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TABLE OF CONTENTS NYSAI Press Introduction........................................................................................................................4 POETRY
Julie Bentsen / background check..................................................................................................24 Jena Caputo / Caravan Dali (a nod from Aram Vardazaryan)..............................................39 Morrison Carver / this is about you..............................................................................................26 Morrison Carver / bundle up your tantrums & shut them out..........................................15 John Clinton / Fog Automobile Revisited.....................................................................................10 Gregory Crosby / Torture Memo.....................................................................................................23 Trae Durica / Trigger Warnings.......................................................................................................12 A.I. Fire�ly / anchored...........................................................................................................................17 Jack Freedman / Redheads in the Wild........................................................................................34 Aimee Herman / nothing compares to you................................................................................42 Bernard King / My Vajra.....................................................................................................................35 Lisa Lee / Sylvia.......................................................................................................................................37 Jonathan Leiter / Ode to a Rock.........................................................................................................5 Alyssa Riganti / I Said I Would Write a Poem About Cows on the Ferry...........................7 Alyssa Riganti / Northshore Nighttime.........................................................................................25 John Snyder / Take Care of the Trees.............................................................................................40 Rachel Therres / I can’t remember if you asked......................................................................21 Stephanie Valente / The Wanderer..................................................................................................8 Melissa West / you.................................................................................................................................16 PROSE
Dave Derwin / Pestilence on the Downtown N.........................................................................18 Tendai Huchu / Visiting Z...................................................................................................................28 ART
Paul Barbato.............................................................................................................................................22 Paul Barbato.............................................................................................................................................33 Paul Barbato.............................................................................................................................................41 Julie Bentsen............................................................................................................................................38 Wooty Chen.........................................................................................................................................Cover Laura Hetzel.............................................................................................................................................14 Steven Lapcevic.......................................................................................................................................27 Julia Simoniello.......................................................................................................................................36 Vincent Taccetta........................................................................................................................................9
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NYSAI PRESS: an Introduction
This printed quarto – bona �ide and tangible, ink-pressed and pulpy, hereby scattered by Staten hands to the Island and the world at large – started with a poem.
A collaboration between two of the soon-to-be editors, the visionary poem trades lines, often blasting open some of the uncomfortable truths about life in this borough. Paradoxically, these very same truths and criticisms are written with utmost love and affection, as only one truly touched by the character of Richmond County can achieve.
It was the last line which caused all the controversy, and understandably so. Perhaps it was a mistake to make it the original magazine title, “New York Shat an Island,” now surviving in the cryptic abbreviation of NYSAI Press.
Misunderstood (because sometimes the affection is hard to �ind), this was duly answered by the Island romantics. Con�lict and lit geek chaos ensued o’er the land. The magazine title’s reputation far outgrew the editors’ intentions. To be clear, we were called to answer for our sins.
In the bloodbath of identity, the impetus for this literary magazine – Staten Island’s newest in a long history – was beginning to bloom. Fittingly, this contentious process illuminated the perennial dilemma: There are many faces of Staten Island.
How can we represent all of this Island in its glory and its shame? Maybe we picked the wrong name. Maybe we didn’t. What we do know is that that we started the conversation. Now, it is your turn to speak. We are city, we are suburbia; we are deformed, we are beautiful; we are America, and we are forever cut from the mainland. We are NYSAI Press and we pledge to present it all, break it down, fuck it up, and move it forward because we can and we know you can too.
We are FLUSHE D: hereafter, we are reborn.
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Ode to a Rock
Jonathan Leiter
Cantankerous crag Ripped from the palatine Palisades And placed Thoughtfully Gingerly: A diamond set amongst coral and driftwood. The end of a span of time Marching forward Relentless in its plodding progress To rise Surge upward. Oh rock of hills You make my heart quicken Steep Deep desire To enrobe you in purple silks And maroon damasks Your bridge The diamonds for your throat Basking in the glow Of a tragic toll plaza.
They say they know you At 50 miles per Or from airplane windows Or a senseless u-turn Your enigmatic smile Gives them no clue Arms folded Eyes unblinking Staring forward Knowing Betrayal and lust Floods and dust Shiny hard and ruby rust. A bush land of bird, beast and brother Laying layer upon Lenape layer Carnegie stalls where Vanderbilt rises Horses trod victorious down your boulevard Armadas defeated Fleets welcome.
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Engulfed in your regal robe I hear the siren call From deep beneath the Narrows Sheltered behind A blinding sky Air and water One and the same Demarcated by a golden line. Bearable to a mortal eye On late Autumn afternoons.
