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Dusty Dog Reviews The whole project is hip, anti-academic, the poetry of reluctant grown-ups, picking noses in church. An enjoyable romp! Though also serious.
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Dusty Dog Reviews The whole project is hip, anti-academic, the poetry of reluctant grown-ups, picking noses in church. An enjoyable romp! Though also serious.
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Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies, April 1997) Children, Churches and Daddies is eclectic, alive and is as contemporary as tomorrow’s news. |
editorial
janet kuypers
Balancing the Budget
If we are going to try to balance the budget, the key isn’t in doing it by taxing everyone until the debt is gone. The key is accepting more responsibilities as citizens, and not expecting the government to make things easier on us.
The reason why the government costs so much money is because we continually expect it to do more and more for us. The capitalist base that this country was founded on suggests that the government is there to protect our basic rights - “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This means that as individuals we reign supreme - the no one has the right to take our life, our property or our ability to achive what we are willing and capable of achieving.
However, as the years have progressed, our political leaders have told us that we need to be taken care of, and to appease us they have offered, as a government, to do more and more for us. And we have agreed, these things would be better if the government took care of them for us. But that was where we went wrong.
The governemt is bogged down with a quagmire of laws protecting ourselves from ourselves. Seat belt laws. Motorcycle helmet laws. Speed limits. Laws to tell you when a rapist moves into your neighborhood, or laws to tell you when you’re mature enough to drive a car, or drink. Although it seems to make sense that we shouldn’t do these things, that we should make responsible choices, the government is going beyond it’s basic role of protecting us from the force of others by telling us as individuals what is legally safe, which is infringing on our rights.
We haven’t offended the rights of others, for instance, if we speed on a highway. By telling us we cannot speed, the government is infringing on our rights to do what we want with our property, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. If, because of our speeding, we hit another car and injure another person and/or their property, then we have infringed on another person’s rights and we should be punished. But not until then. The government’s job is to protect us from others, not from the possibility of accidents caused by others.
We haven’t offended the rights of others, for instance, if we choose to not wear our seat belts while driving or riding in a car. The government’s job is not to protect us from ourselves, but from others. Even if we get injured in our cars because we weren’t wearing our seat belts, we cannot and should not blame the government for not intervening - their job is to protect our right to decide whether or not we want to use these safety measures.
I won’t argue that wearing your seat belt is not a good idea, or that all 10-year-olds should be learning to fly airplanes, but I’m not going to tell anyone that they should relinquish the responsibility of making these decisions to their government. When you let the government make some choices for you, what’s to stop them from making all your choices for you? Capitalism is a clearly-defined set of rules, all surrounded around the notion that the individual human being’s rights are most important. When you start to slip into socialism, however, and let the government take control of some aspects of your life for you, they can take more and more - you’ve let them - until you’re faced with a dictatorship, with communism, and no rights as an individual at all.
The government is also bogged down with providing for those who originally can’t - and now won’t - provide for themselves. The productivity generated by a free ecenomy has produced a great many things, for all of the people in this country and others. It has raised the standard of living for all. Considering the standards people lived at two hundred years ago, considering the number of religious wars that killed so many over the thousands of years of human history, considering the hundreds and hundreds of years the world lived in moral and economic darkness with other political systems, it is evident what people owning their own work can do for productivity, creativity and progress.
The creation of the welfare state has given people a reason to be unproductive. The creation of the welfare state has made people believe they deserve something for nothing. The government never said that every individual in the country was granted “life, liberty and a block of government-subsidized cheese.” But this attitude, the attitude that people deserve something for nothing from their government, can be seen in our homeless on the streets, with their cups in their hands, marking a post to beg from in front of people daily commuting to work. They ask for money, bless you when you pass (invoking the notion of a god and the altruistic notion to give to others, even if - especially if - they don’t deserve it), and occasionally, when they don’t get the money they want from you, they scream in protest, as if the money in your pocket isn’t yours, but theirs, and the have every right to expect a handout from you. America created this mentality when they created the welfare state, and we’re paying for it in many ways. The lack of a balanced budget is only one way we’re paying.
When the government - and the people - thought it was a good idea to help others, they didn’t realize that helping themselves by being productive raised the standard of living, created new products and services for everyone, and did end up helping others. They also didn’t realize that the productive earnings given to those who didn’t earn it had to come from somewhere - and where it came from was from the productive people’s pockets. And our productivity, as well as our budget - suffered for it.
The government is even bogged down with controlling and subsidizing many aspects of our lives.
National defense is a job for the national government, because part of it’s job is to protect us from outside threats (that’s the “life” part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”). But supporting the arts, education, medicine - the government is not responsible for any of these things. And most of the mediums the government has some level of control over have suffered in one way or another.
The arts have come under great scrutiny because people don’t want their tax dollars funding certain kinds of art works. America’s health care is more expensive and rated worse than eleven other countries in the world. And the education system? We need metal detectors at the gates of our city schools and kids graduate from high school without being able to read.
A business couldn’t run without producing a good service or product - in fact, it would have to produce a better product, since it would be in competition with other companies. And a business couldn’t run at a deficit - it has to be able to run efficiently in order to run well. In what has been the most capitalistic society to date, we have proven that companies can run efficiently, run well, and always produce a better product. This could also happen in the areas the government still has control over.
Privatizing education, for example, may bring the standards of schooling better, becasue suddenly there would be open competition. It would also allow for ideas that have merit but have been suppressed to be taught, because when goods and services are in demand, the demand will be met in a free economy (versus state schools, where boards of education have to impress the higher-ups in order to get more funding, and may alter their curriculum accordingly). It may cost more at first, but if Americans weren’t paying taxes for schools, they’d have more money in their pockets to be able to meet these expenses. Parochial schools do this already. And in this example, we wouldn’t have concerns about whether or not prayer is allowed in a school, because it is not state sponsored. And there would be no debate over whether uniforms are allowable - you may pick the school of your choice to send your children to, and base your decisions on prayer, uniforms, and even ability to teach.
humor
30 Fun Things to Do in an Elevator
1. Blow your nose and offer to show the contents of your kleenex to other passengers.
2. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering: “Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!”
3. Whistle the first seven notes of “It’s a Small World” incessantly.
4. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: “Got enough air in there?”
5. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.
6. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
7. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
8. Lean over to another passenger and whisper: “Noogie patrol coming!”
9. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
10. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go “plink” at the bottom.
11. Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce: “I’ve got new socks on!”
