Vol. I, Issue I - December 2013 by The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society

THE RAIN, PARTY, & DISASTER SOCIETY Issue I December 2013

The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society is an online literary publication featuring works that are unlikely be published by more mainstream publications. The RP&D Society 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. To respond directly to a work you see featured in this issue, use our Contact page to send a letter to the Editor-In-Chief. You may also write your own rebuttal and submit it for publication in a future issue.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

This Love, Justin Webb To the Beggar in Armory Square, Justin Webb Untitled, Justin Webb PHOTO Near Zuccotti Park, Alex Fitzpatrick Grey, Deborah Packard Mourning Ritual, Claire-Madeline Culkin February 19th, Aidan Marriott Atlas, Izzy Friedman Buzzfeedification, Adam Kane Hey Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Not Talk Poetry, Teresa McMahon PHOTO In Concert, Keith Barker Fear The Dark, Jeremy Steinkamp Words More Than Hands / Hands More Than Words, Matthew Samuelson Lateral Dorsal Nucleus, Kaity Davie Easter Island Man, Beth Browne Press Enter to Continue, Howie Good OIL PAINTINGS, Dana Tyrell Skittles, David E. Poston Calamine Cocktail, Alan Hanson On the Night I Buried that Sundog in the Pet Cemetery, Justin Karcher Millennials: Death Can Inspire Counterculture, Tom Loughlin (Love, Lightning), Lewis Mundt Suspension, Lewis Mundt Gossamer Night, Clarity Taking Charge, Ken Poyner Narmer, Brett Jones Bold, Chris Lee-Rodriguez Untitled, Kitty Larkin Too Hot to Sleep, Brett Jones The Day After, Sam Love Subordinate Clauses, Laura LeHew

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Editorial Staff Contributor Biographies

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THIS LOVE You do not know what love is until you have placed your brother's head, slashed jaw and all, into your lap. Let his saliva mix with mucus and blood. Watch his neck take labored breaths, every inch of muscle flexing, sliding down his jugular and back to its milky crease. You do not know what love is until that warm blast of air and spray hits your lips as if to say, Taste me. I dare you. Until he dips his quaking finger into his wound and scrawls on the trauma ward wall the words I do not want to die. I do not want to die. Until his hand goes limp, slams against your shoulder. Until the doctor, two years away from finishing her residency, takes a thin blade to your brother's young throat, takes a thin tube to the slit lining that throat. You do not know what love is until you see his arm jerk—not from will, but reflex—up toward her hair, latching on and tugging down onto his chest, using her ear as a vessel to hear his heart. You do not know this love until you have waited through the dark, night after night, wishing for a rising sun bright enough to blind a blind man— a sun to rival this love: the still-fresh memory of your brother's seizing eyes. - Justin Webb

THE BEGGAR IN ARMORY SQUARE

Fall to your knees. Still your speech. Those words that tumble like diamonds on the fountain's edge only offer you poverty. Instead, you should take one glove around this broken sourdough and curl your other around my throat. Brush unkempt hair on my cheek. Make my belly swell with a baby of fear. Scatter your storm of bees, your toothless grin, down my neck's deep well, along pebbled walls of the chapel. Chimes, white rice. Our families waiting, silent. Only know what I think: Eu adoro você. Halt our bodies on the rim of tin roofs in Rio, our city's painted tongues barely speaking. Watch with me the flightless dark, bruised moon on an elevator of stars. Ruin me with your valleys. Swiftly raze my thatching. Put your chainsaw away. Plunge your soul straight through my body. - Justin Webb

UNTITLED If you were in Toulouse during the March 2007 riots then I hate you for burning bins of poison plastic and blinding poor women in Bhopal in December 1984 Did you see the children you turned dark as a new moon Dead as straw huts and the 100,000 in Yangon a day after my brother was born How did you feel looking on decimated remains of a man's dignity as he painted I MISS HER in white traffic paint on red brick and stone Teach me the secret to turning off the switch Tell me how to stop seeing a girl's head peering up from under rubble wearing half a halo of steel - Justin Webb

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GREY She opened her eyes to a day that began like so many others: the dog stirred lazily by her side as the creeping shadows of the early morning edged slowly into the room. She could see the grey and threatening sky peeking in despite the shades that were drawn. On the wall, the amorphous shapes of the framed prints and family photographs looked back at her with uncaring eyes. Those pictures of long ago people – children, parents, grandparents captured on film to remain as they had been in different times – still caught at her heart, reminding her that, once, life had been so full of possibilities. It was the quiet that aroused anxiety in her. The loud ticking of the clock in the kitchen was the only sound besides the dog’s snoring that invaded her life. Alone. Thoughts of work to be done, congregants to visit, and sermons to be written crept into her mind, momentarily displacing the anxiety. But it was hard work. Ground yourself; that was her mantra. You are alive on this day and you aren’t in immediate danger and you have an advanced degree and you have a job and … the clock’s ticking just kept a steady beat under her recitation of those facts that spoke of reality. Those thoughts would enable her to actually get out of bed. Throwing back the comforter and sheet, she slowly got herself onto one elbow while the dog, sensing her awakening state, jumped off the bed, excited to go out. Now there was a goal to meet: get up, get dressed, take the dog out. It all began again. Once, she thought as she circled the neighborhood with the dog pulling her along, life had beckoned her with lovely enticements of travel and singing and love. When did it happen that her dreams had died and her circle of what she hoped for had gotten smaller and smaller? Now, it was put one foot in front of the other and pray that you have the energy to go forward. How was it that some people were content to become nurses and technicians and doctors and teachers, content to go to work each day, becoming parents and then grandparents while the circle of life just kept repeating itself? What was it that made her want so much more? She passed the home where her dog groomer lived, a small, sad affair. How do you learn to be content with what you have? Delicately woven lace snowflakes began to descend from the dark, menacing clouds above. Shivering in her warm anorak, she kept walking as the dog pranced and danced ahead of her, finding joy in the white gift of the clouds. At least this, she thought, brought a smile to her face. Later, at home, listening to the dog crunching happily on her food, she gazed out the window, mindlessly filling the kettle with water. The stillness of the falling snow lulled her into a sense of expectation. She loved the first real snow of the season as it covered the grey and brown lumps of earth and transformed the world into the unknown. It was a hint of what might lie ahead – the unknown and all that the unknown might bring. The song from West Side Story emerged into her consciousness. “Could be … who knows …there’s something great … coming for me … ”

Always she seemed to want to come to the end of the story so that, like a novel from Charles Dickens, all the ends were tied up neatly in one happy package. But if she knew the ending right now that would mean the end of her life, of her consciousness in this world. She wasn’t ready to go there yet. What was this longing, this deep yearning for meaning and something more in her life? Would something wonderful, stupendous, outrageously incredible arrive at her doorstep, rousing her from her stupor? “Unlikely,” a still, inner voice whispered. “Search deeper within.” She realized that the water was running over the opening of the kettle so, pouring some of the water back down into the sink, she then set it on the stove, waiting for the water to boil. What was it that was so comforting about coffee? Shuffling down the front hall of her home, she opened the door to the porch where her daily paper lay waiting. Had something momentous occurred overnight while she slept? Probably the only things worth looking at, though, were the crossword puzzle and the comics. It was amazing, really, that people still looked forward to the morning comics. As the front door stood open, letting in a rush of cold air, she stood poised for a moment, on the threshold of her home, looking out onto a quiet scene of transformation. Even the noise of the traffic was muffled by the falling snow. She shut the door to the outside world, being careful not to let the dog escape into the cold. Turning to go back into the kitchen, she looked into a home that was familiar and safe. The kettle was starting to whistle, her cereal bowl sat ready to be filled, her juice and pills were laid out beside it. A rush of the ordinariness came over her and she was overwhelmed by the routine of life. What comfort that could bring. She headed to the stove toward the whistling kettle. Just then, the phone rang. Should she answer it? She considered the question carefully, counting the rings. She began to pour the water over the waiting coffee grounds and then on an impulse reached over to pick up the phone. "Hello," she said into the receiver. A disembodied voice at the other end of the line replied. Silence descended. Words came pouring out of the phone, she knew that. What did they mean? And then, like an erupting volcano, her sobs and tears burst out into the calm around her, pouring hot lava-like water over her waiting cereal.

