Vol II Issue VI - May 2015 by The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society

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THE RAIN, PARTY, & DISASTER SOCIETY IS A WORKSHOP-BASED ONLINE LITERARY PUBLICATION THAT STRIVES TO GIVE REPRESENTATION TO NEW IDEAS AND THOUGHTS, TO CHALLENGE THE READER, AND TO QUESTION COMMONLY ACCEPTED OPINIONS, VALUES, ETIQUETTE, AND IDEAS. WITHIN OUR PAGES, YOU MAY FIND: WORKS THAT TACKLE HOT-BUTTON ISSUES, WORKS PRESENTED IN A STYLE THAT IS OUT OF THE ORDINARY, WORKS THAT PRESENT THE READER WITH A QUESTION OR DEBATE, AND WORKS THAT BREAK MAINSTREAM RULES WITHIN THEIR GENRE. ALL OF THE PIECES YOU FIND ON THIS SITE HAVE BEEN THROUGH OUR WORKSHOP PROCESS, DURING WHICH THE RP&D EDITORIAL STAFF WORKS CLOSELY WITH CONTRIBUTORS TO HONE THEIR VOICE AND HELP THEM TO PRODUCE THE BEST POSSIBLE WORK FOR YOU, THE READER, TO EXPERIENCE.

TO RESPOND DIRECTLY TO A WORK YOU SEE FEATURE IN THIS ISSUE, USE OUR CONTACT PAGE TO SENT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF. YOU MAY ALSO WRITE YOUR OWN REBUTTAL AND SUBMIT IT FOR PUBLICATION IN A FUTURE ISSUE.

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Table of Contents

Pg. 4 - AUTISM, Janna Vought Pg. 6 - VITAL HUMAN, Ana Prundaru Pg. 7 - PINK SLIME, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 8 - TEEN POETRY SUPERSTAR, Luis Neer Pg. 10 - MANGO BABIES, Frances Woolf Pg. 11 - WILL YOU WAKE ME UP, Alexander Speaker Pg. 12 - THE NIRVANA SPECIAL ISSUE OF LIFE MAGAZINE, Hiromi Yoshida Pg. 13 - PLANS, Alex Sobel Pg. 16 - SEPTEMBER, David E. Poston Pg. 17 - H THEORY OF AN ECLIPSE, Pamela August Russell Pg. 18 - HEATH, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 18 - WHEN THE GHOST IN ME TRIES TO COOK, Reed Hexamer Pg. 19 - A SERIES OF EPISODES, Paul Ferrell Pg. 20 - SWOON TO DEATH, Alexander Speaker Pg. 22 - ARTEMIS AND THE FLAMINGOES, Chella Corrington Pg. 23 - LENT, Janna Vought Pg. 25 - MACHETE, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois Pg. 26 - BRING DOWN GOLIATH, Luis Neer Pg. 28 - ICARUS REDUX, Hiromi Yoshida Pg. 29 - USES OF INFINITY, David E. Poston Pg. 30 - STILL LIFE WITH FUGITIVE DESIRES, Pamela August Russell

Pg. 31 - EDITORIAL STAFF Pg. 33 - CONTRIBUTOR BIOS

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AUTISM Janna Vought

In honor of National Autism Awareness Day April second: for every autistic child, remember their mothers too.

I don’t want to be a mother today.

I don’t want to listen to the same music I’ve heard for six months straight blaring from her bedroom.

I don’t want every time I mention a topic, she feels compelled to research it online, obsessed with information gathering, disclosing every minute detail.

I don’t want to go to any more therapy sessions or doctor appointments.

I don’t want to tell her to zip up her pants or pull down her shirt.

I don’t want to walk with her in Walmart, backpack crammed with all of her worldly possessions bulging from her back like a camel’s hump.

I don’t want to admit that sometimes, when I'm alone in bed at night, I wish she was never born.

I don’t want to look at any more sketches of Twilight, Kristen Stewart (her latest obsession) captured in lead from every angle.

I don’t want to wash her baby blanket again, hard yarn clinging to life in the phantom shape of its former self.

I don’t want to admit to anyone that my sixteen year old daughter still carries a stuffed animal with her wherever she goes.

I don’t want to think about dreams never realized.

I don’t want her to keep wearing the same shirt.

I don’t want to watch her stumble over her own feet, a victim to her lack of coordination.

I don’t want to rub cream on her eczema or pump her full of any more Immodium to combat her psychosomatic behaviors, physical manifestations of the demons within.

I don’t want to be responsible for her the rest of my life.

I don’t want to watch her wash her hands twenty times a day to combat her germ phobia.

I don’t want to watch her freeze with fear when she encounters a crowd of people at the grocery store.

I don’t want to tell her to lower her voice it reaches a remarkable octave that even the neighbors can hear.

I don’t want to cry for her.

I don’t want to referee another encounter between her and her father. (He can’t comprehend or cope with the myriad of her conditions.)

I don’t want to regret my life.

I don’t want to still be doing her laundry when I’m sixty.

I don’t want to listen to one more person tell me I need to lower the stress in my life—Impossible.

I don’t want to turn off the news when she enters the room, afraid of feeding her inherent fears: plane crashes, Ebola, suicide bombers, measles, bee stings.

I don’t want to consider my future.

I don’t want someone else to tell me I can cure her if she skips the gluten/caffeine/processed foods/ sugar.

I don’t want to consider the long term effects of her many medications.

I don’t want to defuse another temper tantrum, repair and paint her bedroom door again from after effects of her aggression.

I don’t want to try and convince her that exercise will ease her anxiety and depression.

I don’t want to consider who will care for her when I leave this world.

I don’t want to consider what went wrong with her conception. I don’t want to watch her inhale a Sonic cheeseburger and fries in five minutes flat, her primal pack instincts at work yet again.

I don’t want sympathetic glances or condescending stares when I have to reprimand her in the cereal aisle.

I don’t want to blame myself.

