Issue #1
September 2007
MONKEY PUZZLE
MONKEY PUZZLE
Monkey Puzzle Press Boulder, CO
MONKEY PUZZLE #1, September 2007
EDITOR, DESIGNER, PUBLISHER Nate Jordon POETRY EDITOR Mittie Roger MONKEY PUZZLE is currently published four times a year by Monkey Puzzle Press in Boulder, Colorado. Copyright © 2008 Monkey Puzzle Press All rights revert to individual authors upon publication. Monkey Puzzle accepts previously unpublished prose (2,500 words), poetry (1-5 pages), interviews, artwork, photography, and hybrids. Experimental work welcome. We accept electronic and hardcopy submissions. All submissions must include the writer’s contact information on the first page: name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. Include a SASE if you would like a reply. Address all queries and submissions to: MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS 3161 Madison Ave. Ste. P-221 Boulder, CO 80303 MonkeyPuzzlePress@gmail.com www.monkeypuzzleonline.com
ISSN 1937-9927
CONTENTS
Editor’s Note…………………………………….vi A Moan Keep You Zeal Ryan Clark………………………………1 Katrina Bill Borsky……………………………….3 At this Point Travis MacDonald……………………….12 Seth Speaks Brooke Lehrer………………..………….14 The Six Mistakes of Man Marcus Tullius Cicero……………………16 Liquid Memory Mittie Roger……………………………...17 excerpt from Wanderlost Ben Olson………………………………..21 My Dream Converter Amy Pommerening……………………….24 The First Week of February Travis MacDonald………………………...27
Pulling Scenes from a Song Daniel Dissinger………………………..…30 excerpt from Every Gyro Day Gerard Morel……………………….……..32 Untitled Lindsey Anderson………………….….…..36 Notes from Then Richard Schwass…………………….…….37 You May Need Glasses Cornelius………………………….………39 Returning Jed Thomas……………………….….…...52 Cream Susie Huser…………………………….…53 Jawbone Nicholas B. Morris………………………..59
Contributors………………..……………………...61 Acknowledgements……………………….……….65 Submission Guidelines…………………………….66 Contact Information………………….………...….67
EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Reader, We at Monkey Puzzle invite you to kick back, prop your feet up on the nearest pet and read the first issue of our literary magazine. In this letter, we find it appropriate to address the worst natural disaster to affect our country. With the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina here, some may ask, “How’s it looking these days?” Some may assume its fine because they’ve seen Mardi Gras or the French Quarter on TV. But if you’re from New Orleans, or love someone who’s from there, or have seen Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, you may have a different picture of what it looks like. We have included two photographs of hard hit areas in the city taken eighteen months after the hurricane. The strange part is that it’s hard to tell when Katrina hit. It looks like it may have been this season, shit, yesterday. They are still finding dead bodies. Some areas still lack running water and electricity, there’s rotting moldy houses un-demolished while people are still trying to rebuild their homes. These are primarily home owners with hurricane insurance, many of whom are elderly, coasting on a paid house. Most remember when Katrina hit and watching it on television where we could see people trapped and dying, but couldn’t rescue them or send medical supplies or food or water. Still other footage of thirty thousand plus, outside the Super Dome, with no food or water while media crews covered it from the ground. Where was Brownie? iv
Where was our national government? We can get aid to Sri Lanka two days after a tsunami but can’t get aid to our own citizens ‘til five days after a local hurricane? Has anyone checked out the levees in Holland? If you are interested in learning more about the actual event or postmortem state of all the areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina without contracting the Katrina coup, watch Spike’s terrifyingly brilliant and raw documentary. But the fear and loathing doesn’t stop there. The world is truly in a state of crisis: global warming, species extinction, depletion of natural resources, corrupt politicians, war war war and more goddamn war while the exploits of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Britney Spears grace the covers of every magazine and newspaper across the nation every single day. No wonder people are addicted to chemicals, seeking therapy, popping pills. Perhaps that's what it takes to navigate through the world we live in today. It truly is a monkey puzzle. So though we don’t advocate it, we suggest you get your favorite drink, your favorite food, or your favorite smoke and puff away. It may be fun, though a bit terrifying. Nate & Mittie
RYAN CLARK
A Moan Keep You Zeal
See naughty arse, you beam eyes ions two. A moan keep you zeal. As you beam eyes, sigh on, goo-eyed Helens. Moan in key, pew-zealous, a moan to alight our nail, a sucking. As you beam eyes, yawn soft. You be two of I, of a page. Soft peer rose poor. What, try? And her views are double. Your caveat: ogre rape (high-end). Hi bride—sex-peer, I meant, all double your cool sum. Also beam eyes (ions) at yelled ink, lewd each. Your eyetears' sun-taste in form a tie-on. All in aim, your dress, page one. Numb errand malady dress, own the first page. Pull, yes, see not, also beam eyes yonder. Either walk or else um. Fires the eyes you see to ember first.
