The Literati Quarterly | Spring 2016 | Issue No. 7

THE LITERATI QUARTERLY POETRY, FICTION, ART & MUSIC

ISSUE ISSUENO. NO.77|| SPRING SPRING 2016 2016

THE LITERATI QUARTERLY POETRY, FICTION, ART & MUSIC ISSUE NO. 7| SPRING 2016

FOUNDER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DIRECTOR OF ART AQUISITIONS Joschua Beres POETRY EDITOR Jonathan Hobratsch FICTION EDITOR Erin Pringle-Toungate ESSAY AND REVIEWS EDITOR Christopher Cadra © 2016 THE LITERATI QUARTERLY Cover Art: from the series Berlin in the 1920s: Fashion Parade (ink and wash) by Allen Forrest

TABLE OF CONTENTS DEER ROOM IN APPALACHIA

by Rob Cook 9 WAR ON NOUNS

by James Carson Welch 10 PLATO’S CAVE REVISITED

by Clinton Inman 13 TWO POEMS

by Negar Emrani 14 THE LEPER CHILD

by Shawn Goldberg 15 THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING

by Cynthia Juniper 18 DANGER I-IV

by Marc Frazier 20 UNDER THE DRAGON’S CLAWS

by Jacques Carrié 23 TWO POEMS

by Hussein Rahmani 31 LYCANTHROPY

by Patrick Erickson 32 FALLING IN THE SPACE WALL

by Rob Cook 34 LETTER TO GREG HOWE IN 1987 FROM RHODE ISLAND, 2003

by Rob Cook 35 BORN BLUE

by Laura DiCarlo Short 37 CONTRIBUTORS

Dedicated to SPC Mary Elizabeth Lovett (1991-2016)

THE LITERATI QUARTERLY POETRY, FICTION, ART & MUSIC ISSUE NO. 7| SPRING 2016

Annie and Her Two Sons (oil on canvas panel) by Allen Forrest, 2014

A boy made of battery shells moved like a fawn across the room.

There were no guns.

Only chairs, and melted chessmen running in streams to the ends of the terrarium.

The deer grazed the carpet where I was waiting for the television to come back from the hospices at the bottom of the Atlantic.

An operator’s voice squished through the answering machine: This is the Arsenic Building, I demand to speak to one of the deer. . .

I know you’re nestled there. . .

One of the deer. . . Now, please. . .

Then the sound of hair falling as I locked the phone away.

The bucks gathered, having eaten all the skin off the windows.

I was in denial that the house was a ball of rain and nothing else.

The table with its bad leg kept repeating: I woke up today at the center of the Earth and now there will be good weather to come.

But it was a girl picking herself out of the floor with the rest of the puddles.

Calmed by lightning, the deer spread out to the other rooms, the stream beds and mining foliage of the moon, the charred wet footprints disappearing behind them.

by Rob Cook

The smallest took turns eating fur from the cat.

DEER ROOM IN APPALACHIA

The deer came to visit me during rain.

I called the man weeping over the family radio to tell him how many antlers were left.

WAR ON NOUNS

by James Carson Welch

Battleground is scorched, scattered with strings of matchbox cars and hundreds—thousands—of individual crayons, mostly the red and blue. Stray little ones scurry at sudden loud sounds. We play Elvis on dozens of old record players at the border, through their hollow streets. They don’t come out. I try The Beatles, still no luck; but I like The Beatles, so I leave it on.

The situation has always been this way, generation after generation, God knows why. I don’t have a choice. It’s just what I do, and I don’t mean to brag, but I do it well. It’s a science—no, an art, really. The occupation began in— well that’s not important, but what remains is this state.

The specifics of this occupation should remain anonymous, dear subject, but rest assured: I am proud to serve as your dictator.

Through the city streets, desolate and spooky, some boys and girls wander, ravage the streets; paper bags and empty cans rattle, blown down the avenues. I hear some dissonant singing, creepy in the stillness of the dour street, see them skipping on hopscotch squares drawn with blue chalk on the street.

They wear blue collectively now. I think it’s bad.

Now we set up on top of an apartment complex in Washington Heights overlooking their territory. Me and General Amley—kind of my right hand man, not a great record but has potential—and General Marrow are up here strategizing. There’s a map out on the table. This is us, says Amley, and this is them. She draws a straight red line down the map of Manhattan.

I look down to where the red line corresponds and there is the barricade. It’s lined with barbed wire and reeks of spoiled milk. I put the binoculars to my eyes. Little red wagons, cups of apple juice stacked on bookcases filled with essentials—dictionary, Bible, etc.—Playdough, big stuffed Gorillas, blue plaid blankets, stacks of DVDs, endowed with innocence and a sense of familiarity. See a few of them run for cover as my guys launch “Advanced Readers: Level 3” booklets at them.

7th battalion goes out on the East flank, where they are exposed. Littler ones sling flaming t-shirts wrapped around baseballs at us and we just watch, wait, all we need to do.

Handcuffs rattle—the ones we dropped in.

The blue and the red shift, block by block, Tetris-shaped territories seized, lost to packs, gained by us, back and forth. I can see it in my mind like a little game, a harlequin, tetragonal color show.

Destroyer of worlds is no dull occupation—accountant of sins, doctor of agony; death is no walk in the park.

Meanwhile on the corner of 12th and 45th, we took down a few blocks with TNT for a helicopter pad. Buildings crumbled slowly and with a far off rumble and collapsing concrete blocks that I watched through the binoculars.

Vacant voices, strings of vile slurs binding the crumbling city together. Sweetness, innocence, tranquility, watercolor blossoms on the trees that line Glenridge Ave.

Catch sight through a window, in their land, a group of them, a couple boys, two girls. They are scavenging through the abandoned apartment, find canned food, books, take the TV. I follow them with my binoculars and see them scramble to put the TV at the border with the barricade then scramble back—pretty cute, really.

