BL #23 by Blood Lotus Journal

Issue #23, March 2012

Photo by Danae Wolfe

In This Issue... Letter from the Editors Marcus Whalbring

4 Shower Me

Photography by Danae Wolf Joy O. Yejide KMT

5 7

Daughters of War (This Can’t Be Life Remix)

A Lock of Mary Shelley’s Hair

Talking to Emily and Virginia

David Dodd Lee

Eavesdropping

Nathan E. White

Exchange

Judith Ann Levinson

Black Crayon

Pui Ying Wong

How Much Heaven

Kelly R. Lynn

Claudia

Chuck Richardson

Ideology of the Germ

Amy Nash

Photography by Danae Wolfe

Emily Yates

Copperhead

Atom Ariola

Somewhere, Arizona

Grace Bauer

Spare the Rod

Verna Austen

Submerged

Photography by Danae Wolfe

Andrew Cox

Sleepyhead

Mollie Young

The Boys from Auto Shop

Leigh Mackelvey

Lakeview Trailer Park

Photography by Danae Wolfe Caroline Thompson

40 On a Drawing of How to Kill Sam Pink

Photography by Danae Wolfe

41 42

Lisa Douglass

Try Stuff

Aaron Smith

Psalm (Boston)

Psalm (West Virginia)

My Paper Soul

The Sixth Sun Has Arrived

Resurrection

José Hernández Díaz

Shannon Draper Photography by Danae Wolfe

Stacia M. Fleegal Interviews Geoffrey Gatza of BlazeVOX

Contributors

~ #23 is dedicated to poet Caroline Thompson, who passed away on January 6, only a few weeks after she sent us the poem that appears in this issue. Rest in peace, Caroline. The Editors ~

Marcus Whalbring SHOWER ME The girl lay dying in the field while I took pictures of the sky. It was November, warm, windy; I think there were Christmas lights in windows already, commercials on TV proclaiming holiday bargains. Back then, you could sleep in till nine or so, then shower, have lunch, maybe take a walk to the park where leftover leaves scratched across the sidewalks, and the swings swayed, looking sad. Or else you could watch TV before going to work. I knew she was gone when they took her from the helicopter, which had not taken off, and they carried her back to the ambulance. So I decided to take pictures of the neighbors who had their hands over their mouths like they didn‘t want their innocence to, in some way, escape. I guess I wanted to go on loving the world, to fill myself up with my fears and let them work on me until I was empty again. I knew something would come along, and there‘d be all this room for it, in some small, dry room, quiet, dusty, just enough natural light. I thought: ―This happens once every three or four years in a person‘s lifetime; sometimes you have to lose your leaves and grow them back.‖ I couldn‘t find a drop of blood in the flowers or broken glass, or in contortions of metal and earth. I stood remembering the wedding I had gone 5

Marcus Whalbring to just the week before; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d taken a walk in the cemetery by the church. There were kids running all around me in the grass. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;m not sure why I thought of that or why it hurt so much; I guess because I sometimes wish there were no gardens or graves. Just flowers.

Photo by Danae Wolfe

Joy O. Yejide KMT DAUGHTERS OF WAR (THIS CAN‘T BE LIFE REMIX) daughters of war make love to Liberian refugees with S-curls some days wake up in strange motel rooms no memory. pray. hide behind spreading pine trees for fear of barking rottweilers. behind gates visit prison with no panties. wake up gunshots creasing sleep from brains. teenage boys unzip, threaten murder. pray. yellow blood bus rides cripland. throw ghetto mudras. wake up. bricks slam windows hit good boys in chest raining glass on the girls wearing red checkerboard jackets lying low on corrugated steel floors by the tire humps. pray wake up. monsters live in the mirror. pray. avoid the eyes especially night. play bloody mary. listen to crickets, unzip mothwings, grind ‗em up, grind ‗em up, grind ‗em up, shake ‗em, roll dice next breath. pray. drink. wear a sequined miniskirt. to the bar rape is evidence of desire man tells wife. wake up. can‘t keep legs closed or zipped pray. count blessings it‘s over before it‘s begun just don‘t think. pray. wake up. call God. ask why stomachs are tigers when the green card should work. pray. get to work. society‘s burden. head down 8

Joy O. Yejide bottom up mule. walls are confining. fly. travel. draw constellations. pray. on the walls. when the high comes down wake up. write fairytales for daughters. pray.

Amy Nash A LOCK OF MARY SHELLEY‘S HAIR Virginia‘s walking stick washed up on the bank. It looks like someone stole the ceremonial bronze key from its case. Things are not lookalikes unless we want them to be. I wouldn‘t know what to do with a Goliath mouth harp. Wouldn‘t empty a box of Valium on a marble floor. Bad news kills the mood to wander—but there‘s nothing else to do. It‘s free. I‘ve been paying on time. It says ―walk‖—I run because trust is a rusted-out dream I‘m afraid will crumble if touched.

Amy Nash TALKING TO EMILY AND VIRGINIA I am mute to rain that falls for three minutes and sunlight following in the wind. Mute to women with children and those children smiling from strollers back at me. I am mute to unemployed flowers growing in crevices within paths of a park. Mute to shadows of herons shifting in peculiar light. A dwelling called home. â&#x20AC;&#x2022;Laughter, laughter, the moths say.â&#x20AC;&#x2013; It is time to make some noise against the inside of this light.

David Dodd Lee EAVESDROPPING In the shadow of the house a house a lung Bad news comes on Sundays The moon is rising in its veil of The catfish, muzzled, keep crawling ashore, not barking, not knowing * Let me start again: no matter the content I am apparently still screaming Screaming while the day sinks into night Screaming while the wind shifts more easterly over the water * Suddenly all is quiet again My parents are holding drinks in their hands, smiling into a mirror at each other

Nathan E. White EXCHANGE First announced as gunshot to head. Then a revision. Ruptured abdomen, cleaved by one bullet, caliber unspecified. You would die slowly, extended chance for someone to find you. No No No No Ever given a window? Spoiled? Fixed by commands? You‘ve tried before. No, not this way. You went home. Just you. Then follow-through. Feverish days, I wore no shirt, my father likewise which was unusual in front of others. Streaked with sweat, our stomachs swollen, distended— but we held tight. Father, between your sons and their mother— Have I kept you, Brother? What do we say from here? (No No No No) Were you a finch? A German shepherd? Like anyone?

Judith Ann Levinson BLACK CRAYON I am in my sonâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s room On the floor with a photo of him At Longwood Gardens when he was ten Sitting on a bench with white dogwood Several petals on his blond head Fools. They say he is dead, sheets of dust Swirling into his face and suddenly on his knees As when he hauled out his Middle School box With a catcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s mitt, marbles, and a small diary He could never find the key Dead. The loud knocks at the door wanting in The moon wanting in to be a white bean bag Chair and the old metal soldiers scattered On the floor where he knelt and prayed for peace Not heat, the watercolor trickle of blood And everything in a pack except his gun Like the black crayon sticking out.

Pui Ying Wong HOW MUCH HEAVEN Spring, and the college students show up like perennials colonizing the town, lines at the gas stations, 7-Eleven, cheap Chinese buffets. I watch the bubble-gum girls, so much hunger for sun. So much love for the baby-faced boys, especially those who thrash out crass little jokes, trash-talk their way down to Ft. Lauderdale. But who can blame them, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t I come too, like a battle-wearied ship looking for blue water, the brightest sky? If you are like me waking up every morning before the birds do, the day drags on like the days in childhood, like the old British Empire whose sun never set. You do your best, make dutiful trips to the post office, the bank, the pharmacy, put on a new pair of trousers for the doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s appointment. Even now I ask myself, waiting here for the early bird special when the sun has barely left the zenith, how much light can one tolerate? How much blue water, how much heaven?

Kelly R. Lynn CLAUDIA Bridging sea and sky, a rosy column arisen as though suspended in a ray of sun—see? On the Kiawah shore, the girl from Aachen. Her name? C-l-a-u-d-i-a. Say it aloud. No, no, not like that. Two syllables: klow-tya. Roll the name like a cloud in your mouth—klow— but then, say the d more like a t, struck like a thunderclap that clips and sizzles off into a light summer shower, a soft sigh of affirmation… -ya. Claudia summons me from the rest, her accent, Teutonic, arresting, a cord binding me close, closer, to catch the English schnelling and schnurring from Claudia‘s pink Germanic lips. Our skins drip rivulets, opalescent as damp jellyfish on sand. Strands of half-wet hair, Claudia‘s yellow as a haystack, cling to cheeks round as the dunes where I coach Claudia on American slang, the name, Claudia, airy on my tongue, sharp with the tang of chlorine, salt coating reddened flesh, breasts dangling like white mangoes… just out of—Claudia—reach.

