The Woven Tale Press Vol. II #12

http://marcelflisiuk.com

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Woven Tale Publishing Š copyright 2013 ISSN: 2333-2387

The Woven Tale Press

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Sandra Tyler Author of Blue Glass, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and After Lydia, both published by Harcourt Brace; awarded BA from Amherst College and MFA in Writing from Columbia University; professor of creative writing on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including at Columbia University, (NY), Wesleyan University (CT), and Manhattanvill College, (NY); served as assistant editor at Ploughshares and The Paris Review literary magazines, and production freelancer for Glamour, Self, and Vogue magazines; freelance editor; Stony Brook University’s national annual fiction contest judge; a 2013 BlogHer.com Voices of the Year. http://www.awriterweavesatale.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Michael Dickel, Ph.D. A poet, fiction writer, essayist, photographer and digital artist, Dr. Dickel holds degrees in psychology, creative writing, and English literature. He has taught college, university writing and literature courses for nearly 25 years; served as the director of the Student Writing Center at the University of Minnesota and the Macalester Academic Excellence Center at Macalester College (St. Paul, MN). He co-edited Voices Israel Volume 36 (2010). His work has appeared in literary journals, anthologies, art books, and online for over 20 years, including in:THIS Literary Magazine, Eclectic Flash, Cartier Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Sketchbook, Emerging Visions Visionary Art eZine, and Poetry Midwest. His latest book of poems is Midwest / Mid-East: March 2012 Poetry Tour. http://michaeldickel.info

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: FICTION: Kelly Garriott Waite Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Science Monitor, Thunderbird Stories Project, Volume One, Valley Living, The Center for a New American Dream and in the on-line magazine, Tales From a Small Planet. Her fiction has been published in The Rose and Thorn Journal (Memory, Misplaced), in Front Row Lit (The Fullness of the Moon) and in Idea Gems Magazine (No Map and No Directions). Her works in progress have been included in the Third Sunday Blog Carnival: The Contours of a Man’s Heart and Wheezy Hart. She is the author of Downriver and The Loneliness Stories, both available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://kellygarriottwaite.com 4

FLASH FICTION: T.K. Young: US-based writer; author of the flash fiction collection When We’re Afraid, and currently finalizing the upcoming “pre-dystopian” science fiction novel Chawlgirl Rising for publication. He posts original work, writing tips, news and contests at www. flashfictionblog.com.

THE ARTS: Seth Apter Mixed-media artist, instructor, author and designer. His artwork has been widely exhibited, and represented in numerous books, independent zines, and national magazines.

He is the voice behind The Pulse, a series of international, collaborative projects, the basis of his two books The Pulse of Mixed Media: Secrets and Passions of 100 Artists Revealed and The Mixed-Media Artist: Art Tips, Tricks, Secrets and Dreams From Over 40 Amazing Artists, both published by North Light Books. He is the artist behind two workshop DVDs: Easy Mixed Media Surface Techniques and Easy Mixed Media Techniques for the Art Journal. http://www.sethapter.com PHOTOGRAPHY: Lynn Wohlers Awarded BFA from School of Visual Arts, NY, NY; writer for Daily Post’s Photography 101 series. http://lynn-wohlers.artistwebsites.com

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Dyane Forde Author of forthcoming Rise of the Papilion Trilogy: The Purple Morrow (Book 1) http://droppedpebbles.wordpress.com Lisa A. Kramer, Ph.D Freelance writer, editor, theatre director, and arts educator. She has published non-fiction articles in theater journals, as well articles aimed at young people for Listen Magazine. Her fiction is included in Theme-Thology: Invasion published by HDWPBooks. com. She is the director of a writers’ workshop From Stage to Page: Using Creative Dramatics to Inspire Writing. http://www.lisaakramer.com

Our staff is an eclectic mix of editors with keen eyes for the striking. So beware–they may be culling your own site for those gems deserving to be unearthed and spotlit in The Woven Tale Press.

Editor’s Note: The Woven Tale Press is a monthly culling of the creative web, exhibiting the artful and innovative.

Enjoy here an eclectic mix of the literary, visual arts, photography, humorous, and offbeat.

The Woven Tale Press mission is to grow Web traffic to noteworthy writers and artists–contributors are credited with interactive Urls.

Click on an Url to learn more about a contributor.