I don’t want to hear another story about a mentally ill person committing an act of violence, poster children for the intolerant and ignorant who espouse the evils of the “retarded,” “crazy, “insane.”

I don’t want to explain to her again why they used to lock people like her away in attics and institutions, forgotten and lost souls, condemned to lives of suffering and isolation.

I don’t want to blame her.

I don’t want her to be “normal.”

I don’t want to forget her elusive smile.

I don’t want to pray anymore. God never listens.

I don’t ever want to be without her.

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VITAL HUMAN Ana Prundaru

His memory is strongest on hazy Sunday afternoons;   it squeezes my heart, as if it was trying to stop me.

I step alone into the shadows of expired backwoods. My eyes   flutter silently between spring and the horned sky and   I roll the skin on my stomach into a blooming hyacinth,  his favorite flower.

A glowing key edges out of my tired eye socket at dusk,  opening a cherry wood music box that I buried near   a Tamarisk tree.

I seal new recollections in an odor-free environment.   It is inevitable that dirt from under my fingernails mixes   with mutilated layers of forgotten messages.

Cracked snail shells are the loudest to sigh. Sand grains   however, remain mum. In an intricate procedure, each riot victim   is ventilated out of cell membranes, until pain

joins the blind smile of time. For now, I spare memories   of us, cradling sorrows in empty fireplaces.

The key crawls back and I step behind walls that drown   between two cities. Intimacy jawbones are the last to fold to ash.

PINK SLIME Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Being a restaurateur is like being a writer: most of us fail. I served healthy, delicious food at reasonable prices. My kitchen was spotless. I frequently added interesting new dishes, but kept the basics, so the working man could eat along with the yuppie and the trust fund baby. My waitresses were friendly and some were cute, though I never made that a requirement for employment (homely women need jobs too) even when I began to fail, then slid down the slippery slope. I made my restaurant across the street from a McDonald’s. I figured people would drive down the road and, at the last moment, make the healthy and delicious choice. They’d swing right instead of veering left, or the other way around. A patron could eat breakfast at my place almost as cheaply as at “Mickey D’s,” if he or she chose menu items with care. I got good reviews from food critics I’d never met, who had snuck in unannounced. The environment of the dining room was culturally rich, hung with paintings by good local artists. I had fanciful sculptures set in strategic places so the customers’ kids might practice being curious and inquisitive, and maybe learn something, expand themselves, not their girth, like those shamefully obese youngsters who, with their ignorant parents, fill their bodies with fast food junk. Neither were we slow at getting the food out. Cook it right, but cook it fast, I told my employees. People like to imagine having a nice, leisurely lunch, but they’re always in a hurry. But all day, as I greeted people, as I cooked, helped serve, even bussed tables, I watched vast carloads of slop eaters motor through the drive-through or drag their big bellies and fat asses out of their sedans and through the doors of the Golden Arches, the arches to heart attack hell. I could almost feel that garbage on my tongue (I had once tried it and almost gagged). That greasy grub, that pink slime, slid down their throats, into their stretched but unprotesting stomachs. I’m lovin’ it! their slogan. I kept working at it, kept trying to succeed, and I knew I should let go of my wrath, but couldn’t. I knew I had to change myself for my own good, but couldn’t. When I got indigestion and couldn’t even enjoy my own food, when I got acid reflux and finally a bleeding ulcer, I knew it was time to quit and go back to selling shoes for my brother. I remind him of how bad fast food is for him, but he just shrugs, so I stopper my nose when he comes back with a big bag of fries and a cup of that artificial glop they call a “milk shake.” I just study the shoes, which are, for the most part, poorly made.

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TEEN POETRY SUPERSTAR Luis Neer

When I checked my email tonight  there was a message in the inbox  from a magazine that rejected  five of my poems  three weeks ago.

I clicked on it and began to read:

‘Hello Luis,  when we rejected your submission recently  I forgot to send you this message  from our advisory poetry editor.  I hope you find his feedback encouraging.

‘Hi Luis,  It saddens me that we are not taking your poems.  I want you to know, I think you really  have a spark...’

I read on.  The message was very complimentary,  and sincere,  and I read it three times and smiled.  It ended with a question, in parentheses:

‘(Have you been reading Bukowski?  You write like you’ve been reading Bukowski.)’

I answered his question  in my head:

Have I been reading Bukowski?  I learned how to write poetry by reading Bukowski!

At this very moment  my typewriter is sitting on a stack of his books  on the bedroom floor  to muffle the typing sounds.

Then, in my head, I revised the answer as

I am Bukowski.

But then I realized that  this email had been sent to me because the editors  had forgotten to attach

the advisory editor’s feedback  earlier  when they  rejected me.

The question had been  rhetorical,  and the advisory editor would probably wonder indefinitely,  maybe while brushing his teeth  or waiting at a red light,  if I read Bukowski  or not.

I do read Bukowski.      One poetry blog  that accepted one of my poems  for an anthology of teenage poets  tweeted  about said poem  and referred to me as a ‘teen poetry superstar.’

When I saw that  I just sort of  looked at it  for a while.

Luis Neer: Teen Poetry Superstar.      Thanks, Buk.

My heart flies over the mountains,  I tear through nightmares like paper,  Time dangles from a paper clip

and with every rejection  the eyes grow sharper  still.

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April 16, 2015 (11 pm)

MANGO BABIES Frances Woolf

You’ll move across the country to live the glamorous life you always planned on living. And you’ll publicly post things on the internet, hoping they might remain in the shadows because you talk about fucking and drinking and things your mother might accidentally stumble upon (and she’d think so differently of you).

You wish that you could shut yourself into a brightly lit room and smoke with someone who “gets it,” talk about ideas instead of people. The notion that sometimes babies who aren't touched for years after they’re born grow up to be mentally and physically flawed crosses your mind daily, and you think about the ones who died. You think about how when you’re old no one will want to put their fingers near you anymore; about how everyone in your class thinks you’re “kind of a freak” because you talk about sunsets and satan too much.

