Cabildo Quarterly #12

Cabildo Quarterly.

Issue #12. Summer 2018.

Cape Cod; Bangor ME. Lucie Brock-Brodio 1956-2018.

Sedative

by Kaylee Duff I watch as headlights sift through the night and snow whirls past icy windows.

I measure the drive in numbers of miles and signs and songs played skipped repeated.

Your car carries me in the passenger seat, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt this safe.

So I fall asleep.

I slip back into my past, a colicky baby who can’t be put down, driven around like an animal in need of distraction.

I fall asleep listening to you crack your knuckles, drum on your steering wheel, sigh in time with the windshield wipers.

You’ll wake me up when we get home, a nudge and a whisper, the air around us silent and still.

Everything I say to you turns into a love poem, because that’s all I have.

Kaylee Duff is Digital Content Editor for True Media Group, an LGBT-owned media outlet in Columbus, Ohio. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Pamplemousse, Gertrude, Catfish Creek, and Superstition Review, and Prairie Margins.

Two by Timothy Berrigan:

6.

Years pixelate while humming seltzer. Recognizable patterns set on regular listen to neon. Click refresh and over there is where the Bible used to be. A Coke can ripens red underneath daikon frost. Fog doesn’t entirely collapse. Air tends to pixelate in the freezer. The mirror is a reunion you just absolutely refuse to go to. Rust is an autobiography. Summer is never quite the mind of a baby despite the advertising. ___ * = Boy looking at Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge at the Art Institute of Chicago, August, 2016.

Timothy Berrigan’s work has appeared in Really System, The Scores, SPAM Zine, and a postcard. He is a Literacy Advisor at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Two by Kelli Stevens Kane: will one day I will live in the present. consistency we are all floating in history's amniotic fluid Kelli Stevens Kane isa Cave Canem Fellow and an August Wilson Center Fellow. Her recent publications include Painted Bride Quarterly, North American Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, Split This Rock, and African Voices.

GLOOMVILLE

by William Repass

1 You careen neatly into sliced sonnets of sleep into snow. Nevertheless the afternoon ages gracefully.

Do not fail to (should you catch the bullet express to G——) lodge in your cheeks a shrill whistle, minor key. Deploy it as dusk falls for the sake of atmospheric form.

The sea has asked to be left alone while the breeze it wore liquefies into Thursday. All it is is like a shine*. We fall asleep inside formulas.

Nevertheless we arouse the authorities. Thursday is other natural flavors.

A ville of none but vile, crusty forms, inhospitable to content. Gravel so Rosicrucian as to set your wisdom teeth on edge. Even the cobbles are down right over the top with slime. The night jar neither cheeps of pickles, nor sweetly chirrs of dill. Squonk of trumpets only, wrung from a grammarphone by servile cranking.

Suchlike “compote” will by no means suffice to bribe the gargoyles of virtue, who send you on your gloom inveigled way.

Laughing and crying are the same hue dressed differently. The supermarket robs us of proba bility. We fall asleep with the winter open.

Clip clop goes the INGENIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA, chip off the ol buttress, assuming place of privy ledge a sliver off-center Square Cen-

Coincidence creates inclement weather. A song is made with sugar and scissors. Both Television and God sound like a falling tree.

trale. Snuffling, chugging along, it runs or rather trots at give or take ten thousand swinepower (gross as opposed to real). Its geary viscera truffle out your name, your crimes, your deprivations. Meantime a hideous movement churns the boulevards, hissings stickily filigreed with jargon. In short: galicious mossip.

And, wow, out beyond the municipal cones, a restoration era howitzer belches up civil war era manure, tracing an arc of impeccable cursive athwart mid ear.

William Repass is a projectionist and film librarian living in Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Bennington Review, Denver Quarterly, Hobart, Small Po[r]tions, and elsewhere.

Suicides

by Kurt Morris I wish all suicides could disappear, Sylvia Plath, Ian Curtis, and me still here. Freedom from the lash of despair.

I wish all suicides could disappear.

No drug side effects or unexplained tears.

No visions of death—what would our minds see?