Chuck Richardson IDEOLOGY OF THE GERM Another symbol of the female genitals is a jewel case. The professor wants to impress her, and she‘s blushing for him. Your face is turning orange. Are you embarrassed? She nods, looking at the palm-sized faceless ochre-covered oolitic limestone carving with the swollen, anatomically correct vulva. Indeed, it resembles a jewel case…a furry oyster with a pearl inside. Why? I…I‘m not used to… Its oversized breasts and pregnant belly remind her of her uncle‘s photos of Pandora Cones. You‘re not used to frank sexual discussion. It seems to be wearing a basket on its head, its detail revealing the carver must have spent more time on depicting the basket headdress than the rest of the object all together. Well… You‘re in college now. You have to know Freud. He says it‘s all about sex. We‘re talking about Freud. Not you or me. The girl seems comforted. She perceives what she thinks is the artist‘s rendering of a loose string streaming from the basket. She imagines pulling it. I was just raised to believe… That sex was dirty. No… She pulls it, unraveling in her mind a Neolithic hemp revolution dominated by female pornographers and sha(wo)men in which pornography is spiritual and nets and baskets more essential than stone-carved spears. Cain‘s sexier than Abel, who‘s a misogynistic daddy‘s boy. You‘re attracted to your father. No…I… You resent your mother. She knew the woman who carved this figurine was an insistent feminist. Feminism is something women have always needed to insist on if the race were to continue. Here Adam, eat this fruit and please me first, or you ain‘t getting laid. Clitoral wisdom rules. Oral sex means I‘m the word… I don‘t… Your vagina is a jewel case. Riches you‘re saving for… Have a father. My mothers are lesbian. The figurine‘s vulva appears to contract. The professor leans forward. Really. Yes. 17

Chuck Richardson The Egyptian asp, which has been sleeping in its well-lit case next to the figurine, inanimate once again in its own case, stirs, uncoiling a bit to raise its head and stare at them. Tell me about it. I don‘t think… No. You need to develop a framework from which to read. Greater selfunderstanding will improve your reading. Better reading means better response papers, which means you‘re learning. The asp, having slithered from its rock, raises its head, tonguing the atmosphere intently. I was adopted. OK. I was told that my feelings about it are a form of post traumatic stress disorder. I was shocked and scarred by my post partum abortion. I‘ve suffered severe depression with psychotic symptoms since I was eleven. Go on. I‘ve had recurring nightmares my entire life about clinging to a translucent red wall with the sound of machinery grinding away beneath me, pulling me from the wall. What does that mean? I don‘t know. How do you feel about your mother? Which one? Biological. Nothing. I feel nothing about her at all. It‘s as if I‘ve fallen off her planet. If anything I resent her giving me up, exiling me from that world. Do you know how hard it is being an alien growing up with lesbian moms? Tell me. I can‘t. It‘s beyond words. Now we‘re getting somewhere. We are? Yes. Where? The snake perks up even more, its tail rising and falling sporadically in the direction of its mouth. To the place your thinking belongs. When you squirm, you know you‘re there. That‘s what all this is for…this is what it‘s all about. The figurine appears to be sweating. Ochre gooseflesh is bubbling its limestone skin. The pattern woven into the basket on her head seems ever more complex, spiraling into unimagined tightness as its humongous labia pinch its imagined cervix closed. The clam slams shut on a stick. What? Life. I don‘t get it. 18

Chuck Richardson Neither do I. We‘re not supposed to. We can only look in the most interesting direction. The asp is spying its tail with what she imagines to be a reptilian mix of dread and desire. Peripherally, the figurine seems to spread its legs then close them as she shifts her focus. The professor leans back to take in his student‘s body. There‘s something about the African female form that titillates him. Mulattoes simply absorb him since he perceives that their legs tend to be somewhat shorter and their thighs somewhat meatier…He likes meaty thighs, even a little cellulose does… What are you looking at? The professor blushes and removes his glasses. I‘m not blushing, I‘m flushed with an idea. He wipes his glasses as they rest in his lap. She notices… I think you need to confront your neuroses head on. I think you need to shatter some of your taboos. I think you‘ll find that liberating. You‘ve got to let go of all this pain. But it won‘t be easy. I‘m here to help you. He puts his cleaned glasses on his desk. She leans back into her chair, folding her arms over her breasts as if she were cold, pushing them together beneath her skin-tight sweater. I also have a Ph. D. in psychology. I could practice, but I haven‘t bothered getting a license. I like this job. But I do help people informally, whenever and however I can. Her face pinches as she searches for words, looking back and forth between the figurine and venomous serpent. This is all about getting your mind opened up so you can do the work at hand properly, or should I say the way you‘re truly capable of. This is a chance, pardon the pun, for you to be all you can be. Consider me a facilitator. He starts wagging his legs back and forth, touching them at the knees then spreading them again, over and over, working himself into a full blown erection. OK. But I want to get a couple of things straight. She puts her hands on her knees, leaning forward, pressing those tits together as they hang so deliciously, causing the professor to mimic her and lean forward to put his hands on his knees, pressing his scrotum down into the seat cushion, bringing him even more into the spirit of things. I ain‘t no ho. An‘ I wanna A for doin this shit. Nothin‘s free. She doesn‘t know exactly where that language came from. It just seemed appropriate. She‘s in overdrive. If you do the work required, and you do it well, going beyond what I ask of you, I can guarantee you will get an A. I‘m always fair. OK. First things first. Everything you just said? It applies to you. You‘re not used to frank sexual discussion. Your cock and balls are the scepter and orbs you save for your African queens. You‘re the one who‘s got a thing for his mother. You‘re the one who sees me—an African-American female—as a 19

Chuck Richardson facilitator, an object or totem or taboo that will liberate you from your incestuous desire for your mother, letting you become all you can be with someone young enough to be your daughter. You see me as an African slave woman to own and dominate, a way to claim your white male manhood as if your seat in this office and your diplomas weren‘t enough already, as if you needed more than your manly whiteness to be a real man. Am I getting somewhere? I will not, and cannot, resist you. However, I must point out that your insistent manner in proving me to be what I am is done with a similar grain of unselfconsciousness to my own. What you say I said applies to you indeed applies to me, but nonetheless—as originally stated—it applies to you as well. You may not be sexually attracted to your father, but you are sexually attracted to father figures, I think. We‘re in the same boat. Two of a kind sharing time. I could see it in your eyes the very first day of class, sitting up front… The asp swallows its tail then spits it out. He opens his desk drawer and pulls out a bowl. With the other hand, he starts the fan. Keeping her hands on her knees, she arches her back some, puffing out her breasts, smiling, as he packs the small pipe with a pinch of weed. The office seems a safe place. The figurine‘s labia appear to part, and a pearl drops from its cunt. Where did you learn all that shit about the black woman and the white man? I did some reading to get ready for college. My uncle told me what to read, what to watch out for. He told me about professors like you. She perceives the asp staring at the pearl through two layers of actual glass, its tail again approaching its mouth with caution. What he say? He said that most men are like male birds, they build fancy bowers and nests, make themselves beautiful and attractive with their achievements, shamelessly compete, swell their chests, puff their feathers, make strange sounds, perform strange dances…all just to get laid. The black man‘s the kind of bird who‘s real purty. He relies on his looks and his raw masculinity. White men like you get all your diplomas to build self-esteem in the face of the superior black man who you dominate because of your superior numbers, and set yourself up in the right positions to fulfill your sexual fantasies with the frightening mandingo‘s woman. You use this office of yours as a bower. It‘s just like you said, it‘s all about sex and sex is all about power and power‘s all about myth, psyche and numbers. Father and daughter, mother and son got nothing essential to do with it. That apparent hierarchy is a product, not a cause, of the white man‘s capitalism and reflects a general perversion of his nature. It‘s much more evolved, much kinkier than any one particular line of thought...any ism that needs to harness this drive to exercise power. 20

Chuck Richardson What is much more evolved? The pearl passes through the glass of the figurine‘s case, then through the asp‘s. It rolls to a position midway between its tail and mouth, strangely bringing her thoughts into focus. It. That thing that‘s going on between us. You‘ve never felt as if there was a third thing involved between two consenting adults, as if there were something else that just took over? A kinky thing, a perversion, a fetish? Yes. My neurosis. I have a thing for… My ass. What‘s goin on in yer head ain‘t half of what‘s goin on in my ass. Trust me. That‘s where the germs are. The snake swallows its tail again, encircling the stone. What germs? The germs of life, that shit that‘s going through us that was alive one way, is living now another, and will be alive tomorrow some other way but still a germ inside something, unchanged, ready to go through us all over again, until eventually it‘s us going through it, the Germ, the thing that‘s really alive…my ass. The asp shits in its own mouth, which contracts at the taste, sinking its venomous fangs into its own backside, injecting itself with its own poison. Are you sure that business is the right major for you? I mean, that‘s almost poetic. With a little work… The pain from the bite, however, ensures the serpent does not sink its teeth all the way into itself, causing the poison that was not injected into its blood to seep down between and around the scales in its skin. The result is nothing more than a generalized numbness. With a little work doing what? Eating that shit? Probing it? Transforming it from what it is into language? I‘d rather deal with the things themselves, the germs, not their words or diseases. That‘s why I‘m in business. If I change my major, it will be to biology. My advisor says the dumbest people go into education and English. From what I‘ve seen so far, she‘s right. The real players of the future will be business-oriented biologists. I want to live a real life. I want to experience some ass fucking. How bout you? The figurine seems to be looking forlornly at its lost jewel, encased in glass and surrounded. The professor sprays the office with air freshener and lights the bowl. Everyone, deep down, wants to experience a little ass fucking, my dear, he puffs, exhaling small plumes out the window with each word, and it makes me curious as to why you‘re taking my class? He hands her the pipe, she hits it, holding her breath, feeling the smoke expand inside her, mushrooming into a cloud overwhelming her mind with color. She lets it out in easy paisley plumes of blue and grey and green with strings of purple haze, fluing it out the window with rounded lips, helped by the fan. The professor sprays the room again, protecting its safe and warm 21

