Crack the Spine
Literary magazine
Issue 151
Issue 151 May 26, 2015 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2015 by Crack the Spine
CONTENTS Alex Ender
We Are Evergreen
Lee Varon The Affair
Amber Johnson Dreamer’s Log I
Mary Julia Klimenko Tonight
Cathleen Maza Only Just Begun
James Grabill
The Idea of 2029
Dave Petraglia
11 Godzilla Movies That Were Never Made
Alex Ender
We Are Evergreen
I soak the stone with acid streams. The decomposed entertain golden showers enough to not reach up and slaughter me. All these concrete benches, but no outhouses. The stones sparse themselves, but not always in body lengths—some had permissed (I suppose) to be folded in halves, or maybe quartered before extinction. Where the trees sprout divide them even more, their bones growing into bark. And they say the evergreens have no skeletons, but joints fused into wooden balls within the elbow of their branches are there (just look). The wind chimes whisper to rest. The wind chimes well without instrument, weathers saliva out of my mouth—I spit on no one, against my will. I break off an angel head from a child’s grave. Her beheading does not
curse. She haloes from within my pocket, a hard hip lump drummed by my godhand. The groundskeeper says do not remove the flowers, to let them die like we die. I’ve been wilting, sure, but the squirrels won’t gnaw my petals like a petunia blossom, like I want them to. Birds have their own houses. I’d like to give them their own grounds, the squirrels, for when casualty happens by tires or a choking nutshell, they need somewhere to go. Perhaps the tree-circled dumpster, plastic coffin comforts. Drive through (why not?)— monuments to go. The railroads only zone (for now) and bear no name, but they’ll bring slates and slabs eventually and etch fables that will wipe away. Columbine Drive—a bang-bang title
for this row of lives left short (befitting). Woodlawn Road and Birch Street do not flatter a deathwalk. Fuck shoes (dig my nails into their ashes, their nutrients—help me grow), but grass is the obstacle, the nonnative fool, brushing soil from my heels. And a mausoleum (an easy pick, that iron gate), heading the end of Columbine, removed a sarcophagus within itself—the empty boards lay still. I hear someone halt-shout—I ain’t saying he’s a gravedigger (nor am I). On the oak planks, I smooch my angel head, tell her we are evergreen, jawbreaker her around to stopgapped breaths. The throat constricts her tunnel—I am saved. He says not without a paid plot.
Lee Varon The Affair
I Edwin— dapper in white suede shoes, vest, an easy smile— too much handsome Daisy the maid said. Ladies cricked their necks to see him turn down Sycamore Street. Do good looks come with trouble? Is a tear sewn in the pocket of every Romeo’s shirt? II Virginia Marie— her picture on a matchbook— an extra in a Hollywood movie— auburn hair, gray eyes, diamond on her ring finger. Standing on the brink of her life with a book of matches.
III The mistress, Loretta Harding— He loved her red hair— twirled it in his fingers. Under the honey locust she loved him like you love the first summer day. IV The husband, J. J. Harding— He shot him with a .32, the bullet entered the left side of his head behind the ear, splitting, part coming out of his temple, part embedded in his brain, affecting that part that controls speech, writing.
V Afterward— Did the bullet have her name on it? An imprint of their affair? That night near the farmhouse my grandfather beside his mistress— a blush that turned to blood.