Then we shout through the megaphone, Shut the hell up Kevin. You’re a weenie. The others turn inwards in a circular form and point and Kevin cowers and they mock him in a swelling cacophony.

Two years pass. Have built up our barricade on the West side—gender roles, estimated salaries, standardized curricula, societal expectations—unbreakably solid. We separate them, gradually.

They quickly form a line at the DMV, three years having passed. Then some found a cabinet full of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and crashed an Escalade into a jewelry shop on 17th. Now a pack of them—blue blurs, Bacchic, demented, faces painted with indigo tempera—hop the barricade—movie posters and picture frames—in a charging pack, javelining sharpened billiards sticks into my barracks at the border. I radio for the uprising to be let alone. Let them gain false hope—the most dangerous kind, the only dangerous kind—socioeconomic mobility, education “the great equalizer”—then we’ll crush them when they are tallest, shanghai them with trinkets and diplomas, grant and divest.

It’s begun to get cold, as it does. I worry some of them aren’t figuring out how to stay warm with the heat out.

I order a couple platoons down to the border to gain ground, it being time. Torch the barricade, as we have done so many times. Armed with riot shields, the phalanx pushes forward, rolling through the streets, scattering the kids—I see a few try to fight but never struggle free from my men. My strong and well-trained men. They have always been too powerful for the little boys and girls.

Saw one of them out in the street from the HeliCam—asking for it in the first place, if you ask me—playing the Tuba. Very bad, annoying, making lightsaber sounds. We shot him. He wasn’t playing it right. We had to, you know?

Four years pass. We finally take Drake off the loud speakers—he’s been playing the whole time—and replace it with loud speakers blasting their parents’ voices—George, are you going to be a doctor like your daddy? Loretta, you better not bring home that black boy I saw on your Facebook page.

We drop 6 tons of heroin on them with helicopters. I see at a distance, through the binoculars, the herd rush to the powdery white pile (new binoculars, very powerful).

We walk down the streets, boots slapping blood-puddled pavement, firing t-shirt launchers filled with suits from the hip and round them into cubicles like sheep.So we have begun to gain ground, block by block. Two years pass. Step over the bodies—pile them. Another year.

from the series Retro Girl by Clinton Inman

PLATO’S CAVE REVISITED by Clinton Inman

Notice that we no longer use chains and fire Of course the rooms are filled with shadows While laser lights and computer programs prove More cost effective yet all the cardboard Cut-outs and curtains have remained the same As well as those old lies that trees are real That the way out really goes somewhere That math leads more than just in circles And that the Wizard himself behind the curtains Keeps the whole domino world from collapsing And each year more and more come to believe it As only a few poets and down-and-outers dare climb The arduous way out as most prefer To sit and talk about food and sports.

I. It has short hands, death; Right before they reach your neck It kisses your lips.

I wish the sun would have returned Pulling the night off the sky And the day on which I saw you Would have came back You, Would have came back.

II. The news was enormous; The Earth committing self-immolation Autumn pouring shades of red on faces.

The badgers wearing black And stars, One by one, Falling down.

I should have thought, about a bullet shell inside me I should have found the night Pulled it out of the darkness.

The news was enormous And I so small That facing the storm I had lighted fire.

TWO POEMS by Negar Emrani

“Hussein, Hussein, Hussein” Like a magician, I put your name into my mouth And pulled it out of a soldier’s pocket Who was returning home?

THE LEPER CHILD by Shawn Goldberg 1.

A corrosive disease was rotting Davi’s young flesh. Layers of fiery scabs. Little black rashes textured like charred meat.

Boils oozing puce glop, slow as teardrops gather and gush.

Pinkies dropped off. The thumbs. Pieces of ear... regularly wondering How can I continue and continue to die anymore...

Experiencing this tortuous throb of life for so long had opened his face in anguish, his demeanor like a deathstare. Yet eyes frantic as green flames.

The leper child had suddenly developed an uncanny ability: he knew what berries, roots, and plants were poisonous, medicinal, or edible. As well as this: within that gnarled visage there now resonated a voice of confidence, and he was believed to possess more wisdom than the wisest wiseman, for far too often grazing fatality had granted him glimpses into that dominion of knowledge inaccessible unless seized by visions projected from positions outer and unseen.

- My flesh was born with the terrain of all the ills of the world.

When he spoke the entire village surrounded, listened.

- See my galaxy of crags? My cluster of cliffs? How it assembles, how the world speaks to me through my afflictions.

The sin made of the old manifests in these marks. Screaming through me that I am being punished for a past committed by you true poison.

He lurched into the center.

- Why and for what purpose does all this misery exist? Do not look away, don’t hide your face. Look at me. I am the evidence. I know you have all had the same dream and know what I am about to say.

The children stepped closer.

- All of the mothers and fathers must go. You defile the air. This is my fatal knowledge. This is required of me. And all know must happen. Is correct. Take off your clothes. Leave naked to the desert. Now, you blight. No provisions. You cannot say goodbye. This must be done. This present is a boulder in our way.

No question, no gripe, as elders stripped bare.

- We will at last have new rituals, new myths, new traditions, shaped by our own impulses.

Departed, scattered, aimed toward twilight horizon. None glanced back. They would have seen butterflies, a dozen, now two, relaxing on his shoulders, the colors vividly fluttering like a messy rainbow.

He called out, his echo like a ferocious gust, - Don’t worry, we still love you. Don’t worry, I look on all sides. Don’t worry, we will prosper. Let the dream deliver us to the dream. To march with the whole fire of youth.

2.

What words to reply for comfort, which were seductive, enticing; where to apply pressure, excite anatomy, incite an uproar of friction: they had somehow learned this innately.

The discolorations were spreading from lover to lover and Davi was no longer alone. An overwhelming stink, like a mash of spoiled vegetables, dominated further confirmation of outbreak. In gloom they finished chores, lesions multiplying.