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BILL BORSKEY
Katrina
I was in the city to sell glass. After I met up with Joe and smoked some hash with him, I sold him a case of pipes. We went to his girlfriend’s house and watched television while smoking sensi. An hour passed, I said my goodbyes, then left for The Quarter; I had a date. I drove through the older parts of the city, down Magazine, among the ancient oaks and antebellum and prestatehood homes and buildings. I got back on I-10, headed for The Quarter. I parked and walked down Decatur. I was ecstatic, I had an old account back and I was a couple hours away from meeting up with Courtney. I saw it in Molly’s, on the TV, it sounded absurd. I mean, all the other ones hadn’t amounted to anything so why should this one be any different? I thought. Gimme’ a bloody! I said to the barmaid. I paid her and sipped my drink as I watched the TV. I was waiting for eleven o’ clock to meet up with Courtney at the jazz club where she worked; we had plans to get some drinks. After taking the last briny, spicy drink and eating the last piece of pickled okra, I was out the door and on my way to my car conveniently parked in my usual space on Esplanade, across from The Dragon’s Den. I called her, she gave me directions. We met up at Monahan’s. I drank bloodies and she had a couple apple martinis. We were sitting in the tight spot of the bar: the end of the bar closest to the entrance, but the area with the least amount of space. 3
We sat a couple feet from the bar and talked. She went to help her friend working at the bar. A group of people came in and in jest I asked the guy, that was a bit too close to me, while he was ordering his drink, Hey what are you doing, trying to give me a lap-dance? His I still wasn’t worried at date, his friend, and this point and we just his friend’s date sat around the house laughed as he backed up acting like he was smoking more hash... actually going to give me a lap dance. I backed up so quickly I almost fell off the stool, they laughed even more. They all introduced themselves and his girlfriend apologized for him. When Courtney got back, his brother bought all of us a round of Jaeger bombs for me putting up with his brother’s shenanigans and we toasted to it. Courtney asked, Do you know those people? I told her I didn’t and had an even harder time explaining what happened. A friend of hers showed up and we decided to go back to his house. I must have smoked a gram of hash – bubble hash – with them when we got to the house, it was great. When she and I left we were holding hands, at one point I held her body close to mine with one arm as we walked back to my car. We expediently went back to The Quarter and to the garage where her car was parked, then I followed her home to Metairie. When we got to her house, we stayed up like Chatty Kathys, thanks to the Red-Bull in the Jaeger bombs, ‘til the early morning hours of Saturday. We also smoked hash and watched a movie. Waking late in the afternoon, she cooked Pad-Thai. I received a call from my mother; she told me to get out of the city. I still wasn’t worried at this point and we just sat around the house smoking more hash – I was high as Cooter Brown. When I left for Baton Rouge, I called my mom and told her, I’m on my way. Courtney
followed with her cat. We were separated in the mob of traffic on Highland at one of the signals by the I-10 overpass. We were supposed to meet up later that night for drinks, but her phone stopped functioning about the same time I got into town and I didn’t see her until several days later. The next morning a mandatory evacuation for New Orleans was announced on TV as Katrina approached the coast. It was a category 5. I could see it on The Weather Channel – a huge swirling mass of tie dye color headed right for New Orleans. I thought, If it gets bad people can just go to the Super Dome. The enormous number of vehicles in the contra-flow slowed the evacuation almost to a halt. The next morning I woke up because the air conditioner had stopped working due to the fact the power was out for the whole city of Baton Rouge. I proceeded to smoke a great deal of hash; I had never been happier to own a gas stove. I went outside and heard the wind howl, I saw a trash can get blown around the block and a sign get blasted away. Well I didn’t see the sign blast away, but after coming back outside after smoking some more hash, the sign I had been watching get tourqued by the strong wind was nowhere to be seen. We loaded up – my roommate, my dog, myself – in his Suburban to assess the damage in our neighborhood. We went across Nicholson and picked up Nick. The wind wailed and the sky glowed ominously through the haze; a glower on the retributive face of mother nature. A few blocks from my house we noticed a downed tree laying across the street, we tied it to the Suburban and after much labor, moved it out of the street – unknowingly getting the worst poison ivy infection my doctor had ever seen. That night we all partied and ate a great deal of food as the power was out and no one knew for how long. All the meat in everyone’s refrigerators and freezers went on the grills, or into gigantic kettles
cooking over gas-jet burners outside. It was the calm before the storm of need and despair that still plagues Baton Rouge and the entire United States to this day. The next day, still no power or news about New Orleans. Everyone was worried. When the power came back on and I saw the news, it was like a nightmare I couldn’t and still can’t wake up from. The city was flooded, the Super Dome was seriously damaged by the wind and the floodwalls on the levee system had broken and most of the emergency pumps either shut down or never worked. The lower parts of the city were flooded – in some neighborhoods as much a twelve and fifteen feet of polluted brackish water rose. Waves lapped at the tips of gables; sharks swam in Metairie. A news reporter said parts of Jefferson Parish had been reclaimed by the gulf. Chalmette was gone. Foundations of homes were washed away, leaving lots rife with toxic muck and debris. The damage was terrific and unbelievable. It did not look like New Orleans. Later my roommate and I went down the street to Michelle’s house for a BBQ. The mood of the party was very somber. Her mother’s house in Chalmette had been destroyed. I found out a few of my friends houses were destroyed. I still hadn't heard from Sean and Angela and their baby – I don’t know if I ever will. Their house was in Elysian Fields where a lot of high waters were. Whirling, chopping smoke in the air was all I saw. Coming in from New Orleans, replete with bodies – some warm and some cold – landing yards from my bed, I could hear them and couldn’t sleep. On every channel, it was in my sitting room and I could not sit. I went to help fight the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Outside the P-Mac, piles of clothing, toys, and toiletries were strewn on tables and were being picked over by people arriving from New Orleans by bus and
helicopter. They looked desperate and shaken, some had no shoes or shirts, their faces had tear marks – some still had tears on them. Some were wrapped in blankets on gurneys carried by volunteers. They all looked lost. I signed up to volunteer and awaited my assignment. I was promptly sent inside to help. I was appointed to a group of tables being used as storage for medical supplies. It was next to some cribs, small beds, and rocking chairs, all occupied by children. Where are your parents? I thought, looking at infants in the makeshift nursery. Some had IV equipment attached to their small arms, some were unconscious. I just kept sorting scant donated surgical supplies onto tables while people in different uniforms from hospitals in other states hurriedly requested and received them from more experienced volunteers. I noticed an almost black color on a trepidatious young man’s otherwise stringently clean green scrubs. He was asking for a specific type of sponge from one of my more senior cohorts. I looked at the box in my hand and it was full of them. I quickly offered them to him. He took more than a few and sprinted to an area I hadn’t noticed before. This section was the largest one, taking up most of the P-Mac, shrouded in cloth hanging from ten foot metal frames and was the same green the man was wearing. It was behind the section with the very old and morbidly obese on cots to my left and the smaller section to my right – infants in cribs. The surreal atmosphere and my lack of sleep made me curious. What is over there behind those green curtains? I saw others bringing oxygen cylinders across, which could and did afford me an answer. I rounded the corner of the cloth pavilion with two small medical oxygen tanks in my hands. I finally saw what was occurring behind the sheets. Each bathroom-sized partitioned cell was a surgery room teaming with activity. I realized that the black was not black at all – it was red on green – blood that the sponges I handed
him were designed to soak up. I thought about how many bandages, bandages as big as throw-pillows, disappeared as quickly as I could stack them. I thought about the children, Were some of them in the cloth cubicles? Where were their parents? I no The day after, I was told by longer wanted to work in the some self-righteous twenty medical facility, year old FEMA/military but went back guy, You can’t go back one more day there, we have it all under anyway. S e v - control. All I could think eral days after was, Where the fuck were that, the fed- you a week ago? eral government finally responded. They sent a few military types to guard and fence off the area. A couple days later, Neysha and I went to volunteer and were ushered away from the P-Mac by a young military type to the gate of a newly constructed chain link fence. I noticed vehicles were being unloaded, their contents being taken to a brown brick building. We went to the building and began getting donations from peoples’ vehicles and stacking them in the old basketball gym. The day after, I was told by some self-righteous twenty year old FEMA/military guy, You can’t go back there, we have it all under control. All I could think was, Where the fuck were you a week ago? But all I did was go home and continue listening to the tumult, unable to help. Riots were being reported downtown and I immediately called Moze. He had a nice camera and was just as curious as me about the alleged riots. I met him at his house where we smoked hash until everything was bearable again. After about an hour we made our way in his car downtown to take some photographs. We drove
down almost every street, even the one the convention center was on, and saw nothing – no riots, just destitute evacuees with no place to go. Evidently the media had begun their hype. People blamed the storm on the state and federal executive branches of government, on FEMA’s Mike Brown, a man proven not to have had the experience to deal with this type of disaster. All I could think was, You can’t vote away a natural disaster, but everyone was livid and needed a scapegoat and that prime post fell on our elected officials. It was true that FEMA was extremely slow to react. But it seemed like ol’ W didn’t even care. However, he didn’t have the reputation of a caring individual so it didn’t surprise me. Louisiana locals in boats were picking up people from the rooftops of their homes. My friend Corey was one of these rescuers. He checked for bodies in the waterlogged homes. He found more dead than alive and took many photographs. He painted symbols on the exterior walls so officials would know how many people were inside and how many were dead. Finally the federal government sent troops and helicopters to rescue people from the city. They began patching the levees with enormous sandbags and retrieving people with their helicopters. I saw this on almost every channel on my television. The people of one of the proudest cities in the world were scared for their lives. People were shown on television looting, mocked by unsympathetic people for taking clothing, shoes, and intoxicants from wrecked retail shops. One popular joke was, I hear if you boil a Nike, it gets tender enough to eat. Apparently some of us didn’t understand or remember that humans need food, shelter, and clothing – especially shoes in New Orleans. Anyone who has spent a night walking through The Quarter knows how mucky the streets get when there is no rain, and now raw sewage was flowing in the streets. What would you have done?