I wish all suicides could disappear— Sylvia Plath, Ian Curtis, and me.

Kurt Morris is a writer, speaker, and storyteller.

You can connect with him at kurtmorris.net.

Dirty Notes

by Paula Coomer On the ground at times can be found odd detritus, curious links to lives not our own.

For instance, I found a mud-tracked sticky note, a modern memory device cramping the territory of page scraps torn from glueedged pads, lined steno books, newspaper margins, used envelope backs. This one said, “Nose Cone Broke (Fell Off Truss),” first letters capitalized, twinkling red script, the bold glow of aura inciting me to seize it from a wind gust, making me responsible for its message. I envisioned a rocket ship lodged high twixt naked two-by-four studs and a clumsy hammer knocking long, metalsleek whiteness aloft without benefit of lift-off, red stripes glinting in the sun,

soupy mud at the bottom of the steps—and there is a fat green caterpillar on the tomato vines next to the back door or else there is a hollowed-out pumpkin with a gradually collapsing face all dusted in snow—the wind wakes every living thing in all its rustling and tickles at your skin and in every room and outside place there is something like nothing else, the bright exuberance of someone who always loves you calling out to you, calling your name.

two, inky underline doubled in ballpoint, plunging me into a vision of seven

darkness is the lingering spirit of the city’s lost hopes and dreams, it creeps down the sidewalk trying to make eye contact with the citizens, no one is willing to engage, it’s too painful, too awkward, the half blind rat mistakes the spirit for a baker throwing away day old bread, the shopkeeper takes another swipe at the rat, this time the rat is able to dodge the broom and run for safety, if only I were a pigeon, the rat thought, I could go anywhere I wanted, as the city’s hot breath rises out of the cracks in the sidewalk so much is undetermined, a local bus stops and passengers get off, a middle-aged woman makes eye contact with the spirit and asks, do I know you?

rocket ships doomed by a carpenter’s clumsy carpentry to nosedive to earth

Daryl Gussin plays guitar and sings in Marriage Material. He lives in Los Angeles.

Gosh

by Howie Good

Two by Margaret Emma Brandl:

1 Flora and Fauna Leaves hiss at the idea of teachers having guns.

Meanwhile, a van loaded with weapons is burning in the parking lot of the CVS on North Street. You can see it blew out this window.

When the police arrive, whoever isn’t helping, runs off. The police have dogs. They have helicopters. I don’t think I’m going to stay much longer myself. Do I believe the Earth is shaped like a Frisbee? I believe it is. Do I know for sure?

No. The only evidence I have is a shoe someone lost while fleeing.

a sideways spiral slow-mo, and now the darned thing is useless since a ship without a proboscis to lead it can’t launch, and the only proof of whodunit I’ve pocketed for months amidst a clutch of dimes and pennies. At the top edge of the note I notice a series of hash-marks, seven in all, four sectioned by a slash plus

one by one.

Paula Coomer is the author of seven books of poetry and prose including Jagged Edge of the Sky and Nurses Who Love English. She lives and writes near the mouth of Hells Canyon in southeast Washington State. .August 7, 1987

by Daryl Gussin The rusting pipe gurgled as the sewage passed from the second story apartment down into the interior bowels of the city, a half blind rat ran for what they thought was a morsel of food, a yellow taxi drove by with a crying passenger inside, a puddle formed on the sidewalk from a broken bottle of alcohol that a destitute man had dropped on accident, a passerby heard the bottle crash and felt sorry for the old man but decided to keep walking rather than stop and help in any way, the half blind rat ran to the puddle, a shop keeper walked out of her store with a broom to clean up the mess, she saw the rat and hit it with the broom, in an apartment above the shop an adult human attempted to give advice to another adult human, if only it was as easy to give advice as it is to take it, one of the humans slammed their fist down on a table, it startled a pigeon who had been trying to sleep on the ledge, she flew away in a hurry looking for a quieter ledge, if only I weren’t a pigeon, she thought, then I would be allowed to sleep in the trees, the destitute man approached a selfish man for some spare change, he did not receive any, two people on a first date sit in a parked car, they don’t know what to say to each other because all they have in common is how bad they want to fuck one another, the destitute man thinks about knocking on the window of the car and asking for change but decides not to, at the end of the block emerging from the

Waiter, there’s— —a mermaid in my water. Waiter, she’s trying to climb out. See her moving her little tail? See her waving her little arms? I don’t know what she wants, but her hair sure looks nice. What would you call that green? Something like the sea?

