Issue #2: Reverse Programming

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GAMBA Zine Reverse Programming

Cover by Sherief Makhail Issue 2 • September 2014

From the Island of Gambazini

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Philosophy GAMBA is a provocative new publication inspired by the goal to challenge set truths through the generation of authentic, momentary, boundless, art. Chris Carr, a wizard, and Melissa Hunter Gurney, an independent writer, set out to display raw thought without the pressures and restrictions that come with the publication process on the larger more media driven scale. The idea spurred from extensive conversations about accessibility of independent and international artists, who avidly practice their craft but may not be recognized in the public eye. GAMBA is a space where people can find literary and visual art rooted in passion and thoughtfulness without the politics of publication.

The second issue poses several questions revolved around societal programming and the ways in which we can and have reversed that programming. What do artists think about when they navigate the taking back of their insides and outsides? Reverse programming holds a collection of progressive ideas from this country and beyond. The creators believe writing is about feeling the word and transcending its meaning as much as it's about literal and cognitive comprehension therefore translations for art submitted in other languages is not provided.

Painting (top right) by Melissa Hunter Gurney

Founders

Melissa Hunter Gurney & Chris Carr

Creative Director: Chris Carr Publisher/Editor

Melissa Hunter Gurney

Writers (in order of appearance)

Kaizen Love, Joi Sanchez, Nathan Thornhill, Melissa Hunter Gurney, Colin James, E.M. Stormo, Quinton Counts, Shawntel Eggers Allen, Tendai Mwanaka, Danny Shot, kelley Shields, L. Noelle Mclaughlin, Chris Carr, Tyriek White

Visual Attists (in order of appearance)

Sherief Makhail (cover), Zhenya Bernadskaya,Branson B.,Lisa McNulty, Chris Carr, Alex Z. Carpone, BRittany Campbell, Steve Mcknight

GAMBA Zine is online at:

GAMBAzine.tumblr.com

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r from Ukraine. klyn based photographe oo Br a a ay sk ad rn Photo by Zhenya Be

My Name Is Thank-You meticulously weaves together the lives of two, very different thirteen-year-old girls.

We are forced into a world of chaos, contrasting continuously from light to dark. Their stories are our stories, their voices, are our voices teaching us that no matter the circumstances we may be facing, perspective is everything.

Kaizen Love is an up and coming writer, spinning words into a beautiful web that should enrich the lives of all who read them.

Her greatest mission is to share love.

My Name Is Thank-You Available on Amazon and Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You Visit us @ http:// kaizenlove.com Join the Gratitude Movement

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My Name Is Thank-You JOSEPHINE The weather is beginning to change. I lay in bed peeking out from under my covers, the sunlight barely making its way into the creases that I call my eyes. I can see the trees outside of my window, the way the wind rustles the leaves as their colors begin to change from bright green to a rusty shade of orange. All year I look forward to when I get to witness the leaves as they evolve. Watching as they dance around in the freedom of the wind, disembarking from their temporary tree branch home. Grateful that I get to witness their fall, landing softly on the ground, continuing the cycle that we call life. I miss the feel of the wind. Closing my eyes again, I wished that I were one of those leaves, able to disembark from my body and dance freely into the wind. Turning into soil so that my life would not have been a waste but a blessing. Adding to the richness of a newly birthed plant, or adding years to a tree that has witnessed as many years as the earth. The same earth that it ripped through to stand higher upon the ground. I grip my covers tighter. I can’t keep my eyes closed for too long anymore, without remembering. “Josephine,” I hear my mother screaming my name from the bottom of the stairs. She has been trying to get me to leave my room for almost two months, and now that school has started I may not be able to hide in here forever. I hear her heavy footsteps as they barrel up the stairs. She is either still drunk from last night or starting her day off like she normally does with a special kick added to her coffee.

“Josephine,” I hear her screaming now from outside of my door, her voice piercing through my walls, and my ears. “Josephine, you stupid child, I don’t care if you want to sleep until you’re dead, but you are either going to go to school or live out on the street where you belong.” It’s sad, when you are so used to the viciousness in a person’s voice, that it no longer causes an effect.

Your heart no longer hurts, and that rippling pain that one feels throughout their body when being screamed at, or confronted, no longer exists. I continue to lie in bed, shutting my eyes tighter, eventually pulling the covers over my head, shutting out all sights, sounds, and smells of the world that exists outside of my cocoon. In here I am safe. I am safe from my parents. I am safe from the shadows that do not belong to me.

THANK-YOU As we drive, I notice out the dusty windows of Miss Felix’s old beat-up car that the scenery is changing. We driving out of the areas where the houses all broken down, where car parts lay scattered across the barely there lawns, dogs running recklessly after cars with people in ‘em they don’t even know. The longer we drive, the prettier the scenery get. We drive past big open fields with rows of Southern Magnolia trees, recognized by many round here as a symbol for gracefulness and strength, reminding me that summer is here and overflowing with flowers so pretty they making me blush. I ain’t never seen sights so beautiful like this before. The longer we drive, the more perfect the picture get as it unfolds right before my very eyes, renewing my spirit with each passing glance of something new. I ask Miss Felix if I could roll my window all the way down, and she say yes. As soon as that fresh air overtake my senses and engulf my small little world I feel my cheeks get wet. My tears warm the thin layer of skin they caress as they roll on down, passing every freckle on my cheek on their journey toward my neck. Miss Felix, feeling the mood in the car shift from exciting to somber, look over at me and say, “Thank -You, why on earth you crying, baby?” I don’t know how to explain it to her. I don’t even know if the words will make sense as they slowly make their way out of my soul, assembling on my tongue to speak about things I ain’t never seen, to speak about faith. I say, “Miss Felix, I’m crying because I feel like if we stopped driving the car and walked over into that field of trees bursting with all them flowers, we may realize that we ain’t never need go to church again. Because God lives in the beauty of all those things, in every flower born on every tree. Like God lives in every one of my freckles, or in the eyes of every baby you help, like me.” Miss Felix looked stunned for a moment, and I thought she was gonna say that I was blasphemous, because I been told that before by other fake mamas and daddies when I say something that don’t make sense to them ‘bout God. But instead, my social-worker mama let out a small sigh and allowed her kind eyes to embrace the tears that gently rose their way up from the well that dwells deep within her soul. She put my hand in hers, and we continued our drive all the way to church in silence, appreciating each other, our tears, and appreciating the God that don’t live inside the church building, instead, embracing the God that we find on the way there.

5 Branson B. II a.k.a B-bStarD is a cartoonist and designer living in New York. He’s fueled by a need to see balance in our society. With age he’s gained perspective and intends to use that, and an anger that insists he produce thought-provoking work, to help influence culture and produce a positive outcome. You can find his work online at http://bbstard.tumblr.com and http://facebook.com/bebestardee.

Jungle I thought somebody wanted me so I tilted my head in their direction, Straightened out my clothing put a smile on my face and stood with arms wide open waiting for something to fall into me crash into me break me into pieces and scatter me across the earth like the rain when it falls in sheets covering us all in a deep sleep day dreaming its my opinion if you're not dreaming your not really living personally I live lucid dreams in this world that's not what it seems

for people who get lost sometimes like I once was when I didn't know my name or where I was going in the first place To those locked in the darkness Not knowing if you will ever see daylight again I understand what it is to be surrounded by jackals that circling like vultures just waiting for the moment you fail.

Yet we must not flinch for the moment we faulter they will lock us in dungeons and throw away the key.

Leave me with voices that threaten to take over me to take me over make me over into somebody a little less revolutionary

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somebody a little less extraordinary somebody less then the form of this brown skin woman GodEss I know GodIs is residing in me So why ever give their truth of me power? Their fucked up perception of what they believe we to be because they saw a skewed definition of black woman on their movie screens.

Their only interaction is reality tv so how could they know their vision was being lied to in the first place since they never had their eye opened in the first place?

Then we caught up in the worst ways in these cycles these broken cycles they keep us locked in these broken cycles I just want to break chains break free and bring change to all the minds being chained by this system that never counted us in in the first place By trying to control our choices telling us they are limited between box a and box b red pill blue pill who do you want to be?

Decide wake up look up decide wake up things change up As we grow up We must look inside because there is more to life then what you've been led to believe Or so my mother always told me: "baby believe nothing that you hear half of what you see and only a quarter of what you know because what you don't know can get you killed in these streets"

These streets she raised me in Were concrete grazed me on my way up but I still became a rose!

So what ive got a little bit of scarring on my skin because our melanin reflects vast shades of beauty they'd said we weren't born with.

The lie tormented me so I believed if I go out & ask maybeline to make me a little lighter shed somehow me a little whiter Like the education system tried to make me a little whiter make me learn nothing's But was never good enough always 96 out of 100, an occasional A never an a plus, but I got by, I was a bit of a slacker and I got high Yet I still graduated on time with honors, tell me who could deny that type of power?

