The Week's Reading List: Transcendental meditation, home funerals, tiny houses, selfies & tarot

We read a lot of good stuff this week. What are reading, or what did you write? Leave it in the comments below, and we'll consider it for our next roundup. 

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Kenneth Anger: Film As Magical Ritual’: Jaw-Dropping German TV Doc From 1970 - Dangerous Minds
"Anger’s interview segments were shot as he sat behind a makeshift altar, lit in magenta and inside of the magical “war gods” circle seen at the end of the film."

On Refugees and Refusing To Be Scared - The Rumpus
"Bring them here for as long as they need refuge, and if they want to make a home here, even better. I’m not scared. I refuse to be scared."

On Pandering - Tin House
"What did Tina Fey say about sexists in the workplace: over, under, and through. The problem with responding to sexism with Sesame Street is that if you read that e-mail as I read that e-mail, as I was being trained to read—that is, carefully and curiously, over and over—you’ll see something more than the story Stephen told himself about me as a writer or, in this case, not a writer. I saw, in the form of paragraphs and sentences, my area of expertise, how it took only a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting."

David Lynch and the Second Coming of Transcendental Meditation - Motherboard / Vice
"Practitioners of TM engage in two 20-minute meditation sessions per day; once in the morning and once in the evening. They access this field by silently repeating a mantra given to them by a certified TM instructor. By connecting with the Unified Field, meditators purportedly feel calmer and more at peace."

Iskra Lawrence’s Favorite Black Friday Deals for All Sizes - Runway Riot
"Forever 21 has deals starting from $4, and with Macy’s door-busters, you will definitely bag a bargain. For fresh fast fashion, take a look at Boohoo. They have 20% off the entire range, and Old Navy has the code: early bird for 30% off or 40% if you spend over $100."
(PS: Luna Luna is a huge fan of Runway Riot.)

Our Bodies, Ourselves:  A funeral director wants to bring death back home. - The New Yorker
“'People are afraid of death,” she said. “Do you want to go sit with the corpse or do you want to party? If you put it like that, it’s not a very hard question.” She is not denying that people can find great comfort in a personalized funeral ceremony. “But I would still argue that it doesn’t give you the full engagement with death and grieving that you need,” she says."

The Deck Of Cards That Made Tarot A Global Phenomenon - The Atlas Obscura
"Suddenly, worlds of knowledge, coupled with current thinking on the psychology of the human mind opened up, and people of all walks of life became enamored with contacting the spirit world to find out the future or to commune with the dead. Christians began reading the Kabbalah. Interest in photographing ghosts rose."

On Pandering - Tin House
"What did Tina Fey say about sexists in the workplace: over, under, and through. The problem with responding to sexism with Sesame Street is that if you read that e-mail as I read that e-mail, as I was being trained to read—that is, carefully and curiously, over and over—you’ll see something more than the story Stephen told himself about me as a writer or, in this case, not a writer. I saw, in the form of paragraphs and sentences, my area of expertise, how it took only a few lines to go from professional dismissal to sexual entitlement to being treated as property to gaslighting."

David Lynch and the Second Coming of Transcendental Meditation - Motherboard / Vice
"Practitioners of TM engage in two 20-minute meditation sessions per day; once in the morning and once in the evening. They access this field by silently repeating a mantra given to them by a certified TM instructor. By connecting with the Unified Field, meditators purportedly feel calmer and more at peace."

Iskra Lawrence’s Favorite Black Friday Deals for All Sizes - Runway Riot
"Forever 21 has deals starting from $4, and with Macy’s door-busters, you will definitely bag a bargain. For fresh fast fashion, take a look at Boohoo. They have 20% off the entire range, and Old Navy has the code: early bird for 30% off or 40% if you spend over $100." 
PS: We LOVE Runway Riot.

