Overlord in Chief: Nathan Alan Schwartz Fiction Editor: Jonathan Recinos Poetry Editor: Sopphey Vance ~ Cover Art by Nathan Alan Schartz Design by Sopphey Vance ~ All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted without permission of appropriate copyright owners. Five 2 One Magazine is an entity owned by Nathan Alan Schwartz. Visit http://five2onemag. onimpression.com for more information. On Impression, On Impression Books, and the On Impression Network are entities owned by Sopphey Vance. Visit www.onimpression.com to learn more.
Table of Contents Exposure Katrina Kim ................................................................................6
Pig-stygian Kitchen John Roth ................................................................................17
Sweeping J. Lynn Sheridan ................................................................................7
Streaming Internet Radio Laurin Macios ................................................................................18
Painting the Nuns Cari Oleskewicz ................................................................................7
The End Cheryl A. Van Beek ................................................................................19
Epileptic Highway Kyle Rhoads ................................................................................8
Weathervanes Jason Gordon ................................................................................20
Nebraska Eric Wilson ................................................................................9
Beneficiary Rosie Picone ................................................................................21
H.D.H.C Greg McWhorter ................................................................................9
Mera Green Haathi (My Green Elephant Sonia Cheruvillil ................................................................................24
An Entrance like an Artery James Gordon ................................................................................11
Deep Hollows Olivia Lin DeLuca ................................................................................26
By the Lake Ben Lamont ................................................................................12
Writing On Walls John Murphy ................................................................................27
I want soTory J. Fox ................................................................................12
Weep For Me Nick Wallace ................................................................................28
December 4th Unique ................................................................................13
Tad Waller: Drink Chun-a-lug Hal Wert ................................................................................29
Brown Morgan Drolet ................................................................................14
Consequences Miles Lizak ................................................................................31
Felt Jonathan Pigno ................................................................................15
Another One Chad Beattie ................................................................................33
Language of Arm Hair Karin Mitchell ................................................................................34
Regeneration Andres Montoya ................................................................................48
Barren Monica Lugo ................................................................................35
After the Rapture Zachary Vaudo ................................................................................49
Behind the Lines Steve De France ................................................................................36
Epilogue to an Existence William Jackson ................................................................................51
Wending Wall Sy Roth ................................................................................37
Mythology of the Drunk Creative Alex Schmidt ................................................................................52
Don’t Think Too Much Mallory Ewer-Speck ................................................................................38
The Surrealist War Poem Jacob Woods ................................................................................53
He was Chipper I was Beedrill Alex England ................................................................................39
The Girl and the Emu Nick Counts ................................................................................54
Dream Harvest Katherine Thurmond Clark ................................................................................40
Anniversary Siobhan Thompson ................................................................................58
Bats In the Attic Bruce Mcrae ................................................................................43
The Nazi Olafur Gunnarsson ................................................................................61
A Visit Home Rebecca Remillard ................................................................................44
Disposable Camera Emma Mason ................................................................................65
Chords (A Diagram) Chris John ................................................................................45
Skin Annabelle Goll ................................................................................66
The Horn of Fog at Thirty Riley H Wreckler ................................................................................46
Lost Child Adam Shields ................................................................................67
Drinking Beer In A Phonebooth (Back When I Didn’t Give A Damn) Paul Gurrieri ................................................................................47
The Man with One Eye Holds the Key to Truth J.A McGovern ................................................................................68
Letters from the Editors Poetry Editor, Sopphey Vance:
Overlord in Chief, Nathan Alan Schwartz:
Readers, contributors, and friends welcome to the fifth issue of FIVE2ONE. I had the honor of reading poetry submissions this issue and can only say: Holy Mexican “soft shell” tacos with chile and limon. All the poems in this issue exceed my realm of creation. Each poem is unique, is inspiring, and a devious delight to read. I do advice that you leave the lights on and hide your spare key to your deepest mind alleys. This issue takes the side roads to the hidden roads.
Hello dudes and gals of the writerly world. How ya’ll doing. I bet you’re in your desk chair or something drinking coffee or beer flipping the pages as we speak. GOOD that’s exactly what we want.
Fiction Editor, Jonthan Recenios: Let me just say that it was so much fun being able to read all the fantastic stories that you all wrote, and when it came down to choose the stories you’ll read here it was one of the more difficult tasks I have had to do. I hope that you all enjoy reading the stories as much as I did. Thank you for sharing and reading!
This is one of the best issues and biggest issues we have had yet . Not only is this issue full of fantastic writers who shock and awe with their writerly powers. But some of the writer’s have never been published before and FIVE2ONE has the honor of publishing them for the first time. To the new authors and poets I wish you a wellrounded life as a writer and may FIVE2ONE just be a stepping stone in your long lasting career. To the other writers and readers we hope you enjoy these poems and stories as much as we did.
Special Thank You I just want to really thank both of my editors for all their hard work, without them I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. Both of them worked extremely hard and even picked up where I slacked. Sopphey Vance especially has been a tremendous help in the process of getting things done. Without her FIVE2ONE wouldn’t be where it is. She is the one that helped me set it up and she continues to be a mentor, not only as an editor but also as a writer. I wish I could put enough words in this letter to express how much she has done. She has worked her butt off not only for this issue but for past issues as well. She gave up her time to help me work on these issues. She works extra hard to make sure that each issue looks beautiful. I am beyond grateful for her as a poetry editor and her assistance
in the process of getting FIVE2ONE where it is today. Thank you Sopphey Vance. This is Jonathan Recinos’’ first time as an editor. I couldn’t be more thankful for what he did as a fiction editor. He put a lot of hard work and hard time into reading those fiction submissions and for that I am thankful. Words really can’t express my gratitude. He did an excellent job and will continue to do so in the future. Thank you Jonathan Recenios. Nathan Alan Schwartz
Exposure Katrina Kim June 18th, 2059. The day is a lively one, filled with celebrations in every household and in every walk of life. News that carries wind of something so big that perhaps there will even be a national holiday created for this day. It’s a decent thought, at least. A genetically altered parasite that’s sole purpose is to invade and destroy, is released on the market after many years of precarious selective breeding by a number of various scientist. They combined and crafted an intricately weaved string of DNA, thus resulting in “the Silk.” These parasites are a kind of worm that enters the host through exposed skin, traveling in the blood stream and effectively evading the white blood cells, remaining undetected. The worm (or group of worms, depending on the patient) will travel up the body, eating all cells that contain any disease; the ultimate cure to all illness. Once the worm reaches the brain, one last thorough cleansing will take place, and then it will die and disintegrate, leaving no signs of its presence. Scientists are not afraid to admit that many animals endured testing, many injured or having to give up their lives for the sake of humanity. Thousands of tests are given to insure the safety and effectiveness of the Silk worms. At exactly 7:38 AM on this day, the worms are released into the environment and onto Earth. They will thrive in every climate and survive on bacteria cells until finding a host, or at least that’s what the scientists tell the press. Within hours of the announcement, people learn of the Silk worms and they are ecstatic. Humans have suffered for many years in weeping silence, enduring the pollution and sickness that plagues everyone because no one is exempt from some form of disease in the world. The Silk worms, to everyone’s ears, are a miracle; a ray of light amongst miles of 6
darkness. For the first time in many, many long days, the Earth celebrates as one. If you listen closely, you can hear excited murmurs coming from your neighbors. You could witness children running with smiles on their faces, barefoot and encouraging the Silk worms to enter their bodies. What the scientists don’t tell the press is that the Silk worms were never supposed to escape the lab; they were to be injected in select individuals during the first 4 years. The individuals were to be paid volunteers, and under close supervision in contained care. These scientists did not know it would get so out of hand, so quickly. Because humans are greedy, in order to protect themselves, the people who worked on the Silk worms lie to every news reporter than came their way. Yet, each moment that passes, another person becomes infected with this miracle. Each second that slips by, another person is leaping to their death, unknowing of the consequences of blindly believing in something too good to be true.
Sweeping J. Lynn Sheridan I believe it was you who fluffed the straw around the shards of glass that poked up from the decking the back porch steps, just after a sliver of truth speared that song and dance wart emblazoned upon your tongue. Are you a sweeper or a bearded chameleon? The shadows of the ceiling fan are whirling like a guillotine, the breeze catching flakes of dust from the wicked bones you found in my body. All these hidden revelations are just razors in my ear. The danger spoke. Your boxes are at the door.
Painting the Nuns Cari Oleskewicz Were I a painter, I’d embroider a flock of nuns I saw sprinting up the steps of St. Matthews. Tardy for mass during Holy Week? Finally, something to confess, and I hurry to invent a paintbrush. Habits of an unnamed purple hue fly behind them cape-like, and teensy feet in black loafers barely sweep the stone so begging to support them. Modest smiles apologize to urgency. Were I a painter, peace is what I’d color. A vision tattooed on the canvas of memory.
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Epileptic Highway Kyle Rhoads Powder-dusted coffee tables and rolled up dollar bills. He kept screaming at me, “Don’t die. Jesus, don’t let him die.” But my mind didn’t see him, my vision did not recognize. The clear blue of my eyes, twitched to pearl marbles with twisting red veins, A thick ball of choke dwelling in my throat. Sirens echoed in the distance, approaching but coming too slow. Fathoms down through spastic neurons, I felt the aching hurt of my spine Arching like a dead branch in a dry winter Not awake, not asleep, thoughts generated telling that I had slipped through the cracks of reality, moving towards a dimension not even God himself could know. Riding the epileptic highway, waves of a weary acceptance that this was all and forever flashed like surges of violent electricity Round and round, thoughts flew in the torturous, dark infinity, Skin turning colder than rime, lips fading to a dead blue. Depression laced blossoms bloomed like black holes Grasped by the semi-conscious reality, a play was performed in front of me, figures dancing around like monkeys from Oz and reaching with their ominous hands There was Satan, a frowning God, then a sky of hate and ash parted and I begged. Slowly, minions turned into men in fire-proof suits all repeating my name. The world twisted upside down and back again where I saw a friend, crying and whispering, “Please. Please don’t die.”
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Nebraska Eric Wilson There had been a drowning at a small community pool in Nebraska. It was 1944. The pool manager was a woman, Mrs. Fisk, hefty in her one-piece black woolen swimsuit. She had plunged right in, attempting a rescue. Perhaps the young man had had some sort of seizure; the cause of his death remained unclear. In the heat of summer, people still went to the gathering place of the pool. Some were uneasy now, on their guard; not everyone could forget. But the ice cream still melted down the sodden waffle cone over your fingers, zinc oxide was still smeared across your nose. It was a month or so after the drowning. The small boy in the locker room was only six. He had gone to the pool with his mother, who couldn’t come into the changing quarters with him. But then all he had to do was remove
his clothes and pull on his tiny suit. He could manage that by himself. When the small boy froze, at first no one noticed. Then the men became concerned, even the tanned toweling-off teens, their skin surprisingly white where it had been hidden by their swimsuits. They all looked at the small boy, still immobile. For a moment they attributed it to fear, which must have taken firm hold after the drowning. But when they called out to him, the boy realized he was being watched and tore himself away. I was still only six, but something deep inside me had just been awakened. It was the first time I had ever seen older boys naked, in all their splendor. I was so spellbound by the sight I simply could not move.
H.D.H.C. Greg McWhorter I drive around all-day drinking and driving. I have my punk rock music turned up as loud as I can get it. I wear combat boots and a black trench coat over my torn jeans and plain black t-shirt. My hair is spiked up high with white glue. My car is a 1974 Chevy Impala with a V8. It’s built for comfort and speed, which is great because not only is it my transportation, but also my bed at times. Today I woke up from the backseat and greeted the brilliant dawn of a typical high-desert morning. I can hear quail cooing and all I can see out of my car windows is desert around me: Juniper bushes, Joshua trees, dirt, rocks, and the rest of the things that make up a desert landscape. I also see the trailers in the not too far distance. That’s where last night’s party was. I drank a lot. I got in a fight. I drove off. to
here. Now I sit looking at the sun advancing over the horizon. It’s cold, but I’m warm enough in my enclosed car with my trench coat firmly wrapped around me. I get out of the car and stretch in the morning glow. I ache. I have bruises and there are small spots of blood on my shirt. The blood spots are not mine, I quickly discover to my delight. Must have been from the guy I beat to a pulp last night. Other than being sore and a little hung-over, I’m fine. I fish my red beret out of the front seat and I’m about to put it on, but then I remember that I still have the glue in my hair that makes my hair as stiff as sticks. I throw it back in the car and decide that it’s time to get going. I get back in and start the car. It fires up nicely. Before I go, I put my hand under the seat and feel for my hidden knife. Good. I feel it and 9
it gives me a sense of security. I drive into town. The closest place to stop is a 7-Eleven. I go in and buy a 32 ounce Sprite with no ice. I take it to my car and pour half of it out and fill up the other half with some vodka that I keep in my trunk. I always start my day with the fifty-fifty mixture. When the Sprite mixture runs out, I fill the cup with straight vodka. I drive around like this and sometimes pop some Darvocet, or other pain killers, too. I noticed that I am almost out of vodka, so with some of the money that I have left from selling things at the swap meet, I head to the liquor store to stock up. There is one close by that opens early since it sells other convenience store items too. I park my car in front of The Spirit Shop liquor store and walk in with confidence. I am only seventeen, but this store has always sold to me and has never asked me for ID. Inside I find the cheap stuff. The ‘rot gut’ as I call it. I notice a guy walk in and make a beeline for some expensive packs of beer that are sitting on a nearby display. He looks determined and not at all laid back like the other early-morning drunks. I can tell that something is not right. The guy grabs two 12-packs and runs out to his truck. He jumps in, beer and all, as the owner of the store starts yelling after him carrying a baseball bat that he has emerged from behind the counter with. I don’t know what comes over me. I love violence. I almost seem predispositioned to seek it out. Without hesitating, I leave my bottle on the counter and run out too. I jump on the guys truck as he is turning over the engine. I bring my steel-toed boot back, like cocking a gun, and I let my inner beast out as I start kicking in his windshield. I can feel my blood surge and I feel like I can take his car apart with my hands. I’m a whirlwind of fury and rage. I manage to grab and tear off his windshield wipers and kick 10
in half of his windshield by the time he starts backing up. I’m sweating hard by this point. I jump off the hood just as he is about to put it drive and get away. Meanwhile, the owner was successful in breaking off his side-view mirror and busting out his driver side window. My adrenaline is on overdrive and I feel as alive as I have ever felt. This was just the rush I needed to start my day. The owner of the liquor store and I exchange a few words as some of the other drunks look on. We go back inside and he rings me up and throws in a few clove cigarettes for free for helping him out. We didn’t get the beer back, but the owner muses how that guy will probably not try that again at his store. I grab up my goods and head out. I have no immediate plans except to hook up with some friends. My mother and father are both still alive, but I try to avoid both of them as much as possible. They got divorced when I was seven and they have both been my burdens in their own respective ways. I drive over to Cindy’s house. I know that she will be up by now. She is. I go into her room with her and we talk and listen to music for a couple of hours. We also share some wine that she has hidden in her room. I start getting really buzzed off the mix of the vodka already in my system and now the wine on top of it. I had also popped two Darvocet pills and I was really feeling out of it when Tracy shows up. Tracy is the guitar player for my band and although he dresses like a damn long-haired hippy, he can really play that guitar and make it howl like a wolf out for blood. Tracy wasn’t too happy to see me at Cindy’s. I didn’t know that they had been getting together. I was just Cindy’s friend and acted like a brother to her at times. Tracy wanted to some action. I had almost completely passed out when they started shaking me and telling me to leave so they could be alone. I told them to leave
me alone, that I was too fucked up to drive anywhere. They carried me to my car anyway and helped me to start it and told me again to go home. What could I do? I drove off. I don’t know if you know what the high-desert is like, but I managed to drive from deep in Apple Valley all the way to Oro Grande. I only remember my mind being alert for a very short stretch of the way home, when I had reached 7th street by the tracks and freeway. I don’t remember anything else. I must have travelled by sheer memory of the bumps in the road, like braille. I covered over twenty miles by sheer dumb luck.
and I saw that my front door was wide open. I got up to shut it and noticed that my front gate was also wide open so I went out to shut that. When I got to the front gate, I noticed that the driver’s side door to my car was also wide open and that two of my wheels were up on the curb! I quickly righted everything and went inside and sat down on my couch to reflect when the police showed up. Typical.