So what if I didn't finish college I'm too busy living to ever surrender spirit to workings of the system I'll always choose experience retreat into the abyss In which De vez en cuando Yo estoy libertandome De vez en cuando Yo estoy renaicandome De vez en cuando Yo estoy transformandome en realidad De vez en cuando Yo solo in nombre Perro que significa un nombre cuando A rose is still a rose by any other name as long as I know who I am I'm gonna be just fine.

-J TheGodIs ez Joi Sanch wnload at: online for do e bl la ai a n dav o (Als lovher.b

ww.Ar http://w ) camp.com

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Alfonso B. Aragon She refused to leave. Every time she turned to head toward the security checkpoint she turned back to kiss him once more, to hug them one more time. Her eyes swelled with tears as she bawled at the entrance of migración.

The pain I witnessed behind me in line was absolutely tangible—her half closed eyes, painful bawling, brief, random losses of coordination. I almost felt as though it were my boyfriend I was leaving behind. Pondering their shared pain brought me back to days of salty kisse s a n d i ntense confusion: I love this person so much—why am I leaving? I have to…I guess. But I love you sooooo much. (“¡Adelante!”)

You could even throw in a few promises that calm the nerves in the moment but have little chance of coming to fruition.

Yup. I’ve grown accustomed to parting ways; almost desensitized to it to be frank. Life itself and extensive travel have taught me that saying goodbye is absolutely necessary, healthy—almost good, if you will. Children attach themselves to fleeting things and refuse to let go.

It’s called a tantrum: “Shit, wait until you fall in love with someone, learn a whole different language, begin to make future plans

with her… and then she disappears with no explanation.

Then I’ll cry with you.” (“¡Siguiente pasajero, por favor!”)

Shit, wait until you innocently fall for someone who lives thousands of miles away not noticing her return flight was already purchased before you even met, and you don’t have themoney to visit—and she’s already involved anyway. (“¡Adelante!”)

Shit, wait until you fall in love with her and members of both families openly speak of hearing wedding bells. photo by Lisa McNulty

You talk marriage and children, but you loathe where you live and she loves it…or when you step out on faith, pour your heart out to her in spite of not knowing her well and her response is, “No seas pesado. Recordá que tenés una amiga acá en Buenos Aires.” (“¡Ventanilla 12!”) …but her pain was still tangible, undeniable. I felt as though it were my boyfriend I was leaving behind. I wonder what it would feel like to be open to pain again…

Nathan Thor nhill http://speakoutshutup.blo gspot.com

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photo by Zhenya B.

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Melissa Hunt

er Gurney, the writer of Love Amon gst the Pine, is a Brookly n based, independent writer and the founder of GAMBA Zin e. She is connected to the artist life as seen throughout South America and writes for La Gente Descalza (The Barefoot People).

You can see more of her work at www-brokenbraids.tumb lr.com

Photo by Chris Carr:

Photo by Chris Carr

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Not too long ago I wrote this: Love Amongst the Pines by Melissa Hunter Gurney To me, women who write about love are weak, cliché and falling into the trap society has set for them. Society wants women to write about love so they can leave all the other intricacies to men. So remember, I write about the wrinkles behind dying animal’s eyes and how their truths make all the segregation and ugliness in the world go away for just a moment. But, one day I’m going to do what society wants and write about love . . .

The aggressive tone is purposeful and I stand by my intent, but for the intricacies of today's piece I admit the details to be faulty. In reality all I ever write about is love. This is a perfect example of fiction because there is no truth or truth because there is no fiction.

In planning the plot of a novel I once woke up in the middle of the night with a revelation and wrote the following. . .

They start having sex, things get provocative, there is another couple involved and then all of a sudden she sees it, what she thought was new was really old. Sex is love and love is sex until she’s left with just the love, and she realizes, maybe it was nothing, yet everything she did was based on something and that something was desire and desire is nothing more than hunger. That’s when night becomes the day and day the night. It is easy for her to confuse the two because there are no words involved. She communicates in the night with books and in the day she sleeps with open eyes and a silent heart. She wants nothing. She wants something. She doesn’t want this.

I know that when I wrote this I didn’t think of it as a plan to write about love because essentially it was writing about what love isn’t. Maybe what love isn’t and what love is, is the same thing. Maybe writing about what love isn’t means I’m writing about love and therefore maybe I am the “cliché” woman “falling into the trap society has set” for me. Note: Never quote your own writing or use yourself as an example as to how your writing is hypocritical – it feels like an icicle stuck to your spine without the promise of removal. Now I’m going to re-write what I just stated above with my favorite caveat. Maybe, what love isn’t and what love is, is the same thing – until it’s not. Maybe writing about what love isn’t means I’m writing about love and therefore maybe I am the “cliché” woman “falling into the trap society has set” for me – until I’m not. I wrote about a marriage proposal once but that wasn’t me writing about love either.

The wedding ring he pulled out of the seven eleven bag was no different than what would usually come out of a seven eleven bag - an object disguised as sweet and desirable but filled with man made toxins and processed emotions we have never even heard of but consume anyway.

But, what is love then? If it’s not desire and it’s not hunger . . . If it’s not need and it’s not obsession . . . If it’s not sadness and it’s not happiness – or at least happiness isn’t necessarily attained by it . . . If it’s not sex and the sharing of bodily fluids . . . If it’s not routine and ease . . If it’s not the mere kindness of having someone . . . If it’s not just one person like I swore it was when I was young and older . . . If it’s not everlasting natural attraction . . . If it’s not a wedding proposal . . . if it’s not comfortable silences and uninhibited laughter . . . if it's not all of these things floating on top of each other like an orgy of blooming lily pads . . .

Note: Any woman who would like to write about an orgy of blooming lily pads has free reign, I'd like to hear about that.

Sartre said there were two kinds of love, “necessary love” and “peripheral love” he told Simone De Beauvoir that she was the necessary kind – the kind he would never be able to live without. Does that mean there are necessary ones and peripheral ones or does that just mean Sartre thinks about it that way? This is what bothers me about love, of the romantic kind, there is no real definition of it, yet people are always telling me otherwise. Women are always telling me otherwise. Men, like Sartre, might try to tell me too but I don't hear them say it in anything more than a philosophical sense. I hear women scream love at me. Angry love, happy love, sexy love, jealous love and almost all of the different loves are monogamous loves. I respect all the types I just don’t know why they scream. Maybe I spread the weight unfairly because I am woman and women are me. This is why I said I don't write about love, because I don't write about romantic love - the kind between two people. I don't want to be a woman who subconsciously tells other women what they should go after, what they should desire, what they should miss, what they should be jealous of, what they should prep for, what they should allow, what they should leave behind, what they should be angry about, what they should be happy for just by telling my love stories and making claims about what happened. There is something about women and love that sounds like that electronic voice on the subway telling you to be aware of suspicious packages. I remember writing this once - I wrote it on a yellow legal pad that said everything and nothing at the same time: I decided, for the purpose of listening, for the purpose of being more aware and mostly for the purpose of being a different woman - I would not let Dani become a romantic interest. Dani could never be someone who touched me with more than sound and spirit. By erasing the narrative that goes with attraction, one might see meaning not love. Sometimes it's the former we need, not the latter, but neither is less than the other.

Meaning and love can be confused - until they're not.

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So, here is the type of love I do write about. I write about love by writing about community. My family created an alternate community for me to flourish in behind the scenes of my reality. This community is where I found love for the first time and it is still a stronghold that brings me peace, forgiveness and passion. You see, to me, love is about this thing I’ve heard referred to as the “transcendent third”. The transcendent third is, in theory, a supreme or omnipotent terrane (with no necessary attachment to religion as we know it) that makes the love of two people more than just that love. It is this larger idea or belief that partners/ members dedicate themselves to more than anything else including each other. Here is one of my simplified interpretations: Titi and Blanco Verde were born out of a Venezuelan saying, “People have three souls, the one inside of them and the ones on the bottom of their feet. All three need to be equally broken before we are truly alive.” They are a part of the barefooted ones, la gente descalza, they live amongst the dirt alley ways and vibrant walls of El Mercado.

For religious people, God or the higher power/s that sit at the center of their religion become the transcendent third for two or more people who unite under the umbrella of love and commitment. But, the transcendent third does not have to be connected to religion nor does it come with rules about love. When there is a movement people organize because they believe in the transcendent importance of something. For example, freedom transcends individual or group power so people organize and fight for it. The transcendent importance of something larger than the group – to me this is where love ignites. This is the essence of spirituality, creativity, art, community and love.

My time outside El Mercado became a cupola of sound. It was as if I was sitting beneath the pendulous branches of a weeping willow with a community of lovers who danced and smiled to say what they believed - as long as our feet stayed rooted in the earth we were surviving. When I left the market the essence of my time there fell back behind the drooping branches like fields fall from our imagination with age or life falls out of a burned dog on the way to being saved. I was out of the womb surrounded by sexless cement and the chill of man made frowns.

