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ragtag

issue one

David Highsmith

Peter Max Lawrence

Judith Roitman

Dear Readers,

Welcome! I am thrilled to present you with this inaugural issue.More anon! Goodbye, for now!

Best,

Monica Jane Peck, editor-at-small

P.S. You can look for ragtag on the web or send me an email. Id love to hear from you

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david highsmith

xanadu

I could not ask this of you, Scooby Doohow fire and water make a home

amalgamation and quietudehow each one works a predatory lust!

huddled to a sound, a family portraitstill life within a doghouse

casual placement evolves a predatory vowelpurses cold entry, sacrifice, a door left open

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david highsmith

your sweet growl within a dream of toolseight hours & then to walk the dog

permafrost wedge the thought of room, a shotdrives home a voice, odd science to a target

rolling penance, bed beneath a courtyardwindow, earthen mound to glide these tools

into the street, our sense of what adherescollective belonging within composite loss

some dirt, some stealth & grace, brunetteMikado, spinal traffic in a floor to paint

Neoprene, Ohio, a graphite skid, some frocksto sell, our history in constellations of the zodiac

Its not that Im sensitive your dream a sampledremix, Maria Carey in heaven with your boyfriend

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david highsmith

or in a field with a horse, a defensive refreshmentmake-believe & shaggy, a warm scent called human

jumps within a feminine rapture, levels the animal withinthe sublime - hands exploring fruit encounter no defense

momentum to radio gets around to a record in writingenraptures our arcade, a fascination in the firelight

acquiesced through April, the gulf afire, to rattle my cageand be over it, little house a horse of subset rocking

assumption an unfettered bloom, a hermits peak abovethe wire, multiplicand: Emile Bronte in a dream of fish

acronym null, the deaf of heaven your tabneptunium, a liquid moon, natural levee aflame

cross out a calendar, preoccupation, a commuterspothole, August always seems a long way off

wrap up it like Buffys finale, a moose for a dayanything for love, forevers gonna start tonight

eastward fire, our inflorescence, forest to wharfchoked & separable, the personable shakes a tree

given its moon, resilient traffic of pleasure boatsa necessary current contained within the visible

given its streets, diffused spectrum of fog and sexgiven what happens, a portrait, still life with cage

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david highsmith

a pathos in these labels to our files: collectivedream: Lucretius in an earthen mound or flower

beds beyond our view, Rosalita in a gardenred bicycle beneath a moon diffused

rapt as gunmen in a blind, tracking us as we trackothers: no contest within a biological defense

we know no grief or pain, its another dayin Xanadu & Scooby Doo, I think of you

ours is a gorgeous array, their legs & fins intactnights among the chowder, improbably marooned

we ease into a trigger, rapt farewell, fragranceof pipe smoke & gunpowder, odd scent of origami

how calamari make a loop: music of bicycles, red skybeyond the fish house window, enough air to get home

thus capitalized on sand, as if to tunnel throughwhat your TV wants to know, a plea for bad music

lacustrine dance, scrupulous indifference to a lakeof fire, train gone nowhere & perpetually spanked

rustling of leaves beyond a makeshift shelter, talkbeneath scattered shot, as if to trip her out

found within provocation, pepper if not the threat of itacclimate anticipation, another dog to visit snow

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david highsmith

fingers if not hands, our circle a shelter, our odeto a slayer in whom wed forbear the drear extraneous

no fire ignites this kiss, no mere sweetness taintsour touch, a claw secured, no dead undead among us

beyond some trees, huddled to the sound of whatwill hold when the walls start shaking, fire and water

make a landscape, the line of her neck and then abreath, one day to tunnel through, and then another

Memorial Day, a yellow, orange and red caf, whatsworking and whats not, tested by distraction

our own home within the home shopping networkcomposite imperfection in our sense of what resides

mimesis to charm a sensible world, discourse a promisewrapped in buckshot, ailanthus within astronomy

what pother do they voice beyond our view, hickorysmoke to coalesce an amplified falling of leaves

fire, then smoke, quietude and lust, light within a veilimmediate swag, tattoo luv, your injury, a step beyond

the mere suggestion of some room, our shelter in akissing booth, false memory, a scent to call ones own

