Bad Jacket Issue 2 by Bad Jacket

From The Laps of the Editors: Words, words, words: Writers arrange them, politicians demploy them, poets woo them, and mortal men (like ourselves) simply use them. But mere use is abuse. This collection of noctrunal instrospections, fantastical geometries, and gas station ballads seeks to celebrate, above all, the well written word and all its power to provoke, stimulate, and amuse. Creation is an act of being and this (our blessed issue) is an extension of our true selves. Treat it how you will. Glabrously Yours, The Goddamn Edtiors

Music & Lyrics by Bad Jacket Produced & Mixed at InDesign Studios Mastered at Thomas Jefferson Library Special Thanks: Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center

Personnel

Kyle Aiko trumpet on tracks 10, 28 Kaylyn Bauer heavy metal guitar shredding on tracks 16, 47 Joe Bryant acoustic guitar on track 3 Katryn Dierksen standup bass on tracks 7, 11 Jessie Eikmann prepared piano on tracks 4, 20, 27 Cecily Erker screaming on track 8 Kevin Gleich drinking on track 17 John Hagele sitar and tabula on track 40 Samantha Kolar harp throughout Hart Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ecuyer metaphysical mind instruments on track 33 Zach Lee turntable scratching on track 23 Benjamin Luczak tape effects and echoplex throughout Thomas Mays electric guitar solos on tracks 6, 15, 21 Michael McLaughlin rapping on track 24 William Morris drums on track 5, free jazz saxophone on tracks 14, 39 Abby Naumannn shoegaze guitar on track 9 Elliot Russo third eye on track 26 Kevin Thomas scored string section on track 13 Dan Wright AutoTune vocals on tracks 12, 37, 45

Joe Bryant

You said that if I looked through a barbeque pit long enough I

would find diamonds in the ashes. I sifted them until my skin was powder-gray and all I got were glossy black pebbles. Aren’t these good enough, I asked. The whole point is the way it catches the light, isn’t it? You rubbed your temple. The point is that it’s worth something to someone other than you, you said. I gave up and scattered the pebbles like birdseed. I can’t depict diamonds when I’ve never kept any real ones myself. I had a diamond only once, and I panicked and traded it for a handful of beans—not even magic beans, just beans. You must understand, the age of the believable diamond is dead. Readers will think yours is a replica of the one from an old story where unicorns are unicorns and not horses with cardboard horns. People in your stories are free to find diamonds on their way to the supermarket. People in my stories will stop just short of finding one because there’s still something compelling about a shiny black stone. ---Jessie Eikmann

Nashville At a diagonal from the station, where we lock our doors and joke about meth, gold spraypaint on the cinderblocks supporting a trailer, patio furniture that I know well at the top of a two-step porch closed in with wrecked trelliswork. Go someplace else and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see yourself in everything. Above the trees behind the station a crane and the near-finished condos theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re putting in.

William Morris

In a Dim Light Thomas Mays Already awake, I’m over. Be small— and I’ll be small and weak so early. How long are you going to be dead? I’m not going to fight it; most importantly, we die. I may be small and weak, too, but that doesn’t mean we have to talk about it. The taste of the coffee at the end of that hard weekend— I think I might be small. But isn’t that ok? —pants-less on the street smoking cigarettes; what were we doing awake so early? Perhaps we could redeem time. But that was then, and there can be no conflation of past and future, and there has never really been a “now.” There are only glimpses of that which can be seen in a dim light… After this beer I have only a six-pack. You could use it; though the idea is unwelcome. There’s something beautiful about you: Something so small and so weak—to think you would rather part with it. Is it really this hard to stay awake? Why fight it—the worst that could happen is that you die so early.

Art on the $quare Get out of the way— Don’t touch me. We’re looking at art, but I’m fucking hungry. Money money, money money, money; money.

Katryn Dierksen 7

Mother’s Day Cecily Erker

My stepmom spreads a Ziploc bag of Cole's ashes on the roots of the buckeye tree he used to climb in middle school on the Priory campus, making an offering of the dry dead petals of the red roses my dad pulled out of a gas station dumpster that were a divine sign to him from his patron saint, St. Thérèse that yes, Cole had made it to heaven. A specter of a white squirrel appears on the trunk of a nearby tree. I spot it first. "A white squirrel!" We take blurry iPhone photos of the animal apparition. "It's the Holy Spirit!" exclaims Sam. It's a live and cautious animal that circles the trunk nervously. I thank it with folded hands for lending itself as a message. Back in the car Sam wipes the last of her son's ashes off her hands with a Wet Ones antibacterial wipe. "He's scattered in a lot of different places now," she reflects. "What does a white squirrel mean?" my dad asks. I fire up Google. "It says: in folklore all-white animals have long been seen as portents of good luck, symbols of purity and even visitors from the realms of gods and spirits." "Well there you go."

Pedicure Abby Naumann

You looked at my feet and said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;You should get a pedicure.â&#x20AC;? I thought, how nice it must be to have smooth, baby feet Like a Barbie doll, plastic and pointed. My feet are calloused from skipping across hot concrete, Cracked from caking in mud, Knobby from kneading dancefloors, Stained from streaking through grass. I thought, how nice it must be to spend $30 on a pedicure But I think my feet are $30 more interesting.