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I Said I Would Write a Poem About Cows On the Ferry
Lys Riganti
Among the Mass (I’ve herd) You (are the cow That) sparkle(s)
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The Wanderer
He preferred sailboats over most things, moving in the gentle mast keeping a soul-glimmer from breaking ignoring phone calls or letters, just coasting until a break.
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Stephanie Valente
Vincent Taccetta
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Fog Automobile Revisited I.
who are these people pumping gas, you in the twilight of trembling gas stations madness in cars, madness in sane kids screaming freeways
lights are always �lashing, the �ire truck will run you over existence is always BURNING! II.
goosed up on stolen lemons whirl pool, salty Chinese, myriad giggles fucked up lime green futon, The Minutemen wasting ti me “I used to listen to cool music” with my Dad in his blue velvet robe III.
here come the fog again, before darkness devours the cemetery like antiquated
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John Clinton
loves, empty under a jaundiced full moons where zombie junkys stick spikes in the tomb stone of my heart
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Trigger Warnings 1
It was the boogey man in shadowy corners The girl freshman year I wasn’t-dating-I-swear told me It happened to her friend I didn’t understand why that hurt so much to hear 2
Abby told me her step-brother used to chase her catch her How he’d hold her down Once had to wear turtlenecks in July because his �ingerprints left bruises how I was there for her then though she couldn’t tell There wasn’t anything to say I didn’t know what to say. I said I liked her necklace Turquoise reminded me of Santa Fe, of driving route 66 of something anything other than bruises Abby took it off, gave it to me, left her neck bare. said she wanted me to have it. I’m never sure if we were talking about the necklace or the memory. 3
You feared the timing wasn’t right What with all that went down last month Isn’t this the last thing we need another person stirring the shit pot
There is never a right time to talk about It And we need to talk about It call It by It’s name recognise a name has power talk about Rape
Until no one is scared to walk home alone scared to say something scared that just because they didn’t say no, someone will assume yes.
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Trae Durica
4
I thought that last beer tasted of aspirin. I didn’t say anything. 5
A too hot shower in a strange bathroom an ache deep in my gut This is the only way I know what just happened I must have consented I don’t remember saying no. 6
I lied I blamed myself I was asking for it. It’s my fault. this isn’t the kind of conversation you have over G-chat at work. I have work to do 7
“Beer shouldn’t have an aftertaste of aspirin” I told you over tacos and wide eyes that I couldn’t meet I understand how much it hurts to hear I didn’t need you to say anything I just needed to know it could be ok that I could be held without �linching that I could feel safe again. you gave me feel safe again feel I wasn’t alone wasn’t to blame feel I was worth something
I don’t remember of all the things that week I can’t remember if I ever said thank you
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Laura Hetzel
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bundle up your tantrums & shut them out
Morrison Carver
your paroxysm is the shade of snails and unfurled house �ire & that slur of strip against swathed torso is startling & contagion can also be called love or paranoia & I prger you at your hairiest & when was the last time you walked beneath a ladder & this may derive from mother’s breast or twice a week entanglements with therapy & I was raised on rolled oats, 1970’s pornography and superstition & you are & nevermind & bite tongue long enough to sever length from eight to �ive inches & could it be possible that we are all just absent of pigment and boundaries & as long as it can lift itself out of mouth it is long enough & when was your last starve & masturbation is meant to include another & you are technically not allowed to beg underground & it is you not me & yet I always give away my �inal quarter at the end of each night & that was politeness over there when sternum kissed its way into you & you aren’t as good of a writer as your characters write themselves out to be & you are & when my father taught me about women & education can also be an adjective & he told me to pull their chair out and napkin my lap with their face & apples can bribe teachers and teeth & this medication I’ve been hiding beneath my tongue all week has gotten stale & mirrors are a bother so I get dressed in front of windows and women & maybe its side effects has something to do with my �laccid palms & all these notebooks & henry miller & when I backpacked across Germany I came back to �ind mold melted all my words away & how tropical is cancer & the �irst time I got laid she insisted on keeping all our clothes on & somewhere between Costa Rica and Kentucky, I found the �lint
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you
on the afternoon train i watched a guy roll a cigarette, packing the thick rusty leaves tight as a container curling each inch into another licking it, a newborn letter about to be sealed, the words inhaled and I thought of you driving through the mountains staring at the purple range alone in your dark wheels rolling till sundown pressing your lips licking your letter watching the road wind
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H.B. West
anchored
A.I. Fire�ly
at 6, a bubble bath was an ocean
a full body baptism, myriad transient pearls adorned with a plastic menagerie now, it becomes a puzzle
these attempts to submerge all parts of myself to feel the same weightlessness
these pores have become potholes, the grit cemented into place
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Pestilence on the Downtown N
Dave Derwin
I found myself alone waiting for the downtown N train on 8th St. at 11:30PM after a pitcher
binge at this seedy wooden bar called Grassroots. The air was still and cold and there was an Asian couple partaking in a vicious hack and wheeze duet performance. It’s the time of year
when people with bad immune systems turn into sentient, malady-spreading snot faucets. I
decided it would be a good idea to put some distance between myself and this thundercloud of disease, so I walked to the end of the station platform where I stood by myself. I was hoping to catch a reasonably-timed ferry boat back to Staten Island, another trip I don’t always look forward to at night either.