- Deborah Packard

MOURNING

RITUAL

Today I made eggs, cracked their frail, white shells on a bone-white bowl's edge, tipped their yolks into the hollow bottom of it. How it cradled them. Today I ate eggs in small, scrambled bits with my fork; slid my finger around the plate's surface; took up every last bit and licked my finger like I was praying. How, this —my body— cradles me. - Claire-Madeline Culkin

FEBRUARY

19TH

February 19th. I walked home from work today. Leaving my car in the foundations of a long demolished bowling alley, I set off into the cold air. Under the towering excess of Bridgewater Place, built to dispel the prostitutes, pimps and pushers plying their trades along Canal Road as though the soul of the city could be saved by another hunk of metal and glass. Work had told us to watch out for muggers round there. Several attacks this week, they said. But I could see no muggers tonight, just a throng of stone faces headed home. Wait at the red man. Go at the green. And so we went, all of us. Like some final battle scene we charged at each other across the asphalt. But there were no taut battle cries, no bared teeth or glinting sabres held above our heads. Instead, we sidestepped one another, nimbly brushed our coats against our enemies with our eyes down as if the war would be won by cold shoulder rather than warm blood. I could hear the automatic tones from the train station reminding everyone to be careful. To report anything or anyone suspicious. To not talk to strangers. The impassive concern faded as I glanced quickly into the bars off Wellington Street, at the business men with their sharp suits and sharper smiles kidding each other but not kidding themselves that they were having a good time. Another mile. I looked to the darkness where the Kirkstall chemical factory stood until they razed it to the ground to make room for yet another god damn car park. One night years ago, Jessie and I jumped the fence to see what lay behind its corrugated wire and impotent signs. She’d heard it was all mysterious corridors, corroded barrels with unknown contents, dripping taps and puddled floors. Perhaps it was, once. But the crackheads and juveniles had got there first, smashing or stealing anything left behind. Scrawling over the walls with garish hues and daubing nonsense over the peeling paintwork. Syringes and foil scattered in the corners of each room like twigs and leaves fallen from some polluted tree. After we left I looked to her and she forced a smile. Something broken, broken again. As I gazed over the slick black tarmac and impeccably drawn parking bays I understood what she meant. The final stretch, down the wooded steps and across the park. My old house was there, auctioned off after my landlord spent the rent on cocaine instead of the mortgage. I thought of the warm nights in my old attic room. Of Abi and Ruth - one destroyed by her heart and the other by her mind. Up the hill over cobbled stone, hands in freezing pockets fumbling with frozen keys. Into the dark confines of home. - Aidan Marriott

ATLAS I expect my back to break alongside my heart; they call me Atlas. Men who resemble my father's father hold out their hands to beg alone, near where I live. From me they get nothing. If I didn't hoard them like currency, they could have my tears. Simultaneously, I know my dad eats lonely, close to home, Surrounded by strangers blind to heartbreak. It's the anniversary of meeting his former lover, who was not my mother and like whom he says he'll never love again. He saysHe says ‘Belle, it took me sixty years to find what I know now, I am missing’ and he is so far out of arms reach. If I thought my tears could stretch limbs I would never hold them back again. I am starving for food for thought that can remind mesweet comforts under the moon only make the taste of sun-kissed

Â mo(u)rning bitter and not without the ache. Regardless, how can I hold up the extra pounds or focus, when I already have the world on my shoulders. Every day I window wonder why the people who made sure I crossed streets safely cannot bother to return my calls. They wanted me here and gave no thought to how this path would shape me. It is no wonder people are always telling me they think I'm losing weight, when the scales say I've never known such gravity. I'm not burning my belly flat, I am disintegrating. Here, where love leaves me. - Izzy Friedman

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BUZZFEEDIFICATION Show of hands, how many of us have BuzzFeed bookmarked on our phones? How many have downloaded the app? It looks like just about all of us. We are all terrible people. I'm only half joking. If you are one of the three or four people on the planet who hasn't visited BuzzFeed, here's a brief description of the site: it breaks down current events, pop culture, or some forgotten phenomenon into gifs, lists and memes. Suckers like us then find one of these lists and laugh uproariously at the fact that some other person on the planet also has an appreciation for Boy Meets World. We then share the "article" on our Facebook and Twitter pages for all our friends, relatives, relatives' friends, co-workers, former co-workers, and favorite baristas to click on and retweet. Then they click on another article on the site and the same thing happens with a different topic. I'm as guilty of it as anyone else. The specific purpose for the site is to create content that "goes viral." Therein lies the problem. BuzzFeed doesn't care if the content has any value, other than its ability to get us to click on it. You may have noticed that I used quotations when referring to a BuzzFeed article. Obviously, there was a reason for that. When I went to the homepage recently, I discovered these headlines: •

18 Ways Watching Project Runway Is A Religious Experience

•

18 Best Things About Not Being a Football Fan

•

39 Breaking Bad References to Charlie Sheen

Ok, I made up that last one. But you'll find that the site is made up almost entirely of lists. Even the content that isn't a list is likely a collection. They take 20 minutes to assemble and 20 seconds to read. That can't possibly be an article. Granted, if one of these lists hits you the right way, it's funny. It may even be worth sharing. We all love nostalgia. It's nice to remember a show or a fashion trend or the Space Jam soundtrack collectively. But maybe we're giving a little too much time to a website devoted to aggregating fluff. To make matters worse, much of the viral content seen on BuzzFeed is lifted from somewhere else. In a piece for Slate last summer, Farhad Monjoo outlined the deliberate and methodical tactics BuzzFeed uses to lift topics and specific content from Reddit, personal blogs, Pinterest boards and other sources. The site polishes the content and passes it off as BuzzFeed's own work. The posts at BuzzFeed are also published in such a way that it’s nearly impossible for specific images or videos go viral; it’s the entire post or nothing. For example, rather than embedding tweets referenced in a post, BuzzFeed uses screenshots of the tweets. Jonah Peretti, founder of the site, admits to these tactics. In fact, he says that the sources of BuzzFeed’s content are all doing the same thing. This isn’t really about plagiarism. To me, this is more about taking the culture of the internet and making it all about BuzzFeed. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Paretti is also theco-founder of one of my least favorite news aggregators: Huffington Post. Late last year, I purged my Twitter feed of Huffington Post. Did I make the conscious effort to be less informed in 2013? Absolutely not. I'm just as up to date on current events today as I was a year ago. But if you glance

Â quickly at HuffPo's timeline and pull out some key words, you'll find: "shocking," "skintight" and "tiny bikini." This is a news organization! Oh, and you'll also find list after list Huffington Post, like BuzzFeed, may have some great content, but like a latter-day Kanye West album, you have to wade through a river of crap to get to the good stuff. But for every great "BuzzRead," there are 10 compilations of cat gifs that have all somehow been loosely associated with The Walking Dead. Our pop culture fixations don't need to be so watered down. Rather than look at Boy Meets World gifs again, read the awesome oral history of their best episode ("And Then There Was Shawn"). Is it still fluff? Maybe. But the writers and editors care more about the story they're telling than the clicks they're generating. Instead of looking at "39 Examples of Cubs Fans Being Losers" (not real), watch the awesome film Catching Hell, about Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. We don't have to spend all our time reading about political gridlock, terrorism, and gun violence. But we can do better than all the lists. - Adam Kane

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HEY LET'S NOT TALK POETRY I wanna talk about giant squids I wanna talk about giant squids and the murky caves they probably live in I wanna talk about what sweat smells like I wanna talk about rain hitting the phonebook outside my window I wanna talk about how to get rid of that phonebook without having to touch it I wanna talk about the nasty wet cloth I picked up in Target today by accident I wanna talk about why I think guys don’t date me because I’m not a healthy person and they don’t want to deal with it I wanna talk meatballs I wanna talk Massachusetts in the fall I wanna talk Boston I wanna talk Chicago I wanna talk cinnamon cookies til I share one with you I wanna talk sleep I wanna talk hug I wanna talk in my sleep with you next to me and you will talk sleep right back I wanna talk lists I wanna talk moon and other planet’s moons I wanna talk til you tell me to shut up and I’ll shut up I wanna talk in cold air I wanna talk til you tell me I’m talking all wrong and I know I’m talking wrong I wanna talk til I wheeze and I’ll have to use my ProAir and it’ll add drama to the talk I wanna talk because it makes me not so nervous I wanna talk because it puts me here I wanna talk because I’m sober and I can talk sober I wanna talk because I see things people could miss I wanna talk because I can’t sing I wanna talk to talk about things I’ve already talked about I wanna talk dreams I wanna talk about wallpaper I wanna talk about people I know that you know I wanna talk to Obama I wanna talk to Walt Whitman and wear his hat I wanna talk to my cats to see if their voices are similar I wanna talk to birds so we could discuss my fear I wanna talk to Nana in Polish like I said I would the last time I said goodbye