Normal Jean Foreign Policy Kyle Aiko

I am so overwhelmed by the world What in the world is Stifel? Nicolaus Stifel? Stifel Nicolaus! A beautiful brooding box, Where a golden goose sits and shits and spits out its unfertilized ovum. What is Stifel? If you lean out the window on Washington Avenue, you can see atop that well-formed birdcageâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; What are those? Fighting bears? What is this art?

Katryn Dierksen

Untitled Poem from the End of a Very Long Day Graffiti walls burn down niceties as neon lights hide pretensions Wage slaves search for identity as they feel like working class heroes amongst so-called geniuses and feel like geniuses amongst so-called working class heroes The dollar that hypnotizes you Loses power when it cannot buy anything Mind traps run fierce as amateur psychics grow angry swearing they just told you everything without opening their mouths People unqualified to speak for the world yell at nothing because they refuse to comprehend that some people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have lofty goals Some people just want to be left alone

Dan Wright

Blueberries

Kevin Thomas

Here is a list of words beginning with the letter

Beginnings, bathrooms, blue badasses Budâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blood, battles, buns Beards, berets, beasts, breasts Beating batter, buttered bread Batman, baseball, bees, broomsticks Boats and buttons, breathing booms Beeping booping beeping bopping Bras, butts, breeding, buts.

Wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that poetic?

Paducah Of all the places along the interstate to stop this. No trembling engines strapped with cargo vessels. You can’t know a city by its outskirts. The Subway on the far end, past the cashier in her cage and the fisheye mirrors in each corner for her to catch a thief— but who comes to a Subway-gas station outside Paducah, KY on a Sunday afternoon in March to steal a pouch of 2/$1 honey-roasted peanuts?— still, I am careful, keep my hands in sight, always building a case for my innocence after that one time, when I was 8, concerning a fifty dollar bill.

William Morris

The Subway is inexplicably busy. Old men in mesh hats and walmart denim and a woman sprouting screaming children. The worker stands there and I say a vegetable and she puts her body on the counter to reach, picking up iceberg lettuce debris on her apron like cat hair catching on your shirt the instant you enter a house where one has found love in whiskers and claws. I say another vegetable and she puts her body on the counter and scratches at the near-empty tub of that vegetable and I say forget it and then I only say vegetables she can reach and so I eat six inches of banana peppers and spinach and we’re back on the road

Wedding Vow Renewal Thomas Mays Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs. -Romeo In a small bed grasping a stuffed pillow approximating a human embrace— cold and dead without limbs or a face —and you were just barely aroused: hollow, stiff, and too bored to feel sorry for yourself. To hold and be held by something as warm and empty as you are; the void is doubled and there is a faint smell of stale sweat (you’ve never noticed your own), and ice-cold fingers clutch ice-cold fingers. “Am I just a hastily drawn French girl who was held in the corner for too long, had by a mawkish ‘hello,’ standing in front of grown boy (whose never even been to Paris), asking him if he’s noticed that it is still raining?” You heard me hungover, emptying my bowels and hopelessly retching: you could imagine the thick strand of drool hanging from my lip as you heard me sputter; you could almost see the toilet bowl brimming with vomit and diarrhea. This feeling you have—wrought by love stories and your own filth-banded memories—it isn’t anything special; but continually, and without apology, you cling to the only person who could ever help you forget that cold, dead pillow.

360 degrees x 2 Kaylyn Bauer Stoic it rests atop the concrete mountain. The rider long since gone - leaving the brake active. In the morning its gone, ridden back down to collect more patients.

My father built cairns. Or, he builds them. I’m not exactly sure anymore; it’s been just over two years since we’ve talked. See, we were walking in this sort of… field, or meadow. Mom was still around then, Isaac too. Dad kicked an elongated rock and it perched itself vertically on a larger rocky base, its sharpest point reaching for the sky. Then he said he thinks it’s pretty neat, how it looks. He laughed and we kept walking. This sort of thing didn’t really crop up again for a while, the laughing mostly. Later, Isaac finished fifth grade. Mother drove us to the graduation. Though what happened wasn’t her fault, I still can’t help but think she was partially responsible. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel after driving almost nonstop from Anchorage; a full five-day trip in only three. Mom was gone almost instantly. Blameless. But maybe if she had taken a different street, made a faster dinner. A slower one, even. We were told Isaac might not last the night. It didn’t take even that long. My father, a structural engineer, lost his job after not showing up for weeks. He stayed at home: drawing, designing and trashing whatever held promise. Eventually, a letter arrived explaining how sorry his boss was, but that he couldn’t have one of his engineers absent without a ‘legitimate’ explanation. He was invited back at any time. We moved around a lot from then on, staying in hotels mostly, occasionally camping, often sleeping in the van. Father began piling rocks. Though simple at first, merely two or three stones thrown together, the further west we moved the more intricate they became, as if trying to emulate the slowly approaching mountains. At the New Mexican border, they morphed from piles, to organized stacks. Tightly controlled balances of stone. Their size grew. Camping in the Mojave Desert, under the shadow of the Sierra Nevada Range, he began constructing rudimentary scaffolding, pulley systems. He gathered twenty boulders and stacked them ten feet high. The tower stood strong, never wobbling, despite the lack of support of smaller stones in its cracks. By our fire we stared at the monolithic creation and he told me that it looks like it’ll stand for gen-