If there is a “Featured!” button, it will link you back to a special feature on The Woven Tale Press site.

To submit go to: http://thewoventalepress.net

http://marcelflisiuk.com

Sleeping at the Wall 1

The Rebirth

Living on the Balcony

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Strange La

anding

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Firewood

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Surrendering to the Light 6

http://brianmichaelbarbeito.blogspot.ca

Purlieu Temperatures were not as high as they have been, and though it was sunny, it was still coldish.There were these winds, and this time they were strong. But that same bird still just sat there on a fence and looked and looked and looked. I wondered if it was trying to say something, because it felt that way. I even sprayed water (from the hose?) in its direction–not too much, just enough to see what it would do.

The bird stayed and stayed, painted in a relaxed but pensive poise.

Anyone interested in the ways that the natural world denotes messages or provides divination, would have taken a quick and keen interest in my bird friend.

Other than the bird, there was a squirrel that somehow was able to alight atop the mulberry bush, where it sat and ate its spoils like nobody’s business. Then another type of wind came, angrier and with more intent than the others, and the squirrel dove into the standing continent of the tree like a dolphin into the water after a trick. I would have just backed my way back down the mulberry bush, but I am not a squirrel.

The entire time, the wild shrubs that had grown tall and strong banged against shed windows. You know, to hear such banging may not seem to mean much, but it occurred to me that someone should film the way the shadows moved quickly like field mice, morning bits of dream remnants or streams of smoke being carried by turbulent air.

“To

me, the writer’s task is to search out the places in between and

bring those spaces to light.

That

means to celebrate the shadow on

the wall, the flower growing out of the asphalt crevice, the torn

sweater elbow, or the backwards glance of the grocery store clerkthe one where she checks the time on the wall. special and intricate spaces in between.”

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Those

things are the

– Brian Michael Barbeito

http://michaeldickel.info

Garden of the Mind

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http://www.dimitrinakutriansky.com

The Lack of Progress Colored Pencils

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Family Ties Silverpoint

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T he organic, human-like images of roots and trees are symbolic in nature, express the helpless, even meaningless, but nonetheless powerful, entanglement of human relationships, especially among the family, where the intensity of emotions becomes a force in and of itself. – Dimitrina Kutriansky

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Natural Bondage Graphite on Paper

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The Leader Pen and Ink

http://www.dimitrinakutriansky.com

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http://www.dimitrinakutriansky.com

Eternal Sleep Graphite

http://johnvondaler.blogspot.dk

Living Laing

I had for some weeks been teaching The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath at the Universities in Copenhagen and Odense. To aid my students in understanding the great split in the personality of the young woman in the book, I had recommended reading R.D. Laing’s “The Divided Self�, a book I was very interested in at the time.

Laing, like so many others in the seventies, was trying to transcend the bad habits of modern society to establish a more direct and empathic relationship between people.

One of his ideas entailed listening more openly and directly to what his patients were telling him. He wanted to give them credit for knowing something about themselves and for often choosing the right solutions in their own lives, even if that solution involved suicide.

On a train on my way back from Odense after one such lecture, I sat in a compartment with four elderly ladies who wore hats and gloves, all of whom were reading magazines about homemaking and fashion. An elderly man sat across from me by the window. He was dressed in dirty overalls and a t-shirt and had some beers which he drank non-stop on the three-hour trip. I myself was about 30 and looked appropriately long-haired and sandalized.

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The old man spent most of the trip muttering to himself while everybody else read.

Every once in a while he would look directly at one of the women and start a ferocious monologue on the injustices of life. This speech outlined an existence gone wrong and misused. It always ended with a declaration of his intent to commit suicide: “Yep, just gonna finish it all off, I am, just turn off the old faucet, close the old door, click the old switch!” Usually he took a break and a sip from his beer at this point while eyeing the chosen lady over the bottle. Each lady in turn rejected him politely but firmly with a “Well I never...” or a “Now, you know that just won’t do...” as they clucked their ways back to their magazines and anonymity.

The old guy spent most of the trip on these pointless attempts at recognition, but as we approached Copenhagen, having used up all the ladies, he finally got around to me. I had been reading Laing all the way and I must say I was primed for action.

First he described in a few disconnected sentences the tribulations of a long life gone awry, “...all smashed it was, and couldn’t be repaired, at all, at all, nope, and me without nuthin’...”