I think people make mistakes when they believe the love of one person is enough to live on. When we look at person to person love independently, as a transcendent third, we find ourselves at odds. I am no expert but this may be what many young and old people mistake or misrepresent in their discussion of “the one”. When I was a little girl I believed in “the one” because it seemed like a simple reason for my parents loving each other the way they did. I thought my parents must have found “true love” because they were still together, still laughing, still sharing bathtubs - they must have been an example of this “oneness” somebody somewhere was talking about. It made sense because so many of the other marriages I’d seen had disintegrated, making the theory of “the one” even more powerful. It was clearly an extreme challenge to find your soul mate and many, if not most, failed at it over and over again.

It was also easy for my childhood self to believe in because it seemed more spiritual than logical and logic never really made sense to me. Logic is what my science teacher claimed when she brought 35 dead frogs in for dissection, what my mentors were trying to explain when they told me, in order to get into college, I had to get A’s by producing work for people who were teaching me false truths. People who told me Abraham Lincoln was a hero for signing the emancipation proclamation, without telling me he killed 35 Sioux Native Americans, two days later, for refusing to stay within the parameters of the reservation.

People who didn't think I deserved the opportunity to decide for myself. How are you supposed to think logically when logic is so foolishly misrepresented throughout your formative years? I wrote this from the perspective of my mute, the character who lives in her head until she finds a reason not to: When we are hungry we eat our shadows and everyday I walked to El Mercado - I ate mine.

Eating shadows meant ruminating on the past - the darkness that follows a person and never falls for their trickery. We learn our shadows stay with us as kids - no matter how high we jump or how far we run it is still there. But, as adults we forget this phenomena, instead of jumping and running we get married, move to other places, get more degrees and have children - shocked to find out our shadow still follows us in the end.

As an adult I’ve been hungry enough to eat my shadows over and over again. The shadows that are filled with a mixture of societies manipulative teachings and the engraved theories of a naïve little girl who convinced herself, who fantasized, who tried to believe in something better, while everyone else was speaking gibberish. Something that made more sense than letting teenage boys fumble around on her breasts and stumble into her crevices. Believing in "the one” back then was better than trial and error without emotional maturity to soften the disappointment. It seemed like young girls had a choice – let them ravage you or believe that if you don’t let them ravage you something better might come (do not mistake the “them” in this sentence for men). I stuck with the belief of something better because my knowledge was limited and believing in better seemed heroic just like Lincoln did before I knew the full story. However, making the choice to only see two sides, the ill suited and the fantastical, meant I had to mourn over and over again as an adult. But, let’s get back to it. What I now know is that my parents didn’t find their “one” and I didn’t love them the way I did just because they were my family. I wrote about an artists love for the world his mother created once, freedom was his transcendent third. . .

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He said the streets were her churches and sex her confession. He told the story with admiration and a keen sense of the images surrounding La Puta de la Vida. Every Sunday she took him to the outdoor market in the city center. She touched fruits and vegetables as if they were lonely bodies and meticulously saved the dirty and the bruised. El Artista walked behind his mother watching the wandering eyes of disciplined men contemplate the power of her hips, desperately trying to hone in on her secret. The way his mother moved through the market became the sound of a violin in his head. The harmonic connection between her fingers and the fallen fruits and vegetables, the cathartic waves of lust filled mouths, the low pitched whispers of jealous wives, the tension rising to create a high, painful screech, undulating gasps for air, the sultry sound of deep moans vibrating lullabies and breath. According to the artist his mother was not a prostitute she was merely free. He yearned to be free like her. To play the sound of her walk through the market for all who would never witness it. It was his mother’s past that kept him safe two souls in the dirt and the third seeping outside of his body into the strings of his violin. Like the clitoris on a wild woman's vagina the air around him was always moist and welcoming.

If I only loved my family because they were my family I’d be confused. Maybe loving your family merely because they are your family is similar to believing in “the one”, leaving you to mourn your belief over and over again. I don’t know this is merely a theory that sparked from a theory. What I do know is my family created a transcendent third that acted as a trestle in supporting all of our differences. I define their transcendent third as creativity. They woke up every day and created something out of nothing. They believed in the ability to create as the ability to heal. They had so much to heal from, none of which I knew or understood until I was older. They bought a piece of land in the middle of the woods and cut down just enough trees to make room for a house, they dried and milled the wood and sketched their own floor plan.

They had never sketched a floor plan before or milled wood before or worked with anyone who did either. They laid the foundation and they began to build. My mom was pregnant with me when the house had a room large enough and insulated enough for them to move into - one year from the beginning. But, the house was never finished - it took seven years to complete and even then there was more to do. I grew up walking on beams and jumping into the fluffy, pink insulation that held fiber glass instead of sugar. The bed I slept on was made out of the same pine as the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the beams, the dinner table, the chairs at the dinner table, the desk I did my homework on, the draws that held my clothes. Everything was pine so we called it the House of Panda Eyes and we laid on the floor at night talking about the whispering walls and the dark knots that looked like ghosts or foxes or owls or something new that hadn’t been named yet. Every morning my parents got up and started or finished a project. When I didn’t want to help my dad called me a “little princess” it was the worst name you could be called in my house. Princesses didn’t create things they just took them.

La Abuela gives the man his fruit and sends him on his way. Blanco runs over and whispers in La Abuela’s ear, The wrinkles behind a dying animals eyes remind us. He shared all the lines Titi wrote with La Abuela - it was a ritual. In return La Abuela gave him sweet bread and maracuya, “Cuidado mi amor.” Blanco kissed her hip because it’s what he could reach. On his way back to eat with Titi, Blanco broke the bread into six sections. He passed one to the Violin man who wooed El Mercado to sleep in the night with an augury of sound, one to Anaco who received his name from the Anacondas on the Oronoco coast, one to Ayamara the braided woman who sat in la ventana dropping words through the bars as if they were to be planted in the dirt of her street, one to the mute who was visiting from another world with skin as white as his - her feet would bleed until she figured out what way to go. The rest was for him and Titi - it was the way of El Mercado - if there was one sip everybody got a drop. Blanco often fell asleep to Titi spitting lines like, mi mente es un producto de tu mente, mi cena es un producto de tu cena.

Dime un parte de tu desayuna y I give you a part of me.

A part of the human is mas grande than the whole.

Tenemos no princessas aqui.

We have no princesses here.

Blanco dreamt about these philosophies in the form of broken braids and snakes. When things were cut into pieces no piece held too much power, no piece had to be like the other pieces. Titi taught Blanco that his dreams were he and he his dreams.

Creativity was and is my transcendent third - some people build houses out of wood and others build them out of words. I think love can live amongst the pines and the pages.

Dog Girls

by E.M. Stormo There are two kinds of girls in this world: Girls who play rape flute, and girls who got a kill dog. The flute players are flirty and they'll infatuate you, but those sexy bodies are a prison for a blocked heart, and sparkly lips can't conceal a broken mind. Pa said stay away from flutes, 'cause they’ll send you away to the place where men rape men with things bigger and sharper than her standard-issue rape flute. Kill dogs are loyal to their girls as men are to their pa's, but as irony would have it, they keep their own toy dogs when free. You can't even get close to a flute girl without her teasing her tones, fingering her holes. Dog girls will let you pet their dogs. The girl in the plaza has a flute the size of a small dog. She'll play on you for looking at her too long. Her ma died when she was a baby. Killed by a dog. There is a Alex Zamora melody every man fears, a few simple notes that can get a man cut.

Forget flute girls. I prefer dog girls. Ma was a dog girl.

She's up in the clouds now as she's down in the ground.

Her dog was freed the day she died, and I wished the old rottweiler stayed on with me and pa, but he moved across the bridge with a pack of spaniels. Pa said it was as one-sided as any man's relationship with his girl and made sure I stayed away from the area. I've never been played on, but I hear a rape flute go off at least once a week, and I always assume it's for pa.

The city smells like girl blood and dog vomit. Everywhere is full of holes. The sun peaks through buildings. I would talk to the local girls if I could, but instead I talk to the light, in day and night. Say hi to the clouds for me, before she melts away. Lie with the Earth, 'cause the 13

Earth is always open and inviting. She's got hollows and logs. She's all ma's and pa's. Later, I'll go out to the oaken hollow and kiss the sun goodbye. I've measured my thing. In its cut form, it is a perfect fit, as if the Creator had applied a playful geometry to my shortcomings.

There's a new dog girl posing on the corner. She moved here from the other side of the city, according to the chalk lines at her feet. Her hair is poofy with alternating streaks of black and gold like her dog. Her thing drips quicker than my steps. As if on cue, the clouds part to let the dusk light shoot through a cracked storefront.

Hello, I wave to her.

She laughs at my thing, says I'm cut.

Her dog barks at me.

A nice black mastiff, I reply and Street Photography scratch his ear.

She asks if he can sniff my thing, laughing. I tell her it isn't funny, and point out how her thing is dripping. Her thing is dripping out like a flower. She tells me I'm almost like a girl, a girl without a flute, she jokes. I make a joke too: I threaten to rape her and kill her dog. She invites me to stick my thing in his mouth. The mastiff snorts and sticks his tongue out at me.

A faint melody interrupts us. From down the block, a few simple notes blown on the wind over and over. She asks me if I can hear it, whistling along, 'cause it is the sound of a man's thing being whipped into cream.