erations, but he knew that with just a little push it would crash, probably killing the pusher in the process. Soon after, the little towers, large and small, took on a unique style. Reaching as high as possible with as few stones as he could manage. Long stones, only laying horizontally should balance require it, slowly deviated from the pre-existing trails we followed. Despite my personal indifference to our future destinations, and my father’s insistence that we were just travelling for the sake of it, it was clear we had turned North, or maybe, been pulled North. The trail by then stretched from that field in Oklahoma into the western desert, each successive stack, hundreds in all, growing and larger and closer together. In a public library in Colorado I did a bit of research on the structures. Stone piles have been used in religious rituals and as trail markers for thousands of years, in all cultures. I asked him about the cairns, he’d never heard the term. I asked him why we had to move; he just said told me we had to stick together. He said he liked the stability. I didn’t ask what he meant. Passing through Twin Lakes, Colorado, we camped among a series of abandoned cabins. Mature trees blocked each of the doors with a seeming intentionality. We made our camp outside a solitary cabin with a collapsed wall, the only one sure to be uninhabited, and here I began to suspect a madness growing within my father. I wandered the campground, attempting to discover the reasoning behind such an inexplicable formation of trees, and encountered a man with a flashlight. “Are you following the cairns too?” he said. It was too dark to make out many features, except what was illuminated by the light on the ground. Though even that seemed to penetrate little into the darkness of the forest. He was thin, perhaps even emaciated under his winter coat. With hair and beard that reached down past his collar bones. “No. We’re camping.” “Would you like to join me? They’re quite beautiful. I’ve been following them for miles.” “I’m sorry. No. Stay warm.” And with that, he shuffled past me into the dark. When we continued North after several days, I came upon the corpse, I presumed, of the emaciated man. He lay, propped awkwardly

against a pine. A few tears to his coat betrayed the interest of bears, and wolves, and small animals, but with almost nothing but skin stretched over bones, the body remained relatively undisturbed. “We’ll bury him,” said my father. And we did. Though shallow, the formation my father created above the grave was his most intricate to date. Not large, by any means, perhaps waist high, but By the time I was eighteen, over a year after we started the trek, we had made it to Alaska. We camped just north of Anchorage for months. Though the environment was less than ideal: frigid, windy, dry, at least it was semi-permanent. We hadn’t lived somewhere so long since the accident. He worked on a single cairn for the entire period. Building, balancing, rebuilding. He garnered a small following. The locals began to write about the structure; a small community of enthusiasts followed my father’s five-thousand-mile trail. The final design consisted of two towers, each over twenty feet tall and each weighing nearly half a ton. At their rocky summit he hoisted a massive, long stone with an array of pulleys, rope, and a wench. A small crowd, maybe fifteen people gathered to watch the completion. He lowered the capstone, bridging the gap. The cairn stood tall, solid and though my father did not smile, he appeared at least… content. I moved into town, but he didn’t follow. I worked, earned a bit of money. We hadn’t spoken in weeks. That September, in our camp, I wanted to convince him to come home. “It’s cold, Dad. It’s too cold here,” was all I could think to say. “I thinking about going north, to Fairbanks maybe.” I hitchhiked East, then South; there was no trail. I made my way home. Home would never be with Father again. Once, I saw a man in a diner in town, building stacks of fried potatoes and I considered asking him why. And now, I have to admit, I’ll find myself doing the same, trying to understand. Every few days I walk to that field where the trail begins, waiting for the most dedicated of my father’s followers. I think I’ll be waiting a while. I hope he made it to Fairbanks, if he left at all.

---Kevin Gleich

Another Motive (Without Metaphors) Jessie Eikmann “I love to masturbate, especially After a poem of mine’s accepted in A literary magazine…” -Jennifer L. Knox, “Another Motive for Metaphor” Since my name ain’t famous enough for me to jack off on a pile of acceptance letters, I’ll settle for lathering my snatch when I think about how someday you’ll come back to play with your favorite labia, and how after my last gasp you’ll be so imbued with “joy” (to use your euphemism) that whoever kisses you twenty years later will taste me in your gums— but sure, let’s go with the getting published thing.

Art or Politics Thomas Mays

I’ve lofty thoughts and lowly wants: contemplations of God and a fascination with cunt. I’ve idealized love and have suffered great loss— Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. (I cannot read Latin though.) How can I reconcile my fear of death with the oppressive weight of this waking life, or the strength of my erection against platonic enterprise? Why must I sit and think when I could lose myself to food and drink and drown in my own excess (how much easier it would be if my soul were lost to oblivious bliss and my glut and lust were shameless, endless)? I cannot come to terms with it— if “brevity is the soul of wit,” then

shit

piss

fuck cunt

cocksucker

motherfucker tits

may be the choicest words I could commit to discussions of human accomplishment, whether they be of science, religion, art or politics.

