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"Here's a couple of poemsI wrote in California.

they aren't very seriousso i hope ur not tryna

change the world with urstupid zine. idk use whatyou want. titles in italics"

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Luke Ramsey

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Table of Contentsi. Intro (Sean Meehan)ii. Luke Ramseyiii. Table of Contents1. Steph Rifai2. Daniela Gilsanz3. Mike Creedon4. Kate Kuhn5. Julia Iron Martins6. Jenna Talesnick7. Cassie Wiegmann8. Zach Gottehrer Cohen9. Andy Senken10. Michaela Cowgill/Duncan Cowgill11. Paz Monge12. Brendan Principato13. Mary Krochmalny14. Brian Remy15. Gerald Sheffield16. Kate Plourde17. Anonymous18. Emma Ingrid Bartley19. Zach Gottehrer Cohen20. Conor Oberlander21. Andrew Gelwick22. Megan McGrath23. Andy Senken24. Sean Meehan25. Kevin Remy26. Bill Vella27. Elliot Ouchterlony28. Steph Rifai29. Mattea Lee30. Kevin Remy31. Brendan Principato32. Tony Mastroianni33. Editor’s NoteCover: Andrew Senken

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Steph Rifai

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Daniela Gilsanz

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Photograph of a Yellow Python in a New Orleans Public Park

My roommates left for a trip to New Orleans. Beads, crawdads, beer, catfish,and the like. It’s not the arrival or the location, but the ride ­ Kerouac eat yourheart out. Those 18 hours of constant expectance. On arrival, they came upona great yellow python in a public park. Leash and all, a suitable substitute forany yapping family dog. I’ve got the picture in its digitally rendered realnesson my phone. They say they held it and took other pictures with it, but I’veyet to see any evidence of their own presence.

I imagine myself as the python. I don’t know why, but years of Catholiceducation tell me to take note.

I visit the MFA. I visit the room where they keep the Cezannes, the Monets,the Manets, the other names I recognize but memory can’t recall. They seemalright. How many animals at the zoo do you forget? The tigers are usuallyasleep, the gorillas can’t be seen, so the dung beetles are left to make animpression.

I have an argument with my mother over the universe on the second floor ofthe contemporary arts exhibit. She asked me if I ever thought about whatspace was expanding into. It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t keep me up atnight. I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve suppressed it. She thought I was beingcontrarian.

I viewed one of my favorite paintings alone ­ Cecily Brown’s “Skulldiver III(Flightmask).” I think it’s someone going down on a woman. My motherenters, and from her stiff reaction, she thinks the same. I imagine the tongueas the universe slithering about, expanding into some unknown pleasure.

Downstairs they have a great epic titled “Expulsion from Eden” and I think ofthat great yellow python in New Orleans. I can’t see myself in the painting,just two beings walking out of paradise. I think of myself alone in the gardenwith no one to tempt.

Mike Creedon

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Kate Kuhn

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Estrogenic

Emma dreams of baby rabbits and old womenwith yellow eyes slicing through hernight "you'll see these eyes for the rest of your life,"

the woman says,But I fall asleep that night and I'm fine:I've aged 15 years and my hands are tiedtogether with and to smaller hands. That iscompectination and I learnedthat 15 years ago when I was awake.It might be happy but I'm up in a cold sweat and rollinto you. You're still thereand we're no longer in a twin sized bed.

Last night I took two pillsand let my prescribed estrogen runthrough me and today Madison tells me,"science says a rush of hormones makes womendream about being pregnant and having babies."Science has never calmed me but todayit does because if it's scientific

it's not emotional.

Julia Iron Martins

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Jenna Talesnick

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Whatare you doing?Mango Lady.

You carry or'nge wedgesin a Ziplock,oozing slimy, sensualagainst theglass of the bag

in your closed arched palma plastic spoon

ARE YOU REALLY GOING TOSPOON THOSE GOLDEN WEDGES,mango lady?

Your yoga pants are bloatedwith hunger for some enlightenmentyet you won’t even stop

to listen to the Hare Krishna Hare KrishnaKrishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare RamaRama Rama Hare Hare

in the parkon your way

to the dojo.

Namaste.Mango Lady

Zach Gottehrer Cohen

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And

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What was happening (Portsmouth, NH)

1.The year of living dangerouslyends on the televisiona room away.

Women wailing and a car hornand because I have not seen the movieI assume that someone has died.

My father changesthe channel.