And, “Whatever,” you think to yourself. But deep down you wish they would all rejoice and join the conversation, because maybe you’ll learn something. Maybe they’ll learn something. You want to shove yellow paint down their throats, so they’ll “lighten up.” You’ll sit in the back of a taxicab and a stranger next to you will light your cigarette and slowly run their nose across your thigh. The driver’s black hair is slicked back with grease and you can see his eyes scan the passenger’s seat. You’ll shut your eyes tight and the only thing that will come to mind is running in the yard as a little girl. There are black bangs gracing her forehead, the sun bathes her as lady bugs explore her body. Then you open your eyes to reality, you see a big smile. You think about how his gums conquer most of his face, but somehow you find it so damn endearing.

Communication is key, I tell people. Let’s stop communicating, though. Let’s look at each other. I don’t want to talk anymore. I just want to look at you. And I look away every time you put your fucking eyes on me. Your thirsty, saliva-filled eyes. Lick it up, look away.

You’ll call your best friend and tell her how miserable your life has become, how your mom found your words and “knows too much.” She wants to tell you that you’re stupid for seeking validation through the internet, for not making your thoughts more private. Instead, you tell her, “It’ll be okay.” It’s the easiest advice, because who’s honest these days? Why don’t we look down at our devices and just fucking ignore one another, instead of pretending?

Just say: I don’t want to talk to you; I don’t want to look at you. You’re not living a glamorous life. They were being honest when they said you can’t run away from your problems, so the least you could do is stop whining about it.

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WILL YOU WAKE ME UP Alexander Speaker

the first time You entered my sleep we sat on Your bed & drank milk. Your parents questioned my intent, i woke up & went to work.

holding on to the railing of my balcony i am lost in the view of an east-London horizon. i tilt my head back, the sky is vast, cast as a fading-rose stage for aeroplanes & clouds to make a mockery of mimicry. i am overwhelmed by an unfamiliar lightness. levity will be the death of me. i finish my cigarette.

the second time was iris chang. i saw You- driven to dive, diving to madness. i woke up in a warm sweat, the stench of a million things said/left unsaid. the quiet hum, a million dead. i wanted to call You back to bed/to go back to bed.

walking up highgate hill, hungover, thinking perhaps i was right not to punch him because he was stupid, she turns me around to show me the view, â&#x20AC;&#x153;more picturesque than from your windowâ&#x20AC;?. i talk about suicide bridge & become deviance, picaresque. at the red cafe i order tap water & talk about the continent to distract from my gaudy shaking.

last night i dreamt You naked. a rose-glow as your lips brush mine with all the crudity van gogh could muster. delicate, you play my body, your fingers make amends for missing ashkenazy play the saddest song ever written. i am centuries from sadness. my body a well-thumbed map. i am a horizon of static. i feel the gentle graze of teeth on softer skin. succinctly obvious- i am woman. You accept no responsibility. my feminine thoughts have given birth to feminine form & i am inbetween days

THE NIRVANA SPECIAL ISSUE OF LIFE MAGAZINE Hiromi Yoshida

The Nirvana Special Issue of Life Magazine is "the body of a murdered tree"; a suicide life curtailed prematurely. In fact, it is a truncation; (stunted) trunk, stump, bonsai, a

Boolean operation (trunc*); an amputation (like an ampersand) & in short

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PLANS Alex Sobel

Let’s go get this dog, says the girl that Doug thinks is named Chelsea. Names are harder than faces for him. Faces come back mechanically, creeping people out when he mentions seeing them years ago at a party or the grocery store, the recall instant. Let me see that, Thad says, grabbing the newspaper, free, taken from a bin. Thad passes the paper around, Elliott, Jen, Doug. Doug looks at the picture. He doesn’t know dog breeds, but this one looks like it has a foot for a face. Sweet, likes to cuddle, free to a good home, the ad says. It lists the dog’s name as Pickle. It’s kinda late. You think they’ll be up? Doug says, but Thad is already dialing the number. Hello? Yes, I saw your ad about the dog. Has anyone showed interest? They have? That’s too bad, I was thinking about picking Pickle up, the sweet thing. Yes. Yes, I could come right now. Absolutely, I’ll be right over, thank you much. Bye now. As Thad says his goodbye, Doug wants to hurt him a little. It’s a surprise to Doug when he realizes that at this point in their lives, he could probably take Thad in a fight. When they were kids, Thad was the biggest, the strongest, the most athletic. But he was set in his skills, never improved. He was good at basketball for a 14-year-old, but once they hit high school, Thad’s talent had completely plateaued, and when everyone else caught up, he was left behind. Thad seems like the kind of person who’s eternally damned to struggle keeping up. Let’s go get us a dog, Thad says, smiling, a devious smile. The group doesn’t know whether to cheer or boo. What are we going to do with it? Jen asks, smoking a cigarette, each puff a microscopic addition to her leather-like skin. Are you really going to adopt it? Thad shrugs, Chelsea follows suit, and this seems to be enough for Jen, who stomps out her cigarette and walks to the car. Elliott and Doug are the last to follow, the last to convince themselves that this evening is worth continuing. Adult friendships are hard, especially when hinged on a previous friendship during childhood. When you’re kids, you shoot hoops, ride bikes, play video games in your parents’ basement. But as adults, the only thing left to do is drink and smoke and talk and hook up with each other. Crammed into Thad’s KIA, Doug tries to imagine how adopting a dog is part of that equation, but he chalks it up to Thad and Chelsea (?) trying to recapture some kind of youthful recklessness. When they were in high school, Thad was the first kid to have a car, so he was some kind of mobile god to Elliott and Doug and anyone else. Thad always abused the power, instead of driving to movies or to the mall or something, he would do his best to ruin other people’s day, bring them down to wherever he was. Thad once drove to a Barnes and Noble on the release day for the final Harry Potter book and instructed the contents of the car to scream Hermione dies! at the top of their lungs to the kids dressed up in capes and hats. Doug hid his head, embarrassed. Elliott later told this story to a girlfriend who insisted that she was one of those kids, remembered the shouting. The relationship barely lasted a month longer. Doug can smell the cigarette smoke on Jen, whose body is shoved up against his in the back of Thad’s car. The scent reminds him of college, of stupid parties where he would feel the most alive he ever felt, like he was breathing in freedom for the first time, drunk, his lips buzzed from the nicotine. Such bits of nostalgia are wrapped up in a pain, too, hooked to memories of walking home alone, drunk and horny, desperately trying to will his beer-flattened dick to get hard enough in order to masturbate, while also fighting off the creeping feeling of sleep, not to mention vomit. Doug thinks that these bad parts make the good parts more real. Doug also thinks that he tells himself this in order to feel better. Arriving at your destination, says Thad’s GPS as they pull up to a house that looks much like a kind of house that most people have seen a version of, if not in person, then on TV. Elliott notes the vinyl siding pulled out in spots, the adhesive underneath worn, useless. These are the things that he notices, that nobody else sees. The details. He doesn’t mention it, though. Elliott tells himself that not