Somehow I must have gotten home because the next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of the living room of my dank shack. When I got up, I looked around, my head was spinning,
An Entrance, Like an Artery James Gordon Within a chamber, a wall of eyes lids swollen and unblinking, stare upwards to an opening, where a vortex of energy collapses in on itself, digesting the air of poison, sweetness, and all nourishing a heartbeat, pounding like a bomb, each pulse exploding with blood like napalm, feeding an entity with its destruction.
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By the Lake Ben Lamont Somehow every walk takes us Up to the cemetery at the lake And somehow we always find someone we know I walk the other way this time And end up at a playground Sometimes it’s good to get away from your friends.
I want so- Tory J Fox I wantI want soI want so much the moon with silversooted cries from craters drink it down drink it down drink it down I am staggering behind but I still breathe with the lungs of july
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December 4th Unique Another morning waking up nauseous he’s cautious he just regained his conscience off in the distance a car door slams “Oh damn not again” he exclaimed how is he going to explain the track marks in his veins addicted to this heroin but here comes his heroine a smart blonde that had beauty he loved her truly but his addiction got a little unruly you see they were newlyweds got married outta high school didn’t care what any one said Were happy for 2 years thats when things shifted like a paradigm he was as old as a pair of dimes when he started contemplating suicide depression slipped into his mind he had a secret about his life. Yeah he loved his wife but the sex wasn’t right he didn’t get the same pleasure he would go through any type of measure to avoid the awkward sex and this caused his wife to be perplexed “Baby, just sit down and talk to me” He would respond with “It’s complicated” and tried multiple medications but his pain was never mitigated And a thought occurred “could I be gay?” Afraid of society would say he forced the thought to fade away until one day when his wife was away he got on a dating site and checked marked “interested in guys” “it’s well worth a try” That thought that ran through his mind it seemed like in no time he got a message online from this dude to remain to nameless they hit it off and met at this coffee place things picked up pace and there face to face
they kissed and he finally felt the feeling that he missed but thats when shit hit the fan how could he leave his wife for a man she surely wouldn’t understand the pain still remained with him and a shot of herione was his only way to numb the pain eventually a plan was evolved he couldn’t continue to be involved with this man but he couldn’t confess to his wife about the night he gave himself to another There was a train track near where he lived He waited in the snow for a train to go by he is thinking of suicide jumping in front of it, it would be quick and painless but everytime he closed his eyes he saw his wife’s face Clik Clak Clik Clak He heard the train Sucide still on his brain Should he jump in front? Or believe he can fix this marriage and leave?
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Brown Morgan Drolet Deadbeat dry sunday morning Sidewalks littered near bus benches Flaking off crushed scattered glitter brown leaves There are no seasons here but The leaves die and shatter Thick marmalade sun lies in wait to dance and reel on clear hollow bubbles clinging to green yellow paper thin blades of grass Soaking into leather and mettle Lingering especially on the tops of car doors below the window where you put your arm and burn it There are no lines yet Of cars or in grocery stores It’s still early but there will be Early and late That’s when it’s quiet around here And sometimes in the afternoons Signs sputter on like boiling water pouring from a half filled kettle Stinging window panes reflecting mercilessly into the flat sky We can see them and us Roaming & indecisive & thin in the heat dry morning Here
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Felt Jonathan Pigno Her hair was a weeping willow in the parlor light, pulled back and dangling like a stray bunch of autumn color. There were marks of gentle age in her face, a sign that time didn’t mind her legacy. And something in the way she flipped the cards, the snap and smack of quick shuffling - it resounded like a steady rhythm of utmost confidence. The Queen of Hearts. I made myself believe that her beauty was predetermined. Of course, she never understood the things I felt before. Not for women. Or my changing belief about the meaninglessness of card playing. My eyes weren’t fixed on the draw that evening. I found them wandering to the nape of her neck, where strands of red curls grazed her skin like a vine. She sipped liquor and tossed a new hand my way. “You don’t play much anymore. Or so I’m told.” The smell of alcohol trailed her words. “Well, you know such things can’t last forever, Rose. At least not trivialities like paper pictures on a felt surface.” There were reasons I hadn’t kept up with the gambling. Chance gave me anxiety now. I couldn’t reasonably explain why. Not fully. From the moment I’d given up vice, specters haunted my nights. It is true that lonely old men don’t meet their maker peacefully. The celestial judges wanted me running, confused, riled up with self-loathing so the last few years of my life could sit stagnant in a pool of regret. These weren’t voices or illusions. But thoughts. Expressions. Things I felt out of place
somewhere in the midst of my dreaming and restless reality. I’d force myself to get up and wander the rooms of my home, peek into my study and sift through old spoils of victories I didn’t consider fair. Each one made my chest hurt. Sometimes the ache would pierce. Many mornings I woke without a lingering trace of fear - like I’d gone mad in my isolation, a surreal sensation that I’d dreamed all that shuffling about the halls. Yet the phantoms curiously lingered. Curled in the corners of my pain were mistakes obscured with time, choices that caused suffering far into the future of a life willed to be fast. Alone. And on most every level, missing pieces like the chess set in my lounge. I believed that quitting cards could mend the holes. Or if not completely repair, then create an exile profound enough to impose harsh introspection - what I now consider the worst part of being left to your devices. Reflections of a rich man are shallower than his tendencies to gamble…and much more synthetic than the lack of intimacy with a spouse. It is foolish to even admit I invited Rose with the intention of filling such voids. We knew each other for an extended period, long before my country estate had been handed down from my deceased parents. As teenagers, we fooled around in the wine cellars, chasing one another and spilling fine spirits as we stumbled through the passages. On a particular August afternoon we kissed. And every moment since then, I’d been a complacent adolescent. Never growing old, never committing to warmth. I was searching for her lips all the while. Rose stared at the tall clock behind my seat. 15
It was nearing eleven, and we’d barely spoken since her arrival. “Can I get you something to drink, then? Should we retire to the study?” She shut her eyes and placed one hand under her cheek, resting her head and slouching onto the table. Her body communicated unease. The air was ripe for change.
aren’t all you’ve got to show to the other players. The gambler, in the end, has to make his own odds, Alan.” She surprised me with a kiss. For the first time in decades, I tasted that summer on my lips. Rose pulled away and folded her hands, awaiting an answer.
“What?”
“We aren’t children anymore, Rose. I can’t expect myself to make dreams come true. You’re widowed, alone, but content in all you’ve done. I’m none of the above. A King Of Diamonds. Nothing more. And well beyond the worth of your graces.”
“You haven’t felt anything but this table in forever, have you, Alan?”
I abruptly rose and walked toward the room’s south exit.
I watched her tight frown morph into a smile. She pushed her arm outward, stretching across the width of the table and brushing each card, chip, and glass onto the wooden floor.
Turning back for a moment, I saw all of life’s goodness written in her posture -a staunch expression that wouldn’t budge - a woman in need of proving that her beauty, the beauty of all that is possible in love, is predetermined.
“You haven’t felt in a long time.” Her voice was a razor in the silence.
It’s crash was beautiful mess. “Alan…cards, and wine, and this house…they don’t hold grudges. You know that. That’s why you quit. They control but never enable someone else to have it.” She paused. Rose stood up from her chair and slowly tread toward me. I could hear the click of her heels as she inched forward. “The only ghost in here is you. I can see the fright all over your face.” She clasped my hand, looking me straight in the face. I could smell her breath as she moved close. “But you’ve got to learn that age isn’t the wrath of God. That mistakes and squandered time 16
“If you’re the King of Diamonds, Alan….I’m the Queen of Hearts.” Even though she meant it, I never felt it was deserved. She followed me upstairs. And into the lifetime thereafter.
Pig-stygian Kitchen John Roth The sun-washed curtains hang low racked on metal rings as they billow out their starch sprayed limbs like an air-swollen parachute, plummeting towards a cool blue atmospheric grid of tiles that they will never brush against with their unfurled cotton tongues, desperate to lap up this unattainable sea of relief set tantalizingly before them. The loud tassel teases the trimless mouth for always being left agape by the slightest draft, letting in spools of threadbare light that slant through the kitchen window and knit themselves into a split wooden sill, cluttered with dead flies dried-out from the humdrum summer heat like raisins. Their translucent wings crumble to soft dust. Even the once healthy tomato vine has begun to wilt into a sullen pot of compost. Choked with uncut twine, its black twisted stem wraps around a garden stake jabbed deep into the soil. Its putrid red fruits sag like shrunken voodoo heads pulled up by the greenish rot on their scalps. All the while, the blunt-edged boning knife just sits there and grins, catching a glint of something truly sinister.
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Streaming Internet Radio Laurin Macios To try drowning out the businessmen on my right: String Quartet, Romantic. I am in a red—white!—dress. I am four feet wide at the base, all that crinoline. I am walking tall with the world’s first dictionary on my head and its weight does not crack my neck—no, I am opening Infinite Jest—no, I am lying flat on a hill named Maria and I say hello Maria I say beautiful grass I define beautiful from the thick, yellowed page (No. 2617). I am not me. I say hello star, light years away from me, and I reach out to touch it and I do. It is blushing, it is soft, it feels like a muscle pulsing, it feels like the footsteps of a beetle, it bursts and covers me in antigravity.
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The End Cheryl A. Van Beek At first they fell like snowflakes each with its own sharp crystals glittering in high definition, multiplying exponentially with each act of coldness. Then, a pattern of carbon footprints emerged in the blanket of snow covering the earth. Greenhouse gases melted the snowflakes blurring their edges. People sloshed, flinging slush at each other asking “Is this all there is?� Thankless words gnawed the air like acid, creating a grid between the spaces. They twisted it, formed a screen to keep the others out. Fragmented, each gap became a loophole begging for more, to fill the void. They tightened their grip. Even with their arms linked, they plotted to surpass each other.
Absorbing everything in its reach, the net became as saturated as a cloud before the squall. Finally, the net burst. Loose ends strangled each other. Layers beneath the ashen topsoil, worms were already working. So in the end, a new beginning was forming. Yet even now, greed lurked, waiting for a foothold like mold spores crouched in dark crevices awaiting a drip of sweat.
Bees disappeared as mysteriously as Mayans, taking sweetness from the world. Enemies that could not be annihilated with poisons became torn bits of flesh in barbed wires. When the grid had nearly covered the planet, it became a net scooping up those that couldn’t keep pace, piled them in like dying fish. Bemoaning their stench, they dumped them in landfills, burying them alive like bulldozed gopher tortoises. As the glaciers melted the net expanded, rerouting nature, amassing and depositing debris. Oceans of messages collided on cellular waves their text scrambled in hyper-abbreviations. The net sagged with the burden of those who had outlived their usefulness. 19
Weathervanes Jason Gordon The lady in the moon looks pissed. The clouds of her breath chase cars into the lake. The salmon swim backwards * The future is broken Fighter jets disguised as geese assume their checkmark formation The clouds sink like battleships into the grass O say can you pee, laughs my inner-child, peeing Not so funny to the outer-child, prostate swollen, back hair gathering frost A rose of butter hardens The beehives die, the snails ask questions * My eye isn’t naked, it wears tiny shoes. It dances all night in a puddle of merlot. Not drunk, not a stone with quartz teeth biting the dentist. This isn’t a love poem. The TV is off, the screen is a mirror. The dead leap from clouds shaped like airliners— falling bodies of rain * I hate rain. I sink through hours of darkness, passing only the occasional neon jellyfish. My bed lands on the moon, the moon lands on my bed. It doesn’t matter. A cloud coughs down the door. I weep, pull a dark quilt of porn over my eyes. The dog eats me. Showers melt the town I grew up in: the idiot weatherman, his umbrella 20 opening, closing itself at will
Beneficiary Rosie Picone Toothpaste. “Excuse me?” “What brand and type of toothpaste do you use?” That’s how it began. I find it slightly humorous that it will also find its mildly fruitful end in much the same manner. The moment we met in that godforsaken, prototypical, and highly unremarkable neighborhood bar was little more than a momentary lapse in judgment. I prefer to chalk it up to the drunken stupor I have become so well acquainted with. The bar tender, Mike (or was it Ike? Maybe it was Keith.), was working his usual Wednesday night shift and providing me with my usual Wednesday night tequila-straightno-chaser buzz when the homely man I now call my husband sat down on the stool next to mine. There were plenty of other vacant stools and chairs and even a couch, so I was rather irritated when he insisted on forcing his way into my personal space. However, he bought me a shot of tequila so I opted to endure his presence. That’s when he opened his mouth to deliver the worst pickup line in world history. Really, who inquires into a person’s dental hygiene upon meeting them? Burt would. With such an odd inquiry, I presumed him to be a dentist or at the very least a dental hygienist. Burt is neither. Burt works the line in a toothpaste factory. Burt operates the machine that screws the caps onto the tubes. Burt takes great pride in his work and talks of nothing more. A few shots later, I decided to take Burt home with me. Naturally, he insisted on examining my tube of toothpaste before things progressed any further. Upon his satisfaction with whatever it was he saw about the tube, things did indeed progress. Our night of fornication was as unexceptional as Burt himself and was better
left forgotten. Yet I had not accounted for the man’s persistent demeanor. Believe me, I tried ignoring his calls the first three days, wondering at what point I gave him my telephone number. On the fourth day, being perhaps a larger mistake than sleeping with him, I answered the phone in a fit of frustration. Rather than requesting I accompany him to dinner and a movie, Burt asked if I would take a short holiday with him. Intrigued for what would be the first and only time in our two years together, I accepted. That following weekend we went to a small town in northern Tennessee that would be better off disowned by the whole of America. No, better blasted off the earth entirely. This backwoods town is arguably famous as the birthplace of the founder of Burt’s toothpaste company. I would describe this “holiday” more in-depth, fortunately I have managed to almost entirely block it out of my memory much like a victim who has suffered through a traumatic event. Again, Burt’s persistent demeanor overwhelmed me and I continued to see him. For such a simple-minded man, Burt quickly discovered the means to my heart by providing me with an endless supply of tequila. So when he proposed three nearly insufferable months later, I in my intoxicated state, agreed. Since I had nothing better to do, as my appointment with my hair dresser was canceled, we went to the courthouse the following Tuesday and were wed by a tiny little man with a beard too full and too long for his tiny little frame. Here Burt and I are, two years of wedded tolerance. Burt has been a decent man to me. He never raises his voice, he has no opinions on anything other than dental hygiene so disagreements are non-existent in our relationship (barring I forget to floss), and he always comes home at acceptable hours. I suppose it would be unreasonable to hope for 21
much else in these socially expected practices. There is no doubt in my mind that the success (naturally, I use this term loosely) of our relationship lies solely in my disposition on life. I’m a realist. “Good head on her shoulders. Real down to earth girl”, my father said about me the first time I met him. Actually he said it about my half-sister, but some magazine whose cover featured a beaker-toting man said those sorts of things are hereditary. Love exists. It does. As I’ve stated, I’m a realist, so I’m not delusional enough to believe it’s like the “love” on the soap operas I watch while Burt’s at work so diligently putting caps on toothpaste tubes. It’s more like one of those “Magic Eye” pictures where you have to squint and half way cross your eyes to see the image. Love is Burt caring enough to make me the sole beneficiary on the new life insurance plan his company is offering. “It’s half of one year’s pay! And it’s completely free of charge! It’s so wonderful that a big company like that would care about all the little people who work there by ensuring our families will be taken care of when we’re gone”, he said one night over a box of left over pizza. Realists don’t cook. “Really, I feel so much better knowing my little Sugar Cookie won’t have to worry about money after I die”, he continued.
pay makes a beautiful three dimensional image on the page. With what he’s worth, I could buy a gently used SUV, like the one the woman next door owns. We chat outside every afternoon about the day’s soap opera drama. With my gently used SUV, we could talk about our vehicles too. Or I could make a sizeable down payment on a brand new mid-range sedan, though that wouldn’t be much of a conversational piece with the neighbor. With half of Burt’s yearly pay, I could buy a large diamond ring. I would show it off to the neighbor lady. She would silently stare at my finger and envy my ring while we discussed which woman had an affair with which doctor/ lawyer on television that morning. She could never have a ring like that with all those kids in the house. One of them would undoubtedly sell it for drug money. The diamond would be so large that the ring would come with one of those little people—like the kind they show on the family network dealing with various adversities—to hold my hand up. Society really does exploit those little people. Love’s not easy. Even the delusional romantics know that. It takes work, patience, and a set of sharp knives. Unfortunately, the “sharp knives” part poses a bit of a problem. Damn outsourcing and cheaply made knives. Burt’s thick skull would bend the ones in the kitchen.