The train arrives. It’s the N. As the train is pulling up a younger kid at about 19 or 20 years old hurries down the stairs towards the same door as me. He’s wearing a long, black wool coat and a black skull cap over his red hair. We are alone.
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As I step onto the train behind this kid, he turns around to sit down and suddenly locks up in
place as if someone pulled the lever on Old Sparky and fried him like Ted Bundy. That is when The Stink hits me. It’s this malodorous shockwave unlike anything I have ever smelled in my life. My brain quickly tries to determine what it is but it is just too bad, too vile. I can’t even think. The kid is still standing there, bewildered. I look him in the eyes. “You smell that?” I ask. He doesn’t say anything. He looks back at me, mouth agape. He’s too young for this. It’s too
soon in his life for something this horri�ic. He nods with what I imagine to be his last shed of
will. I turn around and the door has already shut. It is too late and we are stuck together like a
shelled-out WWI foxhole. I look to my left and discover that the two of us have company. It is a homeless man, crumpled and passed out on the very last seat at the end of the train car. His
body is hunched over with one leg extending across the �loor. His body jerks and sways with
the movements of the train. The Stink is so unbelievably foul and permeates the entire car like a compressed tank of air. It’s some kind of fatal atmospheric pressure. I feel like I’m on one
Jupiter’s moons. The Stink isn’t even a fart, nor body odor, it is pure shit. It is a horse stable
built on top of a tire �ire. The Stink is the Alpha and the Omega. It was the �irst smell I was able to actually see, like the spray of a water bottle. There is no way something like that can come
out of something that’s still alive. At this point The Kid and I are already waiting at the door at
the end of the car so we can switch cars at the next stop, whose arrival is beginning to feel like
an agonizing eternity. I begin to think of The Kid as my green war buddy in the foxhole. He just came here at the beginning of his life and he can’t die now. I have to pull him through. He’s gotta get home to mama and meet a nice girl. It can’t end like this. I want to grab him by the
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scruff of his neck and drag him out under the gun�ire. We’d get off this train and get medals and shit. Don’t you die on me!!
With a heavy jerk we reach the next stop and the doors slide open. I’ve been holding my
breath for two minutes and I fast-walk into the next car, coughing and limping. The Kid is gone already, to God-Knows-Where. I stagger into the car and I’m being stared at by
strangers. A Spanish man in a baseball cap with his girlfriend begins to laugh. I glare at him with what probably looked like one of those harrowing Thousand Yard Stares, the kind of empty stare you get when you’ve simply seen too much. They had been watching us from the other car through the window.
“That was hoddible,” the Spanish man says to me. “We were both in there. We don’t know what’s wrong with him. Perhaps he soiled himself.”
Soiled isn’t even the word, I thought. I’m going to have to call Webster soon so we can work out a collection of letters that could accurately describe the misty plume of Black Death I left behind on that train. At the next stop we watch through the window as another
unsuspecting man walks onto the Forsaken Car. He pauses, covers his mouth and darts back out and we have a good laugh. I ended up missing the boat by two minutes.
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I can’t remember if you asked
Rachel K. Therres
You were the perfect taste of salted cucumbers, basil leaves from my childhood garden soil black turned my nails hold evidence peel away the pages it’s easier to bury
you were indignant �lip of hair middle �inger to the train spite the �lood with thick root of sinew We a lock braided with honeysuckle and desert colored rust
my next step is directly off the platform.
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Paul Barbato
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Torture Memo
Gregory Crosby
Didja get that thing I sent ya?