I wanna talk over a Scrabble board I wanna talk over a table and have you on the other side of the table I wanna talk over a wave in the Atlantic Ocean I wanna talk over your hair and make it stand up I wanna talk over a song in a bar til you can’t hear anything but me I wanna talk in English I wanna talk in French I wanna talk in any language you want to talk in I wanna talk til I can’t understand I wanna talk to tell people things are okay and always will be I wanna talk clichés I wanna talk because writing is not talking, not so much all the time I wanna talk til it hurts me more than what actually could hurt I wanna talk to you in a tent I wanna talk all caps I wanna talk about hair in places where hair should be I wanna talk while you talk I wanna talk in the grass taller than me taller than you I wanna talk at the sun I wanna talk with the sun and tell it to keep its heat I wanna talk to you because maybe you’d want to talk to me I wanna talk til it actually sounds like song I wanna talk til I know I’m going I wanna talk love but I’ll never talk it dead I wanna talk til there’s nothing left to be said - Teresa McMahon

IN CONCERT Brand New Chicago Riot Fest, 2013

IN CONCERT Blink-182 Chicago Riot Fest, 2013

IN CONCERT Taking Back Sunday Chicago Riot Fest, 2013

IN CONCERT

IN CONCERT Taking Back Sunday Chicago Riot Fest, 2013

IN CONCERT Blink-182 Chicago Riot Fest, 2013

IN CONCERT The Early November New York Warped Tour, 2013

FEAR THE DARK From the movies, slightly spurned, She lumbered down the hall and turned Into the bedroom, flicked the light, To wallow in her hapless plight. Ads adorned her walls and bed As twilight danced inside her head The beating spot above her breast Cried that it loved Edward best. She hit the bed and softly sighed, What rapture just to be alive! And live with creatures, soft and fair With missing shirts and perfect hair. Then from the window, soft and light A rapping sound that caused her fright She crossed the distance, just the same And slowly to the window came. He was young, with bright blue eyes And smiled at her clear surprise Fangs revealed, a toothy grin He mouthed to her, “May I come in?” His beauty striking, accent thick His movements debonair and quick He grasped her hips and swung her round Into her tomb of quilted down. “You aren’t afraid of me, my sweet?” He slowly eased off of his feet She couldn’t speak, but shook her head He took his place with her in bed. He wrapped his arm around her waist

“I’ve yearned for you, but urge no haste.” Her lips escaped a blissful mew Her heartbeat raced, her wetness grew. She inched closer, daring more Her body young, her mind, a whore She closed her eyes to kiss with force And move this dance along its course. His eyes glazed over, mock consent His cold breath, calming, transient And Lo! Connection, face to face, A passionate, loving embrace And yet, his mouth, it tasted off Like clotted blood and winter frost Her eyes flew open, he had changed From youth’s perfection to deranged He was neither young nor spry He smelled of death, had sunken eyes Insects moved and crawled within His rancid, rotting, aged marked skin His boney hands, they grasped her face She screamed and writhed around in place “You have performed no special feats You simply have a heart that beats.” His fangs bit down, her throat released A gush of the life-giving feast He tore her flesh and broke her spine Every puncture smooth, refined. He left her, twitching, as she died His body felt renewed, alive She was found long after dusk

Her body was a withered husk. They laid her in the winter ground Her killer lost and never found. As they mourned her, they cried—“Hark! We all must learn to fear the dark!” In the ground the dead cry –“Hark! You all must learn to fear the dark!” - Jeremy Steinkamp

WORDS MORE THAN HANDS

HANDS MORE THAN WORDS

Words, more than hands, puncture and drain me, because that pain survives. Old pain more than new rips through the meat of my brain where words echo sharpest, bouncing off each other.

Lover’s hands, she calls them. A real man’s hands. Big, squared-off, rugged, firm, and soft, and delicate.

Like when the child's hands slip, sending amber glass needles from beer bottles breaking, mixing invisibly in the foam and the words. “Why don’t you go outside,” he says, “and put your head under the back tire of the car.” Or sometimes, unprompted, more inviting words because risky: “Why don’t you go out and play in the street.” In this way, the father teaches the toddler what his child is worth, and he learns. “Come here and I’ll give you something to cry about” are words for when the father teaches the son to “Grow the fuck up.” But nothing is ever really given, or at least words more than hands. - Matthew Samuelson

Over her belly and down, fingertips kissing tiny blond hairs on the insides of thighs, or the delicate curve of her back, where it meets her hips. In this way, they do not penetrate, giving the skin over to its own sensation. And he wants to be wind, invisible, embracing her body completely, leaving her free. Too light, she laughs, pulling him back into his skin, threading her fingers in his, making him real. And he loves her laughter. If sunlit amber could sing like glass chimes, he thinks. In this way she teaches him to love his hands; to love the words they inspire. He opens them and gives. - Matthew Samuelson

LATERAL DORSAL NUCLEUS. shut down the city. i need a four year old with more guts than i’ve ever imagined or theorized to take down every demon in my path these days, to clean me out and straighten my spine. every time i stop on the side of the road to catch my breath, i take a deep whiff of someone else’s mistakes; forever permeating my own present. here i am letting it (you) in - meandering around it all, trying to trick my mind into thinking about anything other than you. i don’t need your shit - not literally, not metaphorically, not ambiguously. you see, the thing about it, is that there would be no judgment if you just came clean, clean, clean; cleaner than you’ve been in months (or years) (or decades). one day, you and him and her and everyone (maybe) (maybe not) will realize you’ve been whitewashing yourselves - and darlin’, those little white lies got piled on thick when you weren’t looking. - kaity davie

EASTER

ISLAND MAN

On the way there, the conversation is subdued. Driving on the interstate, I pass a truck pulling an open trailer on which is tied a small, shiny black car with rear wheels so big it is raked forward at an impossible angle. “What is that?” I ask. Patrick looks up from finding directions on his Blackberry, craning his neck to watch it pass. “That,” he says with a pointed pause, “that is an embarrassment.” I burst out laughing, grateful for the break in the almost palpable tension between us. This is why I love Patrick. The way he says things just cracks me up. He directs me off the interstate and down the country roads. The spring bloom is pretty much done, but one tree still has impressive upright flowers, vaguely phallic and very fertile. I ask Patrick what the tree is, but he doesn’t know. “Jill would know,” he says quietly and I know he is right. We both know that we will forget to ask her when we see her and that moment is coming up fast. Is he as nervous as I am about the three of us being together? I suspect he is anxious to see her, after being apart all week. I flick back a pang of jealousy and pull into a parking space on the side of the road near the gallery. Patrick says, “Oh, and by the way, Gary and Eva don’t know what our relationship is. I’ll tell them you are a friend and I have been helping you with a computer problem at your house.” I nod. It’s fine with me. Otherwise, it’s just way too awkward. Patrick is putting his name on the gallery’s mailing list when I spot Jill, waving at us from across the yard. I wave back, surprised to find myself happy to see her, relieved to have this moment over with. She looks relaxed and happy in a t-shirt and jeans. I go over and hug her first. I feel her resist ever so slightly, as if she is afraid to smell him on me. We pull apart and Patrick comes up and takes her face in his two hands. They gaze at one another as if drinking in the sight of water in a desert. I feel a loosening in my gut, a letting go, and it feels surprisingly easy. I extend a hand to Eva and then Gary, who are standing nearby admiring the sculpture, introducing myself simply as Audrey, with no explanation. They accept this without question. We walk around slowly, admiring a thrusting metal sculpture. A card contains the name of the artist and the unlikely title of the piece: String Theory. There is nothing stringy about it. It is solid sheets of metal. Jill comments on the title and Gary launches into a complicated explanation of quantum physics. Patrick and I avoid looking at each other and we take positions at the greatest possible distance from each other. I am done