12. When at least 8 people have boarded, moan from the back: “Oh, not now, damn motion sickness!”
13. Meow occassionally.
14. Bet the other passengers you can fit a quarter in your nose.
15. Frown and mutter “gotta go, gotta go” then sigh and say “oops!”
16. Show other passengers a wound and ask if it looks infected.
17. Holler “Chutes away!” whenever the elevator descends.
18. Walk on with a cooler that says “human head” on the side.
19. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce “You’re one of THEM!” and move to the far corner of the elevator.
20. Burp, and then say “mmmm... tasty!”
21. Wear a puppet on your hand and talk to other passengers “through” it.
22. When the elevator is silent, look around and ask “is that your beeper?”
23. Say “Ding!” at each floor.
24. Say “I wonder what all these do” and push the red buttons.
25. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.
26. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your “personal space.”
27. Take a bite of a sandwich and ask another passenger: “Wanna see wha in muh mouf?”
28. Announce in a demonic voice: “I must find a more suitable host body.”
29. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
30. Wear “X-Ray Specs” and leer suggestively at other passengers.
THE TOP 15 BIBLICAL WAYS
TO ACQUIRE A WIFE
1. Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. - (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)
2. Find a prostitute and marry her. - (Hosea 1:1-3)
3. Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock. - Moses (Exodus 2:16-21)
4. Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal. - Boaz (Ruth 4:5-10)
5. Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. - Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)
6. Have God create a wife for you while you sleep. Note: this will cost you. - Adam (Genesis 2:19-24)
7. Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That’s right. Fourteen years of toil for a wife. - Jacob (Genesis 29:15-30)
8. Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife. - David (I Samuel 18:27)
9. Even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you’ll definitely find someone. (It’s all relative, of course.) - Cain (Genesis 4:16-17)
10. Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest. - Xerxes or Ahasuerus (Esther 2:3-4)
11. When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents, “I have seen a ... woman; now get her for me.” If your parents question your decision, simply say, “Get her for me. She’s the one for me.” - Samson (Judges 14:1-3)
12. Kill any husband and take HIS wife (Prepare to lose four sons, though). - David (2 Samuel 11)
13. Wait for your brother to die. Take his widow. (It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law.) - Onan and Boaz (Deuteronomy or Leviticus, example in Ruth)
14. Don’t be so picky. Make up for quality with quantity. - Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3)
15. A wife?...NOT! - Paul (1 Corinthians 7:32-35)
THE OJ TRIAL AS TOLD BY DR. SEUSS
I did not kill my lovely wife.
I did not slash her with a knife.
I did not bonk her on the head.
I did not know that she was dead.
I stayed at home that fateful night.
I took a cab, then took a flight.
The bag I had was just for me.
My bag! My bag! Hey, leave it be.
When I came home I had a gash.
My hand was cut from broken glass.
I cut my hand on broken glass.
A broken glass did cause that gash.
I have nothing, nothing to hide.
My friend, he took me for a ride.
Did you take this person’s life?
Did you do it with a knife?
I did not do it with a knife.
I did not, could not kill my wife.
I did not do this awful crime.
I could not, would not anytime.
Did you hit her from above?
Did you drop this bloody glove?
I did not hit her from above.
I cannot even wear that glove.
I did not do it with a knife.
I did not, could not kill my wife.
I did not do this awful crime.
I could not, would not, anytime.
And now I’m free, I can return
To my house for which I yearn.
And to my family whom I love.
Hey now I’m free -
Give back my glove!!
The Top 16 Brady Bunch Secrets
16. Marcia and Jan’s catfight on raucous “My Sister is a Bitch!” episode of Rikki Lake.
15. There’s a reason that Greg, Peter, and Bobby have the same hair as Gabe Kaplan.
14. Six kids forced to share one bathroom leads to one giant therapy bill.
13. Marcia’s date for the senior prom was a then 28-year old Joey Buttafuoco.
12. Oliver? The producer’s kid.
11. Two episodes in the second season substituted a heavily sedated Ernest Borgnine as Alice.
10. Florence Henderson used more Wesson Oil in the bedroom than in the kitchen, if you know what I mean.
9. Annual Extreme Fighting event against the “Eight Is Enough” family.
8. In the rarely-seen pilot, Brady home is a heavily fortified ranch in Idaho.
7. While “away on business,” Mike Brady fathered both Keith and Danny Partridge.
6. Original show title, “The Thompson Throng,” dropped because it was just too friggin’ hard to sing.
5. Alice was almost fired in the first season after being caught washing little Bobby a bit too carefully.
4. “Sam the Butcher” actually nicknamed by FBI crime lab.
3. “Please, Dad, no! Not the wire hanger!”
2. When off-duty, Alice preferred to be called Al.
and the Number 1 Brady Bunch Secret...
1. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia? Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant.
This list copyright 1997 by Chris White and Ziff-Davis. The Top Five List, top5@walrus.com, www.topfive.com.
Michael Jackson went to the hospital to visit his wife and son. He found the doctor and asked him, When can we have sex? The doctor answered. Well, you better wait until he is about 13 or so.?
A guy goes to his doctor and is freaking out because his penis is turning orange and he doesn’t know what to do. The doctor scratches his head and doesn’t know what to make of it. Finally he says what have you been doing the past week? Anything out of the ordinary? The guy responds not really, just watching Baywatch and eating cheetos.
Bill and Hillary are at the first baseball game of the season. Suddenly Clinton grabs Hillary by the collar and throws her over the side and onto the field. The stunned umpire shouted, No, Mr. President! I said, Throw the first PITCH!
Bill and Hillary are at a restaurant. The waiter tells them tonight’s special is chicken almondine and fresh fish. The chicken sounds good; Ill have that, Hillary says. The waiter nods. And the vegetable? he asks. Oh, He’ll have the fish, Hillary replies.
Q: Bill and Hillary are on a sinking boat. Who gets saved?
A: The nation.
Q: What do you get when you cross a crooked politician with a dishonest lawyer?
A: Chelsea
Q: What does Bill say to Hillary after having Sex?
A: Honey, Ill be home in 20 minutes.
Clinton returns from a vacation in Arkansas and walks down the steps of Air Force One with two pigs under his arms. At the bottom of the steps, the honor guardsman steps forward and remarks, Nice pigs, Mr. President. Clinton replies, I’ll have you know that these are genuine Arkansas Razor Back Hogs. I got this one for Chelsea and this one for Hillary. So, now what do you think? The honor guardsman answers. Nice trade, Sir.
