text Issue 3

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text magazine is a Canadian bimonthly publication of poetry, poetic social media epigrams, flash fiction, photographs, artwork, and other interesting culture. It is not-for-profit, free to read, and published six times a year.

EMAIL // [email protected] WEBSITE // www.textlitmag.com

Contents Copyright © 2015 text magazine for the authors

COVER ART // Arlen Hogarth title // Snaek Luv website // lunglessart.weebly.com

FIND IT HERE // The Buzz Coffee House, Bocca Café, Serious Coffee at Beaufort Centre, Perkins Coffee Company, Mon Petit Choux, The Vault, Literacy Nanaimo, Iron Oxide Art Supplies, Jumpin Java Cafe, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo Arts Council Gallery, Nanaimo Art Gallery

SUBSCRIPTION // If you wish to begin subscription, please email us at [email protected]. A postage fee may apply.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES // Submit interesting writing and works of art, such as poems, flash fiction, poetic social media epigrams under 200 characters, instagrams, or other photography or art, to [email protected]. We will respond as soon as possible. As a new, free, not-for-profit publication there is no reimbursement for publication. We ask that you please supply a biography under 200 characters with your submission. If you are accepted, your piece will be available on our website. Please note if your submission has been published elsewhere or is a simultaneous submission, it is suggested you read an issue to decide if your work fits our magazine. We reserve the right to not publish submissions we deem not fitting to our mandate.

If you wish to advertise with us, or distribute our magazine at your business, please email our managing editor Shaleeta Harper // [email protected]

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ADVERTISERS & DONORSCascadia Poetry FestivalFunk your FashionNY LA Fresh Threads Pro-Print Express Susan JubyTina’s Yorkie Treasures WordStorm Society of the Arts

SHALEETA HARPER // editor in chief & publisher

PHILIP GORDON // editor

ANTONY STEVENS // online content manager

COBY MCDOUGALL // graphic designer

JOY GUGELER // publishing advisor

KELLY WHITTON // advertising manager

BIG THANKS to the friends of text magazine

DISTRIBUTORSBocca Café Iron Oxide Art Supplies Java Expressions LTD Jumpin Java CafeLiteracy Nanaimo Mad Rona’s Coffee Bar Mon Petit Choux Nanaimo Arts Council Gallery Nanaimo Art Gallery Perkins Coffee CompanySerious Coffee at Beaufort CentreSmitty’s, NanaimoThe Buzz Coffee House The Old CrowThe VaultVancouver Island UniversityWoodgrove Centre

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SHALEETA HARPER // editor in chief & publisher

PHILIP GORDON // editor

ANTONY STEVENS // online content manager

COBY MCDOUGALL // graphic designer

JOY GUGELER // publishing advisor

KELLY WHITTON // advertising manager

BIG THANKS to the friends of text magazine

To the Reader,

Thank you for dipping your toe into the third issue of text, a bimonthly literature and arts magazine. Accidental naps in front of whirring laptops and long frustrated sighs were the hallmarks of this issue, and yet I’m already excited for issue four.

I’m mostly going to tell you how we’ve been doing so far. text has been growing wildly since it’s inaugural issue in October 2014, and it’s hard for me not to think of it as a huge part of life in Nanaimo. text has tripled its number of distribution spots since it started, and stretched its way over to Gabriola Island. Philip and I spoke at a Self-Publishing conference in January (hosted by the Federation of BC writers) with an overwhelming audience turnout, and have been featured on Shaw TV.

Philip Gordon and I have made connections with other like-minded locals, and had people jump on board to join the text team. One thing that I’ve certainly learned after a few months with text, is that it really does take a village, or at least a small mob. As great as it is to know a wide variety of skills, it’s nearly impossible to publish a successful magazine with just one or two people. The more people we meet, the more successful we become.

Antony Stevens was the first person to join our duo, back in November, and he brought with him expertise in web design, video editing, and journalism, as well as a love for poetry. With his help we updated our website, chose the right pieces for issue three, and made the video for our crowd funding campaign. Our newest member is Kelly Whitton, who joined the team just a few days before this issue was due. She brings with her a long history at the Chamber of Commerce, and a broad knowledge of business and advertising. We’re really excited to have her on board.