Amber Johnson Dreamer’s Log I
Rush of morning air, wake up. The sheets rustle with my timid movements. New day with setting sun, depending on your choice of direction. I steadily recall my nightmare: I was stranded on an island in hell, demons like terrorists plotted their attack on me. There were bombs and guns, I had to hide. They found me every time. Morning fog, & I swear I felt the island moan as it looked to the clouds, to the angel’s sigh behind the clouds, to the hands clasped thickly around my neck while god prayed a melody down on the sleeping devils. A memory of dream, the song enters my mind in trumpets of non-thought. —Static muse —White dress —Ivory peeling down her throat I’m drifting… drifting… gone. (~) (~) ~)
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New day: The sun burns the Nile’s lapping waters. Ode to the blue and green
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skillfully hiding biblical glory in its bounty. The Pharaoh, he lives! and the Egyptian people celebrate in waves of alcohol and grapes. Everything is good because Ra, the sun god, smiles. (Here I am the Pharaoh’s muse, timeless & airy, dedicated & fragile. Here there is aesthetic, gold, but the plagues are coming, I can feel it: the empty headed Divinity breaks fingers and toes as I pick flowers in the garden far and cosmic. This Eden cannot bear the voices of war on the horizon and I dare not.) New day: There’s smoke in my lungs and nature in my veins. (I’m lost in the hideous mess that is god’s afterthought.) Glazed eyes on the world, mouth agape at the desolate sight of that fascinating nothing. The jungle burns against my retinas, sizzling vines and cooking branches, animals screeching subtle airs spinning mad circles in my brain, deluding my mindspeak into a stream of “---------------------.” My blood is a mix of those Amazonian battles, and I feel the aggressor is winning. New day: The angels! They call again! I’ve fallen lightyears from their grace, yet still their songs cut through the distance, they fill my sullen head: jar me, startle me awake. Looking around I notice the dystopian setting of which I’ve been forced to live and I listen for once in my goddamn life. “Beware” The song seems to say, “Be free” They chant Zen mantras like slave songs while the double edge sword glistens.
Mountains rise, earthquakes ripple. Mother-Earth knows nothing of this and the angels avert their fetal eyes. New day: Oh good! The symphony is waking, stretching their sleepy strings, yawning to the maestro and today they will be getting another over excited kid with a heart of gold. Calm down buddy, you’re only here because you bought your way in. They begin to play: “I submit” The music drones & god gags, the strings break, ladies boo, the men take arms… This is how he wanted it to be and I’m flooded with the epiphany. Suddenly I’m standing in front of the crowd, (violins listening, cellos hissing) & keeping my daisy outstretched, ready & willing, wilting, but the jeers hit me like a physical blow. (I think back to the island.) I’m standing in front of the crowd, sermons of love spilling from my lips… and the jeers hit me like a physical blow. “We are meant to be free!” I yell, but they yell louder. I wonder where my god is and realize he’s being booed at the top of mausoleum steps. “There is no sin,” I beg and there’s laughter now, “…only essence.” A cage scoops up my words and traps them like a stray. I’m just a wayward exhibit: laughed at, enjoyed, and mocked. Never never understood. I don’t understand. I don’t want to.
New day: Dog fights in dirty streets. The sun is red overhead & let me paint you a picture: The howls high pitched and squealing, the blood crimson and warm, the cheers loud and excited, and then the silence. (Another winner!) You’ve got a lot of nerve. I’m walking around the crowd, holding out my sign: “Be free” Does anyone care? ----The devil smiles at me from beneath the brim of his hat. There are bugs in his teeth. He smells like vanilla and dreamstuff. He holds out his sign: “Join me” --------------------------“Honey!” “Yes?” “Telephone!” “Who is it?” The scene grows dim. “Power.” 13, 13, 13, 13 : (dial tone) ---------------------------
New day: Dark pond water on a crisp October night and a hip hop beat softly playing through the tall grass: How can I go on? I think about sibling rivalry between cool skies & molten lava, grace and the graceless. I think and a terror overtakes my body, a shiver passes through me. I grip my throat and squeeze, thinking about the devil’s sign... ((****)) —Suddenly the angels’ song returns: (harsher, a battle cry humming behind.) They flutter in a line, the angels, black war paint on rosy cheeks like tribal marks. Their eyes are dark, dignified and knowing. They’re ready for whatever this is. New day: We’re marching the dense, daring forest as indigenous peoples in chains offer us food and direction. We rape their women. We rape our own as well. (Load the rifles –war reboot.) Well, this chancy production took countless rehearsals to perfect, I’ll let you in on that little secret. From side stage the whole thing is humorless & I hate it. The show must go on.