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david highsmith

no further than the volley, unremitting fusillade, a veilconceals a rapt delight, debt to those who bring us tea

tobacco, powder, fire, each gunman in the crossfiresharing the combo platter, and then to jump

our demolition derby, his anomaly, his hopeful squinttoward exodus, his pantomimed cascade, his way out

anthropologists, simple people of the city, we tell themsimple stories for their effort: sweet sap from trees

riddled in the crossfire, an epitaph erodes composureif and if, rifle level to the trees, and then to jump

the hunted move beneath a trigger, follow footprintsto a clearing, follow the animal, rapt farewell

faithless nature, intersecting lines within crosshairsobservance in a shout last heard beneath those trees

something here called human, predatory powderin a flash of light, weird correspondence to the physical

relief, a sigh, and then the scratching sound of fingersstuffing pipes, one more birthday & a pint of ale

one more journey to a karaoke bar, muffled rapturein this shelter covered with soft hair, paternity

emboldens the harmonic, sudden forbearance, a beastalerted, thine cursed forethought charms the hunter

twang prolific toy, indiscriminate math deadensthe hemisphere, & Xanadu, as if its your brother

lakes & streams all over, the mournful gape at gunmenin the leap, as if were paying through the nose

within each animal, a hunter stalks the hunted, ahorseman flees its fox, a horse then shakes its horseman

a rustle of leaves to school the predatory, thusslake a thirst for blood, our romance beneath the id

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david highsmith

animal panel, the irreplaceable periodical, this newseverity, his initial public offering, inferno 4-1-1

patter immediately, thus shepherd our distress, comportour factotum, pandemonium within a dearth of accusation

the combined entwines to cow this jumpy parkthe merely colloquial continued with some effort

paymaster mirror, a deadlock disservice, postcard toProvence, a shut down start up, old dog gone South

purposive sled-ride passes for what we do, civilianfrequency, a dancers pride in slapping ones own

& someone to prosper even this, reserve usour slice of whats up next, arousal of the gods

taurobolio criobolio que in aeternum renatus''(divine bear in whom they lived and moved)

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david highsmith

anachronism, if not our bound unit, our waterproofedhabit, our exterior in an idols appeal, lull gap keyboard

activity enables our people to concentrate, as if anisettebecomes us curious within this unblushing sponge

rises again, internal whirl, action on a canvas, onefigure to a shadow, candy tuft seen from the gorge

disquisition thus freely magnifies what hath beennobly done mobile stooge informed at waters edge

small victory, the arc of voodoo in an oatmealfranchise, the things of this world all say goodbye

as if no sun had shone before: this time, no memoryof stone, no bundled sticks afloat on water, no water

no current matching stone to stone, demeanor beneathsheets, entangled motivation a matrimonial feed

our sliver to snowbot, befit to bottle chagrin, imaginefriendly bears within a kissing booth, green paws

& practicality, the one great tool we use to prythe lids from cans, a hills brisk swell & ours

upon the coarse, my junction shattered into whoknows whose, now your grey chew toy in an office file

or soft against a cheek, the thought of one beyondsome trees, a barefoot path, a shadowed woof

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david highsmith

and then a breath, & within that daze, the measureof a street, green fence, a common leash, imagined

current to the visible, one blessed yard to fetchthese treats, rawhide strewn upon fresh cut grass

perseverance skates Snoopys rings aroundthe kid, no mere sweetness taints our touch

among these lives and customs, no reason to supposea tool, cannesa, canasta, gazebo after rainfall

our resolute meridian beyond the gully, mechanicalcall and response, as if to warn Canadian geese

of distant fire, a lake, Buckwheat & Alfalfa,descending propjet in a rear view mirror

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peter max lawrence

whimper

I saw the worst minds of my generation elevated bypseudo-sadness, belly-full calm naked,sprinting through cracker-caked streets at dusklooking for a happy pill prescription,demon-legged innocents yearning for the ancient hellconnection to the sunny stutter in the organics of night,

who riches and tailors and satiated and low stooddown clean in the imagined light ofhot-salt curves sinking near the bottom of farmsdisregarding hip-hop,

who brained their bars to Hell under the magick andsaw Allahs angels standing on mansion driveway darkened,

who slunk through grad-school with salient warm eyessobering Kansas and Miller-like adventuresapart from the zombies of peace,

who were granted access from the bums for clear &publishing prayer odes on the wall of the foot,

who stood tall in clean fields sharply dressed,saving their money in breadboxes and ignoringto the true paradise through the hall,

who got honored in their Sunday suits staying onLaw School with a belt of beers for the Step-Parents,

who drank water in Five-Star hotels or ate flax seed inPurgatory fields, life, or heaven sexed theirsix pack abs day after day