Chuck Richardson environment from offensive odors that could escape into actuality, exposing their pureness, the singularity of their moment. So, you wanna know why I‘m taking your class. I‘m on a father quest like you said. You know, Joseph Campbell, Robert Bly, Carl Jung…all that crap. Crap? Not crap, but yada yada yada…I‘m trying to make sense of my life. I‘ve got it up to here with mother. Now I need father. I need formal framing for my psyche to individuate. Does that make sense? I think your course might be a piece to the puzzle. Your super ego might inadvertently provide the structure for a superego I can use. A big piece, I think. The serpent is contracting, swallowing its own tail ever deeper. She can see its shape passing through its shape, not a rat, but itself. The professor takes a hit and hands her the bowl, then directs her eyes with his away from one reptilian spectacle to another—the unfolding swelling activity expanding his crotch. Come to Poppa, eh? She exhales in his face. He sprays the room, waving his arm. She leans forward and puts her hand on the professor‘s… There‘s a soft rapping at the door. Two drops of milk emerge at the tips of the figurine‘s tits. Who is it? It‘s Rufus, professor. Rufus Lucius. It‘s poddy tom‘z alriddy? Shit. Rufus, buddy. I‘m with someone. Come back in an hour and we‘ll do lunch. Ah, sure professor. I hear ya. One o‘clock it is then. One o‘clock. Rufus replaces one diskette for another in the small remote video recording device lodged into the door jam at floor level. The drop extending from the left breast breaks first, splashing onto the pregnant belly, then the other drop falls on the other side. It‘s as if its areolas are eyes, and they‘re crying from the pupils, or nipples, either way. Who was that? The janitor. He‘s got good weed. That‘s where I got this. We do lunch every Friday. Rufus watches the light turn green coinciding with the sound of her voice, and walks away down the hallway, muttering asshole. The asp has now swallowed as much of itself as it can. The figurine‘s oolitic tits continue crying, causing the ochre to soften and run. The statue, it seems, is lactating blood. She unzips the professor and a meerkat pops from his fly under its own volition, searching the world for adventure. She pounces on it, an asp on its tail, spitting and gnawing its stunned animal nature into acquiescence, chewing til its head pops spewing those whose aim could have been, perhaps, 22

Chuck Richardson her jewel case, but instead, finding their new milieu less fertile ground, perhaps, than they‘d been hoping for, must now somehow come to terms with the fact they will never evolve into the next Tiger Woods, Katie Couric or Einstein. But, thank goodness, we need not feel sorry for the professor‘s sperm for too long, since they are perishing quickly, spent in the woman‘s spit, ejaculated with an offensive thwack from her sticky mouth into the coffee grounds stuck to the side of the plastic bag inside the university‘s metal trash can. The figurine, too, is carelessly wasting its bloody milk on its stone cold belly. The professor, however, is not so quick to recover. You went at that like a whore! What did you expect, Daddy? Don‘t call me that! Wasn‘t I a good girl, Daddy? He grabs a handful of her hair and yanks, twisting her head to one side in an awkward position, and he lowers his face to hers, I said don‘t call me that. You‘re being a naughty girl. You know what happens to naughty girls? The professor opens the bottom drawer of his desk with his free hand, and yanks her head down into position so she can see the contents of the drawer, which make her… This needle‘s all set with an innovative yet-to-be-patented concoction my friend over at the pharm lab made up. It‘s guaranteed to make your cunt itch for cock all week. This one makes your clit hypersensitive. I‘ve been told it can feel it when someone‘s just looking at it. Makes the damn thing almost human, don‘t it? And this one, well, this one gives you an unquenchable thirst for cum. You‘ll drink it, your belly will crave it. And it will put an end to your spitting. The rest are good for various other parts of your body I might want to use…But right now, I think it‘s this one you need. We‘ve got to stop you from spitting. I promise not to spit anymore. Just don‘t give me that. It won‘t hurt. It will increase your pleasure. Make you a little less nasty. I‘ll be any way you want me to be, please. It‘s too late for that now, says the professor, injecting her in the neck with the long needle. She sucks air, beginning to scream, but he covers her mouth. Then, one by one, he injects her with every needle in the drawer, until finally it‘s his own needle, his own appendage of pointed flesh poking her where the drugs tell her she needs it. He‘s wearing himself out, she‘s in a blissful stupor, the small office is in disarray all around them as he has had to find various objects to subdue her lust simultaneously, making him wonder between cumshots if it were really worth it going at things so intensely with a woman less than half his age, but when those cumshots erupt he feels a bliss that erases the question, and now, after an hour, he‘s laying in a heap on the floor, naked. She seems barely able to contain herself, disappointed in the professor‘s lack of stamina. 23

Chuck Richardson He sees first the spider in the corner over the door, then its web. A dark movement catches his attention. It‘s a fly. There‘s a soft rap on the door, vibrating the web, making the spider and fly roll with the ripples of its effect. Professor? You in dare, professor? It‘s Rufus. It‘s lunchtime. Come on in Rufus. The professor, too exhausted to speak, gazes up at the janitor with wonder as he puts his arm around the student laying next to him, a nekkid live wire. Professor, I been meanin‘ to tell ya my niece was one a yer students, but ah nivver got around to it. There is in fact, professor, lots of things I haven‘t told you. For one, I don‘t really talk the way I have been with you. That was an act. You ate it up like I knew you would. For another thing, you don‘t remember me or my sister, Thelma, even though I set you up with her twenty years ago and you dated for two months. We ate dinner together a half dozen times. But did you remember me? No. I thought you looked familiar. The figurine has moved, perhaps as a result of the prior ruckus. It‘s pressing against the glass longingly, seeming to look for its pearl, which has disappeared under the tightly wound asp. The professor struggles to his feet and starts putting on his pants. Leavem off. We ain‘t done yet. What‘s the…? Ah, a question from an intellectual who makes a practice of constantly questioning. What does this mean? What is the meaning of this? Shall we begin with a deconstruction? After all, it‘s one of your favorite methods, no? Herr Professor? Titus. Titus Trombitus. And your sister Thelma…How is…The snake begins the slow process of removing itself from itself. Now it needs to expand as the figurine looks on hopefully for a sign of its pearl…

Photo by Danae Wolfe

Emily Yates COPPERHEAD That man who was always surrounded by slate-blue smoke, who went barefoot in summer and called whipped cream whippy whippy, brought a copperhead in a trashcan to our front porch for a dusky show-and-tell. He had found it in the woods behind his house and had cut its head from its body with an axe. And I stood on my tiptoes to see over the rim and that still writhing pieced-up thing, the smell of steel and snake blood, made me realize that hell was something much closer, much slicker, than it had seemed.

Atom Ariola SOMEWHERE, ARIZONA For days, we drove on without us through the interstitial names of some unkempt season. What‘s left of us now is only twigs and shudder, sleep, sleep and the clasp of mulberry wings to abide by. Just give it to the crows. But why. Despite the idea of driftwood filling in the sandcatch, we gathered mustard flower from the overpass to hand to someone. Now, there is nothing to decode in the horizon but the years in front of us, years of wire-cold and yellow cactus bones. Yet this brittle going on of things is only the cliff‘s vigilance. To say nothing of the water still in the basin, its skin left wanting. And so. You ask me about my mother halfway to the border and I‘m pissing myself as I drive. Echo is a knee cap broken into perfect symmetry. Notice how dog-red to green is no longer the color of movement through time. Filter-tips, radio snow, what pencils things in for us to touch, to claim as our own. This much we can bear. Out of bounds, your face is a mirror of all that surrounds you. Believe me: Children are out there in the hills, chasing birds, laughing at the sound of their own voices.