“Yessir.” There are thousands of bodies front to back, dark eyes swirling red and white. “How may I please you?” Whips grind along the backs of these inkblot people: depression filling the air, marching a forever of misery, redhearts beating furious little blood cells spreading. Silence, and then... Swinging hips. Shoulders drop. Sway to the backward beat. Body to body. Arms hung low. (knuckle dragger) Mouths open in bliss: may the dark day be blessed by these bouncing slaves. And there’s something so native about this dance: it soothes me. I hear its call to the ancestors of some ancient tribe, maybe even the gods and goddesses of some unknown religion. (It flows through their limbs like waves, but controlled.) Ha, I bet the angels want to understand this. Ha, I bet the angels want to penetrate this.
New day: The distance holds liberated plateaus weathered in their languid stretch towards heaven, heat, buzzards and other flying scavengers. I take in the colors: Mexicana and dusty, rocking back and forth in hues of beautiful orange, tan, sandy brown and hardly anything living. Not even me. I’m gone, poof, lost, a ghost, & I know the top of the mountain secures my place in heaven… but the damned thing is just a mirage on my eyes. We are hot and angry, the snakes are glad and waiting. In any case, I travel the harsh punishment century, sweat dripping, scorpions murmuring & me tripping over the atoms heavy in the air, is this my cleanse? Is this my test? Hello, are you there? Below the sand, the devil is writing his next sign. “Do it” New day: The piano is sleek, ebony, cool & cream glitz. The air is thick, rough, musty smoke mingling, gin and tonic trailing. The microphone stands solid (my anchor in this abyss, this sea of chattering people dressed in Sunday bests) and the spotlight burns. Ah, this Louisiana night swelters. The music begins: “Tonight the angels are taking bets… earthly pleasures exchanged between heavenly hands.”
I sway in holy union with the sensual jazz bop, snapping fingers with twisted smile loose. The crowded room exists and I am alive: “Separation from God is the true meaning of hell.” I croon to the waiting people. A gentle rush of attention floods my coy smile & with amplified truth I moan: “The worldly desire for god is simply the work of the devil... The music skips, skips, skips. I hit: “So you best enjoy it.” The crowd cheers & I think back to the mockery and jeers. The many days, the many realms, the many dreams drip acid down the back of my brain. I am explosive, redhot and understanding. ((****)) The angels’ song… it returns… returns only to fall on deaf ears. Oh, I know about your idea of freedom. (I’m my every day in infinite cycle, reliving and redreaming and relearning the lessons god never wanted me to learn.) The saints are weeping, the devils are teeming. I am scheming.
Aaaah, this whiskey tastes smooth as sin as I swallow it down: the lights blinking and I spinning and he’s got me in his arms now, says, “Oh, we’ve been waiting for one like you.” & I’ve found my sanctuary finally! (I’m sure I taste smooth as sin too when he swallows me down.) ____________ —inside the devil’s mouth. ____________
I wake up.
Mary Julia Klimenko Tonight
I paint because I was not able to find the magenta you promised me if I loved you. The yellow bloom of orgasm was quick to fold back into itself like time into the center of a life I couldn’t open without you. I traveled in darkness to your house, entering through the back door, my hair shining with rosemary oil, my body rubbed pink ready to merge with your darkness. In your bedroom I saw blue in the air as if our breathing condensed into pure color and when I closed my eyes, the ochre and goldenrod of your touch made my breath quicken. My arms held your fury, “Green,” you said we were green and sometimes we were red, crimson deeper than snow like the high note from a steel guitar. I believed divine fire compelled you to stay with me forever. You said you didn’t mean to hurt me yet your betrayal extinguished the color of passion. Sorrow thundered, heaven was really hell; desperation drove me away from you. The abyss is the color of the inside of an abalone shell. In my studio tonight, I imagine you traveling colorless streets, like a wounded animal longing for the strength to pull itself toward the shelter of trees. I touched you, held you fast and deep; we opened together and merged. You were afraid, like the poet said, of “even an empty dress”. I open tubes of shiny paint, dipping my brush into cadmium red, yellow ochre, dioxazine purple, and quinacridone gold. I want to paint headless angels and bottomless pits, the apocalypse illustrated with burning fountains of water, winter the color of
forever. I am brave when I am alone. I won’t let your words entice me. The tempo and rhythm of silence is the metallic blue of sea water obscuring whatever you said, whatever you wanted to say.
