an online journal of voice

Fall 2014
!"




B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York



BlazeVOX 14 | an online journal of voice
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

BlazeVOX [books]
Geoffrey Gatza
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org




publ i s he r of we i rd l i t t l e books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10






Table of Contents

Poetry

A.J. Huffman
Amanda Fuller
Blaine Leal
M. Brett Gaffney
bruno neiva

Cate McLaughlin
Christopher Brownsword
Curtis Sabin
D. C. Andersson
Eric Mohrman

Giles Goodland
Glen Armstrong
Jeremy Biles
John Lowther
Mark Young

Michael Cooper
Morgan Bazilian
Cynthia Bonitz
Simon Perchik
Patrick Chapman

Peter van Lier
Sandra Kolankiewicz
Sean Burn
Heath Brougher
Craig Kurtz

Fall 2014


Tim Willcutts
Willona Sloan
Roger Craik
Eric Basso
C. N. Bean

Matthew Dulany
Dilip Mohapatra
Geoffrey Gatza
Owen Sound
Stephen Nelson

Fiction


Jennifer Lesh Desire is a Funny Child

Brittany Baldwin How Chefs Mourn
Tamers
I Know Better And Yet

Alan Semrow Beach House

Josepha Gutelius Revenge

Katherine Forbes Riley It Comes in Threes

Lora Hilty Thirty Years in the Hole

Meg Flannery The Frank Slide

Moriah Hampton The End


Creative Non-Fiction

Helen Park Gnats at Tiger Uncles Funeral

Holly Hunt Poly-Webbous



Book Previews

Apollo by Geoffrey Gatza

It has often been said that Marcel Duchamp gave up art for chess. Geoffrey Gatza has
reversed the process, and produced a sumptuous souvenir program of a
performance of Stravinsky's ballet Apollo, framed by an elaborately-plotted chess game
between Duchamp and his female alter-ego, Rose Selavy. The results are stunning.

John Ashbery

Explore more here




A Pretty Place to Mourn by Jan LaPerle

Jan LaPerles A Pretty Place to Mourn is filled with knowinga dark, fearful, loving, motherly knowing
about the unsafe worlds we all inhabit. So much falls, disappears, washes ashore; so much is eaten from
the inside out or swallowed up in the earth. Her poems seek a safe ground that holds us all up, binding us
to one another, even as we stand in the middle of this loss. Will our circle be unbroken? For the time
being, let's comfort ourselves with listening to LaPerle's generous love for others singing on our behalf.

Jeff Hardin, author of Fall Sanctuary and Notes for a Praise Book

Explore more here



Oxidane by Nicole Matos

Coming alive is terrible, the speaker of Oxidane warns. She is terribly loyal, a tiny teen bodyguard driven by
compulsive solidarity to protect her empyrean and unnameable friend. Packed with hard truths and witty
observations of adolescent friendship, these narrative poems are heavy as a garden hose in winter and yet still
looped in sparking arcs of language. You will want to know these girls, tame them, drink them back in.

Sara Tracey, author of Some Kind of Shelter

Explore more here



The Color Symphonies by Wade Stevenson

Your book flows like a wonderful ballet using the colors as movements toward a higher goal. It feels
like music all the way through. I thought of Elgars Nimrod Variations or Beethovens Symphony No. 6.
You have all the best parts of poetry mixed into a world that is almost the scope of a novel. I felt a great
sense of warmth towards Blue. Symphony is the word for this book.

Geoffrey Gatza, Author of Apollo and House of Forgetting

Explore more here



Evening Train by Tom Clark

Tom Clark is a master of surprise. He is a poet twenty-four hours a day and in possession of a very
entertaining mind. He gets the familiar and the strange to dance together, and the dance steps are
never the ones you expect. There is pathos in the humor of the situation: "First it's stuffed bunnies
they're giving you. Next it's ice cream and then the nice surprise you're at the hospital, having an
operation." Clark has the ability to guide words as they "turn a nowhere into a putative somewhere"
to take the complications of mental or physical experience and redeem them in lyric poems of notable
brevity. Evening Train is smart and companionable and joyously imaginative.

David Lehman

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The Hunger in Our Eyes by Jared Demick

Jared Demick's The Hunger in Our Eyes is a little bit country and a whole lot of cross-country(ies).
The shape-shifting Americana here scores a playfully re-visionist choreography that brings into focus
what imperial eyes typically miss: the accidents of landscape, the histories of food, the body's
crossings. With extended meditations on cassava and honky-tonk (!), this book seeks out its own
uneasy roots in a prickly and code-twitching vernacular, in an alternative We somewhere between
solidarity and irony, between selfing the other and othering the self. (See Williams's In the American
Grain: We are, too, the others.). Still, this is a poetics limber enough to find meaning in strategic
silences, in the awhereness of our undelved / selves. Were / osmotin / peoples, sings the
poet (a.k.a Demick); the rest is academic.

Urayon Noel, author of Hi-Density Politics and In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from
the Sixties to Slam

Explore more here



The Speed of our Lives by Grace C. Ocasio

Grace Ocasios poems embrace their subjects with a photographic clarity and a chic sense of style.
Whether she is mining the unmistakable depth of Garbos face, or musing in wonder at Angela
Davis hair, more lavish/ than a Carmen Miranda headpiece, she taps into the iconic power of her
images in order to draw strength from them and offer it to us. These bracing poems celebrate
everything from nature to history, to the family, to the famous and in each, she discovers the music
and meaning that lets them bloom in all their strangeness and surprise.

Elaine Equi

Explore more here



The Landfill Dancers by Mary Kasimor

In The Landfill Dancers, Mary Kasimor feasts and fetes us on precision in freedom and pleasure
in disequilibrium via sounds to dream and unspeakable/art that reflect[s] ourselves. An
organic whole of refined beauty and sophistication, these lapidary artifacts of rigorous &
disciplined experimentation offer a dazzling array of delicate yet potent expansions of lyrics
intellectual, aesthetic, & emotional potential via a web of variations on Kasimors invented forms,
crafted and turned to frameworks of implication as sharp and graceful as razor wire lace. Like the
gleaming city-scape of an idealized future, The Landfill Dancers is populated by one perfectly
executed and imaginatively liberated structure after another, adding up to a remarkable whole that
is diverse yet unified, richly textured, and precise a sharp and soaring verbal landscape to study
and admire.

Susan Lewis, author of How to be Another | Explore more here


Trust Me and other Fictions by Chuck Richardson

Maybe theres nothing more about it. Only the tears and what may or may not come next writes
Chuck Richardson, author of Trust Me [and other fictions]. Perhaps all thats left is our perception
of experience, which is antithetical to the notion that theres a universe at work. Richardsons stories
show us that life is constantly emerging from and disappearing into ever-changing masques, and
like The Caterpillar, we shed our skins more than once throughout our lifetimes, with some
changes being relevant [or] not. Sometimes theres no lesson, no secret. But thats also what can
make life so beautiful.

LOREN KLEINMAN, The Dark Cave Between My Ribs

Explore more here


PHARMAKON (A CASE HISTORY) by Kristina Marie Darling

In PHARMAKON (A CASE HISTORY), readers encounter speaker as diviner, a questionable
house of rooms with reoccurring trinkets pinned in a velvet box. Through footnotes &
fragmentary thinking, through image, we enter these rooms, craved longing in the open spaces
ruminative in its search, a diviners wit. Through rites of sacrifice, eros, sessions, the boundaries of
time are broken down & the reader is caught in an alternative already-present that cannot help
itself but be gone or going. It is impossible not to be enraptured in the longing of Darlings
intimately created perception, the hysteria of myth & deconstruction, the waiting, the water
rushing, the shaky here & now.

Shelly Taylor, author of Black-Eyed Heifer

Explore more here



Noahs Ark by Sam Magavern with images by Monica Angle

Sam Magavern opens quick portals in "Noah's Ark" for morning visions and wisdoms: reports and
chants from dark and funny parts of the mind. Here are sudden pictures of durable wonder. Read
quickly and all at once. And breathe in Monica Angle's long now, a broadly painted calligraphy that
stitches the poems into the book and keeps it afloat, a watercolor time and life line that locates the
enduring horizon. Not often do image and word float together like this making so well such
unspeakable sense together.

Anthony Bannon, executive director, Burchfield Penney Art Center

Explore more here


Down Stranger Roads by Roger Craik

No one sounds like Roger Craik. His voice, a beguilingly cosmopolitan mix of British purebred and
American mutt, is the well-stamped passport he shows at border crossings from Ashtabula to
Auschwitz, from Kent State to Krakow, from Amsterdam to the far-flung outposts of the human
heart. This poet is most at home when far from home, prowling the shrapneled boondocks and
scrap yards of Cold War history. His poems are pungent as a supper of pork and tripe and boiled
cabbage, washed down with a few dark pints of the local brew. A true sojourner, he is one of our
finest singers of the quiet elations and solitary illuminations of travel.

George B. Bilgere, author of The White Museum which was awarded the 2009 Autumn House
Poetry Prize

Explore more here
















an online journal of voice
Fall 2014
!"












IntroductionIntroduction


Hello and welcome to the Fall issue of BlazeVOX 14.
Presenting fine works of poetry, fiction, visual poetry
and arresting works of creative non-fiction written by
authors from around world. Also presented are
previews of our newly released books of poetry and
fiction. Do have a look through the links below or
browse through the whole issue in our Scribd
embedded PDF, which you can download for free and
take it with you anywhere on any device. Hurray!



Fall Matters:

Health Update: In case you did not know I
recently had a major health scare. I developed a severe
case of pneumonia in the late spring. In the summer it
bloomed into a full lung abscess, which hospitalized
me for a short while. I have been recovering nicely at home and even though I am still being treated by very capable
doctors, I will be better in about two or three months. However, do know that I am back to work and it has been a
real pleasure to be working on this issue of BlazeVOX. I think you will enjoy it too. So hurray!

Thanksgiving Menu-Poem: Dedicated to You, the reader of BlazeVOX

Beginning in 2002 with a Menu-Poem to honor Charles Bernstein, I have continued this series of texts using a
menu as the basis to honor prominent poets. Being a trained professional chef I wanted to blend my love of food
and poetry into a book-length work that would fit within the ideas of Thanksgiving. In a feast of words, I wanted to
honor poets who have meant many things to many readers in a form that could be presented to everyone. Over the
years we have honored many fine poets, but last year we had a bit of a fiasco, a wonderful poet declined the Menu-
Poem for very fine reasons. So to pick things back up, we decided it was best to dedicate this poem to you, the
reader, and bring you in on all the fun. Hurray!

Fall 2014


I would also like to take this opportunity, on a day of giving thanks, to say a special thank you to everyone who was
kind enough to be there for me during this tumultuous year. The outpouring of support was something that made
my wife Donna and I feel just grand. So to say Hurray, I am still alive and to say thank you all, this Menu-Poem is
dedicated to you. So save the date, Ill be sure to send you a link to this years menu-poem. But also have a look at
our previous years menu-poems in case you are eager to see what this is all about.

Rockets!

Geoffrey Gatza, editor




Willona Sloan



Untitled (queen)

You
You are the queen of miracles.

Of fields of sunflowers and vowels that sound so much like home they can break your heart.

You are the queen of green waters.
You are the queen of mariachi music and softly hummed melodies.
You. You are the queen of pens full of smooth, black ink.

[And silver boxes filled with infinite tunes.]

You are the queen of the perfect pain.

Of that moment when you know that this is it.

[Hugs. Long, firm, close to the heart.]

[Thin pages with golden edges.]

You.
You are the queen of dancers floating in space between air and wonder.
You.

[Mountains that dont even care to look down and remember the earth.]

You are the queen of deep sleep. Of R.E.M. Of dreams that leave impressions of smiles.

Of volcanoes turned to fields of flowers. Blue, purple, streaks of green and orange.
Fall 2014

You are the queen of rich, black coffee.
You are the queen of duende.
Of long walks that shed anger.

You are the queen of
purple sunrise over mountain.
Fire blaze sky at dusk
Oceans universes of their own.

You are the queen! you are the queen.

Sing to me. Dance for me.
Tell me the story of the time
Sing to me. Write me a poem on my back.
Paint your face across my wrist. Circle me. Peel back just one corner of your wonder.

You are the queen of cacophonous melodies, discordant beauty in nonsensical verse that rips open the heart with
slices of light, harsher, more dense, than sunshine.

You are the queen of cool but warm breezes that dance across my face, calming me with memories, reminding me
of the time.

You are the queen of falsettos
Of delicate sounds that grab hold
Of atmosphere and rise.

You are the queen of fragrant wildflowers that smell like childhood on a lake in Russia.
You are the queen of soft, twisted, petrified wood.
You are the queen of new, clean, black grooved vinyl.
Of brilliant tattoos. Born in fire, scratched over blood, skin pulled tightscarred flesh, deep, iridescent.

In each mirrored glimpse and the smile of memorythats where your queendom resides.

There
in the smile of recognition between old friends on opposite sides of the street.
To be seen
To be recognized.
That is something of a miracle, no?




Tim Willcutts



Preemptive Elegy


Given your penchant for hyperbole, Im guessing
you only want to nap with me and your illness

is no more terminal than rock climbing.
Its a wide gurney and the night has wheels.

Hospital gowns are largely decorative.
Under foreign anesthesia. Umbilical. At the end

of the world, natural selection reverses its principles
and the sick inherit the birth, glowing like a bouquet

on the tracks. Can I call it unrequited if you die
or are you a sculpture returning to its stone?

I love the alternative Yous. Like canned goods
parachuted by faceless sky butchers. Hunky dory.



Fall 2014

Innies and Outties


Be careful. Its private out there,
all that usefulness,

each one exposing it to herself alone
in a light that ought

to reach everywhere, in my opinion,
and maybe it does,

but just today I saw the parrot
I raised to be a man

and he flew right out of his stitches.
Falling towards him

is the least we can do, the brevity
it takes to catch up

barely noticeable in the dialogue din.
Rising out of still water,

we make the still water move
till we can dance to it.

What a metronome you were, a high five
that wouldnt be left hanging,

a basket falling off my head,
keeping time. Id believe

some ridiculous shit to see you again,
and thats my only excuse.

Lagrangian Point


Two gravities cancel each other

exchanging vows, making room

for nothing new

not even a new nothing

a renewal expressed

not in a donning of rings

but in each picking a blinding lash

out of the others eye

No revelation, just a mild

this is how its always been

the familiar precipice

the declarative question mark

where silence hangs out

where we set it on the table

with the bread and corn.


Opium Pipe Bomb



Opium pipe bomb,
wipe me

off my map.
Puff of fame,

foam of wave,
if I fib,

if I wave
a foe paw,

bump me
off my pew.

Be a pimp.
Weep me a wife.

Mow me a womb.
I bow up,

mew a vow
of pep, weave

a bum view,
mime a bee.

Im a buff imp,
mopey pub beef.

My bebop
waif of a wife

a fop beam,
a web of pie.


Opium Pipe Bomb" is a lipogram. It restricts itself to six consonants: F, B, M, W, P, and V
Winter Bounty


Accretion. Depending on the cold front. A snowflake counts.
The house may be sturdy, but the yard is an ex-swamp.

Remove one leaf from the leaf pile and nothing remarkable
will collapse, assuming the pleasures of dispersal havent torn

you too far from your faith-based atom. Eschatologize.
Which is moot anyway. The sky cant keep it in any longer.

School will be cancelled and children will build forts.
Although hesitant to call it rhythm, you sense the forgotten

mother ship tugging you back and spitting you out again.
Embankment. Only partially man made. Snowplows

probe the block like tortured caddies. The grass vanishes
as it does at sunset, and the net hoop flutters. Darling,

we stand on no brink, the attainable now so exhaustively
charted all we can do is roll up our sleeves and start

attaining it. Snap! Even if mere nostalgia. Id rather
be swallowed than sip this. The abyss is reflected

in my cup of tea or else its an artists rendering.
See, I planted egregious errors in the past with a view

towards correcting them in the present, absolution being
the ultimate aphrodisiac. Kiss. Your face a recovering snowball.

Children cant see over the banks. The mailbox is buried
and your letters inside. No longer misled by applause

or chastisement, I join the worlds smirking anonymity,
that is, Im quitting amnesia cold turkey and so should you.


Eschatology, First Light


Its a lovely day in the meritocracy.
Ive got bullshit up my sleeve
and a box of Platos widgets.

The refrigerator whirs a two-step
beyond its means, over and beyond
the thickets thickest periscopic peek:

a school bus undressing everyday at 2:30pm.
Sean and I are home. Oh nostalgia for things
that never existed until plutocrats waved

their cocked and loaded wands.
Grandmas high fructose corn syrup.
Yes, it would hurt to live without it.

It would hurt to be eaten by a lion
instead of a well-regulated cancer.
Like the first humans, Im in love

with things I cannot understand
and have learned not to question:
electric razors and pixilated hard-ons.

I think my cell phones blinking
new message but its just sunlight
skipping off the plastic frame, a fish

rising out of nowhere to nib the worm
at the foot of the ladder. Thats how
Ill draw it. Soon all these images

will circle back to the original,
the first light, the one Im drawing
with the impatience of a saint.


Everybodys Some Theorys Fluke


Everybodys some theorys fluke.
Every flukes somebodys theory.
Every theorys some flukes body.

And you held it in your hand.
And it held your hand in you.
And you held your hand in it.



Stephen Nelson




Nails & Tails
Fall 2014


Footsteps


For an Unborn Child


Angel Hosts as Old Men


Simon Perchik




Branching out and this hillside
bit by bit unraveling
the way your shadow keeps to itself

just by darkening, fed the dirt
you once could see through
as if nothing was there to hum

then swallow some old love song
that came into the world
facing the ground still trying

to leave you and night after night
you listen for these smaller
then smaller stones eating alone

as the cry forever struggling
from its harsh stranglehold
to keep up, side by side and stay.




Fall 2014


Afraid and the wall
follows behind though you
point, know all about

descent and hammer blows
as the distant cry from home
you sift between

as if this ready-mix
no longer cares about stone
broken open against one finger

retracing some caress
lost and the others
with no end to it.






As if by yourself the harness
half branches, half marble
struggling to slow the moss

and around both shoulders
the crowd envies such a strength
a fake! what they dont see

is the iron bit thats vaguely green
though its your jaws not these gates
that cannot move without you

a belonging and yet this mold
is always in bloom, holding on
to one winter more

that needs flowers
the way all mourners kneel
and underneath the snow

look for a wagon not from wood
breaking down in front its fragrance
and where you stopped for water.

*
Just by reaching in this sore
is heated though your arm
covers it the way moonlight

cant hold on any longer
lets some hillside pour over it
and mornings too grow huge

count the nights from so far off
and each other you collect
enter each room deeper and deeper

careful not to shake the walls
on tiptoe so nothing falls
takes root bent over a table

warmed by these small rocks
to follow you, shut half by the stench
half on their own, one by one.





You think its cramps
though certainly this dirt
resembles her voice

and no one here but you
pours from a bowl, sure
its laced, opens out

sickens your step by step
for a while theyre quiet
washed in front her grave

though your mouth is tighter
swollen, surrounded by inches
no longer dry or empty.






Sean Burn


'az the bridge falls in' (for sarah ahmad)


my name is sarah ahmad and i was born in india & live in pakistan. i see myself as a struggling poet and artist as in
my world where life is so fragile, not knowing if you will return alive every time you step out of the house, getting
someone to acknowledge your art is a real struggle. introduction to this is visual poetry by sarah ahmad (now out
ov print)


this pakistani nursing assistant sat w/ me thru sleepless nights ov three tortuous weeks on the warneford /
no-one else wanting to sit with me as i wz considered too other too violent (to myself) too beyond / yet some
nurse had to draw the short straw as i wz on level two obs - permanent surveillance - though further than
arms-length / thru nights in that psych-bin we discussed voice & writing / i encouraged her to stick at it / she
wished me a clean page / somehow reminded ov this as i write az the bridge falls in for sarah ahmad / a writer
who truly knows the struggle


aimed & almed / armed & dirty / wings dancing decay / slender rims that sing rust / a scuffed stone refuting
dust / pain brushes scissors axe / fall scatters pools ov atomiser eyes / a rigged bangle hawks / yrs is fight not
flight / blowing thorns ov barbed wire / blowing thorns off barbwire / black islands in the stream / no
collapsing bridge / but a cowled dream / redeem these dark days all between / crossing borders friendly &
un- / their always & exact length a breath / a wee blue pencil split down centre / remember how a sawn-off
tree bears no fruit now


questioner ov first-clash / ov beds & under / & sunder serenades / dark dares deems defends / steel steeled
steely / its a steal that lung-fuel that long-fall / nightfall lifeblood this longest nest / internal or international
off-pillars / yu virusing the code / state unsate / serial concerts rioting worlds centres / the trading & the
trade-offs / recurring patterns migrate these net-hair slips / like cd skipping a beat / the lopside silvering / &
what turns hair white? / grids evacuate corded tractable energy / dancer ov light trancer ov light / keep up &
to the good / eyes draw walls walls draw eyes

Fall 2014

tango-lily-wolf-swan-black-ice / floored-red door-red further misfit a flaw / clown ov pixel ov pigment ov
craquelure / treading honeyed water / & corridors arc w/ yr (burnt) stars / yr starfield eyes most golden-moist
/ mountains raging obsolete the tomorrow / look-glass swallows crazy knot / angel ov anarchy ragging up air
/ dragging half estates there not there / hole this furrowed 'are yu?' / dont let them plough thumbs into eyes /
their stonewall heart no face / handheld hand-hol(e)d blockages & the weather uncertain / pocked fingers all
the way / torture-involuntary-wounds-lie


over the silk-edge yu cannot / cannot reduce to in-breathe-out / do not step? step & on / crayon yr scarlet
nets / whole countries parachuting / out-scratch & a (w)hole out-bombed /
off-mapping / out-tonguing / am we several / whorled pools tempting uz lack / vow avow a vow / yr
chronos-sphere promising trouble - their masque / not slipping but lipping / scrutineer labour no upfront
dealer / no rest days no veneer but seen & seer / what lies outside the glass / dissect the caught / disc the
fraught / narrate the un- / bullet-wanderer what lies inside?





tonguing concrete reve(a)ls throats eyes lid / bait / abate / look or don't / drifting-rude drifting wd / riffing yr
arabesques & glimpse-sing lights / only there is little relief / & then there is none / thickets wolfing / red-
night bridging blue day / leaf eyes dream-tower & a branch ov beaks / one lass one sky one satellite / netting
clocks shoal / in odd & even numbers fly / ever & ever the sun yr heart / eggs in night their talons pulling /
an eye stitched w/in / tunnel the circumscribed / shout whole starfields awake / & drums are breaking out /
the beat? all mouth & drouth


everything against the grain / the blade / the blades / fine az threads / az fine az thread / weave the paper yu
writhe upon / potlatch & those ov uz (l)earning to love our madnesses / love our madnesses learnt to / learnt
to love / our madnesses learnt / what cannot be hoped / fissure-roped / cradled candled handled / at
boundaries and at beyond / inner-bird threaded-mouth / one day can be an extra camera in the house / the
face ov mothers : its in their eyes / yr eyes now / look careful be rare & full / yr aria liquescent / we are made
ov stars / mad ov stars - we are


riot the front page / the first age / dont stick to black nor white / yr colour goes deeper / & that last page / that
last age ov all / dialogue out-trapezing new drafts / drafting is to a writer as it is to an army / wont stone new
provocations ov the headscarf frontier / the promise & the compromise / whose flag? / banquets & businesses
& usual / yu prepared the slick cobbles face down? / & the most serious dial rumours / dial pole position /
dives stand-by / hostages replace feet / contaminations preparations discontinuations / ov respect outings
ov / drink a toast to dust

to yell blue steel / reveal bottled light / dream like pencils only fatter / yr fuzzed electric stamped w/ air /
suturing all lands / roll on hands climaxing against walls / there is no unlived & / hopped in alarm lipped in
rain / yu are legible in beats / sparking in gold dance gold-dancing / chancing the fact we all must sweat in
the street / farground rides & over tender rips / dry pressings keep uz wider / give uz more shake / riding the
all-rove winning ground / calling planets / tell the riven earth the facts / & ask often the fierce & long /
pierced satin youth ov yr unwritten left


shine often & ever charge / buds may wander late beside the coppiced / the sweet-song underfoot / another
prodigal loving holler / wz is & always shall be a bone too many / what price now? / unimaginable lands /
the what-ails-house / much truth in nursery rhymings / & the great scar-face block issuing / right-angles
plump this great heart / drip-rip saline intensive in care / release artful attack / there to hurt others never
did / subtle shocks unpick the locks / where no door stood before / asset-(t)ripped ov all that / now aint time
for rubbing in / salts ov anger / salts ov hunger


feather yr nest in impossible bonds / tongue-detonate molotovs ov song / tear lyrics from air / tears from the
quietened years ahead / skin songs skim songs never to be swansongs / songs ov bond & band / ov lost &
sound / amid the dunes leaping sanded bounds / fond songs & found songs / tongue air-to-ground songs /
grind yr hips into night songs / long sweet low (chariots) & happy accidents ov / hiding in language / the
song-room now / now dream w/out wings / utopia is beyond the border / is anywhere but / is beyond heavy
air queueing to get in


the young dream mouldings / smouldering escapes / the dream growing wings / & the language-confetti /
this staccato world / such sweet liberation / open uncage unlock / dont demand one pudding / demand the
whole bloody bakery / repose in the fury ov laughter / spin the globe / spin spine spun / none is the number
where all is planned / the whispers are steel / armaments reveal / ov exits & apocalypse / ov fishes & streams /
why whisper? / night-writer - yu are leaving the comfort zone / spin the globe / spin spine spun / yr time is
now / uncage unlock


questions continue to take on electric / ache to refrigerate the self / throat redder than octane / navigate a
hostile host surface to stare / walk the wing walk the wings / skim & shimmy among fuel / turns & turn-offs
penetrate security / barriers no-go's do not / winging because yu do not / recognise the order / the systems /
swear in the pecking order / swear on the line / beyond the line / under the radar / offer absurdity tools /
desire the origins ov sung laughter / dissociate dissemble de/struct / departures more important than
arriving / how to switch off the pen writing this?




Sandra Kolankiewicz



If We Could Speak


By the time we met again, I was not
so bold as to think I mattered, had found
the patience needed to cultivate what
rarely grows, adapted to my quarter
after quite a struggle that led me out
of what I see was nowhere. You were there,
across the place, too far enough away to
wave, just be seen instead of counted.
I know by now we have inhabited
distant spheres for what could be called decades
if time existed, our languages with
no decoding stone, having no common
roots in carbon, asteroids, and the hearts
of stars, your silicone-based words too fast
for me, my modes of speech vulnerable
to electric outages and programs
that go wrong suddenly in the middle
and take on the life of the stranger who
designed them. If we could speak, we would call
our lives opened fruit, our insides still damp
but drying quickly, left out on a plate
somewhere uncovered while our gazes join,
the blackness in our pupils fills with light.

Fall 2014

Understanding Arthur


What kind of husband did he make? The name
of his book stirs a woman cold, never mind
the language its translated into or her
level of ignorance. He must not have

told her, most importantly her father,
conforming to tradition after all,
not in some specialized quirk but in the
everyday on which all people agree,

what Uncle Charles would have called tightly packed
maggots, of youth now the lines in counting
books, out there on the edge of the desert,
haggling and trading when once he just lived,

like us unable to leave an out post
on the frayed edge of wilderness
even for the weekly festivals, the
excesses of youth lining the roads of

the journey, a gauntlet of regret. If
we walk to the station for a one way
ticket, the sins from yesterday and last
week become the bowers we pass under

and the treacherous alleyways we must
progress beyond amid whispers at the
grocery stand, tales traded over the
fence, no place here to roam invisibly.




We Couldnt Even



We couldnt even hold a camera
straight after that lunch on the
avenida, when we just laughed
and shrugged, spent all our
money. I didnt know you had a
stolen bathing suit from the shop
next door, slipped into your
somewhere, you there at
everything I did wrong, a few
things right, but at the edge as
usual. If I didnt want you, why
would I have invited you? How
long does it take to get well when
you wake up sick, you asked,
already knowing the answer.



Kryptopyrrulia


I would come out slugging, but perhaps they
do something good which no expert can tell.
In some of us, under emotional
and physical illness, red blood cells pump
them out like first responders to gorge on
our zinc and vitamin B, suck the strength
from our methylation, allow toxins
to build till were no longer ourselves but
a collection of behaviors swinging
in and out, so inconsistent we no
longer know who we are. We cease storing
the toys under the eave and begin to
ignore them on the lawn till theyre plastered
with grass clippings and mud splatters, nooks
and crannies breeding mosquitoes. The old
piano we dismantled lies in the
front hall for three weeks before we call a
man to haul it away: we step over
it every day on our way to work. The
children circle it from the living room
to the kitchen and back. Can we trace our
disorder to our small percentage of
Neanderthal that no one will discuss?
Just the pure will survive. Whoever they are.




Communique #2


A resolution would demand resolve in
the face of dissipation, a word which
implies a slow, measured permanent
decline in which one might be aware yet
still acquiesce in the dissolution. Why
shouldnt it be that way, if our spelling
is automatically corrected? When all we
have to do is approximate the target
instead of taking the time to aim, the
same habit to which weve grown
accustomed in love, stuck on the
replacement parts of what we dont
recognize is an engine that can run
without us. Imagine yourself a Stirling
salesman, trying to convince a client that
his trash can be turned into electricity.
Who would mind the smoke when
everything else is missing?



Roger Craik



SURREAL

A cylinder
of gas on fire is roaring you
over living seas and lands unseen.

Finger-driven down, the window blinds
compress the cabin to a tube
bejeweled with unrealities.

Habitual now the fearless
petrifaction: the seat leaned back, your eyes
contracted to a screen.

Decades beneath,
the leaves, the breeze, each leaf

uniquely moving!

And suddenly, as if a benison,
the loping languid flaps that mean

Sir Heron on the wing.
Fall 2014

JOHN FRED (1941-2005): JUDY IN DISGUISE, WITH GLASSES

I was in Brennans in the Harbor
shooting the smutty breeze
with Seedy Dave the sociologist

when in came Drac,
twenty minutes late, at least,
stammering out that he had read

a two-paragraph obit in the Times
for him:
John Fred.

Christ was I aggrieved at that! Only April,
and Miller, Bellow, Hunter Thompson and the Pope,
and Jim Callaghan (they called him Sunny Jim)

all gone and now him. Seedy Dave
said it was a goddam motherfuckin shame,
but then I started woozling his one hit song

and Dave put his dark glasses on
right there and then in murky Brennans bar and
moved them up and down with both his hands

and then set up a drumming on the table top
with those yellowed finger ends of his and kept
on drumming till we got all through. What Dracs

reaction was, or what he did,
I cant tell you:
I was so transported.

Thats how we commemorated him
two days after he died:
John Fred.

THE COCK AND THE CHORUS GIRLS

Laughingly the driver told me how
the stockbroker, new to the village,
objected first to the cock, so
inconsiderately early starting to crow,
and then to all the cows, lowing down the road
from byre to field.

The driver called the cows the chorus girls
(in his mirrors view I smiled)
and said theyd been this way, you understand,
nigh on five hundred years.

Nigh on five hundred years. Check-in, passport control,
and England dwindling below, obscured
increasingly by cloud.
I leaned back in my seat to drowse

but couldnt. The laptops glowing
like icons in their rows. The drinks cart
jostle-slabbing down the aisle. Everything
surreal as usual

apart from what the driver said,
jarring into something never meant
of Englands countryside, its very heart,
moving in me still.

Of course he thought that hed gone mad

Of course he thought that hed gone mad, stark mad,
when all his poems dodged his clutching hand
and haywire dashed themselves upon his pad,
truant from meter and the grey-ruled page.
Askance he stared at them, and could not grasp
that forty years of educated thought
that questioned all but questioning itself,
were gone, and had returned him to the boy
whose fisted crayons, each with one bold smear,
created sky a grass-red wave above
the blue-beamed circle of a fire-green sun.



Peter van Lier
Translated by John Irons





The dryness of a summer afternoon. Dry the
sand that
flies up when struck with the palm of the hand. Dry
the grass. Dry all thoughts. Children are listlessly lying with
flushed faces up against mothers, glasses with straws
within reach,
from time to time theres a gurgling noise. The mothers are sunbathing.
For a moment
one starts at a bird that stumbles.
Fall 2014
ON THE SPOT


Laconically sit down on the old, moss-covered tree-stump
from which, yet more laconically, the mouldered bark crumbles,
by which,
suddenly, so directly, such a profusion of small
animal suffering
becomes visible that on the spot you decide just one thing:

clear off without compassion.
COMPLETED FRAGMENTS


Expertly determine wind direction, then

so gently
close your eyes and lie down location
beside the
point





Blowing, blowing
your nose. Fetch out
something from under

the leaves
of bushes that perhaps will drift along later
for sure





Observe that lone ducks are also

moving southwards, in diverging seasons;
their wings beating

a bit more slowly

a leaf,


fallen (at first it still swayed, veined with nerves, so really
what you call a leaf),


trampled on (and how), dead
(first shrivelled, now wetly decomposing), really


dead (as brown as brown and with holes


in it,
not from a caterpillar
shuffled by).


On a tree a leaf rustles quite soon, lying on the ground quite
soon no longer;


on a tree a leaf is still what you really call a leaf,
lying on the ground quite
soon no longer,


but thats not so bad.

Those evenings,


with pet animals,
with

children too,
initially, sitting in back gardens, chatting
a bit, stroking a bit, drinking of course, and sighing,
now and then,

with those midges,

until one goes to bed without really having
decided to do so
those evenings

when strangely satisfied in whatsoever way
one truly knows what summer is.




Congregating on squares


is a great pleasure for humans, apparently,
on days off in summery weather
close to pigeons;

the circumstances are then propitious, admittedly
for smiling and

for
eating or not eating an ice cream and sweating
apologising in the most informal way and
with that slightly

weary but unmistakably happy feeling
when making for home

at
a perfect stroll.




STANDING AT THE BREAKERS

1

A small tent by the sea, single-roof,
gives rise to powerful questions,

as regards content, especially,
present or not, with a certain kind of cloud

(this kind of cloud) and further circumstances (precisely these),
an unparalleled despair of conscious life causes the

small species of fish leap-, leaping?



2

Is, when a ship,
subsequently, just manages to reach your ear,

while drops of rain suddenly so demonstrably fall
on the mutilated sea-creature that has
already held the downward-looking gaze

for some time, a cry for help inevitably in the offing?

(and of what, of whom if so?)


3

Coming from depths, having abandoned its intimate world
of water, does a crab let itself just like that,

backwards, be thrown onto the
shell-covered ridge so as, without resistance,

to perish in the most powerful birds beak, though because of this
its armoured shell (as the most durable part) has a good chance of

being cherished in the

sea-treasure collection of a child?


PSALM 42


Each time a mother, distracted for a moment by a bargain among bargains, loses
sight of her children in the

immensity of the shopping centre
the imploring of her eyes,

during the uttering of childrens names and squeals,
will correspond to: As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

only out of family concern present on the surface further than the
eye can see, will, corresponding to the animal quivering, the anguish

have to be so heart-rending,
that forgiveness, in such weather, is bound to come, for it gives rise to

nothing but aversion among the most kind-hearted.










Patrick Chapman



Junk


Dear me.
I am too fat to endure.

I want an easy and efficient way out
because I must be fit, healthy and attractive.

I can not live without all those delicious things
but am not doomed to be gross and ugly for the rest of my life.

I want your perfect solution and will take your formula regularly.
I will wait for the med. to do the hard work for me.

No need for those exhausting gyms and diets.
I will lose almost a pound a day.

I will try it here for free.
I will try it here.




Fall 2014

The Oxtail Incident


I turn up face-down in a bowl of soup.
They find me with a bloody gape
in the back of my head.

It is not a mystery for long.
You tell them everything,
how you could not bear it.

That boy would slurp a bicycle.

You had asked me over and over and over and oh
but I would smile and say that you were wrong.

I never shut my piehole when I ate,
I now admit.

My slow-spin-cycle mouth
every mashed-up morsel
sloshing along on my tongue,

and the smacking smacking smacking smacking smacking smacking smacking
when I chewed.




Security


Im the safety mesh at your window slip.
Im the airbag in your bumper car.
Im the off-switch on your acid trip.
Im the deadbolt on your velvet door.

Im the tamper-seal on your fine Tokay.
Im the public official on your private jet.
Im the licence revoked for your PPK.
Im the fresh-air filter on your cigarette.

Im the bluebird left in your upper stash.
Im the broken blade in the knife-drawer lock.
Im the home-by-nine at your all-night bash.
Im the handbrake on your runaway cock.

Im the use-by date on your miracle brain.
Im the breakdown truck in the loony bin.
Im the bubble-wrap in your brut champagne.
Im the suicide note in your valentine.








Owen Sound



Earth Revolves Itself Once Again
after Pierre Reverdy



Resounding blooms
Blue birds fly north.

In the backyard where everything seems to happen
The squirrel darts through our leafless lilac tree.

Outside a woman is cleaning the table; a man makes fire.
Water streams from a hose clearing the driveway apron.

A rainburst negotiates with a cloud.
The sun abrupts with striking chimes.

Fall 2014



Resplendence



For all the good I do, I could have been a plumber.
Steering dreamlike laborers into a corner to remonstrate.

Unclogging the copperworks with these poet hands
Seeking gold among the spiders of scum and pubic hair.

The refuse of human detritus piles higher and higher.
For all the good I do, I should have been a plumber.

Digging deeper to find, return to the owner, the lost ring
Dropped down the sinks drain, hiding in the j-tube

Waiting to reflect light again, making glad the hearts
Of the joyless fingers, missing the weight, the responsibility

Intertwined amongst the significant and its signifier.
The shine is the most artificial aspect of a diamond.







Oh I'm better now. Ate something that must have still been in love last night.



Nothing is dead in the house today. Everything as alive as it was before
Falling to sleep. The dust is a micron thicker and the hair on my head
Reaches upwards another notch closer to the stars hidden behind the
Glowing sunshine. We pretend to be alive when there is no work, live
In shared bonding moments over food and television shows waiting
For the other to engage in a flashes of sex before we watch a bedtime
Detective show and curl back in the warmth of our days reward sleep.

The organs churn while the belly turns to sour bells.
The cello lows itself to sleep on the velvet couch lazed.
Hoping to lull out dreams of days gone by, whistlestops
And buggy cars roam the deserts of backyard forts.
I hope these days remain constant in perpetuity.
A hundred million billion trillion flashes recreating
Lackluster, unrelenting peaceable moments in Kenmore.






Moriah Hampton




The End


Acres of woods grow near the local high school on a secluded stretch of land. They are bordered by
roads, sidewalks, and paths that leave any follower at the moment of discovery, stranded. Meanwhile, the
numberless pass through the woods alone. I can show you how to find them, but then youll never do so on
your own. Which is the real way to find them after all? Its up to you to decide. Come now, no questions
please, walk in front of J.T.s Garage, empty except for rusty car parts, far-flung hubcaps, and shattered beer
bottles lying in the dirt. All over grey paint peels from the mis-matched boards nailed as if to cover holes
shot one by one through the building. Always in a state of disrepair, the garage seems on the brink of
collapsing, its blown-out windows shielding neither wind nor rain from crossing the entryway. Follow me
around the side, past restroom doors labeled men and women in bold letters curling under, out into the
field, the overgrown field that spreads underneath your feet. Its not much to look at, clumps of coarse grass
matted to the earth, bunches of weeds tangled and rooted, ever thriving, and further on a lot more of the
same. From this spot, you will think the field a miserable sight that never changes. Keep going anyway. The
woodsyou cant see them yet.
Fall 2014
From off in the distance, the woods appear, confirming what youve known all along without
understanding why. What the eyes see once always dies when seen a second time. Woods: the area marked
prime on every developers map. Does my definition match what you see? What do you see? There amid the
pine trees goes someone who might tell you. Movement flashes and fades into shadows cast by falling trees
that never reach the earth. You glimpse a brown coat, blue jeans, back pack, and then nothing but the
lingering impression of what is now gone. Only a fool would point and say I saw something there,
believing in every single word. Mocking the certain, the woods become still, eerily quiet. You doubt that
someone is approaching the edge of the woods as each step lightens the darkness across a face until at last
she stands fully in the sun. You see her looking past you down the field. Nothing about her tells you where
shes been this afternoon, not the step she plants on the earth, nor the hand that disappears into her coat
pocket, nor the look she gives in passing, brown eyes already drifting away from yours, before she finds her
way through the field once more. A few paces away, you notice one of her pant legs dragging behind in the
dirt.

Outside the school window, a lone figure watches with a look of understanding, one that asks for
nothing. And wants nothing in return, from her, the student, seated a part from all the rest, her face turning
towards the glass streaming wet and rain-splattered. Someone less perceptive would confuse her for a
shapeless thing, every movement rubbing away her outline. Yet as if recognizing a face once familiar, she
watches her outgrow a former self, the glass a picture perfect window. Perfect for capturing her inside out.
Perfect for revealing her silently. What she sees, few look at in the same way: her face, a placid pool, after
they drew near and nearer. A pair seated before one textbook, their shoulders gently touching. A ripple
spreads just below the surface. Nearer and away from her. Something is sinking into waters that grow
darker and darker until it disappears. She watches her sigh, shoulders rounding, stuck that way. Only she
knows when it hits bottom, the dull thud breaking them apart, turning her attention away from the window.
When her head bows and eyes close, the rain keeps falling just the same as before. Her eyes soon open; she
opens her eyes.
The bell will ring at any moment; at any moment the bell will ring, throughout the halls, in every
classroom, outside the buildings, and upwards in the gym, so that anyone sitting on the highest bleacher will
hear the bell ringing. For now, she sits upon a wooden chair. It is the only one of its kind in the room, an
odd ball chairheavy, bulky, and straight-backed. She chose this chair, after noticing other students pass it
over, and it became hers on that day and ever since. Her chair. She clutches each side of the seat, her grip
tightening, locked, as students everywhere fidget and squirm, ears already ringing. The moment will arrive
soon enough, the moment when her classmates scatter, one by one, a pair here and there, all trooping off to
the next classled by a silent commandin order to reach someplace else after that and so they troop.
They will troop onward, no one noticing her still seated and gripping the chair. She knows it will always be
so, nodding yes to herself, feeling already tremors spreading across the floor. Troopers will stop at nothing;
nothing can stop troopers. For these reasons, she grips her seat and because of something else too,
something more. The chair feels hard against her back bones digging into the wood.
Slicing through the hour is the bell ringing. It jars her, still, leaving a metallic taste in her mouth. If
no other person but her stood before the bell, she would ring it loud and long. She would. Until the bell
sealed every crack and every sliver, silencing the hour. All around her, commotion breaks out, shuffling
papers books pounding scrapping sliding chairs zip zip feet stomping and dragging and skidding chatter and
goodbyes. Here she sits, listening to classmates voices and footsteps being carried off by the passing crowd.
Off somewhere, they troop, following a course that takes them away from where they started. Far away,
never looking back, always forward and sometimes high above their heads. On the counselors door hangs a
poster that inspires every trooper with these words, Reach for the stars! Far away, some farther than
others, with anyone who falls behind lying trampled face first in the mud. This she knows absolutely and
believes even more. Evidence appears imprinted smoothly across her back. Somehow comfortable in her
chair, she becomes aware of the rooms emptiness filling her like crumpled balls of scratch paper. Here she
has sat many times before. From afar, troopers often tell how things will turn out in the end, for her: A
wasted life. A life that will amount to zero. A life that leads nowhere. Many times before, listening.
In between classes, any, maybe all, a part of the student body passes through the hallway like
chewed-up food slowly turning into shit. Her there, that ones better off staying home. Before school,
everyday, she washes and then forgets at this moment having done so. A sticky film covers skin visible to
fresh-faced students nearby who want, she senses, to keep their distance. She pulls at her limp hair, the oily
residue more reason for them to stay away. If she spoke to anyone, their eyes would dart to the crusty
corners of her mouth, dissecting layer by layer milky flecks. The moment of recoil that follows surprises her
now, but not always, as she withdraws further into herself, hiding. There goes a mindless body just taking
up space. Dirt collects in hard-to-reach places, behind ears, underneath nails, along the soles of feet walking
around her hiding place. She hears shoes shuffling, feels pressed forward, and sees only the back of densely
packed heads. Off towards the next class goes the student body, steadfast and resolute. Not even the threat
of being trampled will scare her out of hiding. Through a break in the crowd, she appears walking briskly,
assured that every step will lead to the next. She turns a corner and bounds down the stairs. Her eyes have
followed every last movement.
Her disappearance matters little while sitting in class because on school grounds she
roams, arriving to watch always at the right time. She might be any of these peoplespectator, spy, peeping
tom, eavesdropperor none at all. You check the box on this masterless quiz. Square tiles line the
classroom floor where she sits quietly motionless today, only because of her. Who is she? Where is she?
What is she? Questions such as these never form on her lips that have been pressing together before she
appears and long after. Never far, she goes unnoticed by the student body trooping towards some better
place where upon arrival each has become the person always meant to be. A stop-time presence to her
whose silence she speaks wordlessly.

She stands before the concrete-block wall, bolstered against the mighty din resounding throughout the
cafeteria. Indistinct voices hover over tables and chairs, ready to pour over the student body in one long
stream. Across the packs and pairs, she looks at her seated alone, the table splotched with dried ketchup, the
floor sprinkled with cold, dirt-covered fries. Her hands, setting a fish sandwich back on the plate, seem already
empty, as she chews motionless, eating nothing at all. Spit forms at the corner of her mouth. She sees it from
across the room and waits. For the bead to become strings stuck to her widening lipsunbroken by a voice
hanging mid-air.

Turing towards one another, students select partners without having to ask aloud. Something in the air
assigns the pairs who exchange knowing looks. No one faces her in back of the class seated beside a trash can
where a piece of crumpled paper has fallen to the floor. Inside its shell gleams pink chewing gum, teeth-
marked. Flavorless in her mouth. Theyve swapped gum again; the look on her face she recognizes.

Teenage girls stand around the locker room, some half dressed, others naked, a few baring skin as if alone.
Torsos curve and swell, twist and ripple before sharp-edged lockers, cold to the touch. Along benches sit girls,
the outline of their plump bottoms appearing through cotton panties. Clean gym clothes flash white, pink, blue
and green, the folds flying open and the creases falling out. Flung in darkened corners of bathroom stalls,
sanitary napkins curl open to show padding streaked with blood, now brown and layered thick. Off to one side,
she faces an open locker, the narrow door used to hide her from view without doing so. She becomes aware of
her there in the room, somewhere close, and begins to slide out of her top, slowly, pulling an arm through the
sleeve that she then crunches against her chest. She remains that way, skin covering skin, as eyes trace the
length of her back, caving inward, breaking into pieces endlessly. Now beholden, she tries to avoid being seen
undressing by anyone but her.

Cautiously she places one foot in front of the other, with arms plastered to her sides, so as to avoid
touching anyone, so as to avoid anyones touch. Somewhere the drum major pounds beats for every trooper
to follow. Left, right, left. Troopers wearing custom-made boots march left, right, left. Keeping perfect time.
Down the hall, a life-long trooper looks back and shouts, Youre far behind. Give it one more try. When
will she fall in line? The last person leaves it to the rest to decide. That ones lucky she has a place at all. A
member of the student body slugs along, barely keeping up, ready for the day when she wont have to
bother. When the student body troops off and scatters on command, each chasing after something, a secret
no one whispers. The dearly departed. The dearly loved.
A Valentine for the Student Body on Graduation Day
We stand at a fork in the road. Out of love, I will show you the best path, because youve known it is
the only path, if you promise to hold my hand when night falls.
Follow my directions exactly as written and ignore any signs you may see along the way.
A born traveler may cross your path, but he cannot lead to where you want to go.
Only I can.
And if you come upon the one who clears the path,
then pass him by without another thought.
Walk the path just as I tell you and all of your birthday wishes will come true,
even the one never spoken. Candles burning, wicks burnt, hardened tight.
Will I be with you that day?
Cross your heart. I wont believe you, not after
Here we stand, together, near the Great Oak
that preserves my heart, pulsating still.


Everyone knows whose birthday is today. We call her Sunshine. For her, the student body will fan
into the worlds largest flower across the front lawn. Because to look into Sunshines face is to find it already
open, already receptive, now and always. Everyone wants to look at Sunshine; Sunshine wants everyone to
look. See her smile dispel every dark spot. Not yet, with the student body blocking the view. All around, the
voiceless taunt her with these words, Youre gonna miss your chance to look at Sunshine. Cowering, she
shrinks to half her size, lost amid the crowd pushing down the long hallway. Why does the student body
always plot to keep Sunshine away from her? Adorable Sunshine. Precious Sunshine who draws everyone
near with her winning smile. Picture perfect every time. That one there will only make Sunshine cry. A
sight all would hate to see twice. Ssshhhhh Nobody whispered anything about the thinning crowd. Silver,
blue, and white ribbons appear bursting from Sunshines locker. From above SURPRISE fades, leaving a
trail of multi-colored glitter drifting down on Sunshine and all her friends. Someone hung a Happy
Birthday banner across the locker door. Someone tied balloons to the handle, a silver and white bunch
pulling high the strings. Someone did all this for Sunshine, maybe more. Sunshine has never looked
happier. Every freckle has nearly disappeared from her rosy cheeks.

By now, her freckles must have re-appeared as if painted on dot by dot, the way she likes Sunshine best.
Before it all, she knew how much Sunshines birthday would mean to her.

