Issue
#13
/
Sept
2016
Dear Readers and Moon Luvers, It’s our BIRTHDAY, our one-year anniversary, 13 glorious issues. It’s the paperversary. Guess what? We are giving you paper. A lot of it. (Or maybe a digital representation of paper, depending on how you read our lil zine.) Happy Anniversary! We love you very very very much. We started this zine a year ago because we wanted to make cool shit with our friends and friends-to-be (strangers), share it with our community, and do it all for free. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our contributors, collagers, parents, and the zine-friendly community here in St. Louis. Seriously, thank you <3. We’ve been reflecting on our year of zine-making and are looking for your feedback. Please feel free to tweet, email, comment, or deliver via carrier pigeon thoughts, opinions, and suggestions. We want to hear what you have to say. For future themes, submission deadlines, and anything else, be sure to check in with us on the world wide web. (See last page.) Like our previous issues, the numbered pages are original submitted content. Some pages are altered by yours truly and unique to each edition of the issue. Thank you for taking a chance and picking up our zine. Hold on to it, or wrap it up and give it to a Virgo zinester, as The Moon Zine is one of a kind. - The Moon
the moon zine staff bios:
Julie Davis - Kelly Osbourne’s Shut Up --vs-- Good Charlotte’s The Young & The Hopeless. YOU DECIDE! Allison Sissom - crying while watching Tiny Desk concerts. Wes Harbison - reading short stories in bed, falling asleep next to a book Lauren Kellett - I’m going to see Beyonce this month!!!!!!! Josh Saboorizadeh - eats breakfast watching Sister Sister on Youtube staff picks: birthday memory
Julie - 25 ½ th - everyone telling me half birthdays aren’t a thing PFFFT Allison - 5th - 17th, grounded Wes - 19th – first time I asked for pie instead of cake. never looked back. Lauren - 13th - woke up my mom to take me & my friends midnight sledding Josh - 9th - brushing my mom’s hair, watching Bride of Chucky
Poem for the person who busted out my car window and stole my aftermarket radio, or, You need this just as much as I do by Tom Martin
You know Da Vinci? He wrote backwards, in code, and in invisible ink, or something like that. Illegibility is my cloak and it’s pretty thick, so here goes: The lowlands under the interstate at the border reek differently day-to-day, they confound me. Then under orange skies I see four monks, their specific creed unknown to me, strolling in pairs down the crumbling streets, smiling. MIDI Amazing Grace on repeat, driving me insane. My sole savior is a plot for surprise, carried to me over careless “whispers”, even if it’s mostly for the sake of tangible reward. Go ahead: eat it up. I know how hunger is. I’ve felt it. Sort of. I can let it slide for these two. Just this once. Today. Put Gloomy DJ back on. A fleur-de-lis on a historic building down my Kansas City street rips my fucking eyeballs out. Da Vinci painted masterpieces, invented wonders. The strongest woman here I know is in the back office crying about something I don’t know how to ask about. Melon baller, melon baller, clip clap clop!!! I hope that the auto-glass people have a vacuum to clean up the shards of glass all over the Miles Davis autobiography cover, shed off the hardback book, left in my backseat among the other garbage. You could’ve had that too. Picture a bright green hillside, dotted with brown spotted cows grazing, bugs are all around, and they’re annoying, but all in all, this isn’t so bad, is it, huh?