everything a person notices needs to be said. Though, the ones that you say are the only ones with real weight. Chelsea and I will be right back, Thad says, as they both exit. Doug is glad to have remembered the girl’s name right. Elliott, Jen, and Doug sit in the back of the car, waiting, not sure what to say. Jen thinks about the kind of things that she did as a kid. Girl angst felt milder, always seemed to revolve around the mall. Jen and her friends would drop things from the mall’s third floor, over the side of the wall, see if they hit anyone. They would hold hands and walk around stores. Jen can’t remember why this seemed so mischievous, but it felt like a kind of rebellion. Once a girl asked, Y’all going together? Jen, without thinking, said yes, and the two walked out of the store. They discontinued holding hands after that, instead took the escalator up to the top floor. They’d find something to drop off the edge when they got there, the lack of a plan never seems to bother children. Doug is very intent on the fact that his arm his touching Jen’s, flesh-to-flesh. He feels like he’s being a creep by keeping it there, by not having the decency to move, but the act of moving the arm would be similarly disrespectful, like he can’t stand having his arm there, or, perhaps worse, like he thinks that arms touching means more than it does mean. Which is nothing. Or possibly something. Doug decides to leave his arm, stick to his other worry, that they’re doing something that could lead to trouble. Doug saw Thad get picked up one time when he grabbed a Styrofoam sword at a department store and tried to walk out with it. An off-the-clock employee who was walking in to go shopping grabbed Thad, asked, Did you pay for this? Thad insisted that he had, but when he couldn’t produce a receipt, he was dragged back into the store. Thad was Doug and the other kids in the group’s ride, so they had to wait hours before they could leave, wandering the parking lot, afraid that if the re-entered, they would never be allowed to leave. The sword cost 97 cents. Pickle: everyone. Everyone: Pickle, Chelsea says, handing the dog to the backseat, no one in particular. Jen grabs it, the helpless thing in her hands, skin dropping around her fingers like a melting ice cream cone. She holds it up so that her face meets the dogs. She’s surprised at how much Pickle looks like the picture. But then remembers that the picture is Pickle, and vice versa. What are we doing with him? Jen says, as if she had been told before, but had just forgotten. Hell if I know, says Thad, putting the car into drive. Take him to the park? Getting into trouble as adults is more difficult than kids. The amount of law you can break and not serve serious jail time is limited. You have to get creative, you have to seek out find things to rebel against. Jen thinks that maybe that’s why her peers like to compare themselves to the current generation of children. Like this if you remember such and such a cartoon. When I was your age, I was in little league, not getting pregnant. That kind of thing. Jen could see her generation becoming old, shutting off doors, pushing the blame, all before her eyes. She wondered if it would happen to her, or if it was like getting drunk. The poison is in you long before you notice the effects. And once you start to feel the push, there’s nothing you can do. The park is the same as a field, apparently. Elliott can see a playground in the distance, but no kids. Don’t we need the dog to be on a leash? he says. Probably, Thad says. He picks up sticks and tosses them in the distance, but the dog just sits on the ground, eyelids hanging down, tired, but too terrified to fall asleep. This dog is broken, Chelsea says. Let’s do something else. She looks at Thad. It hadn’t occurred to Elliott that they might be sleeping together until now. You guys have a way of getting home or do you need rides? I already texted my wife to come get me, Elliott says. You’re married? Jen says. Elliott holds up his left hand, the ring, black. Maybe without the gold, the idea didn’t carry. Two years next month. You never mentioned. Good for you.

And you two? You have a ride? Thad says, referring to Jen and Doug. We’ll be good, they both say in unison, though neither has any plans. Drive me to the entrance? Elliott says to Thad. But what about the dog? Doug says. Chelsea and Thad look at each other, like they just realized that this was an issue that needs to be resolved. I guess leave ‘em, Chelsea says. Somebody will pick him up, give ‘em a good home. The dog doesn’t move when they leave. Jen and Doug sit on the ground, looking at the pathetic creature. What are we going to do with it? Jen says. Him, says Doug. He has a penis. Him, then. What are we going to do with him? Doug gets on his hands and knees and crawls toward the dog, which doesn’t react to the approaching figure. Does anybody even know we have him? Doug says. What do you mean? Does anyone know we have this dog? Did Thad, like… sign anything? Doubt it, Jen says, pulling out a cigarette. So it doesn’t matter what we do. What? Jen says, her voice muffled by the cigarette held between her lips as she reaches for her lighter. You’re saying we could leave him here, consequence free? Other than whatever we feel about it. We’d still know we did it. So consequence free, then. Yeah, consequence free. Doug pets the dog, the top of his head, down his neck, back, reaching the belly. The dog flips on his side, showing his belly to Doug, asking for it to be scratched. Doug wonders what it must feel like to be covered in fur, to have a person rub their hand through it. Good enough to show your underside, risk attack, apparently. How long are you in town? Jen asks. I leave tomorrow. Ah, she says, not to add anything, just to fill the air. She takes a few puffs of her cigarette. It’s getting dark, Doug says, finding the right spot on the dog’s belly, the one that makes his leg twitch. Jen puts out her cigarette in the grass. She looks at her phone. I guess we should get going then, she says. She stands up, looking down at Doug, forcing him to make a decision. Do you have any plans for tonight? Jen asks. We could get dinner or something. The dog’s leg stops twitching. Doug moves his hand around, trying to find the spot, but isn’t sure there even is a spot anymore. He might be searching all night before realizing that it’ll never come back. It might be gone forever. No, Doug says in reply, letting his hand drop to his knee. I don’t have any plans.