At the end of the day, it’s all about that literature and art. We will keep trying to find new, unusual, and eclectic talent, and bring it all to your morning coffee, at no extra charge.

Shaleeta HarperEditor in Chief

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I just thought of something terrible but I’m going to say it anyways.Pork-barrelling with you,I admit this feels like it’s a summer.

Lush, lucky, lupis.Because the critique is susceptible to the critique,they have been looking for a staff writer for over a year.

Pointless, anyways.Sheep, clay, wood and wheat, locked up and in the bankand brought up out of a hole by your unsoberness.

What will be there when you turn over another rock?Try our delicious new item.With these sturdy shoes, I promise I’ll be unstoppable.

LushJOHN NYMAN

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What the affair boiled down to: dry leaves. The emails have

stopped. So have the dripping tap of apologies. Nobody

was wrong after all, And nobody was right, either. It was

just egos flaring and stubborn as a flamenco dance, not

quite the artistry. She throws away the pills. She watches

a movie on her Kindle Fire, where a Japanese woman

masturbates into oblivion. She'll take up rubber stamping

and grow a plethora of petunias. Or she'll move to the city

and squash ants in a cheap efficiency apartment near East

6th, and will dream of salamanders squirming in Path Train

stations, offering themselves to oncoming circles of light.

She'll catch up on O, Pioneers by Willa Cather while sitting

in a cafe; she watches out the window at all the little girls

she could have been. She thinks interim and limbo are not

necessarily the worst places to be stranded. At night, from

her window, the city offers up its shadows. She can fill in

their day faces, body type, hair color. She'll choose the one

that looms closest, offers the best hope of sleeping with

her, keeping her warm and forgetful, overnight.

Sharon's Next MoveKYLE HEMMINGS

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148 of my closest friends ‘liked’ my status after the surgery, but none of them dropped by. I sat alone in my hospital room; my phone buzzing.

Boys Will Be Boys

He pulled her pigtails, hard, but the teacher said, “He just likes you.” Years later the neighbours called the police from behind gauzy curtains.Next morning they asked, “Why do you keep taking him back?”

The best part of me

Twenty days into treatment, I start shedding hair like a dog. In group that night, they tell me to shave it all off. Emily says the bald patches are unbearable, especially after a shower. Claire tells me I’ll find a wig just like my real hair.

The electric shaver in my roommate’s bathroom is bulky and emits an angry buzz, like a swarm of bees. I can’t bring myself to do it so I drive to a salon painted in lurid pink.

The owner’s perfume fills my nostrils. She extends a manicured hand covered in gold rings.

“You’ll fight this, you’ll beat this,” she tells me in a soft, hushed voice.

That kind of talk is supposed to make me feel better, but I’m not in a boxing match. What I’m doing is filling myself

SILVIA PIKAL

Who Needs An Appendix Anyway?

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with poison and praying the right things die. I try on wig after wig. “You can look like whoever you want, even Kim Kardashian!” The hairdresser tells me.

“I don’t want to look like Kim Kardashian,” I snap. “I just want to look like myself.”

“Oh, of course. That’s nice too.”

Before the diagnosis, we took turns modeling for each other in my photography class. My instructor pulled me in front of the class and made me do the hair flip you see in commercials.

“You have The Hair,” he said. “It’s better than Farrah Fawcett’s hair, better than The Rachel!” It was The Hair that brought admirers, the ones who watched it swing back and forth behind my shoulders.

The morning before the salon I blow-dried my hair. Soft curls cascaded down my back as she brought the razor to my head.

When she was done, nothing was left. I watched as she swept away my former life with a broom.

In my head my instructor was shouting, “Perfect! You are a vision! A model!”

This has been the worst thing; losing what the world thinks is the best part of me.

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SPENSER SMITH // Dino Hunting

ANONYMOUS // Facebook Translation

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Jason Heroux @jason_heroux

In my current role as a toasted crouton in the kitchen pantry I believe I’ve developed the skills needed to become a seasoned breadcrumb.

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I almost took the job at the balloon farm

until the farmer showed me the heavily

guarded steel room with its arsenal of

pitchforks, tines gleaming. Before I could

ask, she said, “Trust me, you'll know.”