One day, Clinton called the White House interior decorator into the Oval Office. He was very furious and said, Chelsea is very upset because she thinks she has the ugliest room in the entire White House; I want something done about it immediately! Yes Sir, Mr. President, the interior decorator replies. Ill take those mirrors out right away!
Dole was asked the presidential underwear question: boxers of briefs? After a moments reflection, he answered, Depends.
Quayle, Dole, and Packwood are traveling in a car together in the Midwest. A tornado comes along and whirls them up into the air and tosses them thousands of yards away. When they come to and extract themselves from the vehicle, they realize they’re in the Land of Oz. They decide to go see the Wizard of Oz. Quayle says, I’m going to ask the Wizard for a brain. Dole says, I’m going to ask the Wizard for a heart. Packwood says, Where’s Dorothy??
Q: How do you starve a hippie?
A: Hide the food stamps under the soap.
A man is in a hotel lobby. He wants to ask the clerk a question. As he turns to go to the front desk, he accidentally bumps into a woman beside him and as he does, his elbow goes into her breast.
They are both quite startled. The man turns to her and says, “Ma’am, if your heart is as soft as your breast, I know you’ll forgive me.”
She replies, “if your penis is as hard as your elbow, I’m in room 436.”
1. If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty litter?
2. If corn oil comes from corn, where does baby oil come from?
3. When a cow laughs does milk come out its nose?
4. How did a fool and his money GET together?
5. How do they get a deer to cross at that yellow road sign?
6. If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?
7. What’s another word for thesaurus?
8. Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injection?
9. Why is abbreviation such a long word?
10. Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
11. How do you know when its time to tune your bagpipes?
12. Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?
13. When you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?
14. Do blind Eskimos have seeing eye sled dogs?
15. Why is there an expiration date on my sour cream container?
16. What do they use to ship Styrofoam?
17. Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?
18. Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?
19. If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?
20. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Two whales, a male and female, are swimming off the coast of Japan when the male whale looks up and sees the whaling ship that killed his father five years ago. Excited at the opportunity to avenge his father’s death, the male whale says to the female “Let’s go underneath the ship and blow air through our blow holes. That ought to knock their boat over, and make them think twice about killing innocent whales.” The female whale agrees, and the plan works perfectly.
Once the whaling ship has completely sunk, the male whale notices that most of the sailors are making their way back to the shore by either swimming or in lifeboats. Not willing to let them get away so easily, the male whale yells “They’re going to shore - Let’s go gobble them up!” Just then, the female whale becomes less cooperative: “HEY!”, she says, “I agreed to the blow job, but there is NO WAY I’m swallowing seamen!
Top ten things you’ll never hear one woman say to another woman:
1. That swimsuit really flatters your figure! Would you mind keeping my husband company while I go for a swim?
2. Oh, look, that women and I have the same dress on! I think I’ll go introduce myself!
3. His new girlfriend is thinner and better-looking than I am, and I’m happy for them both.
4. If he doesn’t let me hold the remote, I get all moody.
5. He earned more than I do, so I broke up with him.
6. I’m sick of dating doctors and lawyers! Give me a good old-fashioned waiter with a heart of gold any day!
7. We’re redecorating the bedroom, and he keeps bugging me to help him with the color choices!
8. He talks our relationship to death! It’s making me crazy!
9. Why can’t I find a guy who’ll have a wild carefree night of sex and then just go his seperate way for once?
10. I just realized - my butt doesn’t look fat in this - my butt is fat!
Top ten things you’ll never hear one guy say to another guy:
1. Does my butt look fat in this?
2. I’m tired of beer. What say you to a nice, fruity Chablis?
3. I can’t stop fantasizing about Dr. Ruth!
4. Yours is bigger than mine.
5. I think those big, jacked-up trucks look ridiculous.
6. There’s nothing I like more than a quiet evening at home, watching a movie on Lifetime about some woman who gives up her baby and then suffers miserably.
7. Want all my tools? I just realized I never do anything useful with them!
8. You know what always makes me cry? Those long-distance commericals.
9. I’m deeply offended by young women who go braless.
10. Our team lost 10-1. But we tried our best, and after all that’s the important thing.
>> The following were winners in a New York Magazine contest in which contestants were to take a well-known expression in a foreign language, change a single letter, and provide a definition for the new expression.
HARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS? - Can you drive a French motorcycle?
EX POST FUCTO - Lost in the mail
IDIOS AMIGOS - We’re wild and crazy guys!
VENI, VIPI, VICI - I came, I’m a very important person, I conquered.
COGITO EGGO SUM - I think; therefore I am a waffle.
RIGOR MORRIS - The cat is dead.
RESPONDEZ S’IL VOUS PLAID - Honk if you’re Scottish.
QUE SERA SERF - Life is feudal.
LE ROI EST MORT. JIVE LE ROI - The king is dead. No kidding.
POSH MORTEM - Death styles of the rich and famous
PRO BOZO PUBLICO - Support your local clown.
MONAGE A TROIS - I am three years old.
FELIX NAVIDAD - Our cat has a boat.
HASTE CUISINE - Fast French food
VENI, VIDI, VICE - I came, I saw, I partied.
QUIP PRO QUO - A fast retort
ALOHA OY - Love; greetings; farewell; from such a pain you should never know.
MAZEL TON - tons of luck
APRES MOE LE DELUGE - Larry and Curly got wet.
PORTE-KOCHERE - Sacramental wine
ICH LIEBE RICH - I’m really crazy about having dough.
FUI GENERIS - What’s mine is mine.
VISA LA FRANCE - Don’t leave your chateau without it.
CA VA SANS DIRT - And that’s not gossip.
MERCI RIEN - Thanks for nothin’!
AMICUS PURIAE - Platonic friend
L’ETAT, C’EST MOI - I’m bossy around here.
autumn reason
a collection of letters
the scars publications and design book contest winner is now on sale for $7.00
checks made payable to janet kuypers may be sent to 2543 n. kimball, chicago il 60647.
by sydney anderson
Mom’s Favorite Vase
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Acoustic Demos and Live Shows for $5
Write To cc+dFor More Details
(woman.)
book from janet kuypers.
poetry, essays, short stories and artwork on the clash of the sexes
including sexism, pornography, rape, language and other feminist issues
200 pages, spiral-bound with a sandpaper cover.
email ccandd@shout.net for more information.
prose
gabriel
by janet kuypers
She had lived there, in her fourth floor apartment on the near north side of the city, for nearly three years. It was an uneventful three years from the outside; Gabriel liked it that way. She just wanted to live her life: go to work, see her new friends, have a place to herself.
