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Table of Contents Samuel Dangcil
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God’s Favorite Matthew Gurrecky
All Souls Day
Devon Allen
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I fell for you
Victoria Oviedo
Who Am i?
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James Damron
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Electronic Cocoon David Degooyer
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Where poetry Grows
Catherine Magno
Good and Evil
Allen Starbuck
High mountian road
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Samuel Dangcil
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Samuel Dangcil
God’s Favorite
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hen I wake up in the morning, I immediately rush to the toilet to puke out the filth that I call "yesterday." My throat was on fire and my nostrils had to endure the putrid smell of bile for as long as I couldn't keep my head away from the toilet bowl. This daily ritual leaves my mind empty for just a little while, and then it'Ws back to the monotony of my life. My attempts to make breakfast are always foiled by my own clumsiness. One might think that a bachelor at my age would know how to cook for himself, but nobody's ever shown me the correct way to do it. Not that I care. Living alone means the only person who might complain about the burnt pancakes is me. Food is food. I only need enough to keep my body from passing out. When I was a child, my father and I would take long walks in the woods. He always tried to be a philosopher and made sure I grew up wiser. One day, he told me that the basest desires of all human beings are the qualities of angels. People want immortality, flight, beauty, artistic skill, or quite simply, to be a member of God's favorite species. Then he asked me, "What do you think angels want?" I thought about it, but I didn't have an answer for him at the time. I haven't seen or heard from him for so many years, now I wish there was some way I could answer him. Today, I was out of breath. It took every ounce of effort I had to catch the bus that morning. But as I stood in front of the fare box, I realized I had forgotten my wallet again. "Ahh. Shit," I cursed under my breath. The bus driver could obviously see that I was fumbling around in my pockets, looking for a wallet that I knew wasn't there. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something. "Hey man, can you let me on just this once?" I pleaded. He didn't even bother to look at my face directly, he simply shook his head. As I sighed and got off the bus, I realized I must look like a wreck. I was unshaven and my hair was messy. My clothes looked ruffled and I probably smelled like alcohol. "He must have thought I was a hobo or something," I figured. I looked down at my watch. "Looks like I'm going to be late again..." I said. five 2 one│issue 1
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I didn't like walking around in this city. A few years ago, a man held a gun to my back. He said, "Don't turn around, or I'll shoot." Naturally, my first instinct was to turn around. I was probably halfway turned by the time he had finished his sentence. Suffice to say, the chain of reactions went from the sound of a gunshot, to falling to the ground, and then to the man checking my pockets. It's ironic, but that was one of the few days that I brought my wallet. It didn't bother me too much though. If the robber had taken a second look at me, he would have realized I wouldn't have much money. I took a few minutes to gather my senses, but by then a crowd had gathered around me. The squeamish women would scream at the pool of blood and the self-righteous men would argue over what the best course of action would be. I swear, one guy said to pour vodka on my wound to sterilize it, and then set it on fire to close the wound. I feared idiocy much more than blood loss, so I slowly got up, and then I booked it. The women were probably screaming about zombies while the men were probably arguing whether it was a miracle or a fluke. I was glad to get away in time. Ambulance rides were rather expensive. Luckily, today I didn't bump into any trouble. I briskly walked into the office building. My boss had so many more important things to do other than yell at me, but I think he was simply using me as an outlet for his anger issues. "If he's so fed up with me, why hasn't he fired me yet?" I thought to myself "How long do I have to put up with this!?" he yelled, "Aren't yo old enough to take responsibility for your actions!? And when was the last time you showered!?" These were probably rhetorical questions, so I don't answer. After his rant is done, I apologize and head to my station. As I changed into my janitor uniform, it occurred to me that I had been working here for too long. I was used to moving around a lot, and I only needed enough wages so I don't have to sleep on a park bench. It was hard to make a living in this country without proper identification. I had an identity that I had rehearsed over and over again. To anyone who asked, my name was Michael. I moved to America from the Europe. I was never specific about which country, mainly because I wasn't good with geography. Since I didn't have a green card, it was very difficult to get a job, so I had to cheat the system in whatever way I could. Over the past six years, whenever anyone had asked me my age, I would always say twenty-seven. I didn't make friends, but even if I did, I wouldn't allow them to visit my house or see me outside of work. "Watch where you're going!" the woman in front of me said. While five 2 one│issue 1