I run in the direction of the flute to make sure it's not for pa. After three strikes, he'll be put away for good, and the rest of his thing cut off. A crowd of men surrounds him, so I can't see who he is, but he whines like a dog while

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Dog Girls by E.M. Stormo Continued. . . home, he says, and gives a nod to the man bleeding out on the curb. He'll be taken away, but yells he hasn't done nothing and repeats this fact to every man present.

On the walk home, pa curses the man for being so stupid.

He says a man like that will be dessert where he’s going. I ask pa if he thinks the flute is actually the instrument of rape and instead of protecting girls, it has the opposite effect of harming men. Pa calls me stupid, telling me the flute is as necessary to our world as the sun and the moon.

Pa’s known hundreds of rapers in our family alone and as much in most other families. Even dogs rape. Pa was a famous raper, until he got the flute and was sent away, raped and beaten on his stay, returning a different man altogether. The next time he got played, he happened to be in the wrong neighborhood, but he accepted the consequences of a second cut without a complaint. He reminded me to make ma proud if he didn't ever come back. Strike three will be another accident he can't avoid, not in this city.

Our housing section overlooks the highway. Look for the sign that says: Zero Net Entropy housing, next to an ivyinfested cube. The parking lot is an electric graveyard of gutted beetles and fords. When everyone is asleep, I climb inside them and pretend I can drive: speeding down main street, up the hill, over the bridge, through the plaza, to run over the flute girl, and do doughnuts on her dead body, then swing over to the corner, brake for the dog girl to make one last insult, before crushing her under my wheels and smearing her girl blood along the highway.

My joyride never leaves the lot, 'cause the wheels are stripped off, and these cars haven't started since pa was my age.

Pa said when he was my age there was a mushroomshaped cloud over the city that could be seen everywhere for days. It was so big, the farmers stood up on the rooftops, and drivers got out to see, expecting the cloud to swallow them whole. The cars stopped running, the

house lights went out, and the people died.

Ma died in the upstairs bed, coughing and moaning like a half-dead dog waiting to be put out of its misery. It was the only time I ever saw a running car, arriving in a soft growl, pulled up right next to my window, and idling there while they wrapped her body up and carried her away. The car was all black and had an ornament of a silver greyhound in mid-leap. The driver wore black and I think she was a woman.

Pa takes a steak out of the vacuum seal for dinner. It smells bad, like dog food, but it’s our only meat for the week. I read old car manuals in my bedroom, while he talks at me from the kitchen.

You know what they did with your thing, right? Sold it.

They sell our things, he explains. And do you know what they used it for? They make a cream of our things.

Women wear it to look like girls again. But it doesn't actually work, he admits. I know all of this already, 'cause he’s told me about it since I was old enough to be told. I tell him ma used my cream to hide her shame. But pa snaps back: Don’t speak ill about your mother, stupid boy. His cough kicks on, the same cough she had. We needed the money, cough, so we sold your thing. Cough, cough. My parents sold mine when I was your age.

Cough.

There are two kinds of women, he says, but a million kinds of men. It is men who cut men, men who rape men, and men who kill men.

Ivy grows over the window. The moon’s lips are pressed up against the glass. My eyes blur, tracing a drawing of a ford engine. Pa coughs himself to sleep. As soon as he’s snoring, I’ll sneak out my window and go to the oaken hollow, put my thing in deep, pretending it's a girl’s mouth and my thing is a small flute, or lapping her sap up like a dog on my knees. Then I’ll take a spin through the city and pass out in the driver’s seat with the windows rolled down. Goodbye, I say to the night's sky, and I know the light talks back, 'cause the Creator kisses my forehead and rubs my shoulders like ma and pa used to, and I dream of dog girls.

E. M. Stormo counts every step he takes in a running tally. He also fights phantom ninjas while he's conversing with you on any number of subjects, but usually a precise number. He currently lives in Section 9 housing in upstate New York, but not too upstate like some authors.

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Brittany Campbell http://ahreallfe.tumblr.com www.BrittanyCampbellMusic.com

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Story time with Uncle Q some say that “they’re” programming us

there’s like 4-5 corporations who are the winners of distributing everything, and that decision wasn’t unanimous

Now, let me break this down to make sure you’re understanding this

A lot of talk about “fuck the system” then we gobble up everything they’re handing us

Commercialized entertainment, clothing, and food is certified shady - that’s no secret

For example, oversexualization of women, that’s victorias secret (AND men…Channing Tatum isn’t famous for being a great actor)

ounts ue Cee" C These aren’t guesses, it’s some scientific fact shit

. Has Quinton “Q ed in harlem Because the bottom line goal is for us to shut up, buy they’re shit, and pay taxes Born in NC, raislot in the brooklyn a collaborated much known for Fuck yo dreams, fuck yo fan, fuck yo mission statement and what it means

is circuit, and oklyn Wildlife. LyriIt’s control and profit by any means

ro work with B rd poet, performer. there’s a lot of deep shit going on that won’t fit into no lime lick

wo n ke o cist, sp /qc115th But here’s a few action steps for you to get by with

lr.com/blog b m u www.t Because it be the little shit that’s small as a grain of sand,

but if you change it, it could change everything, but you don’t know, so you don’t understand

But you gone learn today…

number 1: commercial hip hop and pop, put it away

Ask your friends, ask around…there’s gotta be an independent group somewhere that can produce a somewhat pleasant sound

it’s a proven fact…that commercial media outlets beat a song into your head until you like it, and can influence your judgement on various topics. but lemme guess, that ain’t got nothing to do with you

number 2: ….food...I mean, you’ve watched food inc, supersize me,

you got vegans friends, this ain’t gotta listen to me. but hey, I’m just over here sipping tea

number 3:…clothing and fashion

don’t think companies know you wanna be a rebel and ratchet?

all this money on clothes, and everyone guilty of the tat shit

I mean, there’s people genuinely into it on some art&craft shit, I ain’t talking about that shit

Wanna dress fancy and classy? What’s that? Humans have a nature dividing into classes? time to cash in

I mean, in it’s own light, those styles can be done. I ain’t hatin on it

But put more of your attention on independent distributors. They have less shady motives

maybe the people running these corps are all evil, maybe they’re not

either way, things get shady when there’s too many fingers in any pot

number 4: smartphones and internet.

The internet has really earned it’s name, because it really has peoples brain…in a net

there used to be renaissance men and women, known philosophers, inventors, now everyone’s turned into fuckin gigapets

With everyone’s face glued to Facebook and youtube,

the govt doesn’t have to worry about real community leaders tryna get in the way of what they’re tryna do.

So there’s your scooby doo blues clue

It’s not irony and I’m not kidding

JFK wouldn’t have been JFK if he was able to blow an hour of youtube’ing a baby duck play fighting with kittens

when you in the elevator, bored in the room, in a conversation where you don’t know what to say or do..

how about NOT retreat to your phone or youtube and try being….in the room

This is to get you out of spectator mode

and when things happen, you take action, and not just say “well, that’s the way it goes"

Now, we could talk about all these complex approaches to “liberation”, but this is a good place to start

From there, once you’re head is in the right place and on your own shoulders, then we can talk

AMERICA by Shawntel Eggers Allen I am happy to be home, except when... missing papayas and patte, eating with my fingers from a common bowl on a musty day, surrounded by thousands of eyes, in Benin.

These meals, running into days, whose elements are plain, simple, springing from hours of labor, days of gathering and saving, seasons of prayers and sacrifices to the gods who give and take, I want these tastes, smells, sounds that can’t be found in America.

Women pound ignams in mortars, crush spices on stone, brush dirt with sticks.

I watch, a resident guest, forming foreign sounds on my tongue to taste their toil.

I was beginning to adapt to America, to accept soap operas and sitcoms that embarrass me, sprinkled with commercials

I was beginning to like American food; burgers and fries at the drive-thru, coffee with a sleeve and syrup, assorted chemical products called candy, 17 colors of jello.

I was getting comfortable in my house, with a mini-van, 2 children, dog, cat, 3 carpools, malls, grocery stores, choices and diversions; I met a woman yesterday; unhurried, smiling, inviting, African.

I don’t want to look again at America, the land of big stomachs and small hands.

A place of closed doors with suspicious eyes peeping angrily out at intrusions while their screens glare behind them, telling them who they are, creating an America that doesn’t exist.

My home is far away from this.

I met a woman yesterday; unhurried, smiling, inviting, African.

I don’t want to look again at America, the land of big stomachs and small hands.

