the
b’k
bitchin’ kitsch
8 Iss. 4 Apr 2017 Vol.
The Talent
Cover: “Hanged Woman� by Jennifer Lothrigel. John Gabriel Adkins 3 Raphael Bastek 10-11 Gary Beck 12 TJ Brennan 15 Ricky Garni 16 Jeremy Giles 20 Cameron Green 24-25 Caitlin Hennessey 18-19 Mark A. Howard 21 James R. Kincaid 4-7 Scott Laudati 28 Jennifer Lothrigel cover, 26, 27 Louis Marvin 14 Mark Myavec 30 Emily Rose Schanowski 13 Sanjeev Sethi 8 David Thompson 9, 17 Dr. Mel Waldman 22-23
JOhn Gabriel Adkins | The only surviving fragment of “the sack of brooklyn” by Marcus of Bushwick, with annotations | Fiction ... And the great Brooklyn wall was felled to two cubits, while many wails of mourning were cried by the people of Brooklyn, who said, “The wall has fallen.” And the invaders threw many semi-autobiographical novels into the Eastern River, so that it ran black with ink, and became poisonous. The vulgar pictures popular in that place were burned in a large fire of paper and electronicus [untranslatable] at the center of Flatbush, so that the smoke blackened the skies as the waters, and a terrible darkness covered the whole of the Brooklyn province. And many who did not flee were taken as prisoners, because in those days to flee was seen as an extreme act, while to do nothing was praised.[1] There was an artisanal cobbler by the name of Peter of Brooklyn, whose family was powerful within Brooklyn and had served the consulship for many generations, and was respected even by the Emperor. And while Peter Brooklyn sired no children, to the disrepute of his line, he was known as a joyous reveler and great worshiper of Bacchus, and was beloved by the people. And it is said that Peter fled against custom when the walls of Brooklyn gave way, and secreted himself in the northern lands under the name Julius. But his livelihood and good name were lost, and his family was captured. The sack lasted for many weeks, until ...[2]
[1] For a fuller discussion of this enigmatic passage from Marcus, see “The Behaviors and Attitudes of Brooklynite Society Before the Fall” (Hodges, 4-5). [2] Here the manuscript is cut off by water damage, probably during the Flooding of New England. Possible references to Marcus’s testimony, including the lost passages of “Sack”, appear in Chronicles VI-VII by Serenity of Baltimore.
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james R. Kincaid | Pickett’s Charge | fiction This war is not about slavery. Robert E. Lee I fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and I have never seen the day when I did not pray for them. Robert E. Lee Honoring Lee shows how little progress we have made toward regarding all people as equal. We might as well erect monuments to Klan leaders, to Benedict Arnold, to Axis Sally. Anon “So, class—Madison and Christopher, come over here!—from this hill you can see how the afternoon’s battle took shape and—Michael, tell Joshua to take his headphones off and listen to—What?—Well, then just take them off for him—how the afternoon’s battle took place and how touch and go it was—Yes, Hannah, I know I promised a bathroom break and there’s no need for that childish pantomime—for both sides, really, and how much depended on messages being delivered or not and— well, you could hear me fine if you’d come a little closer—where was I?” “You were going to talk about Pickett’s charge.” “Thank you, Andrew, though I think that charge has been overstressed, blown way out of proportion in importance. Just my opinion.” Silence. “Well, class, you saw the laser show recreation of the battle, what do you think?” “I thought it was a great show, Ms. McMillan. Nice colors—blue and grey and all.” “It was a fine show, Lauren, but as for Pickett’s charge?” “I liked that part a lot.” “OK. Good. So—Taylor and Ryan, would you join the group, please?—as for Pickett’s charge?”