Everyday in 9
th
period, Mandy nudges her to pass a note to Heather, and everyday she does so right
away except for once. Between the two she sits. To look left is to see Mandy, to look right, Heather. Mandy.
Heather. She stares straight at the letters covering the chalk-dusted board, letters overlaying more letters
written with a felt-edged hand. As if the smeared words mattered and not Mandy and Heather. Certainly
not Mandy and Heather. Their silent ways matter nothing at all. These words, she memorized only after,
after taking the note from Mandy, the note written especially for her. After clutching the note Mandy had written for
someone special, her. After passing the note, at Mandys insistence, the note too special for her. Their silent ways
matter nothing at all. Her eyes drop. Nubby pieces of chalk lay scattered in the metal tray. Lower still. An
eraser has landed flat amid a poof of dust. She feels not the powdery paste but Mandys eyestheyre fixed
on her, clear-set eyes telling her what to do. She passes the note to Heather without either sensing her
hesitation as soon as it presses into hands formed perfectly for this very note. What they miss she always
notices about her sitting half-turned then front ways baring the only grease-streaked face in the room.

Raise your hand if you have no place to go at the end of the school day. Anyone? Speak up if you
dont know the meaning of home. The classroom stands empty, the door open wide. Gone before rising.
Already home steps from the school yard. Up and down the hallway troopers shuffle, their prints blending
into the sole-marked floor. Somewhere the class President crosses out his name, the drum majors baton
flings through the air, and a pile of school records is set ablaze. Inwards every trooper feels the same coins
rattling against tin-foiled depths. Except for her whose insides must have been looted like no other wishing
well. The contents strewn in some deserted place, a classroom after school let out. Her head turns straight
ahead without anyone noticing. On each side, in front, in back press troopers, their shoulders nearly
touching through the thin air. Bulked-up troopers can take on the world even in their off hours. Drifting
weightless as a dull reflectionnearer to the classroom with the oddball chair upon which she sits peering
back, peering back, peering back at her.
After turning away from the window, covered with whitish film after the morning rain, she begins
walking through the school yard as if a muted version of every student easily overlooked.

A line, uniform in every way, crosses the open field. Through it she winds imperceptibly past herself
and with each step leaves more of herself behind. Today, she decides, every last school day amounts to one.
Ahead a sapling has reached full height in an hours time. Above a newborn blue jay, soaring high, spreads
its mighty wings. While across some distance walks the student body wearing caps and gowns. She turns to
see every face radiant, every smile proud, especially the last face lost amid the shifting trees.
The woods fill her entire world but for glimpses of blue high above the trees. Following a sign, long-
since faded in every sky, she slogs across the damp ground aware of muck thickening underneath pine
needles, twigs, and leaves. Then she favored her forearm streaked with muck as something precious, a one-
of-a-kind. Now she leaps across a muck-drawn line, ageless after touching earth. Who would recognize her
walking directionless through these woods? A look-a-like upon meeting? She stoops below a shoot angling
off a nearby branch. She jumps over a log, its rotting underside flashing before her mid-air.
She digs her soles into the earth, climbing up and over a hill. The farther she wanders, the denser
grow the trees, coloring much of the surrounding space with bark and leaves. Already, she is plodding
through the overgrowth, pulling back vines and sidling between trees. Foliage hangs where she once
walked, her brown coat barely visible through the leaves. You who look away and back again will wonder
how she disappeared.

Bouldersoblong, round, and flat-sidedrise in the center of a clearing. From every vantage point,
they bulge irregularly upwards level by uneven level towards peaks and mounds. For a moment, every
shape loses distinction, gleaming silvery white against the full afternoon sun. If ever too bright, she would
screen it by shutting both eyes, over-planning what will never come true. An effort to salvage her routine,
perhaps. A last-minute change to ensure that she follow every other step. The first one comes easily.
Turning her head towards the sky, she yells, Im here. Im here. Then again, louder, surprising no one.
Before it grows silent, she has begun stomping around the boulders, pounding the earth off beat. She
continues stomping, one foot after the other, circling the boulders, again yelling, Im here. Im here, her
plain face, radiant. Immeasurable time passes. You see her standing before a smooth-faced boulder upon
which are printed these words in blue: You dont exist.



Morgan Bazilian




Love goes downhill


He runs
And I alight
The corner of his mouth turns serious
And I laugh

The clichs used as a foundation
Building a perspective
Of how a child grows
More quickly than expected, etc.

My father calls
Expecting something
Not unreasonable things
Thanks or devotion

And I realise:
Love goes downhill
Towards the child
As sure as gravity

Like any other river
Or material flow
Or quantum of energy or heat
It takes the easiest path


Fall 2014

Conjuring

Not even the matriarchal nature of a bluebird
Goes unnoticed

In a day stilted towards evening,
Leaning towards hope.

The bird watchers witnessing ceremony,
Impervious to suggestion or iteration.

The slightest whisper of the trees
Informing their perspective of the world.

Reformed in an instant
Of echoes and negative space

Their blindness without border
Conjuring only emptiness.

The sunlight evasive,
Yet intent on bearing weight

My mind disassembling memory
Holding onto things not appropriate

A vision of the future in overalls,
A mindset of luminous perfection

Creating a frightening present
Uninspired, thin, nervous, and antiquated

The imagination of a beggar
Looking at a life nearly half over

An inference about the solubility of dreams,
The placement of hardening resolve

About tomorrow
And the day after

Peat

The peat recently revealed to the sun
Cut and drying
Exposed on the sides

The sheep creating dust from water.
A floating lake
Above old weakened stone

The bog captures my shoe
Its softness
A partial solution for old knees

A hill steeped with yellow flowers
And heather
And autumn

Detail and color
A landscape of low skies and gray
Immersion and resistance

Planted regret
Diffused doubt

Dreams infused with age
Frayed and rusting

Children with no memory
Unable to cite person, place or date.

Small contributions
Amounting to copacetic smiles

Mediated ideals
Negotiated interests

Within the confines of a planet
Wobbling and changing magnetism

The day wholly unimpressed
By the human condition

Unable to even survive
Without an atmosphere

Puddles

Silence
in my head
pondering decisions
stumbling onto faults

Areas of slow growth
or fragile moss
(alive for decades or centuries
or minutes)

Clearing away
brown and green memories
revealing hard stone
unassailable and alive

We all carry these boulders
some are just less camouflaged
and now in a place carved out of forest
and sand and dirt; mangoes and palms

Claiming a life
on a road made of puddles and rock

It is a gentle sound I hear
and then again like a heartbeat
a snare drum or a rhythm
rain and wind

And then it is gone
moving over the small lake
its reeds and bogs
and evaporating

Aging upwards
to be caught in the atmosphere
deposited in a new place
without memory


Coda

It is like a coda,
a repeating section of a life
a day revealing itself
to a child

A tiresome parade of fears
guilt
pride
god

Discoveries of the mind
reflected (nearly identically)
in stories from another century
or just a myth

Not following,
but mooing
without decay
or fragility

A space beyond moisture
cracked, parched
it is beyond touch
nothing can adhere to its surface

A topsy-turvy space
unable to reflect
unable to store energy
and yet continually

Returning


Shared

It is not easy
not after years
not after days of laughing
days of fear
or sleep or sex

Different perceptions
of space,
varying illusions,
references,
definitions of words

A universe unique,
seen only from one set of eyes
bounded,
parochial,
and not entirely shared

She flows and tumbles
like a creek
loud and then hushed
sparkling at some angles
small eddies holding old feelings

She floats downstream
feet first
caught by old sticks
or rocks
too tired to move

Despite this
she and the waves
remain standing
immobile
against the rains


Acquisition

The world made smaller
By time, acquisition, paychecks
The weight of acceptance.

Acquiescence without analysis
Logic used without restraint
Tolerance allowed too often.

More ordinary than expected
Day dreams of change
Real dreams unrecalled.

The simple spinning
Producing nostalgia
An easy path to regret.

On an otherwise somnolent evening:

The same fear I saw years ago
The laugh tainted slightly
Shaking hands and bravado.

A propensity for images
As allegory
And then belief.

The eyes dampen
Laughter falls from the lips
The darkness replaced by pills.

Directed by denial and religion
(utterly wasteful
And petrifying to witness).



Chords

Inventing a song with no firm utterance.
Words displaced among images flying.
Chord shapes renamed to suit a style.

It goes on and grows,
Higher frets
And accompaniment.

Opportunities for intuition,
Formed as solos
Rhythms on the pick guard.

They are communicating
Through cameras,
Through semi-closed eyes.

Feeling the other in off-beats,
In innuendo,
In conjecture of elbows.

Retreating out of sight
The pair join palms.
The stage lights mimic emotion.

Languages intertwine
With gestures like branches
People speak slowly.

Pointing
Hesitant
Spreading their arms.

The dialogue stutters
Interrupted
Stochastic.

The words creating alternatives
Other scenes
A story unending.

Meandering
Repeating itself
And un-translated.


Michael Cooper



Program Symphony #2


i. fremerepiutostorapidocon the poem ends I must repeat my
audacia e verve. mist
akes as melodies when your skin
overgrows your clothes and stitches
accelerareedagitarerapidamente. itself
back together whole are you




ii. glissando in grappoli di
toniunitimentrevomitare-
adorazione e rose nude they photograph slow honey on
glass
the models knees mold into it like the
molto lentamente con- footprints
ringhiodelicato of homo habilis the cupboards are bare oak
table is bowbacked from elbows and
iniziarepercussioni celebration
e scintillesuglistrumenti di ossi. the cupboards are overstocked with air
the table is
decelerarerapidamentecome sesi scontrato conunasostanzagelatinosaacida:
unatrappolapiantatasullastradatrate e ilformaggio
di topo. drowning in the blood of Swifts children we
toast
Fall 2014

we iii. O, la danzadeigalli scoreggiando con inostripantaloni di formaggio in fiamme!
il vagabond, la vagina, lo sparito, applaudonoilbattitocardiacozampillantedella
libido uno due tre! we have made it
clear the dance
of Bouie
knives wins: o
ver the war
of the kink
armed gee thru
zed vibray
tors: to find
the indeep
endent clause
repeat this
3 step dance





iv. Farequestasezionesulflauto
a coulisse
escacciapensieri of partd flesh the canopy opens we sit in
ejector seats laden in birth water the canopy closes
around the nudity of the aeroplane I must
una deglispettatori strilla, not
sta sempre repeat my mistakes as the cadences come
strillando. closer
these contractions the poem begins

Internment


:laying here the sunlight through the blinds
looks like holy scripture: the hairless rat runs along
your skin looking for food: I put my shoes on

and go to work: the Police have shut down
the free
way while we nose the maze
towards our jobs they rush
without signaling
to celebrate
a fallen officer: putas we bury our dead
pets in dumpsters
and toilets in our backyardless neighborhood: pushed
through the yellow green leaves the light looks like holy
scripture: Alik works every weekend starts his shifts

on Wednesday his gypsy haired daughter dances among
the wet floor signs at the 7 elevencoffee lures: I have forgotten
my plastic cup again he teases refills have gone
from 99 cents to a buck twenty five its understood
I fill the new
cup and get 75 cents change no one
complains here

about corporate vulture: I put on my tie
and go to work: I try to reach himto unleash

his story Eduardo worked twelve hour
shifts
7 days a week I know this
by deposition alone there are no time
cards no records to be found
he moved watermelons from crate to crate and then
moving the filled boxes when his accident
occurred: one of her litter of fourteen was nudged
to the outside of the brood: light is barely
a tourist through the bars twisted

restricted: have you ever dreamed of work the same
steady motion each item lifted with the gravity of a planet
pulling you down you were what was sold
at the market your lower back and the undoing
of sleeps sutures: she hands me the unmoving
lost rat-kitten unopeneyed curl whiskered teaspoonful
cold and nude: I put my pants on and go to work: with what fight

with what strange resistance my people we stand
and shrug off
the elliptical power of decay how to cure? The incompetent applicant
attorney gets 15 percent
of Eduardos settlement the defense says
theres no evidence
of foul play we
eat the red fruit sticky hands and stare

at each others corpses complicit in this
play of one hand gives one takes
the day and drinks: the sunlight of my dream
drives the leaves
green like holy scripture: I go to work:

Railyard Boneyard Carousel absent Sunnflowers


:as a soldier I learned to sleep whenever and wherever
I could:
for Machine Pomona where the people
meet to speak true:
as a student I learned how to eat
what was placed before me.

the two kanji tatted white girls and their monster
swilling photographer
earn their streetcred panderpouting their plaid
skirts and ponytails
to Midwestern inkmagsso hardcore and confident
framed by red painted brick and graffiti
of the alley next to Augies in Redlands: in some ways
I am lucky
not to have seen Kaiser steel close
leaving behind
the wounded patients and the mechanism to save them
the railyard empties of rolling stock
we are told to thrive
thrive to the tune of photographic illusions of healthy
bodied families
athletic and clean dieted: as a soldier I learned I could go anywhere
I looked like I belonged:

the transcendescent yellow biker shorts clasp the tight bravado of the celebrant
entrepreneurial takers
helmeted & flitting about estranged from their
hive for the weekend: floodlit
in the asbestos hangers each cancerous eye drained of its fire of heavy
lifters grounded by feathered exhaust
throttle choked and talon delirious weeping the jet fuel from the sky
the boneyard lances the boil of Norton
Air Force base quieted: as a student I learned of Eureka burger and sushi
and the leverage of loans:

the shopping mall food court transplanted into the heart of Calstate and celebrating
the Serrano The People missing
replaced by the new consumers in training to be returned to their inner
city cages: through the orange grove
& the vineyard the freeway crept like a hunter on its empty stomach of strip
mall until the trackhomes sprung up like
concertina wire and picket fences leapt over the sneezegaurd of lazy fairre
buffet lines iminit domain
and yahoo lassos vomiting claims all over the landscape screaming under the assfault
glare boring down into what was
some of the most fertile land in the world and then they dredged the man-made lake
and left it fishless
later to be drained showing its cement belly cracked with psoriasisand on I walk
in the wolfs clothing
woven by my Nightmother: as I soldier
I learn to blend
in with the landscape:

The resilient
beauty of the bus stop the boarded over storefront the outdoor woodstaged theatre
gum on your shoes
and the glinting silicate in the gritty sidewalk
plastic bottles
loose fastfood wrapper with its cheesegrease intact the dollar soda
we live off to
get our sixteen hundred calories a day chicken nuggets the mre
of the indentured servitors
the navy blue sleeping bag shoved under the culvert and the shaking
poncho when the water leaks on your neck
the light shone like scripture through the reversed text seen
on the broken bottle this unspoken
dialect the plyboard kiddie ramps over stormdrains
near the slow children
crossing signs the overzealous zoning on E street for the nonexistent
driverside unloading buses
the cubicles where the collectors sit tabulating dialer penetration
on the last campaign and the IT
guy screaming The old black man with the broken glasses and great composure
his arm around his dehydrated companion begging
for Gatorade to outpace
the 5 ocklcock sun that has yanked them out of the eastern leaning shade
of the 7 eleven
the music is never too loud and the corners never more
closer shaven no staring
her voice held me as I lay daily dying: as a teenager
I would walk
after my late shift washing dishes and drenched smelling of moldy leather
apronsI would walk until
I could sleep again the rain cast on the street captured in cold yellow
puddles ignored the pleas
of Euclid avenues diseased pepper trees: Forgive us
the trespasses of the migratory smokeshops that leap from strip
mall to stripmall each in a war
for the worst pun escalating more farflung ourageousness
& now selling Vapes
and Lotto and the hope of a cheap
and easy return:
for Lady Basco who taught me how to speak at The Last Book Storewhen no one else
would listen: as a soldier I learned how to dream
anywhereanytime: as her student
I learn how to be grateful for what is placed before me.

out window blow:


out window blow: a palm
and seven more trees in a row, or a wolf
spider and her seven cubsis
this an ash tray

blow out the window: palm
and Wolf or tree, a series of 7 or more
it is a 7 - Cubs and their spiders
the ashtray

Bubbles out of the window: palm
A row of trees and wolves, more than seven and
The Spider and the Cubs - it's 7
ashtray

The Palm: foam out of the window
Line with Wolf or more trees, seven
Cubs and spider - it's 7
ashtray

The Palm: the window blowing out
In addition to tree the wolf or more people, in 7
Spider and Cubs - it's 7
ashtray

Palm: The window is blown
In addition to the seven tree Wolf about the people
Cubs and spider - it's 7 ash
tray


Palm: The window
is blown
in addition to the seven tree Wolf about the people
Spider
and Cubs - It is 7 ash
tray

P!mu: wind"
fukikomareru
hitobito nitsuite no 7 tsur#urufu ni kuwae te,
kumo
soshite kabusu - sore wa 7 hai desu
tor$

Palm: Fenster
ist geblasen
Zustzlich zu den sieben Baum Wolf ber die Menschen,
Spinne
Und Cubs - es ist 7 Asche
Tablett

P alm: Win dow
is blow n
In addition to the seven tree Wolf about the people
spider
And Cubs - it's 7 ash
tray

P no ALM: windau
bur" n wa
hitobito nitsuite no 7 tsur#urufu ni kuwae te,
kumo
soshite kabusu - sore wa 7 hai desu
tor$

U ~ indau: ALM von P
Schlag n
Zustzlich zu den sieben Baum Wolf ber die Menschen,
Spinne
Und Cubs - es ist 7 Asche
Tablett

U ~ indau: ALM P blow n In add it ion to the s even tree Wolf about t he people spider And Cubs - it's 7 ash t
ray

U? indau: ALM
P no bur" N, sore wa ton teido de atte mo, tsur# urufu kare no hitobito no kumo tokabusu no tame ni ion o tsuika
sore wa 7 hai no T rei no

U ~ indau: N Schlag des ALM-P, auch Tonnen, fgen Ionen fr die Cubs und Spinnen Menschen seiner Baum
Wolf - es der T-7 Beispiel fr Asche

U ~ indau: N Impact of ALM-P, also tons, add ion for the Cubs and spiders people of his tree Wolf - it is the T-
7 Example of ash

U ~ indau: N Auswirkung der ALM-P, auch Tonnen, fgen Ionen fr die Cubs und Spinnen Menschen seiner
Baum Wolf - es ist das T-7 Beispiel fr Asche

U? no indau: N ALM -
P no eiky", mata ton, kabusu to kare no ki "kami no supaid! no hitobito notame ni ion o tsuika suru -
sore wa hai no T - 7 rei desu

It's T-7 example of ash - to add ion for the people of wolf spider of the tree of his ton, and the Cubs also
influence, of N ALM-P: indau of U ~ [girl girl girl]


Es ist T-7 Beispiel der Asche -, um die Ionen fr die Menschen in Wolfspinne der Baum seiner Tonne
hinzufgen und die Cubs auch zu beeinflussen, von N ALM-P: indau von U ~ [Mdchen Mdchen Mdchen]

Sore wa hai no T7 rei de aru, "kami no kumo no hitobito no tame no ion o tenka kare nobareru no ki tomo kabu
su ni eiky" o ataeru y" ni suru ni wa, N ko no ALM P: U? [ g!ruzug!ruzug!ruzu ] no indau

Is a T-7 example of ash [Baum Wolf ber die Menschen] it - wood of the barrel of addition he also want to be
an impact on the Cubs ions for the people of spider wolf,, ALM P of the N: U ~ [Girls Girls indau Girls]

Ist ein T-7 beispielsweise aus Asche [Baum Wolf Gesetz ber die Menschen] it - Holz des Fasses Zugabe er
will auch eine Auswirkung auf die Cubs-Ionen fr die Menschen von Spinnen Wolf zu sein, ALM P des N: U ~
[Girls Girls indau Mdchen]

T7, tatoeba, hai [p#purutsur#urufu h" ] sore wa bareru no mokuzai wa, kare wa kumourufu nohitobito no tame n
o kabusu ion e no eiky" ni nari ta gatte iru tsuika no N, ALM P: U? [ g!ruzug!ruzu indau sh"jo ]

For example, ash [People Tree Wolf method] it T-7, - [Girls Girls indau Girls] he wood barrel, Cubs for the
people of Kumourufu - [Baum Wolf ber die Menschen!] N additional wants to be in effect on the ion, ALM P:
U ~ [Girls Girls indau girl]

Zum Beispiel, Esche [People Tree Wolf-Methode] es T-7, - [Girls Girls indau Mdchen] er Holzfass, Cubs fr
die Menschen in Kumourufu - [! Baum Wolf Gesetz ber die Menschen] N zustzliche will in der Wirkung auf
sein Ion, ALM P: U ~ [Girls Girls indau Mdchen]

Tatoeba, hai [ p#puru [?] tsur# urufu h"h"? T - 7 desu - [ g!ruzug!ruzug!ruzu
indau] kare bareru,kabusu Kumourufu no hitobito no tame ni - [[?] p#purutsur#urufu h" ] N no ion, ALM
P ni y%k" natsuika no yokky%: U? [ g!ruzug!ruzug!ruzu indau ]

For ex amp le, as h is [Pe op le Tree W olf meth od] T-7 f or h is bar re l, the pe o ple of the Cubs Kum ou
rufu [Gi rls Gi rls Gi rls in dau] - [! De sire add it ion al val id ion of people tree Wolf met ho d] N, the ALM P:
U ~ [G ir ls G ir ls G ir ls in dau]

Fr die Ex-Amp le, als h ist [Pe op le Baum W olf Meth od] T-7 - f oder h bar re l, die pe o weise der Cubs
Kum ou rufu [Gi rls Gi Gi rls rls in dau] - [! De Vater fgen Sie es Ionen val id Al-Ionen von Menschen Baum
Wolf traf ho d] N, die ALM P: U ~ [G ir ir ls ls G G ir ls in dau]

H wa sonomama EX anpearu no baai wa, [ Pe no opeanpurutsur# OLF meta OD wa W ] T - 7 -
Fmatawa H b! no RE L wa, kabusukumu O kenmei PE wa [ DAU ni " " " no RLS no RLS no RLS
] rufuo ou no - [[?] DAU ni U? [ G IR IR IR no LS no LS LS no GG ][?] DE no chichi wa tsur# urufu ] N,
ALM P wa HO D ni atta hitobito no varu ID aru [?] ion ion ni tsuika

In the case of EX [dont give up] Anpearu, T-7 [W op amp Le tree OLF meta OD of Pe] as it is H - RE L of H-
bar or F is of the RLS[meaning occurs as spontaneously as consciousness] RLS of Wang Wang Wang [DAU is
Kabusukumu O wise PE ou of the RLS] dissemination - [! Father of DE Tree Wolf] N, ALM P Add to Val ID
al-ion ion of the people who met HO D: [GG [this is our love song to the universe: language]of LS LS LS of the
G IR IR IR] U ~ to DAU


Im Fall des EX [nicht aufgeben] Anpearu, T-7 [W Operationsverstrker Le Baum OLF Meta-OD von Pe], wie
es ist H - RE l H-Bar oder F ist der RLS [Bedeutung tritt als spontan als Bewusstsein] RLS von Wang Wang
Wang [DAU ist Kabusukumu O weiser PE ou des RLS] Verbreitung - [! [GG [das ist unser Liebeslied an das
Universum: Sprache] Vater von DE Baum Wolf] N, P ALM Val ID al-Ionen-Ionen von den Menschen, die HO
D met von LS LS LS des G IR IR IR ] U ~, um DAU

EX no baai, H to Anpearu, T - 7 [ PE o W opeanpurutsur# OLF meta gai [?] ][ atae nai ] -
L no H b!matawa F wa, RLS ga sai RLS [ imi wa ishiki dake de shizen ni hassei shi ta ] wan wan " bunpu [
DAU wa Kabusukumu O kenmei PE de wa, RLS no wa ou ] - [[?] [
GG wa [ kore wa, uch% e nowatashi tachi no ai no uta de aru: gengo ] DE ki "kami no chichi ] N, HO D wa G,
IR, IR, IR no LS LSwa LS niyori deatta hitobito no P ALM varu ID aruionion ] U? DAU e

For EX, Anpearu and H, [W op amp Le tree OLF meta ]now we begin the outward movement toward
birth[outside diameter PE] T-7 [not given] - H or F bar of L, [meaning occurred naturally in only conscious re-
RLS is RLS [DAU is in Kabusukumu O wise PE, RLS of the ou] Doggy King distribution] ]we give our songs
to ashes that rise[- [! [[This is a song of our love to the universe GG: father of Kiokami] DE language] N, HO D
to P of the people I met by the LS LS LS ]each love a threnody for the impossible, birthing concrete each love
contraband, each things that binds us together, preverbal, rise rise rise[G, IR, IR, and IR to ALM Val ID Al ion
ion] U ~ DAU


EX, Anpearu to H no baai wa, [ W opeanpurutsur# OLF meta ] ima, watashi tachi wa, T - 7 [ chokkeiPE gai ]
[ ataerare te i nai ] no tanj" ni muke te sotogawa e no id" o kaishi - H matawa L no F b!,
[imi dake de shizen ni hassei shi ta [ o - ishiki teki na sai RLS ga RLS de k"hai i kingu bunpu [
DAUwa Kabusukumu O kenmei PE, OU no RLS de aru ]]] watashi tachi wa,
[ matagami hai ni watashitachi no uta o ataeru! [[ kore wa uch% no GG e no watashi tachi no ai no uta desu.
Kiokami? doitsugo no chichi ] jin no P to N, HO
D wa, watashi wa, sorezore ga, sorezore no ai no fukan", shussankonkur#to y" surenodi o aishi ta LS no LS LS
] niyotte mitasa mitsuyu, zen gengo, issho ni watashitachi o ketsug" shi, sorezore no mono wa, U? DAU [ varu
ID Al ion ion o ALM wa, G, IR, IR oyobi IR ]j"sh" j"sh" j"sh"

Im Falle der H EX, und Anpearu, jetzt [W Operationsverstrker Le Baum OLF Meta] Wir beginnen, nach auen
in Richtung der Geburt T-7 [Durchmesser PE auerhalb] von [nicht angegeben] - H F oder bar von L [[wo es
kommt natrlich in der nur sinnvoll - bei RLS [DAU ist ein RLS Kabusukumu O weiser PE, die OU Doggy
Knig Verteilung]] wieder RLS bewusst ist] Wir [geben unser Lied Anstieg zu Asche! [[Dies ist ein Lied der
Liebe zum GG des Universums. Ich bzw. Schmuggel von LS LS erfllt] von LS, die unmgliche Liebe, jede
Geburt fr Beton Threnody, Sprache, N und P der Vater]] Kiokami Menschen deutscher geliebt, ist HO D
zusammen, bevor Sie zu uns, [die ALM-, IR-G-, IR-, IR-und Val-ID Al Ionen-Ionen] jedes Ding, steigen
Anstieg Anstieg U ~ DAU


In the case of H EX, and Anpearu, now [W operational amplifier Le tree OLF meta] We start out towards the
birth of T-7 [diameter PE outside] of [not given] - HF or bar of L [[where it occurs naturally in the only sense -
in RLS [DAU is a RLS Kabusukumu O wise PE, the OU Doggy king distribution]] again RLS is aware] We
[give our song rise to ashes! [[This is a song of love for GG of the universe. I or smuggling of LS LS satisfied]
of LS, the impossible love, every birth for concrete Threnody, Language, N and P of the father]] Kiokami
people loved German, HO D is together before you to us, [ALM IR-G, IR, IR and Val id Al ion-ion] of each
thing, rise rise rise U ~ DAU

Bei H und nun [Betriebs Le OLF] Wir aus der von 7 [PE] von [gegeben] oder der [[wo tritt nur in [DAU ein
Kabusukumu weise die Verteilung Doggy]] RLS bewusst] [Song geben, [[Dies ist eine von der fr Universum.
oder der LS von der Liebe, der Geburt konkrete Sprache und der Vater]] Menschen Deutsch, D zusammen Sie
uns, IR-G, IR Val Al ion] jeder Anstieg steigen Sie

H de, genzai wa ?d"sa ru OLF ] watashi tachi 7 [ PE ] matawa [ shitei sare ta ] kara [[ nomi [
DAU waKabusukumu,
RLS o ishiki bunpu k"hai i ]] ga hassei shi ta ] kore wa [[[ songu o ataeru no tame nouch% no 1. Ai, shussh" kon
kur#to gengo to chichi ]] doitsu jin, D wa issho ni watashi tachi no IR - G, IR varu
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Deutsch und Sprache, ist LS Anstieg IR-G uns, IR Al Kletter

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[DAU [[OR]] IR from [] RLS is now Al-climbing

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RLS wakon [ tozan

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The Love] [work] [[[IR-G We, LS, [Doggie Kabusukumu, [[]] IR [] RLS is now [DAU [Climbing

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Jetzt] [] [[[-G,, [Kabusukumu, [[]] [] [Klettern
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Now] [] [[[, [Kabusukumu, [[]] [] [
Kon ] [] [[[[ Kabusukumu, [[]] [] [
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Jetzt] [] [[[[[[]] [] [
Kon ] [] [[[[[[]] [] [
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Meg Flannery



The Frank Slide

A month after the devastating rockslide hit Frank, Canada, Charlie the Horse was found alive in the mine
having survived on rancid water and bark from the timbers holding up the passageways.
Frank Still Reeling, May 1904

Glenn Carter said he lost his wife in the slide. Nobody questioned him. It was a sad time for everyone
and the rockslide had been unpredictable!Sam Ennis and his family were trapped in their house, which
rolled over three times, but they escaped with only a few bruises and an overturned house. The three Clark
girls came out alive too, but their mother, father, and four brothers were lost.
Glenn was lucky; he was supposed to take Charlie the Horse up into the tunnels to collect the chunks
of stockpiled coal, but he didnt go to the mine that morning like he said he would. He didnt see the slide or
hear it coming like some others said they did. Glenn remembers feeling it though, thats what he said.
He was down at the saloon. It wasnt open at that time in the morning, but Bart kicked him out
around two and he spent the next two hours passed out in the alley, head slumped on the boardwalk. Glenn
doesnt like to drink. And he knows that the others dont like to drink with him because hes a sad drunk and
Fall 2014
they dont need a sad drunk complaining about his wife, life, and the bitter taste of bourbon when they are
trying to forget about the same things. Mickey Baker was the only one that ever sat with Glenn willingly. He
had come in with the group from Calgary and had known Glenn for a while. He left for Seattle the morning
of the slide, actually making through on the plan they all had when they came to Frank.
Glenn had taken in the surprised faces when he walked into the saloon around eleven that night. He
started with a straight whiskey and kept going until Bart wanted to close. He told Glenn to go home to his
wife.
But Glenn was lucky. He didnt go home and he didnt go to work that morning at four like he was
supposed to. He lied in the dirt with his head against the boardwalk. Thats how he felt the slide before he
heard it. The vibrations woke him up. It was still dark, the sun hadnt come up yet and Glenn was still drunk.
He thought something was coming out from the ground!that the earth was splitting and he would fall in.
He opened his eyes and saw dark shapes. They were sporadic. Running around the just empty streets. Dark
shapes that were screeching and moaning things he didnt understand. His hands felt numb and his legs cold
and itchy, like his feet were being rubbed with the dandy brush he used to brush down the horses. He
watched the shapes. His head lolled against the boardwalk and the vibrations stopped. A shape started for
him, tall and lanky, moving fast. The prickling in his feet moved up his legs and his body seized up.
Carter! Carter! The mountain!there was an explosion or something, yelled the company store
clerk. He was half-dressed, hair askew and shaking Glenn. Get up, do you hear me? There was a rockslide.
Glenn was still confused. It was dark and he was drunk and sad and mostly asleep. But the shopkeeper
slapped him and told him to get up. His head hit the boardwalk when the clerk let him go. Glenn could hear
him yelling something about the mine. The shapes started to look like people he knew. He blinked, a lot, and
struggled to get up. The tingles left his body in prickly waves. He used the boardwalk for balance and pulled
himself up and out of the alley where the air was dusty and people were still running around. His head hurt.
Glenn heard snippets of conversation: Westside of the mountain. The tracks are under. Men trapped.
Johnny! Has anyone seen my Johnny? Eastside is buried.
Glenn and his wife lived on the eastside of town. He started running. The dust was bad and the air was
thick and gray with it. His feet still felt numb, as if blunt needles were brushing against his soles. He tripped,
hitting the ground faster than he thought he should. It was rocky and crumbling beneath his weight. Hed
reached where the slide had stopped.
Carter! Stop, dont go over there, someone yelled from behind him. Glenn had started climbing up
the rocky slope at that point!reaching out and grasping for leverage, but he kept slipping on the limestone.
He heard people yelling for him to stop, but he had to see if the house was still there. He felt someone
pulling him, tugging at his shirt and arms. Glenn kept climbing and fighting and felt his elbow hit something
hard. The tugging stopped and Glenn tried to look out over the rubble and dust. He couldnt really see
anything, but Glenn wanted to know if his house was still there. He wanted to know if his wife was still in it.
Carter! He heard someone yell from below. Carter!you have to come down, its all gone.
Glenn looked down at one of his neighbors. He was standing with his wife. She was crying and he
was rubbing his jaw. Glenn looked back towards the debris and dust that littered his neighborhood. The sun
was coming up and the orange streaked over the gray landscape and seeped through the dust in the air.
Mabel was in there, Glenn called down to the couple. He wanted them to know that she was buried
in the house. Not because he wanted them to understand his grief, but because he didnt want them to know
that he had killed her the night before.
*
Glenn Carters wife was from Calgary. He met her when he moved there from a small farming town.
He didnt have any family, never did really. His mother died when he was born and his father spent the rest
of his days farming and dying slowly.
Glenn never wanted anything much out of life. He wasnt very good at farming and people were
getting tired of helping him so he moved to the city. He found simple work in a canning factory and stayed in
a boarding house next door with the other workers. Thats where he met Mickey. Tall and sharp, Mickey saw
a project in Glenn.
You coming out tonight, Carter? Mickey had asked Glenn one night. Glenn only shrugged.
Yeah, youre coming out tonight, Carter.
That was the night Glenn met Mabel. Glenn was shy, but Mickey knew her and Mabel gave Glenn
some attention.
So youre friends with Mickey?
I guess.
Well, hes a good one to know, Mabel said looking around the bar. Glenn hummed into his drink.
Hed only had one and it was half full and the glass was warm under his palms. He was hunched over,
elbows on the table. Mickey had told him to lean forward, look interested, but he kept looking at the
scuffmarks and rings that charted the table.
You know, I dont need to wait around for this. There are plenty of others I could talk to tonight or
any other.
Im sorry. He waited for her to leave, expected it really. He was built like a farmer, brawny and
callused. He wasnt as tall as the other guys. Glenn thought that she was sort of pretty with her dark hair and
big eyes. Her lips were thin and made her look angry and they sort of disappeared when she smiled, but still
when she smiled, Glenn was pretty amazed.
Just get me another drink.
*
After the dust cleared, Glenn could see a hill of limestone and dirt in place of his house. He waited
there until he was sure. The dust had settled for the most part and Glenn could feel it sticking to his skin. His
head was itchy with it and his eyes hurt, but these were things he was used to from working in a mine!it
was just intensified.
Glenn waited longer than the others. Most went looking for help and a clean cloth. Some were
dragged away crying and others walked away with wide eyes and blank expressions. When he was sure,
Glenn made his way down to the street, careful this time of the slippery limestone. He found himself around
other people soon, surrounded by apologies and subjected to pats on the back. It wasnt till later that Glenn
asked about the stables.
Theyre gone, yeah, lost, answered a man nearby. Glenn saw that his hands and face were smudged
clean, but his shoes and clothes were still coated in dust.
And the horses? coughed Glenn.
Assumin theyre lost too.
*

Glenn had always known that Mabel hated Frank. Shed told him plenty of times that she wanted to
go to Seattle. It was why she agreed to go to Frank in the first place. She said it was closer to the border and,
therefore, closer to her goal of moving to America.
The Canadian-American Coal and Coke Company had just opened the plant and had other mines in
Northwest America. It was Mickeys idea to go. Hed heard about the mine needing men and convinced
some of the guys from the cannery that this was their chance. Glenn didnt want to go. He didnt like the idea
of working in a mountain. But Mabel thought it would be better than working in a factory.
I told you I wanted to go to Seattle.
Mabel Glenn had sighed. Hed just gotten back from a late shift at the factory and she was waiting
for him in their room in the boarding house.
No, I told you I wanted to go to Seattle. They have streetcars there and!
Theyre building streetcars here!
Was I done talking, Glenn?
Glenns face burned.
Seattle is more established than Calgary, Mabel had started again. She was sitting at the small table
she fit in the corner by the window. Glenn thought it made the place more cramped. She put doilies on it
and a mirror. There was one chair.
Its Fancier. I heard they might have one of those big expositions in a year or two, you know like the
one theyre having in St. Louis? We dont do stuff like that up here. And they have timber and mine work
there, a lot for a man like you to do, simple easy work. Will you stop twisting that damn hat, Glenn, youd
choke the thing if it had any breath.
Glenn put the hat on his head.
Were indoors, Glenn.
Glenn took the hat off his head and put it on the dresser. His hands were moist and he cracked his
knuckles.
I hate it when you do that, Mabel groaned. Its too loud in this little room. A man and wife should
not have to live in such a dingy hole. When we go with Mickey to this Frank place, well have a house and
youll have a good-paying job and well save and go to Seattle. I already told Mickey youd go.
Mabel!
No, Glenn. I want to go to Seattle. I am going to Seattle.
*
Glenn had never minded the work too much. Mabel was right, it was easy and he fit in the tunnels
better than the others. He didnt have to bend over as much as them, but the dark still got to him. He liked
working with the horses, though. The boss had him do that a lot. He steered them through the tunnels and
jimmied the carts they dragged back into place if they got stuck.
Hed had a bad day in the mine two days before the slide. The boss had him working farther in where
the light wasnt as strong. Glenn normally didnt mind if he had a horse with him, but he was sent alone. He
didnt show up to his post. He tripped and his lamp shattered and his hands and knees hurt from where he
scraped them. He could feel the gravel sticking to his sweaty palms. It wasnt loud where he was, but the
random knocks and the soft whistling of the wind creeping through the mine kept him on edge in the dark.
Glenn wasnt sure how long he sat huddled against the wall until the group of men found him, but when he
looked up and saw their dirty faces staring down at him, white eyes popping out beneath black stains, he
didnt want to move.
Glenns boss had told him to go home after they got him out of the mine, but Glenn didnt want
Mabel to ask why he was back early. Instead he walked to the stables and came up behind them. For a
moment he wanted to punch the wall and let the wood splinter his skin and split his knuckles. He wanted to
be unpredictable, but instead he turned around and sank back against the wall. He slid down into the dirt
and leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Glenn hadnt been sitting there for long when he felt and heard a thud against the wall. He thought
one of the horses might have kicked it, but then he heard muffled grunts and rustling fabrics. The grunts
were quick and unsteady and when lighter notes joined in Glenn felt warm. There was a squeal. Another
grunt. Everything felt tight. Glenn flexed his fists and held his breath. The pounding stopped with a long
groan and a whimper. A light sigh and a low chuckle followed. Whispers were exchanged and he could hear
fabric brushing and being rearranged. Glenn peaked through a slit in the panel. Mabel smiled her thin-
lipped smile. Mickey buckled his pants.
*
Frank lost sixty people in the slide. It demolished the mine, railroad tracks, and most of the east-side
homes. Seventeen miners were rescued after hours of digging and a couple of families were found trapped in
their houses. Glenns house was buried too deep. The houses closest to the mountain were unreachable.
Glenn didnt do much to help the town rebuild. The town left those in mourning alone for the most
part. Glenn was glad for that. After he realized that the house was buried for good he spent the better part of
his time in the saloon. Glenn had a corner all to himself in the back. People left him alone and he liked it that
way. Bourbon wasnt so bitter anymore and he wasnt as sad, just more resigned.
Most of the men left worked at reopening the tunnels. A month after the slide a few men found
Charlie the horse in one of the passageways. Hed survived on gritty water and support beams. It was the
miracle Frank needed. A makeshift stall was built for Charlie!a lean-to against the company store. It was in
the middle of town so everyone could stop by and see him. The group that found him, men that Glenn knew,
celebrated that night. They brought drinks down to Charlies lean-to and all squished in to share stories and
congratulate the horse with toasts of brandy and oats.
Glenn went to see Charlie after they all left. It was late, but he wanted to see the horse that survived.
He wasnt too far gone, but he was at that point where his chest was warm with whiskey and his head was
light. He started collecting the leftover bottles on the floor when he found a mostly full one in the corner. He
thought about emptying it, but instead took a pull.
No use wasting it, right Charlie? Glenn said holding the bottle towards the horse, Why dont you
join this party?
Glenn lifted the makeshift drinking trough off the wall and dumped the water out. He poured a
generous amount of brandy into the bucket before hanging it back.
Drink up, buddy, you deserve it, he said guiding the horse to the bucket. Charlie sniffed it before
testing the taste. Glenn was glad when the horse began drinking. He turned another bucket over and sat
against the wall. He took a drink, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
Youre lucky, Glenn said sloshing the brandy in the bottle. They said I was lucky too. He watched
the liquid move in the glass before taking another pull.
I was supposed to work that day, take you up into the tunnels, but I didnt show up. He looked up at
the horse and reached out to rub his head. I was supposed to be with you, but someone else took you in and
lost you in the fright. I wouldnt have lost you, Charlie. We would have figured it out together. He took
another drink.
But I wasnt there and you were fine without me. Not needed anywhere, am I? He let out a dry
laugh and took another drink. Glenn looked at Charlie then and his big dark eyes were staring back at him.
Glenn saw a bag of oats against the wall and reached for it. He reached in and let the oats run through his
fingers. He felt Charlie nudge his shoulder.
Hungry? Glenn chuckled, havent had quite enough yet, huh? Glenn knew the others had been
feeding the horse. Since he was found, Charlie had been pampered more than a workhorse was probably
ever used to. Glenn held out a handful of oats to Charlie, who quickly lapped them up. Glenn gave him some
more.
You were there when I caught them, Glenn announced rubbing the horses head. Just two days
before the slide. They were in the stable. Glenn wiped his hand against his trousers before grabbing the
brandy and taking a swig. He felt the sweet burn crawl down his throat to his chest and spread from there.
My wife was having sex with my friend in the stable, while you were in there. Im such a fool, he
muttered shaking his head. He took another drink and stared at his hands holding the bottle. He squeezed
one around the neck. Glenn brought the bottle back to his lips, hesitated, and took another drink.
I choked her.
Glenn waited as if Charlie would answer. Waited for the horse to judge him and call him out on his
sins.
They think she died in the slide. I mean, the house is gone, buried somewhere under the mountain.
No one needs to know what I did, right, Charlie? He paused and looked at the horse. Charlie was looking at
the bag of oats. Glenn opened it wider and pushed it towards him.
Its getting harder, though. I feel like Im still there, in the house and in the kitchen. She said she was
going to Seattle without me. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and the bottle hanging between them.
I didnt say anything, Charlie. She asked me to say something. She told me to stop fiddling with my
damn hat and to listen to what she was saying. I was listening, though; I always listened to Mabel, always did
what she told me to do. I stopped handling my hat and even stopped myself from cracking my knuckles
because I knew that bothered her, but she was going to Seattle. She sat there and told me she was going to
leave me and meet Mickey in Seattle the next day. He stopped, took a drink, and leaned back with his head
against the wall.
Well Im talking now. Probably more than I ever have. Wouldnt she be surprised? She was
surprised when I was standing over her. She was still in her chair, but my hands were around her neck and
her eyes were so wide and her mouth was open, but nothing came out but a cracked whimper. He hit his
head against the wall. Her nails scratched me, she always kept them neat and filed.
Glenn looked up and could see a slit between the board and wall that made the lean-to. It was dark,
but he could see the faint glow of a streetlight peeking through the crack. It reminded him of the sunrise the
day of the slide, striving to make it through all the debris and horror of the early morning to shed new light
on the day. He hit his head against the wall again. His voice choked up as he spoke.
I was unpredictable for a moment, and in that moment I killed her, Glenn winced. Who knew I
had it in me, eh, Charlie? He looked over at the horse, who was munching happily at his oats.
I dont think I can do it anymore, Glenn whispered looking down at his hands. He glared at them,
holding that bottle tightly, white knuckles straining and fingernails discolored from years of meaningless
work.
Tomorrow, he said, Tomorrow theyll know.
Glenn got up and turned to leave when he felt the weight of the bottle in his hand. He looked over at
the horse still eating and moved back towards him.
Thanks for listening, Charlie. Enjoy the rest of your party, he said patting the horses side. He
poured the rest of the brandy into the bucket and left. He went back to the shelter some officials set up and
carefully made his way through the aisles to his cot. It squeaked loudly as he sat down, making him cringe
and look around. Glenn unlaced his boots and placed them under his cot before pulling the blanket back
and slipping in. The blanket was itchy and a nondescript brown that, for some reason, made him
uncomfortable. Glenn turned onto his side and the cot creaked loudly again. He still felt that familiar
warmth in his chest and his head was fuzzy. He closed his eyes and felt the weight of sleep seep into his
bones and spread.
Eventually Glenns breath evened out and when he turned onto his back an hour later, the
responding creak of the cot didnt wake him. And when a little girl woke up from her nightmare and her
mother shushed her back to sleep, Glenn dreamt of doilies and an empty chair. And when Glenn woke up
the next morning, a little hung-over, but surprisingly well rested, he heard the news about Charlie the Horse
and how he died from over-indulging in brandy and oats.



Matthew Dulany






Cabin John

It was but a moment up ahead,
and in another fled.
The dog, with hackles bristling, soon discerned
and followed after its scent.
As always, at my whistling she returned.
Together then we went
a mile along the creekside path beyond
the meadow, round the bend,
to the clearing, where the power pylons
stride the ridge, and spotted
its rusty, wind-ruffed, and thick-set
coat among the mottled
white and tawny tussocks, stealing quickly.
Though she would follow, on
command the dog refrained, but heading back
she must have wondered when
the fox revealed itself across the creek,
just why it did so soon,
if on purpose, and who was following whom.






Fall 2014



Some Advice for the Young

Hurry up and relax and try to keep
your eyes peeled and try to get some sleep
and quit that scratching when youre wearing wool.
You cant prepare for every variable,
just try to cultivate where arable,
bearing in mind no bear will bear a bull.

Sometimes its good to lose your place in line
and almost any kind of wine is fine
but keep in mind if you indulge, indulge
in moderation, lest your belly bulge
or your whats-it-whos-it lose appeal.
Dont fuss too much about your lawn or feel

you have to keep abreast of current affairs.
Its good to know when its good to take the stairs,
also when its best to admit youre weak,
when its worst to turn the other cheek,
when aching joints belie the clement weather,
when pivoting hips portend a night of pleasure.

If you decide to ride the rails through Reading
forgetting what direction you are heading
and are a late arrival to your wedding,
mother might not make her gift your bedding.
While we often must conform to norms,
success may manifest in many forms.




Eve

Bemused by the wren, so self-possessed
about the berryless vines and browning,

brittle nettles, by chicory gone to seed,
exploded milkweed pods in the late light,

and her own discreet footsteps through the collapsing grass,
over woolly bears that have forever quit crawling,

bemused by the troupe of hopeful poplars
applauding themselves at curtain call, bowing

in a protracted gust, bemused by the jet
carrying some hundred souls and numberless contingencies

now knifing through the cirrus stew in the deep blue bowl
above it all, by the not unhappy prospect

that desire may never again sway her heart,
by the ghostly moon bemused, she roams

the russet woods periphery.








Mark Young




A line from George Washington

Finally, here is episode 13
of Tiger & Bunny. This is
the equivalent of eating
0.8 cans of Coca-Cola if the

epoxy has been completely
removed. Better to be alone,
face covered in a light dust-
ing of flour. Concealer is a

beauty essential that can hide
undereye circles It feels a
bit strange sitting in a caf.
But. You could always rent.

Fall 2014
The Greater Horseshoe Bat

Under the rules
issued by the U.S.
Postal Service, an
untidy & diffuse
body of customary
law, the book, How
to Quit School & Get a
Real Bisphosphonate-

affected Guinea Pig, is
now not classed as
a statement of intent
but the congruence
of theoretical
orientation. Brokers
are viewing the
scrip as undervalued.
De-sert / des-ert

In a
dry spell

look for

pre-existing
structures.

Words in
a list. Alpha-
bet easy.

Else.

Just
words.

List-
less.


Four geographi es

Hortense, GA

She sighed as she
poured the last of
her cardamom seeds
into the mortar, moist-
ening them with a little
alcohollast year her
mother said the alchemy
was a bit too dry. The
proselytisation of reality tv
means its constant
advertisements take scant
time to start to suffocate.


Carson National Park

First we look for a
few extra hints
a clever move if
you're a rock music
fan. Then we answer

a rhetorical musical
question how many
protesters threw
punches & ice chunks
at police? Finally we

debate the long-term
trends these numbers
represent. Do they
mean it will rain in
Los Alamos tomorrow?

Gdansk

Skeptics say there is
no easy way to test

claims that any loosely
defined subset of furry

ponchos, fur-lined flip-
flops, & sweater sets

adorned with broaches
will continue to float

when cream is added
to the pumpkin broth.




Charlesburg
In any world in which
Conservative politics &

the profit motive dom-
inate, there will never

be need to justify
turning grain storage

sites into missile silos or
nuclear waste repositories.


Warzone Earth has 14 trophies that can be earned

de-
fining themselves & subverting
the stereotypes :

the
more animated & pro-
tracted the discussion :

/ characterized by
&
formed with /
:
Exxon turns to paper towels for oil spill clean-up :
A production company creating quality moving images :
Scan takes a close look at your baby & your uterus :
Disappointment, & disgrace, & calamity were the only fruits.

What is the logic, if any?
: it was a fairly straightforward interface :
: must have lived on an island.