B.J. BEST

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God comes to us in a stable, built from tilled earth and mule shit. It’s common to mock believers, to comb tubs of compost, to lift and turn worms that burrow into dung. To cuss and lob bombs, bursting stiles to bits. Must we suss like this? He’s still there, busting his butt, mustering his best, mucking out Babel. He tiles the bauble, subs for Mister, bites the lime, blows the bull out of the building. Lub-dub, lub-dub, still mocked, still clubbed.

Lift the bit from the mouth before it cuts the tongue, before it stems the time, before it ebbs. Muse, cum, bloom: dust’s miles.

CumbustibleBRANDI MAY

JODI LUNDGREN // Cumbustible

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My cousin, who once lived as a hermit in an old bomb shelter, writes me to say hi to everyone. He then goes on to say that there are no rocks in California. I'm not sure from what distance he is writing this, from what space, from under what cloud is causing him to become geologically-challenged. Or maybe he is writing from some vast desert where there is nothing but cactus and the carcass of wild dogs, the skulls of misguided thieves, missionaries. Maybe he is making some profound statement about the future or that California has become very light without any rocks

There Are No Rocks in CaliforniaKYLE HEMMINGS

holding it down. Like the time we were kids on swings and we swore off our mothers' voices and tried to make a complete circle around the long metal bar. I was so immersed in my sense of almost-flight of the laws of arc and pendulums that I forgot myself and landed on hard dirt with a broken back. My cousin came to visit me in the hospital bringing several Get Well cards scrawled with an Arabic font. At the time, he was under the spell of both Jesus and Lawrence of Arabia and I tried to tell him that neither may have existed in the sense that people living without suitcases think they

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have existed. I meant the how and the fact behind the fiction. The fact may have been much skinnier, lighter. And cold. What I do know is that this is the first letter I've received from my cousin in over a year. Before that he wrote from a city that I never heard of or one he may have misspelled. Before that there are only fragments. What I do know is the letter he sent me was writ-ten on both sides and the handwriting had a very noticeable forward slant with subtle, but mind you, very pro-nounced loops of exact proportions. It was the style of his looping that first caught my eye. When I reached the middle of the letter I realized that he was still writing about California. He

said nothing about the lack of water or the job situation. Perhaps California, or our idea of it, is no longer part of the continent. Perhaps it has risen and has assumed the shape of the air we breathe. Perhaps the rocks we see are what people took from California and placed elsewhere. Perhaps this is why in such a big state, you can become incredibly exposed. These were all things I had to consider when reading my cousin's letter. I had to sift through the fat surrounding his intent. I had to read between our eyes. I had to ignore the shudder of past earthquakes. That's where the rocks were. I had to reach down between the cracks and find them.

CAROL LOIS // Untitled

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My stomach churnsfrom the movement of the bus.It’s been a long timesince I moved toward something.

You and I spent yearsrunning away from universes.

bus rideROBIN A. SAMS

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ARLEN HOGARTH // Hole

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For years I worked for a company that would show people things they never noticed in their own homes. But we were not tour guides. The CEO was adamant about that: “You are not a tour guide,” he said. “You are an archaeologist, a spelunker, a submarine.” He worked only from his house, as if to prove some point. He got the idea for the company when he found a bag of clay marbles in the wall of his living room during remodeling. Not that we were encour-aged to drill through clients' homes, of course.

It was easy to point out a corner of some cramped closet, and that's all the entry-levels did. It was harder to show the everyday rooms which, through habit or boredom, clients ignored. Here is how the coffeepot always drips three perfect drops at the end of its brewing. The crystal you hung in the bedroom window when you were first married still throws rainbows when there is a full moon and you are asleep.

I became Employee of the Month for showing an elderly couple a framed picture of a young man in a military uniform, now cloaked in dust. As such, I was entitled to my own showing. I was required to do it myself. There wasn’t much I hadn’t seen: these cup-boards, that cabinet, this credenza. Then I noticed the girl who was little when I started this job was now sixteen and borrowing my car on Friday nights.

Domestic Expeditions, LLCB.J. BEST

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They say if you meet your double,

you should kill him. A full clip holds

thirty bullets. “Shoot me in the chest!”