“That’s why the North won the war, right, Ms. M?” “Well, what do the rest of you think? Was that one charge so very consequential?” Silence. “What do you think, Alexis?” “I think—“ “Yes?” “I guess.” “Well, lots of things happened that day and in battles before and after, so that—yes, Sarah?” “I can’t understand why they have that monument over there.” “To Pickett? Is there one?” “No, to Robert E. Lee.” “Well, we were onto the battle and Pickett, but OK?—will you all please gather closer and shut the hell up!—sorry—but Sarah just asked about the Lee monument, why it’s here. Here on that spot, you mean?” “Here anywhere.” “Oh, you mean...What do you mean?” “I read about it, all the whitewashing of Lee, people thinking he was opposed to slavery, when that’s just a load of pigshit.” “A load of...Can you explain, Sarah?” “Lee owned slaves, mostly from his wife, who inherited them with orders in her dad’s will to free them, only Lee didn’t. He even sold some, broke up families.” “What do the rest of you think of that?”
continues 5
James R. Kincaid | Pickett’s Charge
Silence. Finally, “What a dick!” “I see. Thank you, Tyler. Yes, Sarah. There’s more?” “A lot more. He took an oath to defend and protect the United States and then raised his hand against his country, showed himself a coward, an opportunist, and a cowardly liar.” “Well, Sarah, you have to remember the times...” “Like I said, he broke his oath. Almost half of the military officers in Virginia remained loyal, but Lee turned his back on his word and then tried to overturn the government he was sworn to uphold.” “But Sarah...” “I want to know, Ms. M., why he wasn’t tried and hanged, traitor that he clearly was. I read this historian...” “Sarah, you think he should have been executed?” “I’m just asking. The U. S. executed 140 deserters in World War 2 and they were just trying to save their asses. This is direct treason. It’s like having a statue of Heinrich Himmler at Auschwitz.” “I see. What do you think, class? Tyler?” “Sentimental nonsense. Sarah’s right. Having a monument to this miserable guy here, especially here, is disgusting.” “Why especially here, Tyler?” “Like they were saying in the show—“The High Water Mark of the Confederacy.” Those rocks right here, right here, right where we are: that’s as far as these inhuman people got, as slavery got. The high water mark, the emblem of the beautiful lost cause.” “And you think? Yes, Sarah?” “It’s the point where bigotry and hatred almost won.” “So, the monument to Lee...?” “Kept all the lies alive, made these shameless traitors into emblems of gallantry and—I don’t know—made them official, stamped them with approval.”
“Well, back to Pickett and the charge. You see, he came right up from over there and the carnage was horrible. Lee knew that he had this one last chance on the third day of the battle, and...Yes, Dylan?” “I think you’re doing what Sarah and Tyler were saying.” “Really, Dylan? How’s that?” “I mean, who cares about the battle? All this about Pickett. It seems to me just what Sarah and Tyler were saying, you know.” “Which was?” “Sentimental horseshit.” “The details of the battle are...?” “Remember that Faulkner novel you had us read? I brought it with me. It’s all about this poison we kept alive by things like not hanging Robert E. Lee. Can I read this part, which is what I mean, the part is—will show what I mean?” “OK. Go head and read it, Dylan.” “OK: “For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time….” “Thank you, Dylan. That’s beautiful.” “You think so, Ms. M? I think it’s disgusting. Makes me want to puke.”
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Sanjeev Sethi | Remembrace | Poetry Sky is benign this season. It gargles directives which I try decoding. Grok some but never get to the understory. In this hubbub I meet myself the most. Others are adventitious. When they cross my curve, I peg them on a pedestal. Each story is carved with a solipsistic edge even as angles debate and offer contrary designs. You rest in my mind, wake up at odd moments post -marking a heads-up: there is no perfect burial.