Observed by the Takeout Window at a Taco Joint on Delmar Zach Lee

Okay buddy, listen up: traffic’s crawling and your damned synthesized hihat’s tick tapping left and right and around the block above the thump thuh thump thump of your bass—yes, you’re base—amplified in your tricked out whatever-the-fuck kind of car (I don’t give a shit) is sneering at my everdwindling patience for assholes disturbing whatlittlepeaceIcanfind in this city. Put the windows up and —at least— hot box your sound if you must.

Across 5. Which organization has recently been described by Noam Chomsky as “Literally … the most dangerous organization in human history”? (2 Words) 6. What is the codeword for a government run by the US-supportive business classes? 9. Which Middle Eastern country, with US weapons and intelligence, frequently bombs hospitals and refugee camps in Yemen? (2 Words) 10. Which presidential nominee helped organize the 2009 Honduran coup d’etat, creating a major humanitarian crisis? (2 Words) 11. What was originally known as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Wall”? (2 Words) 15. People from this former territory were put in cages and displayed during the 1904 World’s Fair. 16. According to a 2014 Gallup International poll, which country is overwhelmingly considered to be the greatest threat to world peace? 17. Which Middle Eastern country, with US weapons and intelligence, frequently bombs its own occupied territories? 18. Which missile crisis, estimated to have a 50% chance of resulting in nuclear war, is considered to be among the greatest displays of JFK’s leadership?

Down 1. Which weapon, preferred by Obama’s global assassination/terrorism campaign, costs American taxpayers $13,770,000 a pop? (2 words) 2. Extreme religious fundamentalism is always preferable to ______. (2 Words) 3. What is the codeword for whatever military crusade the US happens to be advocating at any particular moment? (2 Words) 4. In which European country did the United States rig elections in order to “save democracy” following WWII? 7. Fascism is always preferable to ______. 8. Finish the quote by United States Marine Corps major general Smedley Butler, describing his role in Latin American military operations: “I was a racketeer, a gangster for ______,” 12. What would you have to be to support a neoliberal, neoconservative, propagandist war machine? 13. Which Middle Eastern country looks like a free, democratic society in comparison to #10? 14. What terrorist army, created by the CIA and funded by illegal arms deals and cocaine trafficking, was described by Reagan as the “moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers”? (Answers in Back)

A June Bug’s Night at Skeeter’s Square Elliot Russo They thrash against the glass pane Neon lights shimmer and pulse Images sway as the trip kicks Immense and unique like the Red Sparrow Thoughts Pondering Contemplation Chocolate Malts I scream You scream We all scream Not for ice cream A Huaihai of june bugs Rise in fleets from crunchy domains They swarm and terrorize the custard connoisseurs Myself oblivious to their onslaught of bitchy cries Attention is limited like shattered pieces Focus is scattered like dust particles I notice the ground beef as it is manhandled by the high priest Yet I can’t help but almost piss my pants A thousand thoughts a minute swirl in my distorted head Excursions consistent by the loyal Knee Neighbor Dilated sight and colors radiantly bright The touch, flow, and psychedelic trip slowly fade away

Excuse Me, Waitress? Yes, I’d like to order her heart, sautéed with onions and peppers and served on a smidgeon of rice pilaf. You know, her, the one who assumed that a text of “I can’t take any more of this. Sorry” is enough to cleave cleanly two and a half years? You look confused. You mean you don’t keep her scuttling inside a tank like at those fancy seafood places? Pity that. Now, as for the drinks— could you take all the booze you’re hoarding back there, mix it in a cauldron, and feed it to me through a funnel? I’m an angry drunk, and I intend to burn the city tonight. And since you’re in the business of serving, I’d like you to spike a milkshake with love potion and serve it to the girl I’ve been eying for four months. I know it may look like I’m content to lie like a cadaver in the glorious nothing next to me in the booth, but one way or another, I must convince her to fill the cracks in my bedroom wall. Jessie Eimann

Telecommunications Kyle Aiko

he contacts me. he contacts me via a video conference call executed on the communication platform designed by priit kasesalu and jaan tallinn. he contacts me with a discreet need to witness my unwanted genitals in a state of heightened arousal and climax. a digital photograph of his wanted genitals serve as his avatar. it rests in the upper corner of the graphic user interface of the video conference platform designed by kasesalu and tallinn. his wanted genitals rest on a thick tuft

of white protein filaments growing unkempt from follicles in his abdomen which protrudes, misshapen, as the result of a diet that consists in large parts of high fructose corn syrup additives and animal flesh that has been submerged in hot fat until thoroughly cooked his hands manipulate his wanted genitals. his wedding ring is almost unrecognizable due to the low pixel density of his optical recording instrument. it appears to be several, obscured, tarnished squares. he asks me my name. i comply. he disregards my answer.

