Issue 18: Caleb Klaces

Prisoner's Dilemma

The United States, a lesser nation, is worth ten.

There’s a somewhat technical move unfolding

where the Norwegian Sea meets the Barents Sea.

The purple dust on the Colombian road network

is a pre-emptive strike against the Southern tides,

in phenomenal form. Victories always hurt more

when you lose. The red plane on Mont Belgica,

pinned by a savage headwind, is already there.

Malaysia has introduced conscription, worth one.

In opposition, rather elegantly, is a large pile

of spent shells on the Nallathanniya NPS Sub Office

employed as a sort of ramp. In terms of Tibet,

a new communications javelin, worth hearing

from, is advancing nicely towards Nam Co.

There is a story about a horse born in that lake.

Pioneering the long-form, gradual approach,

the Sea of Okhostk is walking on its knees.

Some debate about the science is holding back

Arkansas there, and the new turf on the border

messes with points, given the modern walk.

We have sympathy for the Security Council.

When it was my way up through the ranks

it was enough to look up, down, left, right.

In the box here South Africa is down there.

Not one of the best days in terms of deaths.

We want a hurricane with a name please,

west-north-west over clapboard dwellings,

same direction—nice!—as these armed snorkellers

in the Caspian. Smell the love of the Virgin Mary

in Arunachal Pradesh! You’ll wait a long time

for a more resounding draw. The yellow buses

are tooling up, and who can blame them, as they

make their southern migration. Puddle farmers,

blights, by themselves with six billion others.

The new nature writing is worth three-fifths,

roughly the rubble in Aleppo. Prime nations

such as Guam really do blow our minds up here.

The sheer weight of insects and insect diaries

is coming up right behind false incarceration.

There are eighty-six golden crowns. Heads

change. Lovely ripple there from a pipe bomb.

Finland can be more than happy with its smog.

That threesome, Norway, Sweden and Finland,

has long looked to scale down. We’re seeing

this done in all manner of aggressive ways,

and ten can be multiplied if certain offensive

demographic changes are stoutly defended.

No person, remember, is worth anything.

The Bengal tiger is airborne to keep it angry.

A rather spiky new snow from Naypyitaw

has made an exceptional disturbance in a raft

of memories to do with safety, intrusion, death,

a blunt but effective mode of attack that

(and this is another of the high triumphs of

the Inuit putsch) poisons the broken water.

The Northern Lights are worth five, if time

and foot stamped. We’re seeing an overflow

of undergrounds. Chile’s employing a typical

defence, tagging the birds to stimulate plastic

production. The replay will clear the rubbish.

The ships, of course, now dominating metal:

firing missiles at the sunrise over the curve

worth a westward expansion of fibre-optic.

Brno’s last crater vies for dominance over

Zlin’s hotels. We don’t much like to see such

short distances. This baby in Delta Dunării

with three brains will have to be numbered

by committee. This is important because

the beauty of to and fro, attack and defence,

inevitable progress, is in my opinion and

your opinion dependent on the possibility

of revenge. I love this scoreless acid rain in Bol.

We can go to something winning somewhere.

The triumph of English? Brazilian murdered

by hairdresser? The Somali civil service strike

could not be more real. Men dressed in huge

numbers from left to right and from down to up.

I tell you it’s a privilege to be alive to see this.

How to come down here from that? Small leaves

fall in Canberra, crudely by their high standards.

Palau-Timor will be gearing up another wind.


Why I voted to leave

The doctor didn’t ask why I wanted to leave. When I was young we were very little. Leaves should never be that colour. Nobody glistens. My sister whistled back. Every photograph I look less like the photographs. The hospital’s most significant inefficiency was Robert Walser. They won’t be smiling when I get my heritage. Million billion trillion billion million. When I was young I had to be a boy. It tastes different. Someone shouted at me. I was murdered. I was ground up and passed off as horse. My sister was kept to a minimum. The way arrogant owners let their best friends, Robert Walser lay down and they could drink the melted snow. I just take out my aids. It’s enough of a joke. They’d grow me again if I went the Zurich route. The world won’t fit. Soiled fingers all over the fields. As native as you are you won’t make sense of the wiring. The pole on the corner has to beat the first man. I love the hat but I hate them for making me wear it. One word for my line manager is shrill. She eats through a straw and takes the Robert Walser out of the nurses. When he clipped my Achilles with his trolley his baby laughed. I was taught to be polite. It feels like the part that’s bacteria. It feels like losing.

Caleb Klaces is the author of Modern Version (If a leaf falls), Bottled Air (Eyewear) and All Safe All Well (Flarestack).