NOISE – Page 2 – Caustic Frolic

Ideals Under Pressure

by John Madu

Acrylic on canvas, 2.5′ x 3.5′

About the artist…

John Madu is a multi disciplinary artist, whose paintings and art pieces are an overlap between art and design through personal iconographic symbols as metaphors, texture, indigenous patterns and colour.

His most recent subject matter dwells along the lines of the effect of globalisation on African identity, in which portraiture, figurative symbolism, mixed media, and collage come into play. He’s resource materials are eclectic because of influences from pop culture, […]

Ideals Under PressureAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:53:43+00:00

Sympathy for the Devil

by Sherry Sweeden

Acrylic on 140 lb. watercolor paper, 12″ x 16″

About the artist…

Sherry Sweeden is thirty-four years old, living in East Texas. She holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Tyler. Sherry has been an artist her entire life, with heavier focus on painting, drawing, and mixed media. She is heavily influenced by pop culture and music.

Sympathy for the DevilAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:47:55+00:00

dead hawks

dead hawks*

by Andrew Zuliani

*Embarrassing early poem, scrambled beyond recognition.

About the author…

Andrew Zuliani is a writer and musician who lives between Vancouver and New York. He is working on a doctoral dissertation on flatness and depthlessness in postwar literature in the department of English and American Literature at NYU. His poetry has been published in The Capilano Review and Lyre, and fiction forthcoming in armarolla.

dead hawksAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:48:03+00:00

The Role of Light in Creating Space

by Tor Strand

We come from Birdridge,
running Earth’s sharp edges,
jamming our toes, obeying
an unmapped wanting.

The bore tide fills Turn-Again with a wave
of outer ocean, a long white cap from up here.
We surf with our eyes.
Far above the snow on South Suicide
goes blue.

We start climbing after dinner
but it’s Alaska in July—so what matters—
we run loose scree above the treeline,
play and forget, snap twigs

against a hanging sun, building sorrow.
We breathe toward dusk along the Arm,

a lane of light
from ridge to ridge.

The Role of Light in Creating SpaceAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:48:11+00:00

The Blueprint of the Land

by Édgar J. Ulloa Luján

There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
in the borderlands
There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
it’s a fantasyland

There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
in my motherland
There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
like in Babylon

There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
but only drugs, guns
and contraband
There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
but only burritos, narcos
running cheap errands

There is no river
but only sand
sand and no river
but only
a militarized land
There is […]

The Blueprint of the LandAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:48:17+00:00

Where Does Sound Travel?

for David Zeledón

by Margaret Fleming

In Texas, I stand by a baby monitor,
audio waves and linens move in unison.
I watch her chest until I am convinced
she is no longer breathing, her sighs quiet.
I run upstairs to catch the wind in her body.

If this world heard

the way a mother hearkens

to her child—would it listen?

On TV, a Nicaraguan woman carries water
in a milk jug, dumping it on a masked man’s
face. Liquid bullets shower the hot cement.

The Nicaragüenses who taught me to […]

Where Does Sound Travel?Alexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:48:53+00:00

WAIT

… … … … … … … … … … … …

… … … … […]

WAITAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:49:01+00:00

The Last Cicadas

by Genevieve Betts

The last cicadas thump and buzz
like a souped-up Cadillac.

They really are the most beautiful
plague. I too hum among their

windowpane wings, veined
like lace on whirring blades.

Sugar skulls commence their séance,
flicker pigments in candied ambiance.

The desert’s hot verve vacillates
at the last lurch of summer,

oases wavering in their distant trick
I fall for again and again.

[…]

The Last CicadasAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:49:07+00:00

Poloñius

by Cameron Espinoza

Elsewhere my words are sounds
Sharp unsubtle manifestations of wind
My shaking hands orchestrate obtuse keys— dictating tune

Overwhelming

My wit
My lips
My cadence

The dulled wife’s lament
“it” sits
Cross-dressed down
Puzzled formulaic void epiclets of sepulchral sound

The traveler’s age-old apartheid
Administered by Moses and British Airways
Drowned by the red-sea’s second cousin— twice removed

About the author…

Cameron Espinoza is a first-year graduate student in NYU’s GSAS. While she studies Politics, she is passionate Literature and has written on the use of rhetoric in the works of […]

PoloñiusAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:49:14+00:00

PARANOIA

by Lukpata Lomba Joseph

What smidgen of thought
Propagates in this wide helix,
Whirling and birthing spiral envelopes
With all reason in its service?
What infinitesimal impression,
Sits with honour at the pivot
Of this growing gyre?
Last night’s dream led the way,
Where your bones were crushed in a wrecking Sienna;
Then the age long myth behind dreams crept in,
Then a baritone voice burst in:
“Could this be a revelation?”
And the widening helix terminates
At the pastor’s last chats from the holy writs,
It was a sermon on dreams,
“Dreams are fore-scenes of reality,” he said
Then paranoia gave a wide grin,
As your trip to Lagos beach […]

PARANOIAAlexis Lopez Paleo2020-06-08T06:49:20+00:00