But looking a bit closer, it was easy to see what a wonderful life she had. Her apartment was impeccable, with Greek statues and glass vases lining the hallways, modern oil paintings lining her walls. She was working at her career for a little under two years and she had received two hefty promotions. She served on the board of directors for the headquarters of a national domestic abuse clinic and single-handedly managed to increase annual donations in her city by 45%, as well as drastically increase the volunteer base for their hotline numbers. She managed a boyfriend, a man who was willing to put up with her running around, working overtime for her job, visiting clinics. A man who loved and respected her for her drive. Not bad for a woman almost twenty-five.
Yes, life seemed good for Gabriel, she would dine in fine restaurants, visit the operas and musicals travelling through the city. And she had only been in the city for three years.
Eric would wonder what her past was like when he’d hit a nerve with her and she would charge off to work, not talking to him for days. She had only lived in the city for three years, and he knew nothing about her life before then. In the back of his mind, he always thought she was hiding something from him, keeping a little secret, and sometimes everything Gabriel said made him believe this secret was real. She told him her parents lived on the other side of the country, and even though they dated for almost two years there never was talk about visiting them. She never received calls from her old friends. There were no old photographs.
This would get to Eric sometimes; it would fester inside of him when he sat down and thought about it, all alone, in his apartment, wondering when she would be finished with work. And then he’d see her again, and all of his problems would disappear, and he’d feel like he was in love.
One morning he was sitting at her breakfast table, reading her paper, waiting so they could drive to work. “Hey, they finally got that mob-king guy with some charges they think will stick.”
Gabriel minded her business, put her make-up on in the bathroom mirror, hair-sprayed her short, curly brown hair.
“Hey, Gabriel, get a load of this quote,” Eric shouted down the hallway to her from his seat. He could just barely see her shadow through the open door to the bathroom. “’My client is totally innocent of any charges against him. It is the defense’s opinion that Mr. Luccio was framed, given to the police by the organized crime rings in this city as a decoy,’ said Jack Huntington, defense lawyer for the case. ‘Furthermore, the evidence is circumstantial, and weak.’ What a joke. I hope this guy doesn’t get away with all he’s done. You know, if I-”
Gabriel stopped hearing his voice when she heard that name. She had heard Luccio over and over again in the news, but Jack. She didn’t expect this. Not now. It had been so long since she heard that name.
But not long enough. Her hands gripped the edge of the ceramic sink, gripping tighter and tighter until she began to scratch the wood paneling under the sink. Her head hung down, the ends of her hair falling around her face. He lived outside of the city, nearly two hours. Now he was here, maybe ten minutes away from her home, less than a mile away from where she worked, where she was about to go to.
She couldn’t let go of the edge of the sink. Eric stopped reading aloud and was already to the sports section, and in the back of her mind Gabriel was wondering how she could hurt herself so she wouldn’t have to go to work. She would be late already, she had been standing there for over ten minutes.
Hurt herself? What was she thinking? And she began to regain her senses. She finally picked her head up and looked in the mirror. She wasn’t the woman from then, she had to say to herself as she sneered at her reflection. But all she could see was long, blonde straight hair, a golden glow from the sun, from the days where she didn’t work as often as she did, when she had a different life.
She had to pull on her hair to remind herself that it was short. She pulled it until she almost cried. Then she stopped, straightened her jacket, took a deep breath and walked out the bathroom door.
Eric started to worry. As they car-pooled together to work, Gabriel sat in the passenger seat, right hand clutching the door handle, left hand grabbing her briefcase, holding it with a fierce, ferocious grip. But it was a grip that said she was scared, scared of losing that briefcase, or her favorite teddy bear from the other kids at school, or her life from a robber in an alley. If nothing else, Eric knew she felt fear. And he didn’t know why.
He tried to ask her. She said she was tired, but tense, an important meeting and a pounding headache. He knew it was more. She almost shook as she sat in that car, and she began to rock back and forth, forward and back, ever so slightly, the way a mother rocks her child to calm her down. It made Eric tense, too. And scared.
Work was a blur, a blur of nothingness. There was no meeting, the workload was light for a Friday. But at least the headache was there, that wasn’t a lie. She hated lying, especially to Eric. But she had no choice, especially now, with Jack lurking somewhere in the streets out there, winning his cases, wondering if his wife is dead or not.
She never wanted him to know the answer.
Eric called her a little after four. “Just wanted to check if we were still going to dinner tonight. I made the reservations at the new Southwestern place, you said you wanted to go there. Sound good?”
Gabriel mustered up the strength to respond, and only came up with, “Sure.”
“Do you still have the headache, honey? Do you want to just rent a movie or two and curl up on the couch tonight? Whatever you want to do is fine, just let me know.”
She knew at this point he was doing all he could to make her feel better. She didn’t want to put him through this. He shouldn’t have to deal with her like this. She searches for her second wind. “No, Eric, dinner would be fine. We can go straight from work to save the drive. Thanks, too. You really have a knack for making my days better.”
Eric smiled at the end of the line. And Gabriel could feel it.
They got off the phone, she finished her work, turned off her computer, started walking toward the elevator when it finally occurred to her: Jack might be there. She can’t go. Even if he’s not there, she could see him on the street, driving there. She just couldn’t go.
She pressed the button for the elevator. And he could just as easily see me walking out of work, getting in Eric’s car, she thought. I have to stop thinking like this. This is ludicrous. And he won’t be there, he won’t see me, because, well, the chances are so thin, and Hell, it’s a big city. I have to try to relax.
But she couldn’t. And there was no reason she should have.
At the restaurant, they sat on the upper level, near one of the large Roman columns decorated with ivy. She kept looking around one of the columns, because a man three tables away looked like Jack. It wasn’t, but she still had to stare.
The meal was delicious, the presentation was impeccable. She was finally starting to relax. The check arrived at the table right as the place began to get crowded, so Gabriel went to the washroom to freshen up before they left. She walked through the restaurant, feeling comfortable and confident again. She even attracted a smile from a man at another table. She walked with confidence and poise. And she loved life again.
She walked into the bathroom, straight to the mirror, checking her hair, her lip stick. She looked strong, not how she looked when she was married. She closed her purse, turned around and headed out the door.
That’s when she saw him.
There he was, Jack, standing right there, waiting for a table. He had three other men with him, all in dark suits. She didn’t know if they were mob members or firm associates. Or private eyes he hired to find her. Dear God, she thought, what could she do now? She can’t get to the table, he’ll see her for sure. She can’t stare at him, it’ll only draw attention to herself.