Our Bodies, Ourselves:  A funeral director wants to bring death back home. - The New Yorker
“'People are afraid of death,” she said. “Do you want to go sit with the corpse or do you want to party? If you put it like that, it’s not a very hard question.” She is not denying that people can find great comfort in a personalized funeral ceremony. “But I would still argue that it doesn’t give you the full engagement with death and grieving that you need,” she says."

The Thing All Women Do That You Don’t Know About - Drifting Through My Mind
"Maybe I’m realizing that men can’t be expected to understand how pervasive everyday sexism is if we don’t start telling them and pointing to it when it happens. Maybe I’m starting to realize that men have no idea that even walking into a store women have to be on guard. We have to be aware, subconsciously, of our surroundings and any perceived threats."

The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation - The Establishment
"And it’s not just the Tiny House Movement that incites my discontent. From dumpster diving to trailer-themed bars to haute cuisine in the form of poor-household staples, it’s become trendy for those with money to appropriate the poverty lifestyle—and it troubles me for one simple reason. Choice."

Selfie: The revolutionary potential of your own face, in seven chapters - Medium
"I think about Francesca Woodman; the lovely, doomed Francesca, the daughter of two bohemian artists, a plaintive blonde who spent summers in Italy and learned to take photographs of herself in an old farm house. She started noodling around with a camera when she was only 14 in 1972, fully committing herself to her work when she went off to study at RISD three years later. She sent her shots to fashion houses and magazines, but couldn’t really get much traction; she applied for grants and residencies with mixed results. She was in such a rush to become a success that any slowness in the process felt like a deep insult. Her depression rolled in like an unshakable fog. She tried to kill herself once, then again, and in 1981, when she was only 22, she succeeded by leaping out of a window of a building on the East Side of Manhattan."

Ridin' Dirty: A Sweeping Look At Witches Mounting Their Broomsticks - Broadly
"There is very much a sense that women are the weaker vessel—that they are more sexually voracious than men, more susceptible to sexual sin and therefore more likely to lead men astray." Take women with basic medicinal knowledge; add domestic implements, hallucinogenic properties, and conscribed female existence; add a healthy dose of male anxiety, and you may very well make witches."

Nasty Gal Sells Witchcraft Goodies Now, You Guys

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

They're also doing a 30% off sale on their black clothing (we know). 

While you're shopping for this velvet strap mesh bodysuit or this cage bra  or this insanely expensive vintage Chanel vest (because they sell vintage Chanel, of course), you can also pick up your magic supplies. It might feel a little like Urban Outfitters' randomly pagan-heavy displays (we've indulged), but their items are practical and thoughtful.

Their HausWitch HausCraft spell kit is a dream. For $52, you can get a wooden treasure box, potions, herbs, candles, pouches and instructions (+more) on manifesting personal success. It's adorable, well-crafted and useful!  

These mega-geniuses are also selling the Species By The Thousands Spell Releasing Kit.  It's all about cleaning up that negative energy! If you're dealing with some darkness (and not the kind we love here at Luna Luna, this kit will allow you to funnel your energy into willing that badness away, because sometimes ritual just makes things feel more official. With a smudge spray, candles, sage, a Palo Santo stick and a moonstone, you can clear up any space you're in and welcome the light. 

Also, hello pretty little pink smudgestick. 

Holiday gifts for the little witch in your family, anyone? 
 

Hodaya Louis: Diary Of An Artist + Her Paintings Of Women Around The World

Hodaya Louis is a professional artist, fashion illustrator and designer. In 2010 she was officially recognized as a “Distinguished Artist of Israel.” She's been featured by Valentino, Glamour, Rachel Zoe, Vogue, Roberto Cavalli and plenty of others. Currently, she's working on a "collection of large-scale mixed-media paintings embracing the different faces of women around the world." You can (and should!) support that project here. Her Kickstarter is finalized in 13 days, at which time she will commence work on the sort of project that Hodaya has always been so good at: creating inspired artwork that manages to illuminate the beauty and diversity of women.

