149F09

Volume 5

Fall '09
The Literary Journal from Burning Bush Publications

|| How You Can Be Published || Books || Classes || Writers || Poetry || Calls for Writing & Events ||

Choice Bits
Dion Farquhar

The deepest is the skin.
--Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense

In the beginning
was the algorithm
subject
to reason’s drive-by shooting (itself in the foot)

the costs of incarnation
any Buffy                                     the Vampire Slayer
                watcher                                     can tell you
return as the repressed
                                farce                the second time around
that would have been merciful                        (sufficient, too)

but instead:

                lives are ruined every day
                people die
                they cry real tears
                elections are decided for us

and real choice like reading books

                shrinks every day
                                to what can be squeezed in
                amidst endless care-taking
                                the old, the young, the sick
                and daily life speed-up
                                shop, cook, clean, care

Choice is everywhere and nowhere

                                diet or regular
                                DSL or dial-up
                                ATM or credit
                                anti-depressants or libido

The Time of Oughts
the next millennium
is here and we’re in it
up to our eyeballs.

So let us open the door
to the undead of our desires
antiphonal swing
a solidarity forever
living full the lives we’re in

with all the horror
& the beauty
& the loss

be cheered by other things:

the choice bits

& loves and passions

big and small

and friendships

surrounded

by Sisyphian smarts

Dion Farquhar was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Burning Bush Poetry Prize 2009 for "Choice Bits."

Dion Farquhar is a poet and fiction writer with recent poems in of(f) course, BlazeVOX, Hamilton Stone Review, Right Hand Pointing, Shifter, Fifteen Project, Ep;phany, etc. Her chapbook, Cleaving, won first prize at Poets Corner Press in 2007, and her first poetry book, Feet First, was a finalist for the Sinclair Prize and will be published by Evening Street Press in early 2010.

How You Can Be Published
There are several ways. You can also send in poetry or short prose of your own to be considered for IN OUR OWN WORDS. We also recommend looking at the Classifieds in Poets and Writers Magazine, visiting our Calls for Submission Page, or entering a contest, similar to our annual "Burning Bush Poetry Prize". Only entries that include a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) will be returned, so be sure to include this with your work. See our editorial philosphy.

IN OUR OWN WORDS ©2009 Burning Bush Publications.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America.
No part of this literary journal may be reproduced or transmitted in form or by any means, elecrical or mechanical, photographically, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrival system, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. All rights revert to authors and artists upon publication. For more infomation, contact Burning Bush Publications.