Just learned that the latest issue of Synchronized Chaos was released on March 1. This month’s theme relates to journeys, and includes three of my poems: “The Long Fire,” “Complete Breakfast,” and “Come My Brothers, Have a Good Courage and Follow Me.”
You can read them here.
Lo Goncho
Allagon allagon noch ohan
logonallanach cholloch noch nohal
nonoll ocalch hoch alag nach
gongalla noch chaggah oggon
choll agal ancha naag logolnag
cocall calla nonalla naollo
ogollocha agonoa nogg llogah
haagah golh nachlanna noll
golh noch colaag noch allo
noch allo noch allonagga
Lo Goncho no allo
chachallanagach agan galhannach
noch gangaang alloocal
One of my new lines of literary inquiry, the Gonch project has several different phases. Text pieces, like the one above, are written using a vocabulary limited to words invented from the nonsense phrase “All Gonch.” It’s an attempt to create a new language, imagining also the culture behind it through the shape, sounds and structure of the words, that might arise after the death of the current (American) culture and language. The composition proceeds intuitively, going for sounds and structures that seem poetic, even if they don’t carry semantic meaning to a non-Gonch reader.
The March 2018 issue of online poetry journal Ygdrasil was released today. It includes three of my poems: “Too Much of a Good Thing,” “Something for Everyone,” and “Under the Weather.” You can read them here.
Horror Sleaze Trash is an online literary journal of extremes–poetry and fiction from the edge, along with Suicide Girl photos, films and similarly sleazy trash. Yesterday evening, the journal published my story “Pussy Marches On,” another text in a cycle revolving around the character Doom Pussy, a Kali-like figure engaged in a war with mankind. There should probably some kind of hazard warning with it, due to the extreme language and situations, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, best to avoid. Otherwise, you can read it here.
Today, Outlaw Poetry journal published three of my poems: “Ghost in the moment of a universe without man,” “Shady Lost Deliveries,” and “Overall, the Dying.” You can read them here.
Experimental poetry blog Brave New Word‘s new, ninth issue was just released today. Lots of great text and visual work by Rosaire Appel, Lin Tarczyinski, Dirk Vekemans, Joseph S. Makkos, and more. It also includes three of my new “Gonch” pieces: “Callanghan Anallah Onoch,” “Llonach Angac Onh,” and “Cohollochan Can Cocal Loc Nag.” You can read them here.
The “Gonch” texts are but one phase of a larger project I’m engaged in. All these poems are new work using a vocabulary limited to words invented from the nonsense phrase “All Gonch.” It’s an attempt to create a new language, imagining also the culture behind it through the shape and structure of the words, that might arise after the death of the current (American) culture and language.
Today my short story “Elevator to the Sun” was published by online speculative fiction magazine The Colored Lens #26, for Winter 2018.
The story follows Tomner, a young man who ferries garbage from Earth’s orbit to the Sun, where it’s incinerated. His partner is a sentient rat–a character based on some of the many pet rats I’ve kept over the years. Tomner prays to the god of salvage for a mooncycle. Sometimes you get what you wish for, even though things aren’t quite what they seem. You can read the full text here.
Eventually, the story will be included in a print issue available on Amazon.
Online poetry journal The Miscreant published two of my poems today: “They Don’t Call Them Gods Anymore” and “A Long Sweet Line.” You can read them here.
Keep in mind that “A Long Sweet Line” was written long before the current president ever thought of running.
The latest installment of online experimental poetry journal Futures Trading (Issue 5.4) was published today. It includes work by many fine poets from the international scene. Somehow my work was included, a piece from my “Civilization’s Lost” series, this one called “Facets of Massacre.” You can read it and the whole issue here.
Zombie Logic Review published three of my poems today: “Eat Your Own Dogfood,” “Resistance to Extinction,” and “Plastic Love by Design.” You can read them here.
I first heard the phrase “eat your own dogfood” used by my wife Raquel, who’s a fountain of many pithy sayings. I think it means that one should have to clean up their own messes. It’s such a good line I wrote this poem around it.
jeff bagato 