Hodays's artwork was also featured on Bravo’s Real Housewives Of Orange County, she is the winner of Next Generation Design Award from the Luxottica group, and she was a guest judge and speaker at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where she also studied. She developed her art skills with her father, David Louis, the fine artist Leonid Blaklav, as well as fashion illustration with Steven Stipelman. She went on to intern at Marc Jacobs, then was hired as a shoe designer for Payless, collaborating with designers such as Isabel Toledo, Christian Siriano and Lela Rose. From 2010 to 2013, as the head designer of an international manufacturing company, her illustrated designs and artworks were presented to the Metropolitan Museum of art, Kenneth Cole Reaction, Nine West, Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Dillards, and OPI, among others. Her work blends art, fashion and beauty seamlessly.

I wanted Hodaya to tell her own story, and so here it is.

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BY HODAYA LOUIS

It is Monday morning, I am sitting at my art studio, surrounded by paint tubes, sticks of pastels, buckets of brushes and oil paints. Some artworks are still drying on the floor, next to rolls of canvas and paper. It’s a mess, but I’m comfortable here, at my little island of art. It is a great morning, because last night I already found what I’m going to paint. Each artwork I paint is born through inspiration found after hours-long browsing of photographs.

Today, my inspiration is a photograph of actress Taraji P. Henson. The photo captures my attention immediately; black and white, close-up on her face, eyes closed, dramatic lighting. And now I’m sitting in front of a blank large paper. and I take a deep breath. It is an exciting moment, that second before I touch the paper with my brush.

It is terrifying too. I know that with years of art lessons and practice I’ve developed the skills required to paint what I envision, but I don’t know if others will like, understand or connect to that vision. I know that in the next few hours of painting session my energy will be intense, my concentration and senses at their pick, my phone off, I will be standing up over the developing piece with tension in my muscles, working with controlled hand movements. And I love it, that exhilarating sense of something being born, of colors and strokes and lights and shadows, and with that excitement I will feel how dark clouds of doubt are forming in my mind (will they like it? will they get it? am I a good artist? will someone buy it? can I make a living as an artist?) and I keep painting and painting fighting those clouds, my brain buzzing with non-stop alarms (is this purple deep enough, should I have started with the background, what color should go next, is there harmony, oil pastel or acrylic, is the composition good, is are the proportions correct, is the yellow too red, should I add a hint of blue to cool it a bit) If I use a wet medium that requires waiting time to dry, like watercolor, I walk back and forth like in a sort of cage, counting the seconds, or impatiently grabbing a blow-drier to speed up the process, because I cannot wait any longer, I need to continue because I’m afraid that I will lose that momentum, that the vision will disappear from my brain and I will not be able to make sense of all those smudges. And when it’s done, and the piece is completed and my mind and heart stop racing, and I say loudly – done! I sit down in a slump, exhausted, smiling, in love with the world.

Being an artist, in my mind, means to create, to leave a part of you in this world. That part needs to be correct, to be a true reflection of you, otherwise it should not exist. When you do such personal act, it feels like allowing someone to sit next to you in a private theater and seeing the exclusive movie made for you only. Whatever comes out is somehow very personal, a piece of me that I share with others.

However, I if something happens during that process, a moment of distraction, a shift of mood, a second of blockage in the course of those hours of intense energy pouring out on the paper, and the artwork is not precise, it is not part of me, it failed. I might not be able to recognize the problem, to identify what makes me flinch, but something will be off and I will maybe try to redeem it but it is lost, gone. And all that amazing energy I have pumping in my veins will disappear in an almost physical pain, and like a deflated balloon I will go to my bedroom, get under the blanket, and close my eyes. That taste of failure is as strong as as a bad memory that keeps coming back, something that I am learning to accept as inevitable part of creation, like painful PMS.