looking at his gray eyes, the curve of his cheekbones. I am done running my fingers through the lanky hair on his forehead, for now, anyway. At the back of the building, we admire some ceramic fish stuck in a flowerbed and a gargoyle with an electric cord running out its mouth to a tiny lamp. Around a corner, I come upon a pot containing a plant as tall as I am. The light purple blossoms are in cone-shaped clusters, like bunches of grapes. I lean in for a whiff as Jill comes around the corner. “Are they fragrant?” she asks me. “No,” I say, “They look like wisteria, but they don’t smell at all. Do you know what they are?” Jill cups a heavy bloom in one hand. We focus on the plant and avoid each other’s gaze. “I don’t know what it is, but we have lots of wisteria at our house. Do you want some?” I don’t remember seeing it at their house, but it was the dead of winter when I was there. I feel a surge of gratitude for her as I accept her offer. Who knows when I will see it, but it’s nice to be offered a token of friendship. It feels good. We follow the nature trail into the woods. It is cool and shady, with a light breeze. Perfect weather. The leaves on the path are trodden soft and we pass several female torsos on trees and some more spiky metal pieces without much conversation. At a turn in the path, a reclining bust leans her head on one hand, looking thoughtful. I don’t comment, but I think I like this one the best of all the sculptures. I squint at the card. It says the piece is titled Dreamer and then I am positive I like it the best, because surely that is what I am, right now, anyway. Jill and I have somehow taken the lead. It seems as though we are both the most anxious for this walk to be over. The others are lagging behind, admiring a natural outcropping of stone. I follow her generous hips, feeling glad that I wore my baggy pants, so as not to suggest any sensuality to those following behind. But Patrick, Gary and Eva are so far behind I am sure none of them can see my butt. My nervousness is making me paranoid. Jill stops abruptly and I nearly crash into her. We watch something rustling through the leaf litter at a good speed. My first thought is a harmless rodent and then a snake and before I can even complete a thought, a lizard darts up a tree. It is a very big lizard, the biggest I have ever seen in these parts. It disappears around the tree.

Patrick comes up behind us and asks what we are looking at. I don’t know about Jill, but I feel slightly annoyed. It was our lizard. No one else saw it. It showed itself to us and was not meant for anyone else. Peering around the tree, Jill tells Patrick it was a lizard. “A big one.” I add, possessively. “How big?” he asks. Jill and I hold up our hands and I see that hers are wider than mine by six inches. I think she exaggerates, but I don’t correct her. It’s okay with me if she sees it bigger than it was. It just makes it more special. At the refreshment tent, I pass up the wine, opt for a plastic cup of diet coke and announce that I have to go. Jill says, “Oh no, you can’t go yet, you haven’t seen the big ones.” “The big ones?” I ask. She looks directly at me for the first time since we arrived. “I really want you to see these.” I hesitate. “You’ve just got to see them,” she says, with a note of pleading in her voice. I do not look at Patrick. I follow Jill to a bridge over a dry stream full of ceramic fish and through an artfully rough twig arbor. We admire a cluster of car-length square nails and a monolithic piece of stone. “Look, over there.” Jill points across the field. I see a fifteen-foot metal bust of a man who looks like he might have been at home on Easter Island. Jill giggles, “Isn’t he something? And look, he’s wearing a suit and tie!” I laugh and admit its cleverness, but neither of us mentions the resemblance to her husband as he comes up behind us, his two women, giggling together, like sisters. Easter Island Man just stands there, silent and impassive, looking on. - Beth Browne

PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE I finally got laid the other night. The tattoo high on her thigh said, Refreshingly Natural. Some areas of the body must be extra painful to tattoo. I can Google which if my computer ever comes out of sleep mode. When her phone rang, it was about something else, a world that was pockmarked and scabby. She gave a soft laugh, as if all things were curable with tenderness. - Howie Good

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OIL PAINTINGS Untitled (Yellow No. 3) oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8” - Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS Michael oil paint, reclaimed jewelry, and paraffin wax on masonite. 2011. 8X6X2” - Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS Requiem oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 9” - Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS OIL PAINTINGS Untitled (Yellow No. 1) (Yellow No. 1) on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8" oilUntitled paint and found plastics oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8" - Dana Tyrell - Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS Untitled (Anatomy) oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8”

- Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS Untitled (Green Sentinel) oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8”

- Dana Tyrell

OIL PAINTINGS Untitled (Pink) oil paint and found plastics on masonite. 2011. 9.5 X 8”

- Dana Tyrell

SKITTLES blame the victim? blame the system if you shoot the suspect where’s the justice? if you search for justice you’ll find it’s just us a father who did not run wonders what else he might have told his son we can tell ourselves this too shall pass Abner* could have told Trayvon it’s just a pain in the ass we high-toned folks are un— comfortable rappin’ or having to ask why this shit keeps happenin’

*Abner Louima - David E. Poston

CALAMINE COCKTAIL Carlsbad caverns probably where it went only once maybe brewing its desert sacrament. That’s where I lost twenty teeth cracked my face seven stitches wide and earned my prairie stigmata. 90s Kodak family singeing the insides of a Celica wiping themselves into concretes across western America. Nevada nights and the sacred am/pm— you can best watch your lineage split while they’re pumping gas in bug fluorescence. Your growing coyote soul can dash off in whimpers ages before death dusty and left chugging calamine cocktails trying to extinct the brambles in your throat and reclaim the family ghost. - Alan Hanson

ON THE NIGHT I BURIED THAT SUNDOG IN THE PET CEMETERY On the night I buried that sundog in the pet cemetery, Mother told me, it’s ok, it’s ok, the sundog had to be put down. It had rabies, it would’ve killed you, and the sun’s not to be trusted anyway. She had a morbid fear of the sun, was terrified of being out in it. It’s unpredictable like rabies, she would tell me, Daylight is polluted saliva. When I was little, she handed me an empty jar and said, A sundog is in here. Raise it well, but observe its prehistoric poison, its magnetic rage. She assumed ownership of what she feared the most would make me understand. Maybe because pets facilitate various aspects of emotional development? Did she want to soften me up or did she want to toughen me up? The jar was clearly uninhabited, but mother insisted she caught an afternoon sundog. It sat on my dresser, untouched. I couldn’t stand the sight of it. Mother would often force me to look at that godforsaken jar. There, there, you see? The bright anger is consuming the gray matter. I had no idea what she was talking about, but her words were flammable. One day the sundog had to be put down. Mother said so. I didn’t ask any questions. As I struggled with the shovel, the hot wind kept punching me in the face And I told it, Stop it west wind, it’s alright, this tropical shit storm is our little secret. But for how long would it be our little secret? I didn’t dwell on it. Just bury the Goddamn sundog and be done with it, I told myself. There’s a burnished resentment in all of us that must be put down. - Justin Karcher

MILLENNIALS: DEATH CAN INSPIRE COUNTERCULTURE I’ve been a college professor for 31 years, and in all that time working with young people, I’ve had one question on the relationship between boomers and millennials that continues to nag at me. I’ve often wondered why two generations of young adults since the boomers have been either unable or unwilling to create a viable counterculture. The economy is in dire straits, few jobs await them, their debt is mounting, racism is still pervasive, the planet is dying, the American Dream is dying, unions are being busted and an ultra-conservative right is threatening to take from them every hard-won freedom that boomers fought for (civil rights, women’s rights, privacy rights, union bargaining rights). So why is it that today’s young people do not rise up as one, take to the streets, and demand some fucking change? I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer lies in the fact that millennials don’t feel threatened by death. It’s the only variable that separates the boomers from succeeding generations. If I have to pinpoint one significant difference between boomers, Gen Xers and millennials, it’s that boomers faced the real threat of imminent death almost on a daily basis while coming of age, while Xers and millennials have had no such fear. No matter how bad the current state of society may be, millennials simply don’t have to cope with the notion that either the world will end tomorrow in a nuclear holocaust, or that the government will come to their cities and towns and draft them to go fight in a war. Things may be bad, and there might be a lot of shit going on out there, but there appears to be no tangible reality to the notion that they might have to stare death in the face. They feel safe. Death motivates people. Say what you want about them, but boomers often had to face death in various forms throughout their youth. Death makes you serious in a hurry. From the time we were children, boomers grew up in a world where imminent death was perceived as a stark reality. The Cold War, with its continuing threat of two superpowers possessing enough nuclear power to blow up the world ten times over no matter who pushed the button first, was a never-ending reminder of the fact that death could come quickly and suddenly. “Duck-and-cover” drills and “go home” drills were common, routinely practiced exercises. None of this seemed far-fetched to young and impressionable baby boomers, who had heard stories of the firebombing of Dresden and of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 drove the point home just as boomers were beginning to gain a glimmer of understanding of the potential for mass destruction. When John Kennedy was killed in 1963, a string of assassinations followed. In rapid succession, American political figures such as Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, George Lincoln Rockwell, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy and Fred Hampton were murdered. Lee Harvey Oswald himself was killed two days after JFK, the first live murder ever presented on television. There has not been an era in American history before or since that saw so many assassinations of such prominent political figures in so short a space of time. Boomers witnessed all these events, most of them happening before they reached the age of 25.