Grace Bauer SPARE THE ROD Because you are a child when the milk spills the glass breaks the peas grow cold on your plate because you are a child when push comes to shove and your brother did it first or it was your turn to take out the garbage because you are a child when you laugh too loud when you don‘t answer fast or loud enough, or too loud because you are a child and the street lights have been on for half an hour and no one has yet found you in this game of tag or hide & seek because you are hiding from an anger much older than you are and sometimes wish you would never be found because you always seem to be it because you are a child and they‘ll be damned if you‘ll be spoiled

Verna Austen SUBMERGED My father came back from the dead the summer after the great flood of 1993. He‘d disappeared like a ghost after Ginny died and my mother and my other sister Rita cried and carried on enough for two funerals when we didn‘t know exactly what had happened to him. He left for smokes one night—walked right out the door of the makeshift shelter at the YMCA where we‘d been staying— and didn‘t come back. My mother never stopped looking for him; for months she trudged through every rescue center, church basement, and school gym that had been mobilized, but never turned up a thing. Every time she saw one of our old neighbors in Wal-Mart or the Speedy Wash she grilled them for any tidbit of information. Even after they moved us from the shelter to a trailer in the new town we all called Femaville, she wrote letters to the Red Cross headquarters in Switzerland and to hospitals as far away as Pana, convinced my father had amnesia and was lying in a lonely hospital bed unclaimed and unloved and only she could save him. After awhile Rita didn‘t seem to miss him so much as she wanted to solve the mystery of what had happened. For me though, I was comforted to think of him relegated to some dark netherworld, lost and forsaken, where he could never hurt anyone again. So I could hardly believe my eyes when nearly a year later he stood ten feet in front of me in line at the DMV, haunched over in his old jeans caught in the back with that wide brown belt. If he had turned his head just a smidgen he would have seen me with his eyes green as mossy river sludge. I didn‘t dare move. My whole body churned when the clerk spoke our last name out loud, only she said ―Baylor‖ instead of ―Taylor‖ and I thought she had meant someone else until my father signed his new driver‘s license, tucked it into his pocket and slogged his way to the door. And I realized he had somehow rebirthed himself, and there we both stood on the same day at the DMV because we shared a birthday. I slipped out of line to follow him in my Silverado, the only thing I ever owned, and tailed the old blue Buick he drove off the lot and forty miles down the state road until he parked in front of an apartment building. I wrote down the address and made a U-y to pick up Rita from the bookstore and be at work myself by 3:00. Late that night I folded my wash, the handful of black concert t-shirts that were all I ever wore and stacked them neat in the red plastic milk crate. I stretched out on the couch. The white number 9 on my football jersey caught my eye from inside the front closet. Same as Jim McMahon from the ‘85 Bears. I closed my eyes and imagined the whole team sat around as we tossed the ball. I lay out flat like we were supposed to after a hard tackle. Coach leaned over me. Can you move your fingers and toes? He asked. 29

Verna Austen That‘s the first thing they always ask after you get sacked. I gave my thumb up for yes. I can’t believe he’s still alive, David, coach said. Good thinking you kept your mouth shut. You know better than to call an audible where he’s concerned. Back in the day I would have thought about The Plan and how long it was until my escape to Champaign to play for U of I. But now my life was busing tables, making sandwiches at Jay‘s and smelling like mayonnaise. After the flood there was no escape anymore because all that was left from my old life was the look on Ginny‘s face when her small hand slipped through mine. For months I saw her everywhere. Her tiny fist with pink painted fingernails clutched around a dollar bill when she wanted to get a candy bar, how she reached up and slipped her hand into mine before we looked both ways. How she sat in the front room tucked inside an afghan on Saturday mornings eating cereal and watching cartoons with that old stuffed rabbit she had worn bare with love. The summer of the flood, that terrible summer, I‘d graduated high school and it was broiling hot and rained so much that the Mississippi River swelled over its levees and poured forth like a living thing bound to reclaim its land. Most of the towns on the Illinois side were completely flooded by the end of July. Our house in Riverview sat just below the edge of the bluffs and after a week of steady rain the river stretched to our front door. We watched the other families pack up but my father said he wasn‘t going anywhere. He was the captain and was going down with the ship, he said. The police had driven up the main streets in speed boats and warned everyone to leave. First they had turned off the gas, then the power and water, and still my father wouldn‘t budge. He said we were going to tough it out. He moved us, my mother, Ginny and Rita and myself up to the rickety second floor of our old farmhouse and said the rain was bound to stop any day. The people who ran were dumb and stupid, he said. For more than a week we tried to escape the stifling heat and terrible smell from the reeking water. We kept the windows open at night to catch the weak breeze and then shut them as soon as the sun rose before the foul smells from the baking rot and sludge could invade the room. We passed the time playing cards and monopoly and made use of every sliver of light. Rita found a few beat up old paperbacks in the attic for herself and some colored chalk for Ginny. The nights were long and miserable. The relentless rain fell upon us in huge grey loops loud and violent and the flood water swelled and twisted itself around us like a moat. But still I couldn‘t help but think how beautiful the river was, especially when it caught the fading light at dusk. How could it hold so much beauty and still be so heartless? Rita and Ginny slept with my mother on an old mattress I dragged down from the attic and I had my old sleeping bag from boy scouts. My father barely slept. He crawled out onto the roof and drank and smoked. 30

Verna Austen How long could we have lived like that? Time wasn‘t divided into days and nights anymore. There was no time. I‘d shut my eyes to rest them for a moment and wake up hours later at dusk, leaving another whole night to get through. Sleep was the only escape. Many times I tried to tell my mother how dangerous it was for us to be left with no electricity and no phone, about all the different forms of bacteria that thrived in the filthy water, how no one even knew where we were. She‘d only look away and say, I don‘t want to hear anymore. A few more days passed and she finally told him we were almost out of peanut butter and bread and the crackers and tuna were gone. That morning I‘d waded down to the landing and carried up the last of the gallons of bottled water. It had been days since we‘d seen a police helicopter and the flood water had reached past the first flight the stairs. ―Yeah,‖ my father said. ―It‘s about time we call it a day.‖ * ―Are you sure it was him, David?‖ Rita took a sip from her soda and shifted herself on top of the crumbling retaining wall that lined the trailer park. ―I mean, maybe it wasn‘t even him,‖ she picked at the flaking purple polish on her toenails. ―Oh it was him,‖ I said. ―I‘m dead sure.‖ ―What are we going to do?‖ she asked and looked towards the single-wide where our mother sat in her housecoat watching game shows on tv. ―I‘m not telling her anything. Not til I figure this out.‖ ―What‘s to figure out? Maybe he has amnesia or something,‖ she drained the last of her soda. ―You have to tell her, she‘s going to know.‖ ―Not if you keep quiet,‖ I said. ―How do you think he‘s living? Does he have a job?‖ ―I don‘t know Rita, stop asking so many questions.‖ She pressed her lips into a tight line. She looked just like our mother. ―You‘re going to Champaign and I‘ll be stuck here alone with her.‖ ‗‘I‘m not going anywhere.‖ ―You can‘t stay here, David.‖ She was quiet for a minute and shifted on the retaining wall again. Then she said, ―he‘s gonna come back you know.‖ * Old town was completely off limits but I sneaked back all the time. We called the flooded old Riverview ―old town‖ ever since we learned they were building a new town on top of the bluff miles up from where we used to live. Someone said the government was going to sell us the land cheap. Somebody else said they were going to build us all new houses ready to move right in and still we sat in trailers in a gravel lot a half-acre away from Riverview. 31

Verna Austen I made my way along the grey rocks that lay along the river bank silky and smooth until the slash in the fence like a scar where I squeezed through to get as close as possible to the house. The wood siding bloated under the mud line that ran underneath the second floor windows as straight as a ruler. The yard was full of dirty water, trash, tree branches and downed wires. Along the fence on top of a pile of mud sat Ginny‘s car seat like a headstone. I leaned against the fence and thought about what Rita had said. She was right. All it would take was a drive to the U-Pick-It when the farm would open for cheap vegetables, or a movie in town for one of our birthdays and my mother would bump into someone who would swear they‘d seen him. Or Rita would cave. I should never have told her. She was right about U of I too, I‘d filled out another scholarship application until the essay questions. The worst one was, Are you a leader or a follower and why? ‗I‘m a survivor,‘ I wrote and stuffed it in a ball into my pocket. After what I did the most I deserved to hope for was a cold one after work and a place to sit for a minute before taking a shower and going to bed to sleep for a few hours until it started all over again in the morning. * The second night after my father ascended from the underworld, we sat on the couch with my mother watching tv. She kept the volume turned so low her programs could barely be heard because anything louder hurt her ears. Every once in a while a bell from the game show would jingle and her face would light up. Rita sat with an open book of word search puzzles on her lap. ―This man always reminded me of Daddy,‖ my mother said about the host of the show. ―He doesn‘t look anything like him,‖ Rita looked up from her book. ―Oh when he was younger he was very handsome just like that man.‖ I could feel Rita thinking of what to say next. ―Have you heard any news lately?‖ Rita asked. My mother pressed her lips into a hard line. ―No,‖ she said. She blinked a few times, picked up her glass of ice water and went into the bedroom. ―What are you doing?‖ I said. ―Puzzles,‖ Rita said. ―Did you figure out what you’re going to do yet?‖ ―I told you I‘m not going to school.‖ ―I mean about Dad, why won‘t you tell me where he lives?‖ ―Keep your voice down. You don‘t need to know where he lives.‖ ―Do you think he was kidnapped? Or maybe he has another wife and family somewhere?‖ She pretended to fill in words with the stubby little pencil. ―In only a year? You act like you want to see him again. Do you?‖ She shrugged her shoulder but I watched her face and saw the way her eyes smarted up after her cheeks flushed. ―You do don‘t you? Are you crazy?‖ 32