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SEPTEMBER David E. Poston

Now high summer’s burn has cooled, When will the last kernel The grasshoppers fling themselves Ricochet In arcs riskier and more precious

Out of the brittle grass?

The hummingbird gorges How did For the long passage over the Gulf, The green world And then it goes

Come to this?

It might be best: not knowing For what journey That we go where we go, Do these butterflies Or why Swarm August tree sap? The grasshoppers must Feel the coming chill, Can they see As they trace gravity’s rainbow

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Through the changes Of the rich and dying light?

THEORY OF AN ECLIPSE Pamela August Russell

" How will we know we existed? "

If say, you are gone and they are spreading your ashes just off the coast near an inlet at the edge of the sea, splashing against premature night. Picture this:

the moons silhouette Icarus drowning in the background the light shifting away with a gargoyles intent

Before that, you beat against the tide by kissing with your mouth open, your warm hands passing into the shadows, fumbling for another language you could understand without speaking.

" Is this the point where you want me to talk about: " particles, fragments or constant velocities –

Or should we stick to the subject of chronic sorrow? Our elysian bodies remembered only through that last bright flash of sunlight.

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HEATH Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

My dentist told me I had acid erosion, but wasn’t talking about my teeth. He’d been only a semester away from finishing theological school when he dropped out and entered the Institute of Enamel. As he does my root canal, he discusses good and evil, and proofs of the existence of God. I’m filled like a balloon with nitrous oxide, and it all makes sense. I make all kinds of moral resolutions as he attacks my mouth, but once I’m home and my head clears, I’ve forgotten them all and feel empty, feel a great lack, and don’t know what to do about it. I decide to go to the parish and pray. I am the blackest goat. I cannot swim or ride a bike. After praying, I walk the heath alone. Fog irrigates me as if I am a crop of greenhouse flowers. I consider myself a carnivorous plant. I make myself attractive to meat. I stop at the butcher shop. My mother was in love with the butcher. This ruined her marriage, a long time ago. All of them are dead. The butcher’s son now runs the shop. I tell him to give me a pound of organic hamburger. I’m going to eat it with a jar of dark, all alone in my kitchen, which has a linoleum floor. I’ll eat it slow and drink the dark slow because after I finish, I’ll have nothing to do but walk the heath again.

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WHEN THE GHOST IN ME TRIES TO COOK Reed Hexamer

i poured all my olive oil in the bathtub last night he said “crazy” like he had it tucked under his tongue for months now maybe thats why the inside of his mouth tasted like green blueberries the kind overeager children eat from the bush as if one day they will taste sweet

i had forgotten how to be ripe; I bathed like diana i tried to swallow my oiled arms; my elbows got caught on my teeth the basin bloomed around me with white porcelain tongue i folded into stars, then into nothing i said “this way they will slip easily down my own throat to massage my insides” said “I forget tenderness sometimes”

he said he cannot kiss me through the pink mouth too full from the wooden pulp of unripe fruit said i should see a doctor for the delusions that now we will have to cook the garlic in butter; it will not taste as good said my body should come with a set of hiking boots

when i asked him if watching me dissect myself had spoiled his appetite he said he will keep kissing expecting to find sweetness

A SERIES OF EPISODES Paul Ferrell

Rudy is convinced that there’s a werewolf in her closet. Cliff teaches Theo the importance of a college education through the budgeting of Monopoly money. Theo argues that he could live on bologna for the rest of his life. His father is a ghost. Cameo by Stevie Wonder.

There were at least two episodes in which Cliff’s lips-sink down the marble staircase to some old hustlers jam. It happened once with Rudy and once with Olivia. History is pain. Cameo by Ray Charles.

Vanessa lies about attending a concert. She sits sobbing in black leather, seated beneath Claire who is furious with her own fear and enraged by this deception. Cliff sits silently watching.

Cliff is amused by Theo’s attempt to impress a girl. Theo wants to buy a fancy shirt to impress a date, but his parents will not give him the money. Denise offers to tailor a replica of the shirt for a lower price. The results of this creation are deformed, disturbed, mangled beyond any sort of real use.

Rudy has Bud wrapped around her little finger. Peter is the boy who never speaks and runs out the front door. Rudy spits on Cliffs face and states coldly, “I ZRBTT you”. Bodies dancing in a gray space. In an episode entitled “Rudys all-nighter”, the girls fight and make up as they drift slowly to sleep. There’s another episode entitled “Trust Me”.

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SWOON TO DEATH Alexander Speaker

i want to change into someone comfortable someone casual / casual i walk london lightly & feel keats’ wheeze on my chest his love in my fist

in london consumed by the function of work & working of sleep & sleeping in london in london breathe consumption & break like a wave or his name

his name. his name. a breath i knew from the start would set me apart from anything as quick as change his name. his name. refrain

the fear of promise comes crashing like sunrise i am a capitalist, / adventurous & tired i move the smallest of distances away from the city for a weekend at least

london i’m not through with the tick-ticking explosions of You i am a capitalist crashing like sunrise moving & tired

i am at the peak of an irredeemable sadness i carry the weight of misery & celibacy like too much money stuffed into pockets packets of grief

a transaction of sorts / his name some deplorable dissonant thoughts a message to sayi’m soaked through dripping half-hating

today & You far away with his name refrain

i wonder if i will ever be the someone of the something generation

i am going to be South American & learn english through sitcoms, shakespeare, the romantics (you) but my capacity for intelligent thought is a paper bag from possini’s & i am well learned in imitation well versed in limitation

if i can’t be a poet i will be worthy

it’s happened again one day in every ten some full-bodied exclamation dripping anti-semitism ejaculatesque

i am the pompous prick deflating Public Property effacing private poetry a porous i that threatens to wipe/write us all into thrill

i am written out of someone’s will in a platitude of hurt & still i sink into a fairer doom saved for the mightless dead

how many times can you start a life again breathe & count breathe & end up here again how many nights can i skip repeating this to you (prue) a friend in battersea is a joy forever & soon to swoon to live / to death is just a matter