The Civil Rights movement, while it had its peaceful side in the person of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers, also had its violent side. The 16th St. Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham AL on Sept. 15, 1963, an act of racial terrorism, killed four young girls. The Freedom Riders of 1961 were subject to mob beatings. The tactics that Bull Connor, Public Safety Commissioner in Birmingham AL, used against the civil rights protesters in 1963 presented a scene to us where attack dogs and fire hoses were used against peaceful protesters, and over 3,000 people were jailed. The Watts Rebellion of 1965, as well as subsequent urban riots over the next five years, saw cities burn and people die (34 died in the Watts Rebellion). And I won’t even go into the 1968 Democratic National Convention that saw the Chicago police wail on young protesters. You can Google it. And one cannot talk about death and the boomers without talking about the Vietnam War. If you were a young man growing up in the sixties, you had to face the draft one way or another. Military service was compulsory, not volunteer as it is today. As the US involvement in the war intensified through the sixties, the odds that military service would put you on the front lines in Vietnam became greater and greater. The war was a reality, the draft no joke, and as every day television showed footage of jungle combat and more flag-draped caskets returning from Vietnam, the idea that some unseen collection of men could send you off to your death in a jungle thousands of miles from home was palpable. I was not a part of the campus protests that swept the nation (being still in high school), but in my senior year of high school I turned 18 and became eligible for the draft. That meant I had to actively face the reality of being sent to war and dying. My first act of political protest was to declare myself a conscientious objector to war on religious grounds. In my first year of college I did not take the student deferment (II-S), but rather continued my application for a 1-O status (conscientious objector available for civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest). But in 1971, as the war began to wind down and US military involvement was reduced through “Vietnamization,” the strict “everybody called” draft was replaced with a lottery system, by which every date in the calendar year was assigned a number by lot, and your draft number was determined by the number assigned to your birthday. You were only eligible for the draft in your 19th year; after that, if your number was not called up, you were free from having to serve through conscription. It turned out that my number, something like 117, was not called. And so I did not serve in the military as a draftee. My case to be classified as 1-O also came to an end, as it was now a moot point. I was motivated; I escaped death, and I escaped having to inflict death on others. All this is a prelude to making the following appeal – for God’s sake, millennials, get the fuck out there and create a viable political and social counterculture! Make it loud and obnoxious. Get in people’s faces. You’re smart people, intelligent, with good intentions, good ideas and a wonderful sense of altruism. You’re just too comfortable, that’s all. The powers that be are hiding death from you. They make sure you never see pictures of caskets coming back from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. They make sure you see only

joyful reunions of soldiers and their families. They embed reporters into combat units and censor their material. They carefully control what even the most ordinary soldier can say to the press. In short, the authorities learned their lessons from news coverage of Vietnam. Young people have yet to learn or to take any wisdom from boomers, most likely because they’re too busy blaming us for their predicaments. Don’t waste your youth on insignificance. You can’t make a difference by “liking” a Facebook page; you can only make a difference by getting out into the world and shaking it up through your actions. Maybe you feel too safe. Maybe you feel it’s really no big deal. Maybe you think no one is threatening you with physical death, and perhaps you’re right. But all kinds of other deaths are all around you. Death has taken a more subtle form. Those who control the government and the economy have gotten smarter over the years, and have found many ways to disguise the deaths you face. Let me elaborate. Your planet is being destroyed; that’s the most obvious and fundamental death there is. The “1%” is trying to take your wealth away, killing you with financial devastation. They are making damn sure you earn the least amount of money possible for your labor. You are obsessed with the passive entertainment provided to you by TV and the internet; your creativity and passion for engagement with other people is dying. You are becoming stupider day by day because of a poor education system and a lack of bone-basic knowledge, so your intellect is dying. Your spiritual beliefs are vague and unfocused, and so your souls are dying. Your politicians are greedy, boorish and pathetically simple-minded, and totally bought and paid for by big corporations, so your nation-state is dying. There is so much death and dying going on about you that I find it utterly amazing that there is not a full-scale onslaught of protest going on in the 21st century. Criticize boomers if you must (and there is plenty to criticize, believe me), but I’ll tell you one thing: call it self-interest or call it altruism, but boomers hastened the end of a war, fought for civil rights for oppressed people, opened up more opportunity for women and minorities, unionized migrant farm workers for a fair wage and contract, and in general created societal change on a mass scale. That’s history, and that’s pretty fucking good, in my book. I would love – LOVE – to see if millenials can do it as well or better. Just remember – they’re coming to get you, and they want you functionally, if not literally, dead. Only cowards die with their faces buried in Facebook. - Tom Loughlin

(LOVE, LIGHTNING) Love is like standing in a field waiting to be struck by lightning. It sounds pretty. It sounds like it would make a very pretty poem. But then there is the lightning and everything is hot and bright and painful and silent and there is something new inside of you pinning you deaf to the ground. Some people stand back up But some stay there lying in that field arms wide having forgotten why they asked for this in the first place. - Lewis Mundt

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SUSPENSION Sometimes, in order to arrive anywhere else, You must believe that you are going to die alone. This is the wrecking ball, The tire spinning on ice, Of course the wall can be rebuilt, Yes, the car must move eventually, But sometimes the only thing that matters Is the suspension, This is your grandfather’s favorite photograph Of the frozen ground in Dresden: You remember it always because you know Something will come to bloom, It is the circus magic of your childhood: The moment you know the trapeze swinger will be fine Is the same moment you know she will fall to her death. But some part of you knows you must pull the safety net To care if anyone catches you on the other side. - Lewis Mundt

GOSSAMER NIGHT we are that which casts itself on the shadow of what history considers the dull thud of a waking morning moments after the air raid of longing springs us from the safety of an imagination propped in a hot air balloon on its way to Oz we are the fading and blended array of colors and canvas and bass and treble and the trembling fear of devotion we have devoted ourselves to a time ticking on the wrist of risk and all of its pulverized quartz chopped and snorted for a fix of the blissful wonder of what we once were we are the wistful wandering of your binary star flooding your DNA like oceans and mars no NSA can record who you are we are solar bound to the ground and the crown of the czar we make no concessions for the monsters we raise (or the ones that we are) they are our children they are the explosions in the sky and the falling debris is our legacy and we climb from our comfort and we open our doors and we look out to the night and open our mouths and we catch our feathering circumstance on the tips of our tongues

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and we engage in the gossamer moment and it’s airy and it’s rarified and it’s larfy and it's pungent and it's sweet and it's sour and it's sad and it's familiar and it's me and it's you and it's love and there is no quark in this moment no matter for matter no ticking and no measurement we become the instrument and we play on we become the lingering soundtrack to all the dead air in space - Clarity