DAvid Thompson
David Thompson | Fear of the lord | photograph
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Raphael Bastek | Regarding Peter | Fiction It was a glorious day for Peter E. Peater III. How long had it been - a millennium? Two? And here he was, sweat lining the ass-crack of his underwear, his ragged tee tie-dyed by vermouth and cheese stains, yet he stood triumphant - exuberant, even! “Art is dead,” they had claimed. “There’s nothing you can show us that the Chinese haven’t yet painted. There’s nothing you can read to us that the Russians haven’t yet written.” And how! It was as if every newborn Commie was Dostoevsky incarnate. To think artists once complained of starving - in those days, Peter would’ve given anything to even be considered an artist. But even those goddamn Cossacks couldn’t upset Peter today. For the first time in years, he smiled, prompting a tear of blood from the cracked folds of skin at the corners of his mouth. Before him lay his magnum opus. Years of research and revision had finally procured from within him a literary epic so profound he could have sworn the pages exuded a divine radiance. When the Collective had first been granted their gift - a blessing of endless life, so long as they stayed within their designated underground studios and libraries, toiling ceaselessly on their art - Peter had been filled with ambition, guided by voracious passion. Each artist had their own self-declared mission; he strove to write the definitive novel of the century, a voice for all future generations to study and revere. Peter started strong, writing for weeks, pouring forth what he wholly believed to be the best material he had ever conceived. When he first found himself weakening, the bores of banality and solitude settling in, he agreed to temporarily resign from his work, seeking inspiration in the writings of authors before him. And so the first century passed. “But that’s okay,” a young Peter assured himself. “The more time spent working, the more timeless this novel will be. Why settle for literary centurion when I could be a prophet for all future millennia?” He had no answer to disprove himself. So it went, the perennial hourglass slowly tipping, turning, and refilling, Peter growing older and wiser, until this very moment finally came to be. His final revisions in place, proofreading complete - how fitting that the last novel he read in this underground library would be his own.
Slowly but assuredly, he changed from his soiled garments, carefully retrieving his finest suit, set aside seemingly a lifetime ago for this very occasion. For years, Peter had fantasized how this moment would play, dreamily humoring visions of himself twirling merrily, prancing to the tune of a favorite record, popping champagne in celebration. Peter had eluded death for over fifteen hundred years; he could not escape the weight of age. Once so young, now he was only tired: an artist, alive but resigned. He made his way to the intercom. A single tone rang through his chambers. “Rodregos,” Peter coughed. He forgot the last time he had needed to communicate with another person. Fortunately his frequent conversations with himself had kept his muscles relatively intact. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Rodriguez.” He patiently waited for the response signal. “Been a while, Petey.” Peter swore he heard a muffled yawn. Rodriguez had been the first artist in the Collective to claim his work was finished. He had written a symphony; Peter hadn’t heard it. Reluctant to abandon a comfort built over centuries in the commune, Emmanuel Rodriguez accepted a position as gatekeeper, waiting for the remainder of the Collective to finish. The apathy in today’s response was not subtle. Peter stammered a response, pausing to reconsider the formidable tome clenched in his hands. The epitome of over a dozen lifetimes of work. “I...I’ve finished, Rod. I’m ready to come out.” Silence. For a moment, there was no response on the other end. Had he been a younger writer, Peter would have remarked that this single moment felt longer than the entire past millennium. A metallic clang resonated through his chamber as a hidden iron bolt dislodged and slid aside. Peter edged cautiously towards the exit, suddenly faced with the reality of what had only been distant thoughts for centuries. What would it be like being outside again? What had others created? Most importantly - what would people think of his work? He considered pushing the door shut, retreating into his familiar sanctuary. Perhaps another revision... Peter closed his eyes. He thrust himself into the whirlwind, tumbling towards the unknown.
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Gary Beck | Circularity | Poetry When life oozed out of the sea evolution accelerated, firmly establishing mankind as the overlords of Earth, without natural restraints to protect the habitat shared by all. Avaricious exploiters consumed excessively leveled mountains, poisoned the seas, polluted the skies, leaving some to fear that devolution is moving faster.
emily rose schanowski
Emily rose Schanowski | The Factory By the Sea | Ink and watercolor on paper 13
Louis Marvin | Drum Boy | Poetry 1-2-3, re-cov-er, 1-2-3, re-cov-er it beat into my mind Re-cov-er
chant it, hula, re-cov-er
It beat my mind, it beat my heart, it beat my soul, re-cov-er From foster home to foster home, hospital to hospital, clinic to clinic, Med to med, Dr. to Dr., my drum beat on, Re-cov-er We dance, we sing, we let the bells ring, re-cov-er Boom, boom, boom beats my heart Re-cov-er. . .but, I never do
TJ Brennan | Declare With Your Mouth | Poetry After all these years, it’s like dropping our wine glasses from a cliff; they fall and fall, never shattering. Some nights I wish you had more to say, maybe being married is brash enough. Faith is wonderful, much better than dying and I accept whatever small gestures you may have left to offer.