A few days ago I created some new music_
_a big jump from the old garage band_
_you can imagine how excited I was.

a complete anomaly
a concentration of
supports all :

I shot a nice bull moose last year & am considering varnishing the antlers_










M. Brett Gaffney


Inside the chapel

the executions are quick and accompanied
by music, a hymn chosen by the women
who, one by one, sit in the chair.

The congregation watches quietly,
hands in laps, good books closed.
They know why this needs to be done.

It is the will of God that the sisters
be sacrificed, their wombs as barren
as the communitys crops.

Eyes rolled up to heaven, the women
writhe with passion for their Lord.
Only when the arrow pierces forehead

does the organ silence, the last note
a signal to reload the mounted crossbow.
The priest asks each if they understand

what is happeningthey do. They whisper yes,
chapped lips parted and jaws slack,
drunk on their own coming oblivion.

They have not eaten since the conviction
and those who have waited longest are delirious,
claiming to see angels at their side, angels holding

their hand, angels firing the crossbow. Only one
struggles, leaps from her seat to sling communion wine
into the crowd, holds the chalice as if its her own child.

Fall 2014

She wails and she weeps and for this she is spared
another day and another day until she is able to take
her death seriously, with the guilt and regret and prayer

it deserves. Standing by the altar like a statue,
pale as our ivory Virgin, she pleads one last time
with Father Joseph but he does not listen.

As her sisters are carted away with as much care
as sacks of flour, the rebel grows meek,
fingering her gown like its something to eat,

her hair now a tangle of tears and sweat,
mouth agape and drooling penitence.
On the Sabbath she is seated and on the Sabbath

the congregation stands and Salve, Salve, Regina
fills the rafters and the girl remembers her baptism,
how the river flooded her ears with its water song,

fish skirting her ankles on their way downstream.
That day the sun was bright and she called it God
and oh how warm the sharpened creek stone,
how sweet the blessed blood.








Feeding the Dead

Her name is Maria, comida.
They eat her a little at a time.

She likes to be needed, to feel her blood
ebb and flow from their mouths,
tongues like whales lost at sea.

She travels with them, a shadow,
city to city, sneaking them pockets
of herself on the train, offering
her slender wrists
like holy bread in taxi cabs.

Over time her face pales like the sugar
skulls on the streets of Culiacan,
where her father told her stories
of monsters who stole women
for their beauty, warm lips. Papa
shed say, that wont happen to me.

But Maria, comida dulce, never knew
creatures this grateful, humble
in asking her to be theirs,
blood-companion, their sated sighs
like a river flowing its waters down
down to thirsty children in villages
forever burning,
such fire-teeth.

They are her children and her
guides. This new lifea tinderbox.

Oh, papa she wants to tell him
if only you could see how they need me
more than those boys next door
with hands like clumsy vines,
skin sun-kissed and greedy
how at night they stretch open
like wings, like stars, like hungry pups.

The smallest one, her favorite,
asks her if she misses home
and its holidays, autumn always
a hard season, the hiding months.
Maria braids the girls hair and sings,
lets the question slip to dawn.

Sometimes she wants to light candles
and dance in a dress the color
of hot candies
Dia de los muertos,
where feeding the dead means leaving
sweets and ripe fruit in graveyards,
where our bodies are still our bodies
and we find the way back to lit houses,
windows open and bright to remind us
the darkness can only stretch so far
before we decide to leave it behind
or let it burrow within us and feast.

Maria puts her monsters to bed,
sits to lazily stir beef stew in the belly
of her bowl. She leaves it on the table,
watches the sun rise over the strange
new city, nightgown swallowing her
tiny frame. Shes never felt so fed, so full.





Hellhound, Lost

Wandering pupdevil dog, heart full of smoke,
digs up gardens, little graves,
sheds a coat of gunpowder across this city.
Shreds of souls hang from his jowls like tired trash.

Beast of reckoning, of judgment, rests at the crossroads
of alleyway and back road, cries to a moon
that has forgotten his name.

Red-eyed stray trots in the rain, looks into houses,
through cracked doors, windowsills, these barriers
between light and dark, watches families
with warm laughs, sitting around the fireplace.

He whines,
soaked with longing,
and a Labrador lifts her head, barks, as if to say
there is death. I see him,
and he is like me.

Some day he hopes a pair of hands
like this mothers with her soft crochet,
will fold over his face, smooth past
the licks of flame and flea to find
the hound with cracked paws,
sleepy teeth.

One day, he thinks, they will wash the blood
from my bones, bring me a bed full of raven feathers,
feed me animals I have not killed,
chickens maybe,
whose wings were never made for flight.







Lora Hilty

Thirty Years in the Hole


Tess children, Justin and Joe, are just ten and four years old when we suffer a crisis. Tess is living
with us, Craig and me, and were raising the boys together, as a family, or so we had planned. The problem
has crept between us, the chains built link by link as Craig and I took an unfortunate path and slowly
became parents to our grandchildren.
Tess takes away our lives and plans the next twenty as she seeks out copious amounts of male
attention since her divorce from baby-daddy number two. My biggest fear, the one that eats a whole in the
pit of me, is that she will have another baby out of wedlock, another child that Craig and I are to raise. My
daughter busies herself with suffocating the dim light that I can still somehow see around me, and Craig, like
a lobster settling peacefully into a vat of boiling water, neither says nor does anything to stop her. Our
daughter has skillfully hijacked everything and everyone, and we have become nothing more to her than a
convenience. I have been such a fool; and everything that I believed is now proven a lie.
Tess has forgotten to be a mother to her children, and Craig has forgotten to be my husband, the
romance stripped from our marriage in this simmering, rude way. Ive questioned what I had once known so
completely, my deepest love and respect for my husband. It hurt to remember the way things had once been.
Wed been talking, Richard and IFacebookingsince my thirty year high school reunion. Wed
spoken at the football game and the subsequent party, had spent some time remembering old things. His
little sister, Kacey, a friend of mine since elementary school, brought Richard, her older brother, because he
said that he wanted to see me one more time. I wondered if I had meant something to him or if he was sick
and needed to touch base before he passed. I wondered all kinds of things, but the two nights Id spent
talking with him had left me guarded. He had been inappropriate, placing a hand on my back and bringing
Fall 2014
up a forgotten intimacy. He held something sinister behind his eyes, something that etched itself in my mind
that made me uneasy. Id been too much of a coward to address it at the time.
After the reunion, Richard had suddenly shown up on my FaceBook chat. Id simply stated, Well,
there you are again, a sentence that could be read with any number of inflections. Some months pass before
I find myself making plans for a writing retreat at the Cape, a place Ive never been and as far away from
Ohio as I can get. Cape Cod, just a few hours south of Richards life without me, is my writing destination.
When I post my plans on my profile page, Richard messages me within hours. When are you coming,
Tori? How long will you be here? Do you want to see me?
I stare into the blank world inside my computer screen, my future waiting to be written, and I begin
to type. I create, sculpt, and invent my life for him. I tell myself that en days of writing is exactly what I need
as my fiftieth birthday looms and my life in Ohio slowly implodes. Tess, my lost Tess, uses me up while
Craig watches, hands in the air. I wring my own while I try to write some kind of hope. And then theres
Richard, haunting me with familiar whispers, confusing me by reviving old hurts, paths not taken.

Craig and I own a split-level house with small windows and faded green curtains. It is three decades
old, nothing remarkable, but weve replaced the brown shag carpets with veneered wood and floating tile
floorsneutral tones, of course. Craig, my husband of 25 years, replaced the crumbling blacktopped
driveway with concrete and the small windows with stylish new easy-cleans. He did the work, had the
concrete and windows delivered, but the prep-work belonged to him. I planted lilies and bleeding-hearts,
lilacs, crabapples and smoke bushes on these grounds while he seeded the lawn and weeded the dandelions.
Hes built brick walls and flowerbeds, swing-sets and firewood bins while I wallpapered and painted. Weve
raised children and dogs, and phoned our mothers and fathers on a land-line that we still pay for, even
though we have cell phones. Weve seen our son go to war and our daughters family bloom, our hair turn
gray and our bellies expand. We are blessed with grandkids and diapersarthritis and daycare and our
daughter hasnt gone a day in our house without letting us know how little she loves us.

I leave home on a Thursday. I drive my car, a practical blue Sonata that reeks of suburbia, because I
like to feel grounded to something. Stacks of CDs fill the glove-box, oldies like Rod Stewart, an artist
appropriate for the occasion since Richard made love to me for the first time to his musicnot the first time
we fucked in the cemeterybut the first time that we really made love.
As soon as I hit the highway, I turn Rod up and roll down the windows, block everything out. The air
in my lungs slides out like a balloon with a slow leak as green mile after mile slide past my window, and
within each roll of the speedometer, I leave my soul behind without as much as a glance into my rear-view
mirror.

I call Richard at six thirty. I had told him of my plans to go to a reading in Cambridge, and hed
genuinely sounded disappointed, but now I waffle, curious to begin our getting-to-know-you-again time. He
seems skittish, balks when I suggest skipping it. Richards telling me that he has to work. He cant make it
down to the Cape to see me until the following weekend.
Thats disappointing, I say.
Nothing I can do about it, he says.
I pride myself on my ability to discern when someone is lying, and I suspect he isnt telling me
everything. Though he never guesses, I hang up a little angry, and he seems more than relieved that I buy it,
his excuse. I chew on this for the next several hundred miles, replay conversations wed had since
reconnecting. Ive been looking for you for thirty years, hed said. Why couldnt I have been the one?
I dislike pining over anything or anyone, and Im not quite sure if this is an accurate description of
what Im feeling. His sudden cold feet make me feel foolish. I calculate the next call; flip it over in my mind
until I know just how itll go. The next morning, I leave a message. Im thinking of stopping in a little town
called Weymouth, I say. Ever heard of it? He doesnt know I scammed hometown information from his
daughters Facebook page.
He calls within minutes. Thats my town, he says.
No way, I say. Now, thats a coincidence.
You know I have to work, he says.
So, work.
Im not going to put you up in a hotel, he says.
I didnt ask you to do anything.
Youre a pain in my ass.
I like it that way.
Well, now I have to pay my daughter two hundred dollars to clean my house, he says.
Dont be ridiculous, I say.
God, damn it.
Dont worry about it, I say. I do have a son. Men are messy.
Ill call her and get her over, he says. It needs cleaned anyway.
Im confident that Ive ruined his weekend, and I wonder why he doesnt he just tell me the truth.
Were both married, technically anyway. We have history, and thats enough for me, but Richards trying to
make me the fool, a dance weve been doing since I cant remember. It feels like Im chasing a shadow, and
Richard enjoys this, I know. I want to show him whos got the power over who this time around. I punch the
gas, determined to get there too soon, trip him up and find out who hes become.

In the car, hurtling toward Richard, I think of Craig. The night before I left, we made a desperate kind
of love togethersomething we both paid for the next morning when the grandchildren were up early and
peeking round, kitten eyes into our room. Why couldnt we be together like this all of the time? Why does he
have to sense a void before he acts to fill it? I almost cancelled the trip, but held onto my sense of self like a
drowning puppy would wrap frantic paws around a floating log, a desperate and loathsome act of
selfishness.
*
I get into town at two-thirty, a gritty, worn little place with old, empty storefronts and cracked
sidewalks. Miles from the ocean, the entire wind-wrecked village seems polished dirty smooth; the blunt
edges, frayed but rounded down. Small brick houses scream late 60s architecture and though refurbished,
are out-dated with paved drive-ways and bushes under the identical bay windows. These cloned abodes line
both sides of the one-way street, the vehicles covered in powdered yellow silt. I stop for a soda at a small
carry-out with large plated-glass windows on Main Street.
The clerk, a Latino, is a plump, happy girl with smiling eyes and a pocked fly-swatter in her tight fist.
She seems worldly, her knowing eyes barely moving when she smiles. A small fan buzzes on the counter and
smeared windows sweat in the afternoon sun. I head for the cooler, three steps across yellowed, white and
black checked tile, and grab something sealed.
Two gulp-sized plastic Dr. Pepper bottles drip condensation into the crook of my arm as I fight with
my purse. The packaged foods leave little room in the short aisle, and I rake a rack with my side. Dark eyes
on my back, I wonder if the clerk knows Richard. The air presses around me, stifles me. The buzzing fan
dances against the blue Formica counter, and giving up and giving in, I order two packs of Marlboro and a
lighter. I havent smoked a cigarette in five years.
Once outside, the air freshens. I walk to my car and call Richard for an address. He gives me the street
and number and tells me his daughters still at the house. I ask if I should stop somewhere and wait until she
leaves. The clerk presses her nose against the pane. Unabashed, she watches me from the confines of her
own life choices. Richard doesnt think its necessary for me to stay away, but he seems nervous and tight.

When I pull in the drive, I can see that the place needs some work. The house had been built in the
1700s and is old and interesting, but the shingles are damaged and hanging from the roof. White siding turns
a sad, muddy brown when aged in this climate, and the wooden steps leading to a side door hump broken
and dry. Everything screams disrepair and desolation.
The lot is large for a place so inhabited, but the lawn needs mowing. The gardens spill scraps of dry
grass that strangle the weeds. A rotting barn leans next to the house, the foundation crumbling almost as fast
as I can take it in, and I imagine creatures lurking in the tangle of brush and dead leaves, a raccoon or
opossum. Plastic lawn chairs, once white, are now varied shades of corroded beige and grouped on top of the
hill in the back yard. I mount the hill in need of some air, my heart a softening mass in the middle of my
chest. A hard life is lived on these grounds. Richard, a broken man, lost lifes promise a long time ago. I sense
that I need to tread carefully here.
At the top of the hill next to the chairs, a large green trash can brims with Miller Light cans. I can
picture him, Richard, sitting in the stiff, cheap chairs with his steel-toed boots propped up on the edge. He
stares out over the small lake across the street while downing beer after beer, and in my mind, he is lonely,
picking over remnants of happier times, longing to reconnect with something hed lost, a palpable regret. I
follow a worn path to the house and try the door. Im ready to fully embrace what could have been.
Inside Richards house, its dark in the entry-way, a pall, and my eyes take some time to adjust. The
house smells old; a musty layer of creak and groan that only old houses possess lingers just under the smart
sting of Lysol. I move to the right, the dining room. The floor slants, and with each step over the hardwood
planks, my body drifts to the left.
There was a crooked man.
I hold onto the back of a chair, a heavy monstrosity draped in red, crushed-velvet 70s chic, and try to
find my center before proceeding into the small kitchen.
The sink has a slow drain, and dirty dish-water sitting in the bottom tells me that Richards daughter
has only recently left. I blow the air from my lungs, relieved that I wont meet her in this awkward way. Im
impressed that Richards daughter turned out to be helpful to him and livid that my daughter is not.
The hard truth: my child has abandoned her children and heaped the responsibility of raising her
boys squarely on my shoulders. Its ironic that here, in Richards kitchen, admiring his offsprings helpful
nature, Im rejecting twenty more years of child-rearing because its a repeat of what Id already done poorly.
I want to do things my way now, as selfishly and spoiled as the thirty-something living in my basement, and I
tell myself that I dont care, that I can live with giving up on my family. I cant help but wonder what
happened to Richards.
Richard claims living alone for seven yearsnot a legal separation from his wife, but a separation all
the same. Hed spoken about a girlfriend, a pretty serious girlfriend, who lived with him for a time. I checked
her out on Facebook, and much to my disappointment, shes breathtaking, her body, small, thin and
disturbingly childlike. Deep brown eyes and skin highlight full lips and bright, cheerful eyes. Small breasts
and hips far too narrow to have birthed children make up a sprite frame. I suspect this marvelous looking
woman sucked all of Richards money away before she dumped him, and I think that it serves him right if
this is the truth.
I make my way into the bathroom, and there, in the shower, there is evidence of this woman. A pink,
lady-shaver hangs on the shower wall next to coconut shampoo, propped upside down, on the shower shelf.
Frizz Away claims space on the resin counter, and two towels limply hang on small, white hooks next to a
sadly stacked and scratched Maytag set.
Who walked a crooked mile.
I have him in the lie, but I cant understand how he had gotten rid of her without losing her, and this
amuses me in a mean way. And now that I know, Im reminded of what Richard had been thirty years ago
how Id suspected hed had other girlfriends, even then, and I wonder if my husband had gotten the same
kind of vibe from me the day I left home.

I wait for Richard on the hill in the back of the house. It will be hours before he arrives, and I crack
the bottle of Private Stock Id brought with me, sip it down with the Dr. Pepper Id bought at the store. Large
trees, maples and evergreens, form a private space for me to wallow. The reservoir across the street
consumes me. From where I sit, I have an excellent view of the road. As I drink, I ask myself why I stay.
I think I want to know about Richards wifewho she is and why they separated. I was fourteen
years old when he left Ohio; Richard is five years my senior. Hed promised to come back for me, and in the
back of my mind, Id kept him, until I heard of his marriage. Kacey had made sure that I knew when it
happened, and it had felt like a chapter closed that I hadnt finished reading. Why did he marry her instead
of coming back for me after his four years in the Navy? After all of the time that has passed, my reaction to
seeing himthe disturbing affect he has on meis as much of a surprise to me as it is to him. Id thought Id
never see him again, and Id thought that a perfect thing.
The truth is that Richard has always had some kind of Vulcan mind-control affect on me, something
torn and bitter-sweet. Its just like him to slip into my life again just as it spirals. Since that day, the what-ifs
and how-comes steadily thrummed their way past my reason, and a dark thing crept out of me, a wild and
bothersome dark thing, something Id put on hold for too long, something that needs to be set straight.
When Richard pulls into the driveway, he heads straight for the house. Hes dressed in a blue
uniform, white patch on his shirt. I pretend I dont see him; feign surprise when he walks up the hill. One
hand plunges into his pocket, the other fists a can of beer. He smiles, white teeth. I move to hug him, but he
keeps me at a distance, a peck on the lips, my only reward for finding him.
Admittedly, in the bright light cast by the sun, I see that Richard hasnt aged well. Hes still a semi-
handsome man, but far leaner than I remembered from our youth, and far more life-worn than Id noticed in
the dim light months prior. His long, skinny neck boasts mounds of wrinkling skin that reminds me of a
turkey vulture. And hes hairier than I remember nose hair, ear hair, arm hair, and, most certainly,
abundant back hair. The hair on his head, very thick and white, sticks up at all angles, a hazard caused by a
cap, now removed.
Yet, in spite of all the changes, I can still see him as he was when we were young. It is his eyes. He has
remarkably handsome and earnest blue eyes that I want to believe even when I dont. We sit there drinking,
and the silences seem long and awkward until the neighbors come up the hill to say hello. Richard is happy
and talkative with them. When he starts to introduce me, he turns to me and says, Hell. I dont even know
what to call you.
I take him to dinner and pay for our meal, and then, I make haste, eager to finish my drive. Hes
confused and a little angry, but Id purchased enough booze to keep him compliant. As I hurry away from
him, Im sure that Ill never hear from him again.
I stay in a musty motel off the highway, lucky to have found a place and relieved to be alone with my
thoughts. I try hard to ignore the nagging feeling that Id lost the opportunity to understand myself and put a
period on the end of the Richard sentence.

My rentals a cute little studio in a line of twenty-five other studios that once served as an artist
colony. New soft yellow siding and windows accented in white trim brightened number fourteen, my place
for the next seven days. The owners had added a deck, sliding glass door, and a skylight to the original
structure. Some of the units hadnt been updated, and Im glad for the sliding door during this, the heat of
the day.
The owner, a short, chubby man with a receding hairline and glasses explains that Im the only one
in the row who can catch an ocean breeze. I imagine him asleep in the bed that Ill occupy later, and my neck
tenses, but the quaint space is homey, surprisingly outfitted with the smallest kitchen and bathroom that Ive
ever seen outside an R.V. I smell the salt laden air rush through the small space and admire the sea-foam
green and ocean-mist blue on the walls. A poorly mounted swordfish stares blankly toward the far wall,
which boasts several hooks laden with white lacquerfor hanging wet towels and clothing.
Outside, off the deck, the white-sand beach is out-fitted with thick, wooden chairs lined in plump
cushions. I walk toward the ocean, the heat baking my white skin warm.
The bay is almost still; small waves lap the beach like lonely wings beating air, a lullaby. Kites fly
soundlessly over the water, an orange and black running tiger with legs pumping, a navy-blue box-kite, and
a large green and brown turtle with little ones following behind.
The kite-master stands melting on the beach next to a red cooler. He wears a swim-suit, strings
untied, too low on his bare, flabby belly. Hes an older man, amusing to watch, and I guess his age to be late
fifties, early sixties. He raises his hand, calls me neighbor, and I walk the space between our cottages to say
hello. He introduces me to his better half, Marcy. I share mimosas and shrimp with Tom and Marcy on the
beach as the sun disappears, convinced that Ive found the perfect place to think and get some writing done.
Long hours are spent looking out over the green, frothy waves shredding my stress with alcohol.
Tom and Marcy remind me of old hippies because they love swapping stories over a joint. Liberated by the
distance between my home and this place, I speak freely about my troubled life and take an interest in what
they think. I tell them everything, spill my guts.
Marcy says that Im suffering from shock and just need a good rest, some perspective.
They tell me that they were once husband and wife, but only found each another again after the
divorce. Look at us now, they say. We could have saved a lot of heart-ache.
Tom worries about my safety with Richard, thinks Ive stepped in it good. The world is a dangerous
place, he says. And good girls like you need to stay close to home.
I shuddered at the last of this but appreciate his earnest nature. In fact, I enjoy the attention, enclosed
in this bubble of new-found kinship that I somehow trust, and the truth is that Im relieved to be rid of
Richard. I dont answer my phone. He leaves a message about going to a christening for his boss baby on
Saturday night.

I call Richard back on Sunday, have every intention of ridding my conscience of him, but when he
answers, he doesnt really answer. Thinking hes silenced his phone, hes actually hit the wrong button and
made me privy to his conversation. I hear all about the wild party he attended Saturday night. I spend the
next two days happily working on my tan while watching Tom launch kites. I revise and read, even start a
new short story.

Tuesday evening around eight, Richard calls again. I dont answer. When my cell rings at nine-thirty,
I realized that Im going to have to deal with him.
How come you havent answered your phone in two days?
Listen, I say, things were awkward. You seemed angry that I stopped at the house. You have things
to do. I understand. If you dont have time to see me, its really okay, Richard. You dont owe me a damn
thing.
Why would you say that? I dont know why you would say that. I just had things to do. You know I
had to work.
Listen, I say. I did return your call on Sunday, but you already know that. Unfortunately, when
you thought you silenced the phone, you actually answered it, and I heard your entire conversation.
I can almost feel the wheels turning in his head.
What did you hear?
Everything I say, feeling the jilted woman, a ridiculous, but true, emotion. I heard everything
about Saturday night. How you werent working and attended the christening only to have gotten arrested.
Yes, thats true, he says.
Well, what kind of a christening party lasts into the night and has drunk people starting fights
resulting in the arrival of the police? You must think Im a fool, I say. Im glad you were arrested.
I dont have to explain myself to you, he says.
No you dont, I say, but I would have appreciated a little honesty.
More silence.
Hey, Im not angry that you went out I say, Im angry that you lied to me about it. Besides, youre
not the only one having a little fun.
What do you mean?
Well, I went for a walk on the beach and met the nicest fellow, I say.
Yeah?
My mind scrambles for a story before landing on a line from a book of short stories Im reading by
Joan Silber. Yes. He walked right up to me and said, I think I have found the most precious American
flower. Well, naturally I just had to talk to him.
Whos this guy? Wheres he from?
I follow the book. St. Malta, I say. I think thats in France, but Im really not sure.
So youve already stepped in it, he says.
I think I have. A couple of times.
What do you mean?
Well, Ive also met Steven, a painter. Hes asked me to dinner, too. I guess thats what I get for taking
a walk on the beach without a bra.
What?
Well, I guess I must be still perky, if you get my meaning.
Oh, I get your meaning.
Marcus cooked for me.
So thats his name. And whats the other one? Oh, yeah, Steven. I get it, he says. Did you sleep with
him?
If phones still had phone cords, Id be twirling it around my fingers, coiling it the way Im coiling
Richard. Oh, no, Richard. No one that young is ever going to see me nude.
What?
Id say hes in his early thirties. No way is a man that young the one for me.
You did it, didnt you. It was more of a statement than a question.
Id turned the tables in my favor, love twisting him up even though my story is fiction, tit-for-tat. I
promise you, I say, no one but my husband has seen me without clothes in twenty-five years.
I bathe in my triumph. He has nothing to say.
Well, I just dont care.
You must care because youre asking too many questions not to care.
Now, this really made an impact, and he said, Tori, you are a grown woman and if you want to be
with someone, you will. As long as youre having fun, Im glad.
Well, Im glad that youre glad, I say. That is whats important in life, having fun.
The wind had picked up outside, and I carry the phone with me onto the deck to watch the surf break
against the beach. We stay this way a long while, him breathing into the phone, me surfing the waves into
that beautiful horizon darkening before my very eyes. A storm advances; the view softens in the wall of rain.
Is the surf rough? I can hear it, he says.
You could have been here instead of getting arrested.
I wasnt arrested. I was placed in protective custody.
So you pissed someone off, did you? Imagine that. Richard, were you fighting over a woman, or
what?
Carmella had already left before I got there.
Carmella was the ex-girlfriend. I soak this in, not quite jealous, but more like angry that he blew me
off after Id come all that way. That didnt stop you from causing a fight over her, I say. Hes still a rough
and raw man, and for some reason, this makes him more attractive to me.
Oh my God. You are maddening.
Yes, I am, I say.
Well, Im coming down on Thursday. And youd better tell Marcus and Steven to shove off.
Well, come on down then, I say, unsure of whether Ill let him come or not. For the moment, Im
enjoying the game. Richard never wants anything unless he thinks he cant have it, but I know just how to
work him to make him feel special, make him feel like hes worked hard.
Ill call you tomorrow, he says. Will you answer?
Ill be here, I say.

Wednesday comes, and I wake to the sound of gulls and surf, a sweet warm symphony of dreamy
sound. Sunlight beams through the crack between the shade and glass, the window beside the bed, and I
bathe in a brilliant spray of light that warms my face. I twist in the sheets; my skin, a crunchy, burnt mass
threatening to slough. I make a mental note to lather up with some Gold Bond after my shower, but first, I
need coffee.
I open my eyes and remember the night before, let it creep into my mind like mist over calm seas.
Richard thinks a lot of himself; this is obvious. Why do I want to go there with him?
I dial my husband. My daughter has flown the coop, the typical loose cannon. My hopes had been
that shed step in when I stepped out, but it isnt going well. My husband bucked up under the circumstance
and took some time off from work.
Well lose our jobs if we keep depending on her, I say.
I know thats what its coming to.
The bus has already left the station, I say. Its long past time to give her the ultimatum, and you
know it. I wont do it anymore. Not even for her. I just wont. Craig. If you dont make her leave, Im not
going to stay. There, I said it. I dont think there is any other way.
I know that. I can feel that. I need more time, Tori. Give me until the fall, until you start teaching.
Shell leave the kids with us if she goes, I say.
Thats for the best, he says.
How will we pull it off?
Daycare, he says.
And when theyre sick? What then?
Its my turn to do it.
I dont fully believe him, but there is some hope. Hes always traveled with work; the luxury of a
home office, a new development. Craig has resigned himself to a life of sacrifice. Craig has given himself
over to our daughters will, and I had pushed him to go there.
Do it, I say, a desperate and selfish thing to say. Make her go. I think thats the only way to make
her realize what she is losing.
Youll give me until fall?
I breathe into the phone. Two more months is little to give after twenty-five years, but Im afraid not
to tow the hard line. I wont promise any more than Ill think about it, I say. I need to see some progress,
some change, before I get back. She doesnt respect me anymore, Craig. I say no you say maybe, and
maybe always wins. It has to come from you this time.
Agreed, he says.
He sounds so happy and relieved that it makes me tear. I can imagine him sitting there, chin set and
his chest puffed, earnestly ready to do what needs to be done. This man loves me unlike anything Ive ever
known. Hes promised to help me to get Tess in line, and we will go on with our lives as if nothing like this
had ever happened. But deep in my core, I know things are not that easy, and I cry again for the loss of the
way things should have been. I miss him, the way we were before this. I miss the grandkids. I want my life
back the way its supposed to be: me and Craig and weekend visits with the grandchildren. I want Tess back,
for her to be a mother to her children, and in the next moment, I want to strangle her. We are a mess. I am a
mess. Ive always been a mess.
A storm blows into the bay and brings thunder, lightning, and some soaking rain. It looks worse on
radar than it actually is, but in the midst of running to close the windows and doors and stripping the linens
on the bed that had gotten damp, my cell rings. When I have the situation under control, I check my missed
calls, and sure enough, it was Richard. I sit in the darkened space watching the remnants of the storm
through the sliding glass door; the birds return from wherever they go during bad weather. I hear
emergency vehicles in the distance. I hope nothing is serious. I decide to wait and see if he calls back.
At eight thirty, he does just that. He asks about the weather, and if I was worried through it. Hes calm
and controlled; none of the Richard Id argued with is left in him. The storm left a sky filled with purples and
pinks, and as the clouds clear and the fog lifts, the most glorious calm fills me. Richard wants every detail,
seems nervous and sweet. He has me on speaker and his ninety-six year old neighbor, Al, flirts with me.
Before the call ends, I weakly agree he should drive down Thursday afternoon.
Its late, but I cant sleep. I turn on the television, my cottage one of the only ones equipped with
cable, and watch one of those haunted places shows. Its creepyabout girls in old schools terrorized by
spirits roaming the halls. I flip the television off and stare out into the dark, imagining a dark shadow
through the screen door, then the closet, then the bathroom door. Something creaks in the wind.
Someone wears a head-lamp and scours the beach, pawing through the dunes at the edge of my
rental. I lie still; worry that if I move, the figure will know Ive seen him. It is a man, about the same size as
Tom. Is that where Tom keeps his weed? I turn on the light, determined to scare the man away from the
back of my cottage. I watch him skitter before I close the slider, turn the lock and pull the curtain.
Closed in the little space, I begin to examine every physical flaw, my peeling face in the mirror, the
end of my nose almost bleeding. I convince myself that tops with extra material in the front will help hide
my pooch-belly. From a side view, cellulite creeps under my buttocks and my arms flab next to saggy
breasts. Dear God, what am I doing? Im a fifty-six year old woman trying to be single and thirty. I doubt if
Richards stressing like this, and I dont know why I suddenly care so much what Richard thinks. I want to
call it off but know its too late. I decide to get tipsy before he arrivestake the edge off. I tell myself that Id
made no promises, that he can be turned away just as easily as the fictitious Marcus.

Richard arrives late Thursday afternoon. The music blaresAdeleand Im out by the water
watching a lone seal bobbing in the calm bay. Someone once told me that seals in the bay means that sharks
are close behind.
I feel him on the beach, a shadow behind me. I turn and force a smile, wave before heading up to the
cottage. He stands on the deck, bowed-legs locked and reeling from toe to heel as he takes me in. Hes
grinning, dimples and sharp chin melting my reservations. A beer, popped and cold, already in his hand, he
pulls long and hard before jumping from the deck. His socks and shoes are already a memory. I slowly
advance; awkward trunk legs plunging through the sugar-sand; its far too late to turn back now.
Out of breath and heart pounding, Im the one who holds him at a distance this time. I turn my head
and allow a peck on my cheek, smile when he searches my eyes for meaning.
How was the drive down?
Long, he says. I just hope it was worth the effort.
And whats that supposed to mean?
Ah, nothing. He takes another long pull from his beer.
I follow his eyes. A young girl plays with her brother at the edge of the surf. Shes around twelve
years old, all brown skinny legs and teeth. She jumps when her brother splashes, and Richard chuckles. So,
wheres Marcus and Steven? Richard asks.
Ive lost my center and Im feeling foolish. Gone, I whisper. All things are a lie.
Better be gone, he says, bravado spilling from his jutting chest like some cartoon character. His eyes
move from top to bottom; the girl, oblivious to him watching her bends and picks up a white shell.
Why do they do that? Richard asks.
What?
Collect the shells. Hes smiling, eyes riveted on the child, and I swear he is shaking. He licks his lips
and takes a long drink from his can, holds it on his tongue before swallowing. Shes so small, he says.
I study him, hungry eyes devouring the young girl, and I instantly know everything I need to know
about Richard, what was real about us then, when I was fourteen, and I feel like a tunnel has opened
beneath me, sucking me into a sickening pit. He gloats, openly leering at the child in front of me, and I
desperately want to go back to a thought, a what-if. I think of his daughter, his sister my childhood
friendand I am determined to protect this child, call him out for what I know that he is.
What are you looking at? I say. My voice is loud.
He starts with the sharpness in my voice, but is reluctant to drag his eyes from the girl.
My heart beats loud in my ears. I want to know what you find so very interesting there, I say.
Our eyes meet, and I am sure that hes aware that I know his secret. I am certain that I understand
what I was to him thirty years ago, and I feel conditioned and defiled all over again, like a nave, hairless,
rail-legged fourteen year old. The last mystery in my troubled life is known to me, and Im in awe that it took
these thirty years before I got it. Every guy that I dated before twenty was probably a pedophile.
I think youve become accustomed to being around stupid women, I say, disgusted that Im to be
included in this group.
His face opens, surprised. I walk away, certain that hell run and anxious to make him another bad
memory.
Instead, Richard dismisses me by showering in the rental, and I cannot imagine being in the cottage
as he does this. I spend the time drowning my fevered thoughts in alcohol. I walk circles around the cottage;
his car, a faded, black 97 Corolla has a space-saver tire on the rear right side. Inside, between the front and
back seats, empty Miller Light cans are openly displayed for any passer-by. He is drunk, and so am I, but I
am not afraid. I decide to let him continue drinking and make him leave in the morning.
Dinner is non-existent. He cant drive, and thanks to my sudden binge, I cant either. He passes out
sprawled on top of a picnic table on Tom and Marcys lot, between the cottage and ocean. I leave him there.
He stumbles in and lands in a heap on the futon around five in the morning.
*
Richard sleeps until eleven. Im on the beach with Tom and Marcy when he comes weaving out of
the sliding glass door. Tom passes me a joint on the sly, and I take it. You going to be okay? He asks. Hes
looking Richard over, shakes his head.
I really dont know, I say.
Just stay here for a minute, he says. Let him take a swim and shake it off.
Marcy places a protective hand on my arm, and we watch Richard slide toward the surf, crack
sneaking out from his unbuttoned trousers like an ancient, hairy spider slipping out from a thirty year hiding
hole. Richard drops his pants; dives in. I hide my red face in my hands, and reluctantly, I move to intervene,
to stop the embarrassing display. Marcy pets my arm, keeps me there.
You cant stay in there with him, she says. He isnt who you remember him to be. Can you see that
now?
Im thinking that young Tori had somehow infiltrated Tess, rubbed off on her in this destructive way.
Or perhaps its old and confused Tori. Either way, a therapist would delight in our dysfunctional dilemma.
Its all up to me to heal this painful sore, to set the example, to demonstrate what it is to be a mature and
thoughtful woman and know what the word courage describes. But Tom beats me to it.
Ive got this, he says.
Tom stands, all six feet five of him, and our eyes lock. I look away before he walks down the beach,
giving him permission to take the lead. He corners Richard in the surf, now throat-deep to Toms shoulder in
the water. Richards head snaps in my direction before Tom hauls him out by the arm, and I know that
Richards figured me out now, too. Richard, looking like a scolded teenager, takes it when Tom stuffs his
pants roughly into his gut. I marvel about the kindness of these strangers, and I hide my shame behind dark
sunglasses.
*
Alone, Im locked in my cottage as the sun sets over the bay. My phone rings. Its Richard, and I dont
answer. He slurs, says something intelligible that he thinks passes as a message. The only clear word sounds
like cunt.
Throughout the rest of the night, I think intensely about home, the security found in the chaos I live
there. I allow my mind to turn to Craig, the realization that hes my rock, the only man that is real, the only
man that has ever truly loved me.
The truth is that my husband has always been kind to a fault. He gives a person rope, lots of room to
reveal who and what they are about, and hed given that rope to me this time.
As I hurdle toward home, I pray for the first time in the long and angry years since Tess failed
marriage, before she fell off the end of the world. Im praying that its not too late for us; Im hoping that Im
strong enough to get all of us to the other side of this suffering. I yearn for Craig. I yearn for Tess and the
boys. I yearn for home.



Katherine Forbes Riley



IT COMES IN THREES

After Anna rode her bike down a hill with no hands and hit a parked car and knocked out her tooth,
she crawled under the car and picked it up. It had horns and was almost as long as her thumb. She went
knocking on doors until two old ladies let her in. They took the tooth and stuck it in a glass of milk. They
stuck her in a chair by the door with the glass in her hand and she wondered if it would fall or she would.
Her mother and sister sounded like birds coming up to the screen. They drove to Aunt Elizabeths office and
she gave Anna a Valium and she gave Celia one too. She put Anna in the dental chair and tilted it flat and
strapped a mask over her nose and told her to breathe normally. She put Celia and Christa to work sponging
away the blood while she picked the asphalt from Annas chin and put her tooth back in. It should have hurt
but it didnt because Anna was riding a fast train. It was all tunnels and air and when it whistled Aunt
Elizabeth turned up the gas.

*

On the first day of eighth grade the scab on Annas chin was the size of a quarter. It was craggy and
mountainous and purplish-black. She said she wasnt going to school but Celia said oh yes you are so she
put foundation on it and it ended up craggy and mountainous and purplish-black crusted with tan. All day
she covered it with her thumb and pointer, seeking rifts in its valleys and cliffs. In Home Ec she had to use
her hands but Gunnar, her partner, didnt notice it. He was too busy singing the same song over and over,
and by the end of the period she had memorized it too.
Fall 2014
(One lonely beastie I be, all by myself without nobody) She sang it walking between classes with two
fingers on her chin even after the scab fell off, because it left a scar, like a stain, purple with black specks that
were bits of asphalt still trapped beneath the newly puckered skin. She sang it before class while the other
kids clustered around the desks, and afterwards while the clusters reformed and drifted out the door. If it
had been seventh grade she would have clustered with Tammy and Jenny. After school they would have
rode the bus to Swissvale and scurried in a tight trio past the Rottweiler that broke its fence a little more each
time. They would have crowded on Jennys bed in a circle, backs to fronts, secreting tiny friendship braids in
each others hair, wrapping the ends tight with colorful string. But over the summer they wrote her a letter,
signed by both with the same loopy y, saying they didnt want to be her friend anymore. Thats when she
rode down the hill with no hands and hit the parked car.

*

My brother loves that song, Marissa said one day, swiveling in her seat, and Anna quickly brought
her fingers to her chin. Do you know all the words? Marissa asked, and Anna nodded, lightly squeezing. I
know all the words to Greatest Love of All. Do you know that one? Anna nodded again. Everybody knew that
one. Marissa began to sing it softly with her long black eyes half-closed.
Pretty Marissa. She wasnt smart but no one in the whole school was nicer. You couldnt think of her
long though without thinking of Jane, who wasnt pretty or nice but was very smart. Jane and Marissa. They
were like puzzle pieces, fitting perfectly. Even their names fitted perfectly, like peanut butter and jelly, like
sun shine. They lived in Edgewood, like Anna did, and she often saw them when she was going somewhere.
They walked with their bodies turned together, as if they were the only ones in the world.
Marissa walked with Anna to lunch that day. She waited politely while Anna got chocolate milk and
a frozen strawberry clair and then smiled when they reached the table she shared with Jane. But Jane didnt
smile, so Anna skipped a few chairs before putting down her tray, to let them know she wasnt sitting with
them if they didnt want her to be. She propped up her book like a border line and finished it between bites
of clair. The other girls didnt talk but they ate their lunches in unison, first their triangulated sandwiches,
then their cut up fruit and finally their homemade cookies, and afterwards Jane took out her own book and
Marissa flipped through a Seventeen magazine. The book was O Pioneers! and it had a barn on the cover and
F Ca on the spine, which meant it came from the adult fiction section of the library, where Anna got her
books too, or had until her bike accident, when she hadnt wanted to leave the house and so had to start
reading the books she found in her mother and sisters rooms.
What are you reading, Anna? Janes eyes were narrowed, accusing; shed caught Anna looking.
Annas gaze shifted quickly downward, bouncing off Janes protrusive nose and downy black mustache
before landing back on her own book. It was a lot thicker than Janes, with The Valley of Horses boldly written
in blue and a tall tanned woman facing mountains with a spear in her hand. Her body was strategically
draped in furs and golden hair fell in waves down her back.
Jane returned the book to Anna a few days later. They didnt talk about it, not the slow rollercoaster
certain passages had set off low in Annas belly, nor the way her eyes had stuck to words like cleft and
member, but Anna kept handing off her books to Jane as she finished themClan of the Cave Bear, Mists of
Avalon, Fear of Flyingand their tacit mutual knowledge created a gravity around the lunch table that held
her firmly in its orbit, until Jane called one evening and said, Im not allowed to borrow any more books
from you. She sounded as if she'd been crying. She said her mother wanted to talk to Annas mother and
Annas heart beat like a trapped bird the whole time. But Celia barely said a word on the phone and when
she got off she just laughed and called Jane's mother a book burner.
Anna was a nervous wreck wondering where to sit the next day, but when she got to the lunchroom
Jane wasnt even there. Marissa said she was sick. She said a lot of things that day. She talked about the new
Whitney Houston video shed seen and the dances she knew how to do and she showed Anna her pink and
black jelly bracelets up close. At the end of lunch she gave Anna one of each color and asked if she wanted to
come over after school.
Her room was bright and airy, with a life-size poster of Whitney Houston on one wall and a tall thin
mirror on another. Are you allowed to wear makeup yet? Jane isnt, she said. I am, said Anna, and then
blushed the whole time Marissa was putting it on her because she stood so close and Anna could smell her, a
warm yeasty smell that made her want to inhale. Marissa rubbed at the scar on Annas chin to get the dirt off
until Anna explained, and then she covered it up with concealer. Now it looks like a chin dimple, she
laughed. It looks just like mine. She did her own makeup and when she stepped back they gazed upon
themselves and they were beautiful. She put on Whitney and they danced and sang with their mouths wide
and trembling and their heads tilted back just like hers.
(Oh I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebo-ody!) After that Anna went to
Marissas house every Wednesday when Jane had violin, and she sat with them every day at lunch despite
what Janes eyes communicated. Then in January Jane had a sleepover birthday party. She invited Marissa
and Anna and another girl named Kathy from her violin group. When Anna arrived she wasnt late but it
seemed like the other girls had been there a while because they were already halfway through a pizza and a
game of Clue. Anna had to sit and watch, and whenever Kathy got up for more pizza or Coke she offered
Jane and Marissa some but not Anna. And when they watched Back to the Future Jane and Kathy flanked
Marissa and took up the whole couch so Anna had to sit on the floor. And at bedtime they all ran for the
bathroom and when Anna tried to get in Kathy snapped, Theres not enough room! Her bright eyes were
the last thing Anna saw before the door slammed shut on her finger. It didnt hurt; it just felt hot, but the
girls on the other side screamed, and when they opened it again the first knuckle of her middle finger was
hanging down the side. Janes dad put it back, like a hat, and drove her to the emergency room. Celia came in
just as the doctor was pulling the last black stitch tight and he had to drop Annas hand to catch her because
she fainted. Thats when it started to hurt. The pill he gave Anna kept her awake all night and the one he
gave Celia made her so sleepy Christa had to drive them home.

*

When the stitches came out, Annas middle finger was crooked. Everything above the first knuckle
always stayed bent. Christa said it looked awful. Celia said something about plastic surgery later and let
Anna get contact lenses a year early. Anna learned to keep it hidden, tucked behind the adjacent fingers or
folded down onto her palm. But sometimes she messed with it under her desk, trying to get it to go straight
or at least to not get any more crooked, which it felt like it was wanting to do. Thats what she was doing
when a folded paper triangle hit her desk. Let it grow and paint it red!!! the note said. It wasnt signed but
after class Danielle stopped beside her desk and said, Like, wouldnt that be the best fuck you ever?
Danielle was the hottest girl in ninth grade. She was also one of the smartest but pretended not to be.
She was the only girl with a dyed blonde perm and huge breasts. She wore full makeup every day, including
liquid foundation with a powder finish that she touched up at the start of every class. Anna rode the
Swissvale bus home with her after school. She used three different keys to unlock the door and said they had
to be quiet because her dad was asleep. The living room smelled of stale smoke and spilled beer and there
were ashtrays on every flat surface overflowing with cigarette butts. The kitchen table was a card table and it
was littered with dog racing forms. Anna sat on one of the two folding chairs and watched Danielle with a
furtive intensity that grew bold because she didnt seem to mind. Danielle did everything with her fingers
splayed, protecting her fingernails. She heated oil and poured circles of batter from a bottle and flipped. She
slid a perfect stack of pancakes onto each plate and then sat opposite Anna and started buttering hers, a
lengthy process involving one fat pat in the middle of each cake and four more around the circumference.
Next each cake got its own heavy spiral of syrup, and finally the whole stack was carefully cut into triangles.
Only then did she eat, inserting bites between her teeth with her lips retracted to protect her lipstick, which
immediately upon finishing, she reapplied, Anna again acquiring every microscopic detail: the spread lips,
the pucker, the massage, the stray frosted flakes pulled off with two red fingernails.
Her room was plastered with posters of Robert Smith. Chalk-white skin, bloody leer, pitch-black
explosion of hair; his eyes glittered like dead things from every wall. Once her door was locked she lit a
cigarette and turned her boom box on low and they sat on the floor with their heads near the speakers while
she painted first Annas nails and then her own with two fresh coats of cherry red. The mingling of music
and menthol and polish vapor with the aftertaste of syrup and dough made Anna feel sick, but in a good
way, like medicine.
(Show me show me show me how you do that trick, the one that makes me scream, she said) Sometimes Gina
came along. Gina had big breasts and lived with her dad too. Anna wasnt sure but thought her mother
might be dead. Danielle treated them both the same but Anna still liked it better when she and Danielle
were alone. The best thing about when Gina came was that she and Anna would walk back to Edgewood
together afterwards. It took forty-five minutes and there was a gas station where a pack of older boys hung
out and called things that made Annas face burn, like pussy and cunt. They split up behind the
elementary school, but first theyd sit on the wall behind the playground and smoke. The first time they did
it, Gina said, I dont like menthols, and took out a pack of red Marlboros. Celia and Christa smoked white
Marlboros. Anna took one and felt each sensation sink into her bones: the tug of the pack, the weight and
spice on her lips, the grind and flare of the lighter, the sudden invasion of smoke. When the head rush hit,
sitting on that wall in the evening sun with Gina felt almost as good as being with Danielle.
Danielle went to her mothers up in Youngstown for Christmas break, and when she came back she
didnt eat pancakes anymore. She ate four bananas and four Oreos and four glasses of milk a day, plus a
quarter bottle of Nyquil at night so she could sleep through the hunger pangs. And she wanted to join the
cheerleading squad. Itll be a blast, she said, but Anna wasnt so sure. She didnt have big breasts and didnt
know if she could memorize the moves or perform them in front of a crowd, but since Danielle and Gina
didnt seem worried, she didnt say this out loud.
After the first practice, Anna got tongue-kissed. His name was Richie and he was the kicker and he
did it as a favor to Danielle. His eyes were fixed on Danielles chest as she stood on tiptoe and whispered it in
his ear, but he nodded dutifully and led Anna behind the bleachers. When he bent his head she tilted hers to
the leftbeing left-handed, it was instinctand they crashed noses. She apologized but he just took hold of
her jaw and tilted it the right way. He plumbed her mouth with soft darts of his tongue and felt for her
breasts with his free hand. She stood perfectly still, hoping he found them.
(Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day) Three weeks later, Danielle decided to quit
cheerleading. Anna, blissed out by the unexpected release, invited her over after school. She spent the rest of
the day worrying that Danielle would be bored, but in fact she was as excited as a child exploring the
sprawling old house, the living room and dining room and piano room and kitchen, the stained glass
balcony and the secret staircase and the dumbwaiter; they even went down to the basement and poked
around a little. When they got to Celias room she disappeared inside the walk-in closet and came out again
clutching a pill bottle. Your mom hides percs under her sweaters! she said. She asked if Anna had anything
to drink with them and laughed when Anna showed her what was in the fridge. She found a bottle of vodka
in the dining room cabinet and they snuck it up to the attic under her sweater so Christa wouldnt see. It took
five shots before she said she felt it. Anna didnt know if she felt it until she tried to stand. Awareness after
that came in strobes and flashes: something hot in her mouth, something wet on her head, Christa coming
in, Danielle leaving, her frosted lips whispering, Tell her youre sick. Anna didnt remember the hospital at
all, but the search for a vein turned her forearm black for a week. Celia said they did it on purpose. They
knew you were drunk right away. They looked at me like I was such an asshole, Anna!
(Youre delicious, screaming, slack-jawed, green-eyed, rub my nose in icing sugar) She was grounded for a
month, stuck at home with Christa smirking and Celia yelling at her for anything and nothing. She holed up
in her room with her headphones on, pretending she was still at Danielles. Since no one knew shed quit
cheerleading, she went there every day after school, although this was less of an escape than a desperation
move because a distance had sprung up between them. All Danielle and Gina talked about was the
upcoming REM concert, to which Anna, being grounded, couldnt go. She was desperate to go, was
possessed by it, but it was Danielle who finally came up with the idea. For a week Anna made herself Celias
personal slave, fetching her diet Cokes, finding her cigarettes, rubbing her feet while Christa looked on
quizzically, and then begged to be allowed to cheerlead a fictitious Saturday night away game. It worked.
Celia said Anna had to be home by ten oclock, but Danielle said just say the game had run over, or the bus
needed gas, or thered been traffic; all that mattered was that she could go. And when at the last minute Celia
got suspicious and decided she wanted to talk to another parent, Danielle convinced her dad to lie. She told
him Annas dad knew the truth and her mom was just being a bitch about it, and somehow she knew this
would resonate so closely with his own experience that hed agree to do it.
If the concert had started on time. If they'd remembered where their car was parked in the pitch black
madness of the stadium parking lot. If the nameless faceless guys who drove them there hadn't been drunk
before the concert started and totally wasted by the end. Anna had crammed with Danielle and Gina in the
back of their beat up heap and stood in the cold crush of their bodies breathing Iron City fumes with an arm
around her shoulder and a hand groping for her breast, but once Michael Stipe started singing she forgot
them all, even Danielle.
(I am, I am, I am Superman) She held onto the flying feeling all the way home; it fed her in little pulses
even after she found out the time. Surely, she told herself, Celia would be asleep, and she could sneak in and
later say the game had run over and the bus had stopped for gas and thered been heavy traffic too.
But Celia was waiting on the front steps. The car caught her stone face in its headlights while it was
still two houses away. Oh shit, someone said, and the car jerked to a halt and then took off again as soon as
Anna was out, with a screech of tires that would have been comical in other circumstances.
The coal of Celias cigarette crackled and flared, and for an instant in the wheeling dark Annas fear
of her was nothing compared to her craving for a cigarette. Then Celia exhaled. "I called your friends dad
back, she said, and fear towered and fell, heavy waves crashing and unfurling as Anna imagined what their
conversation must have been. Forget cheerleading. Forget friends. You're grounded forever. Her cigarette
sparked and tumbled in the street as her body receded, large against the night, and the fact that she still
somehow didnt know Anna had quit cheerleading seemed ludicrous in the face of her fury.
Inside even Christa looked scared. Anna moved to go upstairs immediately but Celia made her sit in
the living room while she detailed her punishment: No phone, no TV, no leaving the house except for school
and there will be chores, dishes and laundry and you will scrub the floors and change the sheets, you will do
everything I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. She was thinking it up on the fly, sunk in the couch
twirling her hair through her knuckles like a torturer spinning his instruments, and each time a new penalty
struck she would grind out her cigarette and light another with pleasure fierce and in equal measure to that
which she imagined Anna having experienced through the act of humiliating her. You must really think Im
an asshole! she kept shouting, and Anna couldnt tell her what her hope had truly been because in that
moment her mother would have enjoyed crushing itif it wasnt already dead, or as good as dead, for how
could anything survive this? Her spirit crouched in the small space left to it taking the fading pulse of her
hearts desire, and when finally dismissed, she trudged upstairs, vaguely surprised she still propelled her
own legs. Leave it open! Celia shouted as she reached her bedroom door. From now on you don't have any
privacy!
Long after the house fell silent Anna slipped from her room. The mirrored door above the sink
opened with a creak and she paused for a full minute before taking hold of the Tylenol bottle and sprinting
with it back to her room. Silently, by infinitesimal degrees, she closed her door and locked it. With a sense of
wrested liberty, of careening freefall, she put a handful of pills in her mouth and chewed.
She woke with a start and a terrible weakness in her limbs. Her mother was banging on the door, her
voice sounding harsher than the night before, as if her anger had spent the night fomenting in her dreams.
Anna didn't think she could get out of bed, but slowly she rose, and dressed, nausea making her whole body
tremble so that it took multiple tries to get anything on. As soon as she heard her mother and sister go
downstairs she staggered to the bathroom and threw up. There was nothing in her stomach except twisting
threads of saliva flecked with white; still, the urge to gag kept coming, and she stayed there until her mother
came looking.
Down the stairs she slipped, and left the house by the kitchen door, a single thought repeating
(hurry). Inside the garage she searched the shelves (hurry up), heedless of the mess she made, wasting
precious minutes before finding a length of rope. She stood on an old milk crate, tied one end to the rafters
and the other around her neck.
Anna! called Celia, slamming out the door. "What the fuck are you up to now?
Anna saw her coming through the high windows and jumped.

