Collaborative Poem by Alexis Bates & Logan February

pomegranate

with a neck bent / like prayer
I clung to the fruit as though I was
a part of it / a seed needing to be cut

away / I stared at food the way
murderers look / at their victims
the way God looks upon his creations

a single      pomegranate
holds hundreds of decisions inside
its  skin      & eating was always

the wrong one / but it was sacred
sliding pulped flesh past my lips
spitting out seeds / just like it is

holy / to claim the self:
sickness / success /

I am hundreds of little / red decisions
scattered on the kitchen floor
& so what / if they don’t all taste good

I stare in the mirror / take a knife
to these delicate       ideals
split them         open wider

& wider / avoid the body
grip the fruit      tight

it does not taste killer
I do not feel victimized
this is still        progress

---

Alexis Bates is a poet and writer that uses words to become intimate with an audience. You can read her words in Luna Luna Magazine, Five:2:One, Vagabond City Lit, and elsewhere. Her micro-chap, When Cars Touch, is forthcoming from Ghost City Press.

Logan February is a happy-ish Nigerian owl who likes pizza & typewriters. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in (b)OINK, Wildness, Vagabond City, and more. His chapbooks, Painted Blue with Saltwater (Indolent Books) and How to Cook a Ghost (Glass Poetry Press) are forthcoming. Say hello on Instagram & Twitter @loganfebruary.

Hear Luna Luna Staff Read At Clash Books Reading in NYC

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Excuse me for the love fest, but Clash Books is having a reading at NYC literary institution KGB Bar September 15. And there will be a bunch of Luna Luna editors and writers present—so come out and show the love. Let's cuddle.

Details below:

CLASH Books is proud to present this stellar lineup of authors reading from Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath, This Book Ain’t Nuttin to F**k With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology, The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook, A Confederacy of Hot Dogs, and Dark Moons Rising in a Starless Night. *Editor Lisa Marie Basile will read from her Clash Books novella-in-progress.

Readers from Luna Luna include Loren Kleinmen, Christine Stoddard, Trish Grisafi, editor Lisa Marie Basile, Christoph Paul of Clash Books and Leza Cantoral of Clash Books.

LOREN KLEINMAN has published four full-length poetry collections: Flamenco Sketches, The Dark Cave Between My Ribs, Breakable Things, and Stay with Me Awhile, and a memoir The Woman with a Million Hearts. Her nonfiction appeared in The New York Times, ROAR, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Seventeen, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, and The Huffington Post, while her poetry appeared in Drunken Boat, The Moth, Columbia Journal, Patterson Literary Review, and more.

CHRISTINE STODDARD is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist who lives in Brooklyn. She is the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine, an art and culture magazine. She is also the author of Naomi and the Reckoning (Black Magic Media), Jaguar in the Cotton Field (Another New Calligraphy), Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press), Ova (Dancing Girl Press), Chica/Mujer (Locofo Press), Lavinia Moves to New York (Underground Voices), Harlem Mestiza (Maverick Duck Press), and other titles. Her work has appeared in national magazines and anthologies by Candlewick Press, Civil Coping Mechanisms, ELJ Publications, and other publishers.

LISA MARIE BASILE is an editor, writer and poet living in NYC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014), as well as a few chapbooks: Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York), War/Lock(Hyacinth Girl Press), and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her book NYMPHOLEPSY (co-authored with poet Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. Her poetry and other work can be or will be seen in PANK, Spork, The Atlas Review, Tarpaulin Sky, the Tin House blog, The Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Rogue Agent, Moonsick Magazine, Best American Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, PEN American Center and the Ampersand Review, among others. 

PATRICIA GRISAFI, PhD, is a New York City-based freelance writer, teacher, and poet. Her work has appeared in Salon, Bitch, Bustle, Ravishly, The Rumpus, The Establishment, and elsewhere, and she is a contributing writer for Luna Luna Magazine. She is passionate about pitbull rescue, cursed objects, and designer sunglasses.

LEZA CANTORAL is a writer and editor from Mexico with a B.A. in Cultural History. She is the author of Cartoons in the Suicide Forest and the editor of the upcoming CLASH Books Anthology Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath. She hosts a literary podcast where she talks to cool ass writers atgetlitwithleza.podbean.com. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @lezacantoral

CHRISTOPH PAUL is the author of Horror Film Poems and Slasher Camp for Nerd Dorks. He is the editor of CLASH Books Anthologies including Walk Hand in Hand Into Extinction: Stories Inspired by True Detective and This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology. He is co-publisher and editor of CLASH Media and CLASH Books. He plays in rock band Mandy De Sandra and The Deviants but still wishes he was a gangsta rapper. Twitter @ChristophPaul_

MAXWELL BAUMAN is a halfway-decent Jewish boy from the Bronx. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Door Is A Jar literary magazine. His collection of Jewish humor stories, The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook is coming out later this year from CLASH Books. Follow him on Twitter at @maxwellbauman

MAME BOUGOUMA DIENE is a Franco –Senegalese American humanitarian living in Brooklyn, New York, and the US/Francophone spokesperson for the African Speculative Fiction Society (http://www.africansfs.com/), with a fondness for progressive metal, tattoos and policy analysis. You can find his work in Brittle Paper, Omenana, Galaxies Magazine (French), Edilivres (French), Fiyah! Magazine, Truancy Magazine and Strange Horizons, and in anthologies such as AfroSFv2 (Storytime), Myriad lands (Guardbridge Books), You Left Your Biscuit Behind (Fox Spirit Books), This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck Wit (New English Press), and of course Clash Media. Follow him @mame_bougouma on twitter.