ARTEMIS AND THE FLAMINGOES Chella Corrington

" I "

Under the sun my students sit on the ground, all in white shirts and navy skirts, legs tucked under. (The high school still requires uniforms.) They look at me as if I’m a goddess, Artemis without the bow and arrows, a moleskine sketchbook under my arm. They follow me through a bright corridor with blue Matisse cut-outs. Not the originals, but so close to their color and shape that Henri himself would be stunned, or at least surprised, that his creations from a Nice apartment thousands of miles away can be matched so deceptively along these eggshell halls in California.

" II "

“Why don’t you paint more?” Amara asks. A question that swings inches above my head so I step aside. Her palm slides over my back, stopping to rub where my strap leaves its trace. Her fingers move slowly over the red indents, a rhythm closing my eyes. Through a liminal cloud formed by knowing hands, I see my apartment wall dissolve, pale brown sliding through the floorboards. Uncovering a glare of canvas for me to fill.

" III "

When a kid I kept running away from home, testing my mother’s love. Never far and always to the corrugated camp near Sunset Avenue. I drank chicory with Maggie and chalked pink flamingos on the sidewalk. Tall yellow legs, long feathers with curved necks turned right. Dark beaks nearly touching their backs. Maggie said they understood balance and would hold my place. But the birds often slipped away in footprints, leaving vestiges of their black bills.

" IV "

The breeze is cool but the pavement radiates hot. My legs sweat beneath yoga pants. I read in Harper’s that an hour’s walk for every three hours work stimulates the endorphins so I hike to Point Dume Beach where the tide soothes me. Will I be able to paint again? Painting is like love. When you hit a dry spell, you think you’ve lost it all. No more love. No more art. Amara is the only lover who ever said, “Don’t lie down and die. Paint.” Then she walked out six months ago. Never called. If I were a goddess, I would make it impossible for her to live without my scent.

" V "

Today I move my bedroom furniture onto the lawn—mattress, headboard, chest, and lamp. My clothes still in the closet. Raise both windows until a cloudless blue sky looks like the backdrop. Any minute now the door will fly open and twenty pairs of homeless flamingos will parade to the center, tuck one leg under their plumes, and wait for me to pick up the chalk.

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LENT Janna Vought

" Repent. "

Jesus gave his life so must MOTHER sacrifice, surrender body to the expanse of life like Disobedient Eve (mother of human faith, failures, and follies, the curse of us all) who stole knowledge from forked tongue, starved, still hungry for the poison apple. Mother Mary (Joseph feared her lightbrillianceknowingintuition) submitted to God’s Right Hand, inseminated by the Holy Spirit. Carved Demeter stone/faced cracked/edged crumbling/bone (grit) double amputee suffers without Persephone for half each year, the world warm and bountiful only with her near, brood hen relinquishes her clutch each day to sustain others, cow chained to the milking machine tugging at her decimated teats, trapped inside her barren stall.

Good Mother/Monster a charade of satisfaction, half naked mannequin posed in the corner. She hates herself

" (and the fat in her hips) "

for everything, her body’s openings whisper sin. Mother’s egg carries the soul of the severed bird who no longer sings. Everything (daughter, silence, future) flows through her watery cocoon, baptized in pools of blood. Black cat lays a bleeding bat at her feet, paper wings still flutter a death rattle: wild, natural, captured, lost, broken— betrayed. Form hands, feet, each curl on her head. Mother: unfortunate victim of demographics and geography. (Don’t tire.Don’t think.Don’t blink.) Perfect porcelain ballerina balanced atop a broken spring. Dance, perform, sing, scream. Embrace sacrifice (Conformity), carry it to the grave. Spin

round and round.

Give girls a childhood of prayers that never reach beyond the second floor. Open their mouths for communion, body of Christ contained inside a dusty bread wafer. Crown them with duty’s thorns (a future wedding gift) tear away the laurel wreath Mother gave them. Invite the muse to commit suicide—crucified— her dying screams a hymn (Hallelujah!) heard in passing.       What’s left, sisters? Is there heaven for any of us? A light still burns in the kitchen, bright blossom in a field of night. One of these days can’t happen soon enough. Thirsty trees thrust roots deep into brittle ground searching for crystal water. A girl lives inside the bone cage of an old woman, recreate (her)self, grow new flesh from words after

" Resurrection. " Amen. " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 24

MACHETE Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

I live in two zones. In one I see the damage that mental illness wreaks. In the other I see through to the person beneath. I see my institutionalized lover, Tiffany, breathless from playing volleyball. I see her napping peacefully in the sand. I see her entirely free of the harshly colored overlays of chronic schizophrenia, as if they have been pulled away like layers of smelly bedclothes. I see her unsnapped from the grid of our diagnostic categories. Â Love never dies a natural death. It is hacked to death with a machete or run through with a bayonet, bludgeoned with a blunt object, a length of iron pipe left over from a plumbing project, a rolling pin or a shovel, flecks of dough or dirt still clinging, evidence. Every divorced person is a murderer or a murder victim, usually both, sentenced to loneliness or promiscuity or activities that keep one busy, golfing, playing cards with the girls, or going to bereavement groups looking for dates.

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BRING DOWN GOLIATH Luis Neer

The world turns to fog when I remember How long it’s been since I last heard your voice.

I feel so maudlin I feel like I’m under glass, rain bombarding the glass But I remember your voice like flower petals Out of place in a world full of concrete World full of blank space, Full of nothing.