he calls me by the name of his female offspring. he would prefer to see her in my place, but i have the genitals with which he wants interaction. he orders my physical contortion. i comply. he becomes distracted by the ringing of an analog communication device designed by alexander graham bell. he orders me to wait, contorted. i comply. the tone of his voice changes as he speaks to another sapien via the audio conference platform designed by

alexander graham bell. he discusses tomorrow-plans participating in a competetive physical activity where other sapiens will attempt to use clubs to hit balls into holes while swinging the clubs as few times as possible. he engages in a display of humor, discussing how his ceremonialized, legal female partner will be in attendance for the club and ball sport. he terminates the conversation carried through the analog communication device designed by alexander graham bell. he refocuses on the digital communication platform designed by kasesalu and tallinn.

he refocuses on the club and ball sport that motivates his ceremonial contact via that platform. he tells me he can no longer prevent himself from ejaculating. semen exits the tip of his penis at a predetermined velocity, and lands on his abdomen, misshapen from a diet that consists in large part of high fructose corn syrup additives and animal flesh that has been submerged in hot fat until thoroughly cooked. he demands that i ejaculate high fructose corn syrup onto the hot fat of my animal flesh. i comply.

On L’Ecuyerian Geometry Hart L’Ecuyer 120416

We are governed; by physics because we are, by geometry because we think. These are the rules of L’Ecuyerian geometry: —the only possible shapes are squares, triangles, and circles —the square (or Box) does not change in size —the triangle (the Self) can become larger or smaller —the circle (the Limit) can only become smaller —a triangle can break the box —a circle cannot break the box The Self is diminished by redefining itself within its Limits. Limits, in this context, create a radius of possibility drawn from the shortest distance from the center. The three points of the Self-triangle represent strength; the sides, our weakness. Thus, the Self is diminished by redefining its weakest points as its strongest points (and augmented by redefining its strongest points as its weakest). From the baseline the Self diminished

the Self augmented

They draw Limits around you so that you learn to draw Limits within yourself, and thereafter redefine yourself within those Limits. They draw the Box so that you learn to be small. They draw the Limits around you, because they know when you grow up you will think you are the Box. They know you will begin drawing Limits within yourself, which is the real reason for the Box. They show you the Box and say, “Look, that’s the biggest thing there is!” Then they draw Limits within the Box and you learn why the Limits are important. They tell you the Limits are there to keep you safe when you are in the Box, although you later learn as a byproduct of natural opposition to authority that the Limits are there to keep the Box safe from you. They know that usually your delusion that you are the Box will lead you to rediscover the value of Limits, because you will have been pounding at the Box with your fists all the while thinking you are the Box. Your bigheadedness will lead to an adult understanding. Your masochism is the cognitive dissonance between thinking you are the Box while you chafe under its grip. Then you will hate yourself and diminish. They want you to diminish because of your capacity to augment yourself. They structure the world so that you will turn your hatred for the Box into hatred for your Self, which will make you think your darkness is daylight. Your strength is always a threat. If you break your

Box, other Boxes will break too. The only reason they are strong is that they have convinced everyone else to be weak. Evil, because they see their power as dependent on the weakness of others; They see their Self as weak and believe they can only become strong by making others weaker by comparison. They alone deserve to diminish in a Box. They become lazy and fearful, or rather more so, because if they were not lazy and fearful they would have attained power without diminishing others. Their undoing is their very nature: they have turned into natural enemies those who have the capacity to defeat them. If they had not drawn Boxes to augment themselves by the diminishment of others, those who have the capacity to augment themselves innately would never have seen a need to do so. Greed is their undoing: they would have remained relatively powerful had they not been so intent on being MORE powerful. The only way the cycle ends is when people who are able to break the Box teach others to break the Box; when those who attain strength use their power to increase that of others. Power: relative strength founded on inequality. Having crossed the lineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;having gone too farâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the powerful have laid the seeds for a future which derives strength from strength. The past: The present:

The future:

Those who rule us have attained great strength in the industrial imbalance of power and in the process have unevenly and to a small degree alleviated the suffering of some. But somewhere in the last century we reached a plateau; the middle class that selectively blossomed in the industrial capitalization of semi-democratic nations soon began to shrivel in the shadow off the exponentially growing power of international oligarchs and monolithic corporations for whom the lower classes were only valuable insofar as they they constituted an army of hardworking people to buy things they didn’t need at prices they didn’t question. The day the people rise in mental as well as physical revolution must surely be approaching. Surely it won’t be long before America’s weary backbone— the humble and hardworking people who give so much and ask so little in return—draw a line in the sand which the psychopaths who run Government University Incorporated will surely cross. The pharaohs have enslaved us all into digging their graves. A prosperous equality grounded in equilibrium between self-interest and altruism can only be attained through restructuring our civilization to replicate the natural cooperation which escaped instinctual enshrinement in our evolution. That balance which has served us well in the past will serve us well again.