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Ricky Garni | Rapscallions | Poetry
They are feeding LSD to the bison of Montana. This is not good. The bison are interested in LSD but it is not good for them at all. The owners of the bison are understandably furious about this. Bison cannot do the things that bison should do – like romp and mount – when they are hallucinating. What can they do about these acid eating bison? What will transpire with the bison population if the culprits do not desist? What will the world feel like when you can no longer say “Out there in the prairie – I think I spotted some bison” when the fields seem to glow in the pale light of limitless beauty? It is worth keeping in mind that the bison eat the LSD the first time out of politeness. The second time, out of desire.
David Thompson
David Thompson | Camus in Erie | Photograph
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Caitlin Hennessey | You Gotta Be Falcon Kidding Me | Essay Despite their fowl reputation, when it comes down to it, we’re all birds of a feather when it comes to puns. Oh, toucan groan and grumble when you run across them, but owl bet it’s with a laugh even despite yourself. Personally, I fully embrace the pun as an eggscellent form of humor: it’s hard not to appreciate a bit of clever wordplay, even if the actual joke is stupid. It’s not ostrich to say that puns serve a higher purpose in bringing people together. I’m generally a pretty shy person, for instance. Unless I’m very comfortable with the location or situation, I can’t really talk to strangers, and sometimes even interacting with acquaintances can be very hawkward for me – I don’t want to beak a bother, and I worry about being seen as ridiculous or as a pest. But when I noticed people were trading fruit puns on tumblr a few years back, joining the game wasn’t so nerve-wracking for me as it might have been otherwise, because puns are inherently ridiculous. Now it’s not so troubling to send those people messages or links to posts they’d like. Puns also helped me out wren I joined a new club. While everyone was friendly enough, I had a hard time really talking to anyone, and I was starting to seriously egret my decision. They were all such close friends! How could I possibly become a part of that? Then Diana mentioned in passing that “no, this or that should have been a pun,” and James and I took her at her word. We cawed it quits after about fifteen to twenty minutes of nothing but, and now I have a bunch of very good friends I can talk to very easily. Diana’s never brought up something needing to be a pun again (at least in my hearing) oddly enough, but I still have wordplay to thank for really breaking the ice. For me, puns add geese to the social interaction wheels, making a generally difficult thing much easier for me to achieve. Of course, not everyone is willing to admit to enjoying puns. My friend Dave, for instance, swears up and down that he hates them. “There are a ton of things I won’t admit,” he said to me once. “Not laughing at puns isn’t one of them.” “Because you admit now that you do laugh at them?” I asked. “No.” “Then you’re in denial. You should wade out; there are crocodiles in there.”
“Wait. What?” “In de Nile.” I’ll sparrow you his reply to that, because it wasn’t polite. Some of our funniest and most entertaining conversations have involved the heavy application of puns, though, and he’s not only somewhat participated in their use, but laughed at jokes that included puns in a more roundabout manner. Also, he’s friends with me. Obviously he doesn’t really mind them that much. Since I did bring up tumblr earlier, social media is actually a terrific example of how puns bring people together as well. Whether it’s people complaining about them or pigeon in to extend them, tumblr and Facebook are littered with thousands of posts featuring wordplay. Even better, social media allows for the addition of visual puns as a communication medium, something that it is much harder to achieve in everyday conversation. Posts involving puns are very often some of the most popular on the site as people share them with one another, passing them on to make others smile about them as well. It’s the highlight of my day when posts like that show up on my dash, because not only do I get to laugh, but I get to make everyone who follows me laugh, too. It doesn’t matter that I don’t get to be there with them when it happens – just knowing that it will make someone smile is enough. Puns, in short, are a bonding experience. It doesn’t matter if you have a talont for them or not, or even if you’re willing to admit that they quack you up: humor is incredibly effective in winging people over. And for those of you who still want to call puns the lowest form of humor? Shakespeare is very highly regarded, both in literary circles and out, and he flocking loved puns.