TAKING CHARGE What is it that you wanted? I’m still stocking the canned salmon, so this protein won’t be ready for detailing for another hour. Until then you can sashay over to the mutton and count ligaments to your heart’s content. Really. No one minds at all. I don’t see how you can stand in those heels, and all the young boys at the ends of mother’s arms will be measuring how long those lover-crusher legs are: but go ahead. The mutton is really unforgiving. You should go look at it. After you’ve gone, your sex hangs in the air like a winter’s widowed full moon. There are no small spots of it, no ethereal mists: just one huge distraction hoisted like pterodactyl teeth barely out of reach. A body does not have to be here to sense it. People come in, stand dumbfounded for a minute, look around as though somewhere there should be a surprise. Maybe the surprise is at the end of this aisle; maybe in the drop ceiling. Maybe the man stacking salmon is a serial killer. I don’t know what it is, but it is something and it is boundlessly disturbing: but in a sweet, cherry cigar smoke sort of way. I say: go check out the mutton. I remember the first time I put my arm around a woman’s waist. She was a girl, actually. The frightening thing is that the sensation I noted most at the time was how crisp her shirt was. She wore a pair of stiff, noncommittal jeans and a fresh button front shirt and that shirt was as crisp as hand crushed onion paper: a sympathetic crackle and a wise coarseness. It took me a while to be aware of the body beneath the scandalous fabric: that flesh-baiting, deep water concoction that I wanted to dive into and swim through and explore like the underside of a criminal’s living room furniture. That shirt was a clown-praise wonder all on its own. This sedition feels much like that one time enchantment. In an hour the salmon will be stocked and you will be back and the goldfish and I will be waiting, watching every bit of you as you manipulate your threadbare, one-liner way along the aisle. I won’t want to, but I will go painfully erect and you will notice my evolutionary interest, since the pants I wear are really cheap pants: the type of pants that are bought in bulk for unimaginative, uncounted shelving clerks. I guess they don’t know that, just like executives, we get silly, unimaginative erections, too. But I am not going home with you. With me, it is just the canned salmon and all the tales I can tell about mackerel and sharks and how no one can be afraid living secluded in a goldfish bowl. The world ends just over there and just over there and again over there when you live in a goldfish bowl and there can be nothing in it to fear, only the external blacklisted stimuli that I, from the outside, control. And I would never do anything to harm a fellow goldfish.

I have it figured out. You will sashay only half way down the aisle, a jumble of color and dangerous motion and battered breath and a box full of open source abilities, and ask me to reach the last can of salmon I have just stacked: to drop it in your basket. Your sour-soul kind is always doing something like that: disturbing the paroled quiet, playing pattern against pattern. Unraveling. Unraveling every manufactured thing. I have an ocean of a mind that is all my own. I am not reaction alone, sympathetic push to sympathetic pull. I have my own crease in this binary universe. It’s all wet, dry, wet, dry, and I stack. You do not have your sea legs yet; and, I swear, you geometry of necessary oneness, you won’t unravel me. - Ken Poyner

NARMER Paisley Egyptian Princess & Fish drip tandem crisscrossed eyeballs in colloquial familiarity, scaled & liquid, tangible by the root, fragile slip into coral made in floe tentacle victims pressured by ashen currents, while starfish grasp with one slipping suckercup, avoiding drifting oblivion & confronting mirrored prey amoeba slime bathing vacuums & glass mask. Mask of the Devil sprouts pyramids moved by uneven ripples split into adjacent intersection masking grubs burying beneath the chin bone, into the wet mouth hiding beartrap teeth. Temple third-eye blossoming spectacle peaks with a top-hatted boy pharaoh, he, eyelids sewn shot, showering upsidedown treble clefs and fossil arthropod skinned cheeks structured with fishbone. - Brett Jones

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BOLD The last time I saw my grandmother, I was working in an office at the time. A small computer lab, dry of any sunlight. She turned to my mother And said with such excitement and relief, “Mira! Look at how white he is!” When my mother was born, My grandmother told her mother With such hopeful wishing, “Oh, she is going to be so fair, so pale!” My great-grandmother looked at her daughter, Saw the desperation in her eyes And replied, “Aye, no. Ella sea una negrita.” As if to say, “No, she will not be blessed With pale pigment of perfection. God smeared soot all over her skin, So when the sun soothes Her arms, brown will be bold” My mother and I are the darkest in our bloodline Our cousins say that in family photos, We are mistaken for coffee stains. When I hid from the sun, My skin secreted all the grain With which it graced me. In my family, melanin is a cancer cell, So my ancestry taught me To use sleeves as scalpels, Scraping off any trace Of African diaspora. The Latino’s genetic threading Is both conquistador and conquered,

Of slave and indigenous. There is so much hidden in our make-up, That our birth is a roulette game. Our skin color, the scar from the branding iron, Whether or not we will resemble The colonized or the colonizer. It’s funny how this country thinks Racism is an American problem. In Latin America, one could find imperialism In the beauty section of any pharmacy. See the aisles of skin whitening makeup, The hair-straightening products. Racism is an assortment Of self-hate and insecurities. When my grandmother let go that sigh of relief, I couldn’t help think she prayed For me to hide from the daylight. She would be proud to know I wore long sleeved hoodies, Crossed my arms and walked Towards the shadows while outside, As if covering my abdomen Was the only way to keep my secret hidden. I was wrought with shame Hiding in my dark apartment room For fear of the light But this summer, I worked outdoors in New Hampshire, Pulled up my sleeves, Let the sun seep through the cracks in my skin, Let the roots of melanin grow rich in soil. Once again, I was burnt bold in brown

So when people saw me For the first time in months, They marveled at my bronze armor, Asked, “How did you get so tanned?” As if they recognized my privilege Of hiding myself. I wanted to say “This is what happens when I Embrace the sun,” But the shame of knowing That somewhere My grandmother would be Disappointed in me Held my tongue And I couldn’t help But cross my arms instead. - Chris Lee-Rodriguez

UNTITLED Next is the turn. And snap. And twisting bodies fill up the space. The princess and beauty may be the prettiest thing I've seen in a long time. The piercing movements overlay with soft swirls into the body and around the mind of the audience. I can picture how she leads them on. Bali would be proud. The colors of the walls create mood. Mood that matches the tone of music. In with the dark skin and deep brown eyes shoulders moving at once then feet stomping to emphasize another side. Counting the steps I realize this is the end. She says namaste and the yoga stretched me into bliss. Learning the basics to next level is all in the realm of giving. Giving yourself expression to the crowd. This is how we see it. Take it please is what it says. This is for your pleasure. An expansion is yourself formed into a partnership with six other women. Unification and sex appeal are important pieces in this puzzle. It spills out of me slowly and I guess that's the point. To keep it going. the mystery of what's next. - Kitty Larkin

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TOO HOT TO SLEEP The heat was all anyone could talk about for a week. Elevator rides with strangers that normally existed in silence now had an extra helping of sighs and dabbing sweat from foreheads with designer handkerchiefs. Nineties newscasters spoke of records and warnings constantly, breaking only to mention the tragedy of the Hasidic Jewish boy who was chopped up in pieces and put in a freezer in Brooklyn. Hydration was a must; rule numero uno: hydration load on all days that end with ‘y.’ In an accomplished Midtown loft, a sweaty brunette peels her face from a wet pillow, brushes thickets of hair away like caring for a bear cub, and moves her skin and bone body across warmed hardwood to a cold shower. An hour later she is wearing her favorite sundress, brick flowers and tarnished-green leaves, and throwing a tangerine into her purse. She leaves the armoire open in her bedroom so it’s more convenient for her when she returns. By the time she gets to the bottom of her stairwell and steps out into the sun, three beads of sweat are already racing down the moguls of her backbone. In the Bronx, a home alone sixteen year old girl lies down in an empty bathtub decorated with mud brown grime and gives birth to a son on Extreme Weather Advisory Wednesday. Mother and baby’s cries harmonize and find no ears in the abandoned white-washed apartment. She cuts the umbilical cord with a shaving razor and rinses off the baby, then herself, under a steady stream of cold water. When they feel clean to her, the baby gets swaddled in a forgotten hand towel and lies on his mother’s chest for a nap on cracked bathroom tiles. When she wakes up, her back feels slimy on porcelain. Hungrier for whiskey than food, casting dirty brown bags and take-out containers aside into a heap in the corner while searching for an ashtray, an anonymous thirty year old hopes he don’t get to himself before the drink does. He’s been alone for days, and the crusty bread of the half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich is proof, along with the billowing garbage bin that smells like last week’s banana peels and the rest of Staten Island. Pacing, pacing, pacing … trying to find a place of comfort on desert floors. No luck. He lights the second half of a black and mild because cigarettes cost too much money, health, and women. He sits on algae couch everyone else sleeps on, but finds no rest alongside the buzzing box fan. He gets up, changes song to sad, turns down volume and shakes the last seven Benadryl out of the bottle like playing maraca at a birthday party for a dead kid. He drops the pills into now watered down whiskey and adds more whiskey as sweat falls from the glass and evaporates on the floor. A tired mother shuffles over to answer the door of their Queens apartment, expects to find her teenage son home for Friday night curfew saying he forgot his key again, but is greeted by a pair of hats-off police officers instead. The taller one’s steel blues eyes burn hot through her before she can even grab the air to invite them inside. They ask if her husband is home and if she could go get him. When she does, the shorter cop says they should probably sit. They cripple beneath the whispered words that their only son, The Prince, who wanted to become a doctor, was taken from the world under the wheels of a Cadillac. The