And then she thinks: “Wait. All I’ve seen is the back of him. It might not even be him.” She took a breath. “It’s probably not even him,” she thought, “and I’ve sat here worrying about it.”
Still, she couldn’t reassure herself. She took a few steps back and waited for him to turn around.
A minute passed, or was it a century?, and finally he started to turn, just as they were about to be led to their table. She saw his profile, just a glimpse of his face. It was him, it was Jack, it was the monster she knew from all those years, the man who made her lose any ounce of innocence or femininity she ever had. She saw how his chin sloped into his neck, the curve of his nose, how he combed his hair back, and she knew it was him.
By the washrooms, she stared at him while he took one step away from her, closer to the dining room. Then she felt a strong, pulling hand grip her shoulder. Her hair slapped her in the face as she turned around. Her eyes were saucers.
“The check is paid for. Let’s go,” Eric said as he took her jacket from her arm and held it up for her. She slid her arms through the sleeves, Eric pulling the coat over her shoulders. She stared blankly. He guided her out the doors.
She asked him if they could stop at a club on the way home and have a drink or two. They found a little bar, and she instantly ordered drinks. They sat for over an hour in the dark club listening to the jazz band. It looked to Eric like she was trying to lose herself in the darkness, in the anonymity of the crowded lounge. It worried him more. And still she didn’t relax.
And she drove on the expressway back from dinner, Eric in the seat next to her. He had noticed she had been tense today, more than she had ever been; whenever he asked her why she brushed her symptoms off as nothing.
The radio blared in the car, the car soaring down the four lanes of open, slick, raw power, and she heard the dee jay recap the evening news. A man died in a car accident, he said, and it was the lawyer defending the famed mob leader. And then the radio announced his name.
And she didn’t even have to hear it.
Time stopped for a moment when the name was spread, Jack, Jack Huntington, like a disease, over the air waves. Jack, Jack the name crept into her car, she couldn’t escape it, like contaminated water it infiltrated all of her body and she instantly felt drugged. Time stood still in a horrific silence for Gabriel. Hearing that midnight talk show host talk about the tragedy of his death, she began to reduce speed, without intention. She didn’t notice until brights were flashing in her rear view mirror, cars were speeding around her, horns were honking. She was going 30 miles per hour.
She quickly regained herself, turned off the radio, and threw her foot on the accelerator. Eric sat silent. They had a long drive home ahead of them from the club, and he knew if he only sat silent that she would eventually talk.
While still in the car, ten minutes later, she began to tell him about Andrea..
“Three years ago, when I moved to the city, my name wasn’t Gabriel. It was Andrea.
“Seven years ago, I was a different person. I was a lot more shy, insecure, an eighteen year old in college, not knowing what I wanted to study. I didn’t know what my future was, and I didn’t want to have to go through my life alone. My freshman year I met a man in the law school program at school. He asked me out as soon as he met me. I was thrilled.
“For the longest time I couldn’t believe that another man, especially one who had the potential for being so successful, was actually interested in me. He was older, he was charming. Everyone loved him. I followed him around constantly, wherever he wanted me to go.
“He met my parents right away. They adored him, a man with a future, he was so charming. They pushed the idea of marrying him. I didn’t see it happening for a while, but I felt safe with him.
“And every once in a while, after a date, or a party, we’d get alone and he’d start to yell at me, about the way I acted with him, or what I said in public, or that the way I looked was wrong, or something. And every once in a while he would hit me. And whenever it happened I thought that I should have looked better, or I shouldn’t have acted the way I did. This man was too good for me. And I had to do everything in my power to make him happy.
“Less than eight months after we met, he asked me to marry him. I accepted.
“We were married two years after we met; it was a beautiful ceremony, tons of flowers, tons of gifts-and I was turning a junior in college. My future was set for me. I couldn’t believe it.
“And as soon as we were married, which was right when he started at the firm, he got more and more violent. And instead of thinking that it was my fault, I started thinking that it was because he was so stressed, that he had so much work to do, that sometimes he just took it out on me. I was no one’s fault. Besides, if he was going to climb to the top, he needed a wife that was perfect for all of his appearances. I had to be perfect for him. Take care of the house and go to school full time.
“Money wasn’t a problem for us, he had a trust fund from his parents and made good money at the firm, so I could go to school. But he started to hate the idea that I was going to college in marketing instead of being his wife full time. But that was one thing I wasn’t going to do for him, stop going to school.
“He’d get more and more angry about it the longer we were married. After the first year he’d hit me at least once a week. I was physically sick half of my life then, sick from being worried about how to make him not hurt me, sick from trying to figure out how to cover up the bruises.
“I’d try to talk to him about it, but the few times I ever had the courage to bring it up, he’d beat me. He’d just beat me, say a few words. Apologize the next morning, think everything was better. I couldn’t take it.
“I threatened with divorce. When I did that I had to go to the hospital with a broken arm. I had to tell the doctors that I fell down the stairs.
“A long flight of stairs.
“When it was approaching two years of marriage with this man, I said to myself I couldn’t take it anymore. He told me over and over again that he’d make me pay if I tried to leave him, I’d be sorry, it would be the worst choice I could ever make. This man had power, too, he could hunt me down if I ran away, he could emotionally and physically keep me trapped in this marriage.
“So I did the only thing I thought I could do.
“I wrote a suicide note. ‘By the time you find my car, I’ll be dead.’ I took a few essentials, nothing that could say who I was. I cut my hair-I used to have long, long hair that I dyed blonde. I chopped it all off and dyed it dark. Then I drove out to a quarry off the interstate 20 miles away in the middle of the night, threw my driver’s license and credit cards into the passenger’s seat, put a brick on the accelerator, got out of the car and let it speed over the cliff. Everything was burned.
“So there I was, twenty-two years old, with no future, with no identity. My family, my friends, would all think I was dead in the morning. And for the first time in my life, I was so alone. God, I was so scared, but at the same time, it was the best feeling in the world. It felt good to not have my long hair brushing against my neck. It felt good to feel the cold of the three a.m. air against my cheeks, on my ears. It felt good to have no where to go, other than away. No one was telling me where to go, what to do. No one was hurting me.
“I found my way two hours away to this city, came up with the name Gabriel from a soap opera playing in a clinic I went to to get some cold medication. I managed a job at the company I’m at now. Did volunteer work, rented a hole for an apartment. Projected a few of the right ideas to the right people in the company. I got lucky.”
She told him all of this before she told him that her husband’s name was Jack Huntington..