“This really is a wonderful thing the company is doing.”
I’m not without common sense. I know smothering him with his pillow is an option. I did consider it, but Burt has issues with his sweat glands and he would surely sweat profusely during the suffocation process. I would hate for his stench to stain and ruin the pillow case. It’s a really lovely case that matches the 200 thread count sheets quite nicely.
Now squinty and half cross-eyed, I’ve been formulating a means to give love a little nudge in the right direction. Half of Burt’s yearly
The other day I decided to treat Burt with some homemade lemonade. He told me it tasted like bitter almonds and wouldn’t drink it. I called
“I get a little too intoxicated and eat two twelve count boxes of large sugar cookies ONCE, and now I’m ‘Sugar Cookie’?”
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him an ungrateful bastard. He sheepishly apologized, but still wouldn’t drink his arsenic lemonade. This leads me to my current brilliant plan. Arsenic is hard to come by. I had to buy it from an obese man with pit stains. I’ll bet Burt’s life insurance that arsenic man’s wife can’t smother him with his pillow either. So I couldn’t let the leftovers go to waste. I’ve thrown all but one of the toothpaste tubes in the medicine cabinet away. The one remaining has been laced with the lemonade leftovers and awaits Burt’s nightly oral hygiene ritual. Bitter almonds won’t keep Burt from brushing his teeth. It had better not, at least. Creating poison toothpaste was more difficult than making a poison beverage.
“What the hell are you doing?” “I’m going to stay at my mother’s for awhile. I think I’ve got some soul searching to do. I love you but I just can’t live like this. I never thought our marriage would end like this. I thought we’d always be together. You think you know someone…”, he trailed off. “What are you talking about?!” “The toothpaste.”
“Sugar Cookie?” “Don’t call me Sugar Cookie.” “Sugar Cookie…” “If you’re going to complain about the toothpaste like you did the lemonade, you might consider a trip to the doctor. Don’t they say you taste bitter almonds before you have a stroke?” “Sugar Cookie…” Burt ever so slowly walked into the bedroom holding my toothpaste creation. Damn it. I thought this one was fail proof. The man must really have a thing against bitter almonds. “You left the lid off of the toothpaste and it’s been squeezed from the middle. I told you in the beginning of our relationship how that makes me feel.” Burt continued his melodramatic gait as he laid the toothpaste container on our night stand. He then made his way to the closet where he pulled out a suitcase. 23
Mera Green Haathi (My Green Elephant) Sonia Cheruvillil Hanging from its tail on the coat nail, smudged into a tattered knob, I found it again the other day. The green elephant that used to sit on our window sill and watch us have sex. Every night for three months, it would sit next to our bed -- a preening green at the time --- and watch us, mouth open, trunk quivering. Eyes oblong, dark circles --- surprised, it would frequently climb down and try to join. More than once, I would find it lodged between our bodies, squashed and blushing. I would always take the time to put it back first, before going back to brushing your hair and kissing your face. Our four-legged peeping Tom. Our own, personal pervert. We made jokes about it. We demanded to know why it looked so innocent every time its trunk tickled my back and nudged your breast when you were expecting the tip of my tongue and I was expecting yours. Instead I would feel a furry softness that would make me giggle inside your surprised mouth. And for you, it would make the skin around the nipple pucker, inviting me to take you into my mouth. We wanted to know how it is that we repeatedly found it thus, shameless. Riding our wave, tumbling with our rhythm until we were obliged to make it a part of our bodies, let it play a role in our story. It had no partner, of course. There was your over-sized watch sitting next to it, uninterested and ticking its disapproval. On the far corner of the window sill was my prim, white ring box -- chipped, it had a faded pink orchid painted on the top. Pretty, but alas, no rings inside. Just cushion, empty of any promises or proposals. After all, my green elephant was only a small, furry stuffed animal --- eternally surprised by its own sexuality, its ache. So in desperation, it looked to us humans to caress its trunk and play with its long, harmlessly soft teeth that knew how to prick nonetheless. 24
And of course, it liked to watch. It liked to watch the humans dancing below. We knew it got turned on by our sweat, our gasping need for each other. Paavum. Poor thing. How does one live without making love every night, lying in your lover’s arms, sighing into their neck? It was therefore understandable that the green elephant would leap to the chance, and press itself onto our bodies, interrupt our rituals. We never thought to put it away, turn it around, leave us in our peace. We were generous with our lovemaking. We had learned to see each other’s bodies as geographical spaces, not biology -- your bellybutton told me I was home. In our bodies, we chartered not only each other’s pleasure, but also our own. I came to know your lobes by the one silver loop hooked through your ear. I know how your earrings taste. The familiar, metal taste signaled for me how to reach a place that let me hear you suck in your breath. Sharp, as if you cut yourself on my skin which has become warm and shiny. I know what to do when I hear it. I know to wait until I hear it. I know it is time to make you writhe. That sound is how I know to touch your nipples softly while I kiss the dip of your pelvic bone. A chaste kiss, using only my lips. My tongue comes later. And that too unexpectedly. In the middle of kissing you, I will tire of your discourteous mouth and my tongue will want the inside of limbs, softer more yielding skin. Damn you, I know what you look like when you come. Eyes shut, mouth surprised. I know the profundity of your post-coital fugue state. So does my green elephant. We hold this information furtively, guarded in our knowledge.
The day you left me, I threw the green elephant at you. It fell, shocked, on its side --- unused to us looming above it. Its legs thrown up in defense. I pleaded with you and said, “Please, I cannot keep this and I cannot throw it away. Take it from me.” I said, “Please don’t go.” My green elephant heard me beg, heard me fall on my knees, heard me break. When you grabbed it off the floor, it hid inside your pants pocket, stuffed with fear. For weeks after my green elephant stopped watching us make love, I would remember it and cry deep into the night. My grief was an open, raw wound for all to see, to look away from --- to cringe at. By the time, you owned the green elephant alone, without me in your life, it had lost its bright green color and had become a gray, dingy thing. Its fur was no longer smoothed down daily. No one spoke to it. You looked away every time you saw it, and it wasn’t uncommon for you to stack books or tea-kettles carelessly on top, hiding it from view. Ashamed of its puzzled vertigo. It could never quite stand on its own four feet anymore, it had to lean on walls like a fake elephant.
You did. Some time later, I came to own my green haathi again. Hanging forlornly from a nail, I took it down and greeted it with care. I tried to pry straight its trunk and its coiled tail. “Hi, my friend” I was glad to see that it still held inside all of our shared secrets. But I stopped myself from asking what was new. I could tell from its shining eyes that I wouldn’t want to know.
Much later, unable to bear it any longer, I called you and made my demands. I wanted my green elephant back. Abruptly, cruelly, you said, you didn’t know where it was. Back bent, trunk folded up, I imagined it lying --- forgotten under some too-heavy sofa cushion misshaping its too-soft teeth. Crazed, I screamed over and over again. I was being unreasonable. You tried to tell me. It’s only an elephant, stop this drama, this natak. I couldn’t. I shook at the thought of it lying discarded on top of dirty laundry or used dishes or worse, terribly alone in the corner of some empty room --- out of place and lost. You better find it. 25
Deep Hollows Olivia Lin DeLuca Crashing into the deep grave, she lies in wait. He walks away retreating into an empty cave hovering over her, like a weighty shadow. The mounds of caress ache and moan. Covering up her daggers of lightning, frightening the stranger. He breaks into a run. He follows into the infinite wailing wretchedness evading the wonders of the tranquil breathing darkness. Ice waters, chill air, he sinks, slipping away with pallid streaks across his face. He can see this girl. He can still feel the panic in her eyes screaming from within. He can almost touch the fear. In the tattered fabric of the rip-filled smoky gleam of yesterday, his laughter penetrates through reopening wounds. The purple scenery blushes. She twists his mouth into an abandonment forgotten in the cackle of day parades. He’s fallen far into the ditch. Tossed aside, she swallows. The cancer peels at his fingers. The cyanide eats into his hairs, singeing the lashes of his face.
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Writing On Walls John Murphy What do you do when a woman you fancy, a woman you don’t know but would like to phone anyway saying you don’t know me but I’d like to take you out, says, in your mind, no thanks I’ve got a boyfriend thanks? What do you do when a woman you wouldn’t hover over the phone for, saying its now or never nor think of as a special lover above friendship, shows those unmistakable signs of lust, whose eyes take on the oval round shape you’ve imagined yours take on when you look at a woman you fancy and yearn for? What do you do when meeting a woman whose beauty confuses you, makes your voice warble and swallow itself, and, pretending to cough one of those earnest, fist to the mouth, slightly intellectual type of coughs to cover, you know you’ve blown it? What do you do when you meet a woman whose effect on you is fair to middling on the Richter scale of attraction, whose words make no promises but hint at allure, whose eyes betray nothing beyond their colour, that somewhere ahead of the space between us future happiness and hard times make you think as she talks, turning her head from her good side to her bad, yes, no, yes, well perhaps? What do you do when meeting that beauty, stumbling into her eyes with a hint of nervousness she flows through and over you shimmering your life into recognition, takes her fondness for you to the verge of love then leaves you in a world that melts and flies off in all directions? But what do you do when, worse still, it just becomes too much and all you can do is spread words across a page so that strangers, someone you know even, will say of them yes, no, yes, well perhaps?
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Weep For Me Nick Wallace Far to long It has been the same, Constant degradation And Ignorant views Down this endless hazed pathway My thoughts become uncertain You speak of equality Yet you break me down Like a prisoner of war Making me feel inept I wait for the day Of Confrontation Standing up against the world You have brought against me Bringing you, crashing down O’ weep for me The bittersweet sorrow That falls from your eyes O’ weep for me The painful tears I have ripped from your soul
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Tad Waller: Drink Chun-a-lug Hal Wert The hardest thing for those who love alcoholics or drug addicts is to accept that from the addicts’ point-of-view you are nothing but a grey shadow on the wall, you’re invisible. There’s no elephant in the room, there’s only THEIR HABIT. If you won’t enable them, somebody else will. Others are simply a means to an end. The medical profession posits that addiction is a disease, but the drinker, Tad thought, still might have choice no matter how hard that might be. Maybe it’s a matter of will. But that explanation was more likely just wish fulfillment on the part of those in relationships with drunks. Mexicans say, El borracho no vale, no senor. End of story. Self-destruction though can be an exciting ride, but in the end there is only a miserable death—likely a goal. For god sakes look at Hank Williams, the dumb bastard had it all, and tell me, tell me, how did it end? He died in some pathetic gas station parking lot in West Virginia, Union ’76, in the back of his Cadillac or something, on his way to another night of booze, women and a terrible hangover. Writers and entertainers by the dozen crashed and burned, alcohol, drugs, and both were better together, like a wonderfully poison marriage that would kill the couple and take down half of those around them, children and all. Shit, bodies everywhere. Tad’s profound thoughts were interrupted by a green sign momentarily caught in the headlights of his FJ, “rest stop two miles ahead.” Thank god, the Pennsylvania Turnpike nearly always seemed the longest road in the world. In the winter time it was more like a toboggan run. At the end, so many lanes poured out into that little town of New Stanton that it created a great deal of confusion, at least for Tad who called the exit the New Stanton horror. Twice before he had been so tired after fifteen hours or so on the road that he missed the I-70 entrance and had driven half way to Cleveland before
he realized his mistake. He’d spent the night in Canton and he rationalized his fuck up by claiming that it had given him an opportunity to visit McKinley’s tomb. Tad had visited dozens of the birthplaces and graves of American presidents. It gave him pleasure. “But, no mistakes, not tonight damn it, no mistakes.” Woozy, he stopped for coffee and directions. Outside the Seven-Eleven a disheveled middle aged man was slumped against the stacks of “on sale” Pepsi and Coke, drunk and passed out, a brown paper sacked wrapped around a pint in one hand and an open can of Dr. Pepper in the other that he’d spilled all over his pants. What remained of the twenty-three favors was slowly dripping on to the concrete. At least Tad thought the wet spot was the Dr. Pepper. At 2:30 in the morning almost no one was in the place. Tad hit the john, rule number one for men over fifty; never ever miss a chance to pee. The restroom was messed up, a few paper towels strewn about, a dirty sink, a full trash can, and those depressing rubber machines that all heralded how for just four quarters you could “enhance her pleasure” with the “new pre-lubricated and ribbed super slider.” Jesus!— a super slider. He always wondered who tested those things out at the prophylactic factory and how you got the job. Probably beats teaching. Back in the food aisle Tad thought about a big can of Vienna Sausages, but instead fixed a hotdog from the rotisserie, squirted on a little mustard, poured a large black coffee and picked up a can of shoestring potatoes. Good health is everything! At the counter he asked about the drunk. “What about that guy out there?” “Oh, he’s out there two or three nights a week. He’s, he’s usually gone by sun up.” Tad, momentarily spun a vampire fantasy but continued, “even in the winter?” The young man in a Penn State tee-shirt didn’t answer. As Tad walked out the door he thought, you know, maybe it works 29
both ways. We don’t see the addicted anymore than they see us. I guess we’re invisible to one another. There’s no elephant in the room, just blind people, people whose pain forced them to give up seeing. Some, like Oedipus, voluntarily poked their eyes out in search of relief. What did that negative cocksucker Freud say, “the goal of therapy was to turn unbearable pain into everyday misery.” Tad mused, “yeah, yeah, but it’s the fucking pain.” Alertly, he pulled into the I-70 entrance. It was only about an hour to Washington, PA and a goodnight’s sleep.