You probably wouldn’t have worn the same clothes and shoes that were wet with this murky water when there was nice dry clothing in the shops in the elevated parts of the city, fresh for picking through by the poor urban populous that remained in the decimated city. When the deluge subsided, the statistics shocked me like so many lightning bolts. Thousands were dead and thousands more were left homeless - from what was to be called the United States’ worst natural disaster in recorded history. The homeless were dispersed around the continent, to hotel rooms, civic auditoriums, and finally to travel trailers on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. Students were immediately, without transcripts, accepted to schools like Brown. LSU and BRCC also had their fair share of evacuees enrolled before school started again. I met her in my sociology class. Lori lived in Lakeview, her home and all of her possessions had been destroyed in one of the hardest hit areas of New Orleans. She dressed in hand-me-down high school gym sweats, which apparently by her attitude was not her usual garb. I found out she was staying a few houses down from mine. We hung out a few times before the voodoo call of New Orleans beckoned her to help rebuild her once beautiful city – she didn’t finish the semester. We still talk on the phone sometimes. She is presently pregnant. I began working at Radio Shack in the wake of the flood. My New Orleans account was gone because Joe moved back to San Francisco and my shop in Baton Rouge – my main source of income –had its roof blown off by the storm. Former residents of New Orleans, now living in their vehicles, were buying television antennae, kinetically powered radios, and cellular phones. Some squandered their two thousand dollar FEMA endowments on fancy camera phones and clothing at the height of true ghetto style. After the scant subsidies were spent, the flood of merchandise being returned was a force not unlike the inundation that preceded the purchases.
Several months have passed and the gulf coast will never be the same. Houston’s violence and property crime statistics have skyrocketed since the influx of former New Orleans residents, who are the victims as well as offenders. Baton Rouge’s population has risen by one third and most of New Orleans has been reduced to rubble. Things are finally beginning to subside though. Bread stays on supermarket shelves and the thoroughfares have become less congested. Real estate has returned to its former buyer’s market. New Orleans is being repopulated and rebuilt and most of the displaced have been provided shelter. Chris, an old friend, moved to New Orleans from Portland this week to live and work with his brothers who came from Houston and Katmandu. Fast food restaurants are giving fifteen-thousand-dollar signing bonuses and there is much construction to be done. They should do well. I’m going down to see them next weekend when they get some furniture. And I will go to Molly’s to have a drink. I am confident New Orleans will be rebuilt. The last time this many people died and this number of buildings were decimated was over a century ago. It has happened before and it will happen again.
Photo taken 18 months after Katrina by Punnu Jaitla
TRAVIS MACDONALD
At this Point where the air plane hangs flush with the horizon it's hard to say exactly where the stars start except that they do and will continue when those below go brightly out.
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Photo by Brooke Lehrer
BROOKE LEHRER
Seth Speaks
tyrant turned aid serve interests G-d jealous an ego more nothing existence of sand personality deny can you potential to limitation no self to limitations no no dead object matter
no cells
conscious aware commotion amid consciousness with filled not exists nothing aware 14
wood in stuck nail nearest afternoon good morning good nail within consciousness is there apparent so not form onion or orange personality source one vitality one fragment orange onion or string of beads like selves fragment identity fragment but is self
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
The Six Mistakes of Man
1. The illusion that personal gain is made up of crushing others. 2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected. 3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it. 4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences. 5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study. 6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
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MITTIE ROGER
Liquid Memory
She evacuates north to Marksville seventy-five family members in the three house compound. You and Paulette go to Houston. East of New Orleans, almost Chalmette, the trees along Chef Highway pressed flat in the dirt. Brick house emptied of doors, windows, painting of a Ghanaian village hen, curved back statue. Dishes and albums bed sheets torn in bushes. Pack up for the weekend. Done it tons of times. Don’t bring too much, you’ll be back soon. * 100 foot shrimp boat wedged in Oak leaves Mosquitoes breed in oil and shit water. 17
Memories of dead son, brother, thirteen on the watery rocks where California spreads its legs to Oregon. The photographs you had of your mother, letters from lovers and those dead. You move in with your daughter. * She volunteers at a shelter in Livingston Parish birthplace of the KKK. Immobile in shared cots, eating MREs with no toilet paper. White men prowl the streets outside, curfew is early if you value life. Kids don’t know better, grew up around other blacks and gangs don’t compare to gutted in a tree. Mamas keep a close eye, but some are in Houston. Double check un-filed paper work. Kids keep calling but there’s no answer at the Astrodome. Six year old, Conraiyon, helps make medicine runs. Robitussin to the white haired smoker in the wheelchair. *
Back to scavenge the house FEMA trailers identify neighborhoods. Shrimp boat still in trees muddied photos in the yard. * Walls of mold. Hyphae spreading to overturned furniture too large to fit door frame. We wear face masks. You can see for miles. The nothing flattened into bayou Twisted trees, some broken like fingers or bridges. Back to scavenge what we remember.
