Trigger Warning PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES Zero Gravity Gayle J. Greenlea Excerpt for 12 November, 2021 <chapter> Two continued Hilary rang the bell and was buzzed in. The interior was dimly lit with black decor, leather furniture, and crystal-cut chandeliers spindling from the ceiling. The floor was Italian ceramic tile. A bored-looking receptionist sat behind the desk. Hilary suspected she was trans. Her hair and makeup were exquisite and she had cheekbones to die for. “Welcome to Secret Desire,” the woman said, “where your most secret desire is fulfilled. What can we do for you today, pet?” Hilary said she was looking for Penelope and the receptionist raised a delicate eyebrow. “Oh, yes. Penelope’s one of our best. You want an hour or her special?” she inquired in a faintly husky voice. -Gayle J. Greenlea YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME Second week – Growing – Day Eleven Day Five

Dead leaf says to the earth:

“There are so many others”

“Forget till later.”

Bios And Links -Gayle J. Greenlea is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

Trigger Warning

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 11 November, 2021

<chapter> Two continued

        While Siobhan was nipping the hair of the dog on Oxford Street, Hilary took the train to Kings Cross. She’d found some clothes she kept in her stash at Ryan’s place: brown skirt with turquoise threads running through, turquoise blouse and pale brown and teal batik-print scarf which she tied around her neck. Boots finished her off. Showered and dressed, she felt almost human. Thank God for coffee. It gave her mind some semblance of order and calmed the headache.  
         Hilary had a lead she wanted to follow. It may be the weekend, and she wasn’t assigned, but that had never stopped her. In fact, if her boss Martin Goundry at the Sydney Morning Herald knew what she was up to, she’d have some explaining to do. She exited the train station and walked the short half-block to an innocuous charcoal-coloured building on Kellett Street. There was no sign to mark its identity. Only a large number “52”.

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

Second week – Growing – Day Eleven

Day Four

Dead leaf asks the Earth:
“Have I ever been stone dead?
“No, just recycled.”

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

 

Trigger Warning

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 10 November, 2021

<chapter> Two continued

Half an hour later, Siobhan was smoking a cigarette and nursing a gin and tonic in the umbrellaed outdoor seating area of a pub on Oxford Street, mobile phone in hand. “Hilary? It’s me. Will you meet me at Interlude in Newtown in an hour? And Hilary. I’m sorry. Let’s talk.” She snapped the phone shut and managed a smile for the bartender who was collecting empty glasses and glancing appreciatively at her cleavage, snugly framed in a low-cut emerald green top. Just as well she was only at the first stop of her pub run for the evening. Better to avoid further complications, she thought, sighing over the man from behind as he headed back to the bar with a leaning tower of chinking bar glass.

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

Second week – Growing – Day Ten

Day Three

Earth says to Dead Leaf.
“What takes you into itself.”
“Someone take me in”

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

Trigger Warning

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 9 November, 2021

<chapter> Two continued

        The sense of achievement Siobhan had expected to feel when she bedded Ryan eluded her. Not that he wasn’t a good lay. In fact, he was. Sensational, in fact. God, he was a great fuck. And a spunk to boot. Brooding Heathcliff-good looks and Roma charm. But somehow, the idea that she could seduce him with her sister watching, and even participating, which had seemed exhilarating before, now depressed her more than ever. Why did she keep doing this to herself? Get one up on Hilary, show her she could have what she has, even take what she has — and why stop there – bloody hell, she could be Hilary if she wanted to. Each time she succeeded at one small self-indulgent triumph, she’d feel like she’d summited Everest — for about five minutes — then came the big plunge: the downward spiraling, quick-sand-sucking, soul-destroying black dog barking up her ass. No, not even modest flats would be adequate penance today. Perhaps a little therapeutic self-mutilation later. Siobhan sighed, pulled out her purse and made her way to the cash register.

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

Second week – Growing – Day Nine

Day Two

Dead leaf says to Earth:
“I’m not tree, I’m something else.
What am I to be?”

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

-Marcel Herms who describes it as A new face in hell. Inspired by Dante AND the Fall.

Inferno’s Frozen Circle

I

Lucifer,

the most beautiful fallen Angel of God
with pristine features and brown eyes,
blonde hair. His
beauty is an obsession of woman in sin.
Scorned by those righteous men of cloth
who lived in their own damnation. Like Carpeaux’s statue of Ugolino and His Sons,
their secret sins devoured them. Eating
away at their remorse as they feasted upon
the children of God. No
mirror exists to show the true face of
Lucifer.

II

Lusting,

writhing bodies of the damned are entombed
in ice in Inferno’s frozen circle. Never
to be freed of their sins on earth/
forever, open-mouthed, frozen-screams, hands: outstretched to the heavens, pleading for mercy. They took the seductive path of lust, greed
and pleaded for immortality.
In the throes of their vanity, Lucifer promised them false salvation in the serenity of hell/
where there is no umlilo and brimstone.
An accepted Dantesque portrayal of the beauty
of Gabriel— an Angel of many faces.