2.Saved somewhere: a video of youice skating for the first time

but I mess up or you doso the video is just your face, looking away.You were probably watching the peopleskating in shaky orbits.

Most of them hold handsout of necessity, to keep from falling down.

3.Rounded bottle of greenpaint. Almost 100 envelopespressed into each other. Beside this,

one envelope that won’t be sentanywhere. A face with no mouthis drawn where the address should go.

Below it, something that could bea second face. The way one shape swoops downlike a closed eye and another ridges up

into the two hills of an upper lip.The nose, if it is a nose, is a wide square

like a room with no ceiling.

4.“Wire whips, or whisks, are wonderfulfor beating eggs, sauces, canned soups,

and for general mixing. They are easierthan the rotary egg beaterbecause you use one hand only.

Whisks range from minute to gigantic..”

5.A stranger offers me his armsso I can touch all of his tattoos. I do

and I think I am supposed to like the ones

that mean something like the whalein a coffin. But I stop at the heart

that he got when he was 14. The empty

middle of it and the black unpinningof its shape. The two lines leavingeach other.

The surrender at the end.

Michaela CowgillDuncan Cowgill

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She waved to us from the stop sign down the block and pulled over in front ofour house. When her face came into view it took me a second to realize that itwas Tina, an old friend of my mother’s. I didn't recognize her immediately. In thepast she was a walking reflection of two failed marriages but now she sat smilingfrom ear to ear in a brand new silver convertible. We walked up to her car andshe never stopped grinning. “Hello Tina, new car?” my mother said to her. "Isn'tit great?" she had never sounded more excited. "I just got it last week!" She satforward in her seat and pointed to a stack of cereal boxes in the passenger seat. "Ifound God," she said. "what?" my mother looked at her confused. "I found God,"Tina’s pupils swirled. "In my cereal."

We looked at her, unsure what to say. "I always knew Rice Krispies spoke to youfrom the commercials on television but you wouldn't believe what mine told me.They're God and they talked to me and they told me, 'buy yourself a new car,’ soI did! They talk to me every morning now and I’ve been praying and going tochurch and listening to the cereal everyday. I don’t eat it anymore and I can’tbring myself to throw it away either. There are bowls all over my house and I’mso careful not to spill any of them. Last week my cat knocked one over. Thecereal told me to give him away but no one would take him so I had him putdown. Yesterday they said ‘plant trees Tina, trees are so, so important.’ Todaythey told me 'drink Tina, drink whatever you want' so I went to the store and didsome shopping, look!”

She nodded at her backseat which was loaded with cartons of skim milk andbottles of spiced rum. She chuckled. She had never been a drinker. "I've neverbeen happier," she continued. "You wouldn't believe the sorts of things God tellsme. He has so much to say and he has so much for me to do,“ she said. "You can'timagine it.” She was beaming. “Here.” Through the window she handed mymother a box of Rice Krispies. "Listen real close now, listen real close and you'llhear Him. It was so great to see you two. How blessed we are to be friends andbe alive and be all together." She waved and drove off.

Brendan Principato

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Mary Krochmalny

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When the storm ended we cameout of houses, walked barren streets.Leaves and branches scattered pavement.People’s lawns now yard sales—housing insulation, and plywood siding, all crumpledarranged for the Penny Saver crusaders.

We walked into town wherepeople stood in lines to charge phones,eat overpriced pizza. The parking lots emptyof cars; gas stations empty of fuel.

The gulls returned after two days to pick and eatworms that swam through cold, wet soil.

After days of cleaning, and re­domesticating landwe went to the pond and looked into it.I picked up a stone and threw it into the water.

When that stone collided withthe glass we sat by it countingthe waves, trying to findour own contorted images in it.

We went home and sat in lightless houseswaiting for the electricity to turn back on,looking out at lampless streets,Is it what the street looked like before they wereflooded with incandescent lamps?

When the lights turned back on,we forgot the storm ever happened.

Brian Remy

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Gerald Sheffield

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Kate Plourde

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One cannot achieve the qualities of the celebrity because said qualities are anillusion. Growing rates of eating disorders and anabolic steroid use demonstrate thedangers in relentlessly pursuing these illusory ideals. Gradually, these shortcomingsmake themselves obvious and again diffuse the identity. While the pre­teen is able toprogress in their self­formation by ceasing identification with fictional characters,today’s teenager is trapped in the limbo of moratorium, itself prolonged byrelegating fantasy and reality into the same realm.