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Consequences Miles Lizak He couldn’t hear himself think over the sound of his own heartbeat. It echoed off the bare, concrete walls that were always too close. The ceaseless, desperate pounding drowned out everything else - if there had ever been anything else... he couldn’t quite remember. Breath came and went without relinquishing an ounce of oxygen or providing any refreshment. His chest rose and fell out of habit more than anything. The latest exhale rattled off the walls of the room that he wished was as empty as it looked.
from happening. He was the only one.
His aching tongue ventured over his lips, feeling the dryness of his own mouth. There was no use trying to alleviate it, or to remedy the sandpaper texture that had taken up residence in his corneas. It was a waste of time.
If only they knew how much they owed to him, they wouldn’t admonish him for all the time he spent in this place. They would not dare talk to him about responsibilities if they knew of the weight he carried on his shoulders. They would plead with him to make the right decision, and when he did they would grovel before him and thank him, their savior, on bended knee.
And time was precious. The clock was ticking. His own body beat out every second, and as each one passed it fell on him like another stone dropped onto his shoulders. He was sure he could hear his spine creaking under the weight of each minute. He could feel the white-washed walls smirking at the knots that clutched the muscles of his back. No, there was no time to waste, no time at all. Swollen, bloodshot eyes stared back at him from his reflection, distorted by the dents in the metal table that lurked silently just at waist height. He clamped his eyes shut, took another trembling breath, and forced himself to look down at what the gleaming steel presented to him. He was the only one. They had said so, just before they had stripped him naked and thrown him shivering through the door to his perfectly unique prison. Few people could see what he saw there. Fewer still could see it and remain sane enough to act upon it, to prevent the worst
Sometimes, on the rare occasions he was allowed a free thought, the idea that he was special wriggled its way to the surface of his mind. If the rest of the world only knew what he was doing... if they only understood the sacrifices he was making for them... They would call him a hero for the things he did, and a watchful god for the all-important vigil he kept every minute of every day.
But no, that was Wrong. Such thoughts gave the impression that he had some kind of power. He was not special. He was not important. All that was important was that he keep things going. Everything must be Right. He was just a cog in an immense, unfathomable machine. The tiny piece of it that he could see was laid out on the cold metal table in front of him. Now it was up to him. A bead of icy sweat rolled down the back of his neck as he fought to remember the rules that the man, now nameless and faceless in his memory, had rattled off to him. He had said... Or was it...? There were so many of them, and he had spoken so fast, in such an uncompromising monotone. It was more than a human mind could possibly catalogue. But he remembered what would happen if he failed. He bit his lip with the effort of sifting through the minefield of half-faded words and sensations until he tasted warm salt. If he slipped up, if he forgot... So he had to remember. 31
But of course, the rules were subject to change, just like everything else. Except the consequences of failure, which were coldly and cruelly constant, and the steady ticking of the clock no one could hear.
A wail of anguish in an unfamiliar voice escaped his throat as he drove his hand forward and crushed it against the part of the machine. For a moment, he dare not move, even enough to open his eyes.
It took every ounce of strength to force his eyes to focus on the problem laying in front of him. It seemed to stare back up at him accusingly, daring him to make the wrong choice. The cold air would condense against his skin, heated by boiling blood and muscles beneath burning with the effort involved in simply keeping him from swooning. He wasn’t sure where the blood in his body was going, after so quickly draining from his hands and face.
Then, the entire room seemed to exhale softly, and he could feel everything settle back into its proper place. The machine blinked happily up at him. He let himself exhale with it, taking in air for the first time in what felt like ages. It was done. A feeling of immense freedom drifted up inside him as he straightened up and allowed his jaw to unclench. He could feel the walls parting for him, and smell the outside air pouring in through the cracks. He drank it in.
Time was running out.
Suddenly, his basking was interrupted by a low, grinding sound from in front of him. As quickly as it had come, the air swept out of the room, scurrying away before the walls could again draw shut behind it. An invisible hand clenched over his stomach as the sound grew louder and closer.
He was unaware of how violently his hands were trembling until he raised one of them over the dreaded table. Fluorescent light highlighted the bones jutting from skin drawn taut with the strain. His brow knit into a grimace as he looked down at the twisted shadow it cast over the wretched device. There, squinting down at the horror before him, he suddenly realized the truth. There was no right answer, no such thing as success. The pit dropped out of his stomach as it dawned on him that the best he could possibly do was to stave off the worst for another day. No matter what he chose, there was no winning. There was only survival, if it could even be called that. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe. Harsh voices shouted from the walls, which had begun to spin sickeningly. He was going to pass out. No, he couldn’t, he mustn’t... The worst was looming, closer and closer, and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt now, that there was no way out. 32
The table in front of him churned, swallowing the calmly blinking device he had tamed. There was a dull clunk, and then silence. In its place on the cold, unforgiving metal, sat another - perfectly identical.
Another One Chad Beattie Another poem, another tortured stem. My hands are only tools, vessels of my soul, placed rhythmically inlined with the beatings of my already dead heart rodents gnawing away on other rodents; men steaming away in their offices. Young boys using their hands as vessels, as tools, striking others; striking lovers; tattooing the curve of their fists into the unconscious minds a room is where I was meant to be. A room with low lights, with white walls, white carpets, instruments, books, coffee rings on tables. Wishing to live again, wishing to laugh, I can only succumb to who I am and how I was meant to live, floating idly among the wandering, drifting souls, among the dead leaves, the sewer cats, the dirty showers and unclogged sinks show me the way I have lost it show me your freckles I wish to know light leaves, heavily, dawn ensues, dusk climbs the ranging mountains, the deadly games that flowers play 33
Language of Arm Hair Karin Mitchell I hear my eyelashes blink against the pillow case flit, flit eyes wide as I listen hard in the thick silence. See, when I was six, a man came in my house beat silence into time-out corners. In a quiet so dangerous arm hairs have a language on sheets and eyelashes scream even when you don’t And it’s not so much that I’m angry as flipping coins in and out of slot machines pump like drugs in and out of veins; hearts; brains. Chemicals changing so quickly I’m not sure which line I’m on getting off the subway car. Staggering… catching my balance, my mind you in your powerful uniform I want to pull that seal up over your head like a hockey jersey and beat the quiet away with the butt of your own gun. I want power over the quiet over me and my loud eyelashes I rise & stand before the mirror smiling as I snip them off.
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Barren Monica Lugo My heart is silent no death but emptiness. No feelings. No happiness. No sorrow. No nothing. How did I get this way? What brought on my self lonesomeness? Voices sound all over. I hear nothing. I should feel hastened by a preset pace, but I freeze. I cannot hurry. Like quick sand has taken hold, and will not let go. Every person moves with unending energy. Why? When I have none. Slowed by so many things. I cannot decide. What is real?
Go home. I’m the puppet and my life is my master. How do I escape it? Death? Too dramatic Run away? I’m not brave enough I have no escape, just regret. Each day will pass and my life will go with it. I am Sisyphus with no roll time. No time for me as I chase my rock. But the worst is yet to come, my life has been short. I am young. I still have time. I dread the time before I see the light. As I pray for salvation or damnation, anything to end this unfeeling plight. Something save me before I die If I live on my puppet strings I want to die released from my life’s unrelenting master.
The blurs of what they used to be talk around me; living their lives as mine stops. How so I do stop it? Do I rise from the depths? Only a temporary solution. It never lasts. All of them on the outside looking in on me like microscope. They ask, “Are you ok?” What do I say, “No I haven’t felt anything for weeks and I don’t know why, but hey lets hang out on Saturday” I doubt that would satisfy their prying eyes. It would only wet their appetites to my misery if that is its proper name. Everyday the same route Get up, go to school, go to work, 35
Behind The Lines Steve De France He lies on his side, eyes open--- watching. They don’t focus---his gray eyes just watch you. Hugging the legs of an L.A. bus bench, his arms are tangled around the iron in an unnatural way. Naked legs thrust out onto the sidewalk. Most people walk around. A few step over. The bench back above him is an advertisement. (maybe for him a bomb shelter).It has a picture of a fat black man. He looks well fed. Above him in red letters are the words: ATTORNEY LARRY H. PARKER GOT ME TEN MILLION. In small letters a disclaimer. It states each case is unique. And as in life, there are no guarantees. A bus hisses & thunders to a stop. An Indian or Pakistan woman is lowered off in a wheel chair. Her chair can’t roll over the man. He blocks her sidewalk. She screams. Brown & black faces gather to poke & punch the guy. He groans. A Los Angeles police car shows up. Two cops. A white female, a black male. Politically correct. Suspicion swells---the crowd stops chattering & scatters. Half don’t have identity papers. Others are inherently afraid of any police. The police guy’s very short, the female’s unusually tall. I imagine them as lovers. The cops sit the guy up. He starts coughing. Suddenly he pukes on the female officer’s leg. They stand him up against the wall at Washington & Grand. traffic’s tangling around them, for a minute I thought they might shoot him. Suddenly the man stands to attention and says: “Is this Baghdad? Am I under arrest? What are the charges? I am Corporal Jones serial# 2YUSMC…” The small cop says, “It’s OK, soldier. Almost gently---he touches his shoulder. “There are no charges.” The female reads his rights & with rubber gloves leads him toward the police unit. They drive off without conviction. They’ll leave him somewhere behind the lines--where no one cares too much, maybe Chinatown. 36
Wending Wall Sy Roth Brobdingnagian black wall, Guernica aspirant, ebon-fusty relic cloaking screams, dressed in terror sweat, bête noire encased in its inky interior. dreadful scowls splash their faces when they concede to it. a millennium-long, bone-weary blotch of dystopian dreams. borne away in liquid moments, only to return, and wait, prodded erect in front of bespattered wall, pungent iron comingled with chlorine, overshadowed by the distinct stench of disquietude— windowless, impervious black hole, crackling electric sense of expectancy howls of incredulity vibrate the air turbulently like a tsunami, tectonic movement shifting and grinding parts one against the other, frenzied lovers who rest without expectation of climax. wend our way there ad infinitum.
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Don’t Think Too Much Mallory Ewer-Speck It’s a long drive they used to say And who knows if it’s true. But I’d say, if anything, it’s longer if you’re thinking. Keep in mind that the past does not exist. Neither does the future. Yes, that one blindsided me one Saturday afternoon driving in the car with Kieran. Regurgitated it from his pot-smoking English teacher. Don’t dream, and don’t put up those Hallmark “Live Your Life” “Dream & Breath” magnets on your refrigerator. Don’t worry that your thoughts make you younger than you actually are. Don’t worry that you worry that you are the only one who worries about living a mediocre life. Also, don’t panic when you can’t feel your limbs. They really are quite unnecessary except maybe for folding laundry.
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He was Chipper I was Beedrill Alex England As I stood at the counter waiting for the coffee pot to fill, spreading margarine on my toast, I realized that I could never imagine myself leaving the apartment again. I sat the toast down on a napkin. Walked back to my bed. Flung back the covers. And slid back under the heavy down comforter, back into the warmth. And I was happy. Those first few seconds under the covers were the one feeling we truly desire. There was nothing more I could ever ask for. This is what I wanted, I thought, this was it. Why was the world so cold? So ghastly, so decrepit, so terminally doomed, so dogmatic, so feral, so warm under my covers? I slept. I rubbed my eyes a few times to clear my view. Punched the button on my phone. Not as much time had passed as I felt it had. What a wonderful feeling! I shoved the phone under the pillow. The next time I awoke it finally came with the restlessness that gets me flopping from one side to the other. The way a butterfly feels when it knows it’s time to crack open the cocoon. So I got up feeling like a Beedrill. Plus the coffee was already made so that always makes it a little easier to arise. Caffeined Beedrill finished the half eaten piece of cold buttered toast, chewing with his mouth open because his nose was stuffy. Knock knock knock I opened the door and a young man stood there. He was chipper. I was Beedrill. Hello sir do you have just a couple of minutes to spare? he asked.
today’ you would have really missed out on your salvation. Alright, well that’s good, come in and have a seat, I told him. Here is all the paper work we’ll just get ya all set up here. Just a few X’s here, and….here, and here. Sign there, yep, yeah, eh, yes that’s it. Great! Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting with you today Mr. Beedrill. I’m glad we could get everything squared away on your afterlife policy. If you ever have any problems just let me know and I’ll get it taken care of right away for ya there. Yeah, no problem, thanks for coming, bye, I said. I walked him to the door and fiddled with the lock for a second before getting the door open, I didn’t even remember locking it last time I shut it but finally got it open as we both awkwardly faked smiles and laughs. I told him to have a nice day, he bid me the same and I closed the door behind him. I sat back on the couch, opened up my laptop, laughed at a few meme pictures on reddit. com/r/atheism, then I refilled my coffee mug. This time I added a little cream and sugar to it since I was wide awake now. I fired up the Gameboy Color emulator on my laptop and resumed my game of Pokemon Red. Damn, Beedrill was only at level 37. How the hell was I supposed to beat Blaine on Cinnabar Island? I need to train him up a few levels before even considering taking him on. But Beedrill is in no mood for that I don’t think. So I closed my laptop.
Of course I do, I said. Ok good because I’m God and if you would have said ‘no I don’t have a couple minutes to spare 39
Dream Harvest Katherine Thurmond Clark Kaley McKee was hired for her constitution. The general floor manager had seen two other sympathetic types come and go, both leaving with the idea that they had exacted some kind of justice upon the company. They seemed to forget that the things they enjoyed every day were only possible because of the work they did. The manager was himself a bit perturbed by the condition of the Imagineers, but since he saw no other option, he deemed it necessary. Civilized society was possible only if things went on the way they were, and changing them seemed like too much trouble. So he hired Kaley, fresh out of university, because he didn’t anticipate any issues from her. Kaley had been working for six months. It was long enough that she didn’t feel the need to appear busy all the time, so in between cleanings and feedings, she would sit in the office and rest. The Editors usually didn’t come in until four, working all night to prepare the next day’s showings. This was the only reason she brought out her notebook that Tuesday. As she wrote, she felt herself relax, felt the gentle excitement in her throat at seeing her images converted into words. What she wrote was rarely “real”; it was the same sort of thing the Imagineers saw. Kaley often wondered how her thoughts would look, up on those screens, pouring out of her, while the Editors hacked and shaped them into an understandable stream. Would people watch? Would they like it? Or would she be the channel people kept on in the background while they folded laundry? Kaley glanced up through the office window. The sterile, blue glow from the lights cast a peaceful air on the hundreds of booths laying head to toe that filled the building. To Kaley, they looked like white coffins. The coffins of purist martyrs, or maybe soldiers of some future battle. All perfectly clean, white, pearlescent. Kaley could have been inside one of those. She had fallen for the lie. 40
The first time she saw the Imagination Machine, it was an exciting day. She was thirteen. The whole school knew what it meant to be chosen: that you were the best and most creative of your class. Everyone wanted to be the special one. Kaley even prayed about it, though her parents didn’t believe in God. To be an Imagineer meant your life was galvanized; you could spend the entirety of your years doing what you loved. Never having to work. Being praised for the greatness of your mind. The day before the Machine came, all the students were made to write a story or draw a picture. They were given stiff, starched paper, something they’d heard about but never used. Many children found the pens given out hard to use, that the process of dragging them along the paper was difficult and messy. A few had never been taught to write, and whined that the test should be typed. Only two students in Kaley’s class turned anything in. Kaley wrote a story, and Caki Buckthal drew a picture. Kaley knew she would win. She knew she could imagine better than anything that was streaming those days. Her dreams were much greater. She certainly didn’t want Caki Buchthal to win, Caki got everything. Kaley wrote exactly what came into her head, just the way she pictured it. It wasn’t hard. Words spilled from her fingers as visions flooded through her. Her mind was usually filled with images. They bustled and clamored within her like storm clouds. She didn’t need the TV to see them; she couldn’t stand to be hooked in like everyone else. Neither did her parents. She’d been to her friends’ houses, seen their parents sitting and watching whatever was streaming at the time. Some liked certain channels. Some just watched. Her friends often sat for long hours, staring at the screen, forgetting to speak. Kaley sometimes wondered if they couldn’t see things the way she did, in their heads. When she told people her
dreams, they seemed confused, surprised. But she wasn’t supposed to talk about her dreams. Her father had warned her. The next day, the whole school assembled to see their contributions fed to the Machine. Kaley stood in the back, but she was tall for her age, so she could just see the principal walk up to the Machine, holding the thick papers. The Machine itself was impressive. It was as tall as the principal, cylindrical, with a slit in the front that looked like a mouth. Someone had painted eyes above the opening, big friendly looking, puppydog eyes. When the principal fed the machine, strange and wonderful sounds issued out. The papers were sifted into two trays. When the machine was done, he reached for the smaller pile.