Â father tries to straighten his shoulders as the mother faints at the details. The officers react according to protocol. The shorter one prepares a cool rag and a glass of ice water with the father in the kitchen while the taller one uses his hat to dab the corner of his eyes. On Sunday night the air finally felt cooler so everyone turned off their air conditioners and opened windows instead. - Brett Jones

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THE DAY AFTER Liberals love to dismiss the Rapture where Paul in 1st Thessalonians tells Christians some will be left behind as the true believers rise to meet their Lord in the air. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look on the positive side of the Rapture when fundamentalists cash in their spiritual sky miles to join their lord in the air. It will leave the earth to heathens and open minded Christians Just imagine the day after the Rapture as red states become blue and Southern states become progressive It is going to be one helluva a party as those of us left behind celebrate the passage of: equal rights national health care livable wages and global peace initiatives The sound of church bells will be deafening as gay couples tie the knot and celebrate heaven on earth - Sam Love

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES after she was released from the hospital her husband stalked her although he forced his dick deeper inside her as she fought back as he cracked open her droughty vagina because she secretly smiled at the grocery boy and then left him before he had time to deliver another sultry bouquet of deep purple bruises under her shirt even if she wasn’t his first to say no even though she had moved out, hired a lawyer, put a restraining order on him her new neighbors didn’t know it if only she hadn’t bought condoms at the Rite Aid he wouldn’t have had to escalate his plan in order that she understood she was his once she understood there was no leaving provided that that slut kept herself untouched by any other man rather than her giving—IT—away—to—anyone—else he had promised her leniency but

Â since she was the one who bought the Goddamn condoms she actually asked for it so that he had no choice he had to break down her fracking door than letting her fuck a total stranger she knew the chain-lock would mean the back of his hand that there was no keeping him out he wanted custody of their unconceived child though he might die trying to get her pregnant as he knocked her down the stairwell she shrieked unless she wanted it in the ass this time wanted her kids to watch this until he was satisfied she shut upâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;stopped moving when he grabbed her by her blood slicked hair came good and hard, he knew she did too whenever he remembers that particular day he laughs out loud where legitimate is regulated and whereas his cunt of a wife was just using him to get a larger divorce settlement wherever he goes he shows everyone pictures of his new baby boy whether

his ex can’t make house payments has trouble feeding their kids while he has joint custody and a barely broken new wife his ex still begs for more, which he obliges when he can why she hasn’t loaded the gun he gave her and given him a really good excuse is anybody’s guess - Laura LeHew

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jordan Rizzieri (Long Island, NY) is a 26-year-old caregiver and writer. After graduating from SUNY Fredonia with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and a minor in English, she spent over a year in Buffalo, NY honing her playwriting skills. In 2011 she saw the staging of her first full-length play, The Reunion Cycle, as part of the Buffalo Infringement Festival. Upon her return to Long Island, she began blogging about being a young adult caring for her ailing mother, as well as publishing essays on the topic. As she prepares to return to the work force, Jordan spends the evening hours writing, watching WWE wrestling with her boyfriend and listening to spooky podcasts. On the weekends she drinks a lot of craft beer, listens to the radio and has arguments with her boyfriend's cats (which she almost always loses.) Feel free to contact her with questions about flannel, grunge, The Twilight Zone and the proper spelling of braciola . Website - Twitter - Tumblr

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MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer Lombardo (Buffalo, NY) is 25 years old and 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.

FICTION EDITOR Kay Kerimian (Buffalo, NY), just freshly turned 25, has gone from Long Island native & bagel aficionado to hippie-dippie Hudson Valley student before ultimately taking a chance on The Queen City as a professional go-getter. Holding degrees in Performance & Gender Studies while carefully considering a literary escape route, Kay currently resides in Western New York with her partner in crime; the two share plans to explore the great unknown together by this time next year. After hastily publishing a small collection of short stories independently at the ripe old age of 17, Kay quietly abandoned her lifelong ambition of becoming a celebrated writer for an equally quixotic career in the performing arts while adopting a new name. When not on stage or on a proverbial soap box, Kay spends her free time reading (a lot), traveling (as much as possible on an artist's income), & thinking up the next big project (currently attempting to try something new every day for a year). She prefers using lower-case, enjoys coffee, whiskey, & sweets (respectively & in no particular order), & pines for never-ending libraries. Always interested in a dialogue, Kay welcomes discussions involving disability awareness, heteronormativity, & hypothetical super powers. Website - Twitter - Tumblr

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POETRY EDITOR Bee Walsh (Brooklyn, NY) is a 24-year-old New York native living in Bed-Stuy. 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 scoffing at people in each of them who ask her about her "career goals." An Executive Assistant in publishing by day, you can find her most nights stage managing non-profit theatre, eating vegan sushi in the West Village or causing mischief on roofs with her boyfriend, Brian. 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. Tumblr - Twitter - Facebook

Justin Webb resides in Homer, NY, a small town south of Syracuse, with his beautiful fiancée and his fat, yet highly lovable, cat. An editor for an e-commerce publishing firm by day, he has an affinity for reciting poetry, good hefeweizen, Ireland and the French language. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Fredonia and has had work appear previously in The Furnace Review and Haiku News. Alex Fitzpatrick is Homepage Editor for Time.com, also covering technology. He previously covered politics and policy for Mashable. Follow him on Twitter, or check out his website. Deborah Packard, who began speaking early in life, can't remember a time when she didn't love words. As a singer, the words of a song were equally as important as the music. The journey of self-discovery needs words. Today, Deborah lives in Potsdam, NY, with her wire-haired dachshund, Chloe, where she leads a PC(USA) congregation. Her two children, Elizabeth and Jonathan, are the delight of her life. Claire-Madeline Culkin is an aspiring author and psychoanalyst. Her writing concerns love as a process of mourning and identity as one of narrative construction, as do her academic studies. She is afflicted with an attention to the symbolic weight of the mundane actions we take in our daily lives. Her aim as a writer, and as a student of psychoanalytic practice, is to elevate these accidental rituals—these unintended consequences of what it means to be who we are—to the level of the word: to something that can, at the very least, be spoken. “Mourning Ritual” is her first publication. She currently resides in the Catskills, where she is writing a novel. She can be contacted via LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Aidan Marriott is a 31 year old writer and musician from County Tyrone in Ireland, now residing in Leeds, England. When not writing slightly bleak prose, he enjoys writing and singing miserable songs, enthusiastically debating political matters and drinking copious amounts of tea/beer, depending on the day of the week. Aidan can be found on Twitter and Facebook, and his music is on Soundcloud. Izzy Friedman is a poet, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist originally from Buffalo, NY. Her poetry came to her as kismet. While co-writing songs during her early years in bands, she fell in love with baring her soul through lyrics. In her time between associated acts she began to move away from daily lyricism and live under the maxim "write one poem per day." Izzy currently resides in Queens with her boyfriend and is gainfully employed as a marketing and promotions assistant at the record label Razor & Tie. She can be seen reading poetry occasionally at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe or with the Hip Hop ReEducation Project. She is hoping to publish a collection of her poems within the next few years. Find her online through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. Adam Kane is a recovering actor living and working in Boston. You can follow him on twitter @akanefive. Be warned, though, most of his tweets are about the Red Sox, Syracuse basketball or the line at Starbucks. Teresa McMahon is a Boston native now living in Chicago, where she is a first year MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago. She enjoys cupcakes, hula-hooping, writing lists and translating French poetry into English. She also runs a blog. Coming from Buffalo, NY, Keith Barker now lives in New York City and is a video editor/producer at CBS Interactive and freelance photographer. His passion for live music led to a desire to capture the energy and atmosphere of shows through the lens of a camera. Keith also shoots weddings and other events as a freelance photographer/videographer. Check out Keith's work on Vimeo, Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram. Jeremy Steinkamp, 25, lives in Rochester, New York and works as a videographer/editor/audio engineer for the area's PBS station, WXXI. Since a young age he has been meandering through multiple artistic mediums, but finds himself focusing on music, drawing, and writing. He attended college at SUNY Fredonia, where he studied Film/Video Art, adding filmmaking to his repertoire, and wrote/directed a zombie film called "Night of the Living Fred." This past year he drew a comic called "A Ballsy Move" that was featured in a Free Comic Book Day installment for the documentary My Name Is Jonah, and he plans to launch an original comic feature called