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Botan Rice Candy by Jacque Davis ************************
Yours by Meeni Levi My body those few GOOD // words // in a sea of // WHITE NOISE and I try I try I TRY // to contain // myself like a BOTTLE ritualistic BLEEDING // and my heart my heart my heart tick-tock // like a BOMB ?! // until I SCREAM // sorry sorry sorry convoluted sentences // to reflect the FACT // I am CONFUSED // intricate breaths // I am SORRY // this is as simple // as I CAN This body YOURS
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Wrestling at The Chase 1980 Kevin VonEric vs Frank Starr by Bob Boston ***********
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Wrestling at the Chase 1980 Larry Matysik interviewing King Kong Brody by Bob Boston ***********
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La Lune By Katherine M. Blanner
to me, you’re the moon and I am the night, and I cannot quite remember the days in which I, when we were able to be named with our happiness. you were the one to brighten my day, bring me joy even when the night was at its dimmest in the city so much to the point where the stars were not visible. we were there, together, yet far apart. could it be that maybe even then, you held my heart? call it love. not like an “in love”, but an “i love you”. It was joy for a moment, even you could be happy. you came in the night, when all i could see, when all it felt like was black. but you, the moon, my moon, dusted an unexplainable blackness in a grayscale void of awkward oblivion. In my night, you were a guest unobligated, that you may remind me of the first me, of a time of scarcely any sadness at all not wrapped in a cold blanket and
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drenched in tear soaked cheeks, moist, freezing against this thing that I was battling and through it all, you were the moon. It was all strange that you had no idea, that you came at a time when I was at my worst of it all, shoveled into a rut in which my head and heart fell deep, heavy no longer beating at my breast I needed you and you didn't even know it. I wanted to tell you, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to freak you out, or take away from our friendship. I want you to know that just being you, a smart, charming, peppy boy and if only you could know a thing or two about how much a girl like me needed you, a friend, even in a small way, to be the milky moon of my night
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Abstract 2 by Isaac Richardson **********************
[What follows are the contents of a dream transmission, received and recorded on the 3rd morning of the 1st month of the common year 2016.]
Two of us were hovering back and forth over the Solar System as depicted on a large, undulating blanket. I tried to steady the blanket in order to state the correct sequence of the planets in our home star system. It was unusual though that the appearance and locations of the planets kept changing before our eyes. It was impossible to state a definitive order. Why was this happening? I idly wondered who was responsible. I turned over in bed and was informed by a friend that there was now something known as breadless bread. It was part of the latest fad 15
diet, which required eating only foods that were not at all comprised of what they sounded to be. Ultra-synthetic, misnomer foods were the new organic, all-natural foods. I myself picked up a box of cracker-less crackers later that night, but did not eat them. The nutrition label was utterly indecipherable. I began to amass these food products in a dark corner of my bedroom as collectorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; items. I figured that in the future, there would be something to be said for a culture that had challenged the notion and definition
of food e n t i r e l y. Food was actually whatever they wanted it to be at that point in time. And similarly, despite my doubts, the sequencing of planets is similarly open to revision.
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im listening to punk bands on youtube *********************************
by Julie Davis *******************
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CALENDAR fun thing another fun thing oh hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one more
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Exploring Foreign Land by Julie Young ***********
yo by Chris Moody *************
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A Tree in the Forest by Chris Colgin The woodland creature said to the old tree, “I've never felt like this,” and the high-up breeze touched its branches and leaves with something that seemed special. It was summer, and where this little thing had come from the tree didn't know. The forest was full of life from all directions. So many birds and squirrels, insects and fungi. So many trees that time very much seemed a series of seasons, a pattern that made sense in the soil. Then one day there was something new, something small and fast and hungry for more. “Hi there,” the woodland creature said, but the old tree was no sapling from the prairie. Its trunk had grown wide and strong, its roots deep and reaching. It had seen and survived much, storms of winds and lightning, years of drought. The old tree was not easily moved. But the woodland creature brought about something new. It climbed the tree's canopy and danced from limb to limb with a laughter that invited the tree to join in. There became more to
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life than survival, and from twig to trunk, the tree opened itself. There formed a hollow, a deep enough hole to sleep in, a space where there had been none, and the old tree was happy. They were in the incandescent new, a time out of memory, and suddenly there was room to grow. Rings and rings of years were counted within, but there was no telling how far its bark could stretch, no limit when the tree let itself imagine. Except that was just it, the trickiness of seeing far off, the foolishness in forgetting that things that're new don't stay that way forever. The woodland creature was gone before the old tree noticed, and the life imagined was over before it began. The summer lasted until it didn't, and the tree's leaves fell as they always had. In the forest, everywhere, change is natural. But there was no comfort in this, and the hollow of the old tree remained, its darkened heartwood exposed for all to see.