Feverish. Everyone pulled out patches of their hair. Exhales quivered throughout the night and soon the days lingered in fatigued slouches. Gazes drooped inebriated by sickness; mouths dwindled into deep grooves of contempt; speechless, grim; the children shared an awareness of withering away. Sorrow was plentiful. Davi grappled their dim spirits, enchanted them with his rhetoric, but was ineffective in subsiding what helplessly ached in their hearts. Nature had had its say: this was a community unfit for advancement, destiny.

Bodies drooled spotted skin bluebruised and bizarre, inhuman like the guts of beetles. Eyes went bad. Tongues fell out.

The harvest was abandoned.

Unlike the others, the leper child was immune to death by the disease, and he walked through his village, staring at cadavers. Knew in their disfigured faces their voices, quirks, mannerisms, the details now merely cherishable. The stench made him dizzy.

He slaughtered a pig and fashioned from some of its bones a crown. Powerless to bury all of them, which ensured they would never arrive safely in the afterlife, he understood he stood inside the limbo, witnessing where exactly they were forever trapped. Defiled.

- These sins I have invented for myself, failing to interpret properly the world, despite its vibrations always feeling so near.

His wounds festered rusty, familiar.

What fate truly had desired from life remained a mystery.

Follow Me by Fabrice Poussin

Moonlight by Fabrice Poussin

THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING by Cynthia Juniper

The first day of spring on frozen snow covered earth

a wreath of white lilies announce,

“She is no longer here.”

The midday sun

carries a shadow of memories

across the stone graced with her name.

Memories of the mundane tasks of love’s dayto-day.

I lie on her grave face-up

move my limbs out and in

to create an angel we never believed in.

Her body frozen.

My body shivers in this cold.

There is no magic, no sign.

With each cutting breath the crunching sound of frozen snow marks my steps.

from the series Retro Girl by Clinton Inman

DANGER by Marc Frazier O my catacomb, drifting, my drowse-in-honey-until-there’s-nothing, nothing why be afraid, what are you so afraid of? —Carl Phillips

Last night in a restaurant, you set your apple next to mine: two glossy, red skins barely touching. I remember your nervousness,

left arm grasping right as if you were checking for a sprain or a break, or testing to see that the bone still lay silent there. August burns grass nearly white.

Sails create resistance to steady wind.

Fish do not pierce the water’s skin in a show of force— light bathing their scales in warmth, tiny splashes dying among waves.

Like us, they stay low, prefer the quiet life.

An old Asian woman chases a baby in a bleached diaper; quiet lovers fondle inside a giant inner tube.

Teenagers make their daily trek to El Mercado on errands for mothers or for cigarettes; they flirt in the road—hands and eyes dart—

little birds picking up scraps along shore.

The ducks do not fight the waves but are one with them. Shade follows itself.

Bobbing skis are retrieved, ducks stick their necks into water,

balance themselves with rubbery webs. The froth amid stones at this end of the waves is light as meringue. If you call

and we talk, how will I know it is really you dangling at the other end? How will I know if late at night you hear leaves rustling?

I wonder if you know that love is driftwood, untouched, that I am a loose,

white bone floating sharp as stone, that you beat in a separate heart.

II. From a skyscraper we see the blue water of swimming pools on top of buildings—figures like those in doll houses propped up in tiny chairs

or lying about on towels.

We sense how this building must give a little, must sway.

Later, you sing an Irish song. When you sing the part about God

holding me in the hollow of His hand, I can feel myself giving way like the side of an ancient ship

that can no longer put out from port. It is no wonder accidents happen.

It is a wonder any of us live.

III. I hear you in the kitchen whistling for the dog, envision you looking into the night, the silent concrete.

I do not know what drives one to such extremes. I can be many things, including gentle.

But every moment is dangerous. Anything that happens to one person

can happen to another.

I will not speak of these things or of the things you are.

For what it is worth, you will never be a face in a crowd,

a mistake not worth making, a theory proven wrong.

IV. A beginning is nothing like an end.

We all get places without knowing how.

Thinking of one thing makes you think of another.

I cannot keep my resolve.

You are many things to me: ice melting,

change in a blind man’s cup, the slap of a wave on my cheek, light escaping under the door,

a far-away, sun-burnt face on white linen.

UNDER THE DRAGON’S CLAWS

by Jacques Carrié

There was a young woman in Rareland who loved the ocean, the mountains, the prairies, the animals, and the people in it. So tiny was her country, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, that no jet flying above it could see it, even on a clear day. So innocent, free, and happy was the population in Rareland that many philosophers from the most civilized nations in the world could hardly comprehend why.

“You have applied for this job, Caricias Montes, which fits your education, curiosity, and ambition as a student journalist, and we are delighted to offer it to you given your superior talent and fervent drive.”

“Oh, thank you so much. I’m speechless…overwhelmed with excitement.”

“You deserve it, Caricias,” said David Greenberg, from behind his expansive cherry wood desk.

“Thank you, thank you…”

“We chose you among 600 other qualified candidates from around the world because of your unusual honesty and warmth toward your people, the purity and candor of your feelings toward mankind…almost angel-like.”

“Yes, I care for mankind, sir, immensely…I really do.”

“Indeed,” he said, sinking in his comfortable black leather chair. “You care more for mankind than you do for yourself, and that’s your greatest asset, we believe.”

“I’m humbly at your disposal to serve your organization and assignments.”

“Your triple nationality—Rareland, US, and UK—completes your qualifications, Caricias. Let’s not forget that.”

“It does.”

“Please sit down,” said the important man.

He took a deep breath, stared straight into her sweet eyes. They stood very receptive, ideal for the moment.

“Your tiny island, Rareland, the place where you were born and grew up, with its tiny but renowned university, has a lot to do with your charm and intellectual capacity. But now, I’m afraid, you’re going to face the vastly wide and dangerous world of ours…starting with your hotel in London.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Caricias, with a robust tone.