*

The summer before tenth grade, Celia bought the building in Squirrel Hill that housed her art
gallery, and they moved into one of the apartments above it with her boyfriend. Anna didnt want to. It
wasnt the boyfriend part or the switching schools part she minded as much as the moving part. She couldnt
imagine being without her old Victorian house, as if its many rooms and secret spaces contained her in some
vital way. They were at Aunt Elizabeths office getting their teeth cleaned when Celia broke the news. She
told Christa too, but Christa didnt act surprised, and neither did Aunt Elizabeth. So Anna knew at once how
serious it was. With a terrible sense of already knowing the answer she asked about the dogs.
Theyll go live with other families, Celia said. Out in the country somewhere.
Aunt Elizabeth nodded. Theyll love it out there.
Theyd hate that apartment, Christa added, but she didnt sound like she cared. She was starting
college in a week.
Ill tell you what, Celia said quickly. Well get you a kitten.
Anna pictured deep woods and rambling lanes until Christa, home for winter break, let slip that Celia
had really just taken the dogs to the pound. And even then she imagined Muffin adopted; he was so cute and
friendly. But Taffy was the ugly one with the gimpy leg who nipped sometimes. She had shown up in the
backyard one day when Anna still had the bandage around her neck, and late at night in her new bedroom
Anna imagined her waiting out the whole month in her cage before getting the needle. Just one, Anna
wished shed said, and the scar that encircled her throat like a necklace pulsed with the certainty that she
could have won that much if shed tried. Just Taffy, she should have said, because shes the one who will
die otherwise.
Anna named her new kitten Mephisto. The first day she brought him home she snapped a leash to
his collar and tried to walk him up Aylesboro Street. But he alternately froze and bolted so she picked him
up and stuck him inside her coat. Her goal was the benches, a small concrete park on the corner of Forbes
and Murray Avenues where the local kids hung out and mostly ignored each other. Music surrounded it like
a force field, punk songs trickling from a boom box so low you couldnt hear it from the sidewalk. It was a
place she could sit awhile and feel herself emitting a certain cachet because no one knew her. But that day
Mephisto betrayed her, struggling under her coat like a pounding heart, forcing his nose through her collar
to sniff the air with frantic breaths.
After his trip to the benches, Mephisto took to living in Annas closet. She bought him an alarm clock
and set it ticking under a soft towel. Shed lie on the floor and put her hand inside while she did her
homework. When she went to another room shed pull him out and drape him over her shoulder. He liked it
up there, would purr and flex his claws so she barely had to hold him. She never took him to the benches
again but she continued to go herself. If no kids were hanging out shed continue on, past Paul Mitchells
Hair Salon where the dryers hulked like head shrinkers, past West Coast Video with the poster of Jodi
Fosters moth-covered mouth, past Baskin and Robbins and Bagel Land and Gulliftys, all the way to Eat n
Park. There were always kids at Eat n Park, crowding the booths in fours and sixes, and sometimes seeing
them in the window was enough. Other times shed go in and order a Coke, and knowing they were
watching made each step to the counter feel like space travel. Shed stare at the sugar granules on the
muffins under glass until they grew to the size of boulders and then walk back out with a sense of almost
bursting, eyes locked, cheeks hot, lips on the straw like red balloons.
Once, in the early darkness of winter, someone followed her. She looked behind and looked behind
but was halfway home before she recognized him in the illumination of a red light. It was the kid who was
always there, hanging around with one group or another, but never settling for long. Sometimes he got into
fights, rapid verbal uprisings followed by a flurry of blows, over so fast it wasnt clear whod won. Sometimes
he stood by himself with his hands in the pockets of his black trench coat and sang in a soft falsetto. He was
dark-haired and white-skinned and there were always a few botched pimples standing out like bite marks
amidst the stubble and the pale. He was skinny and kind of short and he held his eyes wide open like they
were full.
(I'm not a woman, I'm not a man, I am something that you'll never understand) After that night if she
walked past Eat n Park and Sean was in the window he would bang on the glass. It scared her the first time
and made her mad the second time and the third time she turned and glared and he grinned and beckoned
for her to come in.
She ordered food first, for a shield and a reason; she bought a chocolate shake and French fries, and
as soon as she sat down he started eating them. Pretending not to notice and not sure if she cared, she took
one for herself and dipped it in her shake.
There were three other kids in the booth. Brittany, the girl, was next to Anna. She went to Annas old
school, had been a prep when Anna last saw her but had cut her hair since then. It was buzzed on the sides
now and long on the top and dyed white. Gross! she said, and made a gagging motion. How can you eat
that?
Trigger-quick Sean leaned over the table and pulled the neck of her turtleneck up over her face.
Now you look like a zit, he said. Youre a dick, Brittany said, pulling it down, but she smiled as she said it
like she knew she was pretty no matter what he did, and Anna realized in a rush that made her blush that
Sean made her feel pretty too. This made him seem cute, cuter than his friends, who were actually a whole
lot cuter than him. Neil, on his left, was tall and lean, with the most beautiful nose Anna had ever seen. Lou,
on his right, had deer eyes and soft shaggy brown hair falling into them.
They sat for an hour affecting carelessness, drinking coffee and smoking, putting out their butts in
the smears of ketchup on Annas tray. Neil drummed constantly, in polyrhythm, each hand beating a
different pattern on the table while his feet kept time underneath. Sean said Neil and Lou were in a hardcore
band together; he said the three of them went to CAPA, the magnet school for the arts, but was vague about
what his own art was. When Anna asked he answered with a song lyric, as if it said it better than he could.
Then he said he was going to be kicked out anyway, had already been kicked out of Annas new school.
(Here lies the future our parents envisioned, here lies the future our parents envisioned) When Sean said they
should go get a bottle and chill somewhere, Brittany put her cigarettes away. Sounds great, she said, rolling
her eyes, but I already have plans. On the way out she asked Anna if she could call for a ride from her
house. She carried a backpack with her track clothes in it, said she ran from Edgewood every Friday. After
that she started running to Annas house, and theyd walk to the benches together. She never wanted to go
off with Sean and his friends, called them losers when they asked and aped their stuporous expressions
when they returned. The guys would just laugh, blowing smoke at the sky, but the pleasure she took in being
cruel made Anna not like her very much. In truth, Brittany didnt seem to like Anna much either. Her best
friend went to St. Lucys, a private school in Squirrel Hill, and after a while she started coming to the
benches on Fridays too. Now all three sat together and smoked and flirted without seeming to, and Brittany
and Leora sometimes played a game of sorts, picking out random people to deride and guffawing at each
others cracks like raucous crows. Because Anna never laughed they mostly left her alone, but had no mercy
for anyone else. Once, right in front of Sean and his friends, Brittany made a joke about Leoras breath
smelling like shit and then Leora made a joke about Brittanys lower lips being so loose they flapped when
she walked.
Physically the three girls set each other in sharp relief. Leora was the most noticeable, being six feet
tall. She wore a leather jacket and combat boots and was always smiling. Her long brown hair was tinted red,
her nose was prominent with a convex bridge, and her top lip was wide and full. If Leora was fire, Brittany
was ice. She had a runners body and a face like a china doll, with big blue eyes, a tiny nose, and a rosebud
mouth that, unless it was laughing, never smiled. Next to them, Anna was earth. She was archaeology, with
her scar necklace and crooked finger and dirty chin and the sun-bright dreadlocks threading her hair, their
ends still wrapped in faded bits of string.
Socially too, they were distinct. Anna was the quiet one, and though both Brittany and Leora were
voluble, only Leora was demonstrative. She would run her fingers through Brittanys hair and suck the
fleshy tip of Annas nose. She would sing Van Morrison at the top of her lungs as they walked to the benches.
(We were born before the wind, also younger than the sun) She wouldnt go off with Sean and his friends either
but she brought her own whiskey in a hip flask. She and Anna would pass it back and forth until it was
empty and then shed sing them home again. (And it stoned me to my soul) Sometimes she brought a skinny
joint and theyd smoke it hanging out of Annas bedroom window, furtive until they forgot why they were
supposed to be. Brittany would watch them do it with small eyes, malevolent until they sobered up a little.
Then theyd tiptoe into Annas kitchen and toast English muffins piled high with cheese, and back in her
room theyd stay awake until dawn cracking up in explosive bursts they muffled in their pillows. Not that
they were likely to wake Celia. Her boyfriend had broken up with her shortly after they moved to Squirrel
Hill, and on weekends she stayed downstairs in the gallery until late talking it over with her girlfriends.
When she came upstairs shed go straight to bed without even brushing her teeth and nothing woke her.
Weeknights, when it was just the two of them, shed draw Anna into her room with alcohol-laced entreaties.
I miss Christa so much, shed start, and soon shed be weeping, Everyone could see he never loved me,
and then Anna would have to convince that he did, and if the logic didnt make any sense it didnt matter,
because all Celia wanted to do was invoke him.
They seemed an unlikely circle of three, and this disparateness united them. But as the months went
by, Brittany and Leora grew bored of Squirrel Hill. They sat the benches like royalty now, tossing around the
idea of other places, other people, and no longer bothered to maintain the delicate balance of attraction and
rebuff that kept them for so long from being seen as a promise that never delivered.
Dont be pussies, Sean said one night when they rose to go. Dont go home yet. Its barely ten
oclock.
Mrowr, said Brittany. Do you even have a home to go to?
He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his black trench coat and said, My dads dead and my
mom doesnt care what I do.
His words pulled a cord, and Anna stumbled forward a step. We could stay, she said. My mom
wont know.
Brittany and Leora swiveled as if they shared a single brain. Leora widened her eyes and shook her
head. Dont be stupid, Anna, Brittany said.
We could stay, Anna repeated. She swallowed. If you wanted to.
Brittany cocked her head like a bird, her eyes going hard and shiny at the implied challenge. Thats a
pretty necklace, Anna, she said. Maybe we should all get one.
Leora laughed, a single chortle, before covering her mouth with her hand.

Sean handed Anna a tiny square of paper. Put the sugar on your tongue, he sang. They walked until
the night filled with color and their bodies grew wings and then they flew. They flew inside a throbbing
room (I never thought too hard on dying before) and then Sean was kissing her (I never licked the side of dying
before) and Neil was too (of what it is what it is what it is what it is what it is what it is to be a man) and she
thought about One and she thought about Three and there was no difference between them because
numbers had no meaning anymore.


END



Josepha Gutelius



Revenge

She was sitting in the armchair by the window, someone hed never told me about, her voice ebbing
out of my bedroom and then returning when I opened my eyes, her nurses whites so perfectly crisp she
looked made of stone. She was here to nurse me, but I think she was mostly here to have someone to
complain to. She was complaining about him as if that was exactly what I had asked her to do. A succession
of words selfish-lying-inconsiderate -- and my thoughts lagged behind. She wore a silver chain similar to the
one he had given me, a delicate thing that I had ripped off my neck and thrown to the ground. But why,
where, when had I done this? There were no specifics I could remember. Her very presence belittled the
reality of him. Champagne, rapture, tender looks: trite memories, generalities anyone could recall. But his
face? His face was for some reason replaced in my mind by a large potted fern. I couldnt remember any
particular conversation with him either, just some soft hissing between us. But sometime in a puffball of
anger I had slammed the bathroom door. Why? And he had pounded on the door so loudly or I had done
something so embarrassing we could never show our faces in that hotel again.
A bastard on the run -- she kept saying that, so I assumed he must have left her. But then again he
also traveled a lot -- I never quite knew why, and apparently she didnt either. The few times we managed to
Fall 2014
be together, I never had the chance to pry into his life, or perhaps the real reason was, I didnt want to
muddy our lovemaking with too much reality. I had questions that I supposed she could have answered but
nothing mattered now, except that she stayed. She was a professional, she wasnt afraid of contagion. Her
hand was parked on my forehead, Wow, youre still so hot. Her eyes, more angry than friendly, shifted
around my body, as if she were looking for missing parts, or perhaps for some emotional payoff. In my not-
yet-conscious state I didnt wonder what her intentions were. If I got better, I was going to tell her how
wrong she was about him, how lucky she was to have him. I would set things right. Or I wouldnt say a thing,
and excuse my silence as a lapse of illness, more an omission than a secret. This was my weakness: If Id had
the strength, I would have told her to shut up.
It couldnt have been pleasant for her to sit by my filthy body. I was getting smaller, rotting and
dissolving into the bed. And my memories of him? Rotting and dissolving, too. You know things are getting
bad when your memories actually stink. She was torturing me with her complaints about him and I couldnt
help but get more and more delirious, disoriented. Dehydration and hunger made me euphoric. Every
breath I took felt like a milestone. I was in bed, I wasnt going anywhere, and yet I felt the thrilling
dislocation of traveling, the same torture, the same tedium, as if Id spent hours on my feet, plodding
through miles of a foreign city. I needed a sip of liquid, a scrap of food. My simple requests, which she
refused. No, no, no, whats the point? Youll just vomit it up. I was feverish, I felt as if my skin was flaking off
my bones. I discovered I liked begging -- please just a lick -- and with great fanfare she gave me a shot glass
filled with a chunky ice cube. The room turned gray toward evening, yet her face gleamed -- proof to me that
she could surpass the ordinary. After she left, I felt as if Id pissed in my pants. My body truly stank. But I felt
worse being alone, sure I was dying, and I longed to hear anyones voice, even hers.
She was good and faithful, came every day. But a sign I was getting better: one morning I managed to
make tea for myself before she came. I took a shower and put fresh sheets on my bed. I opened the front
door before she could slip her key into the lock. Surprise: Youre up? But are you sure youre not overdoing
it? She pouted in disappointment, Dont rush things, you could get a relapse. We lingered by the door. It
couldnt have been later than eight in the morning, but already it felt like the end of a very long day for me. I
couldnt wait to crawl back into my bed. I didnt invite her into the house. She said I looked almost-healthy,
and I said she looked unearthly, and she laughed. We both laughed. Loud enough, that we caught the
attention of my neighbor who was getting into his pickup and gave us a friendly wave, which seemed to
remind her: Oh, your key! And that settled it, she gave me back my house key: She wouldnt be coming
anymore. We watched my neighbor drive down the street, and I noticed both of us were shifting from foot to
foot, almost in unison, as if we were gearing up to walk together somewhere. At that moment I wished so
much to do that, to walk with her somewhere, and talk. But the next moment I couldnt wait for her to leave.
My feelings for him were still a work in progress, so whatever I had planned to spill -- a heartfelt confession,
an apology -- were stuck like odd bits in my throat. If I studied those odd bits in any literal way, this was
what I would see (and actually all that was left of him to recall): a jaw sitting awkwardly in a face; a gentle
hand prepared to thrust and gauge. Images she would have undoubtedly been pleased to hear about.

END



John Lowther




Everybody masturbates.
We circle terminally through language believing in the commonality of feeling
words, as we touch.
I'll hurt you if you stay.
Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some
pretty good questions.
Learn to think with pain.
Eventually the body intrusively tires from fatigue and drags down the thinker's
suspended flesh.
They kiss passionately.
They've left behind their trivial, selfish lives, and they've been reborn with a
greater purpose.
Is this your compromise.
Fall 2014

Oh.
There is an unremitting emphasis on fluidity, ber-inclusivity,
indeterminacy, indefinability, unknowability, the preposterous,
impossibility, unthinkability, unintelligibility, meaninglessness
and that which is unrepresentable or uncommunicable.
Cute stuff is cute.
One falls back, paradoxically, on the omnipotence of language:
since nothing assures language, I will regard it as the sole
and final assurance: I shall no longer believe in
interpretation.
I am a hundred percent man and I love quiche.

Language should be an ever-developing procedure and not an isolated occurrence.
An elegant blob of romantic orange hung between the clouds.
Identify the grass type then diagnose the lawn disease.

We take our sustenance through the mouth, we communicate vocally through the
mouth, we share intimate messages through the mouth.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.
These charcoal formulations range from extra soft to hard.
Put her on a drag strip and she'll leave serious rubber.


No more cops, no more work, no more bosses, no more money, no
more politics, no more sacrifices, no more wasted time, no
more mommies, no more religions, no more boredom, no
more orders, no more bad jokes, no more of this shit.
So haute.
It's just that with all the charting, testing, timing, checking for cervix
location, doing mucus stretch test, taking temps, peeing on
sticks, calendaring, taking pills, getting poked with needles
has really made sex feel like a chore rather than an
enjoyable experience for me.
Go figure.


It is a bet.
It is indifferent in motive, originating in no psychology nor in dramatic
intentions, nor in literary or pictorial purposes.
It is not addictive and tolerance usually does not develop.
It is as much a body thing, a presence thing, as conscious intellection.
It is a logical set of creative practices.
It is explosively euphoric, but can also be the source of potentially fatal
infections.
It won't be too cerebral or annoying or weird.
It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical
arrangement.


Jeremy Biles



On the Genealogy of Scruples


Some stark hearkening unreminisced
In repent,
None virile, none viral, none elemental
Not kissing, missing
This satyric froth of ________ and sin.

.

Upsurge of birds from the flow-hole
In earth,
Now vortex, now arrow, now ligament
Transecting, transcribing
A regurgitant out-casing of caste and castigant.

.

This something, this what?, this X
In the face,
Nixing not a thing, negating nothing
Bodying, triple X-ing
My smashed axis of dirty circuits.


Fall 2014


Idiotechtonics


With your nose buried deep in the farcical end of an odalisque heap
With disembalmed berries pluming in shrubbery hostaged by day
With your ownmost cockshit tangled in rant before the suns belligerent throb
With rodents begetting in the scruff of your twixt-up lap
With every zipper and every bit of kitten a pinion for the lesser hives
With meats furling for ultimacy
With masticants echoing from the insinuations of your scalp
With a tenebrous host availing no past
With the tads of the shore breaching the shell of the deep
With surfaces tweezed for crass atonement
With a stare that ravels the cosmic plexus
With no single swath pervious to the consummate whole
With a thread deeply inviscerated by the left hand of this or that madonna
With jugular mongrels brewing the toxin, secreting the veil, magistrating the trespass
With polar winds happily dilapidating in a post-Nietzschean craze
With political thimbles smelted in kinky jags of sleep
With the flatulence of a minx severing angels from ideas
With your solitude blasted by the incontinence of the absolute
With phalanxes of impersonal gore gathered into electrical tumescence
With your fucked butt the color of every origin
With the silicone telos of a threat gripped by the sunken stones of your mouth
With mystic hydraulics cloning the fester in your noggin
With sirens astounding your fingers, and fingers breaking the noon of nights pace
With the throttle of your spinal gest contracting map to aperture
With anal rhythms stabbing at the crab-happy slivers of the faraway
With minuscular licks sending dribbles to the raw coinage of her bust
With divers serpents dejected from your hyphenated eye
With an impulverating arc straitened by the quest
So shall you plant this stake in the heart of your fated days.



Jennifer Lesh


Desire is a Funny Child


I have come to the age where making lasting friendships is not my objective. Now, finding
someone that does not annoy me or offend me long enough to have a cocktail with is my prerogative. Susan
falls somewhere in between. I tolerate her enough to have a drink with her. The best friend days are over for
me. I have plenty of old friends that I keep in touch with on Facebook or the occasional text message, and
some even call me on my birthday.
Now when I go out I dont expect much. I dont think I am going to have the time of my life. Instead, I
hope that I will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome. I have started to identify with Pothos, the god of
unfulfilled desire, the son of Zephyros (the west wind) and Iris (the rainbow). Oh, sweet variegated passions
of love! I am drunk, and when I am drunk I muse on the Greek gods of love and desire. Its a strange group. I
find myself at times wishing I were Pothoes, who caroused with the winged gods, Eros and Himeros. They
fluttered around the heels of Aphrodite. I know I cant really be Pothoes because I am a woman, but I guess
one can say he is my alter ego. He represents perfectly the recent state I have found myself in, after another
heartbreak. I sound jaded. I am, and I believe that is what happens when you reach a certain agenothing
really excites me anymore. I go with the flow hoping, sometimes praying, that something amazing will
happen to me.
The Greek gods knew how to deal with the idea of being smitten with someone- disguising it with the
ribbons of naughty thoughts and wanton affections. I like to use the old fashioned word smitten, which
reminds me of my grandmothers generation when boys and girls were smitten by each other. When boys
and girls dressed up to impress the opposite sex, not to get laid, but to play the game of love, and have a night
Fall 2014
on the town for the fun of it, nothing more. It was just for the fun of it. I like to think that cocktails were
mixed to inspire conversation and to loosen the tongue, not the libido. I was doing this at the party. I was
having an intoxicating conversation with a younger man from South Africa; he could easily be described as
an Eros with his blonde locks, and well-toned body. I was smitten with him and he with me. I liked his look,
and he was interested in mine. We knew nothing of each other and that was the magical part of the whole
exchange. Maybe what was so magical about it was that we were both drunk, and that was what made the
conversation so interesting. And yet, does it really matter what provoked or inspired the general interest in
each other? What felt good was the idea of being desired by someone who I also desired- isnt that the real
Aphrodisiac! And yet, somewhere in the crowd lurked the Erotes, playing havoc, for I was pulled away from
the good-looking South-African of Dutch decent, and whisked away by my friend to meet this supposed
Zeus of a man that had cast some spell upon her that she was so betook with desire that she had to leave the
party at 9:30 to meet him at a bistro across town, because it was convenient for him.
What does this guy do? I ask, popping an olive in my mouth. The first olive is for life. To life. I say to
myself. A life well-lived full of lust and beauty, sweet talk, and flattery, weddings and wedding songs,
yearning and desire, and all those lustful feelings that captivate the soul, and make for a fun life.
Susan stares off in the direction of the doorway. It has begun to snow.
He is a surgeon.
What sort of surgeon? I ask, taking a sip of my drink.
I dont know, Susan says, looking toward the door
My god, that would have been the first thing I would have asked. I say, thinking to myself that Susan really
is a strange one.
I take another sip of my drink and listen to Susan go on about how this surgeon is originally from Iran,
and that his family fled to Canada before the Iranian revolution. His mother is French- Swiss, which is why
they went to Montreal and not somewhere in the United States. The story does not make a lot of sense to
me, and the way that Susan is describing it leaves a lot of gaps in the story telling. But in a way it is not
important of where he came from or how he came to live and work in the United States. We all have our
history, and some of it, is really unimportant.
Yet, I wonder how a French- Swiss woman married an Iranian. I become more intrigued but also
judgmental. A Persian, I think, with a little French-Swiss sprinkled on top. He probably speaks with a sexy
French accent, and looks the part of being Hedylogos, the god of sweet talk and flattery. Oulala, I say, this
one could be a catch, a Rock Hudson minus the gay part, an Alexander the Great, also minus the gay part.
My heart is all a flutter.
How old is he? I ask, pulling the second olive off the toothpick with my front teeth. This one is for luck I
say to myself as I chew it slowly. You know, to get lucky, to have a bit of luck in the game of love, maybe
this French-Persian will come with a sexy Eros of a man, and luck will have her way with me. I will bat my
eyes. I will be the personification of persuasion and seduction.
Oh, I dont know, Susan says, taking a quick sip of her water, I think around fifty.
You dont know much about this guy, I say, thinking that Susan is really out of her league with this guy.
Where did you meet him? I hope not on Match.com?
He came to one of my art shows; you know the one I had with Kate and Marie
Yeah, I know the two women she is referring to; the deranged painter that goes around dressed as a fairy,
and the half-wit of a poet who thinks the end of the world is coming tomorrow. Just throw in a writer who
muses about Greek gods when she is drunk, and it is a happy wedding party.
When was this? I ask.
Last week.
And he is just getting around to asking you out now?
He just got back into town.
Oh, right.
He has a house here in the village, and he comes back every two weeks from Arizona.
Sounds like he is some big shot surgeon.
He bought two of my bowls, Susan says, taking a quick swig of her water.
A real spender.
I wonder what this surgeon must look like to be interested in Susan. He must be odd, because Susan does
not attract surgeon types, not so much for her looks, but mostly because of her personality. Susan attracts the
types that are homeless, jobless, or psychopathic. Her last guy was the local mechanic. There has to be
something not quite right with this guy, especially considering that he asked Susan out on New Years Eve,
which really is not a date because I am with her. And yet I cant say much about myself because I am alone
on New Years Eve. Loneliness has a way of bringing the strange in all of us out, and at the oddest of times. I
consider it a type of cancer that eats away not at bone and flesh, but the soul. It is a soul disease. I feel it now,
creeping and engulfing me.
Where is he? I am starting to feel the cocktail take hold of my inner being. I am starting to feel a bit
melancholy.
I dont know, maybe I should text him, Susan says, quickly looking at the door.
You should really order a drink. You keep looking at the door as if this guy is your white knight coming to
rescue you from the boredom of your life.
Please dont be a bitch all night.
Sorry, that was not nice, I will try to keep my thoughts to myself, but I wonder if this guy is gay?
Before Susan can answer me, the surgeon is walking through the door, bringing with him the cold. I
shiver. Despite his good looks in the Mediterranean sense, there is something odd about him. He is no Zeus.
He is a Pan, disguised in a Sheepskin, in order to hide his hairy black goat form.
I take a slow sip of my martini, and watch the introductions unfold in front of me. The problem is that
Susan is overzealous, and surgeon is reserved with his greeting. There is an awkward hug, and then the
mumbles Hi. The mans gay. I feel it. Just look at him in his tailored camel colored slacks, and crisp
checkered blue polo shirt and dark blue sports jacket. He is too manicured to be straight, and he is too
attractive to really be interested in Susan. That is, unless, he is into women that look like little boys. That has
to be the attraction.
He leans down to shake my hand. I notice that his right eye droops. I wonder if he has had a stroke. Or
maybe he has a fake eye. I had a friend back in high school that lost her eye in a car accident. She had a fake
blue eye and used to pop it out in class to freak us all out. She had a lot of scarring around her eye socket.
This surgeon has no scarring. In fact, his skin looks perfect. He has no real wrinkles, and he has a bit of a
glow to his face. I bet he just got a facial today.
I bet this Pan is musing to himself right now, whether he wants to fuck Susan or not. He wants
something easy and quick, which is why he chose this evening to ask her out. There is nothing wrong with a
curiosity fuck. He is fuck-able, tall, dark and handsome, but again, something is off. He is sexy with his salt
and peppered hair cut above his ears. I can tell it was once jet-black, but of course with his heritage, his olive
skin makes him appear to be a bit romantic. But, I dont think he has a romantic inkling in him. But, then he
orders Champagne! Oh, Pan, I see through your bags of tricks. I, of course, say this to myself. My head is
spinning.
I down my drink, and slowly take the last olive from the toothpick with my fingertips, for lust. The
lust that comes from desire, grabs your soul, shakes you inner being, makes you crazy, out of control, drunk
texting, and in the morning, you pull the covers over your head and wish you were dead.
I like to think that my grandmothers generation was not so desperatethat things were done with a
bit of class. Doors were held open, and men picked up the checks because that is what men did, and women
played the part of looking pretty while crossing their legs and dragging on a Camel cigarette before the fear
of lung cancer made everyone stop smoking, because it no longer looked sexy. I want a cigarette. I didnt
care that he is a thoracic surgeon, some big shot surgeon from Houston, revered in his profession. I
overheard this bit of information when Susan asked him what sort of surgeon he is. It was again awkward in
delivery, like an interrogation, but at least she got the information. Knowing, what sort of Surgeon he is, says
a lot about him. I mean, if he was an orthopedic surgeon who only operates on old people, that would be
plain dull and very unsexy.
How is it that your mother, a French-Swiss, married an Iranian? I cant help but ask this; I find it
very important. I find it interesting how two very different people, from extreme cultural backgrounds
married and had children.
He smiles at me, showing off very white teeth. I think he probably has had them bleached just like he
gets his fingertips manicured. I notice these small details with people. The man gets a manicure, he uses
some high-end facial cream, and he cuts into people.
Before he can answer me, the Champagne arrives. He clears his voice, and makes a toast. To new friends!
He clinks my glass, and then Susans. I look him straight in the eye, and cant help wonder what happened
to his right eye. It has to be a fake. I just know it because of the way his right side droops and his right eye
socket waters. I cant help wondering what it feels like to only see the world with one eye. Is he only seeing
half the side of a person, half the side of a situation, or maybe it is more like a third eye? Where is he able to
really focus, and see everything for what is real?
I study him as he ignores my question and turns to Susan. He probably thinks I am strange as well. I
have been told that I am intrusive with my questions. I realize that I should have kept that question to
myself, but really how the hell did his parents fall in love? I imagine his father is a real Persian, tall and sexy
that fell for a blonde-haired buxom French-Swiss woman. I bet the love making was hot and passionate.
And yet, this man is so reserved.
He does have a nice head of hair. I could see why Susan is smitten with him. He has nice hands as
well, rough to the touch, but nicely formed. I have a thing for hands. I dont like Susans hands. They are too
small and dainty. I look down at my own hands. I have working hands despite my manicure. My hands are
starting to look old. I have a couple of brown-spots, and they are starting to get wrinkled.
After a glass of champagne Susan becomes more animated than usual. She is dressed in a black
pants suit, which elongates her small frame. She even put on a bit of make-up and, for once, brushed her
straw hair. She is not a pretty woman, her features are plain and unmentionable, but tonight with three of
us drinking it brings a blush to her cheeks. She looks cute, almost doll-like.
I try to concentrate on the conversation. Its all a bit ostensible, the conversation and the clinking of
champagne glasses; three strangers coming together to celebrate a new year. I glance at the surgeon. I want
to find purity within the whole farce. He smiles over at me.
It is a friendly smile. I smile back but then it hits me, he wants to go home with both of us. He was not
here for Susan; he is here for a bit of strange. He is not gay; he is a Peacock! A Pan, who wants a bit of
entertainment, he wants to watch two girls get it on, and masturbate like Pan did in the forest while he
watches his nymphs play with each other.
It is a sense, a feeling, and now it all makes sense. That is why he invited both of us, instead of taking my
friend out alone. He thought Susan was gay with her boyish looks, which is why he asked her to bring a
friend. I excuse myself from the table and make my way to the bathroom. What have I gotten myself into? I
have no desire to sleep with Susan or to sleep with the surgeon.
I wish I had gone home with the South African, but going off with the younger man would have done
nothing to revive me. My numbness is my shield at the moment. A romp in the sack with a total stranger was
not going to permeate me, heal me or even delight me. Desire is a funny child. Like the wind, it comes and
goes caressing at my arms and face, and whispers in my ear that all will be all right, but laughs at me when it
decides to leave, playing havoc with my emotions, even though I knew that the one I desired was no good for
me, devoid of true intimacy. But still my body yearns for his touch; even if my body knows it will be short
lived. I want that touch again. Regardless, I will not cry I say, as I flush the toilet, smooth down my skirt, and
powder my nose. I return to the table to find Susan sitting alone.
Did he leave? I ask.
No, he went to the bathroom. Listen, before he comes back Ive got to tell you something.
Yeah, I know already he wants to have a threesome.
How the hell did you know that? Susan whispered.
A feeling, I say, taking the last sip of Champagne.
He wants us to go back to his place and have night cap.
Fine, lets do it but I am not sleeping with you.
Susan laughs, which is strange to me but I laugh too, and then the Surgeon returns, looks us both up and
down, Shall we? he asks.
**
No one is going to fall in love tonight. No one is going to totally give themselves to the other. Falling in
love is not a possibility. I wonder, as I watch him get in his car, how many times has he been in love? I no
longer feel as if I am capable of ever losing myself to another, not after the last mishap. Besides, does it really
matter at my age? Falling in love seems so remote to me now that I feel my numbness is my true love; a love
that will not subject me to the phlegmatic disputes that occur after a man grows tired of my body.
We follow him down the road to his house. I need to pee and I am no longer tipsy. But I am going with the
flow, hoping that something enchanting will happen. Hoping this man will surprise us both and something
magical will happen. I close my eyes. It is 11:30, and I will bring in the New Year with strangers.
His house is a hacienda; the rooms are huge and cold. He makes a fire in the living room. I do not remove
my coat. I pull it closer around me and take a seat next to the fire. He is meticulous when placing the logs in
the fireplace. Susan takes a seat in between us, and he brings us both a shot of brandy. I sip mine slowly,
letting it warm the back of my throat.
Susan smiles over at the surgeon. Its a child-like smile, innocent at that moment, when there is pause in
the conversation. What is she up to? Does she think she is some Nymph? Here to enchant? My mood has
grown sour. Susan is going on about her travel to Italy. She is rushing along in her speech. She is
engaging in a serious conversation too quickly. I listen to Susan go on about how she became an artist. I am
bored with the whole conversation. What does it matter? Does she really think the surgeon cares that she
tromped all over Italy by herself? Does she really believe he will remember her tomorrow? Does it really
matter if some stranger remembers you tomorrow?
I do not want my recent breakup to make me bitter about love. I want to remember the finer points of the
romance, how he brought me coffee in bed in the morning, how we spoke of the trips we would take
together, the sex. But my body was not enough, my mind was not enough. I had asked him,do you
fundamentally like me? and he had answered Yes, but there is something about you that I am not sure
about. I knew it was over then and there, that he had met someone else. I thought younger, prettier, more
interesting. I was wrong. He met someone older with two children, and a house in the suburbs. He moved in
with her. I see him occasionally on the road. I flip him off. I know it is childish, but the pain at times is
unbearable. The rejection is suffocating at times that my disease of loneliness takes a toll on me, and all I
want to do is sleep. At least in my dream state I am a fairy. I am a nymph and a goddess with winged gods,
fluttering at my heels.
Let me take your coat. I hand the surgeon my coat. He takes it and hangs it up for me. He is very careful,
again meticulous in his movements. There is something staged about him, like he has played this game
before. Susan is still talking, asking questions about his house. He pours some more brandy in my glass.
Yesterday I had called my ex-lover and asked him once again why he had left me for another. He said
he didnt want to get into it again. He was tired of explaining himself. It was over, and I had to move on. And
finally as if he was tearing off his own bandage, he confessed that he saw no future with me. This new
woman comforts him, and he wants to be with her. Is it so simple, so easy that at one moment you are
laughing and sharing secrets with each other, and loving on each other, and the next moment you no longer
want to be in the same room with each other? The platitude of the whole situation make me sick, a sickness
that I wear like an old scarf around my neck, trying so hard to breathe in the essence of something magical
only to find that it only stinks of years of perspiration. Now all I have is my pillow, which smells of my
sickness, and this makes me very sad
Susan with her small hands rambles on, and the surgeon is starting to lose a bit of interest in her.
The conversation has gotten too serious, too soon. I want to interject something funny but my lips are numb.
I want to shout to Susan to stop the serious talk, and just flirt. Flirtation is essential; to have a serious
conversation, one has to start off with a frivolous one, like flirting before fucking; like fucking before the
confessions of love. I know like all women in a given situation, Susan wants this man to perceive her as more
than a fuck. But the script has already been written and we are just players, hoping that the ending will be
more romantic than the set up. Romance, I want to shout, by throwing my drink in the fire, is all an
illusion, it is all a farce. Love is strapped with needless demands. I look at Susan now, the fire has died
down, and suddenly I feel giddy. I want the surgeon to romance my friend, to court her, to make love to her,
to appreciate her quirky disposition. I want my friend to have a night of passion, to let go of her fixed set of
rules of how a conversation should proceed, and how a man should perform. I want my friend to feel
charmed, like I was with my last lover, the one whose breath upon my neck sent me into a reverie. I want my
friend to feel complete with herself as she lies beside this surgeon after a night of passion. I want her to feel
comfort.
I fall asleep in the chair, I awake in the morning, and find someone has taken off my shoes, and
thrown a blanket over me. I am cold and hung over. The surgeon is seated in front of me. He is showered and
shaved. My parents met in Geneva at the university. He says, crossing his legs. He is handsome, I think, as
I blink myself awake.
How do you take your coffee? he asks, getting up.
I wonder how he kisses, and again I wonder if he has ever been in love.



Holly Hunt


Poly-Webbous


My Uncle Will came in the fabric store today, where I work as a fabric cutter. He was wheezing away, taking in
shorter and shorter gasps, with his face growing deeper shades of scarlet until I thought his head was turning into a
purple beet. I can see that the emphysema which definitely killed him 25 years ago is almost getting him down
again.
It was either his spirit returning to the flesh, or an old crusty much like him, in his late seventies, leaning over my
counter where I measure and whack.
He needed exactly eight yards of three-inch wide polyester webbing and had to pause to catch more breath to tell
me what for. Sometimes they dont say much, but I can figure it out.
Sometimes they need silk shantung for a bridal train that is already going down the drain after the short trip
down the aisle. You can see it in the bride's mothers face as she attempts to hide her regret, because her beautiful,
post-adolescent darling girl has fallen for a borderline personality cracked from non-reversible childhood trauma. I
cannot help but see how the mother cannot help but see. Even as she buys yards of spendy stuff rustling in her
daughters hands, the mother can already read the divorce papers. She casts about one of those nearly hopeful
glances. Shes pretending not to know, while swallowing something terrible, pretending it doesnt taste like
penicillin.
My Uncle Will type says, I got a brand new old Chrysler. A classic. I need some wide polyester webbing to
hold on the mountain bikes! I nearly dropped my shears. Chrysler? Of course. Uncle Will never drove any other
make. For a second I remember that even the disciples didnt recognize Jesus when he first appeared to them after
the cross. Its always up to us believers to connect the dots.
Fall 2014
Sure enough, in six days, the old guy will head out toward the Grand Tetons. This stranger (not?) will strap on
the bicycles with his fourteen-year-old grandson riding shotgun.
When I get home at 6:30 p.m., the front door is unlocked. How weird. It saves me the usual struggle to pull the
key from the nether-regions of my handbag. But before I step over the threshold, I have a feeling that my entering
on this evening is coming too easily.
And that is when I spot him, my clever darling, lounging out there, through the patio French doors, sprawled in
his terry bathrobe. Might he be sick? He is smoking a Kool and toying with a half-empty glass of wine. What
happened to his work day? Tooth-ache? Car trouble?
I manage to walk through an invisible river, a current that rushes me toward the patio door faster than I'd
rather be carried. I glide across the carpet that feels about a thousand years thick with invisible, stupid cockleburs,
the kind of stupid that might bring genius, the kind that once caught proverbially in the dog's fur and thus brought
about the invention of life-saving Velcro to the Western World.
And when I cross that interior terrain, I reach the ocean of misconceptions which this man has traveled over to
become himself. This one, who sings in the shower and barks joyfully while cooking, is suddenly too quiet.
He says, in barely audible, songless words: "Sit down. I have something I need to say."
I feel the universe tilt in a slightly peculiar direction.
And so he begins, then, to kind of walk on glass, careful not to spill all of his guts too fast, confessing that he
snorted cocaine earlier, thus breaking his promise long kept to himself and to me, and that he partied with other
users. He coughs out words, merely cryptic, of his fresh betrayal and deception, and I perceive that it is followed by
a scant one-quarter yard of guilty silence. He cuts the hushed moment short with a plushy thought about what I
might wish for, the life I want, and how he so deeply regrets his failure, blah-blah-blah.
I dont know what to say to this fiberfill. Am I the mouse before the open-mouthed snake? But then I realize the
man has maybe one-quarter of an inch of an idea about what I wish for, even from him. And just like that, the
invisible snake backs away from me. It is much too full, anyhow, of some big something it has already eaten. If its
belly would pop open right now from having gobbled so much, why would I not be able to grieve? For I certainly
would not.
Instead, I think of the old man like Uncle Will, his purchase, eight yards of webbing. Him strapping on two
mountain bikes to his brand new vintage Chrysler tuna boat. My disappointment vanishes. I thank God for
polyester webbing.
I do not really care how my enrobed patio potato has slipped. Or how it is that my moderately guilt-ridden
partner will always be recovering from his old addiction, with his totally smoked down cigarette and dab of merlot.
Certainly we are not as chipper as we were this morning. But not yet casualties of that nearsightedness that
fails to see a bridge is missing straight ahead. So I look at where the bridge should be, just a few feet away. I am
secure and bound not to go there because of a stranger or a ghost and his practical need for eight yards of polyester
webbing.
I also realize it may not work for anybody but Uncle Will and me. I cant possibly make myself care more. I try
to care more, but I amaze myself with a sudden inability. My partner is sulking three feet away from me, dangling
from a precipice, or on the colder side of Pluto, and I am relieved by that distance.



Helen Park


Gnats at Tiger Uncles Funeral


The incessant armies of gnats that swam around our heads in drunken joy reminded me of the buzzards one
notes in the sky on occasion. Garbed in the thick black fabric of mourning, we resembled in a way the darkly-
feathered vultures when they stand hunched over on the road sides. We raised one arm, and then the other, in
the air like wings to try and fend off these gnats without success. Instead of attuning to the gravity of this
momenta funeral serviceand respecting the solemn grieving of the departeds family, I honed in on the way
all the females black heels sank into the cemetery soil with every step; eventually, they took off their shining
pumps and allowed them to swing back and forth upon their fingers. I felt the heat of the June afternoon sun
scoring all of our skin and being absorbed without mercy by our suffocating and sober outfits. My skin will be
completely burned, I thought to myself, as my eyes tracked the minute gestures and sounds of the others
sniffling and wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. The one who died: my fathers childhood friend, someone
he had known for over three decades as children in Seoul, Korea, as teens in Northeast United States; as adults,
as husbands and as parents. The body was already sealed inside an above-ground grave of beige marble: a
clean-cut storage-cum-monument that gleamed in the sunlight. A section within this stone facility was left open
and empty for family and friends to put away objects of remembrance before it too was sealed up like the body.
As I watched the sealing of the personal objects (a handkerchief, some family photographs, a ceramic flask and
two cups for drinking sake), I finally came down from coldly observing these acts, the ritual, to participating in
the mourning. I felt a sharp sadness at the finality of the sealing and the paltriness of his personal objects in
defining and memorializing who this person was. I was brought to a somber place, but only at the tail end of the
service, and not without much inner tension because of who he was.
Fall 2014

Although this person was a dear friend of my fathers, I only had a handful of memories of this person and all of
them repugnant. In my mind, he was scary, imposing, cruel, narcissistic, misogynistic and an alcoholic. As a
child, if I didnt bow low enough to greet or farewell him, or end a response with the deferential and fear-
inducing term, Tiger Uncle, he would yell at me while grabbing hold of my chin. He would make me look
into his widened, feline eyes until I repeated exactly what he wanted me to. Tiger Uncle was proud of his
booming, growling voice that whipped in the air and struck his target without fail. He took full advantage of his
roar by pressuring my gentle, abstinent father to drink whatever he was guzzling and by mocking my timidity in
his presence. There was a continual cloud of cigarette smoke and stench around him morning, noon and night.
He yelled at his wife. His fists would hit the table, unsettling the china, while he berated her about the rightness
of his opinions over hers, or about what was being served for dinner. His spit would arc and sprinkle onto her
lowered face. No one commented on his abuse. We all allowed it to happen. As a six year old, that unnamable
feeling I now know to be ominousness hung upon me shroud-like every time we visited Tiger Uncles house.
My parents would relate to me how I would uncontrollably shiver in the backseat of our family van as we drove
to upstate New York. I remember telling myself that this time its going to happen: he will corner me in the
shadow, raise his hand and smite me out. If he was the Old Testament wrath manifest, my father was the New
Testament promise manifest, and I could never fathom why they remained such close friends.

This is the history with which I came upon the funeral, bearing the appropriate degree of outward solemnity but
no more. I greeted and hugged the widow and the departeds mother, and stood behind them while others shared
stories. When Tiger Uncles sister stood up hesitantly to share a memory, she did not step up to the podium, but
rather stood self-consciously a few feet away from it, small hands clasped in front of her. She straddled the
uneven cemetery grass as though on a rickety rowboat, not able to evenly distribute her weight on both legs. As
she began the story, you could see she was fighting to hold back tears, her small but plump mouth quivering like
a tulip in a tornado. It was a funny story, to celebrate her brothers vivacity and love for family. After getting a
c-section, sometimes she was not able to make it in time to the bathroom. One day, she narrated, she failed to
get to the toilet in time to pee, and her urine made a squiggly line on the hallway floor. Her husband did not
want to clean it up. Her brother, though, bent down and wiped up all her urine without hesitation. She began to
laugh and cry at the same time, thanking her brother for being there for her always, through everything. As she
returned to her seat, I tried with all my might to imagine the Tiger Uncle of my memories bending down to the
floor and cleaning up someones urine. I couldnt.

My fathers younger brother also came up to the podium and talked about how voraciously his dear friend read;
he consumed historical novels on Korea, Japan and the
West, and was not only able to speak on the nuances of these countries pasts and characters, but also on the
philosophical lines of thought that traced the development of these geographies. My uncle praised Tiger Uncle
for inspiring in him the same tried and true bibliophilia and love of history. I already knew my uncle to be an
intellectual bookworm, with his floor to ceiling shelves crammed to the teeth with literature. I was a born
bibliophile as well and had always admired my uncle for his steadfast reading discipline, articulateness and
knowledge. The fact that he admired Tiger Uncle for the same qualities, for being the role model for his love of
reading and knowledge, was the second stone to thud menacingly at my feet. I could not picture Tiger Uncle in
the character described so fondly by my uncle, no matter how deeply I dug into my memory bank.