Photo by Steve McKnight

An excerpt from Conditioned To Fear by Tendai Mwanaka People were killed, people disappeared in broad daylight, the opposition was victimised, activists in the opposition were killed, the MDC leadership were victimised, beaten, some killed like Learnmore Jongwe, the people were pushed from their homes, the people were told they had to support the ZANU-PF or risk killings, the independent newspapers were bombed and burned, its editors were victimised and beaten like Trevor Ncube, Jeff Nyarota etc... The ministry responsible for media, information and publicity, through the state broadcaster, became the propaganda mouth piece of this drive to create fear in people’s hearts. The army was employed into the streets for any minor strike against this government, and machine guns were patrolling the streets, the helicopters flying above the town’s skies, instilling fear. We were cowed, we were butchered, we were preyed, we were told to keep quiet, and we were told to support the ZANU-PF or incur the worse. It reminded me of the experiment by Pavlov, the Pavlovian theory, or classical conditioning theory that we covered in our consumer buyer behaviour course, in the marketing diploma, offered by the Southern African Institute of Marketing. We were studying the concept of learning. Through all these actions we have become refugees in our own homes, in our own person. We become afraid of ourselves, because this ourselves was capable of creating danger on ourselves. We watered down this ourselves, we disobeyed this ourselves. Even when we were inside four walls we were not safe from ourselves. We were made into prey by the ZANU-PF In, THE ANATOMY OF POLITICAL PREDATION (2011) Michael Bratton and Eldred Masunungure defines political predation saying, “With reference to Nigeria under the Babangida dictatorship, Peter Lewis (1996) defines predatory rule as “a personalistic regime ruling through coercion and material inducement…that tends to degrade the institutional foundations of the state as well as the economy.”

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Robert Fatton (1992) adds that predatory power relations have cultural as well as material roots. He depicts ruling classes in Africa as predatory in that they seek hegemony – meaning allembracing social domination – over subordinate groups, whose political passivity is an element in their own oppression. We believe that, to apply well to Zimbabwe, the concept of political predation must also include the proclivity of leaders to unleash violence against (to “prey” upon) their own people. In other words, a predatory leadership not only fails to deliver developmental outcomes; it also kills, maims and terrorizes its citizens.

In this regard, Alnaswari’s depiction of predatory rule in Iraq under Saddam Hussein is more apropos for Zimbabwe, where “the ruling group became preoccupied with its own survival” and employed “conspiracies, purges and counter purges, violent seizure of power and ruthless suppression of dissent” (2000, 2-3).

In When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa (2009), Robert Bates argues that institutional and development outcomes depend on how ruling elites – whom he characterizes as “specialists in violence” – employ instruments of coercion to extract wealth from society. When the elite’s political and economic interests are served by taxing production, they will establish the infrastructure of lawful state. If, however, they conclude that the costs of providing protection to society’s producers outweigh the expected benefits, then they will be tempted to turn the state apparatus into an instrument of violent predation”.

I will use the concepts of learning to analyse how the culture of fear and preyness was acculturated in our psyche.

Learning is a process by which individuals acquire something, or knowledge of something and the experience to apply to a futurerelated behaviour. It may be accidental or intentional. The following learning elements helps the process of learning, motivations(based on goals and needs of the learner); cues(these are stimuli that gives direction to motives like the above song being played several times on the radio); response( is the behaviour or reaction to a drive). The learner’s response can be overt (observable) and non-overt (unobservable). Re-enforcement refers to anything that increases the likelihood of a specific response in future. There are 4 theories to learning.

The first one is Cognitive learning theory. This is learning based on mental activity by acquiring information from written and oral communication, through rote-memorisation and problem solving. The ZANU-PF machine made available, a lot information to the people, information of hate against the above noted enemies against its rule. Through songs, through programmes on the radio and TV, through public gatherings, through music festivals, through newspapers; we were bombed with so much information. We had to learn through problem solving, mostly how to behave against the MDC and the other enemies of the ZANU-PF. Even when we didn’t want to, we crammed this information through rote-memorisation. It was like an open university of fear. Through all that we learned about the culture of fear the ZANU-PF was instituting through this massive and allpervasive information. The second way we can learn is through modelling. This is when we can learn by observing others. When we observed our friend’s relatives, colleagues etc..., getting victimised, killed, maimed, abused we learned the danger of disobeying ZANU-PF. Psychologist Neal E Miller and John Dollard calls this type of learning as imitative or imitation behaviour.

Thus for us to avoid this victimisation we learned not to provoke that which caused this on us, our relatives, friends, colleagues.

We learned to fear the instigator. Those who got something good from supporting the ZANU-PF, we imitated them.

The opposition party and support of it was considered as selling the country to the imperialist. Masunungure observes, “In Zimbabwe in the 1990s this official discourse was cast not only in the language of anti-imperialism but, increasingly with the racist charge that political opposition was tantamount to support for the restoration of white settler colonialism. Add to that the leadership’s systematic plan to construct a politicized party-state and “the question of alternation in power, or transfer of power from one party to another, does not arise” (Masunungure, 2004, 149)”. We were told Mugabe is our messiah, so we learned to be like him, to make him our role-model, so that we would become like him, and thus we will be awarded by this system for modelling ourselves to the ZANU-PF or Mugabe. People in the ZANU-PF became our role-models, and a lot of us took to the ideology of this party, looking for benefits from this party, to be part of the system.

The ZANU-PF party used both good modelling and bad modelling traits to create learning in us, by reward and punishment.

The third learning theory is Classical conditioning theory that I have noted before. It was developed by the Russian psychologist, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. I am sure a lot of us know of the Pavlov dog. He harnessed his dog and gave it powder meat whilst harnessed and observed that every time the dog would salivate and this was not learning, it was inherited reflex. Next, he started ringing a bell before feeding, repeating the sequence several times. And then next, he would ring the bell without giving the dog meat powder, and it salivated. The dog had been conditioned to salivate by the bell. The Pavlovian theory contented that if stimulus is paired with another stimulus that elicits a known response, and then the use of one stimulus serves to produce the same response when used alone. The learning occurred after the continuous pairings of meat powder and the bell, eventually when the bell alone was sounded, this caused the dog to salivate. The dog associated the bell (conditioned stimulus) with the meat powder (unconditioned stimulus), hence they gave the same response of salivation (unconditioned response) to the bell alone.

There are several instances the ZANU-PF used concepts of this theory to create the culture of fear. For instance the ZANU-PF would award people who would support it; things like food during draught years, agricultural implements, project monies etc. They associated this with support of the ZANU-PF. The ZANU-PF was the unconditioned response.

These gifts given for obeying the party became the meat in Pavlov’s experiment. These gifts should have been things that people should have been given without expecting them to support the ZANU-PF (unconditioned stimulus), but through this process people were made to know that through their support of the ZANU-PF, they would get their meat. This was fear of not getting the reward that became the bell in Pavlov (conditioned stimulus). Thus through this we became the dogs of Pavlov, but in this instance we were dogs of the ZANU-PF. This worked well in the situation because we were going through unprecedented financial, economic, social and political meltdown, where we were struggling everyday to survive. We were taught we had to listen to the fear inside us, fear that not supporting the ZANU-PF was sure going to be our demise. We learned to support it, even though we didn’t want to. It was survival, and instinctual.

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Notes on a Train Between Bayonne and Hoboken Beware means Be aware Be aware of non-Asian friends who make you take off your shoes when you walk through the door.

Chances are you will smoke some pot but they control the music and the conversation and will steal your lighter which you will be powerless to retrieve.

Be aware of the phrase “just sayin’.”

It usually follows an offensive statement.

Same holds true, in reverse for “I’m not a racist, but…”

Be aware of politicians who call themselves reformers They likely wish to privatize public institutions you depend on.

When they’re out of office rest assured they will profit mightily.

Be aware of pop singers who rely on autotune, they will lip synch their way through the course of your life.

Be aware of charismatic speakers who overuse the pronoun “they.”

They will turn on you the moment you disagree.

Be aware of the woman or man who repeatedly asks, “how are you feeling?”

Chances are they will tell you how they're feeling over and over again.

The upkeep will be expensive.

Be aware of reality tv Stretching the boundaries of acceptable narcissism.

You will feel better about yourself but worse about humanity.

Be aware of Christian anxiety during the holidays, of shopping malls on Black Friday of Xmas wish lists, of those who speak for Jesus.

Be aware of Amazon drones A technological new world order, harbinger of things to come, Maybe it is time to get a gun.

Be aware of poets whose gift for theory exceeds their talent with language.

They will be canonized after you have been forgotten.

They will read their work at the 92nd Street Y while you’re on Avenue B. — Danny Shot rite med to w es o o d is e oken. H ch agre es in Hob rose. He very mu controlled, v li t o h S p ot c Danny and poeti fe is to be lived, n face of cery tr e o p lay in prosaic that “li nuing to p h Ellison with Ralp ity is won by conti n and huma ” t. a e f e tain d

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Sherief Makhail, also featured on the cover, is a NYC based artist who hung up his paint brushes and pencils for a karate uniform. After devoting his life to helping children through the sport of karate and having not painted in over 15 years. ..a series of events in the artist's life led him to heal through art. "Art saved my life" says Sherief... "when I was at the lowest point of my life...it was the canvas that listened...and ultimately helped me heal". And from these events was born the "recycled" series. The pieces are done on cardboard and are mixed medium. When asked, why cardboard. ..the artist says: "Cardboard is frail...vulnerable. ...just like we are. So in essence..." recycled ' is about finding the beauty in things that are easily discarded. ... vulnerable and ultimately human.�... www.sheriefmakhailart.weebly.com, www.facebook.com/recycledtheseries

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Anita Sullivan

Photo by Chris Carr: Eat the Cake Photography

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-The CodexBy Chris Carr The first time we had sex‌ she cried.