I push myself to be resilient, get out of that bed of self-pity quickly. I became a full time artist two years ago, and I learned that being an artist means that every day I do not attempt to draw or paint is a wasted day. Still, picking up a pencil requires a lot of energy, positive energy. I cannot paint angry or sad. For me, a complete piece, either pretty or dark, means I produced, created, in a good state of mind, and it’s a great sense of accomplishment.

There is a harmony and balance in the face of a woman that fascinates me. Sometimes after drawing a face, I can’t bring myself to go on with hair or body because I feel that the piece is completed. As I constantly look for faces to draw, I am intrigued by studying different racial bone structures and skin tones. I love doing portraits and capturing some of the essence of my subjects.

At a show I had this summer a woman came and looked at my sketch of a woman’s head, with emphasis on the bone structure. she inspected it for a while, and then asked me if it’s a portrait of an actual person, which it was not. “So what is the purpose of this?” she asked. I realized at that moment how personal my art is. It is even act of selfishness – I like this vision, I will put it on paper. Others might not get it or not appreciate it, but it does not matter to me.

Artists that create controversial art are the same way – when an artist has a vision she/he must create it as it is, whether the viewers like it or not. Just like most artists, having my work featured publicly makes me proud. Hearing compliments and comments is amazing and gives me great sense of accomplishment. I especially love when someone finds one of my pieces “moving,” even if a stranger says that I just feel like we are connected on a personal level.

My technical skills did not come easily; I studied all forms of art for 15 years, with the Russian artist Leonid Balaklav and with the legendary fashion Illustrator Steven Stipelman among many other great teachers, and I practice almost every day. So to me, a finished piece of art is rewarding as money earned after hard work, and being able to show and share it is priceless.

Poems by Fox Frazier-Foley

Editor's note: these poems originally appeared in the first Luna Luna. We've recently received word that they've been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, so we're republishing them here. Warmest congratulations to LL editor Fox Frazier-Foley!

The Raven-Haired Seer Dreams of a Girl Her Age, Abducted from a Nearby Road, and Keeps Such Incidents to Herself Until She Begins to Dream Instead of the Abducted Girl’s Murderer

If forty-seven locusts in my mouth I could

not talk                                   her hair in wind    like mine
If water tastes of blood we need more

water                 she laughed    she never

looked right at me

If we are the water and the locusts

let us pray                               how   could this       how    could I

how

If we are wretched wrested deep

in prayer   let us               I dreamed

his glasses      mustache       dreamed

they found him          dreamed   forty days

of darkness would begin if I said his name out loud                     They did

find him, my father said, last night while

you slept                                 If boils burn our eyelids        covered

his mouth, kept                                  If rivers rise & loose our city

walls    If God cannot bring   Himself    to keep

his eyes on the grey                           our children safe from this

being taken    this

grey expanse before us.

Peter was one of four Catholic Workers in  Upstate NY Who Spilled His Blood at a Military Recruitment Center in Protest of the USA’s Invasion of Iraq, and Was Subsequently Arrested and Imprisoned

strangle makes a minute

oubliette           forgetting

is the war

These are waterless springs and mists driven by storm. The greatest darkness has been reserved for them.

soldier’s skull halved           like melon & filled               by time with rainwater

I could drink it             I’m a razor blade

now      no aphagia                emulous

timorous                                 tremulous

The dog laps its own vomit. The sow is bathed only to wallow again in mud. The earth was first formed in

There, there

is Atlantis.

water; the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. The present world and heavens have

ubiquitous

obsequies

what      fraught

requiem

been reserved for fire. They shall be kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless.

It is Roanoke.

Gretchen Foggerty, Mother of the Raven Haired-Seer’s Friends Philomena and Amelia, Was Arrested for Harassing Father Roderick, Parish Priest, Who Would Years Later Be Arrested on Multiple Charges of Pedophilia and Excommunicated

she thrashed    she undressed

his rectory room, shirt

by shirt        shoe by shoe

This belt, my girls, keeps me chaste.           