Mussolini demanded, and the firing

squad did before he could take back

his words. Sometimes I’m forced to

communicate the old-fashioned way,

an empty speech bubble hovering

just above my head. That is, she could

lie by the side of the road for hours,

bleeding to death without anyone

knowing. Let’s assume for the sake of

argument that there is such a thing as

an afterlife. Wherever the angels poop,

the landscape turns cold and white.

AfterlifeHOWIE GOOD

EDDY GRAHAM // Untitled

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I was an extra in vintage picture books: the cop with a billy club and hat popping off my head upon seeing the zebra riding a bicycle, or the man in the rowboat who’s caught a fish as big as he is. Easy work. I’d duck behind the two-dimensional post office to sneak a smoke; catcall the housewives who always wore pearls, even when vacuuming.

But slowly ... you begin to notice the neatness of the streets, the sweetness of the fields. The candy store owner in his white apron. Bows on the tail of a red kite and down the braids of the grocer’s daughter. And here is a foal who has lost his parents. Hello, horse. Come here, horse. Oh, horse. Oh, horsey. It will be okay. I will help you. Dry your eyes. I will help you. Let’s turn the page. I promise. We will find your parents by the end of this book.

ExtraB.J. BEST

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A patient tangerine taught us how to peel off its skin, but it died before it could teach us how to fill the jug drop by drop with its juice.

The marketing firm hired me to design really obvious scavenger hunts to get people interested in their clients. There’s a million dollars hidden in this bank. All you have to do is find it.

Intro to Public RelationsB.J. BEST


In Houston it’s so hot the hotel clerk said only tourists and the homeless walk.

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Universes pour into my mouth, open

wide. The night waters are a couple whose thunderous arguments rise

and ebb to resolve in lovely murmurs

of tenderness. I see the stars and their tiny twinkling.

I may be a fat man,

many times folded into my cruise chair, but I eat

hard to maintain my weight.

WIDEEMILY LU

Bald cry: I want to take you to a planetwhere shape is the prime ingredientin the language. Flutter hap-hazardly, baby, speedierthan weighing a sound; get mein this whole other way,tilted to the blue trees.

for my boat lilyJOHN NYMAN

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Universes pour into my mouth, open

wide. The night waters are a couple whose thunderous arguments rise

and ebb to resolve in lovely murmurs

of tenderness. I see the stars and their tiny twinkling.

I may be a fat man,

many times folded into my cruise chair, but I eat

hard to maintain my weight.

God command thee:guard thy home andkeep native land!free the love andkeep the land all our sons stand for free glorious loveour hearts rise, glowing and widesons on sons, free lovewe keep the love far from native landpatriot sons with hearts on guard the native, strong patriotsons on sonsfree love!free love in the far north!free land with true lovein glorious Canadasee our sons rise strongsee the free native, Guard!

AnthemCHRISTOPHER EVANS

CAROL LOIS // Untitled

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At eighteen I smacked into the apple tree.

It had appeared overnight

at the bottom of my parents garden.

Already fully grown, regimentally breasted with

a labia red universe of fruit

just out of reach

each apple labelled with a future

academic, lover, lawyer, strangler

poet.

Every time I climbed to pick one

the lower braches snapped

the non grip coating someone had had painted on

would make me slip, tear my skin

rip my nails.

In the winter

when the tree was bare

the lungs of summer out of breath,

I could see the solid body of its wholeness.

I pressed my hands against the trunk

felt the company of the persistent pulse.

In the Apple TreeALAN HILL

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For three months, it was my turn to support the Earth on

my shoulders, but to most of the beachgoers it just looked

like I was doing handstands in the surf.

Temp Work: AtlasB.J. BEST

SPENSER SMITH // Blanket

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A person can work the same set of worry beads for a lifetime.

Why should I write one poem after another?

WORRY BEADSBOB BROOKS

ROBIN A. SAMS // Hazard Zone CAROL LOIS // Untitled

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Alan Hill

Arlen Hogarth

B.J. Best

Bob Brooks

Brandi May

Carol Lois

Christopher Evans

Eddy Graham

Emily Lu

Howie Good

Jason Heroux

Jodi Lundgren

Joe Milford

John Nyman

Kyle Hemmings

Robin A. Sams

Silvia Pikal

Spenser Smith

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photography [email protected] the subject 'cover

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