In Regards: Feeling as if you are drowning, then drowning. In Regards: Your �ingernails pried from their beds.
In Regards: Unable to stand, to understand the word stand.
In Regards: Dreamless until it appears that you are dreaming.
In Regards: What you did to be so black and blue and black and blue.
In Regards: Time out of joint, joints out of joint, utterly, in all, disjointed. In Regards: Little pools of iron where ivory once stood.
In Regards: Tongues swollen with lies, bursting with lies, lies, lies. In Regards: No one in the grave, no one in the dock.
In Regards: The intimacy of the hood, the bare bulb above it. In Regards: Information, information, INFORMATION. In Regards: If you know for sure, your soul is pure.
In Regards: Is it safe? Is it safe? Is it safe? Is it safe? In Regards: You are in my power, heh heh heh. In Regards: We had to destroy that village etc.
In Regards: We are nothing if not our means, our ends.
In Regards: I know you. I know why you have done this. In Regards: Please. Please. Please. In Regards: No. Now. Again.
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background check
i got turned down for a date because my science is not rock hard enough it does not throb with quantitative accuracy
also, my sources weren’t cited and my references weren’t contactable (they did not immediately return a request for comment) all my veri�ications fell through to the Void and the background check came back saying “all we know so far is that its not human” Bast has my number but hasn’t called in over two thousand years
standing with the other Sphinxes in the unemployment line i got turned down for a job because he wanted a date
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Julie Bentsen
Northshore Nighttime
Lys Riganti
House hiccups, Chicken clucks. Together they sound like Human Cries.
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this is about you
Morrison Carver
I thought I saw you walking on the street between the café where I sneak sips of whiskey into my coffee and the one-way road that stole my best friend from sixth grade to twelfth. You had on blue jeans. Real blue like strips of sky and chalk with pixilated pockets. They were tight at the ankles the way you used to wear them. The way all the girls wear them. Your shirt was stained from the back. I’m not sure how that happened.
Your hair was the way it used to be—frosted—awkwardly cut as though intentionally showcasing its thinness. I knew it wasn’t you the moment you/she smiled. I saw teeth. And there was no cigarette like sixth �inger burning between the others. There is a gesticulation between nudity and spell checking at the moment. My body leans into its re�lection as though accosting it. My leg turns into a switchblade rotating to starring role from swiss army knife Dad gave me on my ninth birthday without realizing what I could do with it. It is dif�icult to focus on an earth that offers free pornography to interrupt the disturbances of childhood memory.
I think about castration and how it can relate to breast milk. I don’t remember sucking your nipple and staring into your browns. You didn’t want me there long enough—insisted on pushing plastic between my lips as an alternative. The last nipple I sucked belonged to a girl from minnesota, but no beverage came out. Believe me, I tried.
You said water was a privilege. So you used to make me bathe with you on Sundays, the only day you openly scrubbed yourself. Most nights, when dad traveled from board rooms to bars, I kept his side of the bed warm. You called me his stunt double. When you forced my �ingers in your hair, infections later grew beneath my nail bed.
The woman called Felicia at the hair salon always said we looked alike. I’d wait by the windows until your shift was over, reading magazines full of hair and breasts. Took one of them home and rushed my pants off. Couldn’t believe how much came out of me just from photos of ladies with feathered hair and highlights.
When I was eight, I took a carton of your cigarettes, named after witches and massachusetts, and �illed its paper mouth with dish soap. I watched bubbles compete with the surgeon general’s warning. Crumpled them up with my blistered hands and threw them away. You never even noticed they were gone. Just bought a new carton on your way home from somewhere.
When I was fourteen, I put weed into Miles’s birthday cake, which I baked when he turned seventeen. That was the day after you caught me jacking off to some clothing catalogue but my erection had nothing to do with sweaters on sale. You seemed to be very confused about my choice of reading material. The next day, dad slipped a playboy beneath my pillow. After Miles blew his candles out, everyone’s appetite grew and our walls felt less haunted. You ate three pieces. Then you forgot how to smoke your cigarettes. 26 �lushe d.
Steven Lapcevic
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Visiting Z
Tendai Huchu
‘She dumped me by letter,” Z said. The pain in his voice leached out, falsetto like. ‘I mean, who does that? Send a text, tweet, Facebook it even. But a letter? That’s cold. Fucking ice cold, like something a bank would do.’ ‘There was no other way she could have done it,’ I said. He looked at me, then sort of buried his face in his hands and held back the torrent of emotion that I knew was bubbling under the surface. It cut me up real bad. “Women hey?” “Women.”