                                                Sometimes I do feel the urge. I admit

                                                Your beautiful faces.           Examine

                                                  your conscience. The truth: What

                        have you wanted –          
she flailed, she assaulted

homily       service          pews             she threw

her body facedown in the aisle

       he strips them in school,

she sang, dancing backwards.

Face tilted:

                                                My child.

Who regarded us? Rapt

captives of pulpit.

Opiated. Apt. Exalted

He said suffer them unto me     he said    I tell you: sow a thought,

                         reap an action

by fountain & silence      whose festering kindness

Who bled & who learned

of alchemy’s black: the sore, the burn,

that Wound plunging deep in the side

rendered whole as stained glass: bright slivers

                                    of feather, of water, of fern
(the bullet implied)

 
                                                                         sow an action, reap a habit

whose core cracked

sow a habit, reap a destiny

& brittle as the breast-

bone of a bittern.

The Fox-Haired Girl Visits A Spiritualist Medium in Upstate New York, and Sees One of Her Past Lives

Who was I to tamper or beg

the swannish fate of Leda? I took

the sieve, watered it, walked across

Rome with it full. It was true,

I had begun to feel my womb

hollow for a daughter. But I

would not suffer her to be buried

with me, our lungs learning dirt.

At times I turn to find the children

whose voices I have heard are

simply certain tones of wind.

The irrefutable tremor of my own

hand delivering these sacred tongues

their unborn calf, milky & still. Who

am I, now, to imagine moments

of convulsion against downy breast, or

the cleaved immortality that comes

after?                     And so, beloved,

I take you, he said, and meant I was

perfect, in my seven year-old body: chosen

to tend flame for you, Mother of our

hearth, who know me best – abject

in all but my appetites, smothering

under desire like smoke or wings. I stare

into the gibbous reds and yellows

as they eradicate each other, silent

save the occasional whisper, I am.

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Fox Frazier-Foley is author of two prize-winning poetry collections, Exodus in X Minor (Sundress Publications, 2014) and The Hydromantic Histories (Bright Hill Press, 2015). She is currently editing two anthologies, Political Punch (Sundress Publications, 2016) and Among Margins (Ricochet Editions, 2016). 

Culture Throwback: Thinking Back On How Charmed Captured Contemporary Feminism

BY SOPHIE MOSS

First airing on The WB in 1998, Charmed is the story of three sisters who discover they possess powerful magical powers and fight to defend their home city of San Francisco against the demonic population. As a curious and defiant fourteen year-old woman trying to make peace with myself and the universe, the three sisters in Charmed represented all that I looked to: they were ordinary women who possessed extraordinary mental and physical capabilities, thereby illustrating a fantastic resistance to the hegemonic gender roles that characterised much of contemporary television. For me, the sisters represented a unique brand of witchcraft, feminism and fantasy, and they did so with wisdom and flare. I saw myself as a fourth Charmed One, fighting both the demonic underworld and the gendered power structures it represented.

What is fascinating, for me, is the way the three sisters encapsulated the tensions of contemporary femininity, and they did so fiercely and unapologetically: They are desiring and desirable. They are independent and dependant. They are superhuman and human. They see and are seen. They are imperfect. They sleep with men who are rotten. They save humankind in high-heels. They are both dependent on, and dismissive of, traditional feminist ideals. It is in this historically specific period that I discovered Charmed, as a young teenager trying to figure out my own identity as a woman.