Verna Austen ―It might not be so bad,‖ she said. ―Maybe things will be different. Maybe you could—,‖ she lowered her voice and tried to sound sweet, ―try harder, David. You know, stay out of his way.‖ The buzzer went off on the game show and it was funny because it was louder that time. ―I don‘t want to hear anymore,‖ I said. ―Hmm,‖ Rita said from her book. ―Sound and wound are almost the same word.‖ * My father ate breakfast at the same diner every day. He sat alone and read the newspaper and drank a tall coffee. Then he ordered another coffee to go and drove back to his apartment building. His car was warm and neat inside and still had the new car smell; no candy wrappers or sticky fingers allowed. How would his clean car look covered in wet toilet paper and broken eggs? How would the tires look slashed? Would they slice neatly into a line or jagged like a cracked tooth? I thought he saw me for sure one afternoon from his window on the third floor. A few times I was sure his car followed me up the road; my eyes always played tricks on me. * My heart beat out of my throat a week later the night I drove up to the trailer after work and saw the Buick parked in my spot. Inside, my father sat next to my mother on the worn couch. She had lipstick on and the tv flickered quiet blue light along the wall. Rita walked in from the kitchenette and handed him a coffee mug. ―Daddy‘s home, David,‖ my mother said. ―Hallo kid,‖ he said. ―Come help me in the kitchen, David,‖ Rita said. The cardboard box from a family-pack Salisbury steak frozen dinner lay torn and opened on the counter. ―Try and be good, ok?‖ she handed me a bag of lettuce and a salad bowl and reached on the top shelf for the good glasses. ―He‘s being nice, he told her he‘d try and fix the sink where it leaks on the bottom and he has a new car,‖ she said. The four of us barely fit around the plastic kitchen table; usually we ate from paper plates on our laps in front of the tv. My father had recently shaved and little red cuts dotted his face. He smelled like smoke and menthol. ―Your mother tells me you‘re going to play ball for U of I, is that right? Good for you,‖ my father said. ―I‘m not sure yet,‖ I said. ―Still weighing your options, huh?‖ he said. My mother ate silently. She never looked up from her plate. 33

Verna Austen ―But it‘s not like you know how to do anything, right? I mean, you can make a sandwich,‖ he said. ―But you don‘t have your sister‘s grades.‖ ―Why don‘t we eat on the couch with the door open, it‘s cooler,‖ Rita said. ―My sister?‖ I said. ―You‘re not still thinking you‘re going to play for the Bears, are you? That‘s just dumb and stupid.‖ A piece of grey meat caught in his teeth. ―What happened to you, dad? Where you been?‖ I said. He stood, his upper lip twitched and he rolled his hand into a fist only instead he reached into his pocket and placed something on the table. ―Someone left this in my car.‖ It was the picture of Ginny. ―I figure whoever left that in my car has something to say to me. To my face,‖ he said. The picture of Ginny twisted and lifted itself off the table and the shiny pillows on the couch turned sharp like triangles and spun around like a kaleidoscope. Hot air scraped my throat, filled my mouth. He snapped his fingers in front of my face. ―Hello? Anybody home?‖ ―You made us wait and live for days in that reeking house.‖ I said. ―You made her sit in the back seat, she should have been the first one out of the car, not you.‖ ―They took me first to make room for the rest of you—― ―She crawled all the way in the back because she was scared, they couldn‘t reach her,‖ ―You let go—― ―I had her hand and the car was sinking and the fireman grabbed me and hooked me in the basket and the blades from the helicopter were so loud and water rushed into the car like a wall of bricks. Her hair was sopping wet and plastered to her little head and her mouth was open and the water rushed over her and the car fell away and I couldn‘t hold onto her. I tried to get out of the straps to jump after her but they were too tight. My hands slipped, I couldn‘t feel my hands.‖ Rita and my mother stood in the doorway. ―She‘s dead because of him,‖ my father said. I looked at the three of them. My mother was going to take him back. Rita would start her senior year, work at the bookstore, stay out late with her friends and never be home. Outside I breathed. I slapped my hand against my pocket to hear the clink of my keys. I‘d wait until Friday to collect my paycheck and with the rest of my stash I‘d have gas money for a thousand miles. Over the dusty highway the sun melted low in the sky, the dark light fading as it passed through my hands.

Photo by Danae Wolfe

Andrew Cox SLEEPYHEAD Rains come yards grow satellites talk to prolific dishes Mystery pesters the landfill when no one is looking A wish waits for its turn on the world‘s most famous roller coaster Someone holds a word for ransom with no one to call Hey you the manager of lost chances the wheels are stuck No more questions please until we arrive Yards are made lush by nervous laughter When will the chairs refuse to serve as thrones You sit in a gorilla mask saying take this for what it‘s worth Fathers wade through water in waders with holes Today is a kick in the pants to those who think in clichés Yesterday became a frame with no picture Tomorrow is a beat-up car with a window missing Wake up sleepyhead it‘s time for school

Mollie Young THE BOYS FROM AUTO-SHOP May. In classroom swelter, windows open to trees heavy with pink flowers spread wide, a stack of uncorrected essays and twenty-or-so boys face me. Their auto-shop teacher cut out early, so they sprawl before me in packs, backward baseball caps and throwbacks, oil-stained fingers itching for engines. I know them only from hallways where they loom, massive, pushing with tightlymuscled shoulder blades, where they grope girls, slam metal, flex, and use words like piss and fuck and pussyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;sometimes to refer to female anatomy, sometimes to each other. The hot prick of their sweat on the breeze invites bees, swollen stingers into a stir of pollen, yellow whisper in the atmosphere. The boys crack their limbs and backs, eye-finger my clock, talk twisting to long stretches of summer hours working for the DPW, painting or repainting fences, hitting the gym, driving around town, their hands hooked in their girlfriendsâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; pants. What are you doing this summer? one asks me, flash of tongue between his teeth. The others laugh and punch him, hard. I roll an essay into a cone, fan my face while the bees hum, grinding around fluorescent lights and throwing their bodies against the glass, searching the way out into a spring violently in bloom.

Leigh Mackelvey LAKEVIEW TRAILER PARK She leaves her trailer and jogs around that lake eight a.m. every morning, stops, looks at the ducks. I wonder why she looks so tired? Why that traitor look on her face? Once in the forgotten days a red heifer was slaughtered, burned— carcass, hide and innards—by a priest sent to referee against uncleanliness of the departed. He would toss into the carnage a swatchling of red fabric a spriggling of hyssop a stickling of cedarwood. People came and cleansed themselves from death, sprinkling holy water and the ashes over their bodies. Those ducks she watches sit in numbers on the bank around the lake, not one in the water. They wait, just wait. The big one tries to flap his broken wing. Sinister, she thinks. She suspects they are sinister. Like Hitchcock birds lined in rows on telephone wires, on wait for something ominous. My foot is broken. Bone split into two parts of one bone. The waiting room in the orthopedic office reeks of agony. Backs out, legs folded in half, shoulders waiting to be located. How long, how long can they sit in those rows of matching plastic chairs looking at Ansel Adams print them in black and white, Van Gogh cube in vivid colors? Row after lined-up rows of eyes plead the nurse each time she opens the creaky door and calls from her clipboard, Mr. Broken Knee, you can see the doctor now. He‘ll try to help, but all hope is gone…really. The court room, wooden bench, the long wait for the end of my marriage, death by a thousand paper-cuts. It turns out the lady who jogs in the a.m. has tied a red cow to a cedar tree outside her trailer. It‘s night now,

Leigh Mackelvey her husband is inside drunk; this time his body hangs over the fifty-nine inch flat screen. Lookâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she wears a red dress, a sprig of hyssop slips through her fingers as she strikes that match sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s waited years to throw.

Photo by Danae Wolfe

Caroline Thompson ON A DRAWING OF HOW TO KILL SAM PINK Caroline Thompson is lurking in your bushes. If you knew this, would you call the police or invite her in to split your last orange, talk about the asteroid missing Earth, closer than the moon, which is full by the way. Or, would she be the next guest on your sidewalk talk-show, as you interview anyone willing to stop—for you, in your window three stories above? No. I‘ll ask the questions here, not you. Do you have any moles that you suspect might be cancer? She could check for you. She‘s been picking at a cluster of red bumps on her shoulder that won‘t heal, probably because she won‘t stop picking at them. If she killed you, you might be more famous. You said, ―more authors need to shoot each other to make people love reading again.‖ Your epitaph would read: ―bitch ass dweeb.‖ Shall we write your obituary? She‘s a good shot. Have you ever clipped someone else‘s fingernails too short, sucked the pulp to soothe them? When Caroline sees bottle openers, she imagines popping her fingernails off like bottle caps. She tried to collect bottle caps, once. Instead, she collected her nail clippings in tiny toy suitcases. Blue, Playmobile suitcases that snapped shut. She found them years later, the nails curled and yellow.