Just as advertising was the “soul” of the corporation, it is also the “soul” of thedigital self. The digital self cannot express itself in physical means – it cannot smileor hug or laugh or demonstrate anything resembling body language, not unlike likethe corporation. Instead, it gains powers all its own: an ability to transcendlimitations of space­time and an ability to assume the “more human than human”personality of the celebrity, expressed in images and presented as “sharing,” whichmay as well be synonymous with “advertising.” Again, we see advertising’s primaryrole in constructing the brand of the corporation and the personality of the digitalself. Indeed, social media and the larger Internet strongly rely on advertising asmeans of generating profits.

The laptop is a space for niche, fragmented personal identification (built uponthe existing “personality” of “I’m a Mac” versus “I’m a PC”) where stickers are theimages that “say something” about its owner. They express everything fromfraternity membership to alcohol preferences, but the crucial fact is that they alwayspopulate the top of the laptop, presented for the gaze of the Other, not the bottomwhich remains hidden.

Identity formation is at its core reliant upon role models and ideals attached tothem. Role models are replaced by celebrities and other media figures, while idealsdevolve into images. Either the adolescent must understand the illusory nature of the“reality” presented by a screen, or, more often, they must construct a self thatmimics the artificiality of those figures and images. Advertising’s ability of turningideal into image is a logical extension of late capitalism, best embodied by thecorporation. Just as advertising defines the brand of the corporation, it also definesthe digital self. As such, the digital self, a replication of the physical self, becomesprimary in identity formation through the concept of hyperreality. Thus, the physicalself in its service to the image­defined digital self must adopt the language ofadvertising in self­expression.

Anonymous

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Emma Ingrid Bartley

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Up at darn, the cock crows that he ain't gettin any. Fancy tie and all, and thepretty chickins still ain't peckin, busy about their eggs. The cows graze lazyin the sun on the hill out yonder, wonder where the bulls are. Normallycrammin out there at the fence for the show, those teats hangin low to thegrass, just beggin for a nice milky squeeze.

Ain't nothin funny 'bout dairy, tho, specially if you're intolerant. Onetime my wife bought me home some soy milk, that nasty fake lyingoddamned bean juice. I laughed in her face, and she shouted "I can't standthat stench in the jon no more" and broke down cryin'. Now friends, amedical condition ain’t nothin to be ashamed about, I know that. But I justcouldn’t help it. Felt it building up, the shame, and the anger, way down deepin my gut.

I coulda killed her for shamin me, but I knew all along I wasn’t gonna.‘stead I went out to my favorite fat cow Bessie in the field with a tin cup,filled 'er up, walked back and guzzled the warm stuff right there in front ofher till it was almost empty, and laughed in her face. Well, she started cryingmore so I took the Soy unscrewed it and dumped it all over her. I tell ya, shewas covered in the phoney watery stuff and slippin and a­slidin on thekitchen tile. And boy now was she piping mad, all white and shreiking like adanged banshee on her knees, wringing her hair out.

I told her "It ain't real milk, your hair's fine!" and threw the rest of myglass of warm Bessiemilk in her face. "That's the real stuff. Bahahaha". ThenI feel that same milk I chugged settlin in my belly, and I can feel it startgrumblin, real low, and deep and wide , so I grabbed her head mid­holler andshoved it into the back of my pants and ripped one,PGHGRNTFFFffFfFTSs, right in her face, right in her screaming mouth.She vomited all right there on the kitchenfloor and I laughed again and said"Sorry honey, I love you." When she kept on cryin in her own sick, I said"OK, I'm going to chop some wood now" and grabbed my hatchet andwalked out the door.

Zach Gottehrer CohenIntolerant

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Conor Oberlander

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And

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you rise disoriented and sweatyas the orange rays of early evening peek through the cracksof your vinyl blinds

siesta is just another good excuseto not give a fuck

open the windowlight a cigarette

try not to wake the body next to youhe’s not a stranger, but might as well be

in an attempt to avert your eyesand mindyou catch a glimpse of an old woman on the street

walking alonewith her shopping cart and long skirt

those lines on her facetrace back to Franco’s timewhen there was no Catalanor at least it was not spoken of

her city changingfrom shops with neon signs written in cursivecafes with no menussmoking indoors

to the commercialized logos of Americacreated after countlessresearch, focus groups, marketing meetingsas some CEO somewherecloses on his new summer homeand tees off

she heads into the dark marketsmelling of fishwondering whatever became of her old butcherand his wifewhose stand closed down years agodid they leave Madrid?she can’t recall

you watch her struggle up the white marble stepsback into her pisowondering if her husband is still thereto keep her company as she cooks

the stranger next to you is stirringopen the wine

Megan

McG

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isions

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Andy Senken

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In a shocking and unexpected turn of eventsI have fallen in love with the boat rentalboys and will be

developing a new ‘west coast’ lifestyle;I will be getting married

on stand­up paddleboards(save the date!)

and will be changing my last name towhat was your last name again?