Kaley learned what happened, how they had gotten the story. That day her father gave her a journal, a small, black book. She found her father’s journal years later, and her mother’s years after that. The one her father gave her had one hundred pages. “This is where you put your stories,” he told her. “Try to write one for every page.” Over the years, Kaley had gone through four. Her fifth journal she brought to work . Her fifth was different than the others. It had dark in it. Her mind had turned dark recently. Her fifth was the one Erik found.
Kaley’s hands had been clammy. One seventh grader. It had to be her.
“What’s this?” Erik asked, holding it up. He was early. Editors weren’t supposed to be in for another hour. Kaley had left it in plain sight while she was on second feeding rounds. She cursed herself for it now. How could she be so stupid. She froze in the doorway, her eyes on Erik’s face. She wouldn’t look at the journal. Perhaps she could say it wasn’t hers.
“From sixth grade, Marcus Makey. From seventh grade, Caki Buckthal…”
Erik brought it to his face, peering at the writing. She realized he was holding it upside down.
Kaley hadn’t heard the other name. Her breath had caught, her stomach clenched. It wasn’t fair. Caki got everything. This should have been hers. She wanted to go to the special high school. She was supposed to become an Imagineer. She could imagine better than anyone.
“It’s notes,” Kaley said. “So I can remember the order to feed the Imagineers. And if they have any allergies.”
“We have three finalists!” the principal burbled excitedly into the microphone. “I am very proud to say we have one eighth grader, one seventh grader, and one sixth grader.”
When she got home, her parents were waiting for her in the living room. They held her story in their hands. Her mother was crying. “Do you know what could have happened?” her mother sobbed. “What if they had read this?” “You must never, ever do anything like this again,” he father seethed. “When they test you, turn in nothing. When they ask you what you see in your head, tell them nothing.”
This seemed to be enough for Erik. He tossed the journal on the table, and Kaley fought the urge to run to it. Seeing it flung so flagrantly aside, it felt as if something inside of her had been torn out and set before her to look at. Erik sat at his station, turning his monitor on. Erik handled the violence channels, levels one through five. He seemed like the repressed type that would enjoy streaming these channels all day. He clicked open his live feed, but only one of his Imagineers was dreaming. While Erik was watching the screen, Kaley slipped her journal back into her pocket. 41
“It’s cool that you can handwrite,” Erik said, not glancing from the screen. “Why are you here so early?” Kaley asked, moving slowly to the door. “Halloween,” Erik chuckled. “People are going to be streaming on overdrive this week. I wanted to put together some extra stuff so none of my channels are blacked out.” He whistled at the screen, obviously seeing something whistle worthy. “I wish all my Imagineers had a brain like this guy. Hey Kaley, can you do me a favor?” He swiveled in his chair to look at her, tossing his bangs out of his eyes. “Can you give my Imagineers a double dose tonight? I want to make sure they’re all dreaming.” “No,” Kaley said immediately. “They have different tolerances, they could go into shock.” “C’mon, the last guy used to do it,” Erik pouted. Kaley said nothing, hoping he wouldn’t push it. Erik continued to stare at her, appearing to work something out. “You feel bad for them,” he stated. “No,” Kaley snapped. “They could leave if they wanted. They choose to be here. This is the life they chose.” Erik pressed his lips together, considering this. “I guess,” he said. “But I hear Mescalith is a hard drug to kick. You’re addicted from the first time you use it. They don’t tell them that the first time they go under. They don’t know they’re going to wake up with an addiction at the end of their contracts. And, I mean, you see the stuff they dream.” He revolved around in his chair to face the monitors again. One Imagineer was streaming a dream about some sort of animal with four legs running through thousands of trees. Nowhere in the world had that many real, live trees anymore.
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“If that was the world I lived in, I wouldn’t want to wake up either.” Erik continued to stare at the screen, hooked on the ethereal, vibrant green. Kaley watched for another minute, her breath caught at the beauty of the vision. She’d seen places like that in her dreams. Places that existed once, or would exist someday, or maybe never existed at all. She turned and clipped down the stairs to administer rounds. She always seemed to start at the same booth. She couldn’t help it. Kaley bent forward and pushed the lid up. Again, the vision of these beds as coffins flitted through her mind as she stared down at the sallow, emaciated body of Caki Buckthal. Tiny blue veins spiderwebbed beneath Caki’s papery skin, across her eyelids. Her eyes were moving rapidly. She was dreaming. Kaley checked the IV tubes, the feeder tubes, the monitor connections that covered Caki’s shaved head. She made sure the needles hadn’t slipped out, that there were no signs of internal bleeding. Then she inserted 750mg of Mescalith into the IV feeder and depressed. She imagined she heard Caki sigh with something like relief. Kaley closed the booth, sealing Caki away to her own world. As Kaley walked home that night, her shoes crushing trash along the sidewalk, her nose stinging from the smog, she thought about Caki. Caki who had been the victor. Caki who had spent the remainder of her school life studying art, painting, writing, reading, dreaming, while Kaley rode the tram to a crowded community college. Caki, who’s mind had blossomed while Kaley’s shriveled away, poured into pages of hidden notebooks. When she got into her apartment, her five roommates were hooked in to Caki’s channel. She was dreaming about the ocean.
Bats In the Attic Bruce Mcrae Up in the attic, nature struggling with the supernatural, the blood-mad poet writing with chain, the perfected dust of Alexandria. Up in the attic is time gnawing on the electrical cord, a mouse’s symbol for winter, a light-beam that’s been wandering for ages. Where we store the breath-coloured static and ravaged atoms of tears. Where we keep last season’s specters, footprints in time, blood in the footprints, a rogue angel waiting for nightfall, her black wing over a moon-ray slid between the latticed chinks, whose god is a false morning, whose god is a love that’s fossilized, heaven an unmined quarry, hell like a flood in the basement – another planet that’s said to exist. Next door to nowhere. To Babylon. Up in the attic is a shadow; or it might have been you in a previous lifetime, that worried fly not a fly at all but the voice a cinder is building. The suggestion of hands.
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A Visit Home Rebecca Remillard my grandfather, mother, and I sat at the edge of her bed, watching her die. waiting for her to die, the bedroom a church. ashen and sunken and seizing each breath, sucking them in, she lay, a squid under the blankets. just a head and long, long limbs tiny, the bones inside already abandoned ship. my grandfather rocked each palm clinging to the other arm’s elbow crying and rocking, a mother soothing a baby. if you have someone to love, you will suffer and if you don’t have someone to love, you will suffer too. but if you love someone too much, that’s really too bad. I stared at him as he cried, couldn’t stop staring. couldn’t stop feeling nothing as the entire room sank around me.
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Chords (A Diagram) Chris John When eyes are closed, notes are in full bloom. Strings are pulled in tedious fashion, Bending to the will of their Creators. A melodic life is born out of thought. Representative of beauty and grace, Ambassadors of rage and depression, The notes strike beyond ears. Hearing is no justification; Feeling is righteousness incarnate. Emotions are torn asunder as the harmony Constructs a new heart, a new essence. Enjoy the blissful existence now present. Reach out with every ounce of your breath; Grasp the orchestration that flows through your blood. You will never be more alive. You will never be more cognitive. You will never be more than you are now. These notes are messengers. These sounds are reverends. Fall into their congregation of beauty. Release your dreams into their realities. And breathe. And live.
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The Horn of Fog at Thirty Riley H Welcker I.
II.
I heard the noise of fog, first faint and still, almost if it were a whisper, a faint and tiny whisper, a noise, white noise, that broke across my left ear, first faint and still. It grew. It lengthened on the waves, rising ever rising, a wall of rising sound, a blast that started faint and still; then swelled, a well of wild, deep, and strong soft white lace that faded faint and still. It touched me, swiftly rolling over, tumbling over, humbling blue peaked waves that lapped and curled into my craft, sheets of clean white linen breaking from their cobalt blue to beat upon my bow, this dingy dinghy brain, this wrinkled raft of forehead, these loosely-knotted lines of wood, my storm-tossed brow, a wobbly wooden wafer, bobbing on the blue waves, in this rich white creamy fog of noise that rolls and tumbles.
I hear it once again. I hear it bowl toward me, first faint and still, as if it were a whisper, rising ever rising, swiftly rolling over, thunder wild, deep, and loud. Mild as milk, muffed as wool, spry as sheets, cold as snow, loud as clouds, dry as light, soft and deep as morning flight, white as sun-bright-fog-white. I hear it faint and still, I hear it rise and swell, I hear it hum and hale, it tickles my tummy, it wicks my earholes, a thrum, a mild whale. Deathly faint, I hear it; I hear its urgent swell. I’m haunted by these lapdog waves, this beastly smog, this fog, a forlorn horn. It’s noise unspools like thunder, dividing all asunder. And when I turn my head, it claps my left ear; hurls across my right. It moves across my watery tomb, this blasted silent white.
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Drinking Beer In A Phonebooth (Back When I Didn’t Give A Damn) Paul Gurreiri Gone are the nights of catching the late ferry, and drinking beer in a phonebooth. Waiting for the sun to rise, the first bus of the day to arrive. Trying to survive, on an hour of sleep in four days. Iced beer breakfast, Kurt, Chris and Dave keeping me company. Splashing music in my face, rocking me awake. Now, Phone booths are dodo, and the train is free. But, a cold Keystone and eggs reminds me of rubber legs, and intermittent blackouts. Lying flat on my back, swirling in a dynamic pattern. After five cyanide breath mints, and an orange juice and black rum. Teleported in a yellowcab, crawling under a “Security” gate, and hitting the rack. Gone are the days of taking orders, and unquenchable cravings that creep into the brain on the sixtieth day out to sea. Three decades in the flash of a strobe, and yet the glass is still nearly full. Even a pessimist cannot speed up time. I want to flaunt the law in a big way, but, I know I won’t. Such overt impish impulses are virtually tamed, but in the back of my brain there is a box with chains, and a white beast with crimson teeth. Claws click a cadence on the cold crate, as it stares at a picture of a phone booth, and sobs bloody tears, that drip red on the white. It drinks ice beer, and wishes to turn back the days, to when he and I ran hand in hand. Back when I didn’t give a damn.
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Regeneration Andres Montoya he can hear them in the other room, his mother scolding her daughter ‘you have to give more money, they’re gonna shut off the power.’ ‘you know i ain’t got no money, i had to buy stuff for the baby.’ he checks the door again for the last time and flips on the fan to drown out his breathing. his chest is already hurting, but he doesn’t care, it’ll be over soon. he looks into the bathroom mirror, past his long hair, past the black-grey bags under his eyes and concentrates on the dark center of a single socket that threatens to tell of a death he’s been dying for nineteen years. he snaps his eyes shut. He puts the pipe to his mouth, his lips taking the glass like a lover’s tongue as he strikes the lighter and looks past his tremendous nose along the thin line of a blackened tube and finally centers on the bowl stuffed brillo pad. from the bottom of his lungs he begins to pull as he puts fire to the stone and smell of a melted rock flowers in the large holes of his nostrils. he pulls and begins to lose his air like a shotgun blast. it’ll all be over soon, his mother begging God to kill her in the night, his sister rocking the child to a melody of gunfire. they all begin to fade, the cops begging his spick ass to move, the ragged clothes of his family, the whirling puddle of Jesús’ pooling blood, and even his own cowardice, him cowering before boys who beat Jesús dead. everything begins to fade in a haze of adrenalin and it’s over now, he can continue he is a man again as he exhales out the window the white smoke of his life. 48
After the Rapture Zachary Vaudo ... Where has everybody gone? Were they not just here beside me? I was sitting, sitting on the green bench on the streetside corner (right next to that lovely park), waiting for the bus to come. The little old lady with the black lace and the white hair was snoooring and snoooring beside me waiting for the bus to come. I look down the long and narrow street With the bustling cars and the busy people. And then POOF! Where’d the little old lady go? The little old lady With the black lace and the white hair Snoooring and snoooring beside me.
Why is there no driver? Every item left in its place All accessories, all the clothing, a blend of colours lying in some mixed-up rainbow of fabric- What a lovely pair of shoes. Are they my size? These would match my outfit well. No...must leave them. No telling when the owner will return. I wonder how long it will take him, though. ...Is it my birthday? Perhaps everyone is hiding Waiting to leap out and shout SURPRISE! What a trick that would be! You can come out now! I’m on to you! Hello? Is anybody there?
Hm. Odd.
Hm...I suppose not.
Ah, here comes the bus. And there it goes. What’s that? No bus driver? Curious. Perhaps I shall walk instead.
Walking down the quiet street. Awfully hot now. Is it not December? No matter. Perhaps that is why the clothes are here, this mixed-up rainbow of fabric- everyone is avoiding the heat. Maybe I should join them? Nobody else is around. I’ll wait for them to come back.
How quiet everything is. The cacophony of sounds that swELL AND FAll and FILL the air have been brushed aside Like a dismissed, abandoned Thought. How fascinating.
I wonder where that little old lady went, with her black lace and her white hair and her snoooring and snoooring.
Vehicles in motion Speeding down the street Seem t o s l o w d o w n T o a stop.
Perhaps there is a party. Yes! A party! And I missed it. Just my luck. 49
It’s awfully lonely. I hope they get back soon. I wonder if there was cake... The heat is rising...is that sun brighter? So silent. One could hear a pin d r o p. ECHO! Echo.. echo... How fascinating, when no sound is here but mine. How boring, too. Whew. It’s boiling here. I can see steam s l o w l y r i s i n g from the sidewalk. So lonely. All by Myself. I suppose I’ll just sit here On the toasty sidewalk In the bright hot sun (is it really the sun so bright and hot?) While the steam s l o w l y r i s e s around me. They’ll be back any minute now ...right?