Cathleen Maza Only Just Begun
She sits on the passenger side of the old Buick, slack jawed and gazing out the window at the seemingly endless miles of farmland the car passes on the highway. Occasionally, she’ll absent mindedly use her hand to wipe at a drop of spit that keeps forming in the corner of her overly-glossed pink lips. She is slightly dazed and feeling mildly sick from the cheap tequila she had been drinking non-stop during her three hour church hall reception. Every once in a while she tries tugging the stretchy white lycra fabric of her wedding dress further down her thighs, but it insists on riding back up. The over-sized white silk lily tucked into her bleached blonde hair itches her head something fierce. She restrains herself from scratching, however. She knows if her long hair comes undone, loose strands will fall into her mouth, stick to her lip gloss,
and threaten to gag her. She isn’t quite ready to ruin the illusion of herself as a fresh, lovely bride. In the driver’s seat, her new husband navigates the car with one hand and holds his open can of beer in the other. The collar of his white dress shirt is open, his black tie hangs loosely around his neck. His suit coat is lying discarded somewhere behind them in the backseat. Every so often he rests the can of beer on her exposed thigh, snorting laughter when the coldness makes her flinch. At some point he asks for a cigarette, which she lights for him using a match from one of the books that littered the tables at their reception. She suddenly feels embarrassed by the hot pink kissing couple on the cover with “Andy and Cindy” printed underneath. How could she have picked out something so gaudy and childish? But
maybe it’s appropriate, after all. Right now she kind of feels like a cartoon wife. She dutifully holds her spouse’s beer while he smokes his cigarette and announces every few minutes how far they are from the Holiday Inn where they will spend their honeymoon week-end. She knows that what he’s really doing is keeping some kind of count down until he can get to the hotel and get laid. She finds him more than a little irritating, but she smiles at him as if he’s the cleverest man in the world. She’s certain he has no clue that she only married him to get out of her parents’ house and into somebody (anybody) else’s. Options being limited in the small town she was raised in, she chose what she figured was the best one for a girl fresh out of high school with no hope of seeing the inside of a college. The guy in the driver’s seat was not the love of her life, but he had a decent job as a
mechanic two towns over from the one she grew up in. They met in a bar three months ago and he claimed he was madly in love with her. All in all, it put her miles ahead of her girlfriends, who were mostly working in fast food joints until they got their lives figured out. He makes another announcement regarding their impending destination and winks at her as if they are in on some giant conspiracy together. She supposes it IS some kind of a conspiracy, but he sure as hell isn’t in on it. She winks back at him and glances down at her white leather wrist watch. They have been married for exactly five hours and twenty minutes and she thinks she is already starting to hate him.
James Grabill
The Idea of 2029
Classical ambition will stand behind and in front of an espresso counter. A conversation will spike up under ‘50s band shells of old assumptions that the new world never ends and no number of kids would be overdoing it. Counter-intelligence satellites will direct more off-world parabolic dishes toward street-corner spreads of rumor-mongering in speculative cosmology, as mystery and natural wildness disappear further with flora and fauna from before Earth was peopled. Before the church married its own establishment, priests may have been hearing a single-skinned shaman drum through the wall. Seeking strength, they practiced chanting the invisible closer, hoping to live more fully, calling the sense home, and they still will. Coffee cups will be refilled, where long-term discussions continue on their own steam. Blue potatoes will be spaded up somewhere behind brick apartments. Split-middle willowing will swim with the truck of civilized yields., Baseline torque from where the oil-lamp right whales dropped will still leach into love and fear. More than ten years will pass in an avalanche of melting ice, rewriting the encyclopedia. Presence won’t be the only human effect in all the blinding blue blazes taken for granted. The next era will feel sorry for this one, thirsty and hungry enough as it is, in small rooms where anyone has been.