Waiter—she’s getting kind of frantic. I don’t know if she knows how to swim. –I mean, sure.

It would be silly if a mermaid couldn’t swim, but I mean just look at her, half of her is that tail and yet she doesn’t seem to be doing very well. Do you have a Lifesaver? The candy, yes.

Okay. What about that woman over there? The one with the big red purse? Women carry all kinds of things in their purses. I think it’s plausible, at least. Waiter—I think this crouton will do. It’ll float, won’t it? Let me put it in. –Oh dear. I didn’t mean to drop it so close to her.

She’s—waiter, do you have a spoon? I’ve used mine and I don’t want to put a dirty spoon in there with her. Thanks. Alley oop. There—there.

Uh—waiter? She’s—uh—bubbling. It’s—yes, I suppose it does look like seafoam. What a tragic story. And look at this mess now. Waiter—can I get another water, please. And won’t you check that it’s—clear?

Story from the Perspective of a Dog This is what happens each morning: there is dew that droplets into existence on the lawn, the creak of the wood of the deck and each worn, splintered step; everything is fresh and new and always there is hope for something more: the kitchen-smells of coffee and syrup, the bathroom-smells of soapsuds and cosmetic powder, the house-smells of dust and morning breath; the morning is softly aglow or it is dark and raining—clouds, thunder, and lightning and

Margaret Emma Brandl is a PhD candidate at Texas Tech University, where she has taught English courses and read for Iron Horse Literary Review.

2 Monster Everything was falling out of windows. I kept thinking, “It has to stop,” but it didn’t. John had paint he said we might be able to use to fix things up a bit. I said I didn’t work for free and went off for a day and a night. All these years later, I still have difficulty talking about it. A gray-haired woman with a grandmotherly demeanor led a group of children down into the basement. The whole point of flowers, she would tell the court, is that they die.

3 Song without Music If you look down the alley, you’ll see people dumping bodies. Hundreds of people can be doing this at one time. Thousands! So you really have to plan your day very well. You can’t just go in and plant trees and walk away. There might be someone with a gun. I have only two places I want to go. But, of course, that can’t happen. Chairs and tables and cups are flying everywhere, and just to put strings on a guitar has become impossible.

Howie Good is the author of The Loser's Guide to Street Fighting, winner of the 2017 Lorien Prize from Thoughtcrime Press, and Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry.

Cabildo Quarterly, issue #12, summer 2018. (This quarter: ten months, once again. We’re filing paperwork to trademark a period of ten months as a Cabildo.) First press of 1000 copies July 11th 2018. Michael T. Fournier, fob; Lisa Panepinto, key. CQ is best read when found by chance in a laundromat or in a train station, but yes, you can always find new and old issues, updates and contributions up at cabildoquarterly.tumblr.com. We have a file cabinet full of back issues (not an exaggeration) which are available for a buck each or five bucks for a big ol’ envelope full. Hit us at cabildoquarterly@gmail.com and we’ll figure it out. Use the same address for fiction submissions, and/or lmpanepinto@gmail.com for poetry submissions: for the former, 2 stories of 3000-5000ish words; for the latter, 3-5 of your best poems. For both, include a 25-word bio.Simultaneous submissions are okay. This issue will be distributed on Mike’s tour with CQ contributor Mike Faloon, whose new book The Other Night At Quinn’s is out now on Razorcake/Gorsky Press, coming through Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Louisville and Columbus this summah, khed. Longtime readers might have noticed the masthead changed again: Lisa and Ryan moved from Pittsburgh back to Maine! They don’t call him “The Belt” for nothing. As always, thanks for reading this far, and to both Ryan and Bec for putting up with this. Oh yeah, one more thing: LISTEN TO DEAD TREND!