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Epilogue to an Existence William Jackson Ants run through my veins, dancing, dancing to drumming rhythms with spears in hands My stomach crawls with worms wearing crowns My brain is made of spiders, the skull a web of flashing lights My bones are hyenas dying of laughter Centipedes and beetles and grasshoppers for fingernails all singing in tune out of unison Flashes of lightning for hair I comb my hair with leeches My skin is rotted and turned to moss My flesh all maggots wielding knives and bottles of gin My eyes burn like volcanoes and cradle smiling poisonous reptiles My lips are made of the Lord of Flies’ wings My tongue was ripped out then placed in a desert and grew into a temple When I get up I walk, and when I walk I dance, and when I dance I do so oddly to the sound of drums made of solid air My palms, the lines in the palms of my hands are made of little rattling snakes There’s nothing left of my nose but two endless pits and my ears are made of two dragonflies who cast spells of Foul magic and sense gold when it’s near My joints are made of white roaches My penis an erect hornet’s nest Testicles cities destroyed by water or fire or wind for their mastery of disobedience My voice the buzzing of insects, the rape of children, the whoring of moonlight sunlight illumination, the gurgling laughter of creatures of the deep in an ocean of blood my voice is in these. My voice is in the silence after the defeat of the last hope and the deletion of their unborn progeny. My soul is slime and smells through the dimensions, peels the color right off of anything of solid matter. My spirit is one with the universe and will be here again.
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Mythology of the Drunk Creative Alex Schmidt A six pack of a new kind of intelligence. Its caps yielding portals of light of a small world where pressures undulate and wriggle effortless as a god hand. Adam and Eve drop through a vaporous abyss aerated forces bar the flail of arms web toes inverse their bellies like grenade craters elastic, clear hips and butts puncture crinkle into mountain ranges their torn natal bodies become landscape. Home to yellow-eyed frog tribes. Yellow- juiced in awe to the bubbles stirred by this couples fall. How these small worlds were born total with theology. Lines of light emit from their boggish homes back flipping through smaller rings of carbon dioxide. The homes in which these frogs not technically frogs more like rough tingling splotches of an aqueous nature are nourished. And complements to my digestion, a drink not technically a spritzer, toady to the mysterious world of my gut.
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The Surrealist War Poem Jacob Woods Cows chew on kernel bullets. Their bowels digest gun powder. The farmer places on his rubber gloves. Reaching into its anus. He finds a rape victim wearing a pink tutu. The extraction is a gay man. He screams about feminism. To shut him up, the farmer milks his genitals. Out cums a pint of gold. Back at the farm. Truth squirts out the udders. The tint is red. The texture is viscous. The temperature is cooling. The utterance is blood.
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The Girl and the Emu Nick Counts It all began, as most important events do, on a Sunday morning. I was sitting at the table in my apartment sipping a fine, freshly brewed espresso and reading a rather gripping detective novel in which the main character had just found out that his own mother had, in fact, been the culprit responsible for killing his best friend and setting fire to his beloved 1969 Shelby Mustang. Aghast, I stood quickly from the table, dropping the book and accidentally spilling my nearly forgotten espresso all over myself. Normally, this wouldn’t have been much of a problem at all. I would have just gone to the closet and changed clothes. Today, however, it was a huge problem because I was wearing a freshly rented tuxedo that I was prepared to wear to a funeral that very morning. To make matters even worse, the funeral was that of my own best friend which I couldn’t miss, nor could I show up with a tuxedo that was covered in espresso. This was all very ironic, of course, considering the fact that I probably wouldn’t have been so upset by the novel as to jump from the table if the plot hadn’t been so similar to my own reality and it’s climax so utterly unacceptable to me. I quickly changed into a t-shirt and jeans, tossed the coffee covered tux in the basket of my bike and peddled as fast as I could without breaking into a torrential sweat-storm to the dry cleaner. Fingers crossed, I carried my sad but delicious smelling garment inside. “Excuse me,” I said. “How quickly can you clean this? I have only just spilled espresso all over it.” The dry cleaner mumbled something as if to himself and put down the blouse he was holding. “How soon do you need it?” he asked. Good question. I looked at my watch. 11:18. The 54
funeral was at 2! “As soon as I can have it. In an hour? I’ll pay extra,” I said. The dry cleaner looked at me sideways through squinted eyes as if summing up just how crazy I was. “I’ll have to send it out to a specialist,” he said mysteriously. “If I rush it you can have it in an hour and a half soonest.” “That’s great,” I said and I left. There was a cafe across the street so I went over, bought a coffee and a newspaper and took a booth by the window. In the paper, I read a story about a man who killed cats because he claimed that eating their souls would make him live longer. What a story! Reaching for my coffee, I found it cold. The cateater story must have distracted me for so long I forgot all about my coffee. I looked at my watch. 1:02. This news nearly made me jump again, but I had learned my lesson from the morning and merely twitched. The news article was not so long and I was not such a slow reader. Perhaps time was conspiring against me. Or maybe my watch was just broken. Either way, I had a slight problem, but I decided to go back to the dry cleaner first and investigate my watch later. “Back so soon?” the dry cleaner greeted me. “It’s been almost two hours,” I said. “My suit should be done by now.” I emphasized this by holding up my wrist and pointing to my watch. “You need to get a new watch,” he said, “but, it’s good you came. I talked to my specialist and I have some bad news.” At this, he held up a picture of a man’s hand holding a tiny, doll-
sized tuxedo. It would have been adorable if I wasn’t completely horrified. “Apparently, your tuxedo doesn’t respond to the cleaning like normal tuxedos do,” continued the dry cleaner. “We have, of course, contacted the company you rented from and they will not hold you responsible for the damages,” he was saying, but I wasn’t listening anymore. “Apparently your specialist is not very special at all,” I shot back replying to his earlier comment. With that, I turned and stormed out of the dry cleaner’s. I half-ran to where I had locked my bike, but there was no bike there anymore, just two halves of a lock on the ground, still hugging the telephone pole like a dead vine still clings to a tree. Walking around in frustrated circles was all I could do to keep myself from bashing my head against the pole. I couldn’t think. I looked at my watch. Still 1:02. Somehow, it had stopped ahead of the actual time. What time was it really? “Looking for your bike?” a woman’s voice from behind. I turned and there, on a stoop, sat a girl with short black hair. She looked up at me through her black framed glasses and I wondered with embarrassment how long she had been there watching me. “No.” I replied. “I just like to walk in circles. Do you happen to know the time?” “I don’t, but I do happen to know where your bike is, or maybe it’s not your bike?” “What?” I half shouted. “Sorry, I’m just in a bit of a hurry... I think. You said you know where my bike is?” “So it is yours then? I’d hate to give a bike back to the wrong person.”
“It is definitely mine,” I replied. “Great,” she said. “Ernie took it. He’s the craziest guy in the neighborhood, but he means well. Sort of. He’ll give your bike back if you ask, I’m sure of it.” She said this with a smile. “OK,” I said. “So where can I find this Ernie? As I said, I’m in a hurry.” “You probably won’t find him by yourself, but I can take you there. He’s not so far from here.” She stood from the stoop and extended her hand. “I’m Daphne, by the way.” “Arthur,” I said, taking her hand. She had a firm grip, firmer than mine. “OK Arthur, ready to go then?” “Let’s go.” To my surprise, Daphne took my hand and led me up one street, down another, around a corner and soon I was completely lost in a town I thought I knew like the back of my hand. After twenty minutes, I began to wonder whether Daphne really knew where we were going or if she was just leading me in circles to nowhere. Maybe she had broken my bike lock and hidden my bike somewhere just to trick me. I waved such crazy thoughts from my head and they evaporated like wisps of smoke. “We’re here,” said Daphne, snapping me out of my thoughts. Here appeared to be a large modern farm surrounded by a new-looking wooden fence. Enclosed within the fence was a small herd of emus. “You think my bike is here?” I asked. “Yup. We just have to find Ernie, ‘cause I’m not 55
sure which one is yours,” Daphne replied.
back here, I need that bike! HEY!”
I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing.
Nothing.
We approached the farm house only to find it locked up tight. It had the feeling of being completely deserted.
“It’s OK,” said Daphne. “Your bike is probably out here anyway.”
“He’s definitely in there,” said Daphne as she banged on the door with her fist. “Come on Ernie!” she shouted at the door. “You gotta give this kid his bike back.” There was a slight stirring within the farmhouse that sounded like brick being dragged against brick. Then, the sound of locks and latches being undone. The door swung open and was immediately filled by the huge shape of Ernie. He was bald but he wore it well, like he was always meant to be bald. He had on a brown leather vest, which he didn’t wear as well as his baldness, and baggy khaki pants. “What do you want Daphne?” Ernie said, his voice louder than necessary although he was not shouting. “I saw you take this guy’s bike and I think you should give it back,” Daphne replied. “Oh,” Ernie said. He almost looked ashamed. “Well I don’t know which one it is anymore. Just take any one.” I looked at Daphne, not really sure what to make of the situation. When I looked back at Ernie, all I saw was the door slamming in my face. Then the sound of locks being locked and latches being latched. “His people skills need a little work,” said Daphne. “You don’t say,” I replied. I turned back to the door and banged loudly, shouting: “Hey! Hey get 56
Unsure of what else to do, I followed her around the back of the farmhouse, back to the emus. They seemed to wander around the pasture in a bit of a daze, some eating curiously, others rolled around on the ground as if unsure of how to use their legs. “Which one looks the most like your bike?” asked Daphne impatiently. “Uh.” I floundered. “None of them. What do you mean?” “Ernie may be crazy, but he’s really smart,” explained Daphne. “He found some way to turn bikes into emus and has been stealing bikes all over the neighborhood for his experiments.” “You’re kidding,” I said. Then the thought occurred to me that maybe Daphne was the crazy one and Ernie just an emu farmer tired of her bothering him. A little scene played out in my mind of Daphne bringing all sorts of people here explaining to them how their bicycles had magically been turned into emus. What a grand prank it must be. “You don’t believe me.” said Daphne, brining me up from my thoughts. “That’s OK, the transformation wears off. That’s what Ernie’s working on now, he can’t make the change permanent. You’ll believe me soon enough, but for now, we really don’t have time for you to think about how crazy I might be.” She pointed at a big clock that was mounted on the side of the farmhouse. 1:40! Only 20 minutes to make the funeral and all I had was a handful of batty emus.
“OK,” I conceded. “What’s the plan?” “Great,” she said. “We each pick an emu-- not that one--“ she motioned to the one emu still rolling around on it’s back, “and we ride them to this funeral. Bikes are meant for riding after all, even if they look like emus.” She said this with a smile and a hint of mischief. I hadn’t noticed before, but her smile was really very wonderful. “Let’s do it!” Wrangling emus was not an especially easy task, but we managed to climb on top of two of the sturdiest looking emus in the herd. Steadying myself, I gripped firmly around the emu’s neck and kicked its flanks with my heel. Off we went, me and Daphne and our two emus, off into the midday sun to go to my best friend’s funeral. Epilogue: Somehow, Daphne and I did make it to the funeral, if only just in time and in less than appropriate clothing. When it was over, I was surprised to find two bicycles tied to the pole where we had tied our emus. Neither bike was mine and they were both surrounded by huge piles of feathers.
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Anniversary Siobhan Thompson So Anthony is dead, and Arthur isn’t. Anthony died last year, on Arthur’s birthday, Halloween. He died because he dressed up like Dr. Frank-nFurter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a couple of thugs out after midnight patrolling the streets didn’t like that. They didn’t like seeing a man in heels and a corset, dark red lipstick and eye shadow drawn up to the eyebrow. Arthur dressed up like Riff-Raff and that didn’t insult them as much, but he still spent a few days in the ICU because those guys saw Arthur kissing Anthony, and they knew he was just as much of a queer as the faggot in heels. They punched and pinched and beat Anthony’s made up face with their thick thug fists and his makeup and blood smeared together across his cheeks. They tore open his black panties and made a million tiny cuts along the insides of his thighs and up and down his penis with a sharp switchblade. Anthony begged and pleaded for them to stop and eventually he starting screaming too loudly so they punctured his lungs with his own ribcage and slit his throat with the skinny, shiny knife. They left Arthur unconscious next to his lover’s dead body. When Arthur closed his eyes, Anthony was alive, but just barely. When Arthur opened his eyes, Anthony was dead. --Arthur is crying. Arthur cries often. He has for about a year now. The other day he saw the first dead leaf fall from a tree and burst into heaving, wracking sobs, right there on the street, because that could only mean that fall was coming, and a new fall only meant one thing – the anniversary of Anthony’s death. Arthur is crying over the kitchen sink, letting his tears fall into the basin because he got sick of wasting tissues a long time ago. There is a faded red 58
scar on Arthur’s cheek, from where the shiny switchblade that killed his lover sunk into the skin. Tears are falling down that scar now, hard and fast. Ray is walking up Arthur’s front steps, shivering in the cold breeze. He knocks on the front door and Arthur chokes on his current sob, wiping his eyes with his sleeves and walking slowly to answer the door, trying to compose himself on the short walk to the front door from the kitchen. “Ray?” he says when he opens the doors, and he sounds like he has a bad head cold. Ray doesn’t say anything; just pulls Arthur into a bone crushing hug and kisses the top of his head. They stand there in the doorway for a moment, swaying a little, until Arthur lets go and smiles, and Ray knows he’ll be okay for a little while. --Anthony’s lips are a lush, lavish, dark red, painted on in a beautifully feminine shape complemented by the spangly, shiny black of his eyes and the rosy red blush cutting up sections of his cheeks. Black fishnets wrap around his hairy legs and the tight, sparkled corset is laced tightly around his thin chest. His adam’s apple bulges slightly over the tight ring of white pearls around his neck. His left foot is forward and his face is angled upward, lavish lips pulled back in a sneer, the whiteness of his teeth enhanced by the camera’s flash. The picture glows, even though Frank never edited it. All the lines and shadows hold a special softness that all the other pictures lack. This was the last picture of Anthony ever taken, and when he died Frank got it blown up as big as he could get it. It stands in the living room, where the TV used to be, and candles litter the shelf around it, always burning, always melting.
Arthur is now standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the picture of Anthony, illuminated by the flickering candles. The house is a living shrine to Anthony. It’s no wonder Arthur can’t get over him - his face stares up from every available surface. Arthur is a photographer and Anthony was his favorite subject. When he died, he got every picture he’d ever taken of him developed and found a place for it in the house. “Arthur?” Ray calls softly from the doorway. “Arthur, we need to talk.” Arthur looks over, a faint smile on his lips, and follows Ray into the kitchen, where a mug of hot chocolate is waiting for him, topped with marshmallows. If there was ever a good man on this earth, it’s Ray, Arthur thinks, his smile growing wider.
chocolate dripping down his face, leaving behind red marks. “Neither am I. Arthur, please, just listen to me. You need to be downtown today, I’ve…” “You’ve what?” Arthur asks, his eyes welling up with tears - it is so very easy to set him off. “Nothing, just, please, Arthur, come with me? This is hard for me too, you know,” Ray says. He’s guilt tripping and he knows it, but he doesn’t care. It was crucial to have Arthur come tonight, to have him see“Fine,” Arthur chokes out, tears streaming out of his red eyes. “Fine, Ray, fine, whatever you say. But I’m not dressing up.” ---
“I want you to come out tonight,” Ray says, putting his mug down carefully, biting his lip.
So Arthur refused to dress up, but others sure didn’t.
Arthur snaps his head up. “T-tonight? Ray, I…”
Many others have - and all as Dr. Frank-nFurter, Tim Curry’s famous character. Anthony’s costume of choice. The one that got him killed. There are Frank-n-Furters everywhere, women and men (though it was hard to tell), dressed in corsets and heels and red lipstick and makeup to the eyebrow. And almost each and every one of them carries a sign that reads “Remember Anthony,” or a rainbow flag of all different sizes.