And when she did, I looked her in those eyes and froze Stopped everything and stared.

I asked if everything was OK, she said "yes" I couldn't believe her.

I was baffled, these were not tears of joy.

I pulled out, waiting for her to tell me what was happening. instead, she said she needed a moment to think she went out on the balcony.

Still crying. i was shocked.

She was smiling, giggling and moaning only moments before and I was in tune with her.

But now I don't know I didn't know What to do What did I do?

Was it me Was it her Or...

Was it him ? ‌.Him The mystery man or them Them...

The mysterious men that have had more influence than I will ever have on her or what we could be.

I couldn't figure it out.

If it was not me, what was it.. what made everything change?

How could I decipher the codex to her program?

Maybe there are some questions that I needed to ask that would reveal the formula. maybe it's something that happened when she was young, maybe something traumatic from the past...

The past that will prevent any future for us, But, whatever, now is the only thing that matters

And the present is a gift and blessing But I had no idea what to do, I waited a few minutes...

I got out of bed and went on the balcony, I was concerned, we talked. I asked questions, I listened.

She told me that it wasn't me, that even when she had a boyfriend she would sometimes spontaneously start crying during sex with no explanation, That it was totally unexplainable, inexplicable I couldn't fathom it I needed a deeper understanding, The night had been amazing; a piano bar, fernet by the glass, cab rides. and hours of us waiting to get home and devour each other.

The confusion was more frustrating then any feeling i was feeling except empathy. i felt her sorrow, i felt her anxiety, I felt her wanting to still be close. but she told me nothing, I held her, she held me. We were quiet together I felt her breathe.. we started to relax In those moments I realized The mind can be the place where dreams defy reality or the mind can be a cage where we are all bound by our own thoughts.

Our thoughts become the program The program becomes The system How do you reprogram the classical condition?

The structural development of intimate dynamics is like muscle memory for emotions.

There is an interesting relationship between the mental and physical The emotional and spiritual The combination and connection of two bodies that will one day be corpses We are people; we fuck to stay alive as a species It's sexual It's violent It's primal

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It's the human form of god in a physical representation and incarnation Carnal knowledge incantations and carnations i was pulled from my train of thought by her kissing my neck and saying she was fine. i could not believe her.

After she cried, we returned to her room, got in her bed, cuddled spooned and I tried to stop thinking about it.

What did I do?

Was it my fault? why won't she tell me what is going on? ...she wanted to keep fucking.

It confused me Baffled me Made me consider questions that have no answers and ponder situations I never guessed that I would be placed in.

I could not believe her I was totally unaroused In a way, I was afraid i was terrified, i had never been in this situation in my life.

So I held her close and told her it was cool, everything was ok, I don't know if she believed me but she smiled, said "thank you" and pulled me closer.

She wept we slept and when we woke she played me Thai jazz music on an old 12 inch record player while making black coffee in her robe.

We exchanged stories and she told me anecdotes of travels that sparked my imagination and fascination in between brief sessions and lessons in mandarin.

We discussed our parents, our upbringing, our beliefs about parenting and children, spoke of utopian dreams and how we could use love to solve the world's problems and in a way.. I was happy and she was happy. we didn't discuss the previous night. we didn't dig up those skeletons we sat on the couch with our limbs interwoven, and again I found comfort in a brief moment of silence.

As i departed, we kissed deeply, smiled and reassured each other.

It was beautiful she was beautiful. the chaos is the order. i still have no idea what the fuck happened the night before or why she started crying, but i don't need to, not everything needs a solution, proof or logical analysis, some things just ARE. accept it.

I can't change who or what she is. and why should I? She is a conundrum She is beautiful and she told me that i was beautiful She reminded me of truth that I have aways known but tend to forget until these angels remind me.

We could change the world with love. she was right.

She is right. i finally believed her.

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Photo by Chris Carr: Eat the Cake Photography

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Mock Monk by Kelley Shields Limestone whispered to my heart and goats frolicked on jagged cliffs and sun warmed these rocks and I sat and stared into the very, very sea; it was more than a word that amplifies an object can achieve so I need to repeat it. I cannot define the greatness of it—the sea—more adeptly. Its power smashing against rock, five hundred feet below, seconds after seconds, repeating forever.

Hop goats, hop!! I urged with my stomach muscles, their hooves jutting into crevices and leaning full-tilt against a sheer vertical wall of rock while perched on a shelf of cliff perhaps just two inches wide. I watched, hoping the linger of my stare might apply extra pressure against their coarsehaired stomachs, thereby adhering them more fully to the cliff side. I digressed in this manner often from my prayers and mediation, from one peeking eye open only the slimmest slice to watch the goats make passage to the next shelf toward succulent rock flower treats. It wasn’t my job to watch the goats. Therefore my eyes should not have been averted nor my concentration broken. I peeked. No one knew? I had doubts.

Doubtless there were some who knew I was a mock-monk —meaning, not of the lineage coming as I did from the outside, hoping to stow something inside me away. Evening one night was purple and orange and offered a fine, muddy earth smell as after a soggy rain. Here I sat many hundreds of feet up a sheer rock cliff, my spirit constantly split between raw desire and the goal to become a more wholesome being (something that I had feigned with facility for some time) a monk without investment, without faith, looking for a bargain between the pleasure gone from me and the hell that remains.

Four-thirty morning sky wrapped itself around each of us like a blanket. Bare feet, barely calloused, transported the monks to a courtyard where still physically sleepy we woke spiritually moment by moment. There were sounds from the animals and from the wind and from the surf until the chants began. There was also human breathing; faint, deep breathing but there was no talking. No eyes looking even, that might notice each other. We were separatists together, striving for a listening ability that required our silence and concentration. Chants summoned the awakening of sequential strata of our bodies and the awakening corresponded to the amount of daylight that spilled onto the courtyard and its walls. I came to this place to train my mind to drip its thoughts out—like tipping a teapot or wash bucket, holding it at the correct angle precisely long enough, not in a hurry, to get all the liquid out. Drain the vessel of its contents. If you attempt to empty a bucket by turning it directly upside down while gravity pulls by force the much of it out, an amount of the liquid will cling to the sides and recollect on the bottom after you turn it upright. Whereas, if you tip a vessel of liquid at an angle creating a pathway for it to flow out toward another level, which it will seek naturally, the vessel will be more empty than if it were simply turned up

side down. It is like this with the mind. To be empty in mind, not vapid but clear of acquired scraps, must therefore be the path toward elemental being-ness. I came here to this place to learn how to be quiet enough to listen and alert enough to live without the paranoid habit of saving in the corners of my mind like a rodent, scraps of my past experience for future consumption. But I am only human and the emptying I speak of is far from my understanding at this point and more pointedly, rats are by nature predisposed to banking on a future deficit.

There is a magnolia tree at the edge, the actual edge, of the cliff we live atop. The roots wrap around and between the rocks that are exposed like teeth out of a jawbone. This tree is so sure, it isn’t at all concerned by its perching. Its boughs sway without hesitation despite the center of gravity of its trunk clearly favoring the abyss. One of the leaves stayed in my mind’s eye this morning. The chants blurred out of my listening and instead my mind, entirely filled with the tiny movements of this broad leaf, heard nothing. I was momentarily empty and the resulting feeling was full; perfectly blissfully sure and fine and right; not afraid not hurt not vengeful; rather, open, open, unclosed, empty and full. It was a miracle. In that instant I was cured of my mania, the obsession— just like that, I was done!