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lost in my thoughts, I had accidentally knocked her down. As if to reaffirm my thoughts, it just had to be Georgia that I bumped into. Georgia was a nice girl, probably in her mid-twenties. When I first started this job she flirted with me often, but I never responded in any way other than in a polite manner. The sad thing is, I would probably have found her fairly attractive if I wasn't a eunuch. A few years of rejection from a lowly janitor might have made her a little bitter. I've tried to make peace with her, but she would always just get angrier. Since then, I've kept my appearance as unkempt as possible. Without the baggy clothes or stubble, I was a little too handsome for normal people to look at. I figured the less I'm noticed, the better. A few centuries back, it wasn't uncommon for people to be burned at the stake for little to no reason. If a person did anything strange, they would be seen as possessed or as a witch. I think that was around the first time I realized I shouldn't get close to people. As the years went by, people realized that I never aged. Whispers amongst the town eventually gave rise to torches and pitchforks. Burning alive might be the most painful experience I've ever faced. After I was completely cremated, it literally took weeks of agony before I rose up from my own ashes. From that point on, I made sure not to live in the same place for more than a decade or so. Flopping onto my bed after a long day at work is almost enough of a reward that I don't hate this pitiful life. I stare at the multitude of pill bottles on my nightstand. "Maybe I'll try the cyanide tonight..." I think to myself. After an endless amount of failures, I've given up trying to end my life. Now I take these pills because I knock out faster. I like the empty-headed feeling I have in the morning, but mainly, being dead for a few hours makes it so I don't have to dream. I was kicked out of my last apartment for screaming too loud during my night terrors. As I searched through the bottles, however, I realize they were all empty. "Damn, I forgot to restock," I mutter. Well, I had been tight on cash this month, so I suppose something had to suffer. I could only sigh and try going to sleep the old-fashioned way, for the first time in almost a decade. Sleep took me quicker than I thought. I'm glad that I wasn't have a nightmare though. It was weird. I dreamt of being a forest, talking to my father. "So, what do you think angels want?" he asked me. I had rehearsed my answer in my head for too many years to need to stop and think about it, "An angel wants to be like a human. If God had two sons named Angel and Man, then Angel would be the one who was whipped into following all the rules and eventually taking over the family busifive 2 one│issue 1
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ness. Meanwhile, Man was free to do whatever he wanted. Humans have a kind of freedom that lets them fly to where angels only dream of. They can attain beauty and art that surpasses our limits. Humans get to treasure life, because it's fleeting, because they have the gift of death. Really father, an angel just wishes it could be a member of God's true favorite species."
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Matthew Gurrecky
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Matthew Gurrecky
All Souls Day
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uford Theodore Williams III sat behind the wheel of his old pickup truck, fighting with the screw top on his steel flask, filled with whiskey. Sharp arthritis pains coursed through his fingertips. In his youth Buford had been the wildest of the shit-kicking hell-raisers in Itasca County, but now it was a chore just to clasp the metal snaps on the front of his jeans every morning. His jaw, which had once been proud, even regal, was lost in a fleshy mass of jowl and a thick patch of white beard. His midsection, in his high school years a sturdy trunk which had allowed him to stand steady against the dreaded defensive line of the Bigfork Vikings, had gone soft and was covered in stretch marks and tiny white hairs. Buford took another sip of whiskey and turned the engine off. The truck continued to sputter and wheeze for another thirty seconds. As it was dying down Buford reached behind his head and grabbed his rifle from the rack in the back window. The gun was nothing special. Margaret, his wife, had given it to him as a gift upon his voluntary retirement from the paper