I have spent days surrounded in nothing By nothing of nothing Without you I have become invisible.

I hope you do not feel invisible. I know you carry a heavy burden, You carry humanity’s rain, You carry the sky on your shoulders. I hope you do not ever feel invisible. I hope you do not feel hopeless.

My dear, I know you are not hopeless. I know you are not broken. You carry the sky on your shoulders But you are not broken.

By living By living in the presence of death By surviving the pull of gravity The gravity of Time You have brought down Goliath.

My dear, do not look at the ground. Look up at the sky. If you cannot bring yourself to look at the sky, At least look forward. Do not look at the ground. Do not ever look at the ground.

My dear, the ground is made of concrete Its presence makes everything gray. Its presence makes me gray. I’ve become a cartoon character.

The world turns to concrete when I remember

How long itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been Since I last heard your voice. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve become a cartoon character, I am not all real.

I am so maudlin, I am so maudlin, I am so maudlin, Oh, I am so maudlin I am so maudlin without you

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April 9, 2015

ICARUS REDUX Hiromi Yoshida

Green roses bloomed for Icarus beneath his pasty heels when they hit the Aegean seawaves with a vociferous splash. He morphed into the flipped bird [obscene avian signifier/word] at high noon when he gave the finger to the sun god Helios--falling out of the burning sky--a charred piece of debris, floating like a dust mote, or a waxy speck in the blinking

eye. His ego waxed as the sun waxed shedding hot golden tears and osier feathers on the oily surface of the sea--an interminable canvas of sloppy experiments, choppy with roiling acrylic paint. He then became a work of art (however crappily executed)--gawked at in museum galleries, featured in poems by W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams (albeit to illustrate such things as the massive indifference of teeming human life--busy as geeky ants, and almost as blind). He even stood in for suicide Sylvia and all the other heroic icons who failed to die the normal geriatric way. So when green roses bloomed for Icarus, green became the iconic color par excellence: oxidized copper pennies became the tarnished currency--circulating corrosive envy and burning desire--and Icarus was minted in accolades of green. What mortician of high noon can reverse this process of oxidization, restore the clean gold face of the sun, the wings of our Copernican darling, Icarus--accomplish the mission of Daedalus without (unseemly) detriment? Green roses bloomed for all of us when Icarus fell from the

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USES OF INFINITY David E. Poston

“Now the shape of the golden rectangle may be defined in this way: If one cuts a square away from it then the rectangle that remains has exactly the same shape as the original rectangle. . . Clearly infinity is now let loose. . .” Leo Zippin      Folk saying: there are always two possibilities.

" A certain box of baking soda, in our youth, " had a picture of a box on which there was   a picture of a box on which

there was a picture   of the same box   on which

The moving arrow is at each instance at rest.  Mene, mene, tekel upharsin. This wonderful proof: mathematics is an experience true to poetry.  The squares will never replicate the circles full.

Hugo describes Shakespeare describing Enobarbus describing Cleopatra, whom time cannot wither nor custom stale.  Zeno sends Achilleus of the swift feet storming after a tortoise. Rostand presents Cyrano telling the Comte de Guiche   how he hurled the magnet from the platform   over and over until he had ascended to the moon.   All the while, Archimedes is sweeping.

We have pulled off quite a sizable trick:  the self-perpetuating golden rectangle,   sublime as the Fibonacci numbers. Zig-zags (to the limit): a picture of a thunderbolt suggests a target, a point in the plane intimately related where the harmonies diverge slowly, invincibly. However. Ways of finding the golden mean: in Babylon the smoke ascended in a spiral beautiful as the nautilus grows. As our lives spin, spin, outward and outward   and

STILL LIFE WITH FUGITIVE DESIRES Pamela August Russell

I have taken my place among the dead partridges, quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber

sullied myself within the acrylic scenery of gaming fowl hung from hooks and twine

in a parched curious blue background. Even if I wanted to reach over, my hand a partial

truth, my feet painted over with peaches, vine leaves, a table cloth gathered and draped. This â&#x20AC;&#x201C;

so they tell me â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is where the gaze almost always lands. My love, if you look long enough

a simple vase can seem remarkable. I promise.

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Editorial Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jordan Rizzieri is the 90's-loving, extremely tall founder of The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society. After a having brief love affair with Western New York, Jordan now resides on Long Island, NY. She holds a degree from SUNY Fredonia in Theatre Arts (aka lying before an audience) with a minor in English (aka lying on paper). Jordan briefly experimented with playwriting (The Reunion Cycle - 2011 Buffalo Infringement Festival) and her mother's primary caregiver for over two years. She has been running a caregiver's blog on her experiences since 2011, as well as publishing essays on the topic. Now, Jordan spends her daylight hours arguing with her boyfriend's cats and at night takes on the identity of Pyro & Ballyhoo's sassiest critic, The Lady J. When she's not watching pro-wrestling or trying to decide what to order at the local bagel shop, she is listening to Prince and writing letters to her pen pals. Feel free to contact her with questions about the Attitude Era, comic book plot lines involving Harley Quinn, The Twilight Zone and the proper spelling of braciola.

NON-FICTION EDITOR Jennifer Lombardo, Buffalo, NY resident, works full time at a hotel in order to support her travel habit. She graduated from the University at Buffalo with a B.A. in English in the hope of becoming an editor. When she isn't making room reservations for people, she reads, cross-stitches and goes adventuring with her friends. She is especially passionate about AmeriCorps, Doctor Who and the great outdoors. Ask her any question about grammar, but don't count on her to do math correctly.