And, with that thought of being ‘done’ I saw her exactly as I did that first day. Quite after the fact I now feel that eyes should not be able to see anything that in the end will not be good to have observed. I have thought this through several thousand times, concluding finally that it is most correct and sensible. I doubt there has ever been the combination of height, plus frame, plus gait, plus complexion and hair and physiognomy arranged in another individual the way these aspects were arranged in Sofie. We come to this plane legally blind for several hours except for the brief introduction to our mothers as we pass from between her legs to her belly and breast, which is when our sight is believed to be extremely acute; as well, our sense of smell is apparently heightened at this time. This fleeting magnification of senses serves the purpose apparently of identification with our source and intended provider. Obsessive attachment to a form, striking enough to render one feeling helpless in its absence therefore suggests that perhaps the object of desire is recalling that first introduction, the one that was so vital to survival and yet Sofie looked not a bit like my mother. Visually they were different in every way. My mother stood shorter in stature while Sofie was nearly my height. Sofie’s eyes were narrow slashes revealing grey slices across her broad face whereas my mother’s eyes were discs and the brown of them was nearer to caramel than the cigar shade of my own. Sofie’s hair was black, my mother’s once naturally red, eventually dyed varying tints of orange. Her smile caused me immense trouble; my mother’s, barely any as she smiled so little that it wouldn’t have troubled me at all to see it no matter what purpose it took to express. I imagine even so much as a snicker or a grin at my expense over a fumble or tumble would have measured in my memories of my mother more as happy than horrid. But Sofie’s smile, it unhinged me. It opened me like the can I was, fully sealed—an outwardly happily married man and father of three. Against my will I became exposed

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every time it broke across her face. Sofie was also unlike my wife in every physical regard being round in pleasing places like her bottom and lips but sharp and straight in others— among them her shoulders, hair and gaze.. And, she moved with a sway in her hips off her spine that affected not a flaunty wag rather a rhythmic shifting with each step which actually annoyed me, it gave me that much pleasure to watch. No one should have such an affect on someone else. Greedy for pain and pleasure both my mind replays the moments I orchestrated an intersection of our paths, causing us finally to meet. I’d position myself on corners or just inside shop doorways in order to feed the pleasant discomfort of having to watch her. In reliving details of our affair smell also floods my memory—the palm of my hand after casually taking her wrist while crossing a street; my fingers after lingering in her various hollows and crevices. Taste deepens the regret; the salt of her mouth, different enough from my own to define a distinct flavor of ours combined. With my too brief composure totally slackened, the chants return to my ears as the bitterness (perhaps it is hatred, really) does to my core, a hatred that I have clamped to myself like a weary and fearful child reclaiming a mislaid blanket they cannot sleep without.

There are several blossoms on the tree still. Small blooms on ground-hugging brush also paint the footpaths, but mostly the colors we see are sunrise and sunset, the red of potato skins, the orange of carrots, the burgundy of grapes, the dull white of pungent goat’s milk, a range of tawny browns of the soil, the tar black-blue of the ruffled sea, the beige of the banal bread, myriad greys of boulders and an array of greens of the cliff scrub and leafy vegetables we eat. But this extraordinary tree gives us pure white with dense stigmata streaks, staining the heart of each blossom. It is magnificent in full bloom but most sensual in late bloom when the sight is margined, when the smell is drunken and when the touch is softening, ripe with the entering decay. Rusty fallen petals blur purple into white, mashing under our feet. For a monk, slipping on the mush should be met with a most reluctant release into the sudden loss of gravity, but I whirl in delight with the notion of falling fullout on my ass and cackling insanely as I tumble down the path, rolling longer than the slope directs my body to, forcing air out harder than a natural response of laughter would require.

Excess is the most elemental desire for a monk I conclude, since excess excessively occupies my mind all the moments I am here in this place, ostensibly to find the opposite of excess.

The climb on the stairs, the plaster wall, the inside of the exterior bearing wall, evidences the craftsman’s hand. The uneven application, deliberate during the spreading that afternoon or early morning it was accomplished, has advanced over time.

The settling of the building and the perils of shifting levels of moisture have heightened the unevenness planned into them and now what we have to draw our hands across as we ascend is this: a gentle little hump then a smooth patch then two other bumps, two perfect mounds that can be covered exactly by my palms. The others don’t walk up and down the stairs like I do with both hands always on the wall. I am doing it wrong I know by the way they are not doing what I do, but no one will say anything to me about it naturally, because none of them speak. The plaster is cool and moist and alive in a way that stone walls and wood walls and board walls are not. Plaster

walls breathe and sweat. Her breath and her sweat run hot and cool through the tips of my fingers every time I trace these walls. Her moisture wicks straight to my trunk and I rattle my head to shake it out. The unbearable want the unbearable denial the unbearable absence. Their eyes and hands do not notice what mine do either out of a centeredness associated with the meditative mindset that they have achieved or sadly out of a profoundly un-relatable lack of interest in the female form—who knows. But my hands can see Sofie’s breasts and my eyes can feel the pale color of her veins on the underside of her wrists. Her pulse was always vulnerably faint while resting, always wickedly wild and bold while riding. She kissed me long at the close of one rapturous night as if she could convince me with the ballet of her tongue to prolong the night, something which stood not outside the boundaries of my desire but simply outside the boundaries of logistics and it frustrated her I imagine, to be idle with the overactive everything inside her, with the overactive everything that was her.

It’s very late, I said.

Not so late, she said.

You’re right it’s very early actually, which is why it is late.

Still, it’s not so late.

Really? Well you don’t have to be at work in four hours, do you? Why so nasty, just moments ago you were being so nice. Be nice again. I have to go.

Come closer and leave your eyes open this time.

I have to go.

You said she’s not waiting for you at home tonight, why must you?

I need to sleep a bit before work.

Work-schmerk .

You didn’t just say, work-schmerk.

Yes I did.

Very hip. You constantly surprise me. I know. This is why you find me irresistible, risk-worthy.

Among other things.

Like what? You want me to compliment you? Is the notion unthinkable or is that you have nothing complimentary to say?

No and no. Then say something. You say nothing, always.

No I don’t.

Yes you do. Fine. Your smile makes me nuts and you smell lovely, a scent that lingers long past the time we are together, by the way.

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Painting by Sherief Makhail

Really? I had no idea I had a lasting effect on you. You have no idea the difficulties your lasting effects—plural—have caused me. No idea.

I’m sorry for the difficulties, really. I’ll show you. Let me have your mouth again.

No. I am going and you are going. Tonight is done. Stop it now. Just stop.

Morning meal-evening meal-midday wine. Nothing is fine. I haven’t found the means to walk away from my handicap. I am here. Vespers and chants. Wine vats and farming. Weed pulling and seed sowing. Silence and kneeling. Head down, eyes closed. Water fetching and blade sharpening too, and more also.

I say:

tragedy needs air just as any wound shouldn’t be bandaged too long for if it is, the scab will become putrid for the lack of air then bacteria will ratchet the whole business up to a new level of error, of pain, of difficulty. I came to this approach, complete isolation and silence, cutting-off entirely, because a voice (restraining order) told me to distance myself so I found a place where I would be far away. I remember also reading advice (divorce filing) to release the bind on my psyche, which doubtless prompted my assumption that prayer would be beneficial.

I don’t have an elemental being I realize several weeks (in fact only minutes) into this. I am lousy through and through. To the core, right down to the last cell I am spite. I am untrusting. I am a taker. I am crap. I am a rat. I stutter it out, this truth as I coddle myself, her scent still wafting about, re-minding the passageways of my nose why I should want to sneer and decide I have no intention of breaking with obsession. No intention whatsoever of releasing her from what has resulted.

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Split, or, Into a Once and an Irreconcilable, Dying Now

By L. Noelle Mclaughlin A small girl with symmetrical face and silken hands is sitting in a store full of ancient things, relics of a Brautigan story where the tigers are lanterns. She stitches up a small book of her sketches with blue thread. She’s not going to show them to anyone, but she ties them up nice and neat just the same. The shop smells musty from thunderstorms past. Through the dirty window, the outside appears almost too bright to see without shades.

Paul canters in, ample eyes and pasty cold skin. He lights up at the sight of the girl tucked tightly into the corner of the wall.

She looks up from her stitching and smiles slightly.

“Hello. Pamina. How are you.”

Paul remembers everyone’s name in town. He remembers their name, their name day, their birthday and their death day. He loves them more in knowing.

“Oh, hi.” She slides her drawings under the register. She barely speaks to customers since the writer stopped coming, but always feels compelled to acknowledge Paul. Perhaps because he strikes her as disadvantaged. The writer used to come in and talk with her for hours, tell her about the novel he was trying to write.

How’s it going, Paul?” Once, when she’d asked the writer that, he’d told her he was afraid he was falling in love with her, his character. She’s turned the moment over in her head a thousand times. He’d seemed anxious, disheveled that day. He’d watched her eyes so carefully while he had told her.

“It’s going. Going. Gone. Paul runs his dry, white fingers shyly over the antique postcards and tarnished silverware. “Would you like to play again today?”

“Okay,” she says, without really knowing what she wants. She makes a mental note to stop after work and pick up the fish her husband had asked her to make for dinner. She takes out the paper from last Wednesday, and draws some fresh lines with a borrowed fountain pen of questionable worth. She makes sure no customers borrow it back, just in case.

“Playing tic tac toe,” Paul says.

“Your favorite,” she says, feeling maternal, though Paul’s probably her father’s age, and thinks to herself, maybe it’s because we can’t have children. “ X or O?” Paul offers.

They play a few rounds in a vacuum of sound.

After the third game, Paul starts snapping out a beat. The beat seems to summon some low level sound into the room.

Split, or, Into a Once and an Irreconcilable, Dying Now

“You know what I like to do?” (snapping) (snapping) “I like to go

(snapping)

one*

one*

two*

two*

(snapping)…”

three*

three*

He brings his hand up closer to her face on the snaps.

“Try it.”

She snaps in time with him.

He asks, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Gray?” At her answer he snaps his fingers up to hers. He wants to touch fingers when they snap across the table.

He asks; they snap: “How fast is a split?”

She asks; they snap: “A lickety split?”

He laughs; they snap. "……."

She asks; they snap: “What would you say?”

He answers; they snap: “In an instant.”