“You can, Arthur. I know you can. And I have a surprise for you. I just want you to come out you don’t have to dress up, or anything like that, and it’ll only take a few hours… just please, get out of this house, come out with me?” Arthur is silent. Ray should know better than to try and make him come out tonight, of all nights. “Tonight’s your birthday, Arthur. It’s your birthday and you should be out of this house, celebrating it.” Arthur goes from pale to red in a matter of seconds. He slams his mug down, spraying great big droplets of hot chocolate over Ray’s face and the table. “I am not,” he said in a voice so quiet it was dangerous, “celebrating his death.” Ray paid no attention to the almost-boiling hot
As Arthur and Ray step out of the car, applause breaks out. Wolf whistles and catcalls fill the nippy Halloween night air. They all crowd around the car, watching as Arthur takes them all in, recognizing many faces, watching as Arthur turns to Ray and hugs him, tears clouding his vision. As he hugs Arthur, Ray begins to speak, loudly, and to all of them. A hush falls. “Thank you all for coming. I know it’s Halloween, I know there’s fun to be had out there, but 59
you came here. That’s… that really means a lot,” Ray kept his arms tight around Arthur, who was shaking into this side. A very short Frank-N-Furter right in front of him nodded encouragingly, and he took a deep breath and tried to remember what he wanted to say. “Tonight is for Arthur and Anthony because that’s who we knew, who we’ve heard about, who maybe touched our lives personally and who probably gave us some sort of smile when we saw them kiss or touch, because… because we know it was love that they had. And all your flags and signs and beautiful faces, they remind me of how truly beautiful the word can be,” Ray stops for a moment, trying to compose himself, and Arthur finally lets go of him, casting wide eyes out over the crowd. A small cheer erupts. “But in spite all of your beauty, I know there’s terrible things out there. Terrible people. I know bad things happen for no real reason. Anthony wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last. We are living in a society where it’s still okay to scream “faggot” at someone when they’re walking down the street. We are living in a world where hate crimes are nothing but the norm and if you’re not straight, you’re strange. “Tonight is also for every single person who has taken their own life because of who they are. Tonight is for every single person who has been killed because of who they love and how they love them. Every single person who has been bullied, teased, beaten, rejected for simply being who they were born to be. Those people left behind tears and heartbreak and pain, but they also left us with the passion and sense of injustice that fires our hearts and works our minds, and that’s why we’re all here,” More cheers follow this, with flags and signs waving above all the dark haired heads. “The ability to get through all of this loss and pain and hate is another thing they have left us, 60
and this special kind of strength is rampant in the man standing next to me, the strongest man I have ever known,” Ray looks over at Arthur, smiling sadly, and gestures out to the crowd. Arthur shakes his head violently. “Please. Give them hope. You aren’t the only one who’s suffered,” Ray says quietly, squeezing Arthur’s hand. Arthur looks out at the sea of made up faces and sees that some of them have tear tracks slicing through their thick makeup. A few Frankn-Furters are hugging each other, holding hands, and Arthur thinks of that last night with Anthony, the last time he held his hand. He begins to speak. “I am not strong, as Ray here wants you to think,” he stops as the crowd tuts and boos at his statement, but he waves his hand and they fall quiet. A horn honks in the fading distance. Arthur brings his hand back around his tiny frame and continues. “I am not strong, but I always felt I must have some sort of strength, because I kept going, you know? When I look at all of you, I finally know where it comes from. I loved Anthony. I feel Anthony still, in everything I do, everywhere I go. We were in love and we still are, in one way or another. And he was killed because of that love. And while I’ll never forgive myself, I am anything but ashamed. “I want to thank you all for doing this for us. From the bottom of my heart. I want you to remember that hate is never right, love never dies, and… and I want you to remember Anthony, because I know I’ll never forget.” And as if on cue, all the Frank-n-Furters crowd in, their arms flying everywhere, kissing Arthur and Ray and each other with their dark lavish lips.
The Nazi Olafur Gunnarsson She first laid eyes on me in a National Socialist march in the summer of 1933. I was the standard-bearer. I felt such power at the time that ever since then I’ve presumed to understand Adolf Hitler’s innermost feelings when he was lauded by the torchbearers in Nuremberg, who formed a swastika and tramped in circles in the dark. We Nationalists expected the Reds to attack us that day. We were well armed, and I know that one of us was carrying a pistol. I’m sad to say that it didn’t it didn’t come to a clash. If there’d been a street fight, I never would have made the stupid mistake of knocking up a woman that night. I went to a dance that evening, but the Red Guards were such miserable wretches that they didn’t dare show their faces. I was having a drink when she sat down bashfully next to me and said that she’d seen me in the vanguard that day at the intersection of Túngata Street and Súðurgata Street. I remembered her very well though I didn’t acknowledge it. I remembered her because of how enormously ugly I found her. A lot of us there had bottles and no one was stingy with drinks for his mates, and when you’re feeling mellow you’re not particular about women, more’s the pity. I haven’t gotten rid of her since. When I woke the next morning I shuddered to see her. I had to get rid of her immediately! I threw her out into the hallway and her clothes behind her. I cursed myself up and down for being so beggarly and not renting a room with a bath, but I had little means in those days. Then I got dressed and hurried to work. I worked at the Shipyard, doing every sort of
repair work on ships. I was a trained mechanic. The day passed as usual until late afternoon, when the foreman came to me and said: Sigurlaugur, you’ve got a visitor. There’s a woman asking for you. Even when he said this it didn’t occur to me who had come. I was flabbergasted when I saw her. She was wearing a gray coat and carrying a handbag, loitering beneath a street light with a kerchief round her head. I strode across the street and yanked her arm and asked what the hell she wanted. She said shakily that she’d wanted to see me and it made me even angrier to hear her voice tremble. Then she pulled a sandwich wrapped in wax paper from her pocket. Around it was a rubber band. The butter showed through in places. I heard shouts and laughter behind me. The boys were taking the piss out of me for having a visitor. – Bring her over! they cried. –Don’t be selfish! I stuck the sandwich in my pocket and went back to work without saying goodbye to her. I wouldn’t have minded having a visitor at work, had the woman not been so damned unsightly. She was in her twenties but looked closer to fifty. I was hammering out rust from an old side trawler and around coffee break I took the sandwich out of my pocket and ate it. It wasn’t such a bad meal: a cold steak between slices of bread, with chopped potatoes and a slathering of butter. I felt good there in the sun by the ship’s side. A seagull was waddling on the foreshore in search of food. A bird with train oil in its wings lay lamely on the beach, tossing and turning now and then. I was glad to have moved south. Dad, who was a goddamn bully, beat me and my siblings like stockfish when I was a boy and the old woman was powerless to stop him. When I came to Reykjavík I gained a new lease on life. I felt as if the world were going to cast off its rags and step forth strong and healthy. And it 61
could have been; it would have happened if Dr. Goebbels had had his way. Then the Germans would have had the victory when they invaded Russia. But who am I to presume to find blame with men who had the courage to try to conquer the world? I- who had no control over myself when it came to one lousy female. She came to my room that evening and it went exactly the same. I have no desire to go over the next weeks and months. I did everything I could to shake her off but always turned out to be so weak-willed when she arrived in the evenings. I even beat her up once even though I was disgusted with myself afterward, because that’s how Dad usually treated Mom. But it didn’t do a damned thing. She didn’t leave. Finally I realized that the only way for me to get rid of her would be to kill her.. Who the hell did she think she was, hanging herself like that on another person! She didn’t leave. And I couldn’t stop myself from sleeping with her. I was disgusted with myself for being such a damned fool that I could never refuse it. A wise man once said: Everything that a man undertakes in the world has consequences. Dr. Goebbels said: Millions of men in the Red Army are prepared to fight for us, mein Führer, because they desire nothing more than to see Stalin hung on Red Square. Later we can eliminate all of our enemies. But Hitler was too proud to take this good advice. He wanted the German army alone to conquer the Bolsheviks. He sent in death squads after his invasion forces and had them do their job. He who was so scheming lacked the wit when it was most critical. I have a terrible time sticking to the subject. I’m thrown completely off-kilter thinking of the time when there was still hope that justice would be done in the world. Then I chanced to get what I deserved for my 62
spinelessness; truly received my reward for all my lack of willpower. She came one evening and informed me she was pregnant. She wanted us to get married and become man and wife in the sight of God. I suffered a horrendous fright. On the table was a bread knife and I grabbed it and pointed it at her. She cried out and begged God to help her. I told her that she could scream as long as she wanted. It wouldn’t help her. There was no God. And therefore she’d never put an eternal yoke on me in the sight of God. I put down the bread knife. A peculiar reflectiveness came over me, icy and calm. I ordered her in an austere voice to abort the child. Then she started whimpering. Said that God would punish her. Said that she would rather kill herself. What lunacy! I couldn’t help but laugh, and asked whether she was such an idiot that she didn’t realize that then she’d kill her child too. When I saw her reaction to this observation of mine I was even more tickled and said softly and fawningly: -Do you love me? -Yes, she said eagerly, a faint gleam of hope appearing in her eyes. -Then you’ll be so kind as to get out of here! Because if you don’t remove yourself fully and completely from my life, I’ll kill myself. I’ll borrow a pistol from a comrade of mine and blow off my fucking head, because I can’t live with this. Wait and see, you’ll find me dead! I shouted myself hoarse. She believed me! Over time I marveled at this- as if I’d shoot myself over her! She was thunderstruck at these words of mine, put on her coat without a word and beat it. She didn’t return. And now certain things occurred that led to nothing becoming more precious to me than life. After she was gone I stoked the stove and fell fast asleep. I dreamt that four men walked into the room. The dream was peculiar, because it
seemed I was awake. One of the men was young and handsome and spoke for the others. He wasn’t unlike my foreman. It was easy for me to recall his appearance. The others I couldn’t remember when I woke. - You spoke well, said the young man. -God does not exist. What you say is absolutely correct. But that doesn’t mean that the same goes for Satan. He exists! On the other side is only Hell. Remember that. Having said this, they walked single-file out of the room. I woke drenched in sweat. The room was burning hot. I had slept for almost two hours. I was surprised that she hadn’t returned to torment me. I opened a window and sat down at the miserable table in order to organize my thoughts. The dream had been quite natural. Just as if I’d received visitors. Gradually my mind stopped racing. When it was past midnight I lay down and fell asleep, and slept soundly until morning without dreaming anything. But I was far from being able to celebrate a total victory. The next day was Sunday and my Ástrós didn’t turn up. That puzzled me highly. Nor did she ask after me at work on the Monday. Thursday had arrived before my foreman called me over and said that a woman was waiting for me in reception. Well now, I thought. So my darling has finally come; yet it turned out not to be her but her sister, wanting to ask me whether I knew anything about her. This was the very first time I saw any of her relatives. I’d repeatedly refused to have Sunday coffee with her family. I told her sister how it was. Ástrós had left me on Sunday evening and I hadn’t seen her since. Everything had been perfectly fine between us; nothing more to add. At that the woman left. My co-workers were saying that I needed to shake women off me, which was true. The next day the cops came. They could have spared the effort. They knew that I was a National Socialist and had often made trouble for me and my mates. And now, on top of everything else, I was accused of kidnapping. They wanted
to inspect my room. I told them that of course they could, and I asked whether they could visit me after work, but they said they couldn’t. They threatened to haul me off in irons My foreman gave me a dubious look as they led me away. It wasn’t a long way to go. I rented a room on Vesturgata Street. They searched my room high and low and naturally found nothing, because there was nothing to find except for a few copies of the Icelandic Reconstruction, the organ of the Nationalists in Reykjavík. And now my mind wanders to the tremendous stupidity when Hitler ordered his troops to the Caucasus to take control of the oil reserves there, thereby delaying the advance to Moscow. He thought his army would be invincible. When his army finally pressed toward Moscow, it was too late. Winter had arrived, worse than the worst winters here. Russian soldiers poked the eyes out of the Germans whom they managed to capture; that’s what they called mercy.. Yes, it was pride and nothing else that led the greatest military force in the world to its destruction. Whatever the Führer may say, and I have brought up the subject. I asked the coppers whether they were going to arrest me for possessing the journal. They said no and scrammed. Ástrós was in the habit of coming and cooking dinner in the evenings and I missed that. On the other hand, I was so jolly after having fooled the cops that I decided to treat myself and dine at Hotel Skjaldbreiður on Saturday night. The place was crowded. I was shown to a table immediately and had just started studying the menu and decided to order fried halibut when a plate with precisely that dish was placed before me, unordered. I asked the waiter what he meant by this and he replied curtly: -I brought you what you were going to order. And what could I do but nod? He was right. I thought I recognized this waiter, but couldn’t place him by any means. 63
A dance was held at the hotel that evening. It was crowded and I met several good mates there. When the dance ended and I went to retrieve my coat the man in coat-check pointed at me and asked people to make way, then handed me the garment and said: -This man here takes priority! We like this man! I felt proud that he knew who I was. I was no less amazed when I came outside. People were frantically waving down taxis in the bitter cold. One of the taxi drivers stood next to his car and turned away everyone until he spied me. -I was sent to pick up this man, he said, despite the loud protests of the others gathered. I sat down in the car. Despite telling him my address, he drove off in the opposite direction. When I asked him why he did so he replied: -I was sent to drive you to a celebration. I settled for that. He stopped outside a house on the western edge of town. He couldn’t accept payment. He said that the car had already been paid for. He pointed me to a lit-up, hoarfrosted window. I got out of the car and he drove away. The front door was open. The steps were covered with new-fallen, loose snow, making it clear that no one had traversed them for quite some time. I can’t bear snow. I always feel sick when I see snow. It makes me think of when the Sixth Army was wiped out at Stalingrad. I stepped up to the front door and took hold of the doorknob; the door was unlocked. I entered the foyer and saw a door standing open to an apartment on the first floor. I took several steps up to the landing and peeked into the apartment. Dining room chairs had been arranged in the sitting room; each chair 64
was occupied. The people’s backs were turned; they sat silently, staring at the dinner table. I stepped closer and looked over the heads of those gathered. In the room was a corpse. The corpse wasn’t in a coffin, but had been laid on the dinner table. The dead person was covered with a sheet from head to toe. I was alarmed. I stepped out in front of the mourners and asked: -What’s going on here? I tore the cloth from the corpse’s face. It was she. Then her sister pointed at me and said, - It’s him! The people stood up one after another and started calling me a murderer and criminal. My fiancée, as they called her, had walked into the sea and was found driven ashore at Grótta Bay. The people started shoving me and tried to beat me. I hurried out and went home. I was terribly agitated. Suddenly I felt as if I remembered the waiter, the coat-check man, and the taxi driver. They’d all appeared to me in my dream. I lay down. After pondering these things for a long time I finally fell asleep. I dreamt that a man walked into my room. It was the young man from the group, but now he was alone. He was naked from the waist up. I was going to ask whether it was true what he’d told me, that on the other side was only Hell. It was as though he could read my thoughts. Before I managed to open my mouth he smiled at me and huge wings, drenched with train oil, rose from his back.
Disposable Camera Emma Mason You picked my heart like it was the back pocket of some tourist’s favorite jeans, standing in front of the Eifel tower, snapping a picture with a disposable camera. One hand raised to crowd his family closer together, so at least, when they show their friends, they can pretend they had a good time. Can I expect you to crawl through all the muck in my soul to find a clean spot to make your nest? Or else, maybe, find a way out, through what is probably an endless labyrinth. And there’s sure to be a minotaur or two down there, and they haven’t been fed recently. The difference though, between the maze in my mind and the labyrinth in my soul, is that a maze is full of dead ends and false starts. And a labyrinth has only one end, if you can only stay alive long enough to find it. So I’ll just let you wander, hand pressed to the wall, because it’s too dark to see because I’ve made the ceiling and floor out of scraps of night sky. And I’ve made the walls out of Michelangelo’s frescos. And its too bad you can’t see the paintings on the walls, but you can feel them in the dark. You can feel what the painter felt when he put brush to plaster, which perhaps is better. With everything else, I horde them here in the labyrinth. Paintings and pancakes and algebra and being a daughter and all the other things I was never really good at. This is my existence; building walls to keep you in because I’m afraid if you see the way out, you’ll take it. So I add another line of bricks and mortar and pray the minotaur finds you before you can turn my heart in to the police with some half-shingled lie about how you found it on the street and about how it was already empty when you picked it up.