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Jeremy Giles | Cubed Meat | Poetry Sci-fi whispers can’t cross dimensions as well as a chalk square accompanied by a teacher’s stare One glaring contest away from ignorance Tragedy ensues when the hopscotch board crashed headlong into the foursquare game No one saw it coming; the hopscotchers were looking at the grid while the foursquarers were looking at the court Billy was pelted with rubber until he passed out Suzy was stuck on one leg for three days Every rule was kiboshed and rewritten more specifically Still the victim count rises. Nine mississippi- Ten mississippi- Eleven mississippiThe fighting young couple purposely drew crisscrossed lines in the sand There were no survivors “Explain it to me” the half listening half yelling half confused drunk could say Drawing cryptic runes on a napkin ensures time-traveling archaeologists never learn our best kept secrets “It’s a mystery to me” the sober man resigned Squared before he was circled he found what was pent up gone And with an obtuse stretch his sides billowed and flattened Puffing out chalk clouds of remedy. Cough- Cough- CoughYou’ll find pyramids on the opposite sides of the earth with no inclination of how they got there But you’ll find them standing
Mark A. Howard | Getting Old is Bullshit | Poetry Debussy’s soft thunder rattled, in a harmony with the cold glow, of my home, and I was feeling, rather fucking Blue. Amidst the old shirts and hats, Too small for a boy, Too large for a man, Just right to defy all, rather than submit to sucking of chests and depletion of the stomach. Aren’t we all just puffed up, looking to smite the big cat? It depends on this dry heat, I suppose. It’s all about the brands we possess, The ones we fix, the ones we subscribe, the ones we are conceived by. Those former flames that we let die off, In those previous summers To the pyres we constructed As an end to their memories.
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Dr. Mel Waldman | Our Night-journeys | Poetry (on reading Denise Levertov’s poem People at Night derived from Rilke and Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem People at Night) After the red sun dies, machete, cuts the light in half, twilight a broken bridge between day & night ruins of waves & particles unites severs me & me & me &
& threads of invisibility
after dusk & after dark our night-journeys begin & we slip away from one another, far away, & into a private place of sin & I withdraw & separate from remove the masks of day-me social-me & all my veils of unreality I wish to be free & I retreat from
me & me & me & non-me real & otherworldly
away from
the other-all strangers & my false self too
away from
me & you
& plummet through inner space into the eerie abyss beautiful onyx or is it ebony? I wish to be free after dark when our night-journeys begin
& in the sweet succulent darkness I taste your juicy presence drink your spirit & devour your divinity I wish to be free Yet when I unleash the dazzling lights I discover the unnameable an uncanny nothing-ness or perhaps, a pulchritudinous that melts into illusion or my precious delusion
something-ness
& so I sit with the unfathomable a ghostly presence & search for me & me & me raw & seething in the ruins of the sizzling night away from me & you as I divide & separate into a minuscule self exposed naked
unmasked
&
unknown
alone
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Cameron Green | That dirty fucking lawn chair | fiction Yes. I mean, I guess he left it here, yeah. Did he leave anything else? No, of course not. No notes, no flowers, not even the goddamn stubble that was in the sink when he shaved that morning. He took everything with him. I don’t know where he keeps it all. Yes, every single day. I mean it. He would sit out there on the back porch and chew his dip and listen to the radio. One of those old radios, old as hell, the kind that still had an antenna. Nothing has antennas anymore. Everything just comes right to you nowadays; you don’t even have to search for it. No, he didn’t come back for it. He left it here. It didn’t fit in his truck, so he left it here. He was supposed to come back to get it, but he didn’t come back. I don’t know, he probably bit his lip or something, cut himself scratching a bug bite. How should I know? I told you I didn’t know. He sure as hell wasn’t a gentle man. This is upsetting to me as well, sir, I assure you. I don’t know how long the blood has been there. I never went out there when he was out there, that was his special spot, where he would go to clear his head. That’s probably where he decided… Two weeks, last time I saw him. Not at the house, no. He was at the market. He was there with her. That’s the last I saw him. I don’t know how that much blood got on the lawn chair. And you’re sure it’s blood? That thing has been out there for all kinds of rainstorms, landslides, I mean… No, I don’t know why he only left the lawn chair. And you’re certain? Okay, okay. Two months ago. He met her at the hospital while he was visiting his mother. Her father had been kept in that same ward, receiving similar treatment. He was vulnerable, I think. That’s how she got to him. He was sick too, in a way. He started running a lot. Sometimes people do that when things are starting to change.