She brought him home, sat on the couch while he made coffee for her. He tried to sound calm, but the questions kept coming out of his mouth, one after another. Gabriel’s answers suddenly streamed effortlessly from her mouth, like a river, spilling over onto the floor, covering the living room with inches of water within their half hour of talk.
She felt the cool water of her words sliding around her ankles. And she felt relieved.
Gabriel, Andrea, was no longer Mrs. Jack Huntington.
Eric told her that she could have told him before. “I’d follow you anywhere. If I had to quit my job and run away with you I would.” It hurt him that she kept this from him for so long, but he knew he was the only person who knew her secret. He smiled.
There was a burden lifted, she felt, with Jack’s death, the burden that she didn’t have to hide who she was anymore. She didn’t have to worry about public places, cower when she felt his presence, following her, haunting her. It’s over, she thought. She can walk out in the street now, and scream, and run, and laugh, and no one will come walking around the corner to force her back to her old life, to that little private hell that was named Andrea.
But sitting there, she knew there was still one thing she had to do.
She put down her coffee, got on her coat, told him this was something she must do. Gabriel got into her car, started to head away from the city. As she left, Eric asked where she was going. She knew she had done what she could for the last three years of her own life to save herself; now it was time to go back to the past, no matter what the consequences were.
He thought she was going back to her family. She was, in a way.
She drove into the town she had once known, saw the trees along the streets and remembered the way they looked every fall when the leaves turned colors. She remembered that one week every fall when the time was just right and each tree’s leaves were different from the other trees. This is how she wanted to remember it.
And she drove past her old town, over an hour and a half away from the city, passing where her parents, her brother could still be living. She didn’t know if she would ever bother to find them. Right now all she could do was drive to the next town, where her old friend used to live. Best friends from the age of three, Sharon and Andrea were inseparable, even though they fought to extremes. And as she drove toward Sharon’s house, she knew she’d have to move quickly, if her husband was still there.
She double-checked in a phone book at a nearby gas station. And she turned two more corners and parked her car across the street. Would she recognize her? Would she believe she was there? That she was alive?
Gabriel saw one car in the driveway, not two; she went to the window, and looking in saw only Sharon. She stepped back. She took a long, deep breath. She was a fugitive turning herself in. She was a fugitive, asking people to run with her, running from something, yet running free. She knocked on the door.
Through the drapes she saw the charcoal shadow come up to the door. It creaked open. There they stood, looking at each other. For the first time in three and a half years.
Sharon paused for what seemed a millennium. Her eyes turned to glass, to a pond glistening with the first rays of the morning sun.
“Andrea.” She could see her through the brown curls wrapping her face. Another long silence. Sharon’s voice started to break.
“You’re alive,” she said as she closed her eyes and started to smile. And Gabriel reached through the doorway, and the door closed as they held each other.
They sat down in the living room. In the joy, Sharon forgot about the bruises on her shoulder. Gabriel noticed them immediately.
They talked only briefly before Gabriel asked her. “Is Paul here?”
“No, he’s out playing cards. Should be out all night.”
“Things are the same, aren’t they?”
“Andi, they’re fine. He’s just got his ways,” and Sharon turned her head away, physically looking for something to change the subject. There was so much to say, yet Sharon couldn’t even speak.
And then Gabriel’s speech came out, the one she had been rehearsing in her mind the entire car ride over. The speech she gave to herself for the years before this very moment. “Look, Sharon, I know what it’s like, I can see the signs. I know you, and I know you’ll sit through this marriage, like I would have, this unending cycle of trying to cover the bruises on your arms and make excuses-”
Sharon moved her arm over her shoulder. Her head started inching downward. She knew Andrea knew her too well, and she wouldn’t be able to fight her words, even after all these years.
“I went through this. When Jack told me I’d never be able to leave him, that I’d be sorry if I did, that I’d pay for trying to divorce him, that’s when I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. No man has a right to tell me-or you-what you can and can’t do. It hasn’t gotten better, like you keep saying, has it? No. I know it hasn’t. It never does.
“I know this sounds harsh, and it is. If I was willing to run away, run away so convincingly that my own family thought I was dead, then it had to be serious. Do you think I liked leaving you? My brother? Do you think this was easy?”
Gabriel paused, tried to lean back, take a deep breath, relax.
“No. It wasn’t easy. But I had to do it, I had to get away from him, no matter what it took. In spending my life with him I was losing myself. I needed to find myself again.”
They sat there for a moment, a long moment, while they both tried to recover.
“You don’t have to run away,” Gabriel said to her. “You don’t have to run away like I had to. But he won’t change. You do have to leave here. Let me help you.”
Within forty-five minutes Sharon had three bags of clothes packed and stuffed into Gabriel’s trunk. As Sharon went to get her last things, Gabriel thought of how Sharon called her “Andi” when she spoke. God, she hadn’t heard that in so long. And for a moment she couldn’t unravel the mystery and find out who she was.
Sharon came back to the car. Gabriel knew that Sharon would only stay with her until the divorce papers were filed and she could move on with her life. But for tonight they were together, the inseparable Sharon and Andi, spending the night, playing house, creating their own world where everything was exactly as they wanted.
And this was real life now, and they were still together, with a whole new world to create. They were both free, and alive, more alive than either of them had ever felt.
“I want you to meet Eric. He’s a good man,” Gabriel said.
And as they drove off to nowhere, to a new life, on the expressway, under the viaduct, passing the projects, the baseball stadium, heading their way toward the traffic of downtown life, they remained silent, listened to the hum of the engine. For Gabriel, it wasn’t the silence of enabling her oppressor; it wasn’t the silence of hiding her past. It was her peace for having finally accepted herself, along with all of the pain, and not feeling the hurt.
Andrea. Gabriel
The next morning, she didn’t know which name she’d use, but she knew that someone died that night, not Jack, but someone inside of her. But it was also a rebirth. And so she drove.
poetry
On Rumors..