III

Charon,

ferried the damned across the frozen seas.
Fire-breathing serpents melt the icy waters that cracks upon the force of the bow of naked women. Seduced by the sins of the living and seduced by the beautiful face of
Him.
For immortal beauty, they now remain frozen
for eternity. Never to age and never to feel
the touch of love again.
Requiem in Inferno.

-Robin McNamara

Higher Callings

Human Reason,
You brilliant and reliable gift,
Your shortcomings aren’t your fault.

There’s simply more at stake.
We need every ounce of you, but
Dante already told us,

Virgil would only take us so far.
Espousing ourselves to bewilderment,
Allows journeying beyond intellect

To Humanity within.
Humanity demands a risk –
It’s a mystery asking us to stop solving it,

Our Humanity asks us to
Stop singing along
Absent-mindedly with the songs

We presume are our soundtracks.
Listen, instead,
For the potential melody outside one’s head.

Humanity
Differs from Reason.
Our mystery becomes the solution.
-SamanthaTerrell.com

Honeysuckle Liberation 

Dampness and honeysuckle
Mingle in thick evening air,
And I am immediately

Made aware
Of a place
Romanticized by time,
Before Dante Alighieri intrigued
Me with meter and rhyme;

Before growth inside this womb,
Swollen twice by life;
Before I was delivered
From a mind stricken with strife,
Freeing me to secure the transformative properties
Of a damp, and honeysuckle-laced reality.
-SamanthaTerrell.com (Previously published by Plants & Poetry Journal)

-Liam Flanagan

ACCIDENTAL INDUSTRY
From the wood
laid low too make it plain
and easy working Smithies for iron
two monks discovered and cast aside
black stuff that somehow caught fire,
like their terrified smiles.

Homespun yarns
from Cheshire caused a riot among the weavers ,
shreds of whom were given transportations
of terror like their horrified employers.

Navvies sweat
cut water and rail tracks
for coal to fire the engines revolutions
like the grief of widows.

Coal gas came
to blow expanding refractions of hot faces
into fragility like redundant workers.

-Paul Brookes (The first poem in my ancient first poetry pamphlet, The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, Dearne Press, 1993)

Bios and Links

-Robin McNamara

is a widely published poet based in Waterford City, Ireland. His debut pamphlet, Under a Mind’s Staircase was recently published with Hedgehog Poetry Press (2021)



Trigger Warning

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUE

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 8 November, 2021

<chapter> Two continued

        “So, what do you think?” Siobhan inquired of the impatient saleswoman, who was tapping a toe on industrial grey carpet. “My merchant’s remorse kicked in about 10 pairs ago. Just a matter of how your mood strikes you, today, dear.” Siobhan smiled. Clearly, her reputation was intact. As much as she loved shoes, it was not impossible that tomorrow she would return today’s purchase for something shinier or sexier or redder. “I’ll take the Chanels,” she said, thrusting them at the woman. Whatever she might feel like tomorrow, today was definitely a flat day. No soaring above her present depressive state. A look in her closet might infer that she lived in the clouds, preferring to stagger around on dangerously high heels, but spikes were really bravado for a disposition she could never really claim as her own. And if she were honest, her general avoidance of flats had more to do with a desire to tower over her practical, low-heel-preferring sister than any real commitment to spikey-ness.  
        No, today was definitely a flat day. In fact, she couldn’t feel lower if she were an eyelash on a single-celled organism.

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

Second week – Growing – Day Eight

Day One

Earth says to dead leaf.

“Find your roots, feeding tubes.”

Mold Sink into me.”

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

my watch photo by Paul Brookes

Trigger Warning

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUE

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 7 November, 2021

<chapter> Two continued

        Which ones? Prada spikes or Chanel flats? Siobhan was on her bi-weekly pilgrimage to Oxford Street in Paddington where she paid regular homage to a vast array of shops, cafes and boutiques. In one of her favourite shoe stores, she lifted a shapely calf for closer inspection of her foot. Not that she needed another pair, but buying shoes always made her feel better. A bulging wardrobe at home was testament to her preoccupation. That and the fact her niece’s first word was “shoooooeees”, much to the chagrin of her brother who noted the anomaly as inherited trait, undue influence, or a bit of both. “No question who’s the aunt,” he acknowledged wryly, opting for humour as his wife frowned her exasperation. “And you have to admit, ‘Siobhan’ is a bit of a mouthful.”  
        “Right,” her sister-in-law had said. “And the teeniest part of you wasn’t hoping her first utterance might be Da-da?” Still, Kathryn had scooped her daughter into her arms, the two of them cooing “shoooooees” back and forth at each other like demented shoppers at a Meyers Red Apple sale. 
         And Siobhan had done her auntly duty, reinforcing this shared fetish at every available opportunity. At age four, Kristin already had a shoe collection to rival Imelda Marcos. 

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

First week – Missing – Day Seven

Dead leaf says to tree.

“You’re my past. Not my future.

I’m not seed but mulch.”

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.