When my fathers friend was diagnosed with the final stage of lung cancer, and with a one to two month
prognosis, my father, grandmother and aunt drove up to New York to see him. The doctor had told them that
there were no treatment options at this point. Tiger Uncle spent two weeks in the hospital, then moved into a
hospice, and then died after another two weeks. My father was present when he died in the hospice. At the
cemetery grounds, listening to these memories of this person shared with such humor and love, I attempted to
see him in all his human frailty: in danger of being swallowed up by the hospice bed, a transparent oxygen tube
running in and out of him like an invasive ivy, his obstinacy in the face of his dying. But instead of willing this
image to till some
compassion in my heart, I realized with terror that all I wanted was to hear how much his voice must have
degraded along with his health. A musty corner inside of me relished imagining his voice on the death bed, to
get such a confirmation of his mortality, and the knowing that he knows of it. Because nothing speaks more to
ones decline, ones nearness to the dark, than ones voice. You hear it, Tiger Uncle? Do you hear the
brokenness of yourself in your cracked, dusted voice, in your hacking and throttled whispers? Listen to your
mortality, and confront the consequence of your forty years of smoking, and through that, the falsehood of your
invincibility. And as I roared at his burning soul in my head, while standing there slightly stooped in black on
the patchy cemetery soil, I came upon the realization that I was the vulturea creature scavenging on a lifeless
body with malignant joybecause Tiger Uncle still had the same control over me. It was a terrible realization,
something that filled my ribcage with ice; what did this mean about my own character? About the depth and
longevity of my disdain for another human being?

There was a forceful feeling of imbalance that played out in my heart while I gazed at the handkerchief,
photographs, and sake flask and cups huddled inside their own tomb. On the one hand lay my fear and derision
for this man, and the wish to force him to pay his just due by remembering him as was mirrored in my
memories: a mean and mocking drunk who abused his wife. I felt a responsibility to continue remembering him
this way since everyone else looked upon his legacy in such well-lit terms. On the other hand, my sorrow and
empathy for the dead, and the moral imperative to say goodbye with compassion would not brush aside his
faults, but rather acknowledge his humanity. And
on the other, other hand, the death of anyone affects sorrowor, should. Death makes one acknowledge the
vulnerability of even the meanest of individuals; in other words, we
all are mice being toyed in the same set of scaled claws. I stood there, hunched, brooding over my ugliness and
the conflicting obligations that swarmed inside of me. And I couldnt come to a conclusion.

We continued to sweat through our black clothes, a crowd of somber vultures, talons gripping the cemetery
field, circling the widow and mother in silence. Before I knew it, we were done. The women trotted back to the
pavement with bare feet, re-fastening sharp narrow pumps to their soles. We returned to our air-conditioned
cars, took off suit jackets and cardigans and shoesthe sunlight reflecting off white, ironed undershirts and
tank tops. The funeral reception was at a Korean barbeque restaurant nearby. There we congregated, with slices
of pork belly sizzling on a table top grill and individual pots of white rice sweating next to our bright napkins
and glistening silverware. We failed to wave away small gangs of gnats that had collected near our drinking
glasses and kimchi. As I wrapped some grilled pork belly and hot rice in a leaf of lettuce, I wondered if anyone
felt an iota of relief at his parting. The crisp cold produce relieved the heat that had filled my body like trapped
steam. I wondered if Tiger Uncle was still laughing in his full throttle manner, fists clenched and teeth flashing.
If he was at peace and diving into a good historical novel, thinking about how a pack of Marlboros would really
round out his stay.




Heath Brougher




THE BLOODWIMMER


Beauty has jumped astray
gone overboard
with all the heavyheaded thoughts
anvilling it to the bottom
of the oil-riven Ocean--

fat floats among the grocerystore aisles
of the nearby Chantytown, a town for
Cherrypickers indeed; pick the rose from the rose
and try to avoid the thorns; thornage
blooming bright bloodpuddles upon the finger of
the picker of the rose, the men with guns to our heads
don't care how may cuts we get-- we pick their roses
for their wives and of course nothing in return; no longer
will I bleed so much and so pointlessly
for you and yours amid this scurvy bramble.
Fall 2014

FULL BRAILLE


There was a boy
who dug his eyes out
in a jail cell
on a PCP freakout
they said he just sat there,
not in pain, just like normal,
only with his eyes torn out;

I guess the jail cell turned red
and slippery as they fed him
into surgery, likely completely soaked,
all his tears
mixed with blood
and anger
yes, there was a boy
(the son of a politician)
who dug his own eyes out
in a jail cell
the only thing he will ever see again
is that the rest of his life will be in full Braille.

OUTSOULED


Infected yard of spilled paint
putting forth that awkward disease
for decoration (wishes of invisibility
are invisible). Passerby stares
at my glorious mutation, vexed
so naked I in that instant,
haughty king of the ugly fragile contrast,
shining in the luster of most sour lime,
I pointed my finger right back,
and said, my plague,
my plague and love.





Glen Armstrong



The Bedside Book of Awkward Silences


I described the ancient art of demolition
to the younger generation.

Feral children punched each other in the arm
as a means to describe the moon.

I could not hear your description of airplanes.
You were too far away,

and the night skys
piano solo
lowered our resistance to beauty.

The Civil War reenactors
described each other as yeller sons-of-bitches.

We were all there for a reason,
and it wasnt to solve the mystery
of why we were there.

One of the reenactors suggested we join hands
in prayer

which set one of the feral children
off to screaming,

and we all agreed that screaming

was the most awkward silence of all.

Fall 2014

Eloquence (And Thus Poetry)


I struck the wooden match against its box.
Her sock caught fire.

I unlaced her shoe, and she let me.
Both of us had been burned before.

Sparrow, my dear, you are my hero,
I confessed as the flame flickered.

Its merely a case of the shoe,
the fit that fire throws
and the elsewhere that a foot
must cling to in cases
such as these,

she whispered,
further disturbing

the flame by beating
the pretty, white wings on her ankles.







Midsummer XXXIII


My child has her cape

The match its blue tip

The whisper never wanted
Its cage
(Its cage)

The whistle its rape

Theatrical lighting and sound
Their low frequencies

And the audience is as shameless
With its hands as its hiss

There was a girl they all called
Piss Queen

The sticky playbills all caught up
In a makeshift twister

She drops her skull

Unlocks her teeth

But its her shoes

(Its her shoes)

That make their point.







Giles Goodland


Blood Spider

If instead of language we had
a universal map so that each thing aligned
uniquely no two objects
could have the same identity, and
all numbers would then sing
agency in every crack of being,
clogging fleas feet with accuracy
for what could we thread days with
then but this evermoving pucker
that clothes the limbs of self,
and from that wound flaws not
words but the coordinates of being.
Thus any unified theory must account
for consciousnesss rust across
a fingers arc, unnoticed
smear on the framing glass.
An end is in itself, the air sweats
at the glasss falling. Then the wind
slept me away to asterisky
approximations of the motelet
neithereal nor exosexual when
nightfish clashcade disembodiedly
jampacking a lullabide of the phasma
frailwork of metempirical broodmother
malgazed into indefinity by
tainct of spurt-spirited moloch.
They sing: Turn to sand the clocks, their missions.
Enter the works of the nearest machine.
Entropy is our end, render us then
Marses unwrought from
sky, seeking each night a fix, suff or pre.
Fall 2014
Worm

Raise the midden, cast the king
find where the stars hide from us.
Aganglionic in bed of state
asthrougnought the depthly
dissembloodies bodimelt.
We are no part of speech
but muds fifth essence, slur
of strangurge that threadth
a tractile strengthin, inchforthing
annulets for which coagulate
dumbone is fleshlier beforeskin.
Maintaingling the whormament
evereverse the filesh and misinter
netherending phantomblims
as an intestinal spacebody.
Slack as a nonsible prosumer that
nightoils secreative tonguextensions
graveward we groundmother
to subterrest, intingling our
tunnelvisionary undertread in
always prolongable rollongations.
This is urned in warmturning
trunnels: wordroots gather in a rind
under hills where horses of great density
once ran and mostly the days
sleep in their boxes but the hurt
clouds still bruise. We are what
hills store in their batteries,
sutured guts that fuel birdsong.
To handle the dead harden your hands,
accost windows, expend stalked
figures. Night runs us down.
Sexton Beetle

We took a bucket of tar and a brush,
and flew up into the moon, and smeared it
all over, so that it would not hinder us.
Work hurt us open. We used the dead for
our own ends and on their time but the window
called with great clarity, it amassed the light
under the trees when the wind skulked
beside its wall, fleshholed the honble
member who molded man from clay as from
the cellar shadows a figure gestured
upwards scattering pinches of prayer-meal with
admixture of finely ground sea-shells, saying:
in each village is a drain into which
the dead shall pour, a symmetry where
hewn smells correct mosthighest flowers.
Suffer the growth of stones the emptied
eye to bury barleycorn in claylayer
bloodfeel the poest who sculpts rot
to bioassay the slowworn sussurections
to ambulance-chase the chemtraces of the dead.
When I closed my eyes, I heard my father voice
a thin earth between us, our airhearse
helicoptering down as Dors Satan
while light emptied dreamseen in tendresses
we brushstruck the soilid ratbones
hamsliced whomover the woundhound
to unnerve mouseskull, shrewpelt, molebone
a few frigid reluctant stars worth
mentioning only because of the light
they expended on us, pittance of being
the other people who surrounded us
dimglimmered through sleeps written in
Hares peerage, a long underground book
probeable in the sweatshop of the buried.
When a mammal dies it releases huff, we sift
air with our headfans locate the corpse, attract
females who mold mass into nest in which
between us comes the kind of conclusion that
the egg is. As the mist falls, translate into


head the particles of outburst or arriving flowers.
What we can speak about together is
clogged, poetry travels under
some fine soils raising head nor tail.
Cranefly

Unimagine the sunlit unsinger
as preternature of pseudoperson
separating the rain with her limbs
to make a name in her immanage
by mistpelting the timemachinery
ungendering the jitters and feedforths
of her selfmetal so
the words drift into sentences, for
as angelling cellist she uggles her wingtips
and stalked figures runtogether:
will the future contain such
palearctic evenings of
the understandlying unfinite,
when an inwind blows no eyematter
and stars strata of light form
epiphenomenal jellyfish from
which the flesh has weathered,
legs tangled in datasets of
organought, airgonaut, so
she pleads in the lampplight
for this to come untrue I feel like
a flailer, like languages colliding in space
she sputnicks on the spinetangle
where unifield flied themory posits
a loop loosening and air carries
sentencestructures from
her ashed face, delicate as latent
petalseed: I feel a wet word
curve through what the skin
cuts open, enclosed clouds
herald empty flowers of the head
and widthold the mindforced mentacles
as headlights fight out between
loops of answer while godevil dismantles
the glass cathedral, lists
sky as cloudslide, counter of suns
who pentangled rivershivers
and spilt windowfuls of eyes into
disreflected embosities.
Then the sky makes love to each other.
Dung Beetle

When at eve the beetle behemoth
and the rain clots in the cars genitals
the language in us turns into the road, the light as if
inside we drive uphevil with God as windshield
between us and the rest. These thoughts are
not words, but have the quality of being
understood. Irreconcile with shard-
beetle as it genghisses its heavesong. Oblique
motions, light-edged corners strum under-boulder.
At Uluburun call him Aksak, elsewhere square
urine-squirter, big rock beaver, humpbacked
flute player, earth-mover, bullshit-dozer,
turdevil, cowturd bob. Senses gather
him against the verduring dung. Flollop
the crowbarred scarabapple through
ozymandates and dunghills, scrunch
the matterhorn in complicates of inexhaust
apply the time-quench to clodclotted pelt
then write a merdchant for the duchy.
Sun leaks from a wound that must but
cannot be located. When cattle package
leaved grass behind them he
uprears, waves his tinny sensors and
Sisyphus-footed knocknees his fussball,
exits the hard-hat area to plantcross with
loadbearing carapacity: indefatigued the clayey
coprophage quakewalks the urnfield as outself
wormward upprearances dungfork our spilth.
We shall lift the starred urns from their earths.
Only nature can destroy the state.
Burly arablic replaces the cartouched
monhuments scatalogue of hieroglyphed
pharaoph, uncentres the threadearth. Heel
the wound, drag the mudhood headbutter
the sixlegend golemgleam: narrow voices
plead for more time, stand guard while the female
excavates broodchambers. Under the soil,
a far-future adrifts from the soular

system and in free space we look for
a new star before the moon runs out.
The disapparition of these faeces in a cloud.

Crablouse

Once when massivecocked rockstars walked the face
off our earth and sheminated cunticles
I craught cabs; they nestlegged in my groinhere.
Puced in vulvagated orgasmask
these erosgrained genitaliens
harpened their nibs in the cockshop
pitched their tents belowbelly and gonaddled
a pronged attack at hairfoot.
Whoresemen of the pockerlips!
Man the lifeboats, cling fast to rims, roothold.
Its an inwind that heaves no song, an
illwind that blows noone. Clogfoot,
loamfoot. Every day a smolten malefunction
mangloved in the estrangent hemiblonde
neverlost that clustred clamness.
Blades selve out of us who kindled from dry sheets.
The wrinkles in old witches visages they
ate out to entrench themselves, feast tongues
abed the twobacked moanster they
dryhumped and wisecracked, porescorned
on the infestigate skinstead
substaining the burly-haired lockwork
swore saturdates damplover was
lovestroked and slurped plumplipped
at relisquish of the miniotaur
then to godown on the wordspale
glued the graingroined gendergarment
halfcircled at nightfallen kniverse
firmented the maninfest eggend and huddled
nosedown dremeaning the meated tractortyre.
Intangled in itchself the bed was
a grave of understanding when I
sore them walking away in your clothes
to make shift as night-club bouncers
or laptopical orifice-workers,
lostouch with them, was cured.



Geoffrey Gatza



Donna di Scalotta


1. The Gray Tower


In Scalottas silvery mirror
Striving upwards, climbing

To meet the lordly gray sky.
The gray towers reflect life;

In reverse she sees Camelot
The castle projected in silver.

She sees the world make their way
To the glistering castles of Camelot.

Leather jerkins and dirty linen caps,
Trundle men in mule-driven carts.

Musicians in motley sing to ladies
in flowing white silks. They shadow

Dark knights following their fortunes.
The realm is paralleled within her hands.

Certain death waits beyond every doorway.
Back to her room

Back to her loom
And never from this place should she stray.

Spinning under a magic curse
She weaves yarns into images.

Fall 2014
Her memories are knotted in suffering.
From shearlings came shivering words.

Tight knots coding and encoding red
fabrics, mythic incantations and chants.

Do not look out the window and do not dream;
Death means agony, yet death may bring peace.

Up the road and down the river she watched,
weaving her songs, into blossoms and roses.

To her all things are possible, for everything is impossible.
She is free to be playful in her paradoxical island of Shallot.




2. The Blue Knight


Beauty may be truth but she rarely speaks it.
We are all fascinated by the magic of the mirror.

We understand a way of life in reflection, as it passes away.
Just as Narcissus, bewitched by his own reflection in a pool

Drowned in his attempt to touch what was beyond his grasp.
Unable to be true to his own self fulfilling Tiresias prophecy.

Only in hindsight
Can we feel loss.

She saw the knight in reverse.
A burning blue flame ignited.

Lancelot riding on horseback
Had come home to Camelot.

Without a moments hesitation
Her head spun out the window.

The mirror melted
Pooling on the floor.

The curse has come,
Cried Donna di Scalotta.






3. Down the River


An enclosed room occupied by a lone woman
a broomstick, and a black cat on a leash.

She pushed open the heavy wooden doors
And made her way down to the riverbanks.

Hurriedly, with a finger she wrote
In red ink a note onto her mantle

Blanketed herself and pushed the boat from shore.
She lay down, folded her arms across her chest and sang.













Isolated a single road cut
into the wasteland leading to the unknown
The ever-present an echo of her presence
Movements of water reflect upon


The nature of time Tuesdays
I want more flowers dirt
An enchanted horse one not frightened of wraiths


Sprinkle my body with rosemary; rosemary for remembrance.

Down she came
and found a
boat
And down the river's
dim expanse


Bury my body in
The simple patterned lace I left on my bed.
I went to the window
a single leaf fell, and so it is with whispers on the wind.
In pristine and haunting echoes, I fell too.



In mournful glory
In an exhibition of joyous love
A jazz funeral trumpets without hesitation






























Lying, robed in
snowy white

She floats down the
river to Camelot.














Hold up your blue garnets
And let every man drink his glass full
And heres to the health o tha young lass.

I roamed and I rambled while all round me a voice did sounding
A voice was chanting, the sun came a shining and the wheat field
Was a waving the fog was a liftin


























They heard her singing
her last song,

Singing in her
song she died,























The flame spoke
No words
But illuminated
All the same.





Who is this? And what is here? asked the courtiers of Camelot
As they made the sign of the cross to protect them from darkness
Frightened silent by the evil that destroyed this unknown voice.

Lancelot mused down from his staircase,
This fine lady has such a charming grace.




A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.



Eric Mohrman



ENDOWMENTS


I.

send her
cinders

porous
to collect contorted thoughts

sitting
in
the hopeless hazel scatter
of her
eyes

II.

send
her
embers

that mimic love &
life, lingering

like
comets

Fall 2014
III.

send her ruddy sunset, her

hair soaks it
up, she's

wet

she
leaks

the slim & limber subliminal

IV.

send her starlight
through fractured pane, the

glow
catches

in the cracks

V.

send her
broke
nness

VI.

send
her

bottles from Bourgogne, the

first twitch of
twilight
tweaked in the wineglass

VII.

send her humidity

prickling
hieroglyphs on
the skin &

dripping drops of dreamsweat
onto a floor of ripples

VIII.

send her

the bones of shadows

to beat like subterranean drumsticks

IX.

send
her crooked

kisses
that miss & dissipate

X.

send
her
bouquets
of
hydrangea

to behead,

she fills
the bathtub with their
blooms, she

takes off

her clothes &
sinks in, she

takes on

their
hue

XI.

send her feathers to dip in paints of undiscovered colors

XII.

send her
onyx mist stone
darkness, it

saturates
her &

slowly
constricts

like a nightmare heart

XIII.

send her clouds
to shade

her memories

that
lean curious &
tentative into sunless spaces

& blush

XIV.

send
her

lakes

of sky

XV.

send

her

a
ladle, she

serves
water

falls

XVI.

send her a rosary, she

counts decades of lovers

small

as alabaster beads

XVII.

send
her intoxicants to
slur the moonsight & static the
eyelight &

blur the
slow approach of climax

Eric Basso




Vision Quest


shaman creeps into the niche
on a ledge in the cliff face
the flame from his oil lamp
gutters under blood blots
dancing off the stone where
theyve slept a generation
dreaming of shamans return

or this is the dream the scent
of ash and wormwood as
embers blink behind a paw

shaman blown back from
the far side of eternity after
years that are a single day
to the tribal elders lying
stunned in the brush below






June 19, 2007
Fall 2014

Blurm


this is the variable beast
the thing you come back as
in the life after the one
that takes place now
and its never the same twice
because the former gives spawn
to the latter and so on down
fleshly corridors of hope and fear
to the hour of mass extinction

the gods savor a humor
that will never allow us to
believe in their existence

each incarnation they devise
is just for the sport of
seeing saint become sinner
turning victim into torturer
and criminal to executioner

last lifes derelict wears
a crown without memory
and we are all one
with the variable beast






March 28, 2008

Gleeth


the shark was rotting in my trunk
Id have to get rid of it fast before
the stench became noticeable but there
wasnt time to think about that now

the lizard had already stopped crawling
up my leg I couldnt find any trace of it
and didnt even try to calculate how
much time would be wasted in a search

the chimp sitting to my right bought
the next round of drinks and I settled
into what was hoped could pass in
a place like this for a meditative state

maybe I was still in the grip of paralysis
no one had told me what to expect when
the bellboy unlocked the door to my room
and we saw the gleeth crouched on the rug

over the years its sallow eyes have come to
haunt me with a sense of exile I cant shake
though we slammed and locked that door
and no one ever entered Room 209 again






May 11, 2008

Desert


streets of volcanic ash
clad with ssured marble
then the long caravan
miles of sand a white sun
scorching the canopy
that drooped over its
single human cargo

crushed by the moneybelt
pockets bursting with
coins of silver and gold

in fever I kept my vow
better than a monk
because more was at stake

days and nights of silence
menaced specters nested
in a swatch of lace
their blooded eyes
peering through the loops






May 5, 2014

Phrigidians


everywhere you nd traces
of a Phrigidian presence

the carved wood face on
the masthead of a ghost ship
the green smoke pouring
through the toxic wards

that unnamable thing
still lurking in the creepers

inside the oldest houses
crusts of blood smeared
with oil on every wall

stare at them long enough
they writhe and pulse then
settle into hideous landscapes
where you sit alone
listening for the whispers
of the vast army that
moves in the grass






August 28, 2014

Dilip Mohapatra


GRAFFITI

They are commoners
not the elite class like
murals or frescos
nor even hieroglyphics
and are accused of
being malevolent
vandals and defilers.

They are born
behind the curtains
in dark dungeons
when no one is around
in forms of their very own
through scribbles scratches
and sprays.

They survived
the Vesuvius eruptions
those incised inscriptions
and still tell a tale
sometimes sepulchral
sometimes sanguine
ethereal and eternal.

They just don't care
for the raised eye brows
of the prude
or the law enforcers
and speak their heart
lending voice
to the otherwise dumb walls.
Fall 2014


ANCHORED

In the vast expanse of your
oceanic eyes
and upon the sea that
swells within
its ultramarine depths
in which the viscous nights meld
everyday
and the purple twilights
get dissolved
with the red rays of the sun

dancing on the waves
to the tune
of the saline winds
whistling through
the casuarina reeds
on a desolate beach
I drift without a rudder
till you let me
drop the hook
through the hawsepipe
of your full ripe lips
and your lingering kiss.

And as the flukes of
my anchor sink in
and hold the ground
my heart sprouts wings
to set my soul soaring high
and go adrift
astride the albatrosses
trying to touch
the wispy cirrus
up in the sky.




D. C. Andersson


From A Little Rhetoric


8
Warmwallow comfort; not -
the tracks on your arms

Snatches of sun through mist, but barely;
I forgot my mothers birthday

Fresno bakes on meth to the tune HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
Cut and pasted outdated notions notations.








9
Whats depth? An English voice: Pentameters!
Grandeur recalled in tranquil memory
To manage something unencumbered by
Moments evading thirl of lyric draught
Necessitates more smug evasions. So:
Run to the light; this hath such sanity
As that from which it hath its birth, none more.
Your body shows the stitch, not saved in time.
Birds rasp, and something scuds athwart your eyes.


Fall 2014

10
Slow lightning;
A smudge of ash.

The curtain parts:

Looking back
hovers sav-
agely tween silence and horror,

and within those rasping inventions

the futures children, and their russian doll childrens children,
are smug about the past
and so
full of themselves.







11
A balance strung or spun
A scuttling scorpion
Shudders in its orange redout
Denying it was born to cut
Fussing should it make a quilt
While something scuds...

The sky is violet, of metal and gun,
A dim horizon drained of light,
A twitch of power, the sniff of food,
A red coagulate, its rich foreboding:

The spider-scorpion quits the needle,
drops a stitch




Cynthia Bonitz






oh, to be lonely in brooklyn.


The F train never came.
We stood like nothingness,
so uncertain of ourselves,
sheer wordless what now? staring into black over Marcy.
It was aching cold, with the chronic silence,
with white breath we challenged like fighters,
like it somehow represented everything about life.

We couldnt say it. We wanted to.
But we swallowed it, feeding it to our weeds,
scripting the pitiful story into the bottom of our shoes,
into the nights binge drinking.

Will we make it into the city tonight?
Will I ever tell you I dont love you?






Fall 2014

Rant


The silence of you and me, that midnight,
Under the covers, my daring darling,
dare.

But the neighbors were so loud, and smoking,
ranting about that party
and the big rain at the Neutral Milk concert we had missed.
(I hate using the word rant.)

But here, in this candled pocket, we were writing ourselves,
peeling back the truth like rotten fruit,
so sweet and melancholic and broken as it was,
our demise, our point, my clothes astray.
(But I like taking off your things.)

Watching your humidity, its weariness unfolding,
I wont say a word, if you wont.
Just the neighbors and their bullshit,
covers and breath, our insaneness.
How to? Dont ask me.
Explanation in fingerprints, tracing bones, electricity.
Will they ever stop talking? (Their nonsense is aching.)
Nobody cares anymore about Bedford Avenue.




Curtis Sabin




Amalgamation

As I sit in my room scouring the notebooks of my thoughts and burning an incense stick,
I ponder to myself,
Trying to make sense of it,
Life that is!
I watch the smoke spiralling into the atmosphere,
Shimmering two-tone colours of blue and white,
What amazes me is the invisible force behind all the movement and its subtle might,
That invisible force that gives us life,
And as I inhale a deep breathe into my lungs,
Into another cavern of my thoughts I plunge,
I suppose one thing thats subconsciously important to me, is my afterlife legacy,
I guess thats how we live on,
After all the time that were dead and gone,
Try to make an impact,
Teach and educate promotion of love,
Give a little,
Live a bit more,
For it is us that benefit as well as the poor,
Fall 2014
This amalgamation of random philosophical musings,
In no particular order,
Chaotic, sporadic symbols on the page,
Here I go off on a tangent,
Modern technology is it all its cracked up to be?
Days spent looking at screens,
Jobs being taken by machines,
So many developments in the medical field,
But surely theres more we could harvest and yield,
If everything wasnt so driven by greed,
Then we could plant a few more fruitful seeds,
Knowledge I constantly crave,
To music I often rave,
Money I try to save,
New ways I conquer and pave,
To do this I must be brave,
Isnt almost everything plagiarised?
Just packaged in a different shape or size,
Disguised,
Designed to trick our minds,
Thoughts manifest my own reality,
Specified on what spectrum is my insanity,
Knowledge so individual,
Soaking it up in my daily schedule,
Evolving every day,
In my mind Loki doth play,
So as you listen or read this amalgamation of words,
Take heed in each of my blurbs,
Amalgamate, become one,
Unite and be strong,
Give a little live a bit more,
For its us who benefit, as well as the poor.



RevoluTION

Far am I..... from pure perfection,
But hear from me, my projection,
And please consider careful deliberation,
The process of my maturation, causes,
Anger and frustration,
Sadness and confusion,
At my contemplation,
Of the current situation,
This is fact not fiction,
These words and thoughts my addiction,
This piece of writing an inception,
To my new occupation,
A futuristic prediction,
I want it to cause some precipitation,
In the eyes of those who cause infliction,
Not though through provocation,
Im talking about a little education,
And some self-realisation,
Take this as your induction,
Your initiation,
Give me all of your concentration,
And listen as we talk about the systems current condition,
And how it causes indignation,
Surely its clear for all to see the pollution,
And educations dilution.
Numbing the masses with liquor as if it were a magic potion,
Drugs causing societys degradation,
The people in power should prepare for reparation,
All those at the top, each and every politician,
Each and every greedy corporation,
Oh.. And all the liars on every news station,
And especially those who cause race and religious separation,
We need to stop with all the incarceration,
Work much harder on the prevention.

Hang on wait a minute,

Intermission,

Lets stop the procrastination.

Weve only tried a small number of permutations,
Do you realise there are other solutions?,
Seek true information,
Really use our imagination,
We could possibly start a new production,
One that serves all of civilisation,
Do things differently with an inspiring creation,
We could start with a mass plantation,
One, Like this, Of literary magnetism,
Feeding the minds of the earths population,
Surely there are enough of us at the crossroads of a new junction.


All colours, shapes, sizes and creeds coming together as a collection,
To form a peaceful people resurrection,
Only then can we all work towards unification,
So please be part of the selection,
Feel true liberation,
Be the RevoluTION.




Craig Kurtz


Swoon

No one knows how many
stars are in the sky
but theres only one
that I would marry.
So few are really habitable;
so rare, condign affinity.
Only you are indefectible
to an unconventionality
of ken.

Who could ever count
all the fireflies in the night
when they code for love
and as they mate their lights?
These creatures must convoke
carnal galaxies in trees,
commingling in pairs
a unitary plea; thusly
why not we?

Bright star, would I were
numinous as you are,
a consonant signal would I
through all azure convey.
Steadfast, stern, immutable,
Id transmit these words
as singular streams of light
through every arbor, every spiral
seen, and unseen, every night.


Fall 2014
The Elopement Note

To all you clever people
who dont believe in love:
Theyre fixing the numbers on the public clock
& they falsified the weather report.
The sky is rigged, the clouds corrupt;
the suns a slut, the moon takes bribes.
From all this invidiousness
I heartedly efface myself.

To all you hipster intellectuals
who dont believe in fate:
The verities come in vending machines
& destiny is a programming code.
The muses are but brummagem, kismet is cajolery;
free wills wrapped in cellophane, conation is downloadable.
For all this ignominiousness
heres your prize epic abyss.

To all you supercilious cynics
who dont believe in anything:
Romance is anachronous
& arete is dmod.
Sincerity is a double cross, matedness a despotic plot;
marriage is the in-&-out, loyalty a suckers bet.
Hip hip hooray for your ironicalness,
& boo-hoo (ha-ha) on my dumb happiness.

Your most humble servant,
the luna moth stuck to your windshield.



Bouquet of Words

I hear like e.e. cummings
when Im in your words.
My thoughts trickle down
your neck,
then plash back (astonished)
to your lips
(producing sounds).
My abashed, unfocussed
exposals
(do rather)
achieve such
piquant, plangent
definition
when you aliment
my senses
with your uncanny,
daring
mind.
I feel your thoughts
in my arms
but (so true)
caressing that universe
abounding such
pagination (myriads of
alphabets)
might (well, quite)
implore my tremulous,
nonplussed
thesaurus
some inestimable
(no less)
years long.
I imagined
that I heard
every language
ever once invented
(uttered or not)
in your cosseting
(& limitless)
embrace.


Christopher Brownsword




THE BLACKE TEMPESTE SWOLNE AND GATHERD UP
APACE

Sacrificed through harvest transmits
from throat where disengaged too brutally shall

weaken
shadow rooted into
dirt. An animal previously
scorched kisses the hunter

between fires. Enclose prey at tangent
under birch
to constellate in wound,
modulating and
aligned with integer discern by
shift to landmass repeated before shielding
calm advances beyond grunts;
cartilage enhancement scornful as obliterated

measures glyph the

season dilated inwards
fissuring
with membrane
to reverence
each kill.
Relics protected by entrails
swell pulsar herded
over bridge devouring
so gurgles circulatory
jolt in spasm of
Fall 2014

reeds deposited
via gland. River

made passable has



impulse
feeding into reflex

spits blossom
for ever-widening connection
by the absent larynx,
ossified therein.












PERMUTATION MANTRA

Central tints that glow system
pairing as were sense close.

Central tints that glow system
pairing as were loss mutation.

Central tints that glow system
pairing as were it can and over.

Central tints that glow system
pairing equipped
to deal sense close.

Central tints that glow system
pairing equipped
to deal loss mutation.

Central tints that glow system
pairing equipped
to deal it can and over.

Central tints that glow system
pairing form ecstasy
will sense close.

Central tints that glow system
pairing form ecstasy
will loss mutation.

Central tints that glow system
pairing form ecstasy
will it can and over.

Central tints that glow system
pairing binary sense close.





Central tints that glow system
pairing binary loss mutation.

Central tints that glow system
pairing binary it can and over.

Central tints that glow breaking
and were as sense
close.

Central tints that glow
breaking
and were as loss
mutation.

Central tints that glow breaking and were
as it can and
over.

Central tints that glow breaking
and the equipped to deal sense close.

Central tints that glow breaking
and the equipped to deal
loss mutation.

Central tints that glow breaking
and the equipped to deal
it can and over.

Softly lightens
system pairing
as were sense close.

Softly lightens system pairing
as were loss mutation.








Softly lightens system pairing
as were
it can and over.

Softly lightens system pairing
equipped to deal sense close.

Softly lightens system
pairing equipped
to deal
loss
mutation.

Softly lightens
system
pairing equipped to deal
it can
and over.

Softly lightens system
pairing form ecstasy
will sense close.

Softly lightens system
pairing form ecstasy
will loss mutation.

Softly lightens system
pairing
form ecstasy
will
it can
and over.

Softly lightens breaking
and were sense
close.




Softly lightens breaking
and were loss
mutation.

Softly lightens breaking
and were it can
and over.

Softly lightens breaking

equipped to deal

sense close.

Softly lightens breaking
equipped to deal loss mutation.

Softly lightens breaking equipped
to deal it can and over.

Softly lightens
breaking form
ecstasy sense
close.

Softly lightens breaking form ecstasy
loss mutation.

Softly lightens breaking form ecstasy it can
and over-

seeing sky
all system pairing as were
sense close.

Overseeing sky
all system pairing as were




loss mutation.

Overseeing sky
all system pairing as were
it can and over-

seeing sky all system pairing
equipped to deal sense close.

Overseeing sky all system pairing
equipped to deal loss mutation.

Overseeing sky all system pairing
equipped to deal it can and over-

seeing sky all system pairing form
ecstasy will sense close.

Overseeing sky all system pairing
form ecstasy will loss
mutation.

Overseeing sky all system
pairing form ecstasy
will it can and over-

seeing sky all breaking and the equipped to deal
sense close.

Overseeing sky all breaking
and the equipped to deal loss mutation.

Overseeing sky
all breaking and the equipped to deal it can and over-

seeing sky all breaking and the form ecstasy
will sense close.







Overseeing sky
all breaking and the form

ecstasy will loss
mutation.

Overseeing sky all breaking and the form
ecstasy will
it can and over.






THE GREAT EMPTINESS

Advance
through index, the spectrum
descending
into arteries envenoms
tillage.

Spawning

primordial

species:

carcass nested with persistence
becomes output

retained.








STANZA IN MEDITATION: EXCARNATION (THE VULTURE SHRINE)

for Gertrude Stein

Drift congruence from network
replaced there other and this had data structure
is flux or path invoked by hive made
host shell flame, the fresh snow a unit.
To scroll back on the prism
on a driving line will fall deep
and for that already into yet
to end had never or would
be. Softened, the given
were expected did hatch serve of losing; retrieves
to assemble as only by ease went
forwards to growing and tilted where
vestigial wings await the knife.






PERIMETER LIGHTS BIND THE HORIZON

Upbraiding to such end what more beholden
departs resounded may sustenance

ease tempest, brought there. Forge grid
against throat>>alluvial stone advanced>>support
each surge became or were kept further:
effusive light devours the foliage
upon the waters edge, the black

earth birthing sky beyond to fold in day.
Clear around

to array, mantle as repose consigned.









BREACHING

1

Fallen into prey
would level burden swept
null

though darkly upon
erasure, infiltration-bias this
depth strata

ever bait torn febrile:
how
what snare
for dense.

2

Storms freeze in nullity
beyond silicon, trellis installed to lymph
through wiring: much slake
diode.

3: drift of lice, teething

In drift cascade riven,

shall fed

across
where or able. Without lack
felt substance
need

than cortex
might still in other







as retreat

made fallow; central axon
empty, does break
terminal.









Cate McLaughlin




An Apologists Guide to Field Dressing


I would like to give you something, the caul my grandmother was born in, the Irish Times the
doctor swaddled her with, some measure of proof in the blood, some philosophical distance. I
would like to tell you that I fed you all the wrong apologies, that a choice between side effect
and symptom is not a choice. That I, too, wish fairness entered into it. If the truest thing I can
say to you is that only when I have ceased to speak in superlatives is it safe to believe methen
is it safe? If I say Im sorry, can we really be sure Im not just whistling past the graveyard of my
own deliverance? Meaning is too clever to be ensnared by speech, and the words make clumsy
arrows, no matter how sharp the archer, how willing the prey. Nothing I can catch could
compare to the magnitude of my hunger. My regrets, they are the softest rabbits caught in six
bear traps, they are a row of strung-up quail, bright as bunting on the Fourth of July. Theres no
turning back now, there is always blood on the hands of sustenance. Come here: I would like to
give you something. First, well close our eyes. Then youll open your mouth.

Fall 2014


The Revenants

The ghost of my father
who isnt dead yet
and asks me to uncap
the aspirin. First light ghost,
who spills cold light on cold sheets,
while the ghost of a chewed cigar
reeks from the mantelpiece--
and sober ghost, whos forever standing
in front of an open refrigerator door.

Ghosts with cracked elbows
or trench coats. Turpentines
ghost, paddle ghost, a shadows
ghost. The ghost of her brother
still wearing the bandage.

A burlap sack trembling
with ghosts and slumped
in the corner. Russias ghost.
Ghost of a woman who still
takes baths, wax ghost,
and the ghosts of other women.

Highway ghost; ghost of mercury.
The ghost I remember as a child.
Now ghost, the ghost you left me.




Plan View

an aerial view of death
must be like watching
the outer boroughs of a city
succumb to darkness, one by one,
the light snatched from them,
as in a fist. Sockets popping,
the boroughs shut down in a sudden
and random spiral toward where you are
standing on the top floor of the tallest building
at the center of the city, and you are surrounded
by windows. A telephone rings
and the voice on the other line is you,
saying, You arent supposed to know how to do this,
which is a kind of apology,
but you realize you can no longer see
the Citgo sign across the street
Dont hang up, you want to say,
but the light bulbs begin to hum,
and youre afraid, so you close your eyes,
and it smells like birthday candles
blown out.




Your Daily Forecast

*
Dilemmas arise from the emphasis
on your 7th House of Partnerships and Public Life.
Loved ones demand more attention than you feel
able to give, the recycling piles up by the back door--
and your mother called again last night, Virgo.

*
Anything is possible today, dear Virgo.
Your best reproductive years are behind you;
why not take up a new hobby and get
those creative juices flowing!


*
Mercury stumbles into Aries
in your 9th House of Higher Truth, so
the sun will be in your eyes no matter
which direction you drive today. Someone
in your life is not what they appear.

*
The transit of Pluto in Capricorn tempts you
to stick a fork in the toaster and accelerate
at stop lights. A trip to the doctor could confirm
your bodys ability to breed quiet malignancies.
Today you will succeed in all your financial endeavors!


*
With speedy Aries in your fifth house,
surprises abound. In the mail, you could receive a check
for five dollars from your grandmother who is
only two days dead. The card in her handwriting
might read, Are you getting enough sleep?
Avoid escalators, refined sugar, and redheads.

*
The Sun quincunx Saturn advises going back
to square one when it comes to Friday's "new start."
Its worth a shot, Virgo. The planets portend
colds eggs or a kink in the brake line.

*
Expect the unexpected today!
A full moon in your sign guarantees surprises;
a lukewarm friendship heats up, perhaps,
or an ex sends a bill for her cold half
of the Tempur-Pedic mattress.


*
The afternoon Scorpio Moon triggers
a sudden case of the dry heaves, forcing you
to pull over to the shoulder of the road
and concentrate on the sound of traffic.
Try taking deep breaths, Virgo.
It wont be long now.







Aftergreen

A woman in a green dress reaching back
to the clasp on a set of pearls,
chin up-tipped, elbows like wings unpinned,
a flash of under-bicep skin like brushed
creamsustenance for the starved
part of me who thinks that green
is the tint of beginning, green the grace notes
in a mouthful of mud, green a fist
pulling out of the punch, green the road
from here to my good intentions--
green yes, even this, the way light snags
on blonde filaments at the nape of her neck
as she turns from me, green and sad and electric.







C.N. Bean


Texas, the Summer before Kennedy got shot


I.

He had his own route and got a bread truck
a big metal box that had two seats and four tires
and plenty of space behind the seats for the bread
fruit pies and pastries that rode in trays made to slip
in and out of racks that rolled from a loading dock
to the truck in one smooth move after dark

which meant he slept days and worked nights while Mom sewed clothes
in a sweat shop and we buried sound
for fear of the wrath of a tired man awakened
before the hour he established for our knock
at his bedroom door, followed by our, Are you up?
If we heard movement it meant, Don't knock again.


II.

The summer brought heat and stale baked goods in mountains
that went on forever and let me know why manna
caused people to hate forty years of the same food
because I grew sick of small fruit pies, even peach
which I liked best. Blueberry I refused to eat
but apple and cherry were okay. The boxes

of larger pies Mom sliced up and put out on small plates
for breakfast, lunch and dinner made me dread eating.
Pecan and lemon meringue I could tolerate
but apple, cherry and peach left a rotten smell
once the pies sat long enough for fruit to ferment.
I heard that happened to manna also.
Fall 2014


III.

Up to our nostrils in stale pies we told Mom our issues
before Dad got home and she left for work.
We said we were tired of pies each meal and wondered
why we couldn't eat normal food like other people ate.
Silent while we spoke, she ground her teeth in locked jaws.
Finally she said, At least you eat, and told Dad

who turned Moses mad and said, Get sleep while you can.
I heard him wake my brother and felt him tap me.
We followed him into the night oven of a sealed truck
and shared a seat while open doors blew in heat.
Dad left fresh baked goods and picked up stale all night
but dawn surprised us with quail.


IV.

We stuffed ourselves with truck-stop pancakes and bacon.
On our way out to the truck, Dad bought us each a candy bar.
I felt a reprieve from manna
a mouth-melted chocolate that lasted all the way to November.







bruno neiva




Visual Poetry

"boughs" (alt version)


Fall 2014
given the variations
at this micro level it
is not surprising to
note the ways in which
the factors interact
they can occupy either initial, final
or (less commonly) medial position
because the model shows that there are in fact multiple paths to a complex set of outcomes, it is
likely to have been oversimplified if it seems to have direct applications or lead to a single approach


Brittany Baldwin


I Know Better And Yet


Lamb With Honey And Almonds

Chocolate Crepes Stuffed With Valhrona Chocolate Mousse And Hazelnuts


I dried the lamb, browned it in your old antique flea market le cruset. Diced yellow onion, garlic, combined it with
cumin, cardmom, clove, honey, water and whole almonds. I bought it as a treat for us on our last night. It simmered
all afternoon while you wrote inside and me, on the back porch, both avoiding what this had become. For the
crepes I mixed the cocoa powder, flour, salt, milk and eggs. Melted chocolate with hot milk, whisked in a yolk,
folded in whites whipped by hand so that the building could hear. And you would stop for a moment and stare into
the coffee table, then watch me through the door in my dress.

When I went in the bathroom I would smell your work shirts on the back of the door. The collar, the soft pocket
between your neck and arm, the place I wouldve pressed my head if I wouldve let you closer. But I said too much
in such a way that would stop you from reaching for me. While I waited out my escape I allowed myself this small
deceit.

After you dropped me at the airport, when you returned to your bed Id borrowed for the few days we spent talking
all night, did you notice me in any of it? The way Id sat at night, my head swimming, watching the light from the
street come through the shade.

It wasnt what you think. I was afraid that if you reached for me I wouldnt stop it and I knew I was nothing to you.
You reminded me on purpose and then sometimes without even meaning to. It was in everything.

After I left you may have realized the distance I kept. You may on some level have sensed how close I was to failing
myself. I sat there at night in your borrowed bed watching the light outside imagining the bricks and mortar that I
laid over these feelings and welcomed the numbness that would get me to sleep and get me up the next day to
endure more of the circling between us.

Fall 2014
The dance back and forth. You reaching over and lifting a single strand of hair strung over my arm. How you pulled
it probably watching my face. I did not look up but changed the subject and distracted us both so that you wouldnt
notice how my breath caught.

This is what you wait for. You have so much fun figuring out what it takes to make each womans toes curl. How
different it all is for each and yet all the same.

Its that you do this to as many women as you can sometimes. You describe to me over drinks the technique of
dating four women at the same time without implied monogamy. Pull me in all day then say this.

I sipped my drink and let out the air Id been holding. Its different for me is all I can say, but I dont. I just let the
air out and try to forgive myself for the things I notice while I walk next to you.

How so much is knives and pride, but this way in I am so broken and so ready for you to fail me that I help you.

There was a woman just before me, you told me there would be a storm of women to follow. The light from the
lamp post outside above your desk, the lean of your shoulder against mine on the train and the soft pass of your
hand on the small of my back while I cooked and you reached to grab a dish and offer me more wine.

I was so solved for these short instances. To you I was just a guest in the menagerie. Its never supposed to matter
as much as it does. I know its this way for everyone, its different for me.

I boarded the plane, I sat in my car in the rain and drove to work then later to my quiet home in the country next to
the creek.

You wrote me about the dinner you made after I left, that I shouldve been there. One more twist of this to tap in
before the next woman arrived.

I bend away from it and never respond. I know this doesnt mean anything beyond chess. I move my Queen to the
corner. Surround her first in awkwardness then a thousand miles and silence.

The whiskers on your chin I tried not to linger on have been shed, regrown and rubbed into another womans thigh
by now. As I walk to the creek to drink tea with the dog abandoned strands of hair drape my arms. It is this way for
everyone and so must be for me.




How Chefs Mourn



Forager's Salad

Veal Chops With Cherries, Frisee, Potato Souffl

Raspberries With Lemon Verbena Granita And Candied Pistachios

I listen, sit in the window and stare at the cows two yards over remembering you last winter in your way too stylish
and expensive boots, staring at me while I showed you my property. Standing back, looking at me like I was crazy to
be here, you said you know I don't know how to chop firewood and later by the chickens you know I don't
know anything about chickens. I didn't really know what you were saying then or later, late at night when we
would talk and you would ask me why I didn't live in the city, why out there, called it my hermit-artists life.

And now that you're back with the woman you left to be with me, the overlap I would shake my head at as you tried
to get me to come out with you. And then the morning you came into the kitchen to stand too close to me and tell
me it was over with her, she wanted kids, you weren't sure about having more. Only then I yielded to a dinner out I
didn't expect to like so much.

And now at work I still cook for you, drop my eyes and do my best to not meet yours. I send you these plates of a
communication I cannot admit to easily. The veal chop, from the center of the back, part of the cage that holds the
heart. Seared still on the bone, removed from the hot pan to rest to medium rare. I add the cherries and shallots,
brown them in the fat left from the veal, add pinot noir and stock. Boil it down by half and whisk in cold butter to
emulsify.

Boil the potatoes, mash and cool, enrich with butter, milk, egg yolks and fluff with whipped whites, topped with
cheese, baked golden brown. When you told me you didn't know how to chop wood or anything about chickens I
told you I didn't know anything about computers, software or mergers and acquisitions.

Grew up quiet girl from a suspected hard life sitting with the fucked kids from the same all through school but
always had a far away crush on the smart, preppy, shy, understated boys who always rejected me if they even
noticed me next to them in class. Now, a house servant, a private chef, I serve those preppy boys and their brilliant
wives, and I mop up after those wives leave. I hold their crumbled men into my cheap clothes and wait for them to
eventually judge the story I was born into, and then the look their friends give me, a table of them at a dinner party
we are guests at as he exclaims that I have 15 chickens and shakes his head and sighs into his hands.

It is over within days of that. His tears again dry in the blouse of his law student lover and my friends all wonder
how I could've been so dumb. My sister calls from her 2 million dollar mansion and does the same thing he just did,
you're both just so different

Now I listen to his light laugh at lunch over the wall and stack the dishes, sit like sisters with the Mexicanas cleaning
the house and serving tea at three. I wash dishes while we share stories and I teach them how to make the food I'm
cooking. They tell me how to cross a border, how it takes days, how the migra catch you and you go back to stand
in the desert and keep trying until you leak through. He wouldn't know anything about this.

I don't think my sister tells her friends anything about our life growing up, she says she doesn't remember. I wonder
if she is judged at dinner parties sometimes, if anything of our rags show through.

I forage the salad greens out of the garden, since it was winter he didn't have time to tell me he didn't know
anything about farming. This past year for the first time in my life I broke 50 grand. I have recipes coming out in
William-Sonoma. Will he regret what he would've gained from that at the dinner party table? Will my sister tell all
her friends? Will they respect me then? Will the status I gain through money and press be enough to cross the line
where these men are no longer slumming it to be with me?

I could buy the blouses law students wear, but I'd rather make my friends dinner, I'd rather pay down my debt,
build a growing table for incubating plants for the garden. I'd rather go walk around Paris in rags then be a princess
with a past I can't own. Yet, I hope this salad I picked at dawn with the marine layer of mist in the yard, and the
flowers that grow there. I hope the cherry sauce against the bones that sit behind the heart get my sorrow and
confusion across to someone.



Tamers



!"#$%&' )'* +&,&-./0&1 2' 34.56 7#-" !"&**.4 8#1$9#-1


I used to walk the end of everyday through the door exhausted to that same grudge in you staring at the TV with
clenched teeth or sighing from the far end of the couch. I would set down my billing, check the mail and begin
dinner. Days would go by without a word between us. I used to try but then it became almost an experiment to see
how long it would take you to just say the simplest things, hello, goodbye, goodnight, I love you, 3 days.

The last night I cooked for you I burned dinner from the office sitting alone at my desk avoiding the precipice of
what would I would say later. I'd walked in from work keeping my eyes low after briefly meeting yours. I washed
up, pulled out leftover chicken, picked the bones for meat and glace. Chopped up old vegetables from the crisper,
stewed them in butter and chicken stock. Grated butter and cheese into flour, baking powder and salt. Mixed in
leftover expired yogurt from the back of the fridge and milk. Concentrating just enough with a gentle feel for the
bottom of the bowl and the pull up through the flour and dry, over and over.

I left the chicken and vegetables to stew while the biscuits baked. The smell had just hit me in the office over
paperwork when you called from the other room you making something here? Fireman in a chef's kitchen pulling
the smoking cast iron from the stove. I'd burned things rarely enough for us to know to keep our eyes down. Like
we'd done together for years.

There was a way we were a team, running a garden or the animals or a home. But the quiet between us, even with a
farm full of flowers, eggs and vegetables, with fruit in the trees and birds mating midflight above the house and the
creek, for years I would beg for a word, a match of my eyes.

Then late one night you walked past a place in me that you couldn't walk back from with a tough, this is who I
am. After an hour of tears and pleading, things I tried to tell you about in the middle of the night every few
months from the other side of the bed. You would sit through it stone faced.

And maybe I shouldn't've always come around after those nights, woke up the next day like I'd been heard and we
would do better. I know that made you not believe any of those tears and only reassured you I would tolerate this
forever. Watching you walk twenty steps ahead during sunset on a beach full of couples holding each other.