Oh you never mentioned, rightanyway, I hope you didn’t book a flight yet

because I’ve called off the wedding,this is not really my scene

and he turned out to bevery un­tubular.

Sean Meehan

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The first graveyard was locked and the second had mean looking spikes onthe fence that our coming up bodies had no business trying to hop.

We turned around.

­Let’s just go to the bike path.

­Alright

We started again but there was a playground that needed some love.

­Respect the playground dude.

The bikes were demounted and a slide, a swing, a telescope and a rolly thingwere experienced. I took a disposable picture.

­Shall we?

We mounted and were off. The bike lane in the middle street graced ustowards our goal until there was the loudest roughest toughest garbage truckroaring in the middle of the street. The amount of volume was enough to wake upsleeping beauty and all her dwarves. I was disturbed but I knew I could do it.

It became increasingly difficult to experience the world. There was so muchgoing on and this death trap of metal and gas was a blister on my tongue. Conorhad the right idea to put headphones in and ignore outside noise pollution. I couldnot though, I needed the peace of the 3 am silence.

We gained ground past the truck as it started to creep forward. I wished toKrishna, Allan Watts and Ram Das to make it go away. It turned right and thesound diminished.

My body untensed and I became proud of myself for dealing with such amishap. It would be calm on the bike path to the beach.

I look up at the trees only to experience bird poop land in my eye.

I think that is supposed to be good luck and the fact that it landed in my eyemakes the unpleasantness shotgun me into faith of extreme grace.

We saw the sun rise with chinese gun powder going off in our hands.

Kevin RemyPlayground #6

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Bill Vella

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Elliot Ouchterlony

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Steph Rifai

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pulled below

i turn to tell you somethingwhere you used to sit but stophalfway to it. when people ask mewhat i want i say nothing look away “wellthere’s a lot of options…” sometimes i pretendto sneeze, laugh too hard, etc. but now i lookat the sharp emptiness angled between clothpillow white clapboard orange chaos of light “maybe i dojust want your wanting.” I am donewaiting for the right person to think I ambeautiful. the gaze, after all this, takesshape here as a tin­can telephone wirepulled below the hedges. in my mind, the thought becomes fuzzyquickly, but ­ like a pop song ­ it sticks and glows blonde:4 strands of hair in a bird’s nest somewhere. It is this, too: God onlyknooooooooooooooooooows (God only knooooows).& yes it tasteslike a lemondrop

Mattea Lee

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5 Man Band Kevin Remy

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Brendan Principato

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Tony Mastroianni

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Welcome to Milk Train.

We’re a bunch of funky daddies who wanted to share spicy art. We toldthis to some friends and received over 100 submissions in 8 hours. Holyshit. That’s cool. This is fun. We’re going to make it a monthly thing. Wewant your art. Keep making it and keep sending it (we’re posting our brandnew submission guidelines below) Sound milky? Train’s leaving the station.

All aboard,

The Milk Men

Submission Guidelines:• Email your work tomilktrainzine@gmail.com.• Save your document(s) as “Title_LastName”• Example: “Guernica_Picasso”• For visual works: Send high res scans/files.JPG is our preferred file type.• For writing: Send pieces as editable worddocuments. Prose pieces maybe broken into installments if they are foundto be too long for one issue. Please keep thisin mind when submitting.• Please limit your attachments to five peremail so that we can stay organized.• There is no limit on the number of emailsyou may send.• In your email please also include thefollowing:

- Your name as you would like it to appearin the zine.

- Your email address and phone number.- The title of each piece in the order that

they are attached.• Have fun lol.

The Milk Train (The Drink)Ingredients:• 2 oz Charcoal Infused Vodka• 1 oz Whole Milk• Dry Ice

Preparation:• Get a stainless steel martiniglass nice and chilly• Pour the charcoal infusedvodka over a small piece of dryice. Dump on the milk!• all aboard.

Editors Note

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