“I have no doubt,” said the editor-in-chief of Dark Flowers, impressed.

Dark Flowers, a 2055 launched monthly magazine, covering art, culture, fashion, books, and politics, had already attracted great interest among the liberal young readers of the UK and other English-speaking nations.

She blinked twice, pushed some dark brown strands of hair from her eyes to one side of her face with a gentle hand to better hear what Mr. Greenberg was about to say.

“In a few days you’ll be traveling to Cuba, Venezuela, Spain, North Korea, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, spending two weeks in each country. You’ll be researching the essence of a feature story you’ll end up writing for us on your return. Our reputation is at stake, so your accuracy must be infallible.”

“And…what will I be researching in those dangerous countries?”

“Dictatorship…tyranny…” said Mr. Greenberg. “Specifically, how these countries’ rulers in the past and in recent times became totalitarian dictators and tyrants.” He stood up rather briskly. “How they began to use their wretched minds, their revolting ambitions, and their evil methods.”

“…I can imagine already…”

“That’s not enough. We need hard facts and precision.” He smiled broadly. “And, we believe, you’re the perfect person to tackle this problem head-on for us.” A gleaming light radiated from his eyes, he started to pace the room around her and his desk, thinking. “The purpose is to present a story so compelling and factual that would finally make the United Nations change its structure and policies so dictators and tyrants can no longer exist on this planet.”

“Any proposals on the table…to help the UN achieve this?”

“Oh yes. Our own!”

He stared out the window, noting that from the cliff of glassed walls within the heights of this high-rise building, where he worked every day, he could see moving cars that looked more like advancing army ants.

Facing Caricias again, he said, “It calls for a new definition of ‘national sovereignty’—a very sensitive issue, especially among countries that are ruled by totalitarian bastards.”

He explained that national sovereignty should be earned by merit, good will, and integrity following universal democratic processes, fully transparent to the UN and the world, and only then allowed to exist as such or continue as such through automatic inheritance.

“Any violation of these principles should be immediately handled by the “Roaring UN” (an upgraded UN so named to show its ferocious power) and its newly formed Roaring Body of Inspectors and Roaring Army of Enforcers.”

“…with mighty weapons in their hands?”

“If necessary.”

“That would exterminate all the dictators and tyrants in the world, wouldn’t it?”

“Mission completed!”

“Sounds terrific—goodbye to the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Franco.”

“Amen!”

Mr. Greenberg returned to his leather chair, sharing a quiet moment with Caricias.

Caricias then posed the inevitable question: “How will I get there…enter each country?”

“By land…by sea…and by air…”

“Assuming multiple identities…using multiple passports?”

He laughed. “Oh no. You’ll travel as an ‘exchange student’—everything organized by the UN—taking advantage of your honor student status, clean police record, and rounded personality.”

She smiled. “I almost forgot…I’m still 17...”

“We will train you on every aspect of your mission…including how to behave…what to say and what not to say…in the unfortunate but unlikely case you get arrested and jailed.”

“How comforting…” she said, with a cynical smile, considering the magnitude and risk of her mission. “Will I be traveling as a…?”

“UK student journalist. Always a UK student journalist.” Mr. Greenberg said raising his voice. Then in a subdue tone, he added, “All our British Embassies will protect you one-hundred per cent and bring you back home safely…come what may…”

Caricias remained pensive.

“A student journalist,” stressed Mr. Greenberg, “because you will not try to secure any secret or classified military or scientific document for the United Kingdom. Your mission will simply be to research and write a feature

story…which we’ll publish in Dark Flowers. Your story will actually reach the entire civilized world, my dear.”

He scratched one ear. “Plus…UN-sponsored exchange students are guaranteed freedom of expression in all known forms…per a widely publicized 2049 Security Council’s resolution. Of course, some of these countries might not respect this resolution, given their abysmal history in respecting any type of UN resolutions.”

Caricias watched his widening smile form on his milky-white face. She joined in with a smile that illuminated the lovely brown skin of her cheeks.

“Two weeks in each of these uncivilized countries…that’s a fucking long time!” she snapped, twisting her mouth, surprising the important man greatly.

His reaction, to her colorful statement, was a belly laugh.

“I like a lot your hidden personality, Caricias. It’s a big plus!”

And so ended their meeting, the first of many to follow, all positive. ###

Nearly four months into her journey abroad, the last two weeks sharing living arrangements with an Iranian family in Tehran, after enduring the most absurd international awakening of her life regarding cultural matters, Caricias closed her Titan-3 ratphone, where she’d just typed a few thoughts, like she did privately whenever she could, and put it back in her purse. Then she exited the bathroom.

She had earlier also clicked the “send” link to Mr. Greenberg—a routine she followed (or tried to) every week, passing along impressions of her “learning” (mostly propaganda). This time she had included a provocative piece titled “How to Become a Dictator and Tyrant,” which she planned to organically include in the body of her still-untitled feature story. “All these countries I’ve journeyed through have many things in common, the least of them possibly being never understanding social satire, my forte,” she last wrote, feeling a bit pumped up, before sending out her weekly message.

Back in the room she shared with Neda, she set her purse on the night table edging her bed, and let herself drop softly on the bed, in a sitting manner, trying to relax. Neda was Caricias’ exchange family’s only daughter, pre-selected by Iran, about a year older than Caricias.

So far this Middle-East country seemed to be okay, its capital full of energetic walkers. Stores and restaurants likewise seemed to vibrate with ambition and hope. Her exchange family in Tehran had treated her warmly, especially Neda, almost sister-like.

No such things had happened in North Korea, China, and Russia. They didn’t seem to like her. Out there she felt alone and tense most of the time, even in school breaks. University students that rubbed shoulders with her in crowded halls appeared more like regime agents, especially their secretive watching eyes. Exchange families kept themselves aloof, never considering her one of them. Talk was limited, pointless, and so boring, she’d often opted for watching some TV shows that turned out to be just as hollow and boring.

