$2.
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You Never Know What You Will Find Inside The
HARBINGER ASYLUM
Wislawa Szymborska,1923-2012
Were extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. from
HARBINGER ASYLUM
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Dustin Pickering ASSISTANT EDITOR: Ian Maass Copyright 2012 by Transcendent Zero Press. Contents of this magazine remain the property of the writers as specified by their authorship. They are free to use their works as they wish. Contributors vary. HARBINGER ASYLUM is an independent, quarterly literary magazine published each season. You can order copies from: Dustin Pickering, Editor-in-Chief 16429 El Camino Real Apt. #7 Houston, TX 77062 Issues are two dollars per copy, and one dollar for extra contributors copies. To submit poetry to HARBINGER ASYLUM, please email Dustin Pickering at To submit political writing to HARBINGER ASYLUM, please email Ian Maass at .
HARBINGER ASYLUM is published by TRANSCENDENT ZERO PRESS.
HARBINGER ASYLUM
SPRING 2012
Taha Muhammad Ali, died October 2011
HARBINGER ASYLUM is a quarterly, independent literary magazine based in Houston, Texas. It is published by TRANSCENDENT ZERO PRESS.
LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
by Ian Maass, Assistant Editor
Hello, and welcome to . Please watch your step. Mind the bookworms, philosophers, dreamers, lovers, and poets. Indeed, ideas are sometimes better than people. Ideas are immortal and cannot be contained. The cat's out of the bag. Everyday more and more people are waking up and rejecting the movie-script existence that has been handed to embrace all forms of fiction, providthem. We at ed they are labeled as such. In a country where death and suffering are the primary industries that drive the economy, it is comforting to know that not everyone is taking the path most taken. Many thanks to the readers and contributors of our little social experiment, dreamed up by souls unwilling to wait for corporate swine to notice and take advantage of honest talent and ambition. Read on!
*Many thanks to: Adriana Babiak-Vasquez and Luis Vasquez for their generous contribution to
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CONTENTS
Letter of Introduction by Ian Maass / 5 Table of Contents / 6-7 Biographies of the Poets / 8-11 by Richard Peake / 12-13 by Colin James Sturdevant / 13 by Colin James Sturdevant / 14 by Colin James Sturdevant / 14 by Sharon Ann Goodwin / 15 by Troy Camplin / 16 by Troy Camplin / 17 by Kathryn Ann Stewart / 18-19 by Kathryn Ann Stewart / 20-21 by Kathryn Ann Stewart / 22 by Shae OBrien / 23 by Shae OBrien / 24 by Daniel Aguirre / 25 by Daniel Aguirre / 26 by Daniel Aguirre / 27 by Dustin Pickering / 28 by Dustin Pickering / 29 by Dustin Pickering / 30 by Rael Xavier Bischoff / 31 by Rael Xavier Bischoff / 31 by Rael Xavier Bischoff / 32 33-35 by Edward Vidaurre / 36-37 by Marcie Eanes / 37 by Marcie Eanes / 38-39 by Daniel Garcia Ordaz / 40 by Juan Manual Perez / 41 by Juan Manual Perez / 41-42 by Juan Manual Perez / 42 by Rachel Vela / 43-44
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by Stephen Gros / 45 by Stephen Gros / 46 by Stephen Gros / 47-48 by Ian Maass / 49-50
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS page 39 page 44 page 50
* The drawings are taken from the Editor-in-Chiefs high school notebooks. *
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Blessed Ye Are to Understand by Daniel Aguirre
Blessed ye are to understand The violent uproar that dwells in man A well-sprung crimson shower The tears eternal enchantment Blessed ye are to understand The violent uproar that dwells in man A brothel welcomes a wanderer Seduced to ashes by the saintly nymphs Blessed ye are to understand The violent uproar that dwells in man Downstream flourishes the renewal The child of Beautys subjugation Blessed ye are to understand The violent uproar that dwells in man A tribe of masked faces Seducing souls to their own death These children to reason Are the ones we call blessed
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Scenes from an Untidy Life By Dustin Pickering
What fire reams scribbles to your hands, and leaves the messages waiting? How do the words decompose from mouth to hand, from page to poetic invention? We are cousins of the oppressed, living under the magic rules of dishonor devised for us. Our notebooks are like scenes from an untidy life. These dying songs, filtered as gold dust. I cannot demand your renunciation I know the remnants of earth, and the temple of disassociation with its denial of our alienation.
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the money gets thinner in the evenings by Stephen Gros
The money gets thinner in the evenings with my blood I tap tap the only morse code I know. A cry for help reverberating through the wood becomes the wind whistling through an empty house Like an accidental reed flute created by a wayward boot. And what is all that damn noise? I tap tap tap the only morse code I know The secret rhythms of gestation remembered in a palpitating vessel Once I was born and I cant take it back. The dragonfly summer in exchange for your purity A fair bargain, for some. A grandmotherly floral hand bloats and sags as it soaks, Melting, sinking and expanding into a childs inscrutable scrawl Just add water. Just take me home. Wrap me up maybe, in a fleece and Ill sleep In your lap Until dawn
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She wonders why I dont write more often. By Stephen Gros
She wonders why I don't write more often. How can I explain to her that every poem empties me like a glass? That I don't remember my dreams? How can I tell her that each poem is a flower, grown with care and worry, destined to be plucked from its bed when the time comes? or that some will die there unattended? How can I make her understand that I'm always writing, even when I have no hands? She thinks it's because she isn't beautiful enough. That my empty notebooks are a testament to her failure to inspire. As if her sharp eyes haven't cut me! As if I never thought of how the smooth heave of her bosom is a perfect sound whispered into the ears of my eyes, or how her tears run down her face as if they know they don't belong there. All I can manage to answer is that in time, I will fill volumes, cover countless pages, and festoon every flat space in my world with spirals and notes and books and journals and pads all dedicated with measured slowness to the great journey of she alone.
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