Robert Michael O’Hearn
RMOHRN@aol.com
I guess if they stick
a fork in you & spread
the rumor that your done,
there’s little recourse
other than to offer them
another option:
A juicier tidbit of meat.
gasping
She’s halo’d and pitchfork’d
and she runs on two’s
but prowls on four’s
and the carpet is stained
from where her spade
has wildly flung
time and time again
hitting me in the head
and knocking my coffee off the end
time and time again
leaving me gasping for breath.
d. michael mcnamara
THE DOOR SUCKED SHUT
Cheryl A. Townsend
Impetus@aol.com
behind him as I dropped my face
into my hands and felt what he
used to gaze into with desire and
possibly love I refused to be
terrorized by the lapse of time
from here to there the curtains
fluttered behind me like a perfected
tongue and I already missed him
the smooth stretch of his lipstick
pink cock and hands like oceans
captivating my flesh but I did not
cry out his name misery at its
very worst is still silent
THE SEX BELOW MY NAILS
Cheryl A. Townsend
Impetus@aol.com
is no longer yours nor the
taste I’ll wake up with
Recast in this sequel
He is such a quick study
I told you not to believe me
and you thought I was just
a tease
HOW PRETTY IS OUR WORLD
I.B. Rad
Bright sea curls a ripply frosting,
white sand fashions an under cake,
how pretty is our world
this Christmas day.
Still,
slicing this bubbly icing,
a toy trawler
slips by,
heading toward the edge of the world.
THE HEAT OF MAN
Cheryl Townsend
IMPETUS@aol.com
From the building
to her car
the heat
wrapped her in
like a vacuum
Imploding
Temples beat
ancient tribal
rituals in her
head
Under her hair
natives danced
to rain Gods
Begging in
foreign tongues
for salvation
Offering the
virginity of
her love
Offering
the sacrifice
of her body
Offering all
that which
was not theirs
Heat is like
a man
Offering what
he can not give
as he wraps you
imploding
in tribal beats
that dance in
the vacuum of
your hair
too
deep?
r e m e m b e r the ice
in the parking lots
in january
when the stop signs froze
and we gave up a weekend?
r e m e m b e r the dying picture
tube & how it creased down the
middle of our tv
and by it my unpublished wild poetry?
down this direction were grumbly strangers
in mind-blowing lines for groceries
I bought me some of that tea
for a cold nose
& for laughs
r e m e m b e r we bought a lottery ticket
and didn’t win
and the solitude
in the middle floor
we looked out the window thinking
so bored
so as not to care
the ceiling & four walls & a wine bottle
a great voice it had like
an opera
sat in the corner slumped
over some talk
that broke my
concentration
being too
deep?
mark sonnenfeld
THE SILENCE
Cheryl A. Townsend
of Billie Holiday singing
through candle light
smoothes the ruffled
day after you left
“Genessee”
D. Michael McNamara
RFDD36C@prodigy.com
Sat at the edge of my chair
with an empty can in my hand
thinking How nice it must be
to be Redneck
and Primal
and dream of beads of sweat hung
between breasts.
But my world has heavier weights
than that
And I dream of her lips
pressed against mine
and my hand full
of her hair
and how I’d never
have sex in my car
unless she were to be
the only One.
hook
You are hooks,
with your names
written on them,
which I get caught on:
I keep fumbling around,
wasting time,
tracing my steps,
gnawing off limbs.
When the light is on
and I can’t escape
I know no other way
than primitive.
I keep thinking of John,
how he took the bottle
from me but how I
wasn’t there to do the same.
Of Terri, whose car
I was supposed
to be driving
the night she was crushed.
Of Alexis, who wasn’t home
the night I called
from an interstate payphone
to express my concerns
about living without a heart.
Of the girl I scared
at the airport in Newark
flying to Colorado.
Of Hannah, who makes me ache,
and Stephanie
who is to be wed,
and my mother & father
and grandparents & sister
and friends & lovers
and future acquaintances
and complete strangers.
This is some sort
of self-fulfilling elegy,
some sort of attempt
to come clean.
I want to crawl inside you,
or pull you into me,
or just hang on your hook
and bleed.
When your light is on me
I feel primitive
and this is when
I want to cry.
I could break things.
I could scream.
I could grab you
and kiss you
and feel our warm tears
and synchronized breaths:
what is so difficult
about the meaning of life?
I could play back
these memories
frame by frame
or in slow motion.
There is a blur
visible only
in retrospect
that makes me nauseous.
I have collected you
inside of me
to carry wherever I am
fumbling around.
I trace these steps
late at night,
follow them like lines
grown in your face.
This is my own elegy,
my attempt to come clean:
your portion of my bitter
love for this world,
your invitation to my movie,
my thank you
for sustaining me,
bleeding, on your hook.
d. michael mcnamara
Good Friends Parted
Good friends parted like a winter coat
not quite warm enough
shedding rain and stopping wind
but not the cold
that brings us to hearths alone seeking
voices of comfort in the light
and in the darkness a gentle touch
of hands guiding safely
the shadowed passages of daily life
not quite in despair aging slowly
remembering quickly the smiles
and laughter in the eyes
across tables of food warm
smells rising with glistening
tears of souls touched
with honesty and love
oblivious to others passing
unaware of the secret knowing
of what it means to have
a friend to fill those moments
when we fear to be alone
and strive to be alone with someone
who will not interfere
with the searching and falling
a witness to our experiments
and path finding stumbling
catching just in time to slow
the fall toward anonymity.
Boyd Miller
On The Theory Of Relativity
Robert Michael O’Hearn
RMOHRN@aol.com
Its exclusively in your mind
the lonesome crying of the loons
the split cracking of infantry fire
the gentle prattling of a creek
But recall, there’s also
hidden agendas, the side effects
that aren’t always part & parcel
of imagination running overtime
For instance, there’s factors:
The enemy, the great unknown
unfavorable to you, more than unknown
and others who’ve known them all,
the aftershocks unaccounted for
the relativity of time to a bee
the fate of fecal matter flushed,
all irrationality unexplained
But recall, there’s this:
Its exclusively in your mind
the crying of taps from the bugle
the crackling of fire in pine trees
the puttering of an outboard motor
escaping out into a mindless ocean.
jailbreak
Jailbreak the cocoon and you’re suddenly a butterfly.
You’re ready to breathe.
You’ve got these things and they’re a bit wet but as you shake them
off you discover escape.
You realize you can fly.
And so when you go, drifting towards Our Stella, feeling her warmth
and tingling with the sensation
that you like it, and you soar like Icarus and pompous knowing that
your wings will never melt
because they only burn.
So you look about and your eyes are afire and you can’t believe
there’s more to the point. You’ve
been pampered in silk and yet this comfort is a sort of gasping
uncertainty which you have never even
come close to.
You are Plato escaping the cave and so you open your mouth and
breathe, tasting the oxygen and the
products of Prometheus’ possession. You inhale like you’re going
under water but the truth is you
wouldn’t care even if you were.
And when you’re stomach drops your panic carries you terrified,
although the wind carries you
reckless. Heights scare you and what used to be the same size as you
is now toy soldiers marching in
toy wars.
