JULIE CAMERON GRAY Widow Fantasies I want my husband to disappear, dissolvelike a spoonful of sugar in a cup of coffee. I want him to fall asleep at the wheelfor a distracted driver to make a mistakefor snow to conceal a slippery surface. I want it quick and painless and over in a flash.Twist of metal, bone, the shatteredwindshield a constellation across black ice.Traffic backed up for miles. I’d get a call in the night,
DAN SINEY Stump Skulls Stump Skullsappeared in CAROUSEL 25 (2010) — buy it here
LIISA LADOUCEUR Warren Ellis’ Violin Because poets are like shoesbest when foreignand in translationall of ache is lost.Because sad songscan only say so muchin four minutes twentyand life is too messyfor such pretty mouths.Because words can be warpedby lips, fits, lispsand voices drowned outin dark rivers and bars. Play onyour ocean songs.Fingers singingbows for knivespiercing the skinsthat hold it all in.Those nights we pukedup desire, stumbled ashamedcrumbled, humbledby love’s lost namesthose dirty deedswhen we were
HOLLIE ADAMS Lessons in Division We pack cardboard boxes in silence. We are in mourning. My head is down; my black hair curtains my face. This is how to mourn a broken relationship, an expired lease: find own boxes, do not speak, write ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ a hundred times. This is how our one bedroom apartment divides in two. You will move back to your old neighbourhood; I will move closer to my parents. We
FRED GAYSEK Figuring 16 — for Jesse Harris and liquid corescoring image surfacerace matter in matterhatter madder than ever beforeit is in saying one aliveone fossilone fool fuel Figuring 16appeared in CAROUSEL 24 (2009) — buy it here
DRAZEN KOZJAN The Happy Undertaker The Happy Undertakerappeared in CAROUSEL 24 (2009) — buy it here
AHIMSA TIMOTEO BODHRÁN Vergüenza He didn’t realize the shame of being Native was the same as the shame in being queer. The shame of wanting to touch something, someone, his hands reaching towards trees butlooking around before touching, or touching so brief it might be brusk, might bruise the branches, tear a leaf, rip acorn from what was once tender grasp. Soon he wondered the ways in which, during the years he has closeted, was
Please join us to celebrate the release of CAROUSEL 43 … get your FREE ticket for the reading through Eventbrite now (your ticket will have all of the information you need to access the event on Zoom) … https://www.eventbrite.com/e/carousel-43-virtual-launch-tickets-119460392249 FEATURED READERS for the evening include: Gary Barwin | David James Brock | Leesa Dean | Jonathan Duckworth | Karl E. Jirgens | Carol Krause | miriam putters | Lauren Turner … and Rocco De Giacomo
ERIK JEREZANO, MICHAEL DEFORGE, JASON MCLEAN, LUKE RAMSEY, MARK LALIBERTE, DEREK BEAULIEU and JESSE HARRIS Portfolio: C/A/R/O/U/S/E/L ‘CAROUSEL’ is an 8-letter word, and, conveniently, that’s a signature in print. Conceived around this simple paper building block, we decided to organize a little art/text experiment for inclusion in this issue. We invited a group of artists to conceive of and interpret a specific letter in print. We assigned a full page and a single letter to
LEIGH NASH Day Trip This day beetles forward careening red eyelid on a two-lane Yucatan road110 km/h glass eyeballs unblinkchew up scenery, plowpast the tinted windows of white tourist vans The most earth with no earth, almond trees burstfrom lime rock, low bushesbear pink avocados; dogs spill sidewaysin the sun, feral ribs thin inlets Corrugated towns chatter Rusty graveyards swallowpastel crosses row, rowcrumbling plaster tombs thousand year-old stoneovergrown with lilies, bougainvillea Waist-high girls and boys
ROBERT MALINOWSKI Something I Read Something I Readappeared in CAROUSEL 23 (2008) — buy it here
ADRIENNE GRUBER This Is a Book You Shouldn’t Open In moments like these it’s important to rememberthe angry cry of geese, their shrieking voices,the way they circle the bridge at night.Not to dwell on a more recent lossthe ominous kind, a warning. Instead,think of the mouse that died in the compost pitits body half in half out of the wooden binflies buzzing over the tiny carcass.Days later it was still there, a skeleton,crushed under foot.
KATHRYN MOCKLER Murder It’s not a good idea to bein the same room as someone who is just about to murder you. I wonder what it feels like to be murdered.I’m sure it hurts your feelings, and then I’m sure you feelreally mad but aren’t able to express your anger in a productive way. Some murderers are nicer than other murderers.Some murderers let you eatyour favourite food before you get murdered — like popcorn or
ANDY REMENTER Techno Tuesday Techno Tuesdayappeared in CAROUSEL 23 (2008) — buy it here
TALIA ZAJAC Bebelplatz 1933 and 2005 i Smouldering and cracking open, the pages furling into black ash, tossed by the thousands, the books perish as words crinkle, blacken, turn to dust, putting Wells and Marx and Mann in the same circle of the inferno as young men hold torches and offer hemlock to Socrates: nobody wants to hear about death in Venice. ii The ash blows away the words, as I stand in Bebelplatz, where
HANNA PETERSSON Stump and Bubble Stump and Bubbleappeared in CAROUSEL 22 (2008) — buy it here
IAN WILLIAMS The Commute Nobody ever survives. — Margaret Atwood Ikemefuna certainly didn’tmake it through the forest, pot of palm wine on his head, with an entourage of slammer mouthed men who led him to believe he was going home. A lie, but they meant well. Machete to the neck. Then the unnecessary announcementMy father they have killed me, past perfect, as if he were already dead. And good weather, maps, company, trusty ship,
RUTH GWILY 4 Images 4 Imagesappeared in CAROUSEL 22 (2008) — buy it here
MONO BROWN Creak Make my bed and lie in it, bone-pile,you get to be the blanket lumps. Half a year or so ago your weightwould make this mattress creak, creak. Stay a bit and let me hear your teethtap dance, bone-pile. Knead an everlastingmeal from these pale sheets of flesh. My bathroom light stays on when you comeback to me in dreams that hold your jointstogether for the first time since they brokeand I see
BILLY MAVREAS Untitled 1 + 2 Untitled 1 + 2appeared in CAROUSEL 21 (2007) — buy it here