mill eight years before. On that day Buford had joked that he would be killing all of their food from that day forward, but his hunting trips had yet to yield even a single meal. Buford opened the door with a pained grunt. The metal door squeaked a weary complaint. His work boots, caked with eight years of mud and dirt, made a sound like crinkling cellophane as he stepped into the snow, which lay three inches deep on the ground. He slammed the door shut. The hollow noise died quickly in the still air. As he walked, he stepped on candy wrappers that had fallen from the cab of his truck. Halloween had been two days ago, and Buford had been sneaking chocolate from the candy bowl in the front hallway whenever his wife wasn’t looking. She would have been angry at him, and so would his doctor. His cholesterol numbers hadn’t been nearly what his doctor would like to have seen at his last check-up, but a man can only take so many oatmeal breakfasts before he feels compelled to jam a few peanut butter cups in his face. There had been very few trick-or-treaters that year. Each year
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seemed to be slower than the one before it, as it became more common for parents to take their children to chaperoned tours of local malls and schools than door-to-door. Buford missed the steady stream of children that the neighborhood had hosted on Halloween night in decades past. He loved all of their smiling faces, watching them grow a little bit each year, until finally they would be replaced by a fresh group of younger children. He loved their costumes as well, from the most intricate (which some parent had obviously slaved over for days) to the simple store bought suits which consisted of flimsy plastic masks and jumpsuits with the character name printed on the front. Those cheap ones made Buford smile the most. He liked that everyone, even the not so bright or creative, got to enjoy the night. In the years after he graduated high school, Halloween had always a big night of partying, usually down at The Whistle with Tiny Bachmeier and Big Jim Berry from the paper mill. Each year they bet Buford that he couldn’t finish 20 shots, and each year they rolled him onto the pool table to sleep it off when they were proved right. He’d come to associate the day after Halloween with face burns from spending the night rubbing against rough felt. The nights that he was able to walk out of the bar under his own power he usually ended up taking some girl home. Rhonda Stickelman and Betty Berven were the easiest options, because they were always there and always ready, but at two in the morning it didn’t really matter who it was. He had met Margaret that way. He never would have guessed that one night of drunken fumbling in the backseat of his Mercury would lead to thirty years of marriage, but it had. It was not been a marriage of necessity - Margaret had been adamant about the “no children” thing from the very beginning - it was a marriage of comfort. Both parties had decided that they were happy enough with each other and that they were weary of the prospect of making a life with anyone who might expect a bit more effort. It had been a terrifically relaxed thirty years. Buford stepped heavily through the snow toward the harvested oat field on Dave Walsh’s property. The Walsh farm was just outside Cohasset, and only a short drive from Buford’s home. Beyond the field was a row of trees, the beginning of a thick patch of woods. Halfway into the woods was a tree stand that Walsh shared with Buford and a few of the other guys who had been lifers at the mill. Buford had come out here every day of deer season in the years since he’d taken his retirement. By this point it hardly seemed like Walsh’s land at all. Now the field and the woods served Buford far more often than their owner. The tree stand had fallen into disrepair from exposure to the
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elements for the past twenty years. The boards reeked of mildew, and groaned with Buford’s weight as he climbed the ladder, which was only a series of wooden boards nailed at regular intervals up the side of the tree. When Buford reached the top he was winded from the climb so he sat down, leaning his back against the tree and letting his legs dangle limp in front of him. He took a long, slow sip from his flask and set his gun down at his side. He closed his eyes and listened to the far away sounds of birds calling to each other in the tree tops and field mice scuttling through the dead leaves on the ground below. Soothed by those noises, and his warm, whiskey-filled belly, he fell into a deep sleep. Buford was startled out of his rest by the sound of a branch snapping. He raised up onto his knees and leaned against the railing of the stand, slipping on the fresh dusting of snow that had fallen during his nap. He looked down into the clearing below, expecting to see Walsh walking toward the tree to say hello, as he did infrequently. Instead, he saw a whitetail buck grazing quietly, oblivious to his presence. Buford grabbed his rifle and brought it to