Cuba, Venezuela, and Spain were polite on the surface, sometimes friendly, but deeply sneaky inside. They always seemed to say “what is she up to?”

She now lay down on the bed fully and closed her eyes, sensing the arrival of peaceful sleep. ###

Loud barking dogs outside the house woke Caricias up a short time later. Someone restrained them, rendering the place quiet again.

For a moment she collected her thoughts, half-awake.

All her journalistic impressions of these nine oppressive countries stored on her ratphone could fill ten or more pages in Dark Flowers, she imagined.

She has been mystified by the vicious contradictions she had observed in Saudi Arabia and Syria, and the obvious terror inflicted by the ruler of Syria on his people. Every country she had visited, for sure, had contributed something powerful and enlightening to her feature story, especially her organic provocative piece “How to Become a Dictator and Tyrant.” Written with satirical wit, it mentioned no specific country or leader, both abundantly reserved, on the other hand, for the body of the feature story.

Upon her arrival to London, and to her private room in the confines of the editorial offices of Dark Flowers, on the 57th floor, she would get busy finishing her project. At times, she wondered what her counterpart exchange students from each country she’d visited were doing upon their return to their lands. Would they also be publishing in some magazine or journal a feature story out of their free minds?

Her attention snapped back to life when Neda entered their shared bedroom, as usual without knocking and holding some travel book. The room was actually Neda’s bedroom, adjusted for this important Western visitor.

Typically, at this time of day, Neda’s parents were still at work, a half-hour bus ride away from home. They both worked in a boutique in the second floor of a recently opened mall. They trusted their only daughter’s judgement in almost everything she set out to do, having herself distinguished in school and in extra-curricular activities.

She shared a sociology class with Caricias at a prestigious liberal arts university, Caricias, of course, only allowed to “watch and listen” for a few days as a UN-sponsored guest, a routine she had practiced in every country she’d stepped in.

Neda, grudgingly, wore the mandatory hijab, her hair and body covered with a loose black cloth meant to hide her face and preserve her modesty. But she had been stopped several times this year by the “morality police” patrolling her neighborhood for violating the strict Islamic law regarding the proper manner of wearing her hijab. One time, she narrowly escaped jail time for joining a group of young progressive Iranians practicing parkour in Tavalod Park.

Parkour, a French fast-paced sport made globally popular in the 80s by several blockbuster movies, especially “District B13” and “Yamakasi,” involved a mixture of acrobatics and gymnastics while sprinting over city obstacles.

Some of her jumps, rolls, flips, and somersaults could not help but reveal parts of her body—unacceptable behavior to the surveilling morality police.

Recalling a special weekend she’d spent in Austin (home of the University of Texas), with a friend last summer, Caricias greeted her Iranian comrade entering the room with her usual warm smile. “Howdy.”

Neda looked elegant and mysterious in her flowing black hijab, headed for the Persian blinds adorning the window, which she adjusted with one hand to slightly shade the penetrating sunlight.

“Oh…Texas-type greeting…I like that…” she said.

Caricias sat upright in the bed. “I bet you know everything about America by now—you’re so smart and curious. Have you ever been there?”

“No. Not even Texas.” She laughed and added, “Everything seems so big and open and friendly out there— from all the movies I’ve seen and the Internet—how could I ever miss knowing?”

“I’m impressed,” said Caricias, watching how she eased herself on the heavy wooden chair that faced a clunky old mahogany desk set against a wall. The desk was covered with books on history, geography, and travel. There were also a few maps of this hemisphere, one of them wide-open, displaying the Middle-East.

“How did you like North Korea?” Neda asked out of the blue, still holding her book.

“It looked beautiful and mellow from the plane…lush mountains, opulent lands, sumptuous rivers, and colorful villages…but…”

“But what?”

“It’s the…the imprisonment and misery of the people down there…created by their cruel leader and regime…that shocked me.”

She paused. “They brainwash their citizens since childhood to revere their leader as their almighty god, the only god in the universe, and adore him to death…while negating them access to vital foods and items needed to live and survive—how ironical and nasty. I mean, never providing them decent housing, health care, education, and, most of all, freedom of expression.”

“I understand….” said Neda.

Caricias shifted position on her bed, seeking more comfort. “They spend most of the nation’s wealth—which is extremely scarce to begin with—on extravagant military obsessions—nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, long- and mid-range ballistic missiles…while raising and maintaining one of the largest military forces of foot soldiers in the world…ready to attack and conquer any country they don’t like, especially the United States, at any time. Crazy!”

“Not different from the other countries you’ve visited as an exchange student—correct?” said Neda wisely, one hand playing with the black cloth that covered her head and body.

“Only degrees of differences…in their military ambitions and brutality toward their starving and faceless people.”

Caricias could clearly express an opinion having not only heard from victims but actually witnessed appalling incidents of injustice and cruelty on the streets from government officials during her journey. She went on, “Everywhere I went is illegal to be gay. Can you imagine...illegal to be you…yourself…the way you were born?” She paused. “Spain, for example, is now ruled by a king who not only doesn’t like gay people, but succeeded in repealing approved equal-sex marriage laws and banning gay freedom altogether! Just because he says so!

“Ruling Russians are becoming expert silent political criminals—they expose journalists and politicians they dislike to lethal Polonium 210-emitting radiation and other highly creative forms of invisible weapons,” Caricias remarked, lowering her voice to a safer level, just in case.

But she wanted to say more to her friend. “Atrocious things happen every day in oil-rich Saudi Arabia, things like public beheadings, public torture by thousands of lashes, and other inhuman type of punishment simply for saying anything slightly odd or negative about the regime or the King. They call it being disrespectful. We call it freedom of expression, and it’s a great thing in Western countries. It verifies that democracy is working properly. If anyone is disrespectful is the King himself—disrespectful of human life! And does the punishment fit the disrespect?