Photo of Lower 9th Ward taken 18 months after Katrina by Punnu Jaitla
Photo by Dwayne & Charlene Shockley
BEN OLSON
excerpt from … at one point I sat down on my pack and cried into my hands. I stared up at the stars and prayed to a God I didn’t believe in. My feet hurt, my shoulders ached, and my soul came apart. I’d never felt so alone and lost in all my life. I felt it was only a matter of time before a marauding gang of looters hunted me down and stripped me of all my possessions before knifing me, ending my life before I had a chance to do anything great. All of our trappings and technologies, all of our possessions – none of it mattered that night in New Orleans. Nothing could save me but myself. About a mile down the tracks, I came across a derelict brick factory with high water marks along its façade and a littered gully around back. Graffiti was sprayed all over the walls, and broken bottles and used condoms lined the dirt. An upside-down boat sat on top of a house across the street. I pulled out my camp stove and cooked a can of beans in the sad little pot and ate it slowly, starting to hate the taste of beans. But it satisfied my hunger. There was only a little water left in my Nalgene, so I wiped the pot and camp spoon with a dirty tee-shirt and packed them away. 21
In back of the factory I cleared a space in the piss and broken glass and laid my sad Mexican blanket in the dirt, then climbed into my sleeping bag and sighed. The old crescent moon shone down and the stars twinkled into my tired eyes. I thought of all the miles I’d covered, all the places I’d been, and how this was the first real hang-up I’d had in two weeks. Most of all thought, I wondered how the hell I was going to get out of this mess. “You’re really in the shit now,” I whispered to myself. “Is this what you wanted? What are you proving to yourself? Why can’t you be satisfied like everyone else?” I was so tired, but too afraid to close my eyes. I just lied there staring at the bugs and the stars circling around each other, looping crazy in the charcoal night. I thought of all my friends back home, my poor mother having no idea where I was or what I was doing, my little cabin all dark and lonely in the woods. I cried for the things I took for granted every day. I cried for the darkness. I cried because I wasn’t strong enough to handle this like a man.
Pisces is Suffering, the house of tears
AMY POMMERENING
My Dream Converter
it should not be to be interpreted Cartesian ‘to be’ not to be forgotten that the glyph for this sign this signification a signature a representation of water represents me represents two fishes fishes in the sea deep sea menacing sea two sharks which witch conjures a shark or maybe dream converter two sharks which devour smash against pallet gray tongue the wisdom-gray teeth which devour everything 24
June 10, 2002: BAY BEACH, WI --- A ten year old Sheboygan girl was in stable condition Sunday night after being attacked by a shark as she swam with a group of children so many yards off shore that they may not have been in Lake Michigan anymore. Upon being bitten, the youth became “pretty hysterical,” said one unidentified sunbather who witnessed the event. Because of their vagueness and shapelessness, Pisces’ ways of acting and thinking are difficult to approach psychologically, and emotional reactions, from a logical point of view are certainly often the opposite of what may be expected and what is normally acceptable.
The Lifestar helicopter landed adjacent to the beach area at 1:15 p.m. to transport the victim to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. After the incident, the observer said the victim’s friends decided to stay at the beach, but were reluctant to go in the water. Other swimmers began swimming again 30 minutes later as the probability rose of a human dream converter causing the attack. It is in the nature of the great stream of life that stagnation at any state revenges itself in all subsequent signs, and therefore the last sign carries the worst taint and is most likely to become a sad failure.
when three, i had nightmares about Jaws. after waking, the nightmares did not disappear. peaking over the edge, it circled and circled – fin poking through the wood floor. Jaws was under my bunk bed at 508 Fifth Street stalking, waiting for me to climb down and scurry with mint green blanket eyes shut tight to parents’ room.
following multiple reassurances from parents and brother – who slept on bottom bunk – i convinced myself Jaws was in fact not under my bed
until recently. i discovered the human dream converter (see diagram) permitting “ephemeral” dream sharks to transpose into corporeal sharks. surface pore and main tube (see diagram) provide oxygen to sharks when not in dreams. now, living in the house of pisces i try not to dream
TRAVIS MACDONALD
The First Week of February Monday false lipped nose drip red faced regret attraction mask exhaustion loss exhibitionism prison Tuesday Head to chest congestion hunger gone green dream residue flu faced mind race work shirk worry Wednesday tired ugly sinus stomach bug bloody sweat debt jack-off jealousy
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Thursday
Friday hot sweat hardship nostalgia algae surprise relation ship resignation frustrated numb fumbling
thick faced sickness wanes empty airplane nosebleed empty stomach stab wound excavated anger elation fear interior
Saturday slow sad loss drunk warmth claustrophobia smoke memory throat scratch happiness mortality's fallible grease buffet
Sunday blockage switching nostrils airport ass vinyl sweat ache excitement boredom annoyance flight bump
Photos by Brooke Lehrer
DANIEL DISSINGER
Pulling Scenes from a Song
this one starts with an array of clapping hands a clutter of feet on flights of steps breaking the surface like popped balloons it just stopped raining awnings dripping slowly left over rain on black dress shoes lights boogie like molecules flight electricity
quiet suspension
what’s between smiles and high-fives her head on his shoulder tickles her arm
?
