SF&D | July 2012 [Stolen Plums]

SF&D | Short, Fast, and Deadly July 2012 | [Stolen Plums]

ISSN (print) | 2163-0712 ISSN (online) | 2163-0704 Copyright Š 2012 by Individual Authors | All Rights Reserved

Joseph A. W. Quintela | Senior Editor Sarah Long | Poetry Editor Chris Vola | Chapbook Reviewer

Published by Deadly Chaps Press www.deadlychaps.com www.shortfastanddeadly.com DCsf&d2012 | 7

Joseph A. W. Quintela | Cover Photo

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iii | Theme Dennis Mahagin | Dewey Decimal @ Check Out // Dennis Mahagin | Tiny Ode to a Premature Ventricle // Diane Cambern | Beneath // C. Martinez | Scarecrow Cherry Roll // C. Martinez | Lingering Fling // Neil Tarpey | The Lost Wallet // Grant Hettrick | A Wail Swims Silently // Elissa Gordon | Plum Baby // Folly Blaine | The Pragmatic Groom // Mureall Hebert | Shelf Life // Kushal Poddar | Sorrowing Yards After Yards // Eric Suhem | The Plumfish // Eric Suhem | Channel 3 // Jack Caseros | Blindness xviii | Featuring Marguerite María Rivas | Statement // Marguerite María Rivas | Photograph // Marguerite María Rivas | Vintage // Marguerite María Rivas | Pure Product of America // Marguerite María Rivas | This is… // Marguerite María Rivas | To Sudden Ardor // Marguerite María Rivas | Sumerian Text: Transliteration // Marguerite María Rivas | Typewriter xxvii | Featuring Lynn Hoffman | Statement // Lynn Hoffman | Photograph // Lynn Hoffman | Psychic // Lynn Hoffman | See // Lynn Hoffman | Chaos xxxvi | Prose Alex Stolis | Schoolhouse Rock: The Weather Show // Paul Albano | We // Danniel Barrick | The Friction Between Reality and Fatality // Damian Caudill | Knocked xli | Poems Dillon J. Welch | Molting // Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (27) // Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (28) // Matt Hemmerich | new year, new mensch xlvi | Views Chris Vola | (re)View of BASIC CABLE COUPLES by Larry O. Dean

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T

heme

[Stolen Plums] Dennis Mahagin | Dewey Decimal @ Check Out // Dennis Mahagin | Tiny Ode to a Premature Ventricle // Diane Cambern | Beneath // C. Martinez | Scarecrow Cherry Roll // C. Martinez | Lingering Fling // Neil Tarpey | The Lost Wallet // Grant Hettrick | A Wail Swims Silently // Elissa Gordon | Plum Baby // Folly Blaine | The Pragmatic Groom // Mureall Hebert | Shelf Life // Kushal Poddar | Sorrowing Yards After Yards // Eric Suhem | The Plumfish // Eric Suhem | Channel 3 // Jack Caseros | Blindness

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Dennis Mahagin | Dewey Decimal @ Check Out

Heard a jet, by electric doors.

Knock the glass out! said Longing to an apple core: stained the floor. Hugging my books, I wanted 1 more.

//written with a line stolen from “Tract� by William Carlos Williams//

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Dennis Mahagin | Tiny Ode to a Premature Ventricle

I was born to be lonely: Un-ripened plum, pulse on sun spot, far flung: one split second early.

//written with a line stolen from "Danse Russe" by William Carlos Williams//

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Diane Cambern | Beneath

I am physically weak, and unsure of how to balance even a lone raisin upon my outstretched index finger.

I, who controlled my entire body spinning on three inches of pivoting ball and toe… acceleration and force connecting to a beautiful violent whole.

You, offering to buy - latte or cappuccino? - leaving oceans unasked, muted and pulsing beneath.

The descent beckons as the ascent beckoned. Our blood runs blue within.

//written with a line stolen from “The Descent” by William Carlos Williams//

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C. Martinez | Scarecrow Cherry Roll

and no whiteness-Scarecrow prickle your cheek against my throat burns long after the blackbirds took flight. (lost) “Tell me what you want!” You commanded but tone pleaded, and with eyes closed I never quite came. is so white as the memory-The dirt on my knees and my palms and my skirt smears and, crumbles, sticks to the juice of crushed cherries and itches in places now dried as I lay in the sun.

//written with a line stolen from “The Descent” by William Carlos Williams//

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C. Martinez | Lingering Fling

Each flower is a hand's span and a life spent waiting by the phone in the lobby. I still wake horrified with a white rabbit under my arm and think of the flower covered hotel carpet and how you wouldn’t let it burn me. It’s a never leaving dull ache that I cover with soil and let apple blossoms grow. The beauty should distract, but it reminds me of the weed I let sprout in the heart I left behind on a hotel bed.

//written with a line stolen from “Queen Anne’s Lace” by William Carlos Williams//

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Neil Tarpey | The Lost Wallet

I was eating a peach when Bell arrived to claim his lost wallet.