We kind of looked at each other, you know, the vacuous look cows on a �ield give one another. A purposeless stare that communicated little else except the profuse magnitude of the situation. Z blinked a couple of times. I turned my head and looked at the wall covered in children’s drawings. The pictures resembled foxes or some other such mammalian creature with brown/red fur, large/small pointy ears, four/or so legs and a tail, some with teeth showing, frozen betwixt smile and menace. ‘Are you gonna eat that? I’m starving,’ I said. He slid a half-eaten Mars bar my way. ‘You sure?’ I said.
‘What, you think if I eat it it will change anything?’ he snapped, then quickly composed himself and sighed. ‘All I can do is count the days, scratch notches on the wall.’ ‘You could use the tally method.’ ‘What?’
‘Primary school stuff, you mark out a line for each day and on the �ifth strike it out, so you have sets. It makes it easier, primitive infographics, nice aesthetic to it too.’ ‘Thanks, I’ll fucking tally, that’s so fucking useful, man. Where have you been all my life?’ ‘Lowest form of humour,’ I said, and took a bite.
It was too sweet for me (the Mars bar, that is). For the last couple of days I’d been waking up in the middle of the night to pee. I thought of going to the GP, getting a test and seeing if I wasn’t diabetic like my dad. Old man, had glaucoma and all that shit eating up his chi; the miserable prick. The problem was getting an appointment at the surgery. You had to ring up in the morning and see if you could get a slot the same day. I swear to Yahweh, it was impossible. First you ring up and an automated voice tells you it’s too early, lines open after eight. Then you call back and the damn thing keeps ringing out. At eight-thirty, you �inally get through and speak to the dragon lady who tells you there are no appointments left. The only way she can help you is if it’s some kind of emergency, i.e. you’re in some stupendous amount of pain that drastically affects your quality of life,
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something near fatal, but without being A&E fatal, a �ine line, and excess glucose in the bloodstream doesn’t cut it. So she asks you to ring back tomorrow, and you’re like, ‘That’s what you told me to do yesterday and the day before that.’ Hardcore Ka�ka. ‘Have you told anyone?’
‘About this situation? No, dude, no,’ I said, and he looked at me, studying me like a gemcutter looking for a widow on a stone. ‘For real man, I ain’t told no one. Geez, will you stop eyeballing me like that. You’re freaking me out.’ ‘Coz if you did-’
‘Look, I know this shit is messed up, but I would never do that that, unless you asked me to. Surely you’ll want your folks to know.’ ‘No!’ he said too loudly. He leaned forward, resting his head on his right �ist.
I was already under pressure with his whole tribe phoning and messaging me, trying to �ind out what was up with him. Motherfucker had gone awol, so they were anxious, and I was the one potential lead they had. That was the rock. The hard place was Z being dick and asking me to keep this whole thing top secret, CIA classi�ied. redacted shit which was so fucking messed up. On a psychological level, it’s supposed to be some kind of male bonding thing – ‘I know something about you no one else knows, ergo we’re blood brothers’ – spit and shake on it. But the whole thing about secrets, esp. stuff like this, is that sooner or later there would be a leak, it’s inevitable as day turns to night, and it’d all come down on me. The very concept itself, the idea that something can only be known by a small, select group of people is problematic because information wants to be free, baby. Forget Julian Assange for a minute and think Darwin, evolution, pure and simple, we were designed – brain, tongues and all – to spread memes. Even Zippy couldn’t stop it. So when Z tells me that he wants this shit classi�ied, I’m thinking, ‘Who are you kidding, man?’ Not that I was going to tell anyone, but that this shit would come out all by itself. Information moves through this strange, as yet to be understood, osmosis. The whole of humanity is �loating in some sea of quantum entanglement, mysterious shit beyond my IQ. The phone calls he’s not picked up. The emails he’s not responded to. Appointments missed. Sooner or later, some Columbo puts 2+2 together and there you go, QED, the secret’s out… Because it was never a secret in the �irst place. Not in the real sense of the word, anyway. I wanted tell him this, show him the axioms �loating through the atmosphere, but instead, there I was, nodding along like one of those toy nodding dogs you see at the back of cars these days. Except I wasn’t just nodding, it was more rattling my brain in the cerebrospinal �luid, banging it against my cranium, like Jews do when reading the Torah, trying to �ind some meditative zone in the oppressive space we were in. I looked around the room, checking out the people around us. We were in some sort of limbic antechamber. ‘So many white people around us,’ I said. ‘This is Scot-land,’ Z said, drawing out every syllable. ‘That’s normal here.’