Prue, Piper, and Phoebe (and later Paige) are as much human as they are super-human. They struggled. Relationships failed. Jobs were lost. Just because Piper inherited the power of molecular manipulation, that didn’t mean her business wouldn’t threaten to go bust; while Prue could astral-project to be on two planes at any given moment, this didn’t give her the power to forgive her father for abandoning her and her sisters when they were young. Yes, witchcraft is here to protect us, and it does. But, as Almásy writes in The English Patient, “the heart is an organ of fire”, and no magic can protect that from being broken. The sisters knew that. In fact, they grappled with it frequently -- most of all, perhaps, in the season three finale, when they learned their hardest lesson to date: that magic could not save the life of their sister, Prue. It was at this moment that the audience were to understand that the Halliwell’s are not defined by their magic, or by their power, but by their humanity: they are sisters first, witches second. It was this display of solidarity, this unwavering loyalty to sisterhood, that played an important role in how I see myself as a woman, sister, and feminist.

Charmed existed in a sort of mid-90s golden-age of the super-powered female lead on television. There was Buffy. There was Sabrina. There were the Charmed Ones. What remains so unique about the latter, for me, is the show’s postfeminist values and the way it challenged traditional notions of what it meant to be a ‘strong woman.’ They were attractive, fashion-forward, individualistic, and sexually experimental. They kicked demonic ass and raised babies. They held down demanding jobs and threw fireballs at ex-boyfriends. The sisters were multifaceted, powerful women with a ‘girl-power’ rhetoric, though never entirely paradoxical to second-wave feminist ideals. What Charmed did, and did very well, was create a whole community of powerful, unique women, or, as Susan Latta writes, “[represented] the interconnection of empowered individuals and collective action.” Power, style, sin, sisterhood, desire: suddenly, these tough girls with innate supernatural capabilities found themselves understood within the wider context of contemporary feminism.

But Charmed wasn’t merely concerned with a popular mediation of femininity. Rather, the show is unique in its representation of an alternative, often marginalised religious paradigm in contemporary media. Focusing specifically on Wiccan philosophy rather than ‘witchcraft’ as an umbrella term, the sisters’ magic is rooted in the beliefs, structure and limitations of Wicca. Granted, there was glitz, glamour and special effects to-boot, but Charmed worked hard to represent the Wiccan faith with respect and accuracy. As Michaela D.E Meyer notes in her essay “‘Something Wicca This Way Comes’: Audience Interpretation of a Marginalized Religious Philosophy on Charmed”, the show’s writers were particularly skilled at weaving Wiccan philosophies into the narrative, such as not using magic for personal gain and an understanding that magic comes at a price.

For me, though, as a young woman obsessed with locked doors and unknown worlds, I found this popular representation of witchcraft entirely accessible. It was as though everything suddenly clicked into place. I devoured all that I could on Wiccan philosophy and Pagan cultures. I created my own Book of Shadows, a grimoire full of awkwardly written spells and uncomfortable rhymes. I would lay an atlas on my bedroom floor and scry for family members. I would stare at glass vases and wait for my powers of telekinesis to kick in. I can still recite “Dominus Trinus”, the spell to invoke the sisters’ powers (In this night and in this hour / We call upon the Ancient Power). As fervently as I waited for my Hogwarts letter, I waited for my powers to come.

But, eventually, that curious young girl would grow into an adult woman with a registry for darkness. While I follow no set religious path, I recognise and honour an innate spirituality. Witchcraft, ritual, spell-casting, the Occult -- these are all important to how I see myself as a woman and writer. I practice the tarot. I collect moon water. I celebrate the seasons. I’m constantly learning to better work with my own spiritual source. Constantly learning to be a better feminist. A better person.

It is this sense of constant growth and personal reinvention that characterises much of Charmed. A recurring theme throughout the series is that of reconciling their witchcraft with their personal selves, their womanhood, and the consequences that come from this. They aren’t perfect versions of themselves, by any means. They make bad decisions and have been known to choose themselves over the Higher Cause. They can be selfish. Piper chooses to marry Leo in secret, against The Elders’ rules. Phoebe falls in love with Cole, a half-demon and later The Source of All Evil, despite her sisters’ disapproval. In many ways, Phoebe is the most feminist of the three sisters, in spite and because of her many imperfections. We see her evolve from a reckless young girl with few prospects into this fierce, successful, loyal woman with great spirit. She put herself through school, worked hard to get a job she loved, and she did it entirely on her own. She grew up fast and hard and well, and did so in a universe filled with demons, death, and madness. But for me, it was her imperfections that made her who she was. She screwed up. Routinely. Fantastically. Sure, she married the Source of All Evil and became the Queen of the Underworld, but she sure as hell came to her senses and vanquished his demonic ass, too.

