This is a new journal, THE ENGINE.  People have come
forward and dared to call themselves poets and
writers.  They have sent their message in a bottle out
into the world, and it is here, today, for your
purview.  These writers are from different countries
and timezones, but they all write in English, even
though many of them are not English, but members of
the former Colonies.  There are no submissions in
Kwazulu or Aboriginal languages, but if there were
they would be welcome, and so too are submissions in
any language or dialect, including Ulster Scots,
Lallans, and any other Scottish or Sub-Scottish
dialect, the Irish language, or dialects, in fact any
strange, foreign or familiar tongue, including Old
Catalan and Ancient Greek.  This journal celebrates
linguistic diversity, and work from everywhere,
however strange or apparantly inaccessible.

The title of the journal is a direct reference to the
work of the Italian Futurists, and their celebration
of the new, the machine-like, the creation of systems,
as opposed to wandering and solipsistic renditions of
lapwings, cowshite and aran sweaters.  But this
journal will welcome any subject matter except the
sentimental and turgid, the inauthentic and hackneyed.
 The title is purely a practical joke, and this
journal has no political, philosophical or religious
hobby-horses.  In fact it is opposed to any flag
waving politico and his or her favourite rant.  The
politics of this journal are the aesthetic pleasure
taken in eating a plate of delicious prawns as opposed
to disposing of a crappy 'burger, of the statement
which is utterly erroneous, tangential and bizarre,
and which is not allowed in polite society, of the
inarticulate moment which was disallowed, and the
dream sequence.  Nothing 'real' is allowed or
allowable, and so long as the poem is read as
belonging to the world of dreams and nightmares, and
certainly as music, formal constructs are considered
too, free verse, the prose poem, pictures, and any
mechanically-grooved symbols of the cosmos.  Look into
the mud, the horror of polite society, blood, mire, or
whatever, poetry is the aesthetic of considering
desolation and ultimately the shite that encapsulates
existence, binds us, and from which we consider art as
a 'release', but to some an 'escape'.  This journal is
therefore opposed to all politics, but endorses the
truth behind the experiences that bind us to the
world, the misconceived and mis-understood, the
rejected, sometimes the daft, not as an aesthetic
pose, but as a constant struggle with the incoherence
and rubbish which assails us and binds us to life.

Literature is finished, and the written word is dead.
In the 19th Century the great assault on religion
began, it is now necessary to dispose of literature
too, it is not a fake religion.  Religious feeling is
a substitute for the actual reality of love, and
literature now is another substitute for the same.
Literature is peripheral and entertaining, and this
journal is dedicated to pleasure and enjoyment.

At present the journal enjoys an open door status,
there is little or no editorial effort beyond the
presentation of new writers.  Now a readership must
debate the rest.

Any new submissions of work should be sent to:
[log in to unmask]
Paul Murphy
CONTENTS
MYTH OF THE HOLLYWOOD LOVEDOLLS

Though the diary of Lt. Seblon would certainly have
recorded something different, the uberneuby had
written thus:

on Friday I stumbled into early primordial matter
coalescing into a new star system. The laws of physics
were all different.  For example, location isn't
physical (we met at the intersection of four phone
numbers); younger = smarter; and pipefitters can be
respected members of the economy!  (even if the
economy is rarely a respected member of pipefitters),
etc but some things were the same, like talk: people
accumulate slowly, and talk is expensive ("when it's
cheaper, then i'll say more, " thought the
uberneubie).  Also, just as the laws of physics say
everywhere, pipefitters meet on Friday after close of
trades.
And it was like I expected, there was scant for
squares there.  They must mostly have been still
working in their datafactories & knowledge-management
mills.  Also many of these pipefitters were more young
than to be caught in the grid of the grind (not yet at
least).  And its good to associate when you're nue to
fitting ¦ pipes like I is

[it was true that she was new to the craft of fitting
pipes together, "but" thought the uberneubie, "I ain't
new to craft..." Sometimes confidence can be
premature.  Even as they met in guild hall mall,
(unbeknownst to any of them) a very sinister bulge was
quietly building deep in the darkness of the data
pipes...]
Michael McNearly
Welcome to Planet Mongoose, home of the 70 ft tall red
haired eating mongoose, esp don't of R (by the way,
don't patronise me again by using those %%%%% symbols,
I know they mean the encoded Satanic message .....).
Ya Lord of the Underworld and Great Satan of  San
Francisco.  Ya Lulu stripqween of Barcelona (AKA Frau
S).  Ya D with all your whippets and libelboys.  In
fact YA, YA, YA, YA, fucking ya, ya, ya....(the rest
is silence)...Greetings to Lord Satan, Lord of the
Hollywood lovedolls...

Your work is very boorish, right your in, send your
tenner to PO Box 22323433254353534, Hollywood
Boulevard, C/O Mad Jack at the Chinese Laundry and
you'll also enjoy utility in my dynamite factory as a
white slave.
'Mephisto'
EAST RECTUM

Gnaga is great in the empirium this night, but the
langorous limbs of the dogstar enfold you in the
yonder twilit region of Peripatea.  Attica is fallen,
entwined beneath the head and neck of Neiron Keiser,
Lord of the Unlit Toilet, the Great Hunter of the
Black Sea and beyond.

I am writing a sci-fi novel.  The first part is about
a supercomputer that is able to duplicate reality, the
second Alexander's last dream at Persepolis, the 3rd
rehearsals for Mozart's opera 'Mithradite re de
Pontus'.