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‘I didn’t mean it in a racist way, honest. I was just remarking on it, like, look, everyone here has two eyes and two pairs of hands.’
‘Two pairs of hands?’ he said with a laugh. It was the �irst time I’d seen him do so the whole time I’d been with him. It was a blessed relief, gentle rain after a long dry season. Then it quickly disappeared. Silence, like there was nothing in the �irst place. Nothing, except for the buzz of conversation around us. Even voices, male and female. The innocent squeals of children. There were �ive rows of seats labelled A-E. Each row had a table numbered 1-8. Z and I sat on C6, from where I could see outside the bulletproof glass to a paved courtyard and the high wall topped with razor wire. Row A, nearest the window, was empty, B had folks wearing blue t-shirts, the guys in D wore green, and in our row, Z’s row, they wore red. It looked like the sort of tribal, house colour scheme you get in posh boarding schools. ‘How come we’re in red, Z?’ I asked.
‘I’m in red, you can wear whatever you want,’ he replied, dryly. A kid ran to our table and knocked my empty can of coke down. His mum, scooped him up and apologised. ‘When I came in, I was scared shitless. Never been so spooked in my entire life, I was shitting myself. So the screw asks me, “Do you want protection?”’ ‘They offered you condoms?” I was shocked.
‘No-they-did-not-offer-me-condoms, you moron. It meant if I needed extra protection from other inmates. I didn’t think that would be such a bad thing so I said yes.’ ‘To protection?’
‘There I was thinking that I’d get a cell on my own and, you know, a few perks here and there. But I wind up in this unit with murders, rapists and paedophiles.’ ‘That doesn’t sound like protection to me.’
‘The fuck it is. These guys are so beyond the pale that the other prisoners would attack them if they were in gen pop, and I’m stuck in the middle of them.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You see that motherfucker there, two tables to the left. Yeah, the skinny one with a tattoo on his neck. You know what they call him?’ ‘I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.’ ‘Babypunch.’
‘-?’
‘That’s because he punched a one year old baby, his own son, the bastard. And that guy, on the �irst table, he’s the LimbsintheLoch murder. Google him. He killed some people, chopped them up and threw the pieces in a loch.’ ‘Jesus.’
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‘And I have to live with these people.’ ‘Jesus.’
‘The screw fucked me over, big time.’
He scratched behind his ear and looked at his �ingers, as if to see if there was any dirt there. A baby was crying somewhere in B. There was a play area in the corner near E, for children. It had a slide, sand box, some toys and the walls close by were painted with colourful Jungle Book animals. A �lat screen TV hanging on the wall was tuned in to Galaxy, playing pop hits. There were only two doors that led outside the room and next to each stood a screw. More of them were dotted about the room, watching the prisoners and their visitors closely. They wore black trousers and white shirts with the SPS logo on them, looking more like nightclub bouncers than civil servants. It seemed ridiculous to me that pieces of cloth were the only difference between the prisoners and their guards.
On the ceiling, between the �luorescent lights, CCTV cameras watched and recorded everything going on. All of a sudden I was feeling like Sco�ield, scanning my surroundings, searching for vulnerabilities, looking for a way out of the box. Two doors, four walls, bulletproof windows, furniture bolted to the �loor, cameras, guards. Do you see the weak spot? The weakest link in any amour is the human element, in this case, the guards – unarmed guards. We were many, they were few. Hell we could even draft the kids too for our prison break. A female screw with blond hair eyed me wearily and then cast her tired gaze onto C4. ‘This ain’t how it looks on TV,’ I said to Z. ‘Not what I was expecting at all.’ ‘What did you expect?’
‘Anyone try to shank you or take your cereals?’
‘That’s American shit. In here, it’s the boredom that kills you.’
‘I thought there’d be a glass partition and we’d speak through phones.’
‘They have those kind of units and if you fuck around that’s what they’ll do. But who would want that?’ ‘I’m giving up beer, like a lent thing, a show of solidarity, till you get out.’ ‘If you really wanna show solidarity, try giving up pussy.’
‘The Lord will never give a man more than he can bear,’ I replied with a chuckle. I wondered if Z was at the stage where he was beginning to fantasize about the female screws, like what happens when you’re in high school and you have the hots for the art teacher. I could only imagine what this place was like. The enforced regime, the mind numbing routine, plastic food, and worst of all,
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the company. The mong faces around were enough to put paid to the idea that one could meet anyone worth befriending in this place. Z was on his own. He had to be strong or this place would eat him alive. ‘FIVEMINUTES,’ one of the screws shouted.