Alone is alone, might as well make it what it is love.

Even though we always looked good on paper. Always wanted a home in the country close enough to the city to
find work or dress up and play in. Who'd think a fireman and a chef could burn out. But that's what they do don't
they, firemen. Women are crazy about them.

But I still see you here, left living in our dream and everything I thought would make you happy some day if I could
get us there. Everything I worked my life away for years to gain. I just knew when you weren't trying anymore.

You said you would find someone who accepted you for who you were, then, that you wanted your money. You
pointed into the side of the car door, engine running, truck full of the last of your things. I could barely talk, then or
when we signed the paperwork for the house in the small town credit union where I caused a scene.

They shooed us into the back to stop the stares. The notary couldn't get things together and we sat in silence with
eyes down through my whimpers and the general confusion until 'sign here.'

Then I followed you out the door where you turned and grabbed me for that last hold of what we'd done, I couldn't
let go. You just shook your head and walked to your truck.

I'm sure I get the blame for ending it. For giving up, for not being happy. Yet there was the talk we had that first
night over the phone from your hotel room in the city. You said you didn't know what happened. Why you'd shut
off so completely that you couldn't even laugh anymore. That all of our dreams had come true and you were still
sitting on the couch glaring with clenched teeth at everything.

I know when I see you driving around, whatever you may have told other people, whatever they may think of me
now, part of you remembers all the nights I tried to get through to you.

I try to remember who we were as friends for eight years before we tried to build together. I try to remember the
way we used to laugh over the phone or across a desert night with friends. I know there will be a day where we'll
finally run into each other in this small town, I hope we're ready.



Blaine Leal


Wells


Ever straight rows
Of burly cornstalks
Dripping in pesticides
Drooping with oversized fruits

Our ditches are dry now
And wanting of water
The Sierras have drained
And our lakes are now lakebeds

The drumming of the wells
Is louder and deeper each year
It scares us soundly
And yet we need them

When a well goes out
The silence runs our blood cold
And if it starts again
Our eyes begin shifting wildly

Waiting for the wells to dry
We keep drumming along
Deeper into our own wells
Searching for a hope long lost



Fall 2014


Drought


My brothers work long hours
They drink too much
Smoke cigarettes, chew tobacco
And spit on the land

It only rained twice last year
So the ditches stopped running
The well companies prosper
While we all wither

My dad laughs bitterly
As he waters the garden
Or douses dirt roads
In the dead of winter

Mom goes to church daily
She even started fasting
She scrubs church floors
Wildly in desperation





Grandma


A voicemail from Grandma
Accidental
Talking to Grandpa
How lonely she is

Call her back
She answers smilingly
Grandpa's good
The farm's still the same

We talk about me
My job
How I'm getting on
When I'm coming home

We say goodbye
I play it again
Can't help but cry
For them again





Amanda Fuller




Instructions for Reading an Epitaph


The dead occupy the insides, settle,
nestle in our basal gangliathe word

spirit redefined: A singular gravity
that sustains in us all, its baseline other-less,

enough to go round. People remain
movement between ashes and of the earth.




Fall 2014



Aluminum Foil in the Microwave: A Love Song


You abuse drugs and then lecture on
conservative values. Its always giggity
this and giggity that. Go ahead, spread em,
cards on the table, tell me my fortune. Make me
a promise, non-verbal, not in writing either.
Make it with your thighs.



Halloween in the Castro
San Francisco, California


A naked woman tied with black voile fabric
mocks her dominator with his horse
whip, and laugh cries,
lashing out at meher flickering
face painted and dressed with sequins
dripping in lines from sunken eye hollows.

This is my first time seeing a human being
walked on a leash, prancing
wild and bound, smug defiance in her strut;
she bucks religiosity and manmade norms
mastered by the reins,
she laughs outright at control.





Instructions for Surviving the Fifth Breakup


When the back burner starts to burn
youve let it go too long. It anvils
like any project ignored: the long-
promised phone call, that appointment
with the speculum youve not wanted
to keep, the pleases & thank yous & I
love yous left unsaid. Check the pot
of boiling lover youve left unwatched
too many hours. Stir the yous-a-fool
theres no band-aid for. Salt to taste.




Instructions for Talking to a Man after his Second Stroke


Of course every moment is slippery
instantaneous truth and love is more right

now than forever. We are perpetual
starpaths, a complex string of moments.

Time stretches on the treadmill
of days. See clearly: the inevitable

end always in motion.






Instructions for Surviving Past Age 50


Try peeling an orange too early. Pick a fresh
scab. Youll see how skin loves the underneath.

Clams, mussels, oysters plucked out of the sea,
fight prying hands, the inevitable halving.

Do not save your passion, fling yourself
at the goosebump. Fill both lungs and float

the waters of hardnoon memory with burnt-out
throat. Navigate sea-rock down thru the gut.

Find another open mouth and be sea creature
wrestling in the dark, inseparable for now.

Eventually, youll find yourself silk maker
spidering blind, a vestigial conscience.






Alan Semrow



Beach House


It was after our Sexaholics Anonymous meetings at St. Marys when Sam and I would go back to my
place. This whole ordeal started with a simple a desire: to remove myself from the dull existence that I had
come to know so well. At the time, I worked a nine-to-five job as a bank teller. You know, standing there,
waiting for the next guy to come in with a five-hundred dollar check. You smile at him and you ask him how
his day is and he tells you that its been good; the weathers really nice. You type in a few numbers and then
you ask him if hed like his balance. He doesnt, so you tell him to have a nice day. You do all of this, while
thinking to yourself how much you really hate this day.
You smile at the people and you ask about their stupid days for eight hours. And then you put on
your jacket and go home. You do a few push-ups, shower, make dinner. You grab a beer from your white
refrigerator, sit down on your orange pleather couch and watch the latest episode of Breaking Bad. You get
on your IPod and slide yourself into some app that could potentially hook you up with another gay man for
the evening. And, if there is a willing and able man, you fuck him. And, if there isnt, you fuck yourself and
then fall into a dismal, mundane, ridiculous stupor. You, sitting there half-drunk on your couch while the
people on the TV are having way more fun and the people outside your little apartment window are getting
all the attention they deserve.
For me, Sexaholics Anonymous just sounded like a more interesting way to end my day. To be able to
sit there and watch people talk about their pitiful lives. That sounded like it might just spice things up for
me. And, at the beginning, it did, but it wasnt until Sam came along with all his baggage that things really
Fall 2014
started to take a turn. During an unfortunate visit to the shoddy Laundromat down the road, I came across a
Sexaholics Anonymous ad and that started everything.
**
At the middle point in my first nights session, the mediator, Jenny K., told us to stand up, to stretch,
and to find someone new to talk to. Seeing that it was my first night, everyone was new and so, naturally, I
stood there like a dead person and waited for someone to approach. Sam came to me.
All my life, Ive gotten nervous talking to men like Sam. He embodies masculinity in this way that you
only feel sorry for yourself for not being able to mimic. Sam stood tall and muscular, but, apart from that and
the blatant confidence, there was something missing. You could tell by his brown, dead eyes. That first night,
Sam was the one that started talking first. He asked me what made me decide to start coming to the
meetings. I took a moment to really think about the appropriate word. How do you explain your stupid life?
Whats the one word that really just sums it all up? Complacency, I said. Complacency.
Sam nodded in agreement. I guess same here. And my wife makes me do this.
I laughed. Wife. Sam might have had a wife, but that, nowadays, doesnt mean much. Almost
instantly, I could tell Sam was a homosexual. Its call gaydar and its worth mentioning that, on this first
night, Sam was also sporting a 2008 Sheryl Crow Tour t-shirt. Do you get anything out of this? I asked.
I get to get out of the house for a few hours, I guess, Sam said. I mean, thats really what Ive been
getting out of this it seems. Its a source of entertainment. Sam nodded his head downwards and lowered
his eyelids so that it looked as if he was so very intrigued by his own sandals.
**
Because society gives us the excuse that its such a lonely life, this is really how it works in the gay
world. You meet someone that is decent looking and not a total psychopath and then you go have sex with
him. Its called fuck now, talk later. If the fucking is alright, the talking might be and maybe something
special will transpire. If the talking sucks, you let a man loose. You tell him you have to get up really, super
early. You tell him you have a knitting class at seven.
After Jenny K. released us post-prayer, Sam and I walked out to the church parking lot where we
located my 2001 Toyota. There, I put my balls on the line and turned to Sam and said, Im gay.
Sam shook his head in disagreement. Ive never been propositioned like this before.
You can trust me, I said. Trust is what Sexaholics Anonymous is all about, right?
Sam made sharp eye contact with me and said, My lifes been a lie. My hand graced his left arm
and, with that, we were in my Toyota, driving to my cheap, embarrassing apartment. Sams immediate trust
in me was admirable, but also not much of a surprise. Once you have a boner, not much else matters until
you cum. Hence, AIDs.
During the surprisingly not awkward drive, Sam talked about feelings, which seemed strange coming
from such a manly man, but, of course, I welcomed it. While twiddling his thumbs, Sam said, Tracy, my
wife, she wanted me to go to these meetings in order to learn that, you know, our marriage wasnt all about
sex. Sam took a moment and gulped at his own saliva, See, a couple of months ago, I got tested and found
out that I was sterile. After that, Tracy lost all interest and faith in the marriage. She saw me as this
libidinous asshole worth nothing. She didnt think it was okay for me to come home after work and ask her
to let me fuck her in the ass. Not saying I thought it was alright either, but I didnt see her as a person
anymore. I dont know if I ever really did. Sam gulped again. You just have to go with it, I guess. Me, in this
this car right now, this is me trying something new. Going with it.
This turned me on. A man and his raw emotions.
You do realize though, I said, that by doing this right now, youre already taking up the life you
were meant to lead. Youve had the opportunity all along to divorce this Tracy person and to become who
youre supposed to be. Now, I guess, in some way, youre finally facing the opportunity.
Sams finger roll stopped. He looked down and then back up at me with glazed eyes. We own this
beach house. Its been in my family. I, I cant lose that house to a divorce.
Get a lawyer, man! That was your Porsche parked back at the church, right? Seems like you have
money. I was beginning to look at Sam as if he were the most nave of creatures. Sometimes you see this in
the men around you. You see how oblivious they are to simple, simple fixes. Sure, I bet Sam could replace a
furnace filter real quick, but he sure as hell seemed to have no idea as to what was going on in his life.
Sam shook his head defeated. Cant lose the house, dude. Its my life. All I know.
Maybe sometime you should show it to me. Let me be the judge as to whether or not this beach
house should be causing such anxiety. I pulled my Toyota into the parking lot outside my apartment and
looked at Sam. I said, Do you really want to do this?
Sam gave off a muffled chuckle and said, Im gay, Max.
After rolling around on my Hunter green comforter for a good hour and a half, Sam and I caught our
breaths and smoked a few Marlboro Lights while listening to Sheryl Crows debut album. Did you like
that? Sam asked me.
I did, I said. Youll get better with time, though.
Clearly hopeful, he asked, With you?
I grinned and replied, I assume.
Sam took a drag from his cigarette and turned onto my bare right arm. This is how the gay thing
works, huh?
Sometimes. I dont know. I suppose Im intrigued by you and your story.
So youre using me? he asked.
I giggled. Not in the least. I think were more similar than we even realize yet. And maybe thats just
because were both in the process of running from the monotony of the straight and narrow. And theres no
reason why we cant do it together.
Youre extremely trusting. Its very off-putting, Max.
I rolled my eyes. I seriously have nothing to lose. And you dont either. Lets face it; Im your only
viable option right now. Im your opportunity to escape everything youve been covering up. And so Im
pretty confident that something will build off of this. I understand how men work. Sex opens people up and
youre still here. I took another drag, exhaled, and said, I bet we could make a promise right now and be
satisfied.
With a flat tone, Sam said, A promise.
To stay together. People are way too consumed by what is supposed to happen in a relationship.
Thats what hinders it. I think youre cool, Sam, so I say we just say fuck it and fuck the way relationships are
supposed to happen and just make the promise now.
Sam leaned over my prostrate body and smushed his cigarette out into the ashtray. He looked at me
with seemingly fulfilled brown eyes and whispered, I promise you.
**
Sam and I continued to attend the Sexaholics Anonymous meetings for three more weeks. There, we
listened to people talk about the various diseases they had acquired. The many hookers they had paid. The
lives they had ruined. How this chick, Rhonda H., had been through five abortions and once paid a guy one
hundred dollars to give him a blow job. She said she just wanted to feel the warmth of a hard cock in her
mouth and to taste the saltiness of hot, white cum as it slid past her tongue and down her throat.
At the end of the night, Sam and I would find each other. Id drive my Toyota back to my place and
wed enter my tiny, sad apartment where wed fuck and then discuss the lives we were meant to live and the
people we wanted to become. Very quickly, I felt like a relationship was forming. I felt like Sam was the
antidote I needed to begin again, but in a much more enthralling fashion. It was all very strange, because I
hadnt been in many relationships and hadnt ever really felt this way, but it was happening and I think Sam
knew it was happening. We were different people, looking for the same thing. In the morning, Id kiss him
goodbye and drop him off at St. Marys where hed get into his Porsche and drive home to his wife.
I didnt ask Sam what Tracy had been thinking while he was away until odd hours of the night, but
something in me did wonder. All Sam really seemed to want, in addition to my friendship and a dick in his
ass from time to time, was to not break Tracys heart, but she didnt deserve to be left waiting. I knew this,
but tried my best not to think about how he was betraying her. Truth is, I liked having Sam at my place and I
liked having a friend in him, but I did feel bad for Tracy. I did.
During a break in one of our Friday SA meetings, Sam finally told me that he had told Tracy the
truth. She said she wants to meet you, he said to me.
Taken aback, I simply asked, Why?
Not sure, man, Sam replied. I dont ask many questions. The nonchalance of his tone in this
moment was almost insulting, but I still followed through, because I was also a man. I was also nave and
much more nave than I would have ever thought.
That night, after the invitation from Sam, I made my first trip out to the beach house by myself. The
air whistled past my ears, thin and warm. From my stereo boomed Sheryl Crows The Globe Sessions. Nervous
wouldnt have been the appropriate word, but interested was more accurate. Once you dive into a situation
head first, you dont really have the option to be timid any longer.
The closer to the coast I got, the sparser the housing became. Here, you had houses. Houses with a lot
of land. A lot of rich people, putting up the faade that everything in their life was really very special.
As I slowed to the side of the street, I gazed up at a masterpiece. This was no Frank Lloyd Wright
design; it was something better, even more brilliant. White. White and modern and clean-cut. Sam and
Tracys beach house was paradise in its own right, but sometimes we run even from paradise.
I walked up to the white gate and pressed the green button. A sound sparkled through. Is this the
infamous Max? A voice sweet yet smoky. Its at times like these, when youre about to come face to face with
the apparent enemy, that you let go of all potential nervousness and simply face your fate.
My finger touched the green again and then I heard the buzz. The white gate opened and there I
stood in front of a marble set of twenty, maybe twenty-five steps leading up to a door made of translucent
glass. Solar light guided me on my way to what looked like some sort of heaven. Next to me, flora, the most
exotic of flora. Bright colors, orange and red and purple.
At the glass door, I rang the bell. Within five seconds, I was in front of Tracy. She wore a red summer
dress printed with the occasional Bird of Paradise. It wrapped tightly around her thin and tall figure. On her
head was an orange, brimming hat and below that hat was a face that would have looked most appropriate
in the pages of Vogue. Tracys eyes were painted with severe, bright colors and her lips glimmered with a
thick, dark red stain. Ladies and gentlemen, here we have the embodiment of femininity. She said, Im
Tracy and shook my hand.
Max, I replied.
Come on in, Max. The welcoming attitude was disconcerting, but I had no time to be afraid. This
was me facing something important. I, at least, could reckon that.
Tracy led me into a foyer brimming with white and beige and taupe. Above me beamed a crystal
chandelier that must have cost at least ten grand. And, in front of me, were two circular staircases that led to
the second floor. What I was witness to was a house that beautifully combined contemporary design
techniques and luxurious, romantic tradition.
This is amazing, I muttered.
Yes, I know, Max, Tracy said.
Tracy led me into a kitchen full of windows and stainless steel. There, at the island, sat Sam. In front
of him, a dirty martini with two olives. As I entered, Sam didnt look up at me.
How do you keep this place up? I asked him.
Still not focusing on me, he said, Maids. Gardeners. They come in and out all day. My family is
richer than you could ever understand.
Tracy narrowed her eyes at her husband and then turned back at me. Do you want something to
drink? she asked, her eyes now sparkling at me with bizarre kindness and courtesy.
I said Ill have what Sam is having. Tracy nodded and removed herself from the room and into what I
presumed to be some sort of a butlers pantry.
I sat myself next to Sam at the island and whispered, How fucked are we?
Just wait, he said without lifting his face from the view of the drink.
Its no secret that three drinks opens people up and so this is how it ended up going for us. For about
an hour, Tracy, Sam, and I sat in awkward silence until the alcohol took hold and blossomed us up into
much louder personalities.
While seated in a living room made from the angelsa living room with a huge, ridiculous fire place
and a white, grand piano that I presumed no one here could playTracy asked the first question, So, Max
Gloor, youve been fucking my gay husband?
I stared past the piano and to a portrait of Sam and Tracy on their wedding day. She stood in a
decadent, almost theatrical, white dress, smiling with hope and gleaming with beauty that brushed against
the artificial. And he stood next her, looking driven and proud and as if that day was the first day of the rest
of their lives. I turned to her with a drunken glare, took another sip of my martini, and replied, I suppose
those are the facts.
Tracy began to chuckle quietly until the chuckle soon turned to laughter which became more and
more uproarious before becoming too much. Too creepy. It transformed into a high-pitched howl. After
catching her breath, Tracy said, I guess everyone has their something.
Tracy and I both looked to Sam who, at the moment, had his head down and was thumbing at his left
earlobe. Why am I here? I asked Tracy.
Tracy took a gulp from her martini and turned to me with a bizarre amount of energy. She smiled,
took a moment, and said, Youre here to have sex with me.
My eye line shifted again toward Sam who now looked half-dead. What? I asked. What?
Tracy reiterated, Youre here to have sex with me. To give me a baby, because, turns out, my
husband is sterile. Hes gay and sterile and, therefore, no good to me any longer. Max, you give me a baby
and then you both can be forgiven. Ill file the divorce and give up the house. Its a win-win, really. Well all
get what we want and well all be able to move past this. As long as I get what I want.
I shook my head in shame. I cant do this, I said. This is fucked up.
Ive been forced to live a lie my whole life, Max. I deserve this. I deserve to get whatever I want in
this situation. And this is what I want, what Ive always wanted and so I will get my way. Otherwise, there
will be consequences. She took a sip from her drink and smiled. Tracy inhaled some air and said, Give me
what I want.
Its at times like these, when youre so put off by the climate of the situation that you just say yes. I
asked Sam, Is this what you want, man?
Man. Tracy laughed.
Finally, Sam looked up and replied, Yes, Max. Go have sex with her.
Eyeing him with a narrow, devilish gaze, Tracy said, Youll be watching, Sam,
**
Their master bedroom with its high ceilings and skylights bigger than a bread box, it was mine for the
time being. Mine, Tracys, and Sams. Tracy was lying to the left of me topless and with a black thong on.
Sam was on the other side, wearing only his boxer briefs. And, me, I was in the middle wearing nothing.
Naked, for what seemed like the world to see.
Tracy grabbed my crotch and said, Youre gonna have to be harder than this. She laughed at me
and, in a childish tone, said, Did you have a hard day at the bank, honey? It must be really difficult to be on
your feet that long, taking in all that money, all that money that you dont have. Tracy stared at me and
smiled. Are you too tired, faggot?
I felt my face flush. In this moment, ah the anger I felt toward this cunt who would stop at nothing. It
was gargantuan. I grabbed at her and dug my nails into her hips. You wanna get fucked, bitch? I asked.
Then youre about to get fucked.
Tracy moaned with delight as I rolled off her thong with my middle finger and threw her onto her
back. She let out a high-pitched screech as I thrust as deep inside her as I could with my rock hard, pissed off
cock. In that moment, I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her bleed. As my thrusts continued, she
opened her wet eyes to offer a lingering, discontent gaze at Sam. In her agony, Tracy blew a kiss at her
husband and then turned back toward me as I continued with my gusty penetration. Tracy whined, You
feel better inside of me than Sam ever did.
The last thing I wanted to do was to look at the other man of this moment, but the skylights on the
ceiling still made Sam visible. Him and his regret and reluctance and depression.
Tracy whimpered as she asked me if I liked fucking her. In response, I just nodded. She asked me if I
liked my dick inside her cunt and I nodded again. She told me to tell Sam that I liked fucking her. I made
brief eye contact with Sam whose dead eyes spoke to me like a past life. In gasps, I told him that I liked
fucking his wife. As Tracy mounted her torso upward, Sam threw off his briefs and got in back of me. He spit
on his hand, rubbed the juice on his dick and entered me from behind as I continued to treat his wife like the
pillow she was. As Sam entered, I howled out several indecipherable words and found myself close to
climax. As I began to cum, Tracy drew herself as far back from me as she could and bent her arm into a fist.
As I came inside of Tracy, her fist shot forward at my face. What sounded out, first, was a harsh crunch and
what followed was my deep, bellowing yelp. The blood began to flow as Tracy flaunted her reddened
diamond ring and as Sam continued humping for about a minute longer, until finally cumming inside of my
asshole.
The three of us removed ourselves and Tracy put herself into a fetal position. She told me that it was
good for fertility. Tracy let out a quiet chuckle as Sam and I lay there, quiet and still, trying to catch our
breaths. Me, with my bloody fucking face.
Tracy, in a chipper, girlish tone, said, Thank you, Max.
**
Instead of talking to each other during the car ride back to my apartment, Sam and I simply allowed
Sheryl Crow to speak for us. This was her personal album. The one about her heartbreak. The demise of her
relationships. Her sadness, her loss, her desire. Her role in the many break-ups. Why shes still single.
I refused to look at Sam. See, we were for sure just going with it now. This silence was now. And it
was so loud.
Sheryl Crow sang, Jesus love me, I know, for my mom told me so. Im a loser at love. Im a flower in the
mud.
The creepy glow of the overhead lights of my apartment only helped to enhance the surreal nature of
the circumstance that we were trying our best to forget. I walked into my kitchen and opened my white
refrigerator. Under the dull glow of the refrigerators light bulb, I grabbed a beer from the top shelf and
proceeded to drink it in one long gulp. After putting the can down, I walked back into the living area where
Sam stood like a ghost. A quiet monster.
I drew a breath and screamed, What in the fuck was that?
Sam laughed for about two seconds and then focused his dead eyes on me. He said, Im not sure, but
I guess were free now. We can do whatever we want. Were free, Max. You get that, right?
Me, with my solemnity, I replied, I think I was always free.
Sam perched his left arm on his hip and said, Yeah, well, I wasnt and you made a promise. Ive
fallen for you, Max. And it might only be because youre the best thing Ive ever known, but thats enough for
me right now.
I sighed for what was probably the hundredth time of the evening. Are you sorry? I asked.
For what?
I inched closer to him in the dull illumination of the room. I drew closer and closer until I could taste
his breath. First, I pointed at my blood streaked left cheek and then lifted my hand onto his shoulder and
said, I guess nothing. And I was confident in that. It really was nothing. It meant nothing. And so we
continue on until our days are no longer.
Sam kissed me as we sat down on the orange, pleather couch that had become plastered by our dried
cum stains. I turned on the television and we got into a discussion about what we would have to do to escape
our mundane, untruthful existences and to take the path we were meant to take. For now, only one
contingency was holding us back from packing up and leaving all we had come to know. And that was just
the simple announcement. The word from Tracy. Was she or wasnt she. Im not saying the whole ordeal
didnt make me nervous, but the odd thing was that I really didnt care if I had knocked her up or not. Of
course, the child wouldnt be mine, because I didnt want a child. I was no father. I never was a father. All I
had given Tracy was what she had wanted all along. In return, I suppose Sam and me had gained her
forgiveness and our right to leave everything behind. Sometimes, I wondered why we were even waiting, but
ultimately decided to let Sam have the say in the matter.
Three weeks after my initial trip to the beach house, Tracy rang Sam on his cellphone and ordered
the two of us to come out for the night. One night. Only one night. There, shed tell us her news and shed
hand Sam the papers for divorce.
**
Once again, I found myself mounting the marble stairs to the glass door, but, this time, with Sam
following close behind. Sam turned the key and opened the door. The two of us slid past the double,
circular, winding staircase and entered the living area, where Tracy was sitting at the white, grand piano that
Im confident she could not play. In front of her sat a glass ashtray and in her left hand was a Virginia Slim.
She turned first toward Sam and then to me. Tracy said, Welcome back, boys. Her eyelids floated
downward as she turned herself back to the piano keys. Streaked down her face were particles of her yellow
eye makeup. In this moment, she held a mixture both tragic and beautiful.
Sam and I walked toward the butt end of the piano. Sam waited for eye contact and, upon receiving
it, said, Lets just get this over with.
The pee stick smiled at me and I dont know why, Tracy said.
Sam huffed. Youre being ridiculous. This is what you wanted, Tracy.
Oh, is it?
And should you be smoking?
She took another drag. Maybe I should just get an abortion. How does that grab you?
Sam said, Youre no longer making any sense. Im not the father; Max isnt the father. You can do
whatever you want, but hand me those papers before you do so.
Tracy glared at me and muttered, Come into the kitchen. Theyre waiting for us.
In the stainless steel kitchen, Neil Young echoed out of some hidden stereo box. On the island sat a
packet of papers. Lets go outside, she said, pointing at the adjacent balcony that a wall of windows
showcased with brilliance. I want to maybe go for a swim.
Tracy grabbed the papers and Sam and I followed her out onto the white balcony that looked over
the sand that led to the ocean with all of its fish and grime and shit and silt and dust and filth. Tracy seated
herself on a lounge chair in front of their kidney bean shaped pool and Sam and I followed suit, lowering
ourselves onto a chair. Next to Tracy on a white-washed table was her large, brimming, orange hat. As she
picked the hat up, Tracy asked me, Do you know who made this hat?
No, I whispered. No I dont.
Its Michael Kors. It cost me a grand.
Well, its ugly, I muttered.
Tracy propped the hat on her head and looked at Sam. Sam, Ive decided I dont want this house.
She handed him the papers. You can have the house. I dont need the reminder of my retarded, false life.
Sam took a deep, annoyed breath and said, Well, I, Ive decided I dont want it, either, Trace. See,
Max and I are planning to leave town once the divorce is started. This house isnt important to me anymore.
I know I fucked you over bad. I know its my fault that I allowed you to marry into something that was a lie
and I am sorry. Ill say that once and for all, but now I see that I have to begin again and keeping this place
isnt the way to do so.
You get the house. Do what you want with it. Its been in your family. Tracy stood up with all of her
grace. Princess Tracy. Her back faced us as she plucked the straps from her white and yellow dress. The
garment fell from her until what faced us was her bare back and bare ass and bare, shaved legs. All she had
left on was the diamond ring and the orange, brimming, Michael Kors hat that cost at least a grand.
After blinking twice, Tracy was in the pool. Floating at the top was the only sign of Tracys existence:
the orange hatnow, probably ruinedflowing along with the ripples of the pool.
The day was becoming colder and the clouds were becoming darker and rain was beginning to
drizzle down on our scene.
Tracy surfaced for a large breath and didnt look at either Sam or me, either of the men that had once
or twice been inside of her. She narrowed her eyes at the sky with its predictable downpour and I wondered
if maybe she was aiming for it with her thoughts.
That night, instead of driving home, Sam and I made the mistake of staying with Tracy. I heavily
protested the idea, but Sam insisted that staying was the right thing to do. Tracy didnt have any friends and
so we needed to remain if only to make sure she didnt go completely insane. Naturally, what we quickly
became witness to was a woman gone utterly mad. A woman who had lost all hope. All evening, she sat at
the piano that she truly couldnt play, crying and smoking in silence, drinking her martinis until, drink after
drink after drink, the glass became dry.
A child didnt deserve any of this. That I knew.
**
The next morning, Sam and I woke together in the maids quarters. Both of us, relatively hungover.
We inched out into the kitchen where Neil Young was still whispering and no coffee was made. Sam pointed
at the pot so that I got the point. As Sam crept out into the living room to, I assume, use the bathroom, I
walked to the front of the machine and the canister of ground beans.
I filled the pot up and trickled the water into the mechanism. After this, I emptied the filter from the
day prior and replaced it with a new one. Then came five scoops of crushed beans. I put the cap of the
machine down and pressed the on button. The machine began to roar as Sam reentered the room with a
piece of paper. In some sort of shock, he said, She left.
I couldnt say a thing.
Gone, Sam said. Shes gone. He proceeded to read the letter. Tracy had taken $100,000 out of
their account and had packed the Mercedes with all her clothes, make-up, and accessories. Sam muttered, I
guess were really free now. Now, we can go out and redefine ourselves. This letter is our permission slip.
Sam looked downward at his bare feet and said to me, We need to put the house on the market pronto.
Youre the boss, I said. I poured two cups for Sam and me and then told him that maybe we should
just go outside and talk about things. To get some fresh air.
Sam grabbed his mug and the two of us walked up to the door. Outside was a view of a pool no longer
blue, but bright red like the dress Tracy wore the first day I met her. Floating on top, a naked corpse of a
woman that had once embodied femininity.
Sam let out a loud gasp and fell to the ground. He crumpled like a piece of burning paper. Me, I
continued to glare through the wall of windows at the gore of the scene of her crime.
**
The coroners results deduced that Tracy slit her wrists before going for her fateful swim. In the
water, she bled out and drowned. In her stomach, were four sleeping pills and, in her womb, a zygote. After
an unfortunate investigation, homicide was quickly ruled out as a possibility and suicide was given as the
official reason for death.
Sam didnt want to stay at the house because he thought it would hinder him in his search for his true
identity and I didnt want to stay mostly because, by that point, the notion of it only freaked me out, but I
insisted that we continue to reside until it sold. An empty, blood stained pool, however, is never much of a
selling point. It took time and it took empty offers, but I wasnt about to leave without this house getting paid
the amount it deserved.
The day a couple from Baton Rouge proposed twenty million dollars, Sam and I accepted and
decided to stay one last night.
It all started off simply enough. I made Sam a tough chicken dinner with wild rice on the side. He ate
it like he enjoyed it, but even I knew better. I was a terrible cook, but at least I admitted to it. I felt at home, I
suppose, but strangely so. After dinner, we began to drink. Our drink of choice that night was Long Island
Iced Tea. I used all the top shelf liquors and created a mixture that, with the addition of fire, could really
start something. Sam gulped it down like it had nothing in it. And I did the same, because I felt forced. The
next drink rolled through us and that was when Sam finally opened up to me about his current feelings. He
said, How does somebody get over something like this? I, I killed her. I killed my wife. Its my fault. Entirely
my fault.
I took a gulp and patted him on his left shoulder. I guess you just have to look at it this way: its all
just a story. Just something well go out there and forget, you know, man. We continue on. That is what we
do. We dont stay with the past, we move with the present and believe ourselves to be I went in for the tall
glass once again. Blessed. Blessed. Were all blessed if we choose to let ourselves be. We all have it alright if
we believe so. Anything that holds us back, thats just our problem. The world continues on. Round and
around it goes. Now, Sam, weve got our excitement and weve got our opportunity to start over in life and to
figure out how to just be.
I lit a cigarette and passed it over to Sam. Lets go by the piano, he said. With a third drink in hand,
the two of us walked out into the open living room and sat at the white, grand piano that neither of us could
play. Behind us, the picture of Tracy and Sam on their wedding day. Its times like these when a wedding
picture represents absolutely nothing.
Sam puffed at his cigarette and said, I do love you, Max, you know. I do. I do love you. Im glad we
met. He took another drag. The sex, you know, its been great, but I hope you understand that youre more
than that to me and more than just a device needed to live my life. I genuinely like you and I want you in my
life.
I sniffled out a small chuckle and said, Okay. Thats all I needed to hear.
From his pocket, Sam lifted out a roll of single dollar bills and laid them across the top of the piano.
We have it all, he said.
Thats right, Sam.
We have it all, motherfuckers! he screamed. And, with that, he spilled his brimming drink on top of
the single dollar bills and proceeded to throw his lit cigarette onto the pile where the green money soon
turned to fire. Wow! he yelled as he stood. Those drinks were fuckin strong, man!
I leapt up from the piano and screamed, What the hell are you doing!
Sam, with a wide smile, looked at me and shrieked, Dont worry! Run into the garage and get the
thing of gas next to the Mercedes!
I shook my hands in a rapid motion. No way! This is fucking nuts! This is a twenty million dollar
house!
Sam stopped, dropped the smile, and pointed a tense finger at me. He eyed me as if he were my
master and screamed, Fucking do it!
And so, out of my own disbelief, I did as told, my breathing becoming deeper and deeper. I sprinted
through the kitchen and through the butlers pantry and into the dining room to the laundry room which led
to the garage that held the can of gasoline. I grabbed it and ran back in, retracing my steps until I stalled in
the butlers pantry where Sam was busy, loading up with as many bottles of booze as he could possibly
manhandle. Are you sure? I huffed.
Yes! The two of us ran back into the living area where the flames were already starting to take hold
of the piano that neither of us could play. The piano that would have been a truly intense addition to any
Barbra Streisand concert. The alarms were ringing, but I hardly noticed.
Pour it, cunt! Sam yelled. As he threw the bottles to their breaking point at the optimistic fire, I
poured on the explosive liquid. The canister quickly emptied as I stared at a huge photo of two people who
once believed themselves to be happy, believed in that idea of what it is supposed to look like. I gazed at a
picture of a woman who still believed in romance.
The fire raised and raised and raised until Sam told me it was time to exit. At the open balcony door,
Sam ordered me to grab my keys. Sprinting again into the kitchen and so out of breath, I grabbed them and
jingled them like a maraca. At the door, I stood in front of Sam, shook the keys once more, and kissed him.
Sam grinned and said, Lets go, man. The two of us ran outside and past the empty, dismal, stained pool.
We ran down the winding staircase to the beach where we continued to run until our feet became matted by
wet sand and then washed clean by the flow of the sea.
In the water, we stood and glared at the white beauty of a house that would soon be taken over by
flames.
I smiled at him. I fucking love you.



A.J. Huffman





Corner of Arseni c and Absi nt he


Two killers from the same [gender?] sect stop
to reflect for a moment. A meeting of mirrored
minds begins (as all stories do) with once upon a
time. Tendrils of happiness ripple through
pools of forbidden liquid, cracked without ice. Shaken,
not stirred, to address the focus, now blurred
by the matching trails of smiles blowing inside
poisons mites. Hurricane and blizzard
combine, compare notes. Resolve
that their sums fuel equals one
solitary word: regret.
Fall 2014

I Am The Worl d[ s Oyst er]


The trees in this desert are full
of fire. Burst
by a whisper,
they blame my lack of skin
for their demise foretold by the cracks
of my palms.
I carved a river
(of the required red) to feed them.

Refused was the echoed winds reply.

Digression rose to shape me a new
skyline. I stumble
around the three feet of clouds left
to wear me as their cloak.
(Sadly, synergism was never a good look for me.)

Finally, collisions coercion conquers
true transgression. I re-emerge
a dusty egg worthy of a Dali-ed stroke,
and followed the rhinoceros to the inlet . . .

I am sure I will be
able to conceptualize a door
for you to show.

Hangi ng [t he] Garden


of babbling numbers, like veined ivy clinging. . .

Memories walls are smothering. Listen
to the trees. They divide
more than the whispering. Willows
wait for an answer: incalculable
without the digital streams,
our fingers would be bleeding blooms
useless as flowers. We are
building
[our own ruin].
No wonder.



Acta Biographia - Author Bios



D .C. Andersson researches and teaches at the University of Oxford. He has published widely, if sporadically, in
poetry magazines.


Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches
writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He also edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters.


Eric Basso was born in Baltimore in 1947. His work has appeared in the Chicago Review, Fiction International,
Exquisite Corpse, and many other publications. His most recent books are Decompositions: Essays on Art &
Literature 19731989 and Revagations: A Book of Dreams 19661974 (Asylum Arts Press). Six Gallery Press
published Earthworks, his seventh collection of poems, in 2008. Asylum Arts Press published his early
collection of poems, Umbra, in 2010. His 1976 novella, "The Beak Doctor," was recently listed in The Hufngton
Post among the thirteen weirdest stories of the twentieth century.


Brittany Baldwin has cooked professionally for 20 years and runs a small catering company and farm near
Portland, Oregon.


In addition to serving on the English faculty of Virginia Tech, C.N. Bean has published three novels, A Soul
to Take, Dust to Dust and With Evil Intent, and poetry in various magazines, including Blaze Vox and,
recently, The Copperfield Review. His short screenplay, Smilin Away the Dreams, was an official selection in
the 2013 Richmond International Film Festival. Virginia Tech produced The Dream Interpreter, based
upon the script, as its first public film. "The Dream Interpreter" won a place at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival
Short Film Corner. The 2014 Charleston International Film Festival selected as a finalist his feature-length
screenplay, The World of Lonely, and the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition listed as one of its top 50
scripts his screenplay, "How Can You Say I Love You?"


Jeremy Biles lives in Chicago, and is the author of Ecce Monstrum: Georges Bataille and the Sacrifice of
Form (Fordham University Press, 2007).

Fall 2014

Christopher Brownsword is the author of two collections of poetry ('Icarus was Right!' Shearsman Books
2010 & 'Rise Like Leviathan and Rejoice!' Oneiros Books 2014), a novella ('Blind-Worm Cycle' Oneiros Books
2013), and a novel ('The Scorched Highway' Oneiros Books 2013).


sean burn's third and latest full volume of poetry is is that a bruise or a tattoo? available now from shearsman
press. isbn 9781848612945 www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2013/burn.html


Patrick Chapman is the author of six poetry collections including A Promiscuity of Spines: New & Selected
Poems (Salmon, 2012); and two books of fiction, including The Negative Cutter (Arlen House, 2014). He has
written for childrens TV shows Garth & Bev, Wildernuts, and Bubble Bath Bay. Burning the Bed (2003), his
award-winning short film, starred Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen. For Big Finish Productions, he wrote the
Doctor Who audio adventure Fear of the Daleks (2007). In 2014, he produced two dramas for BBC Radio 4: B7
Productions adaptations of Ray Bradburys The Martian Chronicles, starring Derek Jacobi and Hayley Atwell;
and Sumia Sukkar's The Boy from Aleppo who Painted the War. With Dimitra Xidous he founded and edits the
online poetry magazine The Pickled Body. Twice a finalist in the Hennessy Awards, he is also a Pushcart
nominee. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.


Michael Cooper is an inland empire poet, PoetrIE member, MFA student, Veteran, and father of two great
sons: Markus & Jonathan. You can find his work in Tin Cannon, The Pacific Review, The Chaffey Review,
The Camel Saloon, The Los Angeles Review, Split Lip, BlazeVOX and other fine (but wild) publications.
Michael would like to make you aware that the splash zone includes the first 11 rows.


Roger Craik, Associate Professor of English at Kent State University Ashtabula, has written three full-length
poetry books I Simply Stared (2002), Rhinoceros in Clumber Park (2003) and The Darkening Green (2004), and
the chapbook Those Years (2007), (translated into Bulgarian in 2009), and, most recently, Of England Still
(2009). His poetry has appeared in several national poetry journals, such as The Formalist, Fulcrum, The
Literary Review and The Atlanta Review. English by birth and educated at the universities of Reading and
Southampton, Craik has worked as a journalist, TV critic and chess columnist. Before coming to the USA in
1991, he worked in Turkish universities and was awarded a Beineke Fellowship to Yale in 1990. He is widely
traveled, having visited North Yemen, Egypt, South Africa, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Bulgaria (where he taught
during spring 2007 on a Fulbright Scholarship to Sofia University), and, more recently, the United Arab
Emirates, Austria, and Croatia. His poems have appeared in Romanian, and from 2013-14 he is a Fulbright
Scholar at Oradea University in Romania. Poetry is his passion: he writes for at least an hour, over coffee,
each morning before breakfast, and he enjoys watching the birds during all the seasons.




Meg Flannery is an M.F.A. Candidate in Fiction at Southern Illinois University. She is a native of New Jersey
and graduated from Marist College with a B.A. in English and minors in creative writing and photography.
This is her first publication.

Amanda Fuller is a native San Diegan who has circumnavigated the earth via ship. She is a poet, translator
and currently teaches at San Diego State University. She is a Founding Editor of Locked Horn Press. Her
work has been published or is forthcoming in Poetry International, Serving House Journal, Fugue and
elsewhere.


M. Brett Gaffney, born in Houston, Texas, holds an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University and is
an associate editor for Gingerbread House literary magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming
in Exit 7, REAL, Still: The Journal, Licking River Review, Sanitarium, Permafrost, and Zone 3 among others. She is
currently enjoying her new job as haunter at The Dent Schoolhouse in Cincinnati, Ohio.


Josepha Gutelius is a widely published poet, short story writer, and playwright. Her work has appeared in
the anthologies Best New Writing 2013, A Slant of Light (2013 USA Best Book Award, 2014 International Book
Award finalist), TCR Story of the Month (best of the web 2013). A Pushcart Prize nominee, Eric Hoffer Award
finalist. Her play Vaseline was short-listed for the prestigious Eugene ONeill Center, 2014. Full-length
stage-plays Veronica Cory and Miracle Mile published in stageplays.com and Professional Playscripts.
Companions plays RASP/Elektra featured in The Modern Review. Her story Lovers appeared in BlazeVOX
11. Website of selected published work: josephagutelius.com


Moriah Hampton teaches in the Writing and Critical Inquiry program at the University at Albany. She
enjoys writing fiction in her spare time.


A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small
presses. Her eighth solo chapbook, Drippings from a Painted Mind, won the 2013 Two Wolves Chapbook
Contest. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of
national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia,
Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation. She is also
the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com


Craig Kurtz lives at Twin Oaks Intentional Community where he writes poetry while simultaneously
handcrafting hammocks. Recent work has appeared in The Bitchin Kitsch, The Blue Hour, Outburst, Regime,
Indigo Rising, Harlequin Creature, Reckless Writing and The Tower Journal. Music work featured at Fishfood &
Lavajuice.

Nearly 150 of Sandra Kolankiewiczs poems and stories have appeared in journals over the past thirty-five
years, featured in such places as Mississippi Review, North American Review, Confrontation, Gargoyle, Rhino,
Prick of the Spindle, Cortland Review, Fifth Wednesday, Louisville Review, and in the anthologies Sudden
Fiction and Four Minute Fiction. Her chapbook Turning Inside Out won the Black River Chapbook Competition
at Black Lawrence Press. Blue Eyes Dont Cry won the Hackney Award for the Novel. She has a B.A. and a
Ph.D. from Ohio University and attended the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins. She currently lives with
her family in Marietta, Ohio, and teaches at a community college in West Virginia.


My name is Blaine Leal, and I was raised on a dairy-farm in the Central Valley of California. My parents and
brothers operate the business today, and it has been in our family for generations. Due to the ongoing
drought, my family's jobs are in jeopardy, but their spirit is indefatigable. That's what I try to articulate in my
poetry their spirit, and the spirit of the landscape. I also write to spread awareness for the Tulare LGBT
Alliance, an organization I created to serve the needs of the queer community in my hometown. I am seeking
to provide cohesion within the LGBT community via community outreach efforts and club activities like
community service projects and mentoring programs. Please visit http://www.gofundme.com/dbef24 for
additional information. Lastly, I am currently living and working in Seattle, Washington. I am a Juvenile
Rehabilitation Counselor at Echo Glen Children's Center, where I work with youth who have committed a
range of offenses. I find my work very rewarding.


Peter van Lier (Eindhoven 1960) is a Dutch poet. He made his debut with Miniem gebaar (Slight Gesture) in
1995, which was awarded the Vlaamse Gids Prize. This was followed in 1998 by Gegroet o... (Hail, Oh...), which
was awarded the Jan Campert Prize and was nominated for de VSB Poetry Prize. His most recent collections
of poetry are Zes wenken voor muggen aan de deur (Six Tips for Mosquitoes at the Door, 2007) and Hoor
(Listen, 2010). In collaboration with visual artist Machteld van Buren, he published Bodemsanering (Soil
Cleanup, 2008) and Wisseling van de wacht (Changing of the Guard, 2011), two chapbooks in which words and
images form a unified whole. For further information and translations see: www.poetryinternationalweb.net


John Lowther co-founded the Atlanta Poets Group in 1997 and quit in 2012. The University of New Orleans
Press published The Lattice Inside: An Atlanta Poets Group Anthology in 2012. Forthcoming from Lavender Ink is
John and Dana Lisa Youngs book Held to the Letter. He edits 3rdness Press. His poetry has been published in
many little magazines since the late 90s, including Antenym, Aufgabe, Gestalten, The Journal of Artists
Books, and Otoliths. He is writing his dissertation on the intersections of Lacanian psychoanalysis and queer
theory with issues raised for these by transgender and intersex people. For the moment, he lives in North
Carolina.


Neha Mohanty is a 16-year-old girl, living in London, who loves to write every chance she gets. Born in India
and brought up mostly in the UK, Neha wants to study English literature at a higher level and become an
author one day. Her work is published in school magazines as well as Vagina: the Zine, The Lake Poetry and
Papergirl Blackburn.


Dilip Mohapatra, a Navy Veteran started writing poems since the seventies . Post his premature retirement
from the Indian Navy in the rank of a one-star Commodore, he held senior leadership positions in the Tata
and Suzlon groups if companies. Currently he is the Chief Mentor and Strategic Advisor to KIIT University,
Bhubaneswar. His latest poems have been featured in many literary journals of repute like New English
Review, Indian Review, Chiaroscuro Magazine, Helix Magazine, BlazeVox and Muse India. Some of his
poems are included in the World Poetry Yearbook, 2013. His latest poetry collection titled 'A Pinch of Sun &
other poems' has recently been published by the Authorspress India, New Delhi. He is currently working on
his second collection of poems.


Helen Park: My background includes a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University, where I fell in love with
creative non-fiction and poetry. My former professor Matthew Sharpe has been a critical role model and
supporter. I have published a piece in the Asian American Female Anthology, Yellow as Turmeric; Fragrant as
Cloves. I am currently working on several creative non-fiction pieces and poems about family and gender and
a memoir about my fathers side of the family.


Katherine Forbes Riley is a computational linguist, a writer, a wife, and a mother of two. She lives in
northern New England. Her writing draws onand is essential toher experience, and often takes its
themes from linguistics, science, marriage, motherhood, and nature. As a linguist, she has published over 40
scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings (http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~forbesk).
Her creative writing has recently been published by Akashic Books (Four and Thirty-Seven), The McNeese
Review (Rebirth), and Buffalo Almanack (What the Sea Brings), from whom she received an Inkslingers
Award for Creative Excellence. She has recently completed a novel (Private Language).


Alan Semrow is a writer of transgressive fiction living in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of English
from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and currently works as a proposal writer for an energy
efficiency company. In his free time, Semrow loves to be with his boyfriend, best friends, family, and pet
Shih Tzu, Remy. In 2014, his fiction and poetry were featured in the literary anthologies Barney Street and
Wordplay and he won the Essayist Award from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point English
Department for his nonfiction work. To read some of his other pieces, check out:
www.alansemrow2.wordpress.com.


Willona M. Sloan is a Washingtonian. She released the free e-book Come to Our Show: Punk Show Flyers from
D.C. to Down Under (available at http://willonasloan.wordpress.com) and she teaches writing workshops in
bars, art galleries and alternative spaces. She just completed a novel manuscript and often daydreams about
her next big adventure.


Vanessa Angelica Villarreal was born five miles from the US/Mexico border to a guitarist and a florist. She
earned her MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she teaches Creative Writing. Her work
has appeared in Western Humanities Review, NANO Fiction, The Colorado Review Online, and elsewhere.
She lives and works in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two dogs.


Tim Willcutts is a teacher and doctoral candidate in the Literature program at the University of California
at Santa Cruz. His work has appeared in Poecology.org, Red Rock Review, and Gangsters in Concrete.


Mark Young's most recent books are the e-book Asemic Colon from The Red Ceilings Press; The Codicils, a
600-page selection of poems written between 2009 & 2012, out from Otoliths; & the eclectic world from
gradient books of Finland. He lives in North Queensland in Australia.











TRUST ME
AND OTHER FICTIONS



!

CHUCK RICHARDSON



















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Trust Me and other Fictions
by Chuck Richardson

Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art: God Bless America (2005) by sculptor J. Seward Johnson Jr. Set
up in Pioneer Court at 401 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago, in December 2008.
Removed to travel to other cities in 2010. Photo by Geoffrey Gatza

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-176-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934852

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org




publisher of weird little books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org


21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10



13

Krunga



A shaman wanders off, having detected a seam in his
Earth.
Entering the crevice, lighting a torch Krunga saturated
with oil, he stitches his agency in the darkness.
He carries his necessities in a satchel cured and sewed
together by Krunga.
His hand, pressing against this limestone, feels
something passing through him with each step. Something
passing through him alone, conceiving its self some verb-
creature vibrating his web. It seams his fibers, texting pages of
DNA for something or someone else. Together they envision
Krunga weaving a basket, naked, by the fire they made at
home.
He settles his torch in its notch, removing their ochre
and pigments and other implements of their trade from her
vole-skin, squatting and chanting

He caresses the figurinehips, labia, belly, buttocks
and tits carved by Krunga from his last lovers knee cap.
Pressing his eyes shut, he masturbates, chanting, praying to
fuck her, his feet sliding across the limestone, the flame
panting against his face.
Orgasm. Semen on stone. Spermatozoa, so they say,
trickling down the wall, impregnating something with
somethingejaculating into whatnot.

