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ISSUE TWO
“Walking this smoky town in which I live
Or climbing wearily my dingy stair,
I feel the sordid barriers around me give—
And I’m—elsewhere.”
—Barbara A. McClung, “Elsewhere” (1954)All—Ways—Open is a publication set up to explore the theme of place. Each issue invites a group of artists to enter a local archive in a limited-focus, free-form exchange. It’s an experiment in opening writing outwards, seeing the backside of pictures, and directing readers towards visual histories and archives.
If Issue 1 was loosely about nature and place, Issue 2 is about metaphysics and place. The phrase "metaphysics of place" could evoke the capacity of a familiar topography to get strange on you, as if home reserves the right to alienate its most faithful inhabitants, concealing like a clam its tacit motive to change.SCROLL ▼ -
▲ Illustration by Charles Sindelar for “Cherubim of the Golden Heart”1. adipose, the throne on which i sit a backlit tulip flames licking up and up —fat conveys sunlike radiance celluLIGHT blessings and giggles and i am an angel vibrating just beyond. 2. the heart, as each sweet globe shining on the vine slept through winter in one seed, heart gestated in hearth till she perceived herself a tenant and burst forth, burst the bounds of the …
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▲ Illustration by Charles Sindelar for “Saint Germain’s Discourse: Detroit Class, November 29, 1936”All my life I have loved the sea. My baby brother and I churning the sand with our toes Waves melting our prints with each passing Picnics with gritty sandwiches. Each bite catching my windswept hair in my mouth, peanut butter and strawberry jam gooping in my split ends Cheeto powder glued to my fingers The too bright sun pinking up my skin Me oblivious to it in those moments …Read More ►
▲ Illustration by Charles Sindelar for “Saint Germain’s Discourse: Detroit Class, November 29, 1936”How many of us have gone to a job interview with an orchid blooming inside their throat? Please, don’t be anxious. Howler monkeys begin each new day crying at the sun to remind us of the hopelessness of money. I have not swum in the magnificent artificial lake inside the Burj Khalifa. Have not climbed the record 163 floors, pausing for a low-key …Read More ►
▲ The Voice of the I AmFrom above, I see him. No tricks I know what he’s up to, I think. In his hand, between thumb, pointer, and middle, a piece of charcoal. Scribing rocky surface. Shards pop every which way. That surface is me, But I can’t make it out. Erik: What are you writing? He looks at me, smirks. GOD: I could ask you the same thing. Erik: What? You mean right now? These words? …Read More ►
▲ “Transmission of the Breath World Map"श्वासप्रश्वास (Śvāsapraśvāsa) - SVAHS • PRAHS • VAHS श्वासप्रश्वास (Śvāsapraśvāsa), the oldest recorded term of what has been loosely translated to Transmission of the Breath, or TOTB. The belief that spiritual energy deemed the Breath of New Creation is divinely passed to 21 people throughout the world. Those chosen by the Breath undergo spiritual …Read More ►
▲ Albertus Magnus“Big Al’s Customer” The Tennessee Theater sign soars upward like a turret of The Castle. Underneath, Big Al has a message for passersby. People walk past him and his audience of one under Gay Street lamps. Big Al’s been trying to catch their attentions on the way out. His message: The Secrets of Egyptian Magic are available to you. Yes, you! …Read More ►
▲ Somma Heliakon or solar bodyI love you, I do, but I’m afraid this isn’t working out. It’s not you. It’s me. I’ve never encountered someone who gives even a fraction as much as you. With dusk’s dew in the air, I hear your voice, and by the time I wake up you’ve written a song for me whilst I slept. It always bares an aspect of your heart I never knew. Then before …Read More ►
▲ "Zalim enters the tomb where Manin is"I await the morning and slowly and surely draw back this heavy stone. What shall I find in the dreaded place, a dead body? A skeleton, myself, mutilated and withdrawn? The rock face snickers at me, with its feathered head. Why did I come here? What have I found entering into this delight of heaven and hell? What do I need to learn at this mournful place? Why …Read More ►