a strap glides
down
someone hails a taxi a wind steals a hat leaving behind a collage of laughter screams splattered on the sidewalk missing the train anxiety standing only subway-echos confusion when the sky spills into spinning blurs a background lit up by marquee signs glowing 30
a camera flash freezes you amongst gallivanting pages of last weeks newspaper laughter is memory running down alleyways asking to be chased fingers chest hair naked 6 a.m-belly warm hand whispers blue pink twilight murmuring bridges skyline solitary hanging light bulb
humming
GERARD MOREL
excerpt from Every Gyro Day
I was fully prepared to take the cross from the bum. In those days I spent most of my afternoons with Stephanie in China Town. I always brought her flowers, well, most days. A room was let to us by a friendly Chinese woman. The building was old and unkempt, but its architecture gave it character. The building was at 4 Mint St. The room offered to us, which allowed one to look down upon the streets of China Town, wasn't impressive by most people’s standards, but it sufficed and was quite purposeful. In the window was an intercesce which allowed only minimal light to pass through meek curtains. In front of the window was a shabby hole-ridden sofa where Stephanie and I would do a variety of things together: smoke opium, make love, drink green tea. I usually tried to spare her of all the trifles of my day, unnecessary words, and petty daily details of my life she didn't need to know about. But, after my encounter with the hobo, I began to casually recount the story to her. We both sat comfortably close. Her lips enveloped a plastic straw as she burned the opium positioned on an old quarter with a paper clip made hot by a lighter, causing the opium to smoke, and she sucked the smoke through the straw. She stopped, after taking hit of the opium, and turned toward me and exhaled a thick plume into my face. Her heavy lidded eyes were halfway shut, but the opium didn't cloud her ability to try to reason. Stephanie (as she often-time boasted about herself) had a righteously divine and objective sense of justice and fairness. She thought of herself as knowledge32
able, able to comprehend complex spiritual mysteries. When someone wanted the truth they always turned to her. She smiled and slowly shook her head to and fro. Her slightly parted lips spoke no immediate words and her far off gaze in the opposite direction revealed what appeared to be only shallow disappointment. After a few moments she gave an askance glare and pontificated: "So, you’re telling me you were prepared to take the man's crucifix?” "Yeah, of course I was. He's the one who made the bet, Stephanie, not me. Plus I didn't take it." "That's not the point. You would have though, sinful little boy. Will you ever learn? The deviousminded always find themselves in the same dilemma, don’t they?” She paused for a moment. "Do you want anymore of this opium?" "Yeah," I said reaching for the straw and the paperclip, "but, first of all, Stephanie, there is nothing devious about taking the crucifix. Secondly, and most importantly, I sinned not." "I really hate your sarcasm sometimes, Quincy. Yes, you did sin. You just don't get it, do you? You did commit a sin, only it wasn't a physical one. You still sinned in your mind. The man was poor and desperate. You could have done more for him than take him for a ride." "Desperate? Stephanie, he was a derelict. Physical sin, what is that? I haven't heard of that kind of sin. I think you mean venial sin." "Don't be pompous. It may not have been a mortal sin, or a venial sin, or whatever it is you call it, but you could have avoided all this nonsense by simply helping the poor wretch out a bit.” "He probably takes fools like me for rides all the time. I gave him a cigarette. Do you want anymore of this stuff?" She did not respond immediately.
LINDSEY ANDERSON
Untitled
i’ll make a paper swan out of this book out of frustration with its unendingness for the dead girl who fears she will never see DANIEL again then i’ll eat poisonous twigs and branches wondering why my fingernails get dirty so fast i’ll stand on this journal when i am done with it smash the power it has over me as if it were a porcelain christmas tree made up with white hot twinkle lights i’ll remember when i wrote in the book called the art of devotion and my hands and eyes bled bleeding down in the teary-eyed heat raining down like torpedoes on danish windmills
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RICHARD SCHWASS
Notes from Then
call Hans & Inger Hansen address for Don + June Yevteshenko says, “To be yourself you have to be many people.” The Face Behind the Face We miss each others’ Picasso plane The multi-varied self in promiscuous reaching And end with despair at not finding the other half you have to look into the mirror + be able to see, not only your own face but a multiplicity of other faces without which there would be no you Some people are like that, tender yearnings hesitant reaching, erotic touching, erratic withdrawing fearing the connection miss their own Picasso plane the multi-faceted self diminished, despairs of linkage with mythical perfect epaulets, sewn together, tailored with a little fleece up there on the way back from France Doesn’t anyone anymore hear the Liebestod blown in the sound of the waves? The truth in the sadness of my schizophrenic son sits by a sea cries why 37
Stretched, face to the sun on the seawall, swimming cloud solid to wisp white pebbles crackle under advancing, receding restless ocean bottom, soothe a lethargy A never ending retreat sees the stone island shore rip-currents suck progress through myriad forms dissolving to churn again in a new birth sucked down and lost forever Floating on the persian carpets downstairs, lying on the sea wall, rolling, drifting, imperceptible mass, cloud, nothing receding to recoup, stone, vapor defeating thought never ending retreating, knowing visible second moon’s shore disappearing into a new form Some people are like that, touching and withdrawing, never touching never touching Erotic touching, erotic withdrawing, never touching, lips never kissing at all Does anyone anymore hear the Liebestod in the sound of the waves Just as we are never the same, the waves unknowable, churning, restless, relentless Timidity of fear of rejection, some people are like that, persian carpets, rolled against the wall sea spray drowned soul, stone grey spirit, yell of a filthy gull to recoup and churn, change again in a new bath or to be lost again forever, inevitable
CORNELIUS
You May Need Glasses
According to the American Academy of Optometry, more than 45 million people worldwide are blind and 135 million have impaired vision. But when it comes to matters of the heart, we all have impaired vision. And in such cases, a Seeing Eye Dog won’t do any good. But that’s why the gods invented friends. Below is a photograph of my friend eating breakfast. You may need glasses to see it.
My friend’s name is Brian. His friends call him Beebo. But since you’re just meeting him, we’ll stick with Brian. Brian is the greatest guy I’ve ever met. He’s a struggling writer and buzzes with a lust for life that’s infectious. When he told me about Sarah and how dumb in love he was with her, I was happy for him. 39
This is me being happy for him.
I have a photo of Brian and Sarah. There’s an empty beach behind them. The sky and ocean look cold. Sarah is wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, her hair looks flat and unwashed and her teeth are yellowing from chain smoking Marlboro Lights. Brian is wearing a collared shirt two sizes too big, cheap plastic sunglasses, and has short cropped hair. She’s smiling, he isn’t. The photo is a close-up that Brian took. You can see his arm holding the camera, as if he’s reaching out to you, the viewer.
Sarah had many secrets. She told lies in order to not tell those secrets. She had been a fake and a liar for so long that she believed in her constructs. But she was a bad actor and a bad liar. On the next page is a picture of another bad actor.
Love isn’t blind, but it sure can screw up your vision. And I saw it all happening before Brian did. We never know who we’re going to fall in love with. We think we know and cling to the idea. Then someone comes along who knocks us off our feet and they usually don’t have all those things we’ve dreamt about. But we make excuses and look past those things that are screaming at us to take notice of. They’ll have shades of those qualities and you’ll embrace them, hoping they’ll develop into your ideal over time. They won’t. Below is a picture of Ben Franklin. He invented bifocals.
Sarah heard a lot about Brian before she met him. Brian was sleeping with her best friend Carly. Carly was dopey about Brian and talked about him all the time. Sarah became curious. She had slept with many of her
friends’ boyfriends, husbands, lovers, brothers, cousins, and in a few drunken nights, a few of her friends’ relatives of the female variety. But she wasn’t lesbian, nor bisexual, just blacked-out. And she wasn’t a bad friend. Or so she told herself. Below is a picture of her hero.