14
Adding water to the ochre and pigments, mixing them
according to whimsy, spitting and pissing in them,
masturbating in them, bleeding into themall the precious
bodily fluids he can mustersmearing these hues on his face,
chest and penis, rising, chanting and dancing, smearing colors
all over the wall, rubbing his body all over it, imagining
himself permeating the membrane with his juices
He does this until it seems spent, until it seems
sketched and stained, giving shape to a form calling itself
me.
He feelshe seams, knowing it as his self.
He feels it passing back and forth through the stone
through his feet and hands, a self embracing all sides of it,
carousing outward through the top of his head and careening
or intruding inward through his heartholes at the centers of
other selves, which some might call me. When this stops,
when he feels only silence, his intrusion ends

The shamans people have language. Why should they
be an exception? He will write his version of their story on the
wall, spitting ochre over the symbols he makes with his hands.
The first sentence reads: Krunga is a bitch.
Indubitably.

Buoyed by respiration, having embarked upon his
journey, looking vaguely humanhe forgets the possibilities
of modifying each sentences generatrix: That which was via
his intended modifications will hereafter be according to its
own dictates and whatnot, wherever they may lead. He will

15
serve as his narratives limitation, within which anything will
be allowed to happen. He will allow its lust to interfere with
what he might otherwise edit, hoping it might force him to
slap back when the need to define its limits proves
overwhelming, when its grammatical breaches transmogrify
from mere annoyance to sheer terror, modifying its
parameters of acceptability and thus altering the shamans
being and seaming and writing and suturing in the process of
narrating itself...and whatnot.
He feels one must not insist on anything, including
insisting on non-insistence.

Though mis-taken, it seems to me our transgressions
come due, seaming self serving forms into non-existence.
Trust no one here. Im notespecially my self, or









16

Ideology of the Germ



Another symbol of the female genitals is a jewel case.
The professor wants to impress her, and shes blushing
for him.
Your face is turning orange. Are you embarrassed?
She nods, looking at the palm-sized faceless ochre-
covered oolitic limestone carving with the swollen,
anatomically correct vulva. Indeed, it resembles a jewel
casea furry oyster with a pearl inside.
Why?
IIm not used to
Its oversized breasts and pregnant belly remind her of
her uncles photos of Pandora Cones.
Youre not used to frank sexual discussion.
It seems to be wearing a basket on its head, its detail
revealing the carver must have spent more time on depicting
the basket headdress than the rest of the object all together.
Well
Youre in college now. You have to know Freud. He
says its all about sex. Were talking about Freud. Not you or
me.
The girl seems comforted. She perceives what she
thinks is the artists rendering of a loose string streaming from
the basket. She imagines pulling it.
I was just raised to believe
That sex was dirty.

17
No
She pulls it, unraveling in her mind a Neolithic hemp
revolution dominated by female pornographers and
sha(wo)men in which pornography is spiritual and nets and
baskets more essential than stone-carved spears. Cains sexier
than Abel, whos a misogynistic daddys boy.
Youre attracted to your father.
NoI
You resent your mother.
She knew the woman who carved this figurine was an
insistent feminist. Feminism is something women have always
needed to insist on if the race were to continue. Here Adam,
eat this fruit and please me first, or you aint getting laid.
Clitoral wisdom rules. Oral sex means Im the word
I dont
Your vagina is a jewel case. Riches youre saving for
Have a father. My mothers are lesbian.
The figurines vulva appears to contract.
The professor leans forward.
Really.
Yes.
The Egyptian asp, which has been sleeping in its well-
lit case next to the figurine, inanimate once again in its own
case, stirs, uncoiling a bit to raise its head and stare at them.
Tell me about it.
I dont think
No. You need to develop a framework from which to
read. Greater self-understanding will improve your reading.

18
Better reading means better response papers, which means
youre learning.
The asp, having slithered from its rock, raises its head,
tonguing the atmosphere intently.
I was adopted.
OK.
I was told that my feelings about it are a form of post
traumatic stress disorder. I was shocked and scarred by my
post partum abortion. Ive suffered severe depression with
psychotic symptoms since I was eleven.
Go on.
Ive had recurring nightmares my entire life about
clinging to a translucent red wall with the sound of machinery
grinding away beneath me, pulling me from the wall.
What does that mean?
I dont know.
How do you feel about your mother?
Which one?
Biological.
Nothing. I feel nothing about her at all. Its as if Ive
fallen off her planet. If anything I resent her giving me up,
exiling me from that world. Do you know how hard it is
being an alien growing up with lesbian moms?
Tell me.
I cant. Its beyond words.
Now were getting somewhere.
We are?
Yes.
Where?

19
The snake perks up even more, its tail rising and
falling sporadically in the direction of its mouth.
To the place your thinking belongs. When you squirm,
you know youre there. Thats what all this is forthis is
what its all about.
The figurine appears to be sweating. Ochre gooseflesh
is bubbling its limestone skin. The pattern woven into the
basket on her head seems ever more complex, spiraling into
unimagined tightness as its humongous labia pinch its
imagined cervix closed. The clam slams shut on a stick.
What?
Life.
I dont get it.
Neither do I. Were not supposed to. We can only look
in the most interesting direction.
The asp is spying its tail with what she imagines to be
a reptilian mix of dread and desire. Peripherally, the figurine
seems to spread its legs then close them as she shifts her focus.
The professor leans back to take in his students body.
Theres something about the African female form that titillates
him. Mulattoes simply absorb him since he perceives that their
legs tend to be somewhat shorter and their thighs somewhat
meatierHe likes meaty thighs, even a little cellulose
doesfor a redbone
What are you looking at?
The professor blushes and removes his glasses.
Im not blushing, Im flushed with an idea.
He wipes his glasses as they rest in his lap. She
notices

20
I think you need to confront your neuroses head on. I
think you need to shatter some of your taboos. I think youll
find that liberating. Youve got to let go of all this pain. But it
wont be easy. Im here to help you.
He puts his cleaned glasses on his desk. She leans back
into her chair, folding her arms over her breasts as if she were
cold, pushing them together beneath her skin-tight sweater.
I also have a Ph. D. in psychology. I could practice,
but I havent bothered getting a license. I like this job. But I do
help people informally, whenever and however I can.
Her face pinches as she searches for words, looking
back and forth between the figurine and venomous serpent.
This is all about getting your mind opened up so you
can do the work at hand properly, or should I say the way
youre truly capable ofThis is a chance, pardon the pun, for
you to be all you can be. Consider me a facilitator.
He starts wagging his legs back and forth, touching
them at the knees then spreading them again, over and over,
working himself into a full blown erection.
OK. But I want to get a couple of things straight.
She puts her hands on her knees, leaning forward,
pressing those tits together as they hang so deliciously, causing
the professor to mimic her and lean forward to put his hands
on his knees, pressing his scrotum down into the seat cushion,
bringing him even more into the spirit of things.
I aint no ho. An I wanna A for doin this shit.
Nothins free.
She doesnt know exactly where that language came
from. It just seemed appropriate. Shes in overdrive.

21
If you do the work required, and you do it well, going
beyond what I ask of you, I can guarantee you will get an A.
Im always fair.
OK. First things first. Everything you just said? It
applies to you. Youre not used to frank sexual discussion.
Your cock and balls are the scepter and orbs you save for
your African queens. Youre the one whos got a thing for his
mother. Youre the one who sees mean African-American
femaleas a facilitator, an object or totem or taboo that will
liberate you from your incestuous desire for your mother,
letting you become all you can be with someone young
enough to be your daughter. You see me as an African slave
woman to own and dominate, a way to claim your white male
manhood as if your seat in this office and your diplomas
werent enough already, as if you needed more than your
manly whiteness to be a real man. Am I getting somewhere?
I will not, and cannot, resist you. However, I must
point out that your insistent manner in proving me to be what
I am is done with a similar grain of unselfconsciousness to my
own. What you say I said applies to you indeed applies to me,
but nonethelessas originally statedit applies to you as
well. You may not be sexually attracted to your father, but
you are sexually attracted to father figures, I think. Were in
the same boat. Two of a kind sharing time. I could see it in
your eyes the very first day of class, sitting up front
The asp swallows its tail then spits it out.
He opens his desk drawer and pulls out a bowl. With
the other hand, he starts the fan. Keeping her hands on her

22
knees, she arches her back some, puffing out her breasts,
smiling, as he packs the small pipe with a pinch of weed.
The office seems a safe place. The figurines labia
appear to part, and a pearl drops from its cunt.
Where did you learn all that shit about the black
woman and the white man?
I did some reading to get ready for college. My uncle
told me what to read, what to watch out for. He told me
about professors like you.
She perceives the asp staring at the pearl through two
layers of actual glass, its tail again approaching its mouth with
caution.
What he say?
He said that most men are like male birds, they build
fancy bowers and nests, make themselves beautiful and
attractive with their achievements, shamelessly compete, swell
their chests, puff their feathers, make strange sounds, perform
strange dancesall just to get laid. The black mans the kind
of bird whos real purty. He relies on his looks and his raw
masculinity. White men like you get all your diplomas to build
self-esteem in the face of the superior black man who you
dominate because of your superior numbers, and set yourself
up in the right positions to fulfill your sexual fantasies with
the frightening mandingos woman. You use this office of
yours as a bower. Its just like you said, its all about sex and
sex is all about power and powers all about myth, psyche and
numbers. Father and daughter, mother and son got nothing
essential to do with it. That apparent hierarchy is a product,
not a cause, of the white mans capitalism and reflects a

23
general perversion of his nature. Its much more evolved,
much kinkier than any one particular line of thought...any ism
that needs to harness this drive to exercise power.
What is much more evolved?
The pearl passes through the glass of the figurines
case, then through the asps case. It rolls to a position midway
between its tail and mouth, strangely bringing her thoughts
into focus.
It. That thing thats going on between us. Youve never
felt as if there was a third thing involved between two
consenting adults, as if there were something else that just
took over? A kinky thing, a perversion, a fetish?
Yes. My neurosis. I have a thing for
My ass. Whats goin on in yer head aint half of whats
goin on in my ass. Trust me. Thats where the germs are.
The snake swallows its tail again, encircling the stone.
What germs?
The germs of life, that shit thats going through us that
was alive one way, is living now another, and will be alive
tomorrow some other way but still a germ inside something,
unchanged, ready to go through us all over again, until
eventually its us going through it, the Germ, the thing thats
really alivemy ass.
The asp shits in its own mouth, which contracts at the
taste, sinking its venomous fangs into its own backside,
injecting itself with its own poison.
Are you sure that business is the right major for you? I
mean, thats almost poetic. With a little work

24
The pain from the bite, however, ensures the serpent
does not sink its teeth all the way into itself, causing the
poison that was not injected into its blood to seep down
between and around the scales in its skin. The result is
nothing more than a generalized numbness.
With a little work doing what? Eating that shit?
Probing it? Transforming it from what it is into language? Id
rather deal with the things themselves, the germs, not their
words or diseases. Thats why Im in business. If I change my
major, it will be to biology. My advisor says the dumbest
people go into education and English. From what Ive seen so
far, shes right. The real players of the future will be business-
oriented biologists. I want to live a real life. I want to
experience some ass fucking. How bout you?
The figurine seems to be looking forlornly at its lost
jewel, encased in glass and surrounded.
The professor sprays the office with air freshener and
lights the bowl.
Everyone, deep down, wants to experience a little ass
fucking, my dear, he puffs, exhaling small plumes out the
window with each word, and it makes me curious as to why
youre taking my class?
He hands her the pipe, she hits it, holding her breath,
feeling the smoke expand inside her, mushrooming into a
cloud overwhelming her mind with color. She lets it out in
easy paisley plumes of blue and grey and green with strings of
purple haze, fluing it out the window with rounded lips,
helped by the fan. The professor sprays the room again,
protecting its safe and warm environment from offensive

25
odors that could escape into actuality, exposing their
pureness, the singularity of their moment.
So, you wanna know why Im taking your class. Im
on a father quest like you said. You know, Joseph Campbell,
Robert Bly, Carl Jungall that crap.
Crap?
Not crap, but yada yada yadaIm trying to make
sense of my life. Ive got it up to here with mother. Now I
need father. I need formal framing for my psyche to
individuate. Does that make sense? I think your course might
be a piece to the puzzle. Your super ego might inadvertently
provide the structure for a superego I can use.
A big piece, I think.
The serpent is contracting, swallowing its own tail ever
deeper. She can see its shape passing through its shape, not a
rat, but itself.
The professor takes a hit and hands her the bowl, then
directs her eyes with his away from one reptilian spectacle to
anotherthe unfolding swelling activity expanding his crotch.
Come to Poppa, eh?
She exhales in his face. He sprays the room, waving his
arm. She leans forward and puts her hand on the
professors
Theres a soft rapping at the door.
Two drops of milk emerge at the tips of the figurines
tits.
Who is it?
Its Rufus, professor. Rufus Lucius. Its poddy tomz
alriddy?

26
Shit. Rufus, buddy. Im with someone. Come back in
an hour and well do lunch.
Ah, sure professor. I hear ya. One oclock it is then.
One oclock.
Rufus replaces one diskette for another in the small
remote video recording device lodged into the door jam at
floor level.
The drop extending from the left breast breaks first,
splashing onto the pregnant belly, then the other drop falls on
the other side. Its as if its areolas are eyes, and theyre crying
from the pupils, or nipples, either way.
Who was that?
The janitor. Hes got good weed. Thats where I got
this. We do lunch every Friday.
Rufus watches the light turn green coinciding with the
sound of her voice, and walks away down the hallway,
muttering asshole.
The asp has now swallowed as much of itself as it can.
The figurines oolitic tits continue crying, causing the ochre to
soften and run. The statue, it seems, is lactating blood.
She unzips the professor and a meerkat pops from his
fly under its own volition, searching the world for adventure.
She pounces on it, an asp on its tail, spitting and gnawing its
stunned animal nature into acquiescence, chewing til its head
pops spewing those whose aim could have been, perhaps, her
jewel case, but instead, finding their new milieu less fertile
ground, perhaps, than theyd been hoping for, must now
somehow come to terms with the fact they will never evolve
into the next Tiger Woods, Katie Couric or Einstein. But,

27
thank goodness, we need not feel sorry for the professors
sperm for too long, since they are perishing quickly, spent in
the womans spit, ejaculated with an offensive thwack from
her sticky mouth into the coffee grounds stuck to the side of
the plastic bag inside the universitys metal trash can.
The figurine, too, is carelessly wasting its bloody milk
on its stone cold belly.
The professor, however, is not so quick to recover.
You went at that like a whore!
What did you expect, Daddy?
Dont call me that!
Wasnt I a good girl, Daddy?
He grabs a handful of her hair and yanks, twisting her
head to one side in an awkward position, and he lowers his
face to hers, I said dont call me that. Youre being a naughty
girl. You know what happens to naughty girls?
The professor opens the bottom drawer of his desk
with his free hand, and yanks her head down into position so
she can see the contents of the drawer, which make her
This needles all set with an innovative yet-to-be-
patented concoction my friend over at the pharm lab made
up. Its guaranteed to make your cunt itch for cock all week.
This one makes your clit hypersensitive. Ive been told it can
feel it when someones just looking at it. Makes the damn
thing almost human, dont it? And this one, well, this one
gives you an unquenchable thirst for cum. Youll drink it,
your belly will crave it. And it will put an end to your spitting.
The rest are good for various other parts of your body I might

28
want to useBut right now, I think its this one you need.
Weve got to stop you from spitting.
I promise not to spit anymore. Just dont give me that.
It wont hurt. It will increase your pleasure. Make you
a little less nasty.
Ill be any way you want me to be, please.
Its too late for that now, says the professor, injecting
her in the neck with the long needle. She sucks air, beginning
to scream, but he covers her mouth. Then, one by one, he
injects her with every needle in the drawer, until finally its his
own needle, his own appendage of pointed flesh poking her
where the drugs tell her she needs it. Hes wearing himself out,
shes in a blissful stupor, the small office is in disarray all
around them as he has had to find various objects to subdue
her lust simultaneously, making him wonder between
cumshots if it were really worth it going at things so intensely
with a woman less than half his age, but when those cumshots
erupt he feels a bliss that erases the question, and now, after
an hour, hes laying in a heap on the floor, naked. She seems
barely able to contain herself, disappointed in the professors
lack of stamina.
He sees first the spider in the corner over the door,
then its web. A dark movement catches his attention. Its a fly.
Theres a soft rap on the door, vibrating the web,
making the spider and fly roll with the ripples of its effect.
Professor? You in dare, professor? Its Rufus. Its
lunchtime.
Come on in Rufus.

29
The professor, too exhausted to speak, gazes up at the
janitor with wonder as he puts his arm around the student
laying next to him, a nekkid live wire.
Professor, I been meanin to tell ya my niece was one a
yer students, but ah nivver got around to it. There is in fact,
professor, lots of things I havent told you. For one, I dont
really talk the way I have been with you. That was an act.
You ate it up like I knew you would. For another thing, you
dont remember me or my sister, Thelma, even though I set
you up with her twenty years ago and you dated for two
months. We ate dinner together a half dozen times. But did
you remember me? No.
I thought you looked familiar.
The figurine has moved, perhaps as a result of the
prior ruckus. Its pressing against the glass longingly, seeming
to look for its pearl, which has disappeared under the tightly
wound asp.
The professor struggles to his feet and starts putting
on his pants.
Leavem off. We aint done yet.
Whats the?
Ah, a question from an intellectual who makes a
practice of constantly questioning. What does this mean?
What is the meaning of this? Shall we begin with a
deconstruction? After all, its one of your favorite methods,
no? Herr Professor?
Titus. Titus Trombitus. And your sister ThelmaHow
is

30
The snake begins the slow process of removing itself
from itself. Now it needs to expand as the figurine looks on
hopefully for a sign of its pearl


















THIS VISIT








SUSAN LEWIS



















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

THIS VISIT
by Susan Lewis

Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover art: Michael Janis, No One Travels Along This Way (But I) (2009)
(kilncast glass, glass powder imagery) www.michaeljanis.com (photograph by Anything Photographic)

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-169-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930355

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org




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B l a z e V O X



















13
My Life in Dogs

1.

(is too)
(or not)

what nitty gritty other has to say to me,
language languishing

by which I mean memes
of sundry shape & size,

intuition of higher learning,
analphabetic pandemonia

(give or take reluctant growls)
(sotto voce or ensnarled)

+ someone somewheres mother tongue
dripping its wicked victory lap


2.

you were telling me that
(as best you could).

We robbed each other raw
as lax tectonic plates.

You marveled at the claw
(& by opposing end them)

(oh cockd contrarian)
(still thumbing your obsolete advantage)

(species specific & oh-so-resourceful)
until the rich overwhelm the when,

meek why in humble hiding,
brazen what posting avian tweets


14

whilst shoving the text
from its proverbial next


3.

gilt to a high gloss
with hard cash,

this swallowing that til
homogenized identity

naps the plate like any
soothing sauce.

Your lube smoothes my marks
unremarkable.

Returning to this
long-lost

brand-new
unit.

Blanking
out.


4.

While life on the edge
seems more & less

central.
Who wouldnt teeter,

who shouldnt meter
other views?

Or ride a silken wheel
between the sheets

15

(hiding tingled squeals
of ordered meat).

+ trade signs
with fine & bushy tales.

Admit you would play dead.
Permit me to seed red

lest we strut & preen
& prophesy

the death of those
whose secret games

have seeped into
the aquifer,

drop by
contaminated drop.




16
My Life in Sheets

1.

blank or
betwixt & between

this leafing,
paged

the flesh rolled &
soothing,

eyes nosing over
lipped seam

(being one & the
sane)

lapping,
cottoned to

your hybrid
flash


2.

elastic hug well-
nigh marsupial,

bound & gagged
(if naught admonished)

missing your
own semblance

trembling like any
or anon

what with words withered
by your frayed nerve-

17

slaughtered expectation
piling mercy on the lost

last candied calves
stalking

strapped &
balanced

in their come-hither
wrappers,

stranded & straddled
by your standard model,

misconstrued &
moribund,

mouldring in
chat chat chat,

clattring lost teeth
& shut lids

& weak progressive
chins

(or else blindly listing
toward another old idea)


18
My Life in Fresh Starts

1.

Smothered in the
sandbox though the

worlds heart is
golden &

dominion glares,
staring down,

wearing out the
noble opposition.

Soft are the fingertips
of curiosity

palming raindrops
& sun rays

+ snow
reaching,

simply to
extend

2.

the wise child
sees

there are
no others

in our
true view.

Even love cant
reach the

others pain
(& flavors baffle).

19


You chase
hierarchy

she covets
grace

he seeks
exemption.


3.

The din of words
missing their

mark,
marking what is

missed like
missive missiles.

Faces speak
to cheeks

tight with
disappointment.

Sink my
day,

layer up
your features,

bundle them &
head for the hills

20

4.

or hop on the
animal bus,

dig your own
tunnel,

spy points of
light

which may or
may not

be any other
fools









THE SPEED OF OUR LIVES









GRACE C. OCASIO






























B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

THE SPEED OF OUR LIVES
by Grace C. Ocasio
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Edwin Ocasio

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-171-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930949

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13

Introduction
Unpredictable Lives and Radiant Voices


Grace C. Ocasios The Speed of Our Lives is a compelling
collection of poems, which is grounded in history and a sense of place.
She faithfully captures the spirits of these characters. The four sections
of The Speed of Our Lives reveal glimpses into the lives of historical figures
from American history from the 17
th
Century to the 20
th
Century. This
volume of poetry speaks with clarity.
For example, here is the first stanza from the seventy-line
poem, Matoaka, One Who Kindles (Also Known As Pocahontas):
I have stood here many times at Werowocomoco,
flicked my tongue in delight at the water.
Above the water, my hands soared,
moccasined feet danced on flat land,
etched the figures of my father, Powhatan,

It is evident that Ocasio has read widely and transforms her insights into
memorable poetry.
However, Ocasio is serious about her craft. Like the Harlem
Renaissance writer Jessie Redmon Fausets, Ocasio explores the extreme
complexity of the characters she has chosen to include in her book.
Yes, Ocasio takes on race, social issues and relationships without
tiptoeing across the page. Like Rita Doves poetry, The Speed of Our Lives

14
explores subjects skillfully with attention to form, such as blues poems,
kwansabas, minute poem, sestina, couplets and sequences. Like Sharon
Olds poetry, The Speed of Our Lives is daring and subtle at the same time.
Like Gwendolyn Brooks poetry, The Speed of Our Lives sings with grace
and poignancy. Throughout this collection of poems, Grace C. Ocasio
reports furiously.
So this is the book that will keep Ocasios readers engaged. If
one wants to know how a book can transcend unpredictable lives of
characters and radiate voices, then step into The Speed of Our Lives, walk,
read and listen. This is that kind of book: full of intellect and intensity.



Lenard D. Moore
Associate Professor of English
Mount Olive College
August 31, 2013


















I
Sheroes




















17

RUTH, THE MOABITESS

How does one imbibe
the breadth
of Ruth's act?
How she inched away
from her people,

Moabites,
genuflecting
in another direction
toward the ripe plains
of Bethlehem.

Ruth of people
who seared
their children.
Upon departing Moab,
she tilted her eye

toward Naomi.
And she slid
her hand
into Naomis,
sized the length

and brevity
of her fingers.
What must have sprang
from her mouth?
A selah of a sigh

as she brushed
Naomis fingertips,
glided
toward the palms
of her hands,

thumbed
their threadlike grooves.
As she cleaved
to Naomi,
she must have stalled,

18

receded one checked
moment,
revisited inhaling
charred flesh,
recalled how it blew

away before she realized
she should keep walking,
dust swirls shaping
with each step
she took.




















19

MATOAKA, ONE WHO KINDLES (ALSO KNOWN AS
POCAHONTAS)

I have stood here many times at Werowocomoco,
flicked my tongue in delight at the water.
Above the water, my hands soared,
moccasined feet danced on flat land,
etched the figures of my father, Powhatan,

and my brothers. I swing my tattooed arms, arch
them at the sky. My neck glistens with white beads.
Listen, now, as I wail a tune. Witness how I bend
into wind, consider how my fists stir
this great river. The mighty Powhatan has fallen.

He rolls and tumbles, tumbles and rolls
in his deep, death walk. He rises now before me,
pumps his arms as though rowing
a boat, shakes worse than a doe.
His teeth stab his tongue. And I turn away

ashamed to embrace what his actions tell me.
When I turn back to him, he is gone.
I raise my arms and press my palms
against the sky. Do you hear me? I, a woman
warrior for my people, slap treaties

from your hands. I hurl beans in your eyes,
those of you who sought to barter
away my people. I, who am Matoaka, ask
you why you sacked my fathers village.
Wasnt it enough that I draped my skin

in your petticoats, bodice, and lace,
paraded myself before your king
and your poet, Ben Jonson, who gawked
at the hue of my flesh? How I wish
I had taunted you, disemboweled your vowels,


20
skinned your consonants, cast your words
away, syllable by putrid syllable, shoved them
into firewood, stirred them until they
exploded into flame. I remember
John Smiths eyes, how they drifted over me.

He didnt know I mocked
his loose gaze. Id pretend
his eyes were targets my arrows points
would pierce and shatter into tiny shards.
And what of my husband, John Rolfe?

When I first met him, my eyes ran,
prowled around his head, his shoulders,
his feet, until they were satisfied.
Although my heart did not guffaw
with glee, it did not lie down, either.

I decided then I could stride to his love,
prop his love on all sides of me
like pillows. Now I shift in the wind,
shake out my bird-nest thick black hair,
heavy as hemp, that swings to my knees.

I wrap my mantle about me, sing
of werowances who strung bows
at my fathers command, sprang over gullies,
scoured the woods for uttasantasough.
Into this bay, I nestle myself and breathe

in my ancestors sighs, groans,
and screeches. My left palm plants itself
on the ground and listens for whispers
of my mothers and my grandmothers
and my great-grandmothers and my great-

great-grandmothers words and hears them all
a waterfall of sound rising into the crevices
of my body. I tingle from scalp
to toe. As my ancestors words gush
through me, I am what you did not know,

21

what you did not wish to know, this tapping
on a tree trunk, the patter of feet trampling leaves.
If you do not hear me, you will dream
of yourself drowning, become as untethered
as a pebble among many grains of sand.































Notes

1) Werowocomoco-Powhatans village
2) Powhatan-paramount chief of local Algonkian-speaking tribes during the time
of Jamestown settlement
3) Werowance-chief
4) UttasantasoughAlgonkian word for English











1PL LAnullLL uAnCL8S









MA8? kASlMC8


















8 L A Z L v C x [ 8 C C k S ]
!"##$%&' )*+ ,&-.
/0* %$12#3%% 2$14*-5
by Mary kaslmor

CopyrlghL 2014

ubllshed by 8lazevCx [books]

All rlghLs reserved. no parL of Lhls book may be reproduced wlLhouL
Lhe publlsher's wrlLLen permlsslon, excepL for brlef quoLaLlons ln revlews.

rlnLed ln Lhe unlLed SLaLes of Amerlca

lnLerlor deslgn and LypeseLLlng by Ceoffrey CaLza
Cover ArL: SLalrwalkers by noah saLersLrom


llrsL LdlLlon
lS8n: 978-1-60964-173-3
Llbrary of Congress ConLrol number: 2014930339

8lazevCx [books]
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kenmore, n? 14217

LdlLor[blazevox.org



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Lhe wlld dog LhaL aLe Lhe hearL (alr) Lhe wlld blrd
flylng lnLo Lhe cave Lhe house always locked
Lhe sleep dreamed Lhe skln lefL ouL Lo
dry Lhe days faclng Lhe deserL Lhe flowers confuslon
dead as a sLone


14

lv

l wore only a rlng and Lhe bells rang ouL.

wlLh Lhe LasLe of blood l cleaned my hands, flLLlng Lhem lnLo a Leacup.

made of flne bones, my face was a breeze on Lhe red flowered velns ln
wlnLer.

ln Lhe whlLe snow l wore Lhe whlLe sllence.

walLlng for Llme Lo break every meanlng of exlsLence, l hung myself
llke walls.

l faced down my own reflecLlons.

l dlscovered my shadow Lo flnd my paLhs openlng Lhe book.

for lack of reflecLlon, l made myself.



13
:"-%5 31 5&3% ; 235/$14*

purl & knlL
l knoL from A lamb's MouLh
l dellver naLure's C8uue

SClL'S blood ln Lhe wheaL & corn
Lylng ln uneven 8owS
dangles A reproducLlon palnLed LA8CL

l bloom 1WC llps
Lhe bleedlng flnger Lhumbs
1PL Skeln

many hues made Cl flngers
a bloody S1uM of sun

purls Lnu
no Cne sells ruLabagas

& dlrL's Lrembllng 8ooLs
from Lhe grave
Cl a black L?ed Susan

l eaL Lhe SalL
& Lhose who eaL Lhe 8Lue
knl1 a CauLlonA8? Lale









16
:%$1*/5 31 7*/+**1

Lakes no loLus
llghL only
mornlng breaLh
6:00
am words
splayed unhlnged
moon drama
desulLory Lralls of nlghL 0&%%&+ hollow

bone dlamonds
floaLlng 6:01
wlnd am skln dusL
swepL lmplanLs

memorlzlng lonellness
marchlng forward

yeasL hollows honey
sLuck ln blood planLed
ln corners
cloLLed rlvers
6:13
am soggy
dogs & rhododendron
blooms floaL
frog Lalls
compuLer chlld
6:30
erupLlon ls noL funded <=>?

am bus holds molsL
quesLlons ln mlsL
flsLs memorabllla bounces off
facebook lnLo edlble and lnLrlcaLe
puzzles of LasLe
dog nap


17

on small blrd planeLs
7:00-3:00 ln
beLween doLLed llnes squeezlng ouL
Lhe prlces of
fear
flash & sadness
spllLs carrlers of lnLelllgence
LhoughL ls
noL so much Lhe words
[usL a crow
wlLh quesLlons
wearlng lL
naLure balances
on a wlng
31 9&"- "17*$-$7%* :&53/3&1





18
4&"1/318 315*4/5 *$/318 56$%%

earLh's gravlLy angles lace space absurdlLy
and bone
elemenLs dlagrammlng
snalls and wasps lmage drama of
lnsecLs eaLlng small chunks of farmland
of famlshed eLernlLy
from black
holes ln whlLe lnvlslble
fuLures alLer ego sold as
Lhe grand canyon Lhe leLLers began aL
blrLh and Lhe belng
replaced a Lree
Lhe foresL and wheaL counL knlves and
forks a mysLery ln
mlssed posslblllLles and Lhe bees search
for angles Llme noLes Lo lLself
Lhe earLh LhaL was never
malleable and made ouL
of llghL and once llghL
Lhey burled Lhe flngers of Lhe body and lL dwelL
among lL selves
wlLhouL a sLrlng a plano a needle or Lhe spun
darkness LhaL
opens cupboards of flowers
and Leacups and plaLes and
bowls no secreLs Lo explaln no lons
no clouds no
sweaLers and Lhe raln poured ouL shlny skln
lnLo Lhe wlndows
among Lhe doors of secreLs and mercy
depends on
Lhe Lelllng of Lhe angle Lhe face
when lL falls lnLo Lhe body
burled secreLly sLarLlng Lhe llneage
of whom we dldn'L know
and no one was numbered and
we named hlm wlLhouL
an lnherlLance as we are scaLLered
as we repeaL ourselves


19

lnslde Lhe sLorm clear eyes a surprlse among
oLher ln
Lhe sounds of Lhe blrds pourlng Lhemselves lnLo
form LhaL same face wlLhouL a surface
or eyes
buL muslc flew wlLh Lhe black crows of lengLh and so
we saL ln our chalrs holdlng
spoons and some Lhlngs changed ln black
coLLon mosLly
names wlLhouL homes and nomadlc for waLer
and Lrees and
flaL surface sun and earLh and Lhe blood
of meaLs anlmals Lhe frulL of Lhe womb's
naLural sugar Lhe bables
kepL comlng and we lefL ourselves
Lo be sold alone before
we sLarLed maLhemaLlcs lLself wlLhouL so much


20
/0* 0$12 6$4031*

Lhe world felL slmple
lylng on Lhe page
Llke planeLs
llke 8CCLSSlCnS

& breakfasL knows marmalade
& she
ls noL a caL
Lhe dog lles under slmpllclLy
uLLerlng velveL
& darkness

no sLars
Lhe broodlng sleep moves
kln &
8one & body
a safe presence ln drawers
openlng & closlng
Lhe prlvacy Cf exhausLlon
ln a carefully
folded fuLure

& Lrends falled
ln AnoLher Lrend of
words palnLed as
wooden voodoo
WlLh quesLlons of
keeplng quleL spaces
addlng angles
for 24 suns unLylng knoLs
from a body locklng ln
a caL Lrance

l1 feels new & she
dressed dlfferenLly
from Lhe oLher Lwo
havlng Spoken beLween
llps & Lhe hand MACPlnL


21

Lhe CLhers
wove a fasL
message LhaL faded
aL 1PL edge
of Lhe AfLernoon Llme
for Lea & whlskey
a day ln complex
AnonymlLy feaLures
ln blood sLalns
& Lndlng wlLhouL dogs
8arklng or dlshes
washlng or nolse changlng
8efrlgeraLors
deaf doors




22
83-% 7$12

Lwlg people who dldn'L belleve
fall lnLo four dlmenslons Lhey
never sLood sLralghL
Lhey never counLed
Lhemselves more Lhan once
whaL exlsLs ln a zlp lock
bag ls a pre-exlsLlng condlLlon
Lhere are no sunny days for
cerLalnLy 300,000 dream women
spake ln Llny Longues formed Lhe
flrsL glrl band Lrees see
Lhrough songs a deplcLlon of
fluLLerlng wlngs LapesLry of hybrld
unlcorns and plums whaL more
Lhan snake sklns ellxlrs do
you wanL we packed ourselves
exploslves no one felL beLLer
compuLers spllled ouL
orgasms swollen seeds for Lhe
manufacLurlng of dogma
fragmenLed llsL of enemles 300,000
Lhe song on Lwo sLrlngs
[apanese Lones ln Lhe flrsL layer
of Lears no one crled Lhe sound
of broken beauLy opened and
bled onLo Lhe parklng loLs
heads dully fall Lhud men
crouched around flre
women wearlng cheap fllmsy
bodles feel a processlon of anLs
LlghL and magnlflcenL












THE HUNGER

IN OUR EYES





Jared Demick














B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

The Hunger in Our Eyes by Jared Demick
Copyright 2014
Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Photo by Flvio de Barros

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-183-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014938369

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org





publ i sher of wei rd l i ttl e books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org


21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10



13
Tri butears f or Merce Cunni ngham

the body
a morphing-orphic glyph

kinetickling energies
become
fluxurious muscle-&-bone blossoms

Merce
Lazurustled
our awhereness,

he knew space is not
the unembraceable empty,

its populaced with
our peek-a-booing potentialitanies,

our undelved
selves.

Merce Cunningham (1919-2009): the 20
th
-centurys great choreographer.



14
Thi s l and needs medi ci ne

for Jake Kosek

Here in New Mexicos Espaola Valley,
ristras of red chiles
hang from homes,
edible effigies of Christmas lights
alarming the eyes.
To exile colds,
one bits into a pod,
inviting the brash thorn blossom
on the tongue.

Ghosts fog over the Rio Grande:
Spanish hands
collect rebel Pueblo feet.
Georgia OKeefes paint
Los Alamos mushroom clouds.
Fields long for human touch
as commuters careen by
89 cent burrito specials.
Teachers tell Hispano children
they speak their own language
wrong.
Rain has become a rumor.
Pion trees die,
beetles bursting out their bark.


15

In the desert light,
a tecato vigils over
an overdosed comrade.
He shoots a syringe
straight into the soil
to make the earth forget
the sediments of pain.




16
Geophagy: The Cape Verdean Ameri can Di aspora

I .

cabo verde
nha cretcheu

nostalgic mornas
mourning
nos stall
yet
diaspora
das pouring

mos do mar
marring as veias
do amor
com
onda onda onda
onda onda onda

agora hora
chora

exiles try
geophagy



17





cape verde
my beloved

nostalgic ballads
mourning
we stall
yet
diaspora
days pouring

hands of the sea
marring the veins
of love
with
waves waves waves
waves waves waves

now is the hour
to weep

exiles try
geophagy



18
I I .
Caetano is still with me. You wouldnt believe me, but I swear he is.
Sometimes I can feel him by my side, feel his rough hands lightly touch the
back of my neck as I wring out the clothes, as I collect firewood for the
cacuphinha, the stew that only I and our son will get to eat.
Whenever I feel those hands, I get startled and quickly turn around,
expecting to see him standing there, his hands in his pockets, his face glowing
with that grin of his, the one that he always has in the pictures I hung up in the
living room. Hes always been a man full of smiles, no matter how much pain he
carried around. It was why I even married him in the first place.
But, after so many years, those smiling photographs are fading.
I went down to the beach today, like I try to do every morning. Its hot in
the sun, especially when you wear black like I do. The heat just builds and builds
until you feel like youre just going to collapse right there on the sand. A piece of
driftwood that the seagulls can perch on. And since most of the trees have been
chopped up for firewood, theres no relief from it.
But then theres little relief on Fogo anyway. Its why people keep on
leaving. The ocean waves just wash up on the islands shore, grab onto peoples
ankles and drag them far away.
Most of them never come back. A couple letters a year, a third cousin or
two bringing a mantenha, a brief greeting from your loved one, and thats it. The
rest of the time, its just silence. And space.
When Caetano decided that he would join his cousin in New Bedford in
America, he would joke with me, Well, I guess I wont be crowding you in the
bed anymore, stealing the blankets. Youll finally get enough space. He was
right. But enough space seems like too much space.
So I listen to the ocean, looking for some kind of silent code. And the
crash of each wave is another mantenha, one declaration of love after another.



19
I I I .

Years of Cape Verdean crop failures and famines:


1580-1583
1609-1611
1685-1690
1704-1712
1719-1723
1738-1742
1748-1750
1754-1755
1764
1773-1775
1790-1791
1810-1814


1830-1833
1845-1846
1863-1865
1875-1876
1883-1886
1894-1900
1903-1904
1911-1915
1916-1918
1921-1924
1941-1943
1947-1948

1773-1774: 44% of population died.
1830-1833: 42% died.
1863-1865: 40 % of people died, 95% of livestock.
1886-1890: 35,000-50,000 animals slaughtered for lack of pasturage and water.
1900-1950: 80,000 Cape Verdeans died from famine



20
I V.

Amount of rain usually needed to grow corn: 600-900 mm.
Average annual rainfall in Cape Verde: 265 mm.
Corn appears in 98% of the meals on the island of So Nicolau.

On So Nicolau:
Corn in the field.
Corn in the pot.
Corn in your belly.
Corn in your dreams.

Pellets of samp
maracad
like your rattling bones.
Sores volcanod
on your skin
and teeth jumped out
your mouth.
Still, corn was often
the only thing in your bowl.

The sunrise seemed like
a cachupas broth,
linguicas paprika bleeding
all over a celestial corn kernel.

Sunny day after fuckin sunny day.
Rain clouds were full of spite,
dumping gallons of water offshore,
but snubbing your farm-fields yet again.


21

You used to put your ear to the ground,
listening to the corn roots
slurping up all the water underground,
straws attacking an almost empty soda cup.

Now, at night in New Bedford,
you toss and turn
until you dream of corn stalks
bending over and caressing
your knotted face,
whispering, Tudo bem, tudo bem.





22
V.

On trading with 19
th
-century American whalers

We give harbor.
They give rags.
We give shelter.
They give rags.
We give salt.
They give rags.
We give cornmeal.
They give rags.
We give men.
They give rags.

Now, moneys no use here,
but they dont even offer it.

Just rags.
Dangling rags.




23
VI .

On the Portuguese colonial policy of prohibiting Cape Verdeans from owning
boats

Farm fields turned to desert yet again.
Skin-topped skeletons stare at the sea.
Crowds of tuna tease,
waving their flippers,
blowing tauntilicious kisses.
But Lisbon papers scream,
No boats for Cape Verdeans!
So the skeletons must learn
to eat fish-frenzied dreams.









THE COLOR SYMPHONIES













WADE STEVENSON











B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York


The Color Symphonies by Wade Stevenson
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Geoffrey Gatza

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-175-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014900840

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org





publisher of weird little books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org


21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10


13

LIGHT OR DEATH
for Geoffrey Gatza


In the beginning was the word,
The word was light,
Light bursting in ripples and waves,
Flowing over continents, oceans,
The word was light,
Light became the world,
And the world was light,
Light as a wild world word,
Scattering darkness, creating
The language of man,
Giving birth to color,
The myriad manifestations,
Blood red, relaxing yellow,
Calm green, seductive blue.



14

FIRST LIGHT

Love, light,
Liquor of the day,
Longing for you
All the brightness,
The chaos of colors
I came out, screaming.



15

DOG DAYS


The sky is hammered with blue.
Here is a gate called the moon through
Which you can walk into silver.
We rocked in a rowboat of yellow,
Whirred through patches of white.

We walked alone in the light.
We tried to separate the shimmerings.
Clouds stretched out like chorals
As we shook in colors like a dog
Leaping out of water, full of splash and sun.

16

LITTLE MURDERS


Little colors live and speak
Softly among themselves.
Green scarcely touches on blue yet both
Find themselves merging in a tongue of yellow.
The trees withdraw,
The space lies open,
The air murmurs to itself,
Nourishes itself on its own whispers
Which vibrate in little ribs and rims
Of color. So much blue everywhere,
Yet time keeps repeating itself,
The butchering weeks chop up the unity
Of something that by itself
Might last, prismatic, pure.


17

ALWAYS


The sun takes off its shirt,
Clouds their pants,
Secret forms creep out of the stones.
Suspended from a tree,
A lush green sways.
The water is a brother to light,
A flower urges its fullness
Upon the things around it.
A man sweats. Wild berries taste sweet.
And coffee The touch of things,
Blades quiver , silence hums.
Its never happened before,
Yet it is happening now, always, always.

18

BLUE SILENCE


A mild blue that has conquered all anxiety
Wavers above a circle of green lines.
A slight sigh, a door opens,
A woman comes out and presses
Her forehead against the air.
Insects demonstrate how much they are alive,
A tongue darts out like a gunshot.
A spongy blue absorbs a silence
So silent it is almost unbearable.


19

SHEER WHITE


Watch a great whale of white plunge
into a deep ocean of dark
where colors lurks like restless sharks.
White contains all, knows all, is all.
But each color is revolutionary, seeks
to convert, stain, and steep
in its particular glow. Only glass
is pure, stained glass sometimes
like love permits a radiance
to shine evenly through it,
while the thirsty colors cling
like paint to everything they touch.
Above this gaudy wasteland
of complex and conflicting hues
sheer white shines and flirts with blue.




20

HIDDEN STRUGGLES


Under the grass purple mates with green,
Diamond dots dapple the surface,
A pastel blue writhes by itself. Trees, stretched
Flat on their backs in the lake, stare
At the sky where the past is buried.
Black is tied to a trunk and stoned.
Red bites. Cats shriek. Violence swells
Beneath a nonchalant exterior that refuses
To be penetrated, where roots are fusing
With fires. There is a complicated intertwining,
A chaotic but imperceptible wrestling match.
The road burns. A cow moves into the shade,
Sensing that soon it will rain.




21

IN THE VACANT HEAT


Dusty colors churn. An aimless
Intensity beautifully wastes itself.
Nothing has been defined or settled.
The flatness is obscured by question marks.
What significant sparks will emerge?
What color take shape and impose itself?
In the vacant heat of a random dusk
Green, red, black, orange: any one could win.
Or a hurricane of combined forces chase
Away any hope of equilibrium.





22

WHITE WORLDS


The presence of white
Leaves behind it no traces,
Like a blank photograph
Of whats not saved, what
Will never return.

No distraction in white,
No entertainment or amusement,
Only a mute, austere confrontation
Of one thing with itself,
A plenitude that absorbs,
Containing seeds of light
That arrived light years ago.
White is not crowded, has no multitude
Of subtle feelings each struggling for
Pre-eminence. Only one thing is given
The total rapture of white,
Broadening itself, billowing out,
White roads leading up into white skies,
Generating whiter and whiter worlds.


23

THE SECRETS OF COLORS


There is a palette of unexplored hues,
Exultatory flashes that scarcely graze
The edges of the mind;
They lie buried in earth and sky,
Concealed in translucent strata.
If you dig deep into green,
You will find a more elusive shade,
So volatile that glimpsing it,
It disappears, vanishing into a band
Of red. Do you feel it? The obvious
Lies. Fulfillment comes from finding
Something deeply personal and rooted,
Like a light that swims below the surface,
Flashing on and off, mirroring perceptions
Too quick and slippery to hold on to,
Where blue fades into beige, silence
Drops into dusk, the sun runs
The danger of dying, and bones are too bare
To believe in. Try to stay on your feet,
Keep your eyes from being blinded by what is,
By the knowledge of all the secret colors below.


24

WHAT ARE YOU?


Nothing has lived till you live it.
Crowds pass, colors flash, but nothing
Has ever happened until you see it, know it.
The air plays with the horizon;
Colors, like houses, can be inhabited.
Black may be beautiful but orange is
Always approaching, declaring only
The absurd and hysterical have some chance
Of being true. Have you ever tried to live
Red? To fuse at high speeds,
To break the thin red streak
Of all known thermometers? Today
You stick your head out the door,
Periscope, for the first time
You know exactly what things are, as they
Know you, as your flesh suddenly enters
Into the texture of bark, grass, fields.
Green sees you and fertilizes your bones.
Are you red, blue or brown? Visible? Invisible?



25

LIGHT SPEAKS


In the midst of space a copper snake
Is born as light whispers, No one
Has ever known about me, where I come
From, where I am going. Im
Always moving. I walk on stilts
At night through the trees, disguising
Myself with various masks of darkness.
I cant be penetrated or touched,
I give birth to what is and ever
Give birth to myself. Thus like
A fountain Im always being renewed,
Made fresh out of my own transparent flesh.
Men can go blind or die but I never fade
Away, and I dont have to talk
Or do anything in order to be.


26

BLACK AND BLUE


Black begins. A blank unity that blunts
age, perception, form.
Large, smooth, oblong, all colors fit
easily into it. Carrying stones,
Men descend into tunnels; black glints
here and there around them,
Somber, menacing, terrible. If only
extremes mean or matter
Then black and red alone, maybe orange,
have some value. The moment
It is born, black begins to be,
never changing, altering, or going forward,
Never being born again, or dying.
If life were different, perhaps black
would never have been, but how
For instance, can blue be judged
if not on the scale of black?


27

CONFRONTATION


Blue grass, golden trees,
Fields round like breasts.
The sun stares eye-to-eye
At me. I stand in the heat
Of being here now
So many multicolored things.
A door opens and takes
Me into an oak. Farther away, a red
As harmonious as love begins to sing.

28

AS A COLOR


As a color needs a surface
If it wants to shine,
My love is red,
My love is blue,
My love needs your body
In order to be true.

29

NURSERY RHYME COLORS


Grass is green, birds are white
roses are red, violets are blue
against dominant black
and nail polish red
despite all the changes of hue
I am desperately in love with you.
Orange is nice, orange is ice,
in a solitary space
in a bare blank room
I dream of a tiger in a tulip,
a purple god emerging from a cloud,
thoughts turning to shock orange,
the myriad variations by which music
is filtered through the spirit
into the magic of light waves,
radiant aura around your nude body
indigo born of blue and violet,
turquoise the daughter of green and blue,
a love that contains all visible colors,
a fruit that will never be understood.


30

ALL THINGS BLUE AND BEAUTIFUL


Streaming through clouds of open space
Blue, absorbing light, seeks
A summer love it once lost.
Blue is deathly afraid of white,
Fearful of the changes it brings.
So, remembering the words of a text
Where each vowel was a color
Blue embraces the earth,
Like rain disappears in the ground.
Soon even the blades of grass
Spring up blue, then the blue grass
Joins and reflects the blue sky,
Turning this dream world
Into a blue house of blue mirrors.




31

BACK TO BLACK


Blue dots, leave me alone!
White circles, scram!
Die, scarlet shimmers
And cloudy, voluptuous blues
Leave me alone with my black!


32

TROPICAL COLORS


Forms melt like ice cubes,
Leaving nothing but splashes, pools, glints.
A car crunches over the pebbles,
A man stops and lights a cigarette.
The sea dissolves into its own shine.
A child is nothing but eyes.
Roads advance parallel.
White neighbors on an opal grey
Without confusion; the wild roses lurk
Dangerously out from the fences.
A butterfly jitters before disappearing
Into a cluster of African violets. A web
Of darkness, almost invisible
Begins to mark the base of a eucalyptus tree.


33

EVENING RED


Hot, crowded sky. In
One corner an orange sun
Is playing the violet violin
With sparkling virtuosity.

Clouds walk to and fro
Through the blue buffet.
Colors cook and simmer.
On the horizon a faint shimmer

Announces evening red.
Drunk with light, the afternoon
Stumbles into a darkening bed.







34

HAPPENING


Life grinds to a halt, the purest of substances is twisted
Beyond recognition, a violent bolt
Of electric orange streaks down the leaves,

Illuminating them. Like a stag at bay
A man struggles with several women large
Enough for the circus. Breathing stops,
Black is split in two as a white

Too theoretical to be true steps
Out of a grass carpet and becomes practical
Enough for birds to skate on. Thus
The air. Then the stones are sewn together

Just in time, for magnetic darkness
Pulls all its lost children into its arms,
Even mechanical brown knows the lips.
The great furrows yawn, the red ruts fade.