I’d read the poster on the wall, the one with all the rules. After the call, we were supposed to wind down, say our good byes and prepare to part. That meant I’d done forty minutes in the shithole. Felt like hours. I could only imagine what had happened to Z’s own perception of time. He crossed his legs and lent back, folded his arms and looked like a man with eternity on his mind. I noticed the stubble on his chin, bags under the eyes, the way he took up less space, as if he was trying to vanish into a dot. ‘When can you come back?’ he asked.
‘A second date,’ I replied. ‘You have to do better with the food. This junk those Salvation Army ladies sell in the kiosk is bad for my �igure you know.’ ‘I’ll put in a complaint with the governor.’
‘Tell him to sub-contract to McDonalds or Burger King, something with class.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ he said. I nodded of course. ‘How will it feel hanging out with me now you know I’m a criminal? I have a record.’ ‘I already knew you were an arsehole, but I still hung out with you,’ I replied. ‘TIMESUP,’ the screw shouted.
Everyone stood up, making a great deal of noise in the process. Across the way, a couple, the guy in green kissed his girl passionately. In our row, the guys in red, no one had a girlfriend, but a fair few of the blues and green had them. Fathers kissed their kids good-bye. I gave Z an awkward hug. We sort of threw our arms around each other and bumped chests, keeping our lower halves as far apart as humanly possible. Then the screw ordered the visitors to sit down. ‘Hasta la vista,’ Z said.
‘I’ll be back,’ I replied in my best Austrian accent.
We watched the prisoners �ile away, back through door number 2, into the abyss. Each looked back and waved to a loved one as they crossed the threshold. ‘Bye, bye, Daddy,’ a little girl called out. A man in blue blew a kiss. Z gave me the thumbs up. When they were gone, the screws ordered us to clear our tables. We were herded through door number 1 and waited in a bleak corridor until we were allowed through a second door, into yet another room, this one with the metal detector. We hung about in there, until we were �inally let out past a steel gate, through the reception and out into the sunshine. The air was sweet scented and fresh outside HMP. The dull Scottish sun looked brighter than I’d ever seen it. I got into my car, started up the engine and drove away. What else can you do?
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Redheads in the Wild
Redhead. Genus: Gingerus Species: Fookindangerus. Can often be spotted in Ireland. Known for extreme tempers. Known for being teased by kids. Known for being adored by older women. Seen as demonic in China. Need more anesthesia during surgery. Can do a lot of damage with a scalpel. Perceived as having no soul by foul-mouthed cartoon characters. When encountering the Gingerus Fookindangerus, Kindly proceed with caution. Bounty on successfully hunting the redhead: $1,000,000 Assuming you live to tell about it. They bear strong resemblances to leprechauns, But those that try to steal their gold are out of luck. Gingerus Fookindangerus is an endangered species. Oftentimes they are poached for their pubic hair. They will kill with kindness, Assuming that this abstract noun Refers to a Hattori Hanzo samurai sword With the word KINDNESS inscribed in the handle. Redheads In The Wild will return after a brief word from our sponsor.
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Jack M. Freedman
My Vajra
Bernard King
My vajra rolled across the table and made a clink it talked to me (Om… Om… MMMBop) I’m number 8. I’m hard as a diamond; strong as a thunderbolt is my hand.
Presented me this ritual weapon Harvey like that invisible rabbit mystery now couch-surfs dimensions of former life closed like oriental silk screens closed closed but my hand closes on my weapon with strength of spirit, he said. Lightning bolt in my hand my diamond scepter I’m number 8.
Eight lotus leaves the phenomenal world, eight lotus leaves the noumenal. Eight the goddesses eight the auspicious symbols eight-fold the path eight dragon’s heads their tongues kiss the pearl. Harvey was the sad Buddha mourning the pain of the world collapsed in on himself, head in hands, unmoving wood. But Harvey knew the center of balance. My vajra rolled across the table and made a clink it talked to me I picked it up (Om… Om… MMMBop) I’m number 8.
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Julia Simoniello
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Sylvia
Lisa Lee
Soul sister and lover, in dreams I kiss your lips and you cry in my arms, hush now
My breath into your ear whispering sounds of a language not native to us. Goo goo gaaa gaaa
I think you are better than me, like these nails which dance up and down my back, sings poems into spines, written by the ghost in your bedroom.