Sarah was a cute girl back then. She was a waitress at Livingstone’s Bar and Grill. She drank her paychecks before payday. But it wasn’t the money she cared about. She cared about the drinks and endless supply of new patrons to have a tryst with. Here’s Livingstone’s:
Sarah met Brian the night Carly brought him out to The Starline so he could meet her friends. There was Leanne, Julie, Amy, Jen, and Sarah. Brian shook their hands and smiled politely. Brian took one look at Sarah and all thoughts of Carly dissolved. Sarah and Brian
couldn’t stop staring at each other. Their eyes were loaded with lust. After some time, Sarah went to the bar. Brian followed. Brian: We better stay away from each other. Sarah: Why do you say that? Brian: Because we’re trouble. Below is a picture of an atomic explosion.
Sarah and Brian hooked up two days later. As they got to know each other, he talked about the books he liked, the authors he revered, the music he loved, the films he adored. She nodded in agreement and said she liked everything he did. But Sarah didn’t like anything Brian liked. She just wanted him to think she did. Below is an author Brian revered.
Sarah moved in with Brian after dating him only two months. There was a bit of a problem with that arrangement. Brian’s roommate was Carly’s brother. But
he moved out. And Sarah was no longer best friends with Carly. Below is a picture of something I need right now.
Judgment is the first thing to flee. It’s like Adam and the apple thing. Or Eve and the apple thing. The apple is pleasing to the eye and regardless of our better judgment, we eat the apple. We eat the apple every time.
Sarah told Brian she was an English major and wanted to be a writer. Brian thought this was great because he had the same ambition. Brian worked full-time as an office jockey and took a full load of classes in the evenings at University of Washington. Sarah took one class at Seattle Community College. Brian was busy during the week and though living together, they didn’t see much of each other until the weekends. This allowed Sarah to maintain her constructs. Sarah was not an Eng-
lish major and she didn’t want to be a writer. Below is a picture of an office jockey.
On the weekends, Sarah and Brian were inseparable. Brian was smitten and he drifted away from his friends. His friends sensed something negative about Sarah and voiced their concern to Brian, which he ignored for awhile but then resorted to fuck yous and eventually stopped hanging out with his friends altogether. I was Brian’s best friend. Below is a picture of Brian and me.
Eleven months after they met, Brian and Sarah got married. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding in November held at her parents’ estate. Brian and Sarah wrote their own vows. Brian memorized his and recited them with heartfelt emotion. His dad even cried. Sarah didn’t
memorize a word. She stood there in silence, looked at the crowd, then burst with guffawing laughter. At the reception I got really drunk. Below is a picture of my cousin really drunk.
Brian and Sarah moved into a little two-bedroom house. She got real comfortable. She quit her job, quit going to school, and quit taking care of herself. She put on weight, didn’t wash her clothes, and taking showers or baths or cleaning herself in general became chores. She would lay on the couch watching episodes of American Idol she taped on the VCR, over and over and over again. Below is a picture of an American Idol.
Brian took out a student loan so he could quit his job and go to school full-time. He had only two years left to graduate and wanted to get it over as soon as pos-
sible. When he started going full-time he was driven and excited that their finances were taken care of. One day at the end of February, he went to the ATM to make a withdrawal. There was only three hundred dollars in the account. When he confronted Sarah about it, she lied. Until Brian found a little baggie with white residue in it, hidden in her bedside table. Below is a picture of Tony Montana.
Brian tried to make the best of their situation. He encouraged Sarah to go to school, to read, to get a job, to do anything besides wasting away in the house. They went to Borders Bookstore because Brian wanted to buy her a book to read. She chose a large paperback written by the Marquis de Sade. She read the first chapter then left it on the coffee table to collect dust. It was the only book Brian ever saw her read, or attempt to read, though she loved reading. Or so she said. Below is a picture of that book.
On Friday nights they’d go out for dinner and drinks. Sarah liked to go to Livingstone’s because she still knew most of the employees and most of the regulars. They’d sit out on the patio but she never had much to say. Until some guy, or guys, would walk in, see Sarah, and come over to say hi, none of whom Brian knew. Sarah’s face would lighten with joy and she’d hug these guys like they were long-lost friends. Which, in a way, they were. And, in a way, they weren’t. Sarah never introduced these guys to Brian and they never inquired as to who he was. Brian wasn’t a jealous guy but these repeated reunions made him uncomfortable. Especially when the guys would give him a sideways glance before leaving the table. Brian: Who was that? Sarah: Oh, just an old friend. Brian: What do you mean by old friend? Sarah: You know, we used to hang out. Brian: What do you mean by hang out? Sarah: You know. We used to…hang out. Brian: Why don’t you introduce me as your husband? Below is a picture of a sideways glance.
It may be true that you see what you want to see, but sometimes you need to trust in your friend’s vision. Brian didn’t trust mine until it was too late.
Sarah called Brian and asked him to meet her at the Elbow Room for lunch. It was a weekday and he was surprised. He walked out onto the patio and saw Sarah sitting at a table with a drink in her hand. She saw him and smiled. He gave her a kiss and sat down. The waitress came for drink orders. Brian: So, honey, what’s up? Sarah: Well, I have something to tell you. Brian: Okay. Sarah: Well, it’s…it’s… Brian: What is it? Sarah: I can’t have kids. Brian: What do you mean you can’t have kids? Sarah: Physically. I’m physically unable to have kids. Brian: What do you mean you’re physically unable to have kids? Sarah: I have rheumatoid arthritis. I’ve had it for years. It’s in my hips and my doctor told me that having kids could kill me or kill the child. I’d probably have a miscarriage before then. Brian: Doctor…what? You’re just telling me this now? I thought we discussed these things. Don’t you think you should’ve told me before we got married? Sarah: Well, I… Brian: Fuck! You know…it’s not like I want kids right now or anything, but in the future! Sarah: Well, we can adopt… Brian: Adopt? Sarah, I was adopted. You know what a nightmare that was. I want kids of my own and now you’re just stripping that away from me? Sarah: I’m sorry but I had to… Brian: Sorry? You’re sorry? Why the hell did
you invite me to lunch to tell me t h i s ? In a public place? Sarah: Well, I knew you might react this way. But there’s more I have to tell you. My sister has volunteered to carry your child. Brian: What? You mean, in vitro? Sarah: Not exactly. Brian: Sarah, your sister is a lesbian. Sarah: But she’s willing to… Brian: Whoa-whoa-whoa. Are you fucking kidding me right now? Sarah: Well…and so has Barb. Brian: Barb? Barb is married. What the fuck does Pete think about this? Sarah: Look, my sister and Barb are on their way here. Below is a picture of a bottle of Crown Royal.
The day Sarah moved out, Brian called and asked me to come over. Sarah and her friends were loading up a U-Haul when I showed up with a case of Bud Light. Brian was sitting on the couch, shithouse drunk. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Pearl Jam was blasting out of the stereo and Brian was howling along. I sat across from him and gave him a new can of beer.