Dave Petraglia
11 Godzilla Movies That Were Never Made An Essay
With this year’s reprise, there have been 30 Godzilla movies made, fueling a franchise that rivals the James Bond series, which such memorable plotlines as ‘Godzilla Vs. Mothra’ (1964), ‘Godzilla Vs. Gigan’ (1972), ‘Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah’ (1995) and ‘Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters AllOut Attack’ (2001). Early on, the producers of the series found Godzilla resonated more with audiences if the creature generated even the slightest pathos, often by quirky, vaguely anthropomorphic behavior. Some plots fairly humanize the beast as a de facto defender of humanity against the threats from other freaks of nature run amok. However, there are some script treatments recently discovered in the archives of Toho Co., Ltd, for proposed ‘Zillas expanding on the concept of more sympathetic or vigilantist monsters that were never put into production. For now, that is: 1. CODZILLA - The only seaborne ‘Zilla, this 300-foot long mutant codfish is a friend to fisherman, as its transit through the oceans is shown to herd into waiting nets entire schools of fish fleeing in terror. Known affectionately in Italy as ‘Baccalazilla’, where yearly seaside feasts honor the creature with roasted potatoes launched into the sea from small catapults, and a steamed cavoli served in its name.
2. MAUDEZILLA - A retired, 40-story ‘Zilla with Bea Arthur’s face, the very definition of terror. Hugs it out on a South Seas atoll with her monster friends Blanche-san, Rose-san, and Sophia-san when Dotty-san isn’t laying waste to sexist Pacific Rim cultures, or terrifying overbearing former husbands or boyfriends. 3. ODDZILLA -The LGBTQIA ‘Zilla. While the nuclear dosage expands this creature to immense proportions, there’s some question about its sexual preference. Doomed to wander the landscape in search of its libidinous identity, “Oz” stalks Republican neighborhoods, stomping the shrubs and mailboxes of anti-gay activists, and sliming their cars with a sticky gel considered by many to be, well, fruit-flavored. 4. MOBZILLA - A Joe Pesce ringer, in office-building size. Stalks the planet seeking anyone who would give Italian Americans a bad name. Capable of melting clear plastic furniture covers, and limousines, with radioactive garlic breath; can kill offending monsters with just a pen. A giant pen. Joined for big jobs by giant Ray Liotta and De Niro clones, who say everything twice. Say everything twice. 5. RODZILLA - Rod Stewart’s microphone exposes the rock star to a near-fatal dose of radiation during a concert via the freak transmission of a mega-joule voltage spike from a nearby nuclear power plant. Stewart grows to the size of a wind-turbine, while, strangely, his ego retracts to that of a backup singer. He spends his days singing harmonies for bands at rock concerts, without the need for any amplification.
6. SHODZILLA - The only treatment to be openly slapstick, this attempt at comedy has Godzilla’s costume disintegrating during crucial scenes, with chunks of the latex suit falling away, revealing the actor inside. Big surprise. 7. BODZILLA - This creature expands the fallout of the atomic test to distant atolls in the chain, one of which is the site of filming of ‘Beach Blanket Bimbo’. This script calls for the Annette Funicello character to morph into towering tail of epic, well, proportions. She attracts the numbskull boys of rival bad-boy surf gangs with her prominent anatomy, then slimes their beaches with her radioactive suntan lotion breath while kicking sand in the faces of their squealing girlfriends. 8. SODZILLA – Takes the form of entire neighborhoods of sod, which lies dormant for years in the suburbs, until needed to fend off assaults from gangs of giant mutant ‘Hiboi Shibakariki’ (‘Terrible Lawnmowers’). 9. MOSSADZILLA - An undercover Israeli IDF officer who gets caught inside the blast zone and grows to mammoth dimensions, hunts down former Nazis living in far-flung regions of the world. A master of deception, the beast uses disguises ranging from office buildings to water towers and the occasional Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Runs joint operations with international espionage agencies, and reports directly to the Prime Minister. 10. iPODZILLA - Left behind on the atoll by a rigger of the blast-tower, a prototype version of the iPod was atomized and its elements fused into the
stem cells of a gestating ‘Zilla. This treatment calls for the giant to be filmed entirely in silhouette, while listening to white-corded, truck-sized earbuds. The late Steve Jobs micro-managed the project into the red, to the point of insisting that a Ferris wheel in a crucial amusement park showdown between iPodzilla and a Windows-based enemy be constructed to resemble an iPod click-wheel. 11. BOTZILLA - Roams cyberspace, stalking multiplayer game hackers and assorted online criminals. When a group of bad guys threatens to release a variant of the Tomb Raider ‘nude code’ that would strip everyone online at that moment naked in real-time, take over their webcams and upload a selfie of them in their birthday suits to the world, ‘Bot’ teams up with Lara Croft to save the planet.