"Imagine That!" in 2014. In addition to his other endeavors, Jeremy is an avid fan of the horror genre and is the owner of a freelance video production business called Chapter One Productions. Follow him on Twitter and check out his work on Vimeo. Matthew Samuelson received his MA in English Literature from SUNY Fredonia where he is also currently employed. He is finishing work on his first novel, Fissure Kings, and has kept a blog of fiction, poetry, photos, and assorted personal writings, for over 5 years. Kaity Davie, a Long Island native and current resident of the oft-forgotten borough of Queens, is a sassy and enthusiastic 25-year-old making her way in the music industry. Working in radio promotion and music marketing, Kaity spends quite a lot of time in music venues throughout the city and across the country, while also making time to hug friends, explore museums, go on adventures, and eat brunch - though not all at the same time. Once upon a time in high school, she won the senior class award for poetry, which gave her a false sense of entitlement and convinced her that she can occasionally ramble in prose. She will accept any invitation to a party that offers unlimited juice. Find Kaity on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. Since her re-birth in 1963, Beth Browne has been struggling to return to her previous incarnation as a sea otter. To this end, she now owns a wetsuit and a sailboat. Her two children love her, but they wish she liked cooking half as much as writing. Occasionally, she indulges in a spot of knitting but she practices yoga every single day. When she was five, she starred in the school play as The Ugly Duckling, even though she would have much preferred to have a lesser role as a Beautiful Swan. You can read more from Beth on her sailing blog, or follow her on Twitter or Facebook. Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Middle of Nowhere (Olivia Eden Publishing). His latest chapbooks are Echo's Bones and Danger Falling Debris (Red Bird Chapbooks). He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely. Dana Tyrrell is a 23-year-old visual artist currently living and working in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. He graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2012 with two Bachelor of Arts degrees for the study of Visual Arts and Art History, and is currently working toward a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo. Away from the studio, Dana likes to spend his time reading lots and lots of books, enjoying the company of friends and going on long walks with his three beloved dogs. His interests include black coffee, dark chocolate, bonfires, the rush of great new music, and breaking the boundaries between art and its viewers. As a self-proclaimed nerd and bookworm, Dana enjoys discussing things he’s heard on NPR, pop culture, graphic novels, politics, queer theory, Game of Thrones, and the history of the Niagara Frontier. Check him out on his site, Tumblr and Twitter. David E. Poston lives and writes halfway between Salina, Kansas, and Hamilton, Bermuda. His poetry has appeared most recently in Main Street Rag, Nerve Cowboy, Four and Twenty, and the anthologies What Matters (Jacar Press) and Bearers of Distance (Eastern Point Lit House & Press). He is the author of two chapbooks, My Father Reading Greek and Postmodern Bourgeois Poetaster Blues, which won the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Poetry Competition in 2007. David can be found in the Poets and Writers Directory and on LinkedIn. Alan Hanson writes a column for The Awl and contributes to other fine publications. He founded Looked Like Laughing. He's a California crumbum but currently resides in New York City. Mentally, he is still in Jumbo's Clown Room, watching an Amazon pole dance to Lana del Rey, chewing a bucket of knuckles and surfing Miller High Life. Check him out via his website, his Tumblr and his Twitter. Justin Karcher is a poet and playwright living in Buffalo, NY. He is the co-founder of Theater Jugend and is its Writer-in-Residence. As a lifelong fan of the Bills and Sabres, he is rather comfortable with disappointment and uses it to fuel his writing. One day, he hopes to be ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads like his idol, Orpheus. Justin can be found on both Twitter and Facebook.

Tom Loughlin is Chair of Theatre and Dance at the State University of NY at Fredonia. He also works professionally as an actor in the city of Buffalo, NY. He has written extensively on the state of American theatre and theatre education his site. He also currently keeps an irregular blog. Other social media outlets include Twitter and Tumblr. He is not on Facebook. Lewis Mundt is the founder and coach of the Hamline University Poetry Slam, editor-in-chief at Beard Poetry, and has seen work published in Paper Darts, The Rumpus, and Poetry City, USA: Volume 3. He lives, works, and eats mostly in Minneapolis. He can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Clarity is a poet, host and promoter from Long Island, NY. He is the curator of The Muse Exchange open mic night and the author of "Sluice." He has been stimulating the local arts community for years by organizing events that have served as a fertile conduit for creative energies. He is currently touring the US in search of festivals, backyards, concert halls, coffee shops, bars, nightclubs, lounges, churches, historical barns, ordinary barns, rooftops, living rooms, town squares or any honest space where the conversation can keep moving and connections can continue. He has also created two brand new poem books to help fund his travels. Both SHIFT and PARADE FLOATS are available at www.claritysight.com/poembooks and are set at a “name your own price” donation. Ken Poyner lives in the lower right hand corner of Virginia, with his power-lifter wife, four rescue cats, and two beta fish. His 2013 book, “Constant Animals,” unruly fictions, is available as an e-book, and soon as a paperback. Check www.kpoyner.com for links to purchasing sites, then buy it, and feel good for keeping more brewery workers in their jobs. Recent work is out in “Corium,” “Analog Science Fiction,” “Spittoon,” “Poet Lore,” “Mobius” and many other places. Brett Jones studied Creative Writing at SUNY Fredonia, where he founded the Literary Lampoon section of the school newspaper and frequently contributed to Zinophobia, a student run ‘zine. Recent work can be found in Dark Matter, Symmetry Pebbles, Gambling The Aisle and forthcoming in Tribe Magazine. He currently lives in Rochester, New York. Follow Brett through his site and on Twitter. Christopher Lee-Rodriguez is an Asian/Latino poet, musician, and educator currently based in Boston, MA. He was a member of the award-winning Berklee Poetry Slam Team in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and was team captain for 2012 and 2013. In May 2013, he has published one chapbook, entitled “A Callused Smile,” through Beard Poetry. As an educator, he has taught music and writing workshops throughout the Boston Area, working with organizations such as Berklee City Music, Genuine Voices, the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, and reVERB Poets. He is also a member of the emo/punk outfit, I Kill Giants, who will begin their final tour this January. Under the mentorship of Caroline Harvey, Christopher has studied poetry and the art of spoken word, using it as an expressive means to tackle issues, such as racism, culture, masculinity, and love. He is currently working on his next chapbook, another EP with I Kill Giants, and new music and projects to come. Kitty Larkin is a twenty-five-year-old Masters student currently living in Buffalo, NY. She attended SUNY Fredonia for psychology and at Medaille college for MA psychology. She currently works at a bank and likes writing in her spare time. Kitty has been writing since middle school about experiences growing up and recently writing about new challenges. Sam Love is a writer living in New Bern, NC. He has published numerous nonfiction articles in magazines that include Smithsonian and Washingtonian. He has published a poetry chapbook, Hummingbird Laughter, and two novels, Snap Factor and Electric Honey. They are available on Amazon. He teaches yoga and organizes local poetry readings. He views his Social Security check as a grant to the arts. You can find out more about Sam via his website and his blog. Laura LeHew is the author of a full-length book of poems, two chapbooks, numerous articles and more than 450 individual poems in magazines and anthologies. She facilitates two poetry critique groups. Laura steers the Lane Literary Guild and is an active volunteer for the Oregon Poetry Association having held positions as

President, Contest Chair and Cascadia, a student award anthology. She interned for, and is a former board member, of CALYX Press, an independent press focused on nurturing women’s creativity. Her small press Uttered Chaos focuses on publishing poetry chapbooks, books and anthologies. She received her MFA from the California College of Arts. Laura knows nothing of gardens or gardening but is well versed in the cultivation of cats. Her websites are lauralehew.com, utteredchaos.org, and deer-run.com