by Tori Hudson ************
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My Coat Rack Moves at Night By Allison K. Sissom It doesn’t, but my anxiety tells me it does. The dark corner behind my bedroom door hides a different shadowy figure, obviously. Other outer-worldly creatures in the closet. They like to try on my clothes, simultaneously stretching, shrinking, and staining them. Fuck, when did a get this yellow mark on my sleeve? I need to dry my clothes on a lower setting. RIP sweater. No one and nothing can be trusted. What if the coat rack came in? Spinning all the coats, scarves, and bags on it’s stupid spindly arms. It would fling them at me and reveal an axe underneath, lurching forward. I’d have to pull the sword from under my mattress to defend my honor and bedroom. An uneven match, certain and inevitable death. How terrible and sad, Allison is dead. Death by coat rack duel. RIP, gurl. I lay bloody, dying, defeated. My coat rack would lean in close And with my last gasping breath I mumble: Oh, I’m sorry, babe. Did I wake you up? I’m ok, just go back to sleep. 29
The Growing by Jessica A. Hutchins
My garden grows weird, formidable. Hibiscus blossoms, ravenous cherry pink mouths gaping, feasting on million-eyed insects with horrormovie legs. My hybrids and heirlooms mingle in grotesque perfection, gargoyling their way through this grove. Here Venus Flytraps part their eyelashes seductively, waiting for a flying John. Here Nightshade is Day Lily and Wandering Jew stays put. I grow a Frankenstein monster of Virginia Creeper tentacles, tarnished silver Birch bark, and evil breakfast pancake Prickly Pear cactus: my devilish shrubbery Companion. Linnaeus cannot classify my cultivars;
Rappacciniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Beatrice would feel right at home. Displays of Swiss Chard explode in fireworks of hot pink and neon yellow; my passing feet light their fuse. Bees hum a multitude around unruly Oregano in tiny floret. By night, candles hang from pungent Tomato plants, already heavily laden with rouge fruits. Do I work a nightmare in horticulture? Other ladies prune roses into bloom, but mine prick a passel of thorns. Black Eyed Susans suit me better; their blossoms bruised but golden.
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“The Slightest Reverie of You” by s. elizabeth cook
The slightest reverie of you commands me speechless. I promise I’ve the words to fill you with; please persevere, I will breathe soon enough. Bewildered from your touch, and baffled through and through. I did not anticipate you.
Past Lives by Bob Boston ************
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Hi Print-Your-Own-Zine folks! We want to take a second to say thanks! You could be doing anything else right now, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing this. Thanks for spending your time with The Moon Zine. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, let us know: themoonzine@gmail.com. Some quick instruction: when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re done reading this, cut the page right down the middle (hamburger style) and toss this half in the recycling. Take the other half and paste it on the very last inside page. Or wherever you want! There are no rules! Have a good day!! -The Moon
Want to Submit to The Moon Zine? Please do! Submissions are due by the 5th of each month for
the following month’s issue. See themoonzine.tumblr.com/ HowtoSubmit for submission guidelines.
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Credits & Notes cover image: “texturefabrik-com_concrete_vol-2_10.jpg”, texturefabrik.com
a note on the back cover quote: Probably not something Einstein actually said. Sounds nice, though! Thanks to: Xena Colby and Carson Monetti at South City Art Supply, Laura Heying at Weird Culture eternally to: Everyone who has submitted content and/or helped us collage The Moon Zine
special thanks to: Maddie Smith, Jacque Davis, Don Davis, and Caity Biberdorf for additional printing assistance & The St. Louis Public Library for free printing services
made in saint louis, missouri, usa
â&#x20AC;&#x153;I
like
to
think
that
the
moon
is
there even if I am not looking at it.â&#x20AC;? - Albert Einstein
fREE