POETRY EDITOR Bee "Internet Coquette" Walsh is a New York-native living in Bedford–Stuyvesant. She graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2010 with a B.A. in English Literature and a B.S. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Reciting her two majors and two minors all in one breath was a joke she told at parties. The English Department played a cruel trick on her and pioneered a Creative Writing track her final year, but she charmed her way into the Publishing course and became Poetry Editor for the school’s literary magazine, The Trident. Bee has spent the past three years trying different cities on for size and staring into the faces of people in each of them who ask her about her "career goals." An Executive Assistant in high-fashion by day, you can find her most nights working with the V-Day team to stop sexual violence against women and young girls, eating vegan sushi in the West Village or causing mischief on roofs. Run into her on the subway, and she'll be nose deep in a book. She holds deep feelings about politics, poise, and permutations. Eagerly awaiting winter weather and warm jackets, she’d love to talk to you about fourth-wave feminism, the tattoo of the vagina on her finger, or the Oxford comma. FICTION EDITOR Adam Robinson is an aspiring writer and barista languidly skulking the wetland void of Western Michigan. Following acceptance in 2012 to Grand Rapids' Kendall College of art and design in pursuit of an education in graphic art, his love for language and literature was made priority. Now, an English major on sporadically perpetual hiatus, you can most often find him pulling shots of espresso, keying long paragraphs in the dark, secluded corner of a local café, or taking lengthy walks through the dense Michigan woods conveniently placed in his own backyard. Monotoned, fond of the semicolon and existentialist literature; listen closely and you can sometimes hear him beseech advice from the ghost of Dostoevsky (who tends not to reply).

ASSISTANT POETRY EDITOR Wilson Josephson splits his time between the backwoods of New Hampshire and Northfield, Minnesota, where he attends Carleton College. Wilson spends the majority of his waking hours swimming back and forth over a line of black tiles, so he spends any dry hours he can scrounge up flexing his creative muscles. His prose and his poetry have appeared in Carleton’s literary magazine, he regularly performs in the student dance company, and he even directed a play once. Wilson is also the laziest of all the founding members of Literary Starbucks, and he still writes jokes about obscure literary figures when he has a little free time. His newest passion is making people laugh, usually by making himself the punchline, occasionally via the clever deployment of a slippery banana peel.

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SOCIAL MEDIA MISTRESS Kaity Davie is an overly enthusiastic gal taking on the world of the ever-evolving music industry, talking music by day and lurking venues, NYC parks, and pubic libraries by night. Currently, she makes magic happen across a number of social networks for a number of bands, brands, and writers. After having several poems published in The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, she began managing their social accounts in early 2015. Kaity keeps her sanity by writing rambling lines of prose and celebrating the seasonal flavors of Polar Seltzer.

Contributors  Janna Vought is a poet, nonfiction, and fiction writer with more than 50 pieces published in various magazines and literary journals. She graduated summa cum laude from American Public University with a bachelor's degree in English and from Lindenwood University with an MFA in creative writing. She is an Association of Writing Professionals Intro Journals Project in Poetry nominee for 2013. Janna is married and the mother of two daughters, the eldest who suffers from chronic mental and developmental illnesses.

Ana Prundaru is a translator, writer and visual artist living in Switzerland. Most recently, she has contributed works to Cactus Heart Journal, Lumina Journal, Citron Review and Drunk Monkeys. When she isn’t working or pursuing creative endeavors, Ana volunteers for animal charities, practices yoga and serves as a poetry reader for the online journal Fruita Pulp.

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over seven hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for work published in 2012, 2013, and 2014. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. He lives in Denver.

Luis Neer is a young writer (age 16) of poetry and prose. His work appears/is forthcoming in Gadfly; Right Hand Pointing; Verse-Virtual; and previously in The Rain, Party & Disaster Society. An alumnus of the creative writing program at the 2014 West Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts, he attends high school in New Cumberland, West Virginia, where he lives.

Frances Woolf is a film student slowly melting away in the southwest. She’s a passionate diarist who’s favorite moments in life are when she’s: listening to Amy Winehouse, reading The Waves, or watching a Jarmusch film. She’s a Mia Wallace enthusiast who wouldn’t be able to function properly without literature or photography. She really likes road trips accompanied by Talking Head's "Girlfriend is Better" blasting through the stereo.

Alexander Speaker is the poet your mother warned you about. you can find his words at hot tub astronaut, jungftak, poems in which, love is the law magazine, pomegranate. you can also find more on his blog inventingalex.tumblr.com . say hello to him on twitter at @inventingalex

Hiromi Yoshida has won multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Clockwise Cat, Indiana Voice Journal, Work Literary Magazine, Flying Island, Evergreen Review, and Bathtub Gin. She loves the smell of old books and pending rain.

Alex Sobel is a freelance journalist from Toledo, Ohio. His work has appeared in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post Online, Foundling Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and Treehouse. His story "Marcel" has also appeared previously in The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society.

David E. Poston taught high school English for thirty years, but is now in recovery. He teaches occasional writing workshops, edits a poetry column, and runs for hours on end. He will be running his fiftieth marathon in May.

Pamela August Russell is the author of B is for Bad Poetry out now from Sterling Publishing. The Los Angeles Times says "It may not be Walt Whitman, but Miss Russell's verses are a whole lot funnier." Her

short stories and poetry have appeared in several anthologies including Virgin Territory and most recently Nothing Moments. She lives in Los Angeles near the freeway.

Reed Hexamer is a multimedia artist, boston based performance poet and president of the Massart Poetry Alliance. She likes creating safe spaces, helping people archive their own stories and climbing fire escape she should not be on. You can find more of her visual work at reedhexamer.com.

Paul Ferrell: Former columnist/freelancer for the Tribune company. Currently a phlebotomist/poetry performer based in Chicago, Il. Poetry published in Ditch and Exact Change Press.

Chella Courington is a writer and teacher. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the author of three flash fiction chapbooks: Love Letter to Biology 250, Girls & Women and Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana along with three chapbooks of poetry: Southern Girl Gone Wrong,Paper Covers Rock, and Flying South. Stories and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Up, Do: Flash Fiction by Women Writers, SmokeLong, The Los Angeles Review, Nano Fiction, The Collagist, and Fourteen Hills. Her novella, The Somewhat Sad Tale of the Pitcher and the Crow, is forthcoming from Pink.Girl.Ink. Press.

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