How long have they been searching? Maybe he just left, maybe he left everything. He had talked about it before, mentioned it once or twice. Please, can you just leave already? I…I am in mourning. Of course I still had feelings for him. I loved him. I still do. Yes, please. Please take it away from here. Please take that dirty fucking lawn chair out of my house. Why? I don’t know why. I just hate it now, I hate it. It’s been there, it’s been there ever since. No, since he left. And it will probably be there forever. Long after I am dead, after all of the green things that cover this planet are shaved off, it will be there. After nuclear war has ravaged all of civilization, it will be there. Like a fucking Twinkie. Sitting there, mocking me. It is fixed, somehow, long ago woven into the very fabrics of space-time. Woven in a way that neither I, nor God himself will ever be able to understand. But yet here it is, on my fucking porch, permanently. And permanence is not a concept that I am in any state to consider.
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Jennifer Lothrigel | Forgot to Be Ashamed | Poetry I crawled into the burnt hollow of a thousand year old redwood tree, lay my head on her fallen arm, sunk my hips into her roots. On the ground at her feet, I loosened my blouse, wrote new memories with holy dirt across my chest, my breasts rested against a soft heritage. I forgot to be ashamed, my belly kissed her thighs, forgot to be ashamed, lay against her fire scarred trunk forgot to be ashamed, our tissues listened to each other’s survival stories.
Jennifer Lothrigel
Jennifer Lothrigel | Forgot to be Ashamed | Photograph 27
Scott Laudati | The heart of america | Poetry i lost another one who didn’t want love or forever or some way back to the heart of america. she just wanted kids. white kids named john and jesse and little sally. kids that would get her off work and never make her think about california and giraffes or they way she felt at 16 when her parents stopped loving her but said the words anyway, who looked at their little girl and decided she didn’t have it so they went to the next one. she wanted kids who’d adopt a dog named lady or molly, and a vet who might say “it’s a 1/4 pit-bull but the dog will never stop looking like a lab”. and the house could be new. and the kids would never have their own minds. they would be patriots and they would never fail like citizens. their mother could change the truth and never have to explain that she’d found love once and it didn’t act like it was supposed to, that she didn’t say “hit me” while age and time were still on her side. the kids would never want to know about the heart of america and that it disappeared just around the time that they made it cool to sell love for money
History — The B’K
The Bitchin’ Kitsch (2010-present) or The B’K is a compzine edited and published by The TalbotHeindl Experience, LLC in Denver, Colorado. The Bitchin’ Kitsch was created as a monthly zine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who had something to say. It was born out of a necessity to create an avenue for editor, Chris Talbot-Heindl, to remain artistic after school, with her subversive style, while continuing to live in Central Wisconsin. It exists for the purpose of open creativity and seeks to be an outlet for people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to show their work. Although the idea was created as a “what-if” brainstorm between the Talbot-Heindls’ whilst in bed and sort of groggy, it has since blossomed into a legitimate publication that has gone international Through the grace of the Internet, The B’K has had the opportunity to create a juried book and the opportunity to publish two juried chapbooks. Here’s to the past five years, and hopefully many, many more.
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Mark Myavec
Mark Myavec | through Rose colored Glasses | Photography