Hell no! Absurd! Absurd! Absurd!”

She took a deep breath. “With all this Earth-given colossal money, the least he could do is be kind and loving to his people—a legacy worth his place in history as a great leader, instead of a cruel tyrant.”

Neda watched Caricias lick her dried lips.

Caricias continued, lowering her voice even more, “Being lucky to strike vast reservoirs of oil in the middle of the desert (that turned a group of ordinary Arabs into billionaires overnight) and starting a family dynasty of self-appointed kings many decades ago don’t make these lucky bastards superior human beings or deities with divine powers! On the contrary, they’re fake human beings and fake deities! Imposters! And the United States—knowing that and worse things about them—embrace them as top allies! Only because they’re strategically useful to America in the Middle East. Good thing no such depravity happens in the little island where I come from. We’re all good people.”

“What country is that?” asked Neda.

“Rareland.”

“Ah…it must be a good place, eh?”

“It is...”

Caricias and Neda had become such close friends, hardly anything would escape their shared feelings or undivided attention. At her first chance, Neda had confessed, she would fly to London or New York or Paris to stay. The seduction for democracy was simply too irresistible.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Iran selects you as exchange student—my counterpart?”

She laughed. “That wouldn’t work…for Iran.”

“Why?”

“I would defect.”

Caricias smiled approvingly.

“Want some?” Neda had opened a bottle of some strong drink sold in a southern section of Iran and they were drinking and laughing and saying silly things (which happened to be serious truths), mocking their own evening, having fun, as young people often do in the free world. ###

“I’m a North Korean dentist sitting in a café with some comrades in Pyongyang,” said Neda suddenly, playing the part like an actress. “One of them is wearing an official dark uniform and matching hat, obviously not a friend.

“Can I say anything against our regime?” she now asked the uniformed man, laughing.

“No, you can’t!” lashed out Caricias, playing the “uniformed man” role, laughing too. “Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!” She paused. “And don’t call our country ‘regime’ or ‘North Korea.’

Our country is ‘Korea’ or ‘DPRK,’ which, as you know, stands for ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’—as written in our constitution, but completely misleading because our government, in practice, forbids democracy.”

“Misleading...?” asked Neda, holding her laughter while teasing her friend by raising the top part of her hijab to the level of her eyes, so only this much of her face showed.

“Misleading,” said Caricias. “But don’t ask me why unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed! Democracy is an American thing, a freedom thing. We are anti-American!”

“Can I access the Internet?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I watch a foreign TV show or foreign movie?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I just listen to a foreign radio program…near our border?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I read a foreign novel?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I discuss a few religious things?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I wear blue jeans today?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I listen to rock or rap music?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

“Can I walk to the nearest store or any place in the city without being followed and watched by a government minder? Can I try to fool my minder and seek an opportunity to sneak off unnoticed?” asked Neda, amused, covering her eyes with the hijab.

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!” Caricias’ eyes became more intense. “In case you don’t know, I am one of your minders.” She smiled cynically. “You’ll never be able to fool me!”

“Can I drive a car around, sightseeing on a sunny day? Or at night to a hilltop with a friend for a breathtaking romantic view of the city?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!” Caricias stood up and paced the space in front of the imagined table, looking offended. “Korea is not designed for such silly things. Only top military officers and a few important people can drive cars under special conditions.” She pointed to an imagined street. “As you can see, all our streets are empty of cars, empty of lights, empty of life, and totally silent. Breathtaking romantic views are non-existent in our culture. Only bicycles roll during the day…if you can afford one.”

“Can I question two of the biggest lies ever told by our leaders to our citizens--first, ‘our country is Paradise on Earth’ and second, ‘it was here on July 27, 1953 that the American imperialists got down on their knees before the heroic Chosun people to sign the ceasefire for the war that they had provoked June 25, 1950’…as written in red on a commemorating plaque at the very border of North and South Korea?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed! And, as I’ve told you, there’s only one Korea!”

“Can I refer to our Great Leader by name, say Kim Jon-un, or just point at his pictures or statues while I walk around in the city? His pictures are all over Pyongyang—huge in size, covering building façades and all kinds of walls in squares, parks, train stations, airports, you name it, as if he’s the Emperor of the Universe. Likewise, it’s hard to stroll around without bumping into one of his enormous statues.”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

They were both laughing, enjoying their little game.

“Can I disagree with you?”

“No, you can’t. Unless you want to be sent to a labor camp or prison or be executed!”

Laughter got bigger, even hysterical at times. Their faces had turned pink.

“As a matter of fact,” went on Caricias, “I will have to send you to a labor camp or prison or recommend you be executed because of all the disrespectful things you have said in the past three minutes! In North Korea, I mean Korea, you think, say, and do what you’re told, period! Please follow me!”

More laughter.

“We’ve got to stop that…” said Caricias finally, realizing she was scheduled to fly back to London the next

day, thus ending her long journalistic journey across nine of the most despotic nations in the world.

“Hey, I have a gift for you,” exclaimed Neda, beckoning Caricias to follow her out the front door and toward an old tree outside, where she kept her bicycle leaning against it. She pulled a neatly wrapped box out of the bicycle’s basket and affectionately gave it to her.

“What is it?”

“A souvenir from Iran.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” Caricias said, holding the box to her chest with excitement.

But someone’s hands, strong and hairy, stole it away from her in a fraction of time.

In shock, she turned around. There were more hairy hands and black uniforms and loaded guns pointed at her in brutal fashion. About six mustached men.

“You’re under arrest!” said their leader, pushing her around toward a waiting car. “And you too, young lady,” he shouted to Neda, who remained frozen on her feet, watching in disbelief.

“On what charges and who are you?” demanded Caricias angrily at the top of her voice.