A Feast of Friends Dan Wright

With faces you’ve seen once and a thousand times from days and nights spent at the corner on Virginia and Cherokee Drunken nights of euphoria and our own moveable feast Pinball in the corner that makes the most annoying sound when you get an extra ball and a jukebox blaring that inspires the most enthusiastic off-key singing you’ve ever heard Walking through a door to one of the great nights of your life Finding at least one person you recognize they offer to buy you a shot and then you’re off to the races while friends drink their mason jar drinks and sing to each other the songs they bought to coast through the night With moments better than any fiction

Fueled by coffee in the morning beer in the afternoon and whiskey at night Moments that mean smiles to those who were there Conversations lost to time and hangovers Seeing the old souls and traveling sound machines Barflies and functioning alcoholics Walking pop culture encyclopedias Scenes intermingling with each other and oh yeah Some guy named Al Spider web tree branches becoming art becoming dreamcatchers under the street light Trouble houses down the cobblestone street Cherokee bums asking a dollar from anyone hanging outside or walking to their car and no end to anything ever except of course last call

Natural Bridge

William Morris

A sort of found art: I’m always making little notes of things Ben says, like Abstract Expressionism was funded by the CIA, or Dave Eggers (who wrote the new introduction to Infinite Jest) wasn’t so impressed on his first read. Or how Ben saw a guy get shot on Natural Bridge, then cross the street to sit outside QT bleeding. “I told the cashier, ‘I think somebody got shot out there’ and he said ‘What’ and then the cops walked in and the cashier checked us out and said ‘We’re closed.’” “Damn,” I said.

Behind that QT is the kind of motel looking for long-term tenants, vacancies always arising like exit wounds on a broken body. I make a note of this, as if writing it down might make any kind of difference.

Wonders in the Sky Or, Lovebirds Do Roswell Or, Mulder and Scully, Redux1 A Play in One Act with Three Titles by John Hagele

backyard. HAROLD: I needed a better vantage point. Higher ground, you know? Besides, this is where I was the first night I saw it. JOAN: (Shortly) I know. That’s how I knew I’d find you out here. (A beat. She waits for HAROLD to get up.) Well? HAROLD: Well what? Written: JOAN: Let’s go. It’s late and I want to get to March the 25th, The Year of Our Lord Two bed. Thousand and Sixteen HAROLD: You can go if you’re tired. It’s fine. I’m going to stay out here a bit longer. Dramatis Personae JOAN: You know you’re not going to see HAROLD: Male. Mid-Thirties. Slightly anything. nebbish. Married to JOAN. An engineer HAROLD: (Slightly hurt) You don’t know who’s entered his mid-life crisis early. Lifethat. long atheist. JOAN: Yes, I do. There’s no such thing as JOAN: Female. Early thirties. Married to flying saucers, Harold. HAROLD. A painter. Strong Catholic back- HAROLD: I’m not having this argument ground with you again, Joan. I know what I saw. JOAN: Do you though? I remember that Setting: A grassy hillside in a small town in night, Harold. It wasn’t clear like tonight; Washington state, not too far from Seattle. it had been raining for hours and it was so Time: 11:30 P.M. A dewy but clear April cloudy. You could have seen anything up night. there: a comet, a plane, anything. HAROLD: I’m pretty sure a UFO can fall (HAROLD sits alone in the middle of the under “anything”, Joan. hill. He is watching the sky intently, maybe JOAN: Maybe, Harold, but my point is that with binoculars. There’s a camera sitting you don’t know. And whatever you did see next to him. Every so often he grabs a note- certainly isn’t coming back again. You’ve book and scribbles something in it before been gazing up at the sky like this for what, immediately returning his gaze to the sky. six months now? And still nothing! The soft singing of crickets can be heard in HAROLD: You don’t get it! They’re everythe background.) where, there’s a pattern, and I’ve been tracking them! I’m not the only one who’s seen HAROLD: Tonight’s the night. I just know it! People all over the country see things just that tonight will be the night. (He checks like I did, every day! I’ve done the math, and the notebook) All the math is right; I know it’s coming back. (Joan looks at him incredtonight’s the night. It has to be. ulously) Besides, you weren’t there! If you had been, you’d understand. (JOAN enters stage right. She isn’t well JOAN: I sincerely doubt that. dressed to be outside, maybe having just HAROLD: Why’s that? What makes you so thrown on a jacket on over her pajamas. sure? She’s exasperated and a little out of breath.) JOAN: Because, Harold, I’m not crazy (She realizes what she’s said)—I mean, I’m not… JOAN: Harold, what are you doing out HAROLD: No, it’s fine. At least now I know here? You said you were going out to the how you feel. JOAN: That’s… that’s not what I meant. I’m 1 Yes, you must say all three titles or you’re doing it just confused, Harold. You’ve never been wrong. Signed, The Writer