Sarah: Do you want this? Brian: I don’t give a fuck! Take it all! Just get the fuck out of my life! Sarah: What about the computer? Brian: Just leave me a fucking fork! She didn’t leave him a fork.
JED THOMAS
Returning
I have no choice The two must one Where are you? Where are you? Eyes void as Upon this sea of love I ride Molecular structures coincide Cloaked in particles of matter Can’t believe I’m you Wash me Facing center once again, Light this fucking halo bright, New perceptions creep and enter, Turning body into light. Upon this sea of love I ride Molecular structures coincide Cloaked in particles of matter Can’t believe I’m you Returning Upon this sea Returning Returning 52
SUSIE HUSER
Cream
*
Beneath feet gray slips as though toes could squeeze into decay but fiberglass. Chlorine bleach runs down walls, puddles at floor, evaporates with steam. ∞ In warm water open. There is the possible exchange between in and out, between beneath and above skin, more than evaporation of sweat, all that makes the body move. Oxygen taken in with breath pushes to every surface fingertips, inner thigh cracked heel of my foot hammock behind knees, earlobes. ∞ Chlorine. Discoverer Carl Wilhelm Scheele, 1774, Sweden.1 Bleach, solution of sodium hypochlorite, NaClO. Basic slip of soap. ∞ The fat that rises. The slip between lips upon eating: whipped churned baked steamed 1. Barbalace, Kenneth L. “Periodic Table of Elements: Element Chlorine.” EnvironmentalChemistry.com 1995. http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Cl.html#Atomic. (2 July 2007). An (*) will from hereon reference this article.
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gelled ∞
sweetened
chilled All that is in moves out all things out, in
All solids that disintegrate into microscopic dust, liquids their molecules excited these come in. All breath cycled through bodies. The moon a curl of margarine 2 stars one planet forming an equally divided diagonal ending at a nightlit house halfway up a foothill ∞ Exposure to chlorine should not exceed .5 ppm.2 1000 ppm will kill you in a few breaths.3 Used as a poison gas in World War I.4 ∞ 2. “Chlorine.” Los Alamos National Laboratory Chemistry Division Periodic Table of the Elements 15 Dec. 2003. http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/17.html. (2 July 2007). A (**) will from hereon reference this article. Cleaning the bathroom before leaving Bloomington enchanted by a wavy black haired Ukrainian who makes beet soup and enjoys liverwurst, who, according to one of his lovers woos anything with a hole between its legs, stop to vomit, lie on bare carpet head against wall before beginning again, check out in an hour and a hotel with the cat for the night. 3. Winter, Mark. “Chlorine.” WebElements Periodic Table 1993. http://www.webelements.com/ webelements/elements/text/Cl/key.html (2 July 2007). 4. Oxford. Scrubbing tiles at Goshen’s first coffee shop, laminate of spilled Vanilla Almond Decaf chai iced tea lemonade soups dressings whipped cream rise before vomiting. Water to wash vapors from throat and slip from hands.
Dirt on my fingers after stroke-massage-stroking Gus, the arch up to his tail smell of hard-boiled eggs and steamed broccoli and the Super’s Camel Menthol smoke. These come in. The upstairs neighbor reading about Republican candidates another upstairs (tenor) neighbor covering the Divas. Softener sheets, decaying road kill, blue jay alarms. ∞ 5’6” 87 pounds size 0 ∞ In the locker room shower look anywhere but at A’s large brown nipples, her suit folded down, a breast’s movement when washed. At B’s pubic hair and smaller breasts, suit removed completely. C is able to flex her pectoral muscles, alternating. D applies foundation until her face resembles moleskin. E toys with her infected bellybutton piercing. For the season’s duration chlorine has replaced the scent of my skin. ∞ ecru pale-yellow eggshell ivory off-white. ∞ Middle school summer days at the public pool watermelon taffy on hot cement. Coconuts and buttered popcorn bronzed mothers in bikinis with no breasts babies in sunhats. F, older, grabs my legs and I slip them away. Oiled, proud to be shaving. ∞
If I had no bones could breath beneath water if I were pulsing membrane flexible floatable propelled by moving entirely against and through ∞ Some tree frogs contain a chlorine compound in their skin that acts as a pain killer: two hundred times more potent than any known pain killer, in small doses has no side effect.** ∞ Sophomore year 5’6”. Body weight reaches 3 digits. G: Do you think you’re eating a little too much bread? ∞ Pasture-fed cows produce yellowish milk due to higher levels of beta-carotene. Milk from grain-fed cows is white. Butter and margarine are sometimes artificially yellowed. ∞ A mother tells my mother your daughter has grown into a woman. One of the boys on the team has written on the locker room chalkboard, Susie has no ass. ∞ If I were drawn in hairlines practically the color through which I’d move and injection upon encounter requisite prior absorption
and sustainable exchange I’d be a jellyfish. ∞ Electrons per quantum level: 2, 8, 7. Protons: 17.* Atomic weight 35.453.** Quantum because movable. ∞ In a red-orange locker room stall to stop a nosebleed. Two girls, a grade below, enter and discuss a party the night before, the one called Nubbins squeals and says upstairs alone on the couch he gave me the finger. Lift feet, stand on the toilet seat until they go, the porcelain slippery. ∞ Rub through gray slip to reveal scaled cream. Chin to chest water drips from nose onto scoop of flesh below belly button and leaps, arc intersecting shower spray. Chlorinated steam enters nostrils, brushes back of tongue. ∞ Chlorine use: Paper production. Food. Plastics. Petroleum products. Textiles. Water-purification. Bleach. Insecticides. Disinfection. ∞ There is the recurring vision of separating breast from chest, also always impediments: the kitchen knives won’t even cleanly slice a tomato. And where would I procure anesthetic? Would I maintain control of my arms if my chest were sufficiently anesthetized?
∞ Chlorine. Greek khlôros, ‘green.’ Cream. Greek khrisma, ‘anointing.’5 ∞ A dream that was not disturbing in which she, recognized but unfamiliar, milked her left breast into a demitasse and offered me a drink.
5. Chrism: “a mixture of oil and balsam, consecrated and used for anointing at baptism and in other rites of Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches” (Oxford).