That’s what’s so great about the Charmed Ones: they never claim to have it all figured out. They’re always learning, questioning, struggling, and they take responsibility for their actions. They know that what’s coming will come, and they face it when it does. That is what I took from Charmed: that to be imperfect is okay. To be human in a world of chaos is okay. I might not be the best version of myself, but I am, much like the Halliwell sisters, an unstoppable cyclone of female strength and femininity, and that’s all my fourteen year-old self could ever have asked.

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Sophie E. Moss is a dark witch & literary maven. She writes essays for Luna Luna and poetry for all the people she used to be. @Sophiedelays

Multi-Voiced Sonnets by Simone Muench and Dean Rader

Editor's note: these poems originally appeared in the old/previous Luna Luna

Now I see them sitting me before a mirror

Now I see them sitting me before a mirror.
Whispers. A sound like grinding. Candles. Soap.
Black lines on the skin over my heart. Someone’s
god in the air above my head. A cup

next to an ax. The night’s bridal chamber
shuts me in. Seizure of wind. An entropy
within these walls. I cast spells on the copy
of myself— marionette for a stranger

stage, string and retraction of string. Spotlight
and trapdoor. Hooks and rope. Pain is a mask
we all wear; regret a gun we’ve all shot.
Collared in loneliness, an odalisque

on display. They douse me in rosewater,
burn my writings, doll me up for slaughter.

You thought I was the kind of animal

You thought I was the kind of animal
who would first purr, splay my belly before
I bite. I am not feline or femme fatale,
despite your desire for me to be your
feral other. But, this is no cartoon.
You’re not in some fairy tale. You’re in line
seven, and my claws are sharp. Here, feel. Soon,
it will be time to eat, and you look divine.

Succumb to my wolf face, your own savage
sweet tooth. Lick my fur until there’s nothing
but flesh, no more facade, no camouflage,
only revelation—the heart’s reddest
rifle. Let’s be honest: you love hiding
but I love hunting. Let’s see who’s the best.

She will not ask of aliens, but of friends

She will not ask of aliens, but of friends
to prove that she is not alone. How often
have we all begged the sidereal to bend
to our will? All we want is to begin.
To follow the red fox into the forest,
into the dizzy faultless wilderness
where animals welcome us as their guest
and the stars become our only dress.

We wear what the dead discard, if not this
day then the next. Time is the one garment
we never grow out of. If the abyss
is feral company, then what of ascent?
Can we yoke our flesh to celestial splendor
and still save our beautiful bestial nature?

 Are you having a good time?

Are you having a good time? Are you  
traveling toward your own disappearance?
Your absence is a ritual dance
of damage I can’t seem to undo
or unfix or unplay or unspin. Are
you still on the on? Are you still? If you
make a mark on a circle, it’s no longer
a circle but a broken line. Are you
a theory of silence, or just quietness?
You are past tense and I am past shadow.
In the winter air’s marrow, we undress—
bodies flashing like frost in the window.

Are you mint and clover? Are you savage sea?
Are you wrist and vein? Blade? Are you ready?

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Simone Muench is the author of five books, including Lampblack & Ash(Sarabande, 2005), Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), and Wolf Centos (Sarabande, 2014). Her chapbook Trace received the Black River Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Some of her honors include an NEA fellowship, Illinois Arts Council fellowships, Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry, Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry, PSA’s Bright Lights/Big Verse Contest, and residency fellowships to Yaddo, Artsmith, and VSC. She received her Ph.D from UIC, and is Professor of English at Lewis University where she serves as chief faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review. Collaborative sonnets, written with Dean Rader are forthcoming inThe American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Zyzzyva, Blackbird, POOLand others.

