleshly endrenched footfall & Shasta's fast footfall lakeside endorsement underalder endorsement ringing antennae of sleep along the long hillsides always stumbling & climbing gravity heavy feet prescient sleep sleep coming to each limb separately heaving the will forward fall asleep walk & fall asleep along the long lakesides.

Run & drift awake the stubble of vocabulary swirls around your feet in spouts of antique bliss the furious forest now suffused with pink x-ray light under which the bones of the street reveal their arched & baroque forms the ringing of byzantine brass through coloratura headphones interrupts the operations of sleep along the long avenues always always climbing the will forward fall asleep run & drift awake along the long lakesides.

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Horrible by Leopoldine Core

The Dog turned sharply. Did you really piss in this bed?

Yes. It happened in a dream.  This is all really happening. I really peed.

The dog looked alarmed. He had trusted my body as I had trusted it and now we were soaked.

I’m sorry I said  but he was already out of bed.

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It’s All Ok by Kevin Varrone

there are no poems being written today just drudge then you come lay across a square of sunlight and rest the weight of your head on my foot and groan

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when will spring come in by Julian T. Brolaski

when will springtime come on in ta-la tala tala winters gonna do me in ta-l tala talaa

we go as the crow flies to the pines where we are free but ever watched and watchful when will springtime come on in ta-la tala tala winters gonna do me in ta la tala tala we go as the crow to the pines where berries grow tala tala tala on branch of pine we snatch at them w/ paw and maw we eat the tender grasslets tala tala tala only to puke them up on the soft moss or later on the kitchen floor when will spring come in ta-la tala tala winters gonna do me in ta la tala tala as the crow will fly we go to the pines to chase the sticks to chew the grasses when will springtime come on in ta-la tala tala winters gonna do me in ta la tala tala as we lean us on a bough as we betake us up the stair when will spring come in tala tala tala winters gonna do me in tala tala tala when will springtime finely come ta la tala tala in the pawing of my thumb tala tala tala

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from JOURNAL OF UGLY SIGHTS [1.17.13 – 2.15.13] by Stacy Szymaszek

Carroll Gardens: oncologist surprised that tumor hasn’t grown in this period of time, heightened lookout for signs of decline//snow melts revealing winter turd garden, everyone’s dream of an easy cover story//let her eat bacon and eggs off the street//dream that I’m enjoying a bath shampooing my hair when suddenly clumps of my hair are coming out in my hands I wake up fall back to sleep, dream that I put on my Catholic school jumper and head out into the world, realize that in movies it’s always the girl in the uniform who gets killed, panic and run home but a second before the door is about to latch my killer blocks it//morning of Cass’s 1 year anniversary with us, her butt is bleeding, carry her to the chaise so K doesn’t see and towel it clean//recognition of necrotic tissue must be primal you know it when you smell it, a sweetness you know is bad, is ugly//get my library card in the mail but don’t go to a branch to activate it within 30 days, repeat//can never really be present for the wooden box of ashes on the bookcase shelf//mom says she has eyelash dander too, her eye doctor told her nomads get it//blood on wool//dream that my iPhone has an app where you tap on a picture of a friend and every word you’ve ever exchanged with her appears in tickertape fashion across the screen, you can check the transcript to see where things took an ugly turn//Cass walks into a cloud of exhaust//books started but don’t have time to finish include Jill Johnston’s Admission Accomplished, Glenn Ligon’s Yourself in the World, Genet’s Funeral Rites//since I moved here in 2005, every time I walk my dog over a ConEd metal plate I think, are these the ones that electrocute people?//day 9 of cough, how to interpret my refusal of doctoring//try 4 different oils in left ear//naming a snowstorm//grumpily cancelling Lewis’s workshop by popular demand, that’s the WI talking//Neosporin brings relief to the ear so I put more in it and now I can’t hear, stick a cotton ball in it so I can associate hearing loss with the cotton ball and not the dumb thing I did//always been disgusted by chicken liver but today I prepare 2 for Cass and 1 for myself//ear suddenly pops, go to the bedroom rejoicing “I can hear!” but K is on a stressful call with her sister, gives me a dirty look//in the phase again where when I hear someone coming up the stairs I panic, neighbor’s bell rings, look out peep hole, man in yellow reflective vest knocks first then lets himself in//