Dapper-dressed, he eyeballed my sparse studio, my ragged jeans.

He frowned when I declined his $20 reward.

My mutt, isolated in the bathroom, barked. Bell smiled, taken by surprise.

“I own textile mills down south, but I’m here with my dog for the Westminster Kennel Show. Tell me, what size pants do you wear?”

I enjoy wearing my new trousers while I paint.

//written with a line stolen from “The Artist” by William Carlos Williams//

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Grant Hettrick | A Wail Swims Silently

The wind chime whispers the siren song of an easy breeze ferrying the reek of the Carrion fruit, with its cloying herald scent. Run! A reflexive response—smothered through sheer will—against the memory of a poisoned passion invasion. An ooze of tears stream bitterly out to one side. Their scorched trail reminds how far forever feels, as a wail swims silently from her lips.

//written with a line stolen from “Approach of Winter” by William Carlos Williams//

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Elissa Gordon | Plum Baby

You’re a plum, baby, so sweet and so cold, sugared lower lip, jut of cheekbone, crooked incisor, the disconnect in your gaze, pain is all.

//written with a line stolen from “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams//

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Folly Blaine | The Pragmatic Groom

On the way to our wedding I hit a squirrel. Squashed it flat in wine country where grapevines curled up wooden stakes in rows on rolling hills. Ten miles on were wildfires. Ash coated the windshield and black smoke tinted the sunlight red. After that came the earthquake, but it was only a 5.4.

Should I have turned around? Perhaps. Instead, I married you because I liked your nose.

Back then I didn't believe in omens.

//written with a line stolen from "Romance Moderne" by William Carlos Williams//

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Mureall Hebert | Shelf Life

Open your mouth, you said, and I did but you poured in lies like a warlock’s brew that I drank with pomegranate lips. I polished my gullibility, sharpened my checkbook, and listened to you recite passages of sentimental drabble as I vanquished the demons of your never-ending debt. You high-rolled, I enabled.

But flowers are a tiresome pastime. One broken life later, I found my spine curled in a rusty tin can.

//written with a line stolen from “A Celebration” by William Carlos Williams//

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Kushal Poddar | Sorrowing Yards After Yards

Sorrow is my own yard.

The yardstick measures its length, leans by the mango trees, as if nothing ever left me widowed.

//written with a line stolen from “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” by William Carlos Williams//

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Eric Suhem | The Plumfish

The plumtree is white today. The plumfish appeared in our garden as we sipped arsenic lattes in bucolic redwood chairs. A white newspaper emerged from the ground, and wrapped itself around the flopping plumfish. As I prepared a strychnine au lait with our new espresso lifestyle coffee press, the plumfish moved out of the garden, and into our house, locking us out. Wrapped in the paper, it demanded preparation.

//written with a line stolen from “The Widow's Lament in Springtime� by William Carlos Williams//

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Eric Suhem | Channel 3

Sent out at fifteen to work in some hard-pressed house in the suburbs, Kay found Peter amongst the furniture she was dusting.

He had a television remote in his hand, and was clicking through the options. “I am channeling the spirit of Channel 3, so influential in my upbringing. ‘The Banana Splits' and the 'Great Grape Ape' raised me from a sprout,” he said as Channel 3 poured energy beams into his soul.

//written with a line stolen from “To Elsie” by William Carlos Williams//

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Jack Caseros | Blindness

It did not take long for the girl with eyes sewn shut to devour her recent life history in the same way that I scrape flesh off mango skins with my teeth. I think she said awkward, or maybe ocular. Maybe I said it. I kept insightful because she seemed so damn vulnerable. I said we are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness. She said good luck with that and left.

//written with a line stolen from “Foreword to ‘Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsburg’” by William Carlos Williams//

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eaturing

Marguerite María Rivas | Statement // Marguerite María Rivas | Photograph // Marguerite María Rivas | Vintage // Marguerite María Rivas | Pure Product of America // Marguerite María Rivas | This is… // Marguerite María Rivas | To Sudden Ardor // Marguerite María Rivas | Sumerian Text: Transliteration // Marguerite María Rivas | Typewriter Lynn Hoffman | Statement // Lynn Hoffman | Photograph // Lynn Hoffman | Psychic // Lynn Hoffman | See // Lynn Hoffman | Chaos

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Marguerite María Rivas | Statement

I’ve always thought of the poem, to quote William Carlos Williams, as a “field of action.” The long poem had always been my favorite field, so to work in microform is both new and familiar; my long poems relied on the juxtaposition of poetic bits/bytes for their meaning. Writing short-form poems without thinking of placing them in a larger field has been pleasurable, like tending a tiny patch of land just so

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | Photograph

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | Vintage

Her body is not so white as moonlit grapes on the vine, so he picked her.

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | Pure Product of America

Poets can't weave couplets for children to wear on little feet.

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Marguerite María Rivas | This is‌

I have eaten an orange segment of his heart, dripped juice onto his chest, savored his salty-sweet skin.

Now my lips pucker with desire.

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | To Sudden Ardor

The file sharp grass.