like this before. HAROLD: Like what? (He looks back up at the sky and begins scribbling in his notebook again) JOAN: You’ve never been into this stuff before. Not for real at least. I mean, I knew you liked Star Wars, but all this “Little Green Men” stuff is another level. I think you have more UFO books in your office now than you have actual work; you’ve covered the spare bedroom with news clippings and pages of your (she points at the notebook) calculations. I just don’t think it’s healthy. HAROLD: Maybe it isn’t, but I don’t really care. This is the most alive I’ve felt in years, Joan. I finally feel like I’m doing something that matters. I didn’t expect you to understand, but I thought you’d at least be happy for me. JOAN: Is this about your job? Jesus, Harold, I know you hate your job, but this is a lousy way to deal with it. If you want a new job, quit and find a new one. It’d be easy. HAROLD: I was going to quit, really I wasJOAN: Then do it! We could move back to Seattle, it’ll be great! Your old firm would take you back, I’m sure. And I could get a job somewhere, anywhere if it’ll help. You were so much happier there anyways. HAROLD: I don’t want to go back to Seattle, Joan. I can’t. Not now. JOAN: (Her excitement deflated) Because of this? HAROLD: Yes, because of this! This is the most important thing I’ve ever been a part of! Besides, I already quit. JOAN: You already WHAT? HAROLD: I already quit. It was taking up too much time. JOAN: Where are we getting any money then? HAROLD: I’ve been dipping into our savings a little. Living’s cheap out here, Joan. Not like Seattle. JOAN: You just up and did that without telling me? Were you even going to tell me? HAROLD: Of course I was. (His attention has been slowly shifting up back to the sky

over this exchange) JOAN: When? HAROLD: (Apparently does not hear her. His focus is totally on the Sky) JOAN: HAROLD! HAROLD: What? JOAN: When were you going to tell me? HAROLD: Once I saw it again. Once I had proof. (He motions to the camera) JOAN: I just don’t get it, Harold. I just don’t get it. HARDLD: (Looking away from the sky at her) Well, now we’re even. JOAN: (Exasperated) Even? What do you mean we’re even? HAROLD: I told you before we got married that I would never understand your Church stuff, your Jesus stuff, all the Saints and priests. Well, now you don’t understand something that’s important to me. We’re even. JOAN: Those two things aren’t even remotely the same, Harold! I’m frankly insulted that you’d even compare them? HAROLD: Why’s that? JOAN: Because they’re totally different! One’s the most important thing in my life, handed down from St. Fucking Peter and Christ Fucking Jesus. The other’s a bunch of crack pot, conspiracy theory bullshit as real as Bat Boy or the Loch Ness Monster. HAROLD: You know there are some people who believe that UFOs inspired the Bible? JOAN: What? That’s nonsense. HAROLD: “The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” JOAN: What does that even mean? HAROLD: It’s from the Book of Isaiah, he’s describing angels, or at least what he thinks are angels. JOAN: You think flying saucers are the same things as angels? HAROLD: I have no idea. I’ve never seen an honest-to-God angel before, so I can’t really make a comparison. JOAN: But you have seen a flying saucer?

HAROLD: I never said I saw a flying saucer, Joan, and you damn well know it. I saw an Unidentified Flying Object. JOAN: Well, what did it look like? Was it a big wheel-y thing made of beryl or whatever? HAROLD: I’ve told you before! JOAN: No you haven’t. HAROLD: What? I know I have. JOAN: Harold, we’ve barely spoken about it since it happened. You told me you saw a UFO, and originally I thought that was going to be it. You’d seen something weird, but I figured you’d move on soon enough. But then you started buying all the books, and watching those weird videos on YouTube, and spending all hours of the night scribbling in that goddamn notebook and staring at the sky like the most important thing in your life is up there. Ever since it happened, I don’t feel like we’re even married. We barely talk, you’re always out here when I’m going to bed, and in the mornings I’m always gone before you’re up; I can’t remember the last time we had sex. All because you’re so obsessed with this goddamn thing in the sky. I’m your wife! I should mean more to you than some spaceship. HAROLD: (A beat. He sighs, whether from annoyance or concern it can’t be sure) Do you want to know what it looked like? JOAN: I… I guess so. I want to understand, Harold. I really do. HAROLD: (Gazing up at the sky, longingly) It was…it was hard to describe. Imagine a little silver sun, the shape of a cigar, gliding through the open sky like a swan on clear water. It was so bright and shiny; you could see it perfectly even with the clouds. There were these little rainbow-colored lights that blinked along its side. They glowed like friendly faces. And it made this sound like a tornado, but beautiful instead of terrifying. The thing was hypnotic—you couldn’t look away even if you wanted to. When I saw it, I wanted it to come down so I could see it more clearly, but it was so far away. JOAN: (She takes a seat next to HAROLD)

I…I still don’t understand. This just all sounds like nonsense to me. HAROLD: Like I said, no we’re even. JOAN: I guess. Harold, is this really about a UFO? Are you sure this isn’t about something else? HAROLD: Are you asking about my job again? I told you, Joan, that’s behind me already. Once I see it again, I’ll find a new job. Hell, if I get a good picture of it, we could make a lot of money. I could write a book or something— JOAN: (Cutting him off) I’m not talking about your job, Harold. I’m talking about your life, about our lives. Are you happy? HAROLD: (Taken aback) I…uh, I don’t really know. JOAN: It’s not a hard question. Just tell me, yes or no. HAROLD: It’s more complicated than that Joan. I don’t know if I’m happy, but I have a purpose for a change and that’s kind of like being happy. JOAN: Do I make you happy? HAROLD: (Tries to ignore the question) JOAN: Harold, please, just tell me. Are you doing this because you’re unhappy with me? Is this because you don’t love me anymore? HAROLD: Joan…Joan, no, that’s not it at all. I love you, I love you so much, but I know you’re here. I know that, when I come down from this hill, you’ll be waiting there at the house for me. But that thing in the sky, I don’t know when it’ll be there. So I have to keep looking for it, because I have to see it again. JOAN: But why do you have to see it again? Why isn’t our life down here good enough for you? HAROLD: Because the answer to it all is up there! JOAN: What does that even mean, Harold? HAROLD: You can’t understand, Joan. The skies have always been alive for you. You’ve always had Heaven, had something bigger than all this up there. The fucking choirs of angels, and grandma and grandpa, and the throne room of Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ himself have always been up there waiting