NICHOLAS B. MORRIS
Jawbone
When I went to get into his truck, there was a jawbone in the seat. I asked him what it was from. He snatched it up, dropped it behind the seat. “A deer,” he said. Started the truck, told me to get in, and we left. He turned on the radio, some country station. He didn’t talk, only answered yes and no when I asked him something. Now that I knew he had a jawbone behind his seat, I was unsettled. More unsettled than I had been when I’d seen it on the seat. Had the jawbone been long enough to belong to a deer? Could it have been a dog’s? We got to his ranch, and he asked me to open the gap. I asked him what he meant and he told me to take the post out from its wire loop. I did as he said, stood in the rain and watched his taillights slide past. I closed the gate and got back into the truck. “Cow’s over there.” He pointed toward the far side of the pasture, started driving in that direction. He got out of his truck, telling me about the time his daddy stepped on a landmine while he loaded his rifle. The cow was bawling, her front leg obviously broken. He shot the cow without flinching, carried on with his story in the sudden ringing silence. I wasn’t really listening. I was still thinking about my friend, whom I’d last seen years ago in a city hundreds of miles from here, and the jawbone I’d seen in his truck. Hadn’t there been canines? Deer don’t have canines, do they? He hadn’t had 59
any qualms about blasting the cow. Did he shoot everything as easily? “Come on,” he called to me from beside the dead cow. “You gonna help me, or you gonna let good meat go to waste?”
CONTRIBUTORS Ryan Clark is an MFA candidate in poetry at Naropa University, although please let's not restrict him to verse. He's locked himself in a closet and says he's not coming out until someone asks to read his short stories. He is quite the stubborn Stu.
Bill Borsky is a student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. He majors in the art and science of random classes. He works as a computer technician maintaining mainframe computers. He also blows glass and loves outdoor activities.
Unbeknownst to everyone, Travis Macdonald is Colorado's premier lip-synching ventriloquist. If he owned a puppet, its name would be Pedro. In his spare time, Travis works a 40 hour week, publishes Fact-Simile Editions and attends The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Every day he falls a little bit deeper into love and debt.
Brooke Lehrer is a recent graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. She is currently residing in New York with her cockapoo, Edna.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and philosopher. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
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Mittie Roger, though amphibian, has taken up residence in a primate body to attend the one and only Jack Kerouac School of Naropa. Having slithered from the bayous and floodplains of Louisiana, she decided to attempt a hominoid existence. So far, she has been successful in cooking jambalaya and crawfish etoufee upright.
Ben Olson was born and raised in north Idaho, in a small mountain town of hillbillies, realtors and hippies. He used to live in a small cabin by the lake, where he wrote Wanderlost in 37 days, but was evicted for non-payment of rent, and is now living in total poverty, roaming around America trying to figure out what the hell to do next.
Amy Pommerening lounges in Anaximander’s palace, Apeiron, and infrequently vacations in the Black Forest.
Daniel Dissinger. Grad student of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa. Native New Yorker where he graduated from SUNY Old Westbury with a degree in Multi-Cultural Literature. Metal fan.
Gerard Morel is a graduate of California State University Fresno with a degree in English— currently a grad student at CSU Long Beach in English lit. He’s interested in the bohemian life, mischief, shenanigans, kitschy literature, 4th street, cherry blossoms, artificial light, drink, food, baseball, and Cuba Libre. He would like to see peace in his lifetime.
Lindsey is a poet. Jim Morrison and Albert Camus are her poetic idols. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Lindsey wants a puppy who will stay puppy size FOREVER. She likes Tori Amos.
Richard Schwass is a candidate for the Masters Degree in Poetry at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and once interviewed Grace Slick.
Dr. Cornelius is a chimpanzee archaeologist and historian. He and his simian cohorts are planning a coup d’etat to take over the nation and send G.W. Bush back to La Planete des Singes. He’s also a big fan of Pearl Jam. IT’S EVOLUTION BABY!
Jed Thomas is an architect from Bozeman, Montana. When he’s not spending time with his fiancée Katie, he’s backpacking, hiking, kayaking, skating, and playing with his troop of highly trained orangutans.
Susie Huser lives in Boulder, Colorado. Yesterday she saw a bull snake and an osprey. Neither tried to eat her. A couple weeks ago she purchased a used copy of The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
Nicholas B. Morris has published poetry, prose, and otherwise in (print) Species, Guilty As Charged, Nebo, and (online) Cliterature, Fear Knocks, and the Arkansas Literary Forum. He runs Pistolwhip Press and teaches Composition at Front Range Community College. He is the author of the chapbook Jezebels and one half of the filmmaking crew Lobotomized Monkey.
Chuck King resides in Portland, Oregon where he enjoys photography, mountaineering, playing music, volunteering at the Food Bank garden, and spending time with Ouan. The cover photo of the Monkey Puzzle tree was taken at the Portland Arboretum.
Punnu Jaitla was attending University of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit and was then housed in a FEMA trailer in the UNO arena parking lot for a year afterwards. He is now a student in Ann Arbor, MI.
Dwayne and Charlene Shockley live in the bayou inlets fondly known as The Rigolets of Louisiana. "Rigolets" comes from the word rigole, French for "trench" or "gutter." The name is locally pronounced "RIG-uhleez." They’re wine brokers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THE EDITORS WISH TO THANK: The Contributors, our families and friends.
Nate Jordon wishes to thank—Jesus, Buddha, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Daniel Quinn, Robert Pirsig, Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, Rocky Balboa, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, George Carlin, Chris Rock, Mittie Roger, Troy Golden, Ethan Brown, Dr. James Walton, Ruth Jenkins, Tim Skeen, Anne Waldman, Junior Burke, The Bush Administration, everyone who votes, Yugen, Species, ShanghaiSMRadiator, Pistol Whip, Easy Rider, Wolf Man Jack, Captain Kangaroo, Looney Tunes, and Family Guy.
Mittie Roger wishes to thank the people underneath her bed and in her closet, cabernet sauvignon, her dog Shakespeare, sacred geometry, San Miguel de Allende, and New Orleans; Lulu, Poodle, Jared Diamond, Mark Nowak, Paul Reps, Alan Watts, Dr. Charles Isbell, Peter Sutherland, Ina Fandrich, Tom Robbins and Stephen Chbosky. She would also like to thank the chimpanzee family that took her in, teaching her skills to facilitate bipedal motion and taking her out of the swamp.
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Submit to:
MONKEY PUZZLE Issue #2 October 1st Submission Guidelines: Monkey Puzzle is seeking submissions of prose (2,500 words max), poetry (1-5 pages), interviews, artwork, photography, and hybrids. Experimental work welcome. All submissions should include the writer’s contact information – name, address, phone number, and email address – on the first page. MonkeyPuzzlePress@gmail.com www.monkeypuzzleonline.com DEADLINE September 20 66
MONKEY PUZZLE
EDITORS Nate Jordon Mittie Roger
For questions or comments, contact Nate at: Monkey Puzzle Press 3161 Madison Ave. Suite #P-221 Boulder, CO 80303 MonkeyPuzzlePress@gmail.com
Cover Photo compliments of Chuck King
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Monkey Puzzle is printed on recycled paper.