But when he after an extended introduction reached his usual climax, “...and so I’m a gonna split, kick it over, take a flight, turn the key...” I interrupted him. “If your life has been so awful and you have no way out, then I think you should go ahead and put an end to it.”

The ladies froze in their reading positions. The compartment was silent except for the clickety-clack of the wheels of the train. Just as I was about to resume my reading he leaned over to me with tears in his eyes and said, “You should marry my daughter. Here, have a beer. No beer? All right, but you’re getting my daughter. And if I had had a fortune it would be yours, but ok, my daughter is what I got.”

At this moment we arrived in Copenhagen and as the ladies scurried out of the compartment, my new friend put his arm around me and ushered me through several small passageways and doors at great difficulty to us both, as we were glued together in his embrace. On the platform I finally got out from under his arm and wished him well.

As I walked away from him toward the exit I had the feeling that he was not moving, because he in fact did not yet know where he was going. I do not know whether our little exchange gave him a new lease on life at least for a day or two, but at a distance I still heard him promising, “She’s yours, no strings attached, for the taking, yes, sir, for the taking...Just say the word...”

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http://creativechick.com

The Who Doos are mystical folk “grandmother’s hand-sewn quilt

and the laug 15

–Susa

Whoo Doo Dolls

k, born of the love from a Southern t, of wishes from blown dandelions, ghter of seagulls.

an R. Sorrell

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The Who Doo Legend Down in the low country of the Carolinas, deep in the salt water marshes, just as the pink and orange sunset touches the white egret’s wings and the blue crab’s claw, you may – if you’re lucky — catch a glimpse of the Who Doos skimming across the water’s surface to tease the splashing spotted trout, twirling to dance with the grumpy brown pelicans, or scuttling across the shell-encrusted sand to ride the hermit crabs.

The Who Doos are mystical folk, born of the love from a Southern grandmother’s hand-sewn quilt, of wishes from blown dandelions, and the laughter of seagulls. Legend has it that long ago, when the low country was lit at night by simply stars and candlelight, that the Who Doos would dance on the soft breeze of sweet dreams and heart-felt wishes.

One midsummer’s night, as the dolphins played tag in the moonbeams, a Who Doo named SuzieQ smiled as she heard a kind whispered wish for a loved one’s safe return from war. “Let it be,” she whispered. And so it was.

Since that time, the Who Doos manifest occasional dreams and wishes from sincere folk of pure hearts. But take care, lest you wish upon a Who Doo doll, for our wishes can have consequences.

Designed and crafted in small batches of six to ten dolls per generation, Who Doo Dolls are native to the Carolinas. Each doll is uniquely hand-stitched from hand-painted up-cycled fabric and decorated with individually selected yarn, found objects, shells, and other trinkets. Find a Who Doo decked out with tingling bells or shiny sequins to keep away bad dreams or negative thoughts. t –This tale was spun by Amy E. Anderson, Greenville, SC 2014 17

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http://lyriclines-lettsy.blogspot.co.uk

R

Pocket Money I carry coins and careworn notes When I’m feeling free and rash I join the card-swipe purchasers Who no longer live with cash I buy my stuff and pay my way Assured of actions more secure No need to input password keys Or open gateways at the store It may seem to you quite crazy You may laugh and find me funny To not pretend how well endowed Without the cosy feel of money Beware when buying ‘other’s’ stuff Shelling out in your good name Bereft of cash their empty purse Will play the memory lapsing game Unashamedly and most sincere Claiming lack of cash pro-tem When time is tight or evening light They cannot find the ATM

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o e p y

R h ym

“

My rhymes may not always be witty, but they are often ‘ropey,’ a term for the rhymes written by WW1 soldiers in the trenches to lift their spirits.

Are ropey rhymes really poetry? Perhaps not. I like to say they’re more Wandsworth than Wordsworth.

This inclination to write rhymes may be a syndrome, but perhaps one such true masters of rhyme as Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll may have agreed is a minor burden to carry.