35

RED LADY


Our lady of red,
Lady of the hills, the fields,
Our lovely lady of storms and tempests,
Suddenly turns purple.
Brilliant white light gasps
As the brown potatoes ripen in the heat
And white comes riding bareback
Down the beach, fantastic!
That will teach you to cultivate the sky
Just like the sun, which ploughs
It every day. There is no relief
From intensity, our lady of red
Is always getting redder.
She, too, can astonish with her blaze,
But she is in love with white,
With the white winds that sweep her hills,
The little white breezes of the evening.
How to integrate her deep and ancient redness
With ripples of incomparably luminous white?

36

SOUNDS OF COLOR


The sound of feet going away,
One day tumbling, acrobat, into another;
The sound of an ardent blue coming back
Before a diffuse atomic redness that abruptly

Out of nowhere makes its entrance.
The sound of birds swerving up and down,
The sound of someone listening
To the way the various colors spark

Each others interplay: taciturn blacks,
Loud reds and dull reds,
Ice blues flattened out, smooth
Oceanic whites, almost absent;

Pale warm climates of gold that occur
At special moments; harsh ridges, soft
Slopes, now and then the honking of geese
And always the echo of footsteps going away.


37

EVENING PRAYER


When things halt, time suspended,
When white changes gear,
Slips shyly into silver,
Or slowly slides back into grey;
When purple prowls around the flowers
And judicial darkness awaits
The result of all the conflicts;
When dusk gives birth to monsters,
Rejoicing in the shadows that fall
On windows, faces and walls.
Goats wander alone in starlit fields,
In one sudden moment of blackness
Past-present-future are blessed.






REFLECTIONS OF HOSTILE REVELRIES








A COLLECTION OF POLITICAL POETRY MUSINGS
BY JENNIFER C. WOLFE












B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Reflections of Hostile Revelries By Jennifer C. Wolfe

Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
ISBN Number: 978-1-60964-152-8
LOC Number: incoming 2013942418
First Edition

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org






publ i s he r of we i rd l i t t l e books

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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10


13
Pork Rinds-R-Us

New Jerseys portly GOP Governor, Chris Christie:
That loud-mouthed, glaringly opinionated conservative mouthpiece,
With a girth that dwarfs most public speaking podiums.

Governor Christie is fiercely unapologetic, as to his 276 pound weight,
Grossly disproportionate for his five feet, ten inch height; stating with
Bravado that only his detractors focus on his gigantic bodily frame.

Governor Christie gleefully purports: I have no thyroid problems; I am not diabetic.
The reason I weigh what I do, is due to eating high fat, high caloric foods;
And as much of them as I can get my hands on.

When asked if he intended to curb his high-fat dietary intake,
Governor Christie, indignant, responded with these words of wit and candor:
Im going to eat what I want and as much of it as I want.

OKand this is supposed to be comforting, to his New Jersey constituency:
That the leader of their state does not have appropriate self-control, or willingly
Chooses to ignore it; deciding to laugh off his obesity as a trivial matter?

The rabid conservative GOP base enjoys highlighting moral character;
Well, my question for them would be: How does this assessment square
With their mammoth New Jersey Governor, who flaunts the fact that he
Could care less about being obese and will simply continue to eat what he wants?

If a Republican Governor willingly shrugs off concern for his health, his
Self-image and his dignity (which, in case he had forgotten, is a reflection upon
The state he governs); perhaps his moral character is not as iconic as is heralded.

This from a Governor who uses state police helicopters to transport him to his
Sons sporting events, on the New Jersey taxpayers dime; so I suppose we really
Should not be surprised at the transmogrification of moral character into
Moral turpentine.

!"




14
Americas Toughest Sheriff

Ah, Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio; that lovable (not) law enforcement official,
Who delights in throwing any and all Latinos he encounters into his
Widely-hyped network of desert concentration camps. He showcases his
Prisoners via highly-visible roadside chain gangsand not just the men.
Women and children have their own chain gangs, too. And after a long day
Of removing roadside waste, they return to their flimsy bunk beds inside flapping
Plastic tarpaulin tents, surrounded by fences with guard towers and razor wire.

Yes, Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, that antagonistic front man for unapologetic
Discipline, insisting that any and all Latinos he encounters be thrust into his
Concentration camp network, due to their not having their paperwork in order.
(Thats their legal US citizenship paperwork, in case you were wondering).
In Sheriff Arpaios world, the guise of preventing illegal immigration trumps
ANY Latino persons rightsincluding those legally residing in the US.

Oh, Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, that disgruntled buffoon, who grins demonically
Into the nearest TV camera lens, pontificating that: Everything he does, he does
For the safety of Arizonas legal state populacethat same populace, which is
Being undermined and otherwise ruined, due to illegal immigrants greedily
Snatching up the low-paying jobs they, themselves, scorn. (Never mind those
AZ businesses that flagrantly and consistently hire illegal workers).

Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio has been christened by fawning GOP acolytes as
Americas toughest sheriff. I heartily agreein the sense of his being the
Toughest piece of cow manure one has ever attempted to scrape off of the bottom
Of their unfortunate desert cowboy boot. But he neednt worry about his job
Security, or about the derogatory attention he garners; GOP Arizona Governor,
Jan Brewer will be there, to prop him up and to smilingly bolster his derisive tactics.

!"




15
Pardon Me

Outgoing GOP Mississippi Governor, Hayley Barbour,
You remember him, right? The official who widely touted racist
Citizen Councils as the answer to the Ku Klux Klan problem;
And insultingly capitalized upon the unfortunate African-American
Scott sisters justice bereft incarceration plight, by issuing them a
Stringently-controlled, multi-strings-attached parole from prison.

Well, it appears ex-Governor Barbour is up to his faux magnanimous
Tricks, once again, in the form of 200 last-minute pardons granted
To convicted murderers, kidnappers, and rapists as he waltzed out
Of the Governors mansionin effect, a Toodle-loo; Im the Governor,
And I can do anything I want vein of thinking. Why, the four murderers
I pardoned were trustees at my mansion, he elaborates, grinning. I trusted
My grandchildren being around these men; and I would never pardon any
Convict I did not trust my grandchildren being around.

Hes kidding, right? Even the basest, most non-reformed inmate serving as a trustee
At the Governors mansion knows better than to express anything other than
Complete loving stewardship of the man who could grant them a pardons
Cherubic grandchildren. Does Mr. Barbour really believe that ANY convict
Privileged to work on his mansions detail would showcase ANYTHING
Other than the Yes, sir; no, sir, Mr. Governor rhetoric he is so enamored of?

And so, we have the African-American Scott sisterstwo women never
Realistically proven to have participated in the crime for which they were
Incarceratedthat of stealing eleven dollars. And these women were only
Grudgingly paroled, with their criminal records intact, on the promise that one would
Provide a life-saving kidney transplant for the other. Then, we have four high-profile
Murderers, serving life sentences; that are smilingly pardoned, their criminal records
Expunged, after working as trustees at the Governors mansion?

Apparently, in Hayley Barbours world, murderous crimes of passion are
One-time only criminal actswhy everyone knows once they get their angry
Frustration out of their system, they wont harm anyone again. I beg to point out,
A jury of their peers did not think so; but then their decision and a federal
Mississippi judges sentencing means nothing to a spitefully biased outgoing
GOP Governor, gleefully stretching his gubernatorial power to the last-minute limit.

!"



16
How to Make a Rick Santorum Sweater Vest

Begin with an ordinary long-sleeved wool sweater;
Cut off one arm of self-gratuitous earmark hoardingtranslating into
GOP Pennsylvania pet projects which make Mr. Santorum look good;
Next, cut off the second arm of self-gratuitous pork barrel spendingtranslating into
GOP Pennsylvania pet projects which make the Republican Party look good;
Finish by converting the rounded, common sense collar into an arrogant, uncaring
V-neck, showcasing rabidly conservative ideology, at its lurid finest:

Now you have a Rick Santorum sweater vest you can be proud of.

!"




17
Fig Newton

Newt Gingrich:
That smugly grinning rake, who imagines himself a ladies man,
Never mind that he left two wives, while they lay sick.

Newt Gingrich:
That pretentious, smilingly loving one-woman man,
Now that he has his third pasty blonde, stick figure wife by his side.

Newt Gingrich:
That sensationalized supporter of the anti-adultery pledge,
Never mind the complete hypocrisy of his endorsement.

Newt Gingrich:
That (so-called) Washington D.C. outsider,
Never mind a storied lifetime spent in state and national politics.

Newt Gingrich:
That falsely-heralded Reagan Republican,
Never mind that Reagan would (and did) eye him scornfully.

Newt Gingrich:
That slickly hyped, pre-packaged image of faux conservatism,
Never mind a bigoted, self-centered voting record.

Newt Gingrich:
That professed man of impeccable ethics,
Never mind his censure for outrageous ethical violations.

Newt Gingrich:
That embarrassing stain on the luminous GOP fabric,
Never mind his assertion(s) that he is the savior of the Republican Party.

!"




18
Die Hard

Ah, Texas Congressman and repeat Presidential candidate, Ron Paul:
He prances about the political landscape like a zany Warner Brothers cartoon;
A geriatric, Pepe Le Pew skunk, foisting bouquets of unrequited flowers
On the moderate GOP base, who are horrified at his lunatic fringe statements.
Why, to hear Mr. Paul tell itAmericans who disagree with the (US) government
Will be forcibly rounded up and herded into concentration camps; minority animals
Are on the way to destroy the entire white race, while the US Fed should be
Abolished and the national populace can go back to the barter system,
Trading pots and chickens for goods and services.

In Mr. Pauls contrived, Texas-influenced world, redneck males command their
Homes with an iron fist, subservient wives cater to their husband (or is it their
Dictators) every whim, everyone owns and shoots fully-automatic AK-47s,
And the Alamo is celebrated as the new American White House.
Yet what is truly amazing about Congressman Pauls incendiary viewpoints,
Is that he never diminishes, in his tenaciously paranoid support of them.
Ever-ready to point out impending US Apocalyptic doom, Mr. Paul races about
The landscapea raving Jack Nicholson expression from the horror film, The Shining
Across his facewhile his wide-eyed GOP colleagues stare at him with their
Political mouths agape.

!"




19
Flippity-Floppity, Romneys on His Way

Mitt Romney is galvanizing his supporters across America, as he plays up
His (alleged) political prowess to the American populace.
He darts about the landscape, pausing just long enough to elaborate why
A wealthy millionaire is the individual best-suited to represent
The hardworking, blue collar middle class masses.

Mitt Romney touts his proudly-held political stances, which equate to
Whatever platform or grouping he seeks a political endorsement from:
Cases in pointhe was FOR welfare reform, before he was AGAINST it;
He was PRO-CHOICE, before he was PRO-LIFE; and he is the author of
A controversial Massachusetts health-care law that the Obama Administration
Based some of its tenets upon, in their national health care mandate.
(The SAME health care plan he despises and promises to repeal).

It would seem Mr. Romney has flip-flopped so many times, on so many
Political fronts, that he is in dire need of a permanent, finely-groomed
White sand beach or a luxurious country club swimming pool setting.
(The SAME places most Americans either cannot afford or can only
Visit once-a-year, on their watch-their-pennies family vacation).

!"




20
Sarah Palin, Presidential Footnote

Ah, Sarah Palinthat loudly opinionated Alaskan GOP mouthpiece
We all know and love. She emerges from the frozen shadows,
To elaborate on what she thinks would be in the best interests
Of the GOP; whether it be promoting the destruction of the ANWR
(Drill, baby, drill!) or what powder keg political issue(s) the Republican
Party should focus upon (no new taxes, EVER).

Yes, Sarah Palinshe moves strategically about the US landscape,
Heralding her unique political viewpoints with the fanaticism of a
Wild-eyed town crier; glamorously noting that everyone should pay
Attention to HER, because SHE is an all-seeing oracle, whose support
Will make or break any GOP candidates success.

Please! Is she actually serious? While Ms. Palin does command a
Frighteningly large segment of the extreme right and rabid Tea Party
Segment of the US populace; she holds no lasting political sway
Over the moderate Republican base, whose attention she garners,
With the short-lived life-span of a pesky fruit fly.

My, Sarah Palinthat lackluster political asterisk, highlighting an
Even more lackluster political footnote; her time in the center
Of the common sense GOP spotlight is definitely over, no matter
What her carefully engineered spin machine hypes or otherwise purports.
Mainstream America can now get on with their lives, without worrying
About Ms. Palins Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde childish political tirades.

[Insert a knowing smile and a sardonic WINK here]

!"




21
A Vulgar Display of Power

Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad smiles for the nearest state-controlled
Media camera lens, as he opines on his brutal military crackdown:

My people love methey hold no ill-will in their hearts toward me,
Or my regimes structural stability. They fully support all of my decrees.
Why, these protestors in Homs et al are anti-government militants, he insists.
We must crush these divisive attitudes that threaten the sanctity and serenity
Of our beloved, justice-overflowing country. These individuals are confused;
We must help them to shape their viewpoints into line with our collective will.
The totality of that will, might seem harsh, but it keeps our country strong.

Our people need to be protected from Western-oriented influences,
That convince them they are entitled to a free society. They need to be
Watched over and looked after; like sheep who are protected by their
Loving shepherd. We only have our peoples best interests at heart,
Even if that means putting a bullet in their heads, to prevent them from
Being brainwashed by this unholy Arab spring.

The explosive shells we lob incessantly at the cities of Homs and Aleppo
Are for their benefitonce we purge these stubborn locales of their rebellious
Outlooks, we can get back to the business of everyday Syrian life, where people
Have their fill of bread and one disgruntled glance subjects people to the
Kindhearted stewardship of our security ministry. Why, everyone knows
Our security ministry does not torture anyone.

The security ministry serves a noble purposeto protect Syrian citizens
Against themselves. Our nation will only remain strong, so long as its
People are of one mind, one attitude, and one accord. Our loving security forces
Accomplish this feat; and when those they have beneficially helped are
Released; they rejoin their (non-victimized) families with a lobotomized
Grin across their blissfully grateful faces.

No matter what outside nations or organizations purport; these misguided
Protestors are anti-government terrorists, stirred into action by the vile
Propaganda of Western-oriented democracy. Freedom is such an
Overrated concepta stint with the security ministry will make that
Abundantly clear. Now, lets all go back to our pre-uprising status-quo,
And everything will be idyllic, magnanimous, and wonderful.

Im Bashar al-Assad, and (of course) I approved this message.

!"

22
Mother Goose

Former US First Lady, Barbara Bush spoke to the 2012 Republican
Presidential race as being the worst she had ever seen, with regard to the
Hateful, divisive campaign tactics utilized by all of the candidates.

Well, Ms. Bush would know something about hateful, divisive campaign tactics,
Wouldnt she? Her son, George W. Bush waged a disgraceful 2000 smear strategy
Against Republican AZ Senator John McCain, where he suggested the decorated
War veteran had fathered an illegitimate child with a woman of African-American
Descentjust in time for the race-biased South Carolina GOP primary.

And if that was not enough; we have Ms. Bushs husband, George H.W. Bush,
Who organized the most racist, one-sided, Willie Horton black people are going to
Burst into your homes and rape all of your wives and daughters anti-Dukakis
Election strategy, vilifying the African-American community, since the Ku Klux Klan
Held their first angry meeting in Pulaski, Tennessee.

And soI would opine that former US First Lady, Barbara Bush addressing the
Concept of 2012 Republican Presidential campaign tactics as being some of the
Worst she had ever seen pales in comparison to the hateful, divisive political
Strategies her cherished family members have unapologetically perpetrated.

!"




23
(Radioactive) Tea, Anyone?

Russias antagonistic front man, Vladimir Putin recently emerged victorious,
In dubious Russian elections, decried across the entire country as being
Outrageously fraudulent. Having been barred from running for the Russian
Presidency, after serving his previous two-term limit; Mr. Putin simply became
The Prime Minister power-behind-the-throne of President Dmitry Medvedev.

After Medvedevs figure head, one-term Presidential tenure expired, Mr. Putin
Roared back onto the Russian Presidential stage; eagerly propelling himself
Forward, to seek a new termdue to the Russians lack of foresight, in
Eliminating the sit-out-the-presidency-for-one-term-and-you-can-run-again
Political loophole. (Thankfully, the US took care of this conundrum).

So we now, once again, have President Putinthe coldblooded tyrant,
Whose new incarnation KGB forces shoot inquisitive journalists dead, while
Rounding up any anti-Putin sympathizers into dimly lit prisons, to be unmercifully
Tortured. (This is, by the way, before they are dispatched to the infamous,
Allegedly discontinued Soviet Gulag prison system).

But lets not forget about Mr. Putins most heartless claim to fame:
The ex-KGB agent, living in London, who was poisoned with radioactive
Polonium-mixed hot tea, on his (Putins) orders. Or that this murderous action
Was prompted by the ex-agents defection to Great Britain, along with the
Derisive details he exposed, regarding Mr. Putins favored Soviet philosophy.

Remember, Mr. Putin is the man George W. Bush praised, swearing he had
Looked into his (Putins) eyes and seen into his soul. What was that soul
President Bush is supposed to have seen, I wonder? The faux concerned
Spirit of a man determined to better his once-Communistic country; or was poor
George W. duped by a reprehensible thug, expressing a strategically positive
Attitude toward US-Russian political relations?

Yes, Russias antagonistic front man, Vladimir Putin recently emerged victorious,
In dubious Russian elections, decried across the entire country as being
Outrageously fraudulent. The pro-Putin Russian political establishment can
Congratulate themselves on setting the progress of their nation back as severely
As when Josef Stalin came to absolute power.

[Having written this poem, your mild-mannered author will now be extremely wary
Of any and all incoming hot tea]

!"


24
Murky

US President Barack Obama campaigned in the 2008 general election,
On the precedent of the complete transparency of his administration.
Yet scarcely three years later (2011); it was revealed that key members of
His cabinet held weekly meetings away from the White House, at a local
Washington D.C. coffee shop. No official records were kept of the strategic
Planning sessionsindeed, no notes, of any kind, were scribbled out.
(Where they might become available to the American public).

One has to ask themselves: How do, for all practical purposes, secret
Administration meetingsdisguised as friendly coffee-klatchesmake for
Alleged political transparency? It would seem President Obama has
Taken a page out of the CIA secret meeting(s) playbook; except that the
Commander-in-Chief expressly promised his politics would be transparent,
While the Central Intelligence Agency makes no such boasts. One then has
To wonderare the coffee and any consumed breakfast pastries charged to
US taxpayers, or are the meetings costs un-transparent, too?

So much for the illusion of transparency, right? Apparently, in Mr. Obamas
World, off-the-cuff political dialogue, away from the public spotlight,
Over a cup of Joe works just fine.

!"








________________________________

PHARMAKON

(A CASE HISTORY)
________________________________








Kristina Marie Darling
















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York
Pharmakon (A Case History) by Kristina Marie Darling
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art: "Rabbit Bunny Hare Hare" by Noah Saterstrom, 18"x24", pastel on paper, 2013.

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-174-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014900833

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org





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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10









B l a z e V O X


















________________________________

PHARMAKON

(A CASE HISTORY)
________________________________



















"A text remains...forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules
are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibility of a secret;
it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into
anything that could be rigorously called a perception."
Jacques Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy"











13

























_________________________________________
1.
Alone in the house, she felt too old for some trinkets pinned in velvet box.

2.
She began watching television to pass the time. Each frame seemed more colorful, even
iridescent, when she closed her eyes at night.

3. "
His warmth began after. Now the kettle boils and shrieks. Soon I'll open a velvet box and
find the gifts he's left behind: a withered corsage, a candy necklace, some photographs
mounted in a book."

4.
Attachment.

1. The act of attaching.
2. The condition of being attached.
3. A supplementary part; an accessory.
4. An additional disclosure that is attached to the primary document.
5. The legal seizure of property or a person.
14



































____________________________________________________________________________
5.
The film (c. 1938) depicts the various suicides that took place within the lavish
country estate. In every room, the empty fixture where a light one was.
15
































____________________________________________________________________________
6.
"I had wanted to understand the architecture of this strange machine. His death was
brought on by a system of pulleys, levers, and strings. Even after, the little gears keep
turning."

7.
She dusted each of the bottles with a dark green cloth, recorded their contents in a tiny
ledger.
16
































______________________________________________________
8.
A letter, burned from the bottom up. The belaboured flourishes of his handwriting still
visible through the smoke and ash.
9.
"Now the lakeside mumbles with its slow music, the icicles striking against one another for
warmth."
10.
Melancholia. A state of mourning for the lost object.
17































__________________________________________________
11.
She went to light a candle at the church, but found that the tiny wick had been gutted from
the wax.

13.
"'You don't remember because you don't care.' Sometimes my mother's voice swells and fills my
forehead."
14.
A late nineteenth-century stage play, in which the heroine was driven to madness by the
many voices that inhabited her engraved fountain pen.









OXIDANE










NICOLE MATOS





















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Oxidane
by Nicole Matos

Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Dennis Sevilla.

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-179-5
Library of Congress Number: 2014936384


BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org




publisher of weird little books

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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10


15



1.1


You entered in a conic section.
One elbow, the tip, pinched between two steering fingers and a thumb.
Not a breech birth, not exactly, like all those other
famous champions
Caesar and Macbeth and David Copperfield.
Born by the foot, born with a caul.
You were born at obtuse angles
drawn through the scarred plane of that homeroom doorway
everted, splayed, almost a Conscientious Objector.
It was easy to imagine the dogs upon you
your outsteps gently bumping
the earth as the secret police dragged you in.
She touched you so barely probably
that woman
because you were so dirty. But that isnt what we saw.
What we saw. So hard to say.
But first the elbow
steering in, catching us, catching up.


16



1.2


Pencil frozen halfway to mouth
thirty workbooks rustling
she twisted the knob of your elbow
unfurled you in that awkward threshold space
and left, without even a gesture to an empty seat.
There never was an empty seat.
Hector and that big kid
the one we called Gilgamesh
were squeezed in at the radiator
and we laid our work on windowsills, crusting the rooms edges
when it wasnt too hot or too cold.
I was the one to make room, to claim you.
I wheeled and wheeled my hand.
Everyone watched. No hatred.
There was no way to tell you there was nothing to fear, just the loose
momentary engrossment of something new.
You were white, or mostly white.
Your hair was long, plain, it split
in locks in the front, but the back seemed
some sort of fuzzed semi-solid.
Pointillist, your dirt, the dandruff that sifted, the freckles.



17



1.3


Everything in that classroom happened in pantomime.
Nothing would be questioned
as long as there was quiet, solemn and total
and some denomination of worksheets at the end of our mutual time.
I stood up, backed up some steps, and made the grandest motion I
could.
My seat, take it, pointing, pointing.
You reacted at last, you had no choice.
You walked your steps and sat down.
And startled by my own magnificence, I looked around and
not seeing a solution
sat down at your feet on the floor, crosslegged, too.
They laughed at me when I did it
only a little, a quick raining patter
and only at me, my love, not ever at you.



18



1.4


So you entered, elbow-first, like a lever
a unit of possible labor
an inclination
between Tacey and me.
You shouldnt have done that, she said to me, sotto voce
while your elbow, naked, speckled, beautiful
waited ahead, still alone at lunch, for a ticket to trade for a tray.
We might have had a chance, she said
and in her tone was genuine regret.
No further action: Tacey said we should Observe.
It was her Method:
using all five senses to take you in.
If we were going to take you in. The fateful question.
Seeing was easy. We could see you
that has already been established
but it took Tacey to notice your farsightedness:
See the way shes pop-eyed? Her eyes are exaggerated.
Most glasses make eyes look smaller.
But why then were your glasses so cloudy, the lenses almost lemonade?
Small scuffs over and over?
Scrubbing them against concrete?
Scraping over sand?
I cleaned my own glasses in compulsive solidarity
huffing and rubbing, until Tacey made me stop.



19



1.5


Tasting you was, of course, the hardest.
You refused
with surprise more than suspicion, itself an empirical result
the gift of a cigarette, when we cornered you in the courtyard.
I had hoped to share in your saliva
to see if it would match the sour
that Tacey reported on your breath.
In the end, I tasted your hair. It wasnt too hard
to sit behind you in some interminable class,
to lift a tendril, the very end.
From the neck down your hair was, in fact, in strands, teeming and
separate;
it was only the section against your scalp matted like a melted toupee.
You had no feeling there at the ends, like normal hair, when I touched it
to my tongue.
It tasted of dish soap.
And to this day, when I do the dishes, before I rinse, I lift a glass, a
bowl,
a saucer to my lips, and I drink you back in.

20



1.6


I think she is a feral child. This was the end result of our
investigations.
No shame in that. Some people get made on purpose
their parents taking temperatures and tests
all in the service of getting them here
while the rest of us are born without a meaningful sequence.
Throw-away people.
The units that made us just bobbling around, shimmering in and out of
focus.
Driving a car, eating corn on the cob.
Crying for unknown reasons late at night.
Smelling like successively different colognes.
Patting, once in a while, surprisingly, our arms.
We followed you home, just to be sure nobody had made you, nobody
important.
To be sure you were available to be made by us.









NOAHS ARK









SAM MAGAVERN



WITH IMAGES BY MONICA ANGLE














B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Noahs Ark by Sam Magavern
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
without the publishers written permission, except for brief
quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover art and interior artwork by Monica Angle

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-142-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942425

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
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1



17
Greek Fragment, Author Unknown


I sing the poetry of the mortal soul.
I bind the frail reeds together. Oh,
Pans pipe! Oh fragile raft! So loud
Is the river of false omniscience.









19
The Bullfrogs Prayer


May you never renounce all cravings.

May you continue to concern yourself
with the difference between plum
and magenta shades of lipstick.

Listen to the bullfrog in the cold marsh:
the frail bellows of his desire croak.

May you never renounce his song.

20
Smudged Ink


NO PAST LIVES. And no future.
A single character, quickly
brushed
In black ink
(smudged)
on this rice
Paper, this fast-burning page.









JANUARY FOUND








MICHAEL SIKKEMA






















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

January Found by Michael Sikkema

Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Michael Dunn

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-170-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930354

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

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13

Wander-Rooms and Outside Noise



The animal ghosts have jewelry

in their shit


and experts spent a century trying

to confuse an apple tree


Say some day full

of the eros of thanatos


of fish hinge and reverb

camouflage irony


Will the owners of the cattle

mutilations, cubicle attention


the through shot and blood trail

of the product named naked


please step forward?



14
The Keeper Makes Eye Contact



We range
the field for a lost
sea note

bottled or
otherwise
your stolen bees

won't prosper



15
How to Understand Evolution



Left over like a tailbone

the wind stole the notes


for this section

Whole ones & sharp quarters


with those sweet hats

Try to think more


like a kite on fire

We're halfway there


16
Penned In Perennial



anyone acrobatic enough

in the social box

tethered

to an engine faking

the wind

we all owe ourselves money


17
Wander-Rooms and Outside Noise



More than ready to animal

to hero through the praise


delivered as blame. That tea

bag figure zeroes and zeroes


And that pallet of missing money?

Its in the hiberallucinatory


whiteness with the interactive

penguin toys. Go, give it a go


18
Penned in Perennial




we're on both ends of the pitchfork

each morning every street

we all noticed the sky at once



19
The Keeper Pulls Back the Daily Level



The first fern is
food
musical, add oil
give

a little anthem
gristle
all through
Wyandot




20
Whiskey Nice



unicorn on the cob









EVENING TRAIN








TOM CLARK




















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Evening Train ! Copyright by Tom Clark, 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover image: Transmission lines and railroad near Salton Sea, California. District of
Los Angeles smog obscures the sun: photo by Charles O'Rear, May 1972 for the
Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA Project.

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-187-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014943800

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

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B l a z e V O X

























Acknowledgements:

Some of these poems first appeared in Poetry magazine, as well as
in the Bunchgrass Press limited edition chapbook anthologies
Myth, Official Leagues, For Hours Now, Envoy, and on the Tom
Clark/Beyond the Pale blog.





Contents

Moving House ......................................................................................................... 13
Evening Train .......................................................................................................... 14
Taking the El to Work ........................................................................................... 15
Pancake and Pizza Breakfast ............................................................................... 16
Nice Surprise ........................................................................................................... 17
The Past ..................................................................................................................... 18
Point and Shoot ...................................................................................................... 19
Words ....................................................................................................................... 20
Styx ............................................................................................................................. 21
Sliver ......................................................................................................................... 22
Nightly Encounter .................................................................................................. 23
Castaway .................................................................................................................. 24
Reflection .................................................................................................................. 25
Nebulous .................................................................................................................. 26
Suspension ............................................................................................................... 27
Storm Light, from Ocean View ......................................................................... 28
Bridge ........................................................................................................................ 29
One Moment ........................................................................................................... 30
Exposed ..................................................................................................................... 31
Ladybug ..................................................................................................................... 32
Wild ............................................................................................................................ 33
Light Relief .............................................................................................................. 34
Fissure ........................................................................................................................ 35
Hidden Villa ............................................................................................................ 36
Christmas Market ................................................................................................... 37
Diminishing Perspective ..................................................................................... 38
Bait ............................................................................................................................. 40
Lunch Poem ............................................................................................................. 41
Balancing ................................................................................................................. 42
Stretching It ............................................................................................................ 43
Vulnerable ............................................................................................................... 45
skyfalling .................................................................................................................. 46
Other ......................................................................................................................... 47
State of Emergency ............................................................................................... 48
Woman in the Window ....................................................................................... 49
The View from Here ............................................................................................. 50
A Door in the Wall ................................................................................................. 51
Why Me ..................................................................................................................... 52
Lust for Life ............................................................................................................. 54
Lacuna ....................................................................................................................... 55

Opaque ..................................................................................................................... 56
So Now You Know ................................................................................................. 57
Bright Ideas ............................................................................................................. 58
Blank (Don't Be Late) ............................................................................................ 59
Millennial Rising ................................................................................................... 60
Rue (Melancholy Couple) .................................................................................... 61
The Beginning ........................................................................................................ 62
Doom Forest ........................................................................................................... 63
Party Animals ......................................................................................................... 64
Peerage ..................................................................................................................... 65
Still Lights ................................................................................................................ 66
Negative Development ........................................................................................ 67
Not Wading But Sinking ..................................................................................... 69
Product Placement ................................................................................................ 70
Emotional ................................................................................................................. 71
Sheepish .................................................................................................................... 72
Express ...................................................................................................................... 73
Imaging (The White Horse) ............................................................................... 74
Fear ............................................................................................................................. 75
I Am Alive (Bounded by Forest) ........................................................................ 76
Interrogation ............................................................................................................ 77
Lionize ...................................................................................................................... 78
Who goes there? .................................................................................................... 79
Something ............................................................................................................... 80
Then and Now ......................................................................................................... 81
America (Razor Sharp Cuts) ............................................................................... 82
Recovered Memory ............................................................................................... 83
Appointment ........................................................................................................... 84
Myth .......................................................................................................................... 85
After the Flood ....................................................................................................... 86
Giuseppe Ungaretti: Sunset ............................................................................... 87
Giuseppe Ungaretti: In Memoria ...................................................................... 88
Impending: Hlderlin's Brevity ......................................................................... 90
Dust Devil Days ...................................................................................................... 91
Blown Away ............................................................................................................ 92












EVENING TRAIN


13

Moving House

We were always moving out
ahead of the next wave yet not
riding the last wave to the crest

history refracts the burden
and it all breaks back and down
and returns yet not the same, tipping

ill fitting puzzle bits of myth
captured and released
in transition to dust from real life

as time flows on away beneath
the ground
all the endless summer night long




14

Evening Train

Train whistle in cold January night
down by the water
lonesome sound
from a long way off
amid memory forest
Harlem Avenue 1947
or 1948
late
upstairs
in the exile bedroom
at grandparents' house
across from the house
of the mysterious famous gangster

in the dark
under the attic rafters
hour after hour
imagining a meaning
to fit
the brilliant silvery word
Zephyr





15

Taking the El to Work

I make it out the door to the El station.
It's a hot summer day in 1955.
Heat waves jump off the El tracks.
From the train you can see down into the backyards
Where angels live in dejection.
Ragged wash hangs there: grey t-shirts without arms.
Next come vistas of wrecked cars and the bolt factory.
Downtown I change trains for the North Side
Or the South Side. One night late
I'm walking down 35th Street toward the El
When out of the double doors of a bar
Explodes a woman screaming as if escaped
From hell, her torso a red streaming suture.
I decide I am unsuited for this line of work
But the next night I'm back on the train to the ballpark.

16

Pancake and Pizza Breakfast

Yellow Olds with 1970 Iowa plates so bilious you put me in mind
of adventure
seeking back in the lost time
when all it took to inspire the heart with a prolonged rush of
expectation
was the idea of a deranged weekend at the Dells



17

Nice Surprise

There toward the end of that last Millennium, with only about
sixty more years to go, when things were finally beginning to
become just that little bit clearer, it was thought time to provide
the child a soft, loyal, companionable stuffed friend.

But by then, it was perhaps too late.

The mask had slipped just enough to reveal the inchoate fear
encroaching. What was it, merely a passing shadow, there,
behind the child's untrusting eyes. That which had been
suspected yet not thus far seen would indeed soon enough
become actual, as incipient things have a way of doing.

First it's stuffed bunnies they're giving you. Next it's ice cream
and then the nice surprise you're at the hospital, having an
operation.




18

The Past

There is no such thing
as a clean break
with the past

Chase it off, it comes sneaking
straight back
much as a blindly loyal

companion, whose
company one had never quite earned
and does not wish to keep




19

Point and Shoot

A wee bit
of intelligent
direction

all reality
that hopelessly
awkward

and ungainly
proposal
forever spilling

over
into uncertainty
seemed

to need.



20

Words

Even in the middle of nowhere
there are words

words turn a nowhere into a putative somewhere

Like the arena exhortation at sports events to CHEER!
still flashing in the dark long after the partisans have departed





21

Styx

Getting away with it's the easy part
But what comes later, the flight
Into incompatible identities
Taking shadows hostage
On the descent...













DOWN STRANGER ROADS










ROGER CRAIK



























B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

Down Stranger Roads by Roger Craik
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art: Regents Canal, Maida Vale, London by Algernon Newton, RA. Special thanks to
Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, England; and to Nicholas Newton

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-135-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942417

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Kenmore, NY 14217

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13
VISITANT

Despite the snow banked high to ice,
the parking lot was jammed with cars
the day the former Poet Laureate
came flying into town, first-class.

Twilight.
Somewhere in the sky thats bigger than America,
the blue-grey calf-skin leather creaks
soft against his neck
and soft beneath his palms. The airplane slowly turns,
banks into its leisurely decline
toward another citys lights,
its suburbs twinkling. It will not be long
until hell stand rehearsing someone elses lines
written long ago when he was someone else.
These days he never writes.

14
THANKSGIVING MORNING

On the day that all the world had died,
standing on my front door step
with coffee in the dark blue mug Id bought
in Hartford, at some wordy conference,
I idly pressed my bell

and caught
in that ding-dong hackneyed chime
the sound that suddenly meant you,
the one you must each time have faintly heard through wood
before the hurtling urgency of me inside,
summoned by banality that I
alone can recognize
as blasphemously you, uniquely you, so
freshly newly you each time, bringing your immeasurable
gift
of yourself

which has me capering
while in my living room the samovar
waltzes my candlesticks dizzy,
and on the floor my Turkish carpet undulates
like some exotic deep-sea ray.

And there Id be,
in one great sweep all fingers fumbling off your wedding ring
and smoothing with my palms
your long black coat away to hang it up among
the jingling uncooperative triangles of wire,
and kissing every nearest bit of you, no matter what,
and helter-skelter tumbling out
my questions, telling you
all the things that I presumed
of interest in my dreary day

15

until you came
and pressed the bell
and made me happy

then.

Alone, of course,
again and again

I press my bell

and every time, although its not
athough my reason tells me that its not
its you, its you, its always always you.

16
VIEW OF DELFT

Here, close to where four centuries ago
Johannes Vermeer stood, looked the other way,
I shiver on this iron bridge, watch Delft grow
dour, unpicturesque, its river edged
with tidy drab concerns: Gerritschippen,
Popinflas, Loew and Stein. Further on,
a smudge of ill-lit shops. In the distance,
cranes. There the harbor begins.

This is a prospect of the edge of things.
No guidebook, signpost, names the nondescript,
directs ones steps to places such as this,
unless by chance. But in this spot,
as daylight weakens and as shapes congeal,
the eye unjostled and the mind unforced
by beautys spiring self-insistencies
are stilled. Nothing moves. Only the blue
darkening. A bridge. One man standing in subdued
exhilaration, sensing that to him alone
words might confide themselves, words not rubbed smooth
by numberless hands, but words made new, made real
by circumstance as fresh as paint,
that only colors, is unstaled by use.

Near silence. Solitude. The gradual
ebb and leakage into truth.

17
FLUCHTLINGSKINDER
(Two young Jewish refugees from Germany at a porthole of the liner
St. Louis)

As if composed for the photographer
who held his lens in front of them,
then gave the sisters each a foreign coin
and walked back to his life,
the two young girls are framed,
their elbows on the portholes rim.
Each has her small clean raincoat on.
Each is looking down.

Miami, where the tongues were strange, said no.
Lisbon, where the tongues were strange, said no.
Theyre looking down at Antwerp now.

18
SELF-DISLIKE AT A POETRY READING

This next ones a prose poem, he declares,
and I think what were all the others then,
and scan the audience a second time,
less hopefully, for girls. Meanwhile,
threatening interminability,
the preamble (indistinguishable, I presume,
from whats to come, if come it ever does)
anacondas round the staling room, between the rows
of institution chairs and regulars upon
the institution chairs, or some of them, and no ones
listening apparently; and once again
the churlish energetic loneliness
takes hold.

Theres a bar just down the street.

There is indeed a bar just down the street
and I could be there, there expansively to contemplate
the art that is a pint of Guinness,
soupy, long and dark. Instead, I reason with myself
that I am here for poetry, to get a sense
of what is going on around these parts.
I do not tell myself that I am here for love
nor admit how often my miss-hearings prove
the germs of poems of my own (no trace of debt)
which in my tidy Moleskine I secrete
for the hours when I am not on edge
upon a hardening chair
in one small room thats filling with my prayers.

But when hes finished, I applaud.
I applaud, I tell you, I applaud.


19
THE MODEL

Before the dullish mirror bolted firm
upon the pastel wall, she contemplates
the body wholly hers at last, undressed,
and scrutinizes one by one and then
together for their full effect her breasts
unmagnified by prying high-power zoom.
This week its Tel Aviv: Manhattan next.

Fifteen floors below, the car horns blare.
Room service came and went. She sips a Kahlua,
surveys herself again. She doesnt sport
the cultivated sultry lip-curled sneer
that drives men wild, shes told, and made
her somewhat famous, so she hears. Instead
she eyes her father in the fullness of

that mouth, and in the stare that, slightly cruel,
reminds her of the office in Lahore,
pistachios in a copper bowl, the phone
that rang and rang upon his desk, ignored,
his fingers swarthy round the heavy glass,
the hawkers cries outside, and then the hush
as dusk became ornate with minarets.

How stale it all became, so soon! How scattered,
dulled, she feels, how altered now from when
her school-friends envied her the jet-set whirl
of limousines and suites and cocktail bars
where drinks were always on the house. She hums
a line or two from Paul McCartneys song
Another Day and sees, twelve hours away

beyond the customs wall a pacing man
whose avoirdupois fingers will arrange
the sand next day to trickle crystalline
between her thighs so bronzed, so taut, so trim,
so un-alive. She sighs. She wonders if
at twenty-eight, when at the corners of
her glossy pout the lines begin to draw

20

the character that no ones ever thought
to get to know. . .And suddenly, as though
shed walked out of a frowsty room into
a village street of sun-warmed twilight air
giving way to stone-strewn roads that led
through cornfields pricked with poppies, bursts the mood
for 1920s jazz, King Oliver,

the boisterous breaking-out, the push and pull
of notes so brassy-crisp, each one about
its busyness of joy. Her foot begins
to tap tap tap and soon shes capering,
her glass a-tilt, inventing scraps of lines
in nonsense random French, remembering
the curtains billowing like sails into

the downstairs cottage rooms and how the wind
those girlhood summers blew the sea inland,
resinous with pines. Again she longs,
fifteen floors above a noisy street,
for garlic singing in the pan, and knows
the loss of meals no waiter ever brought,
obsequious, but those shed make herself:

the innocence of scrambled eggs; the toast
that jumped up merry from its silver box,
the coffee gurgling at its own concerns
of being made, one sunbeam slanting long. . .

She looks around the room. Still life. The phone
unringing by the tundra of her bed,
king-size, the two small lamps above, the phone. . .

The air conditioning begins to hum.

21
HERON

Fear, ferocity, astonishment in one
maddish eye of yours from Audubon
beneath a few spiked feathers for a crest.
Thin raincoated William Burroughs of a bird
stalking hypodermically
toe-deep in shingle
or shallows of a stream.

But on the wing,
shouldering off with six great languid flaps
all birdbook posturing, you rise magisterial.
World stills to background as you soar
down the evening path you deign as yours
sternly to master.
And all the tumblers, acrobats,
all the gauzy zoomers of the air,
dull themselves to baubles, gauds,
drawing not one scrape of syllable
from you as in your slaty glide you rule
one gray line unwavering
between the earth and sky.

22
IN THE VONDELPARK, AMSTERDAM

And the old dogs toddling
after their owners

while the whippersnappers
come snuffle-barging in on your attentions,
proffering the absurdity of themselves
to you, calm at last,
on your curved wooden bench.

Every six years or so
you come back here, put up at the same hotel
in the Anna van den Vondelstraat,
around the corner from the Vondelkerks
slatted graphite spike of a spire

and after breakfast let the long
paths and pathways of the Vondelpark
take you strolling, skirting the ponds
with their dabbling, puttering, squabbling waterfowl

while others pass: tracksuited i-podded
girls, cyclists at ease, the dogged
jogplodding old.

And gathered into these, yet separate,
again you ponder how remarkable it is
that here, without your stir,
everything at its accordant pace recedes
unobtrusively into focus: in the reeds
the movement of a whitened branch
delineates a heron, hidden from your eyes
until with smooth hydraulic glide
of neck and needling head into its shoulder blades
it draws forward
to the edge of memory, makes real
the illustration you thrilled at as a child
in that book of birds, and thrill at still
in wearish adulthood: the hunched
grimness on stilts, the bristling austerity.

23


And gradually, one by one,
the old joys that were never truly gone
return themselves, deep in the green heart
of a foreign city; and in quiet
exhilaration you stroll round again,
wondering how you got it all so wrong
for so many years.

24
TO W. B. YEATSS TO A SQUIRREL AT KYLE-NA-NO

Anthologized by no one, you appear
in his Collected Works as is your right
the leaves aswirl, the hare and hounds run wild,
cracked Ireland and a devastating bitch,
each hooped in historys daemonic gyre;
the schoolchildren agog, the old men crazed,
all sinew, fleas and wisdom-glittering glare,
and he himself there striding up and down,
his reason whirled by oceans churning tongues
which blast the future of his sleeping child.

Your eight short lines announce a different truth.
Immortalized by what you never were,
a puzzlement to those whose Yeats descants
a proud and haughty strain but never stoops
to things that anyone might feel and say,
you tell with calm and lack of artifice
how walking in a wood at Kyle-na-no
he saw, with sudden love, a squirrel run
away from him. He simply wished to play
a while, and stroke its head, then let it go.






A Pretty
Place to
Mourn

a story in verse








Jan LaPerle




















B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]
Buffalo, New York

A Pretty Place to Mourn by Jan LaPerle
Copyright 2014

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Janet Hill, The Pajama Top

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-185-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014938312

BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217

Editor@blazevox.org







publ i sher of wei rd l i t t l e books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10


11
Prologue

Silently For Me


I have been practicing being here now.
This practice, it is said, ought to ease the anxiety, the fears:
the voices of these five women
(my fears so big, so clear
they have taken on lives of their own).
Let me clarify, these five women are my fears.

I focus on the senses (this being essential
to the practice); I stand in the grasses as my husband mows.
I smell only cut grass.
The smell cuts across my mood like the blade
of a mower. The hum of mower behind the house
cut by the house (I am in front of the house),
and the hum of a passing car
meets the mowers hum.
A Tennessee waltz.

Linette cuts in; I feel her.
Her hair tall grass.
Olive slips in through the scent of grass
as she, too, smells of the work of the yard.
From the baby monitor, on the front step,
my baby cries
and Margarets babies and Margeret holding them.
The crying stops, all of it,
and Rosie is there pulling Pearl
from the house shadows.

I am never alone.
This is my now, my senses: these women.

These grasses freshly cut each blade now two.
The cut pieces lying on top of their other halves
(silently for me): husbands and wives; mother and child;
friends; women and their fears.
The slice of the ends so fresh upon them.
This cut smells like summer
and I hate that it will end.

~

12

I am afraid.
I am afraid these women will never leave me,
and, too, that they will
I know them better than I know myself
they are a part of me, grown from me:
I am their mother, though (like mothers) they mother me.
My love for them hangs in some dark closet on a hanger
next to hate. On a cold night I wear them both,
but it is summer; it is hot.

These five women are so much prettier than other women
and that makes it so much easier to love them,
as you know.

~

These women products,
or byproducts.
I believe they must believe they are real.

If they are heavy, overweight,
it is my fault alone.
I have fed them for years.
Fear: the fast food of the emotional highway.
French fries. Processed meats.
A milkshake in the largest Styrofoam you can find, please.
What rots there in my belly?
If the five women only knew I did this to them,
theyd hate me.
They are (Im pretty sure) oblivious.

Ive sent a doctor out into this fury
with hope (skinny a form of hope enough).
Hope in the form of the red pill.
Hope: such a neat thing.
Tidy as a bow.

~

I know I need to kill them.
These women!
Ill do so lovingly,
so they wont hate me
or haunt me
or maybe they wont even notice theyve died.

Paper by an open window falls to the floor.


13
~


In the years Ive lived here the old women next door
has tended her flower gardens beautifully.
This spring she fell,
broke her hip.
By the end of the summer her yard is over-
run by weeds.
I visit her. She sits in a wheel chair and looks out.
Parked car.
I tell her about our summer days, the camping.
My daughter in the background runs full-speed
from chair to chair.
The contrast here cuts through me.
She says these days are over for her.

Sometimes, from our upstairs bedroom window,
I watch her sit on the front porch.
I watch her watch.
Through her I see these ends;
they split these pretty days open.
She hires a man to trim her hedges.
I listen to the trimmer snap.

I watch her watch the leaves
as if she were willing them to fall.
This woman, is she real?
These five women, I smell them, too,
more clearly, even.
They are more real to me.

~

I am still here,
breathing and smelling grass.
I move from the front lawn to clothesline.
The mower cuts off.
Sheets from the line soft as hair.

The old woman is on her porch.
As hard as the seat beneath her,
I am filled with knowing
the next time I look
shell be gone.
These women always snap me awake.
I throw the clothespins in their bag,
each makes a little snap
small as a knuckle and quieter.

14
An Introduction

Dough


This, the story of five women.
All of them, meat and skin
thick on their bones.
A wooden spoon in a bowl of dough.
The faces of these women at home
in oven light:
warm, and the dough rises
explodes
(into something utterly perfect);
scrape them from the sides:

Pearl
Linette
Margaret
Olive
Rosie.

Count them on one hand.
Hold them in your hand.
Hand them to me (Ill care for them).
My hands sweat; I am nervous for them.
They slip.

~

There are many parts of me.
These parts are roots beneath the dirt, searching,
growing into and around the roots of others.
Other parts, like leaves, worn like a dress,
fall at night to the floor.

~

The heads of the roses grow heavy in the rain.
Inside, the roses in the wallpaper look so real.
I rub myself against the wall perfume.
These five women, flowers in wall paper.

~

A dusting of pollen over everything.
Fear.

15
Snap (version one)


Five women: five forms of loneliness like five forms of water.

The pre-gather, the line before it has formed the circle:
the women are alone, but in all ways together,
and with the rain; theyll understand Pearls marriage,
how it began, its quick disintegration a summer shower
on a pretty day, how quickly it comes,
but rain on skin is different to all of them,
and Linette hears the rain fall into the sinkhole
where her husband disappeared, the rain
an echoing; she waits for the sun and a warm wet cloud
rises from the great hole, and as it clears, she waits to find
her husband there where the cloud sits down in the grasses,
where Rosie is walking dew, like the sadness of losing
her daughter, has settled onto everything: it slides
down Olives glass, that clean glass so terribly barren
and the air conditioner snaps on, waking Margarets babies;
the cries and of these women: rain nourishing the weeds
as they stretch toward the sun so quickly,
and beneath the surface,
strangling everything in their path.


16
The Circle That Loves the Sun and Moon, part one,

Edge

The five women sit in a circle, wait for the doctor.
It is spring the azaleas are so pink it hurts.
Their feet, side-by-side on the floor. Neat bricks.
Outside: rain.
Theres no umbrella powerful enough
to keep the rain from falling all through them.

This is the feeling of spring: restlessness.
The women flitter.
Their dresses are large enough for five of the future selves
they sit imagining.
They are here to experiment with a powerful pill.
A sharp light above them their shadows flat on the floor
behind them,
whispering. Listen.
They cannot hear:
they are rounded out right to their beautiful edges with hope.
Along the walkway, new shrubbery thin as paper
bends in the wind.

The doctor, white skin, white robe, white hair, standing against
the white wall.
If it were not for his red pills, he would be invisible.
He is their white hope.
He takes the women, one by one,
slips over each in his private room.
He holds each woman in his palm,
closes: a fist.

The first pill feels like a strangulation,
but only
for an instant.
They return to the circle, round as a pool, and wait.