Contributors Dave Petraglia Dave Petraglia has appeared in Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Better Homes & Gardens; more recently in Agave, Cactus Heart, Crack the Spine, Dark Matter, eFiction India, Far Enough East, Gravel, Loco, Olivetree Review, Petrichor Review, Prick of the Spindle, Storyacious, Thought Catalog, theNewerYork, and Vine Leaves. He’s a writer and photographer and lives near Jacksonville, Florida. His blog is at www.drowningbook.com Amber Johnson Amber is a 20-something year old college student studying psychology, hopeful for the future and trying to get by. She’s hopeless for music (The Doors being her favorite) and art (Dali, Monet, and Klimt being her top picks). She reads everything from poetry to novels to nonfiction (writers like Kerouac, Jung, and Sartre to name a few) and enjoys surrounding herself with nature. Put simply: she’s thoughtful, quiet & terrible at parties. Mary Julia Klimenko Mary Julia Klimenko obtained her BA & MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University after which, she taught Creative Writing for two years before returning to school to get a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology. She has three limited edition books in print in collaboration with artist, Manuel Neri for whom she’s been the primary model for the past 40
years. She’s a psychotherapist in private practice in Benicia, California where she writes and wanders the shoreline of Carquinez Straits. Lee Varon Lee Varon is a writer and social worker. Her poetry and short stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she has been published in many journals including Artful Dodge, Atlanta Review, Blue Mesa Review, Euphony, Hawai’i Review, High Plains Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Permafrost, Pleiades, The Round, The Somerville Times, So To Speak, Soundings East, Stone’s Throw, and Willow Review. Her short story, “Until the World Brought to Me Again Its Gold Its Vermillion,” won the Briar Cliff ReviewNineteenth Annual Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Nonfiction Contest. James Grabill James Grabill’s poems have appeared in numerous periodicals such as Stand (UK), Magma (UK), TorontoQuarterly (CAN), Harvard Review (US), Terrain (US), Seneca Review (US), Urthona (UK), The Potomac Review (US), kayak (US), Plumwood Mountain (AUS), Caliban (US), Mobius (US), Spittoon (US), Weber: The Contemporary West (US), The Common Review (US), and Buddhist Poetry Review (US). His books include Poem Rising Out of the Earth (1994) and An Indigo Scent after the Rain (2003). Wordcraft of Oregon has published his new project of environmental prose poems, Sea-Level Nerve: Book One in 2014, with Book Two scheduled for 2015. A long-time Oregon resident, he teaches ‘systems thinking’ relative to sustainability.
Alex Ender Alex Ender teaches English and tutors writing at the University of North Florida and Florida State College Jacksonville. Ender will relocate soon for a MFA Creative Writing Fiction candidacy at the University of Florida. Ender is currently a reader for the online literary magazine Fiction Fix, lead editor of the online craft blog The Talon Review, and served as lead editor to the independently published contemporary short story and poem collection Exothorpe. He completed a ghostwriting memoir, Anyways, That’s My Story, for a long term international businessman in Jacksonville, Florida. Ender’s work can also be found in Epiphany magazine in their February issue. Cathleen Maza Cathleen Maza lives and writes full time in the Gunderson Historic District of Oak Park, Illinois, where she shares a one hundred year old home with her husband, daughter, dog, cat and extremely vocal cockatiel. She recently completed her first short story collection and is trying to find a good home for it. Her previous work has appeared in The Vehicle and Chicago Quarterly Review.
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