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Good Dogs Triptych by Ethan Fugate (photos by Allison Hull)

1. Morning

If the Higgins oxygen burns up her little lungs, let her seek some stuffiness that suits her. She's an owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine.                 – Professor Henry Higgins, My Fair Lady

Just be. Be glad and get up already! Perchance the filthy wren has legion wings deeplurked in grassy funk. Gladly sings my fuzzy touchtooth. I am the steady

dematerialization of the object, mouthwise. Hurry, yes! Stretch in vain. Gladly medicate away the mange. I am agog to possess things abject,

possess them always and forever YAWP! Rend, chase, rend  is the job. There is no job only squirrely destiny. I’ll sob, especially when I am bid to stop.

Here’s a sphere. Here! Throw it fencewise for me! Later, on your lap we’ll see what we will see.

    2. Noon

I get tired of playing a guy who gets into a fight, then starts singing to the guy he's just beat up.                 – Elvis Presley

slapdash past the historical park let’s walk it’s getting late let’s rather lie down next to one another I some times bite though the scope of my anger is never broad enough to encompass true malice except and I type myself by saying this the mailman oh pure deepest black moon turns to blood anger but here let’s cozy up with a book you my friend look tired don’t you want to rest nice with me I of the endless treats in cahoots with the cat an uneasy truce that do you bring me comfort or am I simple comfort to you but we all know the answer I wait at the door and watch for you the same time every day I pout when you leave you know words that I know that are magic like ride and car and treat and bed my tail an endless fascination oh but I am mercurial oh but I hate that cat sometimes I love her she universal contour in the firmament I will earn her respect one day this blanket I burrow and you help me be bigger than I really am I bring you down to size remember the stitches I gave you no I didn’t want to give you a kiss you seemed something else back then but now here be with me on the couch let’s watch some TV or we could go for a stroll I haven’t seen that other dog for a long time the one with the incident the lovely little contretemps in the park but I wanted you to know I was behind the cold medicine incident I didn’t eat any that would have been a long shadow in the white coat office and I don’t like that office white coats and pinches and that time I held onto you when they took me “for observation” If you could understand I would tell epic stories here sit down with me I won’t lower my gaze until you do my tongue cleans everything washes all sins away especially the sin of keeping the garbage away from me in cahoots we knock it over and roll in it revel in the stink here let me be there in your lap my rumble growl grows and you tease me into it I let you know what is what but only if you roll down the window there that’s better my long range sensors working overtime I think I can admit I like it here with you the music is good the food better I like our rituals I like how you like little me.

      3. Night

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.                  – John Coltrane

in sleep where you match your breathing to mine part my favorite was the garbage it is a difficult thing to be an ape and have such memories but don’t be sad

in dreams where I am chasing rabbits at 3 am when the kneeling bus wakes you you immediately look for me I am looking back at you in the dark all those times

you tried to get me to howl and failed all those times the siren was successful in the dark I looked back to make sure you were there were safe don’t be sad I was always happy

the pneumatics of the bus so loud the air going out the air going in and out of my lungs in dreams and when I would talk in my sleep like you the paw print in the dust on the windowsill

one of the best dreams ever when we generate the maps to things with our noses all smells as threnody dew and dropsy on the intimately known grass the closer to the summit the heavier

the stone grows but these are flowers in the tunnel and still dark typing out the Morse code of our mutual affection on the floorboards these stiff little legs I taught you how to stretch and everything was always good 

even (go ahead it’s okay to believe this) at the end I am the dog of fire air earth and water a wall of dog where the center and stillness exist along with smile and stumble 

but not sad never sad that is to say “be seeing you" and all apology in that I am all balloon and ridiculous observe the sun has bled out and I’ve  wrestled too much already and your language

is not my language is what each says to the other if I had known you before Babel the investigation is never over and now I’m talking to ghosts and shadows spokes on the same wheel songs in my making place

thank you again that’s fine your welcome give me the smooth ride oh let me stream past concrete and clipped wings no – don’t slow down those you carry back are depending the ash

on you head and on the sidewalk is only ash from a New Jersey brushfire not me untried world we are silhouettes a name applicable to all big things