Lone female urban mallard seized, flattened, and preyed upon by six mad, horny drakes quacking urgently.

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | Sumerian Text: Transliteration

Cubit mathematical fleshy stuff— Sumerian dimensions and Biblical ark. Why ascend equal axes when you can take the 3 to the Bronx? Mathematical uncertainty shilly-shallies, sits a while in a fold of your cerebral cortex to chit away at some neural superhighway looping until you Edison. Here you are, to be, be and vary from negative to positive positive infinity, where not even the postman rings twice.

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Marguerite MarĂ­a Rivas | Typewriter

Blast image to brain to finger to round keys keys whack stiff paper cap gun hollow paper vibrates quivers accepts the word is sated.

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eaturing

Lynn Hoffman | Statement // Lynn Hoffman | Photograph // Lynn Hoffman | Psychic // Lynn Hoffman | See // Lynn Hoffman | Chaos

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Lynn Hoffman | Statement

When I wrote prose, I always felt like a chauffeur, like I had to get readers home somehow or other. With poems I feel free to accelerate down the Turnpike, slam on the brakes, do a hard left, fishtail and then floor it out of there. If that leaves readers spinning in space somewhere looking for which way is up, well, I hope they're grateful.

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Lynn Hoffman | Photograph

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Lynn Hoffman | Psychic

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Lynn Hoffman | Psychic

you think thatspanning time and seeing end to end would be the gift of order the death of un-certainty you envy me.

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Lynn Hoffman | See

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Lynn Hoffman | See

you hunger you would eat the eyes out of an owl who only sees you see enough enough!

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Lynn Hoffman | Chaos

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Lynn Hoffman | Chaos

your wilderness is chessboard lined and guardsman strait will you hear of chaos behind the weeds?

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P

rose

Alex Stolis | Schoolhouse Rock: The Weather Show // Paul Albano | We // Danniel Barrick | The Friction Between Reality and Fatality // Damian Caudill | Knocked

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Alex Stolis | Schoolhouse Rock: The Weather Show

No mittens, no boots, no scarf; fifteen feet of pure white snow.

Newspaper crumpled in sleeves. Too dark to even see the sky. If there was a God he would know enough not to show up. Relics and incantations; raise your hands and lower your head, one more verse and salvation will come. It is guaranteed. It is foretold. It is a whisper in a quiet room when her husband isn’t home.

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Paul Albano | We

We’re Mennonite child soldiers. We churn butter clinically proven to reduce cholesterol and build postmodern mansions using only manually powered tools, teamwork, and an industrial laser. We’re devoted to Medici-like patronage of girl-on-oakfurniture pornography. In case of amphibious assault we wear pre-inflated lifejackets and watches waterproof up to 200 meters with an adjoining dial for barometric pressure.

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Danniel Barrick | The Friction Between Reality and Fatality

I looked at the never ending signs expanding into every single depth of the city most of them reading BYE REALITY, HELLO MENTALITY or a couple homemade signed inspired by the more famous ones reading CHOOSE MENTALITY OR FATALITY. I shuddered to see them. The last man who neglected mentality got his limbs cut up and now he`s in an insane asylum crying. I would choose reality but not over fatality.

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Damian Caudill | Knocked

I hit Garrett. For the photos. His fingers locked inside the other boy’s belt loops, pulling up and in. My fingers locked inside my palm, pushing out and through. Into Garrett’s lips, parted and dumb against that mouth. Against my fist.

My son hits back though. Catches me snoozing. The smell of his mother’s perfume clumping with blood in my nose.

Across the bar, “You teach him that Daryl?”

I nod, remembering.

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oems

Dillon J. Welch | Molting // Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (27) // Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (28) // Matt Hemmerich | new year, new mensch

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Dillon J. Welch | Molting

I heard from fingerprints inside of windshields you’ve been unfurling versions of yourself, molting wren trailing sleeves of feathers

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Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (27)

I am cotton: you ask for clothing and weather.

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Jenny Morse | Speaking to You (28)

Press this cloth to your face to cool. I will wrap it in burlap and paper.

Someday the threads untie from the weave and your face unravels like linen.

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Matt Hemmerich | new year, new mensch

from that last breath agitation released.

I reclined as your eyes erased siblings penned an obituary I skipped the page and raised a glass

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V

iews

Chris Vola | (re)View of BASIC CABLE COUPLES by Larry O. Dean

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Chris Vola | (re)View of BASIC CABLE COUPLES by Larry O. Dean

Larry O. Dean’s BASIC CABLE COUPLETS brilliantly mashes TV listings to create a universe where the tube’s mercifully devoid of rote schlock. Girl kisses frog, who’s really a dodgy pimp.

Murdering mental patients try out for the golf tour. These are the shows we want to see: “Because she’s narcoleptic, Cassie has no problem falling asleep. / She is a part-time employee at a local massage parlor. She is also a killer.”

//BASIC CABLE COUPLETS by Larry O. Dean can be found online at Silkworms Ink (www.silkwormsink.com)//

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