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Skin Annabelle Goll the lights were too bright to think clearly but i could see my own breath as it hit the skin of the sky i didn’t feel that cold but i guess that was just a trick of the mind the clouds were just goosebumps weren’t they, just raised cotton pimples that the atmosphere rejected as ugly. i fell in line with their movements because i felt ugly, too you sat next to me on the bleachers and cheered as the team in blue and green made the first down and you threw your head back to laugh, and laugh, and laugh with everyone else i felt the brush of your skin as we returned to our seats. it was different than the sky’s, different than the earth’s, different than mine sometimes i feel the fingers of a different hand, i find myself in the palm of some being too great, i can never quite see his face, but only an arm… …stretching up, like the notes at the end of a song, hitting just right, not flat not sharp. you don’t ever seem to share the same visions anymore the team scores again you rise with the crowd like you don’t have the discipline to do anything else, like you don’t have the nerve i remain seated in the sky alongside the ugly and the arms of great beings reaching out for us, skin like the wind, the lights are blinding…
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Lost Child Adam Shields I remember the day you found out about me I was so small then you couldn’t even see The little life growing inside you so precious and frail I was so excited I wanted to get out and yell I know you didn’t know what I looked like Mom It would have been a couple of months till then But I was already excited to meet you Mom Then I was building the suspense A couple of weeks have passed and I felt really strange I felt like something was wrong and something changed I remember hearing things when I was just a little guy Yelling and screaming, why did you cry? I remember the warmth of your hand over your belly Your hand was so close I wished I could reach out and grab it I could feel your sadness and wished I could help If I could make you better with the love I felt A couple of months had passed and I turned weak I didn’t think as much and I was very meek I closed my eyes only for a second to sleep When I woke up I knew that my life was bleak My heart had stopped when I was still inside No pain when I woke but pain when you cried It’s alright Mom there’s no need to weep You have my love and I’ll be with you in your sleep.
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The Man with One Eye Holds the Key to Truth J.A McGovern To sit To breathe To think To live Just for one instant in time To give sight to this man with one eye He sits there waiting With his woman holding close to his side This man with one eye Power – drawn from his very finger tips Love he has shared Crippled from outside circumstances must bring But courageous in his everyday endeavors we see With only the black patch to cover this ever existing lover of humanity What of power? A bystander may ask, “What power can a man with one eye bring forthcoming from the past?” The sense of wisdom – due to he is abnormality to the naked eye But to see clear light of day and not judge false reality in the darkness of the blind He sits there, into the eve of night to the dawn of life With only the day to suit him through time In that he carries the fate of the world over his shoulders Just this man and one eye
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about the authors Katrina Kim is from middle-Southern Texas. She’s been writing fiction for the past three-ish years. J. Lynn Sheridan writes in the Chain O’ Lakes of northern Illinois in a very ordinary house, but she’d rather live in an old hardware store for the aroma, ambiance, and possibilities. She has recently been published in Beyond the Dark Room and Storm Cycle 2012, also at Em Dash Literary Magazine, and Four and Twenty Literary Journal, MouseTales Press, and Enhance. She is currently working on her first novel. Find her at writingonthesun.wordpress.com Cari Oleskewicz is a writer and poet living in Tampa, Florida. Her work has been shared in The Washington Post, Sasee Magazine, The Commonline Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, Imitation Fruit Literary Journal, Main Street Rag and Platform Art. She recently participated in The Pulitzer Remix Project with Found Poetry Review, and she is currently working on a novel in verse. Kyle Rhoads is eighteen but has been writing since the beginning of high school, and now in his second year at the University of Colorado Denver. His major is marketing with a minor in creative writing. Eric Wilson had a Fulbright Grant to Berlin and taught German and Swedish at UCLA and Pomona College. He’s worked as a freelance translator, as well as an escort-interpreter for the State Department (my assignments included members of the German, Austrian and Swedish Parliaments and a poet from the Faeroe Islands) and for the German FBI (Bundeskriminalamt). For just over 30 years he taught fiction writing workshops at the UCLA Extension. His work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Epoch, Carolina Quarterly, Witness, Boundary 2, German Quarterly, and the O. Henry Prize Stories anthology.
Greg McWhorter is a pop-culture historian and teacher who resides in Southern California. Since the 1980s, he has worked for newspapers, radio, television, and film. He has been a guest speaker at several universities and the San Diego Comic-Con. Today, McWhorter owns a highly acclaimed record label that specializes in vintage punk rock. He is also the host of a cable TV show titled Rock ‘n’ Roll High School 101. Greg grew up in an abusive broken home and is halfHispanic, which may account for some of his cross-wiring. James Gordon was born in Boulder, CO on April 2, 1987. He has lived in several, very different places, including Sydney, Australia. He holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Western Washington University, and a M.F.A. in Poetry from Adelphi University, in Garden City, New York. Ben Lamont was born near Toronto, Canada, and lives in Montreal. This is his first published poem. He is currently studying linguistics and Russian language. Tory J. Fox is currently a student at Norfolk State University. Fox’s poems have been published in the TCC ChannelMarker Vol. 4, 5, and 11, as well as The Norfolk Review Spring 2013. In addition Fox has been invited as a featured poet for the Poetry Society of Virginia’s bimonthly reading in Norfolk, VA at the Five Points Farmer’s Market. Unique is currently 21 and going to college. Writing to him is something that he does to keep his sanity. Whenever there is some issue in his life, he need to write about it. Writing is his release. Uniique’s major influences in writing is hip-hop. He grew up around hip-hop and it has always spoke to him and still continues to do so. Morgan Drolet is the inexplicable extra pieces left over after the assemblage of Swedish decor. 69
When not writing, Jonathan Pigno likes to waste his time in front of countless movies, video games, comic books, and other delightful atrocities of pop culture on a regular basis. He is a native of Staten Island, New York and is an alumnus of Wagner College. His writing has been previously seen in SI View Magazine, The Staten Island Advance, and 365Tomorrows.com. John Roth is an eccentric individual who believes that weirdness is a requisite for writing sound poetry. His off centered approach to writing best explains the peculiar nature of his work. He currently lives in Ohio and attends the University of Akron as an undergraduate student. His unhealthy love of Chinese takeout knows no bounds. Laurin Becker Macios was born in Miami, FL and moved from state to state and between countries before landing in New England. She has just wrapped up her MFA in Poetry at the University of New Hampshire and is working for Mass Poetry, an organization supporting poets and poetry in Massachusetts. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband. Cheryl A. Van Beek has had two poems published in Sandhill Review, a Saint Leo University publication and is a member of the Saint Leo Writers’ Circle. She has also written for a local newspaper. She is a caregiver for her mother and lives with her husband and their two cats in Florida, the “Land of Flowers,” where she tends an ever expanding garden of diverse wildlife. Jason Gordon’s poems have appeared in Abbey, Bathtub Gin, the Delmarva Review, Poetry International, and Presa, among others. Pudding House Press published his first chapbook, I Stole a Briefcase, in 2008. Currently, he lives in Catonsville, Maryland, where he teaches English at a high school for students with emotional disabilities. Rosie Picone was raised in Lexington, KY by a couple of kindly wolves until she ran away to 70
join the circus. She currently lives in Lexington and fancies herself a fiction writer. Sonia Cheruvillil is an activist, writer, educator and general troublemaker who lives in Brooklyn, New York City. Olvia Lin Deluca is a well-intentioned amateur writer; she recently became a fulltime homemaker devoting herself fully to the writing craft. Her poems have been published in her high school’s Literary Folio. John Murphy lives in Surrey, UK and is a retired lecturer and musician. He has had poems published in various journals and magazines including Every Day Poets, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Other Poetry, The Pen and Poetry Review (UK). In 2009 he published a collection of poems, The Thing Is... Ciaralee Books. Nicholas William Wallace lives in Siletz Oregon, a small town along the Oregon Coast. He loves poetry and has loved poetry his whole life. It has been the one thing that helps him relieve stress along with music. He currently attend Oregon Coast Community College. Hal Wert is a Professor of Literature and History at the Kansas City Art institute where his courses include the Modern Japanese Novel and the Tale of Genji. He is currently working on a novel, a fictional biography of Tad Waller, constructed randomly through Tad’s memory in flash fiction vignettes. Two of his Tad stories recently appeared an anthology of flash fiction entitled Dirty: Dirty, Art by Mugi Takei. Miles Lizak, is an aspiring writer. He writes because he can’t do anything else. He is a Creative Writing major at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a publishing intern at The Literary Review, a quarterly literary magazine. He hopes to go on to earn a graduate degree and find a place for himself in the world of writers and academics. He has just entered his senior year, with that student’s terror, Real Life, looming on the horizon.
Chad Beattie was born in the middle of Baltimore and DC, he was embedded to love city life. He is a sophomore at Towson University, studying English. He writes both poetry and prose for a number of reasons. He uses writing as a way to vent and convey particular emotions, as well as recording the life that surrounds him into words. And sometimes the words are shaped into meaning. Some of his favorite writers include Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Creeley, and Hubert Selby Jr. But the writer he loves the most is John Fante. He taught him how to articulate ideas into simple statements. He taught him how to write In her previous lives, Karin Mitchell has worked as a special education teacher and caseworker for Social Services. She is currently a tutor of college students in writing, elementary students in reading, and raising a family, writing, skiing, and generally living well. She is enrolled in a Master’s program at Regis University for Creative Writing. She speaks Swedish because she likes to learn things she can’t use, except at family functions and to watch foreign films without reading the subtitles. Monica Lugo, is a junior Creative Writing major at the University of Evansville. Steve De France is a widely published poet, playwright and essayist both in America and in Great Britain. His work has appeared in literary publications in America, England, Canada, France, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, India, Australia, and New Zealand. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry in both 2002, 2003 & 2006. Recently, his work has appeared in The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Mid-American Poetry Review, Ambit, Atlantic, Clean Sheets, Poetry Bay, The Yellow Medicine Review and The Sun. In England he won a Reader’s Award in Orbis Magazine for his poem “Hawks.” In the United States he won the Josh Samuels’ Annual Poetry Competition (2003) for his poem: “The Man Who Loved Mermaids.” His play THE KILLER had it’s world premier at the GARAGE THEATER in Long Beach, California
(Sept-October 2006). He has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Chapman University for his writing. Most recently his poem “Gregor’s Wings” has been nominated for The Best of The Net by Poetic Diversity. Mallory Ewer-Speck is an amateur poet from Helena, Montana. Alex England, is 24 years old and has been bouncing back and forth between living in South Korea as an English teacher and living back home in the US writing. He enjoys writing short, bizarre, and slightly creepy stories that leave you not really able to pinpoint what was actually creepy about them. Katherine Thurmond Clark has written commentary for the Sun, a newspaper that serves Austin, Texas, and she is now seeking a publisher for a first novel called Shift. She is form Irvine, California, and received a degree in Creative Writing from Chapman University. Rebecca Remillard is currently living far from my Rhode Island home in Portland, Oregon; living the American Dream, walking in the rain with her black lab puppy, reading copious amounts of Raymond Carver, and, of course, writing (because what else in the whole wide world is there to do?). These little ditties are the yield of her first December in Portland. Please, enjoy reading them as much as she enjoyed writing them out of her system. Riley H. Welcker is wiry, bald, and bold. Welckler has have a novel as well as many short stories, essays, and poems bulging from my briefcase. Welcker has a B.S. in Business, a B.A. in English, and is currently an M.F.A. creative writing student at the University of Texas at El Paso. His nonfiction essay “Scaling the Ranks” has been published by the Oklahoma Review, and his essay “An Analysis of John Donne: A Poet of Death” has been accepted for publication by The Montreal Review.
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Paul Gurrieri is five year wartime veteran of the US Navy, He has been around the block more than once, and has snapped ten billion pictures with the camera of his mind. Poetry is the only way he knows how to properly share those images, and will keep on sharing till the day his mind dies. Andrés Montoya died in 1999. This is from his posthumous manuscript which Montoya’s first book, The Iceworker Sings and Other Poems, won the American Book Award in 2010, and it has become one of the most influential books in current Chicano/a poetry. He has two prizes named after him, including the prestigious Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize out of The Institute for Latino Studies. Zachary Vaudo is a writer, film-maker, and musician living in Marietta, Georgia. He enjoys long walks on the beach, comic books, and delving into the darker recesses of the human mind. William Jackson was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. He has given readings around L.A. at places like The Goethe Institute, Lili Bernard’s studio in Chinatown, and Lawrence Asher Gallery. He has been published in Gambling the Aisle, Papercuts (forthcoming), and RipRap Magazine (forthcoming). He enjoys cold sake and long walks on the fire. Emma Mason is a recent graduate and longtime lover of Tim O’Brien. Annabelle Goll is writer, an artist, a musician. A person who aspires to combine these senses into a few fluid, unbroken lines of poetry. J.A. McGovern self-published his first book, Perception, which was a compilation anthology with multiple artists of: poetry, short stories, photography, and art. He co-owns an independent film company, Velocity Films, where they intricate poetry with the films they create. Poetry is like water, survival ceases to exist without the beauty of self expression resting within words. 72
Adam Shields grew up in a small town called Linn Creek, Missouri, just outside of Camdenton. He started writing poetry in 2011 as a hobby and now it has grown to be a habit. Most of his works have a dark twist on some old tales and other pieces focus on lost love or scenic beauty. He hope that one day his works have an impact on someone as young as he is and he hopes to inspire creativity in someone else’s soul. Sy Roth comes riding in and then canters out. Oftentimes, the head is bowed by reality; other times, he is proud to have said something noteworthy. Retired after forty-two years as teacher/school administrator, he now resides in Mount Sinai, far from Moses and the tablets. This has led him to find words for solace. He spends his time writing and playing his guitar. He has published in many online publications such as BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, The Weekender, The Squawk Back, Bareback Magazine, Dead Snakes, Bitchin’ Kitsch, Scapegoat Review, The Artistic Muse, Inclement, Napalm and Novocain, Euphemism, Humanimalz Literary Journal, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review, Vayavya, Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Em Dash, Subliminal Interiors, South Townsville Micropoetry Journal, The Penwood Review, The Rampallian, Vox Poetica, Clutching at Straws, Downer Magazine, Full of Crow, Abisinth Literary Review, Every Day Poems, Avalon Literary Review, Napalm and Novocaine, Wilderness House Literary Review, St. Elsewhere Journal, The Neglected Ratio, The Weekenders and Kerouac’s Dog. One of his poems, “Forsaken Man,” was selected for Best of 2012 poems in Storm Cycle. Also selected Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway, September 2012. His work was also read at Palimpsest Poetry Festival in December 2012. He was named Poet of the Month for the month of February in BlogNostics. Alex Schmidt holds a BA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago, and a poetry MFA from Queens University Charlotte. He currently lives in North Carolina, works for a Trader Joe’s and writes like a beast! That is, as if a beast where to burst from his skin if he didn’t quell its impetuous imagination with the ceaseless scribbles of truth.