The room hums harder. A small patch of light clings to some salt a pepper shakers made from white and black stones. It occurs to her she hasn't opened that window since the writer stopped coming. If she tied the curtains with those red ribbon scraps she had, the light could reach into other parts of the store.

“My fingers are getting tired,” she says, dropping her hand. “What with all the snapping?”

Matter-of-factly, “It turns me on.”

Pause. No sound from outside.

The girl asks out into the room with objects and otherwise clamorin to answer, “Do you think people are mostly good, or mostly bad?”

He looks carefully into her many-colored eyes, his reflection in scrambled proportion in the mirror of her pupils. He moves the tictac-toe sheet out of his way.

“It’s hard to say.”

lin is a augh L c M elle e s a ys L. No ire. Sh h r o f riter .wordghostw nbeans a m u h t poor stuff a m. press.co

photo by Zhenya B.

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THE DECLINE OF THE EUROPEAN by Colin James Happily pollution has not effected your smile, holding forth beneath the ornate mosaic

in the men's stall first from the end.

Ammonia will only get us so far.

Carpets that fly unfold.

We retreat to relax amongst comfy chairs, even more brazenly when you consider eulogies.

The room has become much smaller than before.

Conflict is a brewing if concessions don't include beer, wistfully withdrawing into individualism's patented stare.

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Untitled

by Tyriek White These days I keep looking for myself in books. I can’t see anything out my window at night and I choose my friends too wisely. It is easier to talk to you in the early hours, when my timeline is asleep. More beautiful, you feel. The books are the only things that prove to me we’ve existed before this, that we belong to the treble of the universe. I speak in a broken language from time to time and it drives my sister to throw her slippers at me. I tell her words aren’t important. She says all of the great poems are great because they use words. Great poems aren’t really great because the real poems are written with existence, in the hours farthest from light. They are silent accusations against water; direct me to the flood. Ma was a great poet.

She’d drink her dark lager and dance around my father like she had lived forever.

She was proud, as the way books are made, I remember her. She sat me on her lap and, like the great poets, made me believe love was the only way I would ever survive. She was lying though, like all the great poets do. It didn’t take me long to understand that.

Cause no one ever survives really. But Ma had this idea like, we were all survivors. The ancestors, they spoke to her she said. I thought the chemo was getting to her.

But she insisted.

The thing is, I just couldn’t understand how any of this was happening and it made me mad that she couldn’t answer me. It never dawned on me that she may not understand it herself.

“If God loves me so much,” I asked her at her hospital bed one night, “then why would He take you away?”

She cried like a baby, uncontrollably with her hand on my cheek. After awhile she said, “yes he does. But we can’t think like that. Love is a kind of suicide where you end your old life in hopes of a new one.” She held my hand, hard, as if not to be left stranded. “I’ll live forever as long as you tell it.”

Ma had walked like a fully bloomed wallflower: in wild, ingenuous awe of itself. She didn’t belong here really, in this time or this city. She spoke too frankly, laughed too earnestly, and felt too deeply. She opened herself up to the world much like a pomegranate, raw and staining the hands of whoever held it, whoever held her conversation. Sometimes words failed her, like there

wasn’t enough room in it [in rhetoric, she said]. She had a language all her own, one that required you to listen with more than your ears.

At times my sister puts flowers in her hair, yellow and violet, bright enough to bring the bees in, walking barefoot against the waxed wood of our apartment. I’d come in from the park, palms red and dried out from handball, yelling at my sister to make me something. I came in after curfew once, when I was much younger, after the streetlights had sprung on. The whole time I knew Ma was clearing the table, probably washing the dishes. I had told my homie Jabari what could she do?

Tore my ass up. Made me drop my own drawers and touch my toes [the awdaahcity of that woman! I told Jabari] while she came down with one of daddy’s belts. I limped off, pants still around my ankles, in tears and laid face down in my bed cause sitting, at that point, wasn’t happening. A couple hours later my sister got enough of my whimpering and Ma came in to get me ready for bed per usual. To make it up to me she brought me hot chocolate with more than three marshmallows and read me I Remember 121 by Francine Haskins.

“Don’t act all sour now”, she said in the dark, “you know you deserved it.” I sucked my teeth and she laughed, running her long fingers through my hair. And that would be the end of our beef. Not like me and my dad, all prolonged silence and threats, that Caribbean male pride of his like the fucking Iron Curtain coming up for no one.

When she got sick it was like any other time she caught something. I’d get home and the windows would be shut with the heat on, so heavy my eyes could only squint. She was surrounded by lavender stalks, rosemary stalks, and peppermint leaves, boiling nettle leaves and camilla petals into tea, extracting fish oil, pounding dried herbs and beeswax with a mortar and pestle. She use to get us with that stuff too.

“Ma, stop with that mess. Just send me to Downstate,” I’d whine, feet in hot water and epsom salt.

It always worked, I can’t front. Her remedies warded off Toya’s headaches and my constant flu symptoms since I insisted playing outside with no coat. Dad’s joints would cool under Ma’s salves and balms and ointments, without the metallic haze his painkillers brought on. She carried these recipes as true, passed along from a time where the land would cure anything. Leave it to the sun. What you give to the earth, it will give back to you.

Soon the land couldn’t keep up, couldn’t calm the swelling inside, couldn’t repair what leaked, what bled.

Teas and oils became supplements for pills, balms like relief for chemo, a cure for the cure that never seemed to be working in the first place. She’d take up residency at the hospital for days at a time, shrinking, I can see it, away from us, like a reverse bloom, away from the world. After we had that talk about God she decided she wanted to come home.

“How you kids say? I couldn't go out like that.”

Toya looked uncomfortable.

Toward the end. Toward the end Ma was always out of air. I can still hear her cough, a steel organ pipe and bubbling blood. We would find blood in the strangest places. Sparkling black pools of tar. They seemed like holes in the floor that went down all the way to the basement of our duplex.

She wrote her prayers down in a scratchy loop on corners of used papers, crying when she thought no one was awake. I just couldn’t sleep like I used to.

She slipped away early one the morning, just before the sun rose. She had laid in the bed for days, waiting. We didn’t go to school. Asleep in the corner of her room, was my dad, who ran to our room to get us before it could hit him. Her eyes were closed. Toya touched her hands, gasped, and fell into a ball on the floor. It didn’t feel like the movies and I wanted it to. I wanted to hear her last words, to be breathless with aching, to see her to the end of her road.

It made me mad, as if her dying was just another passing moment, something as regular as waking up in the morning. and how miraculous it is, waking up

During the service, I thought how my mother joked once, at the wake for one of her cousins, they could sum this up in a few seconds. she lived. she loved. she died. who needs a drink? The entire thing seemed to be about a woman I didn’t know, a woman who couldn’t have possibly raised me. The people who spoke I didn’t know, reverends of a church we didn’t go to. They said she had not died but gone on, to His kingdom and kept saying she is survived by. There a choir that coated the chapel in a sweet, sticky harmony that made me wish Ma could hear. The whole time my dad sat between me and Toya, red eyed and unmoving.

In a flurry of snow, we drove to the cemetery near the junction, over by Ridgewood. We stood in the staunch grey of the breaking February noon holding flowers, yellow and red and violet, the reverend’s words scattered amongst the snow flakes. They lowered her in into a plot and buried her in fat soil. It might as well have been concrete. My throat locked on me in a sudden fit of anxiety. Could she breath, I worried, would she be warm? I think that’s when it really hit me. It wouldn’t matter.

After the repass, we all kind of drifted to our own corners of the house. No one remembered to eat until sometime around midnight and my sister heated up plates from earlier. Pops just kinda sat and let the TV wash over him. The next day he took us to my grandma's and disappeared for about a week. One night, Toya, helping Nana with the dishes, asked how he could just leave like that. Men have the privilege of absence, was all Nana said.

Community Someday dark brown eyes will stare at your carved banister,

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wondering whether it is The Spirit That Controls the Cockroaches that will hide behind your marble bath.

An old man will sleep on a mat in the nursery.

Three families' children in the pantry will eat lead paint from shelves

that store your marmalade.

It won't be a rich folks' house then, and no one will care that your foyer matches one in Florence or that

one niche holds a medieval madonna.

Louie Clay, 77, is an

Alabama native and a professor at Rutgers. In addition to his Ph.D. Clay holds honorary doctorates from three seminaries of the Episcopal Church. He is the founder of Integrity: LGBTQ Episcopalians/Anglicans. He lives in East Orange, NJ, with Ernest Clay, his husband of 40 years. You can follow his work at http://rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/pubs.html See also http://en.wikipedi-

a.org/wiki/ Louie_Crew.The University of Michigan collects Clay’s papers.

line at

n o s i e n i Z A .com

GAMB r l b m u .t e n AZi http://GAMB t more u o d n fi o t d like ts, If you woulf the individual artis

/ about any obout buying artwork to inquire a ts or contributing in ordering pr the next

at

m a h a r G r e ct Hunt issue conta aham18@yahoo.com huntergr

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Photo by Chris Carr: Eat the Cake Photography