with nightmares, with vitamins, with nocturnal emissions,sobriety and vagina and endless walls,copycat clear: dirt paths of calm sky andthunder in the eye resting still blocks of Black & Decker,darkening all the moving planets of death around,Church mushy of ceilings, front lawn green tea nurserydusks, grape clear head under the earthen soil,backdoor boroughs of coke-head stern bleakstatic solo dark, moon and sun and rockstill in the quiet summer dawn of Panhandle,trashcan philosophy and mean queen dark of cock,

who tethered themselves to pickup trucks for the ending

stand from Castro to evil Cole Valley on wheatgrassuntil the quiet of gears and seniors tookus up quivering cock-soothed andrescued hope of torso all recharged of despairin the brilliant dark of Savannah,

who rose all day in aeroplane shadow of Honigssunk down and ran around the fresh wine beforemidnight outside crowded boutique, ignoring from the holeof glory on the oxygen ipod,

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peter max lawrence

who listened briefly seven minutes in building tobreak from yoga to Sausalito to junk-shop to the Golden Gate Bridge,found brigade of promiscuous mutes standing stillup the cellars on windy stations on windmills

on village hut out of the core,blahblahblahing whispering indulging screamed fictionsand forget-me-nots and diseases and bellybutton ticksand soft palette pleases of living rooms and basements and peace,half dumb re-assembled in vapid storytelling for fifteen minutesand days with dulled lips, grain not for the

Vatican solo on the grass,who appeared into everything discombobulated Oregon arriving awall of opaque ironic greeting cards of Portland City Hall,elegy-astic Western numb and google map-findings andblissy kisses of North Korea above sober-indulgence in Medfordss shiny vacant dungeons,

who stood still and stale at noon in the

airport lobby pondering where to hide, and seek,staying yes mended souls,who damp cigars in smartcar smartcar smartcar hummingthrough rain behind sardine-packed superstores on grandchild day,

who ignored Aristotle Wolf St. Jude of the Boss forgivenessand pop bible because the dirt naivelystilled at their head in California,

who grouped it behind the streets of Pennsylvania avoiding sciencecowboy devils who werent rooted cowboy devils,

who bought they werent only insane when Juarezdarkened in pleb boredom,

who fell in trash-truck with the chairman of the boardon the delay of summer midday forest

heavy metropolis sunshine,who alerted satiated and multiple around Detroitseeking classical or guild or bread, and lead theidiotic Canadian to espouse about Africaand Temporary, a hope-full journey, and so took ship to America,

who appeared under the mountains of Iceland arrivingahead of everything and the light of dressesand the bark and leaves of hate gathered in birthplace Topeka,

who disappeared on the East Coast ignoring theC.I.A. in costume and pants with small hawkscrotch gross in their light skin waking up articulate novels,

who froze pipes valley in their legs supporting

the medicine grass clarity of Socialism,who confiscated Supercapitalist websites in CrowdCircle stoicism and grooming while the silent snakesof Mumbai raised them up, and raisedup ditches, and the East Bay ferry also raised,

who fixed up laughing in black hospitals clothedand still before the nature of my exoskeleton,

who kissed victims in the thigh and giggled with despairin get-away cars for avoiding no justice but their

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peter max lawrence

others calm rawamantand sober,who whimpered on their knees in the light rail and werehoisted on the ceiling static brains and dollar store DVDs,

who let themselves be loved in the mouth by devilishegalitarians, and sighed with pain,

who filled and were fawned by those inhuman Gelasius,the truckers, needling of Pacific and Hawaiian love,

who dosed in the evening in the mornings slept inparking lots and the pavement of private drives andgardens gathering their shit secretly to

whomever leaves today,who inhaled once trying to scream but wound upwith a laugh in front of a Stinson sweat-lodge tent.

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judith roitman

moon (under revision)

sliver, like breadbasket

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transfixed by stars

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oh baby face! baby face!

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thats how we knew he needed glasses

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their heavy boots sinking in dust

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ha! nothing to do with bleeding

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grass heavy, dew irrelevant

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light reflected on helmet

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feet extended

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its all on tv!

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shards in my hand, unbelievable

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been there, done that

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judith roitman*

but your eyes

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poor unvirgin thing

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all faces simultaneous

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thirteen of them!

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you dont know which is following you

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halved and quartered and chopped into little bits

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a wing in front

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bland face, implacable

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imperturbable

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what refuse

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poor dog & vampire

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filled & wanting

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shadow & vellum

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judith roitman*

coast forgotten

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within basket, peeping

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her cloth triumphant

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crumpled

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