Where are the Hollywood lovedolls and libelboys now,
where are the oldtimes, the singing in the rustic wood
with the Hobbit of love....
'Mephisto'
STRANGE LIGHT

Strange light      storm coming
        Weary.     Then -
                Tap
                On my chest

                ?
                A falling bloom

MAGNETIC POEM FOR GEORGE BUSH

                Why when I bomb these
                        Minute people
                Does love for me not grow
                        He asked
                Is summer wind about to
                Consume the immense dark secret?
                Is there a split in my tongue?

                                Richard Lawson

MICHELLE McGRANE

I am twenty-six years old and have been writing poetry
seriously for approximately the last two years.  I
currently work as a legal secretary but hope to become
a full-time freelance writer/poet in the near future.
I have had various poems published in the following
South African publications:
Fidelities III (A Selection of Poetry),
Pietermaritzburg 1997
Botsotso No.9  (Contemporary South African Culture),
Johannesburg
Pagan Africa, August/September 1999
Fidelities VI (A Selection of Contemporary South
African Poetry), Pietermaritzburg 2000
Newsart KZN, Volume 2, No.6 (The Official Journal of
the Natal Society of Arts), Durban 2000
Botsoto No.10 (Contemporary South African Culture),
Johannesburg 2000
Carapace No.29 (Poetry, Graphics & Molluscana), Cape
Town 2000

Writing is an addiction

Writing is an addiction
Like cheap brandy
Parcelled
In a paper bag

Firewater blood
Streams flowing
Molten rivers
The senses set on fire

Hand starts writing
Loops & curls
Turn to
Voracious scribbles

It feeds, feeds, feeds,
Always hungry, insatiable,
Raging, rampant
Reaching

Sleep stumbles,
Dragging its feet,
Settling roughly
In a grudging stupor.

UNREQUITED

A hundred fish-hooks
Catch my tongue
Whenever we meet,

Traceless barbs leave
No mark, but
The heart knows, it knows.

EMPTY WOMEN

We stuff our faces,
Not for the taste, more

For the feeling of fullness.

PILLOW TALK

I sleep with a pillow
  Between my legs,

To remind me of
        The comfortable familiarity

With which
You once
        Surrounded me.
COFFEE WITH YOU

The dark, steamy substance
Of our conversation
Is addictive -
Garbled gossip,
Judicious jokes, and
Insidious insights.

The lacy tops of
CHARLIE'S ANGEL

You took out the mirror,
It was cheap, child's
Glass, pink plastic edged.
The razor blade was rusted.

I held my breath
As I watched you pour
A salary of white trash
Onto the hard, mocking reflection.

It's been years of long planning,
This trip to see you, and now
Here we are -
Strangers.

Cleverly,
Or careless, you
Have bound me to you
With your secret.

I sit, curled up, and watch you
With a party straw up your nose,
(I should find it ludicrously funny)
All I feel is disappointment.


Joy Reid
DARK WATER
We scull
Dark water.

Debris-stained the dam lies passive
Bruised as a domestic dispute eye.
The wind sculpts chicken wire shapes
A terrapin
Up periscopes
        Suspicion ripples
Then   plink he is gone.

On post and pier
Water nymphs encrust

Lora Bishop
Is 21 yrs old and is currently studying English at the
University of Southampton, soon to graduate an take up
an M.A.  I have been published in Poetry Live, Poetic
Hours, Orbis, and also The Community of Poets twice.
PRETTY OBITUARY

Snip the blood from my hair,
Shave the skin from my nose,
For I yearn to look pretty
Within this obituary.

Ease mothballs among my clothes,
Company for the many memories
That host between their forgetful folds.
May every side possess an ache like this
Is what I kneel and pray each day,
For it's all about knowing when
And where to look,
And then knowing precisely when to look away.

Seen enough, so see no more!
Not your obligatory concern
Or the cracked hole of that door.
I watch as you run from the hurt,
I watch as you run back to her.

I promise to bleed if it's deep,
But only if you promise to promise me
That for my eternal obituary,
The one that my mother will probably read,
Promise you'll paint me pretty with lies.

Pretty me pink beneath this ugly vanity
I so desperately despise.

MR DEATH MAKES A VISIT

Attractive Mr Death
Cuts a truly dashing figure
In his black top hat and tails.

Will he be tardy?
Will he be tall?
His fearful presence fills the hall,
Dark and indefinable as an ink stain upon white wall.

His abrupt arrival initiates
My fair weathered fellow men
To make their escape,
So eager are they
To pay sweet homage to a new day.

Me and sexy Mr Death,
In the glorious dark,
Alone,
Where tears dry unseen,
And screams slide away so silently
In the miserable pit of human fallibility.

My dear Mr Death,
How sensuous slicks your murderous kiss
Upon my more than eager lips.
I have been so joyfully awaiting this.

OPHELIA'S RIVER BY MOONLIGHT

She emerges from the water with a birthing roar,
Beast like and hideous on all fours,
Wearing the dress they will bury her in,
And with her hair laughably on end.

Perhaps she resembles
Some sort of fallen angel,
Raining despair from her cloud of revenge?

Burnt and buried separate from the flesh,
Peaceful mind always insists on accidental death,
For the sun never shines on a suicide.

None will ever be allowed to forget
The unsung fact
That Ophelia's lungs were filled
With sweet water from her own
Unforgiving cup.
So much so that some said she was hysterical,
A bled dry and translucent shell,
Paper thin and hearing things
In the labyrinth of some sort of hell.

And so it was she sometimes wondered
Just where it was her mind had wandered,
And if it would return unhindered.
So she walked to the river to await its return.

__________________________________________________
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