Cosmos fall from these pages, sister, and dust in the eyes, only a subversion from the spaces between black ink so that each word is only a stain in the back of my head because they are me and you are the wind blowing the leaves so that they make a despairing droning sound.
These �ingertips scream dark truths into a lonely room and me, the object of such truths as whole and real as the tap in my heart, the purr in my scream and you, the author and you, the housewife. I think, I need to, �ix your badly burned insides because you are me and I am the �lower inside each restless soul and you are a watering can only half full. Dear Sylvia, my best friend and stranger,
you are the painful cracking of leaves as I walk, the wet tears on a stone near the pond. You are my �ingertips and my nightmares. NYSAI Press 37
Julie Bentsen
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Caravan Dali (a nod from Aram Vardazaryan)
Jena Caputo
If I were among you immersed in your world of burnt
sand and hovering suns, I would fashion myself a �lying machine and loop �igure eights through the mass of limbs
letting my palms brush your sinewy muscles and round
your bulging joints. I would sever the ties that bind you to your brothers and choose you to tattoo across my shoulder blade
so you could forever ride on my back instead of bearing mans burdens on yours.
NYSAI Press 39
Take Care of the Trees
John Snyder
No body is going to survive. The brain is swimming and it burns a little in a good way. Mongrel eats what he wants, licks his lips, talks to the ones below, and makes love with himself. Wringing out his �lesh he walks scratching bark crunching leaves He breathes He retreats to his bed of nails. He likes the way they prod his dreams. Prickly pins tickling wild fancies like memories. If only he could smell his way back to last night when he was BEAST KING FOREVER
But forever was only Several dark hours And approximately three light ones.
He was harlot and better, evil and contagious.
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All the carcasses woke up in the afternoon with ME. I didn’t feel like dancing anymore. I �loated out of the woods. But the outside was too bright for MY eyes now. I went back in and started whispering to the trees, petting their branches. They had sat up with ME all through the morning that had been MY night It’s only polite If I return the favor
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Paul Barbato
nothing compares to you
Aimee Herman
I met her between the grapefruit and whole wheat bread aisle. She wore yellow as though she birthed it. I met her on a Tuesday in an open �ield of winter solstice barking out the remains of autumn and approachable sunsets. I met her at 4am when I noticed blood hollering from her elbows that may have been too cracked to feel pain. I met her across a room full of new york artists and aristocrats and when I asked her if she ever memorized anything like a poem, she said: only my name. I met her at a funeral for a woman neither of us knew but the coffee was warm and we needed a place to sit. I met her yesterday and can only tell you that her eyes are more hazel than hazel is. I met her right before she married the �irst one and when I held out my hand as a ticket out, she dripped a tear beneath the dirtiest �ingernail on my left hand. I met her on the corner of west 4th and that basketball court. I met her for books and hot coffee. I met her right before I dropped two inches from my chest. I met her during that summer of fasting and bed bugs. I met her in a massachusetts cigar bar where we learned how not to inhale. I met her during an evening of mix tapes and lorca translations. I met her while waiting for the bathroom at a club for swingers. I met her in june. I met her in a nicotine anonymous meeting during smoke break. I met her on line waiting to go online. I met her before she was ready to be met. She grew up in wyoming and lead a life of antlophobia. She held hands with the wind and men named gabriel. She terri�ied bill collectors and memorized the side effects of elevator music. She sang during breakfast. She drank hummingbirds’ sugar-water. She had a dif�icult time committing to failure. She had no understanding of yesterday or tomorrow. Her eating disorder rhymes with salvation. Her lips grow sores when she lies. Her brother never existed. Her voice is just loud enough to wander through you. Her favorite sound is a tree in February. Her mother will die. Her favorite pick-up line is hello. Her palms are complicated. Her sexual orientation is everything that exists out of closets. Her umbrella is forgotten on days when the sky’s sutures rip open and everything pours out. Her liver is raw. Her cuticles are ignored. Her diploma is bendable and cannot be exchanged for currency. Her whisper cuts windows. She breaks fasts with her dialect. She makes love to coffee and sorrow. She cuts her own hair with dull knives and scoops out the roots with wooden spoons. She transcends biology with her wardrobe and approach to bending. She is a war song. She is oil paint which never dries. She is pernicious. She is an amaryllis in december. 42 �lushe d.
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EXCITED TO WATCH YOU GROW! Congrats to all the writers & artists involved www.statenislandarts.org
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