his shoulder. He aimed through the scope and saw the deer in his cross-hairs. It was only a two-pointer. It looked starved and lean, and its ribs were clearly visible. Everyone Buford knew had commented how scrawny the deer looked this season. Heavy flooding during the summer had led to bad crops in the fall, which meant there was little for the deer to eat. In spite of its leanness, the deer Buford watched through his scope was clearly a powerful young animal. The deer lifted its head and stared at Buford. Through the scope Buford could see its calm face clearly. The deer’s eyes were bright and clear hazel, and seemed to Buford to be almost human. The deer chewed calmly on the grass in its mouth and regarded Buford with no fear. Buford held the deer’s gaze through the scope, then lowered the rifle slightly to look at the animal with his own eyes. Without the magnification of the scope the deer seemed fragile, the humanity Buford had sensed before was replaced with peculiarity. The deer’s twisting horns became demonic, its elegant neck became alien. And still, the deer’s gaze was steady. Buford’s hands began to shake. A sharp report echoed through the clearing. The deer’s legs
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buckled and it let out a high squeal followed by a guttural moan. It was a long moment before Buford felt the hot barrel of his rifle in his hands and realized that he had fired a shot. The deer ran into the woods, jumping like a twitching marionette, shrieking as it ran into low hanging branches along the way. Buford panicked. The shot was sloppy. The wound was low and far away from the heart. Death for the animal would only come after many long, painful hours. Buford shouldered his rifle and climbed down the makeshift staircase as fast as he could manage. The toe of his shoe scraped against a piece of rotted wood, which snapped. Buford fell backward, clawing at the air to grab the tree, hanging in the air just long enough to realize he was about to fall ten feet onto the ground. He slammed hard into the frozen dirt. His back and joints were rattled with pain. His vision went black for a moment and he struggled for breath. He crawled over to his rifle and felt a stabbing pain in his shoulder. He was pretty sure it was dislocated, but had no time to stop and tend to himself. He thought of all the hits he’d taken playing football in high school on winter nights. Each tackle carried an extra sting in the cold, and sometimes it was a relief to stay at the bottom of the pile just for the warmth. His memories of those nights came so vivid that he was young for a moment, stout and hardy. Then the moment passed and he was an old fool again, lying on the ground in the woods. It began to snow. Thick flakes filled his bushy eyebrows and covered the frames of his glasses. If he didn’t find the deer’s trail soon it would be covered. The pain he felt as he rose to his feet was incredible. He scanned the clearing, and found that he could still see scattered hoof prints. Buford followed the trail into the woods, holding onto his shoulder and limping as fast as he could. Beyond the clearing the woods were untended. Most of the trees were young, with thin trunks, but they had grown so close together that passing through them was like navigating a briar patch. If Buford was a bad hunter, he was an even worse tracker. He had accompanied his father on many hunting trips in his childhood, but his father had always ended up disappointed in his dull-witted boy. Buford had always managed to lose the compass or the map, or to sneeze at just the wrong time, scaring away the animals. The ride home was usually a quiet one. Buford struggled to keep the trail, finding torn branches and trampled leaves in a jittery but mostly straight line. Then he noticed a five 2 one│issue 1
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red patch of blood on the ground, brilliant against the white of the new-fallen snow. Buford ran to it, growing more nauseated as he approached. When he came to it he could see that it wasn’t just a patch of blood, but a piece of organ that had been torn out of the deer’s body. A quick glance around the area revealed the offending branch, still glittering with its bloody reward. Buford followed the gruesome new trail deeper into the woods. The red patches became larger as he ran, until finally he found a large patch of entrails steaming in the snow. Overcome with guilt, he fell to his knees in front of the organs. The wind buffeted his body and ran in circles around the trees, creating a guttural moan that made the woods sound as a living creature. Buford felt as if he was finally seeing the true face of these woods, and was amazed at how wild nature could be, still so close to his home. The snow fell faster, making it hard to see even the glowing pile of guts five feet from his face. Buford took a gasping breath of air and staggered to his feet. He strengthened his grip on his rifle and charged forward into the woods. Soon Buford came to a thin, dry creek bed. Still running at full pace he tried to cross quickly. He stepped onto a