artichoke haircut volume one
fall 2010
editors
justin sanders saralyn lyons jonathan gavazzi adam shutz melissa streat
layout & design adam shutz
cover photo melissa streat submit@artichokehaircut.com
Artichoke Haircut is published biyearly by the people listed above. This is our first issue (keep it, it’ll be worth something—at least the value of the warmth it will provide when burned, because, seriously, you or your kids will need that warmth some day) so all the info that’s usually in this space we haven’t come up with yet or we have no idea what it means. We’re poor. Can’t afford lawyers. But we’ve seen this phrase a lot so we’ll put it here: All rights reserved. Copyright © 2010. Oh yeah, submit to us at the email address listed above. Happy reading, and stay warm.
artichoke haircut ian humphrey jess borowski joshua brunson melissa streat julianna dzierwa justin schmidt davey vacek adam shutz
volume one
poetry
6
Greenmount pt. 1
poetry
9
Happoplexy; Whole Lives fiction
13
Pouch poetry
16
My Bicycle poetry
A Field Mouse Not Shaking in the Grass; i’ll be seeing you in all those familiar places art
what women want is what god wants; Forgive me mother! its all my fault, forgive me! poetry
19 22 25
American Eagle Flight 3740 fiction / poetry
28
Red Dress / My God! Artichoke Haircut
charlie lathe jonathan gavazzi dwight m. watkins, jr. dashe ramsey rebecca hackerman sarah jane miller saralyn lyons
fiction
The Misunderstanding of Mordecai Mortimer
poetry
Analgesia, pt.1; To Push the Foot Further; Analgesia, pt. 2 poetry
Talking Dice; A Family History fiction / art
All was Right with the World poetry
How About I Just Put This Like This
poetry
Curing; Your Hearth is Now a Hearse that Your Lover is Filling poetry
Skyline
36 44 51 56 61 64 69
13 fiction
joshua brunson
Pouch S
ometimes we’d run away, he and I. Mom was rarely the wiser. “Keep up,” he’d say. “I don’t want to be caught ’cause you’re so damn slow.” We’d cross the road, the neighbor’s backyard, and on into the woods. Davy Crocket called it, “God’s country.” Pouch called it, “bum-fuckville.” Behind an old silo, Pouch smoked cigarettes while I threw old bottles at the crumbling walls. Pouch said he once spent the whole night out at the silo. Pouch wasn’t scared of anything. He wasn’t my oldest brother, his stocking hung behind Leo’s at Christmas, but he was the biggest. “I’m getting out of here the moment I turn eighteen,” he would say. He never
mentioned where he wanted to go: Pouch was the sort of person who would go everywhere. Pouch played the electric guitar and was in a band. He told me he’d be famous one day. He’d be famous and tour the world and become rich, and I could tag along if I wanted to. Pouch smiled like a billboard. He always had a girlfriend. “Bitches love me,” he’d say. Pouch didn’t call women ladies, he called them bitches. Mom made me eat soap once for quoting him. “Where’d you learn that word?” she asked. I didn’t tell her. I wanted Pouch to know I wasn’t scared of our parents either. Sometimes we’d sneak downstairs at night after Mom and Dad were asleep. We’d watch movies Pouch borrowed from his...
16 poetry
melissa streat
“Infinity at ease despite so many risks, with no variation of her usual routine, the blooming rose is the omen of her immeasurable endurance.� -Rainer Maria Rilke Artichoke Haircut
My Bicycle M
y bike traveled on without me Looking for unworn paths and Napoleons to dine with. I was the widower Who shopped for company Not buying anything just rubbing Old fingers along shelves Feeling for prospects and talking To the salesmen about terrorizing Spiders in the bathroom. “Because we’re bigger and have nothing to fear.” I got a postcard yesterday of A sprawling Italian village On the island of Elba. I added it To my collection next to the
Tuscan Apennines and Easter Island. The rocks rough and their eyes hollow. They whispered, “We have heard the sunlight It is like hope. Or god.” I walked to church on Sunday It was the corner of 5th and Jackson– A small place with holes in the Seats. I couldn’t confess, instead watching Intrepid shadows swallow candlelight And with a snuff it was already sundown. Walking home I felt small Against the city giants winking With the forecasts of sailors.
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19 poetry
julianna dzierwa
I thought I saw Jesus on the Jersey shore....
A Field Mouse Not Shaking in the Grass I
watch a fly circle the ceiling fan, and Milk settling at the top of my coffee I make human faces Out of shadows on the wall and Force those faces to Laugh for me Because I am The log in my throat Stuck Violently shaking And waiting to Either be swallowed Or purged. Artichoke Haircut
22 art
justin schmidt
Justin is a junior at MICA. See more of his art at: justinschmidt.carbonmade.com
Artichoke Haircut 15
28 fiction / poetry
adam shutz
“he loathed the expression a loaf of bread; for him, it was always only bread!” -VladimÍr Holan
My God! O
n the cold tiles of the bathroom floor Flapped a white whale curiously the white Whale gasping like gossamer bawls he explained Sotto voce like he too small to be heard Over the flush and the camouflage Covering the clouds from the sky. I had A drink after my dog was killed today And as I may I got another Something to scare away whatever the Birds have been crying over for centuries So as to go on pissing into the flush. The piss was sweet but back to the mirror I almost came to a fall like Adam though Backwards. Blind. And in the Men’s Room. He smiled his blood red teeth Artichoke Haircut
Against the desperate white of his skin. A leg. All he could have wanted was a leg. A leg to know someone came if only to kill To know there are ways & reasons To limp there. But he tired for the effort That brought him here just stayed & stared. I wanted to put him out. Yet he sang all The louder for it till he shut his eyes & Spilled one last sigh of gales & gulls And iris spray sprouting over two vast blues Which I and he have not seen beyond the sink. Quick he bit my toe & disappeared.
44 poetry
jonathan gavazzi
“me, wag” -John Berryman
Analgesia, pt. 1 I
avoid you. I’m afraid that we are like two dogs who don’t understand each other, that we have the cleanest mouths but only tongues and teeth inside them; I haven’t spoken to you in four days. besides, you’re always looking at your feet. I wish they were something more than feet, too. we are the same that way, praying for airplanes & bad weather on good days, secretly. Artichoke Haircut 20
I see bad things in you, I’m afraid they’ll lace themselves unspeakably up your outsides—vines hardening to bark—they’ll hold you together effortlessly.
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other stuff:
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