Photo by Danae Wolfe Caroline Thompson was my friend and fellow writer. She died on January 6th of an overdose that for sure was accidental. I know Carolineâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s choice those final days resulted from the thing most of us as writers deal with, an overwhelming sensitivity to the harshness of day to day reality and that she just wanted peace for one second from the brain that she was gifted with. Unfortunately the wrong mixture ended her life and broke our hearts. She was a wonderfully inappropriately funny human who wrote about the absurdity of life in a way that was remarkably disturbed and poignant. I miss her terribly. You can find her work at http://carolineruththompson.wordpress.com. And who am I? Just another contributor to Blood Lotus. I am honored to be printed in the same edition as my dear friend. I wish you all could have met her. She would have made you laugh your guts out. This little blurb is in her memory and to remind all of us who struggle with such things: life is beautiful, hard and incomprehensibly short. So, do what you love and be yourself and stay alive. Your invisible friend, Lisa Douglass.

Lisa Douglass TRY STUFF Meet Brian behind the pool-house. The one at the lake. Let him kiss you. Let him put his hands up under your t-shirt, but not down your shorts. Tell him not to tell. Tell him you‘re too young for him. Tell him you aren‘t an object. Tell him you don‘t like boys with blue eyes. Tell him you aren‘t going to be easy to know. Tell him to write you a note and to put in it the things he thinks you‘d find interesting. Tell him he better make it good, because you know a lot about a lot. Tell him to talk about you. Tell him to describe you and make it romantic. Punch him. Grab his hands and put them behind his back. Watch him watch you. Let him chase you across the lawn. Slow down so he can tackle you. Kiss him again. Not know the consequences. Fall in love a little. Tell him, no one has captured your heart yet and you doubt he will be the one. Tell him he‘s too tall for you. Tell him you like skinny but not too skinny. Tell him you like his hair. Tell him you like his plaid shirts. Put makeup on him. Lipstick and eyeliner. Hate him for liking you. Be scared. Not know what to do next. Leave. Let the phone ring when he calls. Don‘t pick up. See him at school but act uninterested. Flirt with boys you don‘t care about in front of him. Write your name with his last name on the end. Think you‘re dumb then cross it out. Tell nobody. Go find Tami. Lay on her floor cutting up magazines for the wall. Wish you looked like the big nosed model with the giant lips that scream sex. Be mad you don‘t look like your mother. Be mad your mother doesn‘t care that you aren‘t going to be a model and won‘t pay for plastic surgery. Be mad that she won‘t drive you to Los Angeles to be an actress. Be mad you‘re stuck in the middle of nowhere without transportation. Be mad that she won‘t come see you be a cheerleader. Be mad she thinks cheerleading is dumb. Be mad she hates high IQ‘s because hers is low. Be mad that she is skinny and perfect and your boobs are so big they call you Torpedos behind your back. Be mad she doesn‘t understand the pressures of your clothes not fitting because she is a waif. Be mad you are eating all the time and can‘t starve yourself like she can. Be mad Tami is sexy, sleeping with boys but you don‘t even know what blow job means yet. Be mad she returned your khaki skirt with cum on it. Be mad at the world. Consider suicide. Watch your father eat you with his eyes. Pretend it didn‘t happen. Stop wearing shorts so nothing gets too weird. Stop talking to him after that. Be scared to be alone with him. Not know who to talk to about it. Try to be less pretty. Try to be less voluptuous. Buy bras two sizes too small to press you down. Cry in the closet because nothing will close over you. Not know who to tell. Start wearing giant sweatshirts. Be sad you‘re fat. Be sad you can‘t afford bigger clothes. Be mad your mother thinks you are a bottomless pit for asking. Try starving 43

Lisa Douglass yourself again. Begin throwing up. Paige taught you how. Try on bikinis. Get on and off the scale a bunch of different times to see if the digital numbers change. Be happy when the numbers go below 120. Read the Best Little Girl in The World. Learn how to starve yourself through will-power. The flesh is dumb. Get your friends boyfriends to ask you in dark clubs if you‘d consider making out with them, consider it, but say no, rejecting them feels good. Keep that a secret. Be lonely. Start shoplifting with friends. Get caught for grand-theft. Be scared your parents will find out. Sneak out your window. Go to clubs. Dance and drink peppermint schnapps. Like dancing more than all the sex stuff. Ignore your friends who are experimenting with it. Be scared. Take pills. Be friends with younger boys hoping they won‘t love you. Be mad when they do. Change friends. Sleep on the beach. Pass out in the shower. Curl your friend‘s hair in the morning. Kill a giant potato bug with a flip-flop. Scream when it screams. Wish someone would hug you. Wish someone would say you are beautiful. Wish someone would be nice.

Aaron Smith PSALM (BOSTON) I spilled out of the club at dawn, the ones I‘d come with paired off and gone. I walked up Berkeley toward Beacon, toward the river, home. The restaurant on my left where I worked— green awning, revolving door. At that almost-hour details don‘t matter, the Hancock tower an illusion of space, mirrored and bragging to the sky. I would leave the city in a month. Still jittery from cigarettes, from pills that promised escape, I fell inside my body— the last place I wanted to be.

Aaron Smith PSALM (WEST VIRGINIA) These days when it‘s raining and I wish it were over: the winter, the year, the students‘ random commas like shaved-away hair, I think: now is the time before it all goes bad: a lump not found, a spot on the skin, a dizziness deep inside the brain. Cars pass like little trains, but less ambitious, and I wonder if I‘ll wish for this: pillow of gray sky smothering me, the mist on my glasses making it hard to see. No real tragedies to make me unhappy. I‘m told I‘m depressed, but I think I‘m crazy with loneliness, from too many bad decisions. Today I say: hurry up, go faster, I don‘t care what happens. I‘m willing to regret it all.

José Hernández Díaz MY PAPER SOUL Today is the first day I go back To the anti-depressants; On my knees. I feel them turn And twist And kiss the Insides of my skull— And my paper soul. I don‘t miss Autumn, Really— It was just a mirage of leaves And dust and wind— And kiss kiss kiss. What was it About those Lucid lilacs, Dear? I told you they would bite back; I warned you, dear

José Hernández Díaz THE SIXTH SUN HAS ARRIVED I did not Cross the border But My mother did And so This battle Is mine— And I will Surely win; I can take on Entire governments With my pen— The ink Will drip And clip Those superficial wings You flaunt; My metaphors Will crack The biased floors On which you stand— You and your Yankee-doodle horse. And I was born Of Quetzalcóatl‘s Fervent feathers: Yes, I am wind; And I was born Of Xochipilli's Potent pollen: 48

José Hernández Díaz Yes, I am song. They say we cross The borders Just to break the law— But, I was born, My son, To break The brazen chains From which My gente hang; The Sixth Sun Has Arrived.

Shannon Draper RESURRECTION Burying yourself alive is no small trick. Hard earth won‘t yield to soft penetration, preferring instead the ripping up of roots, the sticky stab of stiff spades, the mad dig of nails bleeding as they break through. Intention is everything: you have to want to go under, prepare for it, ready your pearl pink lungs for the dirty deluge of soil and salt, the slow choke of swallowing sand and silt, your threshing throat a drying creek bed littered with lost letters, missing words. Once down, the body ceases to move—settling sedentarily until the itchy spell of sleep is broken—an apricot angel pruning prettily as time passes, tirelessly traveling into the rococo red room of eyelid veins, a swirling galaxy no one else visits. Wry-necked and rigid against the shifting ground, the body waits for water—damp days, the effortless wet erosion of walls that crumble cookie-like in the milk and honey of sky-song, a dripping dream pouring forth to unmoor the docked boat of the flesh— until there is air again, room to turn, sun on skin grown pale from being so long out of the light. It is then that the body rises, parts cracked lips to spit brown earth thick as library paste saying, ‗In me a green thing is growing. Water it well. It wants to live.‘