– Cliff Letts

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Then What?

y me s I am Somewhere

Kevin Speed is flitting fast His mind full of tomorrows He lives his life a month ahead Parts of today he only borrows Get a move on lets get going Step and fetch it on the run This time next week maybe an hour To stop awhile and have some fun

Finger hopping never stopping Surfing data anagrams Pass by easy never needy Twitter, Facebook, Instagram

Don’t sit there for too long now Unless your reading things to do You can catch your breath next Friday On the train to Bakerloo

Everything downloadable At Macy’s Harrods or the Ritz Take pleasure in the sense of things A universal Google blitz

Come on lets boogie stir your stumps Crack on make haste toot-toot High tail it scoot skidoo raise dust Grass is growing don’t take root

Standing by at breakneck speed Exchange mistakes for something new Complete each satisfaction card We are improving just for you

We can eat in seat-free restaurants Standing starts create headway No need to dwell don’t break the spell Shake a leg, press on, make hay

I think maybe I’m here in Boston I’ll check my credit card receipt Every block a stock of distance I walk reality off my feet

“If you’re not worn out yet read again.”

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http://www.inkpuddle.com

“This is one of those comic ideas that popped into ‘Country Mouse, City Mouse’ thing, one of my me always greener’ aspect to country life vs. city life, b a name-calling shouting match–Liberal vs. Conse It’s a crazy world out the 21

o my head for no good reason. I thought of the whole emorable books of childhood. There is that ‘grass is but now it seems that the dialogue has devolved into ervative, city vs. country, Hipsters vs. Non-Hipsters. ere, so start packin’ heat!”

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http://home.earthlink.net/~lotharosterburg/index.html

Photogravure

In choosing ph phers of the 23

Flat Earth

final image is

l

Also represented on https://mozumbo.com

Bridge Over Brooklyn

hotogravure,

Osterburg follows in the tradition of the photogralate 19th and early 20th centuries. The process of arriving at a in itself a journey through time and space.

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First, Osterburg constructs a tiny model. Often no more than an inch across, the models are fashioned from readily available materials—vegetables, toothpicks, electronic debris—rescued from dumpsters and piles of refuse on city streets.These are placed within an environment of other found materials.

Photographed

through a magnifying glass or macro lens, the

scene then appears life-size.

The soft focus, infinite range of velvet blacks and rich grays, the scratches and traces from the printmaking process, and the use of rough, unfinished models all work together to suspend the final image somewhere between the real and the imaginary.

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Brooklyn Harbor

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The World is Round

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F

http://www.charlesbanejr.com

What Rose wanted What Rose wanted was for me to land with my crew, racing to her in the stealth of night to bring her fast to our boats.

She wanted Mass in chapel the next day and jeweled windows braiding colors across her face. She wanted bright torches of me and the flames of every star. Look, she said, they go to conquer some army like themselves in night fields far. Conquer me, she said, make me Crusade.

–Originally appeared in Synaesthesia Magazine

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Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems (Kelsay Books, 2014). His work has been described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” Creator of The Meaning Of Poetry series for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida.

Hunting With Masai

The Two I think when God walked shy to Moses, stars clustered in his hands, he led our rabbi down to the orchards of the heart.

The two walked near the other and traded dreams like brothers before sleep. They paused afield and watched the sun, lifted by themselves in unison, race overhead. And Moses knew not to disappoint this man with faltering steps or speech.

God wept uncomprehending of his artistry and Moses scratched some lines in stone to honor a beloved friend.

Dawn is spear and shield and gun recklessly left behind. We move in a single line. Last night they chased away a missionary and we lay.

Mine is the god of the Hebrews I explained, mountain born like N’gai. He is not desirous of you and only one of mine has seen his face.

His mountain had boiled gravely and he built a vessel of lava rock for a climber overcome to voyage fire home. –Originally appeared in The Tincture Journal

Featured!

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http://rickstevensart.com

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My w window to ulary has e the landsca

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Hyper Bole II Oil on Canvas

work may be seen as an open other realms. Its visual vocabevolved from years of painting ape. Although I no longer con-

elf a landscape painter nature s to be my muse. I think of nacontinuous flow of shapes and f energy that has, or more prean intelligent force. Most modhysicists will tell us that all the nd particles in nature are one, erent ripples on the ocean of ciousness: a Unified Field. ~ Rick Stevens

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Haiku Oil on Canvas 30

http://rickstevensart.com

All Inclusive Oil on Canvas

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Convergent Currents Oil on Canvas

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http://rickstevensart.com

Here Paste 33

e and There el on Paper 34

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ISSN: 2333-2387