rock and took an unbalanced jump toward the other side. His leap failed and he tripped forward. His rifle flew out of his hand and the butt of the gun slammed into the ground, firing a round straight into the air. Buford’s right hand was caught in the blast and burst like a water balloon, covering his face in blood and tendons. Buford collapsed into the creek bed, howling incoherently. His glasses lay on the ground next to him and shattered. His entire body pulsated. He squirmed on the ground like a worm. He opened his mouth to scream again, but nothing came out. He curled into a ball, sank his head deep in the snow and waited to die. Falling flakes covered him. As Buford lay on the ground he thought of the deer and he thought of his home. The wind died down and the air became still. The snow fell silently. The only sound was the ragged scrape of air filling his lungs and releasing. Buford closed his eyes. In between the wheezing he heard a clear and gentle sound cutting through the silence softly, like the wind chimes on a summer evening. He recognized the sound as water flowing over rock, and then he realized where the deer had gone. Buford stood up. Waves of pain ran through his body, and stabbing electric needles pierced his joints. He picked up his broken glasses from the ground and put them on. As he took his first whimpering step forward he realized that he was fulfilling a promise that had been made the moment he’d charged off into the woods after the deer. The end had been implied in five 2 one│issue 1
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the beginning, and nothing else in his life mattered. He tried to find the trail again, but the snow had covered it completely. He began to understand that that he would never see his home again, would never see Margaret or touch her face again, would never take another step that wasn’t in agonizing pain. He felt his body shutting down. He thought of the machines in the paper mill, and the way that you could tell, after decades of experience, which machines could be repaired and which ones needed to to be scrapped. His body was now just useless equipment. The noise of the water became louder as he ran toward the edge of the woods. He emerged from the tree line and saw the deer. It had collapsed by the edge of a brook, its hind legs dangling in the water. It was still breathing, a horrible whistling sound that came from its muzzle. Buford ran toward it and fell, his legs giving out for what he knew was the last time. He hit the ground hard and crawled the last agonizing feet toward the dying creature. Buford crawled next to the deer, and draped his wounded arm over its belly. The deer’s heart was exposed. Buford watched with fascination as it expanded and retracted, still fighting to pump blood. He looked into the animal’s eyes, searching for the spark of humanity he had witnessed earlier, but they were glassy and black. Whatever it is that gives a living creature its spirit was gone. Buford found himself wondering what his own eyes looked like. Buford placed his hand over the cold, dry muzzle of the deer. The deer’s lips felt slimy in his hand and its tongue was rough as it reflexively flicked his palm. Buford grasped the muzzle tight and plugged the nostrils shut. The deer’s legs kicked in the air and its eyes made ghastly circles in their sockets, and then the animal was still. Buford rolled onto his back and stared up into the winter sky. No scene from his life flashed before him this time. No memory came to hold him in comfort as he died, but he was satisfied. It was enough: the deer and the snow and the sky. He curled up against the deer like a puppy nesting with its litter mate and closed his eyes, and that was how they found him in the spring thaw. Dedicated to Yvonne
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Victoria Oviedo
Victoria Oviedo
Who am I I am naïve. I once use to argue with a friend of mine because I thought being naïve was a good thing. It’s a good and bad characteristic. Honestly, I don’t know everything about myself. This year I’m going to depend more on myself to make my decisions. I’m going to find the woman I am meant to be. Maybe I’m scared of finding myself, Maybe I don’t want to face the reality that is me, but everybody is different. I am a Mexican American, and I am passive-aggressive. I am overweight, and I might come with a low self esteem. This is what I am. I am also kind. I love to help others, always putting others before me. I am not ready to be in a romantic relationship. I am too naïve, and I don’t need somebody pushing me around. For now, I am going to stick to myself.
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Devon Allen
Devon Allen
I Fell For You I fell for you, The bloodlust surrounding your body, The tears that you can’t hide. Your appearance, The corpses lying at your feet. I fell for you, The beauty of your eye enthralls me so, Your skin so flawless, So radiant. I fell for you, I’ll bleed for you, I’ll give you my life, So I ask… Can you give me a sign that says you fell? For this poor old fool Whose life you just destroyed?