Photo by Danae Wolfe

STACIA M. FLEEGAL INTERVIEWS GEOFFREY GATZA OF BLAZEVOX SMF: I’m a big fan of BlazeVOX. The website, the poetry, the aesthetic, that you embrace technology—all of it. But a lot more people know about BlazeVOX now than six months ago. Since the furor of that controversy has calmed down a bit, let’s talk about the present and the future of the press. GG: I am glad that you are so fond of our site and the press as a whole. I too am excited about the future of BlazeVOX. There is a lot of support for the press, more than I was even really aware of. :-) We have plans to seek out more normal lines of fundraising; and with the help of several wonderful people, we will have all of our ducks in a row and be able to survive in these financially burdening times. So far we are all back to normal, all the sites that delisted us have relisted us, our submissions are even higher than what they were in 2011, and now, thankfully, everyone knows who we are. The future is looking bright for weird little books! SMF: Of all the talk about BlazeVOX after the initial “whistle-blowing,” for lack of a better phrase, what statements or criticisms hurt the most? GG: The most upsetting thing was the notion that I might have to close the press. But thankfully the world would not allow that to happen. For the most part, I am rather happy about all of the support I received! There were four times as many letters and emails of support for BlazeVOX and our efforts that I cannot feel anything but happy and proud about what we have done and the future of the press. There were many criticisms that hurt me personally, but most of those phrasings were not necessarily directed at me, but rather the state of small press publishing in general; if read in that way, the anger and vitriol expressed makes for a more fruitful engagement and understanding. I was, however, highly amused by the American Tea Party and their accusation that I ‗throw a lot of parties.‘ This was in reference to a poetry reading series in Buffalo called Big Night, where we have a reader, musicians or screen a film and I cook a banquet style table of food. More on this can be found at http://www.blazevox.org/lh95/index.php/Poetry/big-night-book-and-photojournal/ I still laugh at it now :-) SMF: Editors work hard, why shouldn’t they throw an occasional party?  Speaking of all that hard work, would you please talk about your editorial selection process in terms of editorial tastes? What excites you most in writing, and what do you want to see more of? What if anything repels you? GG: We publish a wide array of writing, mainly avant garde / experimental work. Generally our audience sends us work; but on certain occasions, I have solicited materials from writers. We publish only new materials, so if it has appeared online before we generally do not republish it. We do not publish 52

reviews as there are many sites that do this already and much better than I think we could. We try to focus in on the active writings that are at the forefront of our field. The most difficult part of editing lies in the fact that a text is malleable until it is set on paper. Authors are always making changes after they feel a thing is complete. A text is not like a cake; once it is set on the table one can only eat it. No, a text can be changed at every point in the process and getting a final, complete work that a poet will no longer want to change is a near impossibility. I too am a fidgety writer, so I understand. But understanding and sympathy is what is needed to be a good editor. My editing routine when reviewing batches of new poetry would be sitting at my computer with coffee and cigarettes. I read openly, as if in the comfortable space one likes to be in when reading. Not like I would be sitting at the same place to work on the website. No, it has to be an openness with no other work looming. I am constantly at work on the press, so this is essential. But once in that mood, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s all very fun and comforting. I have a vision of poetry as an umbrella that many things can fit under. One style of writing is not a good way to run a journal. There needs to be a setting of writing and how it interplays between one another. There are a lot of fine writers in every stage of their careers; so, as in life, we all find points of commonality and express it in many shades. BlazeVOX does not always match my own taste in literary prose or poetry. I do like all the pieces we have published, in varying degrees and reason of course, but it is my taste. But it is not like my own writing, and I do not think that this should be the way a journal or press operates. As an artist, the mind always tells you what is what you admire and what you want to explore. As an editor, one has to put that aside, but be influenced by it and look at new work with an open eye and how that text can fit into the whole. It often becomes clear when engaged in it; it all works out in the end. We get thousands of submissions a year and it is quite clear what is good and what is not good. There is also a kind of shibboleth that is expressed that tells us that they are part of our crowd and so it is always excited to read new poems. I do not think I have any line of sight on what is great. And what does anyone look for in something great, that too is also a lot to ask, as greatness in poetry is a rather hard thing to come by. It is as if I would ask you as a writer, what do you look for in your subject matter to write something that is more than adequate, but actually great? Good work is much more common and that is as easy to spot as it is to taste if the soup is good. It is always self-evident.

SMF: Let’s go back to your slush pile. You said BlazeVOX gets “thousands of submissions a year.” How many of those are published? GG: We receive on average 15 book manuscripts a week, and we receive about 20 submissions for the journal. We currently are looking at 980 manuscripts. This is a huge pile to go through and it is loaded with great work. There is a lot of great poetry out there and we want to publish as much good work as we can. SMF: How many people screen and evaluate submissions to BlazeVOX? GG: We have a revolving group of about 6 to 8 poets and fiction writers who review and look over the works we receive. It is always good to have several eyes on the work and how it is published. SMF: You’ve blogged about why you decided to implement a cooperative publishing agreement and why/when you decided to stop doing so. Where do you stand in terms of a business model now? GG: To date we have redeveloped our method of publishing and are allowing for more development for each of our titles. There are a lot of venues out there to promote our books, and we will be looking at how to best achieve more publicity and promotion for these great books. We will also find the right amount of books to produce in a year and create an open system of how to identify costs and other associated issues that have been problems in the past. So far we have found several problems that have been very stressful for me to find ways to cover the costs of production. This will streamline our business structure and allow us to do what we love, that is reading poetry and selecting the best books to bring out. This is where our success lies and we want to continue to work for poetry, poets and our readers. SMF: Thank you for committing to helping your authors promote their work. Just a couple more questions! BlazeVOX is a bit of a pioneer in terms of e-books. How long have you been publishing e-books? Has the e-book option always been an alternative to the cooperative publishing agreement (author contribution = printed book, no author contribution = e-book)? How do you feel about the capacity of existing e-book technology to present poetry with the poet’s intended format, structure, breaks, etc., intact? GG: We have been publishing ebooks for at least 9 years now. We publish them in Adobe PDF format, the best method to distribute books of poetry. Most recently we have reissued some of our books in Kindle format. There are much lower costs associated in the production, inventory and distribution of an ebook so it is much easier to make and produce. There are several advantages to publishing e-books. All of our work comes from the computer, either the writing itself or the method it comes to our inbox, to 54

the way it is processed and published. In one sense our resources are unlimited, well limited to what can humanly be done. We have managed to publish a great many authors as our online journal can be distributed to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. We have no upper limit on page count so we can display a larger look at one authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s work, where in many print magazines we can only view one or two poems. This has been very successful for the authors and us. With new technologies we have the ability to audit our performance and see in real time who and what is being accessed on our site. We know how many people are reading which author and from that we make decisions on how to best plan for future issues, ebooks and printed books. Oddly though, our ebooks are the most popular items on our website, as folks want to read poetry but are resistant to buying the book. The reason for the success is that we garner readers and make waves for future book publications. Our ebooks have an average readership of 7,000 downloads per title, this compared to the POD titles which have sales of less than 500 copies. The main disadvantage in an ebook is that it is tied to a computer or device of some sort. One cannot open up several ebooks and spread them out on a table and work in the same fashion one can with bound paper books. The formatting of ebooks is still an issue for Kindle books. The PDF is a grand thing as it can be viewed as the author intended, being able to reproduce what the author wrote with all its phanopoeia intact. However, with the Kindle, the future looks much like the past. These devices are basically the same as very early web pages with only low level formatting available. However, another interesting turn in this is that the publisher and author no longer have the control over how the reader will view what they have written. The controls of font choice and size are now easily changed, thus changing the whole structure over which an author once had absolute control. It will make for an interesting hurdle for our more design-oriented poets, but one that will, I predict, have wonderful outcomes of success. One more point would be that it is hard to promote an ebook, as you cannot have the same sales and marketing in a brick and mortar bookstore as one might have with a paper book and advertisements. But I do not think that ebooks and paper books are necessarily competitive against each other, but complimentary to one another. There will always be paper books as people want them and will buy them. Now and in the future, with new devices and technologies over-taking the booksellers (as with Liberty Media making a purchase offer on Barnes & Noble specifically for their Nook device), publishers will open up and marketing of ebooks will be easier. However, marketing poetry will always be cumbersome. SMF: As a BlazeVOX author myself, what attracted me to the press was the not just the quality of the work published, but the variety, how truly eclectic the 55

catalog is, and how visually attractive the books are (the larger, coffee table book-size, the vibrant cover images). Then there’s the fact of no entry or reading fee, the quirky website, and the mission statement. I’ve already blogged in defense of the cooperative publishing agreement. What do you think attracts others to the press and journal? What do you want BlazeVOX to be known for? GG: I am intrigued by your question and I am not sure exactly what attracts others to BlazeVOX. I would like to think that it is because we have a strong dedication to publishing poetry that others would not even consider publishing. I see a great value to our society as a whole by bringing out work by these voices. We have given space to so many poets and writers, in a thoughtful and considerate manner, using a very light editorial approach that allows the writer to present as that writer wants to be represented. We produce books and our journal with great respect to each poem or prose piece in a highly readable, well-designed page that makes the piece look good, the author happy, and the reader comfortable in that reading space, be it a computer screen or a book. We have varying book sizes that distinguish our books from almost every other poetry book out there. We have broken the traditions of a 6 x 9 as the standard of the poetry book and opened the page to be more in tune with the way the author wrote and intended the pieces to look. Plus our 7.5 x 9.25 book size makes it a more comfortable reading space, giving room for the poems to use the page in delightful ways. We are also quick to embrace new technologies and try to understand the ways in which people will use poetry. I think that these are reasons why we are successful; and with our plans for the future, I am sure we will win back the affections of anyone. So hurray!