A rush of adrenalin ran through Neda’s body. “Fabricated charges!” she spat out furiously, waving a fisted hand, making eye contact with her friend. “Welcome to our beautiful Security Police,” she added sarcastically, now being dragged forcefully like a dog into the waiting vehicle. ###

David Greenberg happened to be watching the BBC’s international news at home when the item about Caricias’ imprisonment in Iran hit the airways late in the evening. The next morning all newspapers had it too, in greater detail.

Both young women—Caricias Montes and Neda Ahmadi—had become main subjects of discussions in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, and virtually all over the world. In Iran people who knew Neda preferred not to say anything for fear of being accused of complicity and worse.

Several months later Caricias was officially charged with spying and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Neda had been charged with treason and more, her sentence 30 years in prison, in a different city.

The British Embassy, Amnesty International, the UN, and other organizations kept pushing hard to secure their release and bring each woman back home. “What happens in Iran is our business. Criminal matters are handled by our courts. We’re a sovereign nation. Please stay away from our personal affairs,” one Iranian official had said to the media, and that was that.

Talking to the government in any form was as good as talking to a stone wall, Western reporters soon found out.

“When asked by BBC if any progress was in sight regarding Caricias’ incarceration, Mr. Greenberg simply said, “It’s up to the Supreme leader of Iran.”

He also said, “At least Dark Flowers will continue to publish, issue after issue, Caricias’ now-famous “organic provocative piece” until she’s set free. When such day arrives, our magazine will then publish her entire feature story, the way she wanted (using whatever unedited text she’d been able to send via her ratphone). In the meantime,” added Mr. Greenberg defiantly, “the world will be served with reading, issue after issue, what we have, which is pure gold.” ###

First thing in the morning the next day, as promised, a teary Mr. Greenberg picked up a copy of the latest issue of Dark Flowers and, sitting at his desk, he turned the pages to the famous page, and began to read:

How to Become a Dictator and Tyrant

by Caricias Montes

1. Assume power by an armed coup, assisted by ambitious military officers.

2. Surround yourself by lots of body guards, secret regime agents, CEOs, and celebrities liking your nasty ideas of ruling your country with oppression, injustice, unfairness, cruelty and terror.

3. Open personal bank accounts in foreign countries to stash all the millions/billions you plan to steal from

your country.

4. Develop and master your ability for lying and denying to the media.

5. Promise peace and prosperity to your country while super arming your country with weapons of mass

destruction (potentially against your peaceful and vulnerable neighboring countries) and discreetly transfer

ring big chunks of stolen funds from your country to your personal foreign bank accounts.

6. Distract your country with cheaply built regime-type recreation parks, highways, monuments, tall and

fancy buildings, beach and mountain resorts, etc. to give the impression you’re doing something for your

country. Bottom line: people in your country live in poverty, hunger, and misery while you enjoy the filthy-

rich life-style expected of a totalitarian ruler which you’ve smartly built for yourself, your family, and your

very loyal relatives and friends.

7. Celebrate with your closest and meanest military servants your transformation from feared dictator to evil tyrant.

8. Begin the systematic elimination of media outlets (newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV networks,

theatrical companies, movie studios, and internet websites) opposing your political and social views. Use the

methods specified in #9. Buy out all opposing media outlets by forcing them to sell. Also, buy out all national

paper companies to deprive the print media of this vital component.

9. Begin the systematic elimination of university students, professors, intellectuals, writers, actors, artists,

and social and political figures opposing your regime. Incarcerate them by fabricating stories of illegal or

criminal magnitude committed by them, including espionage, treason, bribe, assault, even rape. If necessary

torture them to obtain signed confessions or find ways to bring them to death by suicide, murder, or firing squad.

10. Begin the systematic elimination of opposing parties using the methods specified in #9 until your regime

party is the only party left for people to vote for in the elections, thus ensuring your win every future election.

11. Eventually, change the constitution of your country so you remain ruling your country for life. Good luck!

Kootenay and Hastings, Vancouver BC (oil on canvas) by Allen Forrest

II. Perhaps in another tribe, Cry be the name of a man Who cannot forget his forehead.

Perhaps the name of a piece of rock Or a pregnant woman Who has seen many men in sleep Cry is the face of all words When I can’t find any letters for death.

TWO POEMS by Hussein Rahmani

I. You could see the grief In the eyes of an esurient dog.

Of the cattles Nothing was left but the sad arc of their ribs And among humans, just soldiers.

Famine was upon.

LYCANTHROPY by Patrick Erickson

Out and about in their tank tops their pipe stem pants do little to disguise their plumbing and instead decry their gender confusion and worse whether or not they’re flora or fauna whether it is apropos to be busting out all over like this losing the fur off their antlers in rut whether it is more fitting to sprout foliage and camouflage to confuse the hunters and put their dogs off their scent whether they’re werewolves or something deciduous and can shed leaves as readily as fur.

FALLING IN THE SPACE WALL by Rob Cook

The violet you found on your bed still dying there— It cries the way a stone cries.

It says you exist only as a fear of time passing.

Rain scratching through the walls during sleep, when you have no name. * “I want you to forgive the leaves that fall from the pain of their bodies gone missing,” a man said to a woman shattered to nothing but cigarettes on the sidewalk.

It took the dust pan and broom three hours to appear with a custodian.

The life span of a darkly-written violet abandoning its last petal, stained over a hole in the universe. * Inside the window: first spring night, a man rowing minnows to the deepest part of the lake, and beyond the window, rain falling in the scandals of Shakespeare, shared without the sound a touch makes between the roses unable to sleep in the hard fog of the space wall.

the gila monsters away. The days are louder, Eddie Van Halen’s gone to the DLR silence, but not yet vanished, not yet uncool. We still have night, and the radio plays the latest tragedies of the human voice. Only long-haired outcasts haunting rooms with fusion blasts want to be you, your fingers on the fretboard, harvestmen running down brushfires. It will never again be 1987 when you signed your first deal with Shrapnel and left Easton, PA to play with Billy Sheehan and Atma Anur.