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James Damron
James Damron
Electronic Cocoon On a crowded bus Yet still a lonely man Everyone is encased In an electronic cocoon Created by cell phones Enforced by mp3 players Lost in an artificial reality Unaware of their surroundings Of the small child crying Of the drunk sleeping away Of the accident to the left Of anything outside their cocoon A bus full of lonely butterflies No chatter amongst them No friendly exchanges made Just each butterfly sitting Waiting to get to their stop A sad view of what we've become A society connected to the world Yet disconnected from each other A society that knows information About a place they will never visit Alas they don't even know anything About their own next door neighbor Who is totally lost and separated In their own electronic cocoon
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David DeGooyer
David DeGooyer
Where Poetry Grows
They say that it has faded, that poetry is dead but I, product of trees and earth, do not believe it. They say that on nights when the air is clear (and moonlight seems to stretch forever making the shadows tingle with excitement) the loose chattering of leaves is an illusion and the scent of dewy grass is nothing more than a euology to the poetry that once grew here. They say that the clouds are pallbearers, that the trees are priests, that roses are grave-diggers, folding their little hands until the last prayer is done and then, bowing their heads as they lean into their work, they will lay the broken verses to rest. They tell us lies, rooting in the dirt, but they are burying empty caskets. the wind, the water, the trees, the night, they tell the biggest lies of all: gusts, and waves, and leaves, and darkness hold dances of lyrical light enveloped by their love of song, and one never heard a song so glorious. and though some say that all is lost, that poetry has exhaled for the last time, I exist to testify to the truth; that as long as eyes open and close, five 2 one│issue 1
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Catherine Magno
as long as lips part and breasts heave and hair dances on the tongue of the wind; as long as a woman can still catch a man's eye and steal a man's breath, as long as there is the echo of a whispered love, a dream; They will tell you that it has faded, that poetry is dead, but I, child of rivers, of shadowed glass and moonlight, I do not believe them.
Catherine Magno
Good and Evil You were the thunder clap that ruined the tranquility of my day you were the lightening bolt that lit the dullness of my sky you were the careless voice that whispered in my ear the devil on my shoulder the angel in my heart the plague of my contented mind the restless sea that moved me from the safety of land the delusion that made me leap from the cliff the love that consumed me until i was writhing in pain You are both good and evil to me
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Allen Starbuck
Allen Starbuck
High Mountian Road Something torments her, drives her to spend what energy she has. I don't know if it's something structural; A chemical imbalance, perhaps? Or is there something she was meant to do? If there was, it must be something pretty serious. They tell me she was prominent, Knew important people, traveled. None of that seems to help her now. The inside has eclipsed the outside, And the inside seems to be misery. She insists she's a good person, And that it was hard. If so, she must have had temptations; Maybe she gave in to some. One great temptation, for almost anyone Is not to walk the road less traveled. That's the narrow stoney one, Fraught with potholes, Winding around mountains, And ending on a ledge Overlooking all creation. Hardly anyone gets there, But what happens if they do? Is that the place of the last, most fatal temptations? Is that where people turn towads glory And away from whatever is its alternative? Some say the alternative is humiliation,
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Allen Starbuck
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And humiliation might be the call to sacrifice everything: All that you most love, All you think makes you you. Is that the road Abraham took When God called him to sacrifice Isaac? I don't think I'd answer that call. I hope I would say to God, Take me instead. But I think many would say, Take ANYONE but me. That's the road that leads to darkness, Since we all have to go anyway. Maybe she was called, Refused to answer, And has been mourning ever since. She calls on God a lot, But as if from the bottom of a deep well. There's something she wants to see, to feel, Maybe the thing that junkies feel, Maybe something much deeper. Whatever it is, it's powerful. She never sleeps long. Sometimes she rests, But usually she's calling out. It seems nothing can give her peace. Maybe it's the imminence of death, Though I suspect death is still at a distance. Maybe that will be the blessing to give her peace. On the other hand, maybe she'll be one to fight death all the way, Grasping life with her fingernails Right to the end.
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Allen Starbuck
Maybe she's just a statistical victim Of a fragile biochemistry, But I suspect there was something she could have done long ago That would have given her peace.
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First Four issues
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Anothony Ward
Anthony Ward
The Human Race A human race In such a hectic state Living life in the fast lane To keep up with the hypermedia Take away Have a nice day Fast food for the No time for that Chit and chat Mustn’t be here to be there Consumer fuelled society Swimming in an over congested Festered paranoia of self expectation Trying to get what we think we deserve In a cesspool of masto-concupiscent billboard lawsuit for the car accident beneficiariesA chaotic calamity of culture All wrapped up in a nice little package By designers of destiny On a role of this is how you are.
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