Above a sheen of estuary, below a cloud-clod sky Is where the light comes crawling when its time has come to die, And spend itself in spasms on the silken ebb-tide waste Until its dancing glimmers lapse, dissolved to muddy paste. In sunless gulfs an unlit moon goes bobbing blindly by.
So now the scene is set for what was separate to merge In mindless dim fulfilment of the primal cosmic urge To be itself, the way it was before the great delusion Of ordering perception marred the peace of perfect fusion; All contrast, conflict, draining in a slow liquescent purge.
And that is how the hapless parts become the happy whole, Denying the distinctions of a body or a soul; The undistinguished lump that is existence in the raw, Through which, with probing snout and gloss-black fur and scooping claw, A god who’ll never speak again comes burrowing like a mole.
SIMON MACCULLOCH lives in London. His poems live in Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader, Spectral Realms, Aphelion, Black Petals, Grim and Gilded, Ekstasis, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Ephemeral Elegies, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Emberr, View from Atlantis, Altered Reality, The Sirens Call, The Chamber Magazine, I Become the Beast, Lovecraftiana, Awen and elsewhere.
This is the one-hundred-twenty-fifth issue of the magazine Eirik Gumeny and Monica Rodriguez founded in 2009, and their coffee rings and home-fry fingerprints linger on every page like indelible diner marginalia. Jersey Devil Press was created as a haunted hotel for misfit stories and castaway poop jokes, and as successive caretakers (our production editor Sam Snoek-Brown, my predecessor Mike Sweeney, and me) have moved into the gloriously strange edifice they built, we’ve done our best to keep it that way.
As some of you may already know, Eirik died on July 8 from complications related to cystic fibrosis. And even that didn’t stop him from being awesome—as a recipient of upcycled lungs himself, he chose to be an organ donor with a full understanding of what a difference it would make to a handful of people he would never meet. So at least some material parts of him are still out there knocking around in the world. And we have his words, which are immortal. Eirik’s stories and essays showcase his exceptional talent for both broad and subtle comedy, but they also have a tendency to deal roundhouse kicks straight to the feelings when you least expect it. If you haven’t read his stuff, you have been missing out and should treat yourself as soon as possible.
As a way of channeling a little of the grief of losing my friend into something meaningful, here are some specific things I believe Eirik would have enjoyed about this issue:
Sam’s cover art, which combines his own night sky photograph with a nod to Eirik as he might appear in a galaxy far, far away . . .
The humorously painful possibilities of the second line in Azzam Alkadhi’s “Grace.”
The presence of Godzilla and Michael Crichton in Rob Tyler’s “Retroscopy,” as well as the way it evokes wistful longing without lapsing into sentimentality.
I miss you, Eirik. Wherever you are now, I hope you have a great view of the cosmos.
My second kiss. The less said about my first, the better.
My second kiss and my first girlfriend. Maybe not girlfriend, I really don’t know.
I remember wet snogs And my tongue scraping against braces. I remember holding hands Outside KFC on Gloucester Road. I remember buying her flowers. I remember struggling to get my hand down her trousers. I remember being nervous and embarrassed All the time.
I remember seeing her photo, Years later, In the Evening Standard. I don’t remember why it was there, But I remember sitting on the Tube And vaguely recognising that face.
That’s all I remember really. I don’t know if she remembers much about me. And I don’t really care. But it’s an inextricable part of both of our stories. Paths which are probably so blindingly different, Or unique. But which were vaguely the same For a few short weeks Back in 1999. Ish.
AZZAM ALKADHI (@autistic.peacock.poetry) was born in London, UK, to Iraqi parents, and most recently spent eleven years living in Bogota, Colombia, before moving to Dubai last year. So he’s clearly confused. Ever since he was ten and his cat died, poetry has been the easiest way for him to process and understand the complexities of a world that can seem overwhelmingly perplexing for somebody on the spectrum.