Only guitarists listened to you then, and this year the guitarists have not changed.

I’ve been playing in different musical failures since before you were my teacher: Echelon, Excalibur Scorcher, Exit, Nemesis, my technique getting weaker the longer it lasted beyond the hairspray of the eighties. Jack Russell, lead singer of Great White, a band you thought should’ve been eaten by sharks, tried to put out an inferno with water from an Evian bottle. The room falling, a gristle barn of animals leaping from their hooks.

The shot glasses exploded, they were small and believed they would not burn. A man pulled one woman off a clump of screaming fire because she fell, his girlfriend trapped beneath her. The animals ended on top of each other, making love while they melted and the mothers moaned for their young.

In twenty seconds Russell made it out while ninety-nine died; Ty Longley, the rhythm guitarist, wandered like a singed fawn into smoke looking for a way through the trees.

I read the soliloquy of a survivor in the Daily News: God sent an angel to pull me out of the flames, It wasn’t my time, her message now quiet as her nose rings and leather and the band’s pyrotechnics

LETTER TO GREG HOWE IN 1987 FROM RHODE ISLAND, 2003 by Rob Cook

Dear Greg: Well, you won’t be famous beyond the guitar, not this year, though you deserve to be.

Most people don’t trust instrumentals.

Nothing’s changed. People need words to keep

because they didn’t bring enough ability, and I understood why hard rock won’t outlive the dragons nesting in the sound system. You can’t win trophy souls anymore with rushes of harmonics and muted fourths. Greg, you could manipulate your blues shred to bring back the flesh of the incinerated, the dead who become pure syncopation, wolves running during the alpha season; VH-1 doesn’t feature you, the lives of your chords, the scales you nurtured through the suburban hours with a Van Halen stepchild Stratocaster— The rest of us learn to imitate the money chimeras so we’ll be good at the survival games, so we can be like the beautiful murderers who’ve graduated marketing programs, balance sheet enthusiasts who, of course, have never condescended or heard of you.

And here’s what happens: You play the right notes fast enough and survive the racks at Tower Records.

You do not descend to the clubs of embarrassing silence. You find, at the depths of difficult rhythms, enough stage light for a legend and time signatures that do not end.

You do not freeze or burn up in the masterpieces behind you.

the horse had a heart but it got carved into a chicken stew the sun sawed slices from the sky and the neighbors yowled to an iron-moon a child born blue and died too soon

BORN BLUE by Laura DiCarlo Short

what room is there for witches for weeping this land of grudges and guns the bone-blasted shapes of too many suns

Dana (2010), oil on canvass by Allen Forrest

CONTRIBUTORS

JACQUES CARRIÉ is an award-winning writer. He has been around (Columbia University, Texas A&M University, Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, and others).

He writes in English—his third and preferred language.

He grew up in France, went to school in Toulouse, and lived several years in Venezuela before flying to New York City for good.

ROB COOK lives in New York City’s East Village. He is the author of six collections, including Asking my Liver for Forgiveness (Rain Mountain Press, 2015), Undermining of the Democratic Club (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014), Blueprints for a Genocide (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012) and Empire in the Shade of a Grass Blade (Bitter Oleander Press, 2013). Work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Caliban, Fence, A cappella Zoo, Zoland Poetry, Tampa Review, Minnesota Review, Aufgabe, Caketrain, Many Mountains Moving, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Colorado Review, Bomb (online), Sugar House Review, Mudfish, Pleiades, Versal, Weave, Wisconsin Review, Ur Vox, Heavy Feather Review, Phantom Drift, Osiris, etc.

NEGAR EMRANI was born in Mashhad, Iran on 1 January 1984. Her field is in Biotechnology. She studied at the University of Ferdowsi and Islamic Azad in Tehran.

PATRICK ERICKSON is a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek. He is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. Patrick’s work has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review; Cobalt Review; Poetry Pacific; Red Fez; Poetry Quarterly; Danse Macabre; among other publications, and will appear in Former People; Crack the Spine, Tipton Poetry Journal and Futures Trading and The Penwood Review.

ALLEN FORREST is a graphic artist and painter who was born in Canada and bred in the U.S. He has created cover art and illustrations for literary publications and books. He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University’s Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation’s permanent art collection. Forrest’s expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements remi-

niscent of van Gogh, creating emotion on canvas.

MARC FRAZIER has been widely published in journals including The Spoon River Poetry Review, ACM, Good Men Project, f(r)iction, Slant, Permafrost, Plainsongs, Poet Lore, Rhino, The Broome Review, descant, Wilderness House Literary Review, Connotation Press, and Kentucky Review. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for poetry. His book The Way Here and his chapbooks The Gods of the Grand Resort and After are available on Amazon as well as his second full-length collection titled Each Thing Touches.

His website is www.marcfrazier.org.

SHAWN GOLDBERG was born in Florida. He currently lives in Madrid.

CLINTON INMAN was born in England in 1945. He graduated from San Diego State University in 1977.

He is now a retired high school English teacher in Tampa Bay where he lives with his wife, Elba.

CYNTHIA JUNIPER currently works as a social science researcher at UT Austin. She lives in the Texas hill country with her partner, daughter, two cats and one rat.

FABRICE POUSSIN is assistant professor of French and English. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in France at La Pensee Universelle, and in the United States in Kestrel, and Symposium.

HUSSEIN RAHMANI was born in Mashad, Iran, Mashhad on 9 August 1992. He is currently studying in field of agriculture at the Torbat-e-Heydarieh University.

LAURA DICARLO SHORT is a poet and teacher in San Marcos, Texas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University and her poetry has appeared in journals such as ART Times, Barbaric Ywap, and The Apple Valley Review. She also loves conducting interviews and writing journalistically.

Her interviews, book reviews, and other such things have appeared in The Front Porch Journal and local area newspapers.

BE.