for you. I’ve never gotten to have that. My dad was a secular Jew who thought religion was the poison of the world and my mom was a former hippy who never set foot in a church a day in her life. The skies were always empty for me. But then, then I saw it and everything changed. Suddenly the sky was full of possibilities. Maybe it wasn’t God, but it was something bigger than mortgage payments, and quarterly budgets, and the World Series. I had faith in something for the first time in my life, and I need to know that it’s real, that I’m not crazy. JOAN: Harold…I…I don’t know what to say. HAROLD: You don’t have to say anything, Joan. Just let me watch the skies. JOAN: Maybe, we could watch them together then? HAROLD: That…would be nice. (The two sit together, gazing up at the sky. They hold each other for a while. You can tell that this is the most intimate they have been in a long time. There’s nothing sexual about the way they hold each other, they’re only just beginning to rebuild. Maybe someday, maybe even someday soon, but not tonight. Once again, you can hear the sound of crickets singing in the background.) JOAN: What time is it? (She pulls out her cell phone) It’s almost midnight. I need to get to bed, Harold; I’ve got a lot that needs to get done tomorrow. Will you come back down with me? HAROLD: (A beat. He looks at his materials, up at the sky, thinking) Just a little bit longer? Five more minutes, that’s all. JOAN: (Squeezing him tight, joyfully) Alright, five more minutes. (They gaze up at the sky together.) JOAN: Maybe you were right. HAROLD: About what? JOAN: Maybe UFOs are the in the Bible. In some ways, it makes just as much sense as angels, doesn’t it? HAROLD: Maybe it does, Joan, maybe it does. JOAN: You’re my very own Isaiah.

HAROLD: (A beat) You know, this is just about the time I first saw it. JOAN: Was it? HAROLD: Yep, it’s amazing what happens to you when you can’t sleep and go for a walk. JOAN: Sometimes it is, I suppose. Look at tonight. I was going to go to bed, but I couldn’t fall asleep. HAROLD: And now here we are. JOAN: Mhmm, here we are. (A soft whooshing, like that of the wind, can be heard in the background.) JOAN: (Almost disbelieving) Harold, do you see that? HAROLD: (His gaze snapping up to the sky) What? Wait! That’s it, there in the distance! (The whooshing gets a bit louder. The THING is getting closer.) JOAN: Oh my God, Harold you were right. It’s beautiful! HAROLD: It’s getting closer! Oh my God, Joan, it didn’t come this close before. I can see it so clearly! JOAN: You were wrong! You were wrong, Harold! HAROLD: What are you talking about? JOAN: That’s not a spaceship, that’s an angel! It’s got to be! HAROLD: It’s coming right over us! It’s so close, Joan! I can see it so clearly! (A harsh spotlight shines down on the two of them, signifying that the THING is directly overhead. The whoosh has increased to a roar) JOAN: I feel so light, Harold! He’s going to take us with Him! HAROLD: We’ll go together, Joan! We’ll see the skies! JOAN: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! (Blackout) Curtain

This Was Not Where

Thanksgiving is the Lonliest Holiday Thanksgiving is the loneliest holiday when the only thing to keep you company is the mouse you hear scratching through the wall and your dinner is a bottle of wild turkey You hear through the grapevine of all the Friendsgivings that people you know are having but you weren’t invited to as you try to call family in and out of town who all have plans you want to speak up ask why you weren’t invited but the ones in town don’t answer The only people who contact you are the bored wife who tries to fuck you behind her husband’s back to say she wishes she was with you so you could be inside her

Dan Wright

and her husband who hacked her phone to tell you to do the world a favor and kill yourself at least they cared enough to write With each swig you can hear the mouse try harder and harder to make his way through the wall you wish you were in Chicago like when you were younger spending Thanksgiving with family but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no room for family for the working class not if Black Friday has anything to say about it Thanksgiving is the loneliest holiday

1. Contras 2. Democary 3. Peace Process 4. Philippines 5. Capitalism 6. Comminsm 7. Secular Nationalism 8. Hillary Clinton 9. Israel 10. Saudi Arabia 11. Iran 12. Republican Party

13. Italy 14. Berlin Wall 15. Cuban 16. Predator Drone 17. United Staets 18. Ignorant

I pour the rum as the Metro whistles the curtains rattle with a gust of wind-a spirit hello. Kaylyn Bauer

I pour the rum as the Metro