Dean Rader’s debut collection of poems, Works & Days, won the 2010 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize. His most recent book, Landscape Portrait Figure Form, was named by the Barnes & Noble Review as one of the best poetry books of the year. Recent poems appear or will appear in Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Boston Review, and Zyzzyva, which ran a folio of his poems in their fall 2013 issue. 99 Poems for the 99 Percent: An Anthology of Poetry, which Rader edited, appeared in July and is currently #1 on the SPD Poetry Bestseller List. He is a Professor of English at the University of San Francisco.

Nardo Lilly’s Debut Album Takes Wing

BY COLLEEN FOSTER

Brushing off those pop culture paradigms, she defies classification in any either/or, black/white, good girl/bad girl dichotomy. As the title track of The Wing Woman LP goes: “For once could I be the love interest / As well as the comic relief?”

Listening to her inaugural studio release, it’s easy to picture this singer-songwriter nailing that “As well as.” But not by hiding her goofy whims -- rather, boldly using them to fuel our collective crush on the lion-maned, guitar-strumming bundle of paradoxes that is Nardo Lilly.

Northern Virginia native Annie Nardolilli, whose surname-bending musician identity is further evidence of her creativity, is clearly educated in ways that go far beyond her Temple University Bachelor’s degree. From Les Misérables to Yuri Gagarin, Smokey the Bear to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the breadth of her allusions shows off an eclectic pop culture palate.

And, like a spicy food whose capsaicin has a delayed kick a minute after you bite in, the punchlines of her songs sneak up on you. For example: with a slick bluesy electric bass riff, the perennial crowd favorite “Benedict Cumberbatch” enumerates all the traits she desires in a boyfriend. It’s a hefty shopping list, from “look[ing] like David Beckham in his underwear” to “all that 1940s Humphrey Bogart swag.”

But then she flips the switch: “But if I’m supposed to look like the girls in magazines / Then I’ll hold men up to the standards they set up for me / So if you’ve gotta’ have your model / I’ve gotta’ have Benedict Cumberbatch.”

Ha. This is no pining ingenue. The joke’s on you. Or even better, you’re in on it.

Performing live, these twister lines come with a sly smile that pops the bubble. Gigs have included Libertine, Acre 121, and Ebenezers in Washington, D.C., the IOTA Club & Café in Arlington, Virginia, and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This whimsy translates effortlessly on the recording, available as of a month ago on iTunes, CD Baby, and Spotify and intended soon for an old-school compact disc. It is the long-awaited culmination of a summer in the studio under the tutelage of producer and engineer Ken Barnum at Recording Arts in Springfield, Virginia.

Her own guitar and vocals shine center stage, a lyrical pop/folk alto reminiscent of Ingrid Michaelson and Vanessa Carlton. She is backed up on all nine original compositions by Kyle Harlos’s smooth strums on the bass, Corie Schofield’s soulful violin that can morph into a good ole fiddle when it needs to evoke the 1860s (check out “Appomattox”) and Ethan Drake’s reliable percussion.

“Kitty Hawk” has a pensiveness to her future, an earnest recognition of where she is but reminding any standby not to underestimate her. “Don’t think that just because I’ve found my wings / Means I’m going anywhere anytime soon / But now you see I can fly across the beach / And in due time / I’ll make it beyond the moon.” Alright, then. We are buckled in and ready for takeoff. Let’s go along for the ride.

PS: Follow Nardo Lilly’s Facebook page and Twitter to stay on top of her performance schedule and new song releases.

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Colleen Foster is a freelance writer, editor, artist, and language teacher in Arlington, Virginia. She carries Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and English from Shenandoah University, and her work previously appeared in Luna Luna in "10 Signs You're A Politi-Kid."