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, BlazeVOX published my second book of poems, Versus, last year. –SMF

#23 Contributors Atom Ariola lives in the Southwest where he practices law and writes poems. His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly among other places. He was educated at Temple University and the University of Colorado. Verna Austen received her MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in The Minnetonka Review, The Dead Mule and others. Her novel Ruby is forthcoming. She lives in Chicago, IL. Grace Bauer is the author of Retreats & Recognitions (Lost Horse Press), Beholding Eye (CustomWords), and The Women At The Well (Portals Press), as well as three chapbooks of poems. She is also co-editor of the anthology, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical and Creative Responses to Everette Maddox (Xavier Review Press). Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including American Literary Review, Arts & Letters, Chariton Review, Colorado Review, Doubletake, Georgia Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poetry, Rattle, and others. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Andrew Cox is the author of The Equation That Explains Everything (BlazeVOX [Books] 2010), the chapbook Fortune Cookies (2River View, 2009), and the hypertext chapbook Company X (Word Virtual). He lives in University City, MO, the Brooklyn of St. Louis, where he edits UCity Review (www.ucityreview.com) José Hernández Díaz is a first-generation, Chicano poet with a BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley. José has been published in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011, La Gente Newsmagazine of UCLA, Bombay Gin Literary Journal, Contratiempo, Hinchas de Poesia, In Xochitl In Kuikatl Literary Journal, Indigenous Writers and Artists Collective, The Packinghouse Review, among others. José has had poetry readings at The Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, at The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, and at El Centro Cultural de Tijuana. He is currently fulfilling an internship with Floricanto Press as a Poetry Editor. In addition, he is an active moderator of the online group, ‗Poets Responding to SB1070,‘ where he has contributed more than 30 of his own poems. In his spare time, José enjoys collaborating with the poet, Claudia D. Hernández, in the English/Spanish translation of their poetry. Lisa Douglass was born in Los Angeles where the Shakespeare Bridge meets the Silverlake border. She learned to write stories early and kept a journal tracking her parents‘ oriental rug obsession as well as their rituals in a cult— much to their dismay. She got her BA from UCLA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and studied under the enormous talent of Mona Simpson. 57

She is a second year MFA in Fiction at UCI. Her fiction has been published in Transformations, R-KV-RY, and Westwind (UCLA‘s journal); has won the Shirley Collier Prize (2010); co-First place for The Ruth Brill Award (2010); first place winner The May Merrill Miller Award (2009); and was named best published work in Westwind’s Journal for 2009-2010. She has been a finalist in the Poet’s and Writer’sWriter‘s Exchange contest (2009) and just received an honorable mention in Writer’s Digest Annual Competition (2011) in the literary mainstream category. She likes to act cooler than she is, hunt fashion and listen to punk electronic music that makes her feel inadequate. She likes to write and eat candy in her time off. Some say Lisa Douglass is meta for God, but she doesn‘t know if God is real. http://lisadouglass.blogspot.com/ Shannon Draper received her MA in English from Kansas State University in 2004 and now teaches in the English Department at Lawrence High School in Lawrence, KS. Being a high school teacher has allowed her to read more, write more, and feel more and she is grateful, every day, for all three. David Dodd Lee is the author of seven books of poems, including The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books, 2010), Orphan, Indiana (University of Akron Press, 2010), and Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere, the Ashbery Erasure Poems (BlazeVox, 2010). Other books include, Abrupt Rural (New Issues, 2004), Downsides of FishCulture (New Issues, 1997), Arrow Pointing North (Four Way, 2002), and Wilderness, a chapbook (March Street Press, 2000). Recent poems have appeared in Zoland Poetry, West Branch, Blackbird, Field, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Pool, Denver Quarterly, Slope, Pleiades, Laurel Review, Barrow Street, Nerve, and Massachusett's Review. He is currently involved in making collages and paintings, and working as Editor in Chief for 42 Miles Press. Judith Ann Levinson was born and raised in Maine, the daughter of a logger. At the age of sixteen she was first published in The New Yorker. Poetry freed her from her childhood environment and allowed her to pursue an education. She holds degrees from Mount Holyoke College (BA), Hollins College (MFA), and Drexel University (MLS). After her marriage she moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania where she was named the first woman Poet Laureate. She has been published in Barbaric Yarp, Bay Area Poets Collection, Buffalo Carp, The California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Common Ground Review, Darkling, Deronda Review, Earthshine, Evansville Review, First Class, Gulf Coast Writers, Hollins Critic, The Homestead Review, Ibbetson Street, Iconoclast, New Millennium Writings, and many others. Recently, three of her poems have been published in the anthology Literary Town Hall, cc@d 2011 edition. Kelly R. Lynn is a writer, researcher, and serial hobbyist. When not writing coming-of-age stories and poems, she is reading coming-of-age stories and poems, befriending animals and bugs, honking the flute, competing in artistic 58

roller skating events, researching genealogy, taking road trips, and sometimes working. She holds a BA in English and French and a Master of Library Science. She recently earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Spalding University in Louisville. Immediately after graduation, she enrolled in a shortshort fiction class at Washington University. Her work has appeared in Garbanzo!, Thysia, Red Lion Sq., WITH, Milk Teeth, and Somebody’s Child: Stories About Adoption, among other publications. She lives in Saint Louis, Missouri with her husband and four spoiled pets (two dogs and two cats) in a 104-year-old rehabbed barn. Leigh Mackelvey lives in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, and teaches students with learning disabilities in Camden, New Jersey. Her work is in Muse Pie Press for Shot Glass Journal Poetry and is forthcoming in issues of Faithwriters. She received a fellowship from Arts Horizon (New York, New Jersey) and will complete her MFA in Creative Writing from National University in June 2012. Leigh reads lots and lots of P. D. James and Elizabeth George and envisions solving English mysteries from a flat in London. Amy Nash received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature (with honors for her thesis on Virginia Woolf) and studied verse writing with Annie Dillard at Wesleyan University. She worked as an intern at Wesleyan University Press and also had poems published in the University‘s literary journals. In December 2008, Amy completed a two-year Loft Master Track Apprenticeship program at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. With Jude Nutter as her advisor, she completed a poetry collection entitled Caryatid. Her poem ―Bridge‖ was included in a traveling exhibition called ―Reactions,‖ curated by the gallery Exit Art in New York City. Including art in all forms in response to 9/11, the exhibition is now housed in the Library of Congress. She has also had work published in Common Ground Review and has given readings on Minnesota Public Radio and at various cafes and events. She spent 12 years working in book publishing for various presses, including Oxford University Press and Yale University Press. Amy is currently communications manager for the Minneapolis architecture firm Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd., and posts original poems on her daily blog: http://arambler.com Chuck Richardson is the author of two novels, Smoke and So It Seams, and an e-book Dreamlands: 3 Fictions, all from BlazeVox[books]. His short fiction has appeared in BlazeVox2k7, eccolinguistics, Mayday Magazine, Thieves Jargon and Atticus Review. Aaron Smith is the author of Blue on Blue Ground, winner of the 2004 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and the chapbook What's Required, winner of the 2003 Frank O'Hara Award. His most recent publication is the chapbook Men in Groups, published by Winged City (2011). The Pitt Poetry Series will publish his new full-length collection, Appetite, in September 2012. 59

Marcus Whalbring graduated from the University of Indianapolis; his poems have appeared in Dublin Quarterly and NOWculture. He and his wife, Emily, live in southern Indiana and are expecting their first child in July. Nathan E. White is a writer and musician living in the Los Angeles area. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such publications as the Tulane Review, Quiddity, South Dakota Review, Magma (U.K.), and Redactions: Poetry & Poetics. Danae Wolfe https://www.facebook.com/wolfenaturephotography Pui Ying Wong was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of a full length book of poetry Yellow Plum Season (New York Quarterly Books, 2010), two chapbooks: Mementos (Finishing Line Press, 2007), Sonnet for a New Country(Pudding House Press, 2008) and Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Asian Pacific American Journal, Blue Fifth Review, The Brooklyner, Cavalier Literary Couture, Chiron Review, decomP, DMQ Review, 5 AM, Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, Poet Speaks, Red River Review, Reprint Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Web and Best of the Net editions. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the poet Tim Suermondt. Emily Yates recently graduated from Mount Holyoke College where she was awarded the Glascock Poetry Prize in 2009. She currently lives and works at a boarding school in Massachusetts, and hopes to study poetry at the graduate level in the future. Joy O. Yejide KMT is a Pittsburgh native, a mother of five, an activist, an agitator and your average rabblerouser. She is a Macdowell Fellow (Summer 2011) and has published in the Amistad Journal and Check The Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Emcees and Poets. She is the creator and a featured poet of Her Voice: Stories, Tales, and Myths of Women of Color a mixed-art show that will be featured as a part of the Sun Star Music Festival. You can catch her wild blogging at heartintheriver.blogspot.com. Mollie Young is an English teacher and writer of poetry and fiction living in the greater Boston area. She recently received an M.F.A. in creative writing from Lesley University in Cambridge.