So you breathe again. Falling is frightening, but detachment is
beautiful. You drift about watching
what goes on, knowing you’re too high to ever go back.
So you enjoy the thin air, swallow up, and order another pint.
d. michael mcnamara
the boss is forever
telling us we’re prose
& that we should behave
like prose.
*************************************
Bud
(from Time magazine, 8/10/92)
few men have a more intimate
understanding of the doomsday scenario
than Bernard T. Gallagher
known to his friends as Bud
he was a Strategic Air Command pilot
a robust 70 years old
he wears a white cowboy hat
drives a hot-pink ‘65 Mustang convertible
and is an unabashed patriot
as an “atomic-cloud sampler”
he flew through the billowing mushrooms
of 13 U.S. nuclear blasts
in 1952 and 1953
to measure the radiation passing through him
he swallowed an X-ray plate
coated with Vaseline and suspended
by a string that hung out of his mouth
during the flight
and is an unabashed patriot.
**************************************
bulimic
a Lee Press-On nail
afloat on a pink
pile of chewed shrimp
and bile -
Daddy’s little girl
pete lee
calm people
their eyes are old ponds
in and out
of which turtles drift
the surfaces are flecked
with the backs of frogs
small islands in the sun
their voices
roll away like hills
to reach the Great Plains
of their silences
they pilot
they waitress
they say hi
they wear clothes
they lecture
they own property
they are sad
they are not very sad
their ears are shaped like harps
I want to be like them
I want to die
sort of
**************************
career gal
feminine...
she’s a feminist
her 5 a.m. light burns
holes in men’s sleep
across town one
dreams of a doll
putting its eyes on
pete lee
READER, PLEASE SUPPLY MEANING
Jim Maddocks
Jimmy4559@aol.com
Writers are all liars. We all are.
But at least they are honest liars.
They write down those necessary lies,
the kind that move men to leaps of faith
or excuse us when we fail to jump.
In the end it doesn’t matter that
they let us down in the cruelest ways.
cognitive dissonance
it seems right:
each of us coexisting
with an unalterable past.
*******************************************
collateral damage
the rescue worker
shines his flashlight
into the “command bunker”
where 500 children and
women and old men
were sleeping when...
their eyeholes pull and suck
at the light: a thousand
points of darkness
*******************************************
Communion
I am a creature of habit
The TV Guide is my Bible
I wear my robe like a cleric’s
In my slippers I shuffle around
Like Jesus Christ in leg irons
I take communion: chips ‘n’ beer
The girl next door’s in a rut
I drilled a hole in the wall we share
I look in on her like I’m God
Sometimes when her boyfriend sins w/her
I imagine she’s facing Mecca
I take communion: chips ‘n’ beer
Pontius Pilate may become a series
The girl next door bears her boyfriend’s
Weight on her back like a wooden cross
Turning up the volume on the Ten Advertisements
I slouch toward the refrigerator where
I take communion: chips ‘n’ beer
pete lee
i’m thinking about myself too much
all of my life it
has all been about you
what do you need
what do you want
how can i help you
what can i do for you
and now for once
i start to live
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and i think back to
all the time i’ve
spent with you
and all the care
i’ve given you
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and i’ve cooked for
you and i’ve cleaned
for you and i’ve made
sure everything in
your world made sense
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and all i can think
is that you’re only angry
because i’m thinking
about me at all
janet kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com
chatty Cathy
on her deathbed:
boring the priest
*****
Closet
Summer clothes
toward the left,
winter clothes
toward the right:
the hanger heads
are tick marks
on a graph.
Autumn appears
uneventful.
We shall sweat
or freeze.
*****
coffeehouse metaphysics
I speak to her in paragraphs
no words pass between us
she slaps my face hard
without lifting a finger
I think oh yes
send me another gift
like this mental strawberry
in the shape of a perfect hand
pete lee
hiding vices
janet kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com
“The way I see it
the Bible is so popular
because of its many confusions
in which it is possible
to hide any vice
or combination of vices.”
John Leroy Coffin, Springfield MO, 1997
i met a man once
who told me
that he prayed to God every night
now, i knew better
and he was no Chrtistian
maybe born one, maybe baptized
but i knew he had
notches on his bedpost
and so i asked him
how he could justify
being a Christian
and having sex before marriage
and he said,
“it doesn’t say in the Bible
that you can’t
have sex before marriage”
and so i checked
and the closest thing
i could find
was “thou shalt keep
thy marriage bed pure”
and i wondered
who misconstrued
the words first
loggers
janet kuypers
jkuypers22@aol.com
i was wondering when nature’s rights were
substituted for human rights, somebody tell me
because, I mean, I care about the environment and all
I like trees, and I’m a vegetarian
but I was in a car with an environmentalist once
talking about the national forests, how they
were largely destroyed in the early nineteen hundreds
by loggers, but are protected now, and this environmentalist
said to me, “kill the loggers”
and the thing was, he meant it
he said he didn’t, but he did, and I wonder if he realizes
what he’s willing to sacrifice for what he thinks is right
i wonder if the loggers would agree with him
in their homes or in the streets
janet kuypers
some women are raped
in their homes or in the streets
by men whom we call “strangers”
some women are raped
in their homes or in the streets
by men we call psychiatrists,
doctors, college professors,
friends, lovers,
husbands and fathers
and some women are raped
in the streets or in offices
by men who merely sit there
and commit rape with looks
with smirks
with insults
with threats Bob Lamm, 1976
you’ll never understand
have you ever felt
that everything you did
from the clothes you chose to wear
to the way you styled your hair
to the way you walked down the street
to the way you sat at your desk
to whether you looked at people
as they passed you in the grocery store
when you picked up the food for the family
have you ever felt
that everything you did
was under the scrutiny
of half the world
that a stare could haunt you
if you looked too confident
or your eyes wandered for too long
and actually caught someone’s gaze
or your skirt was too short
or you didn’t cross your legs
or if you ate a banana
or happened to lick your lips
have you felt it
well, you’re not a woman
et l’amour
I touch you
softly
tenderly
my fingertips
your gentle hand
my fingertips
my tongue
the sweet curve
of your neck
my tongue
my lips
the sensuous sweep
of your back
my lips
your luscious lips
how slow
we go
unhurried
by fear
how slow
leisurely
in love
how
your deep eyes
invite me
unspoken words
unimagined pleasure
unending desire
I touch you
you touch me
we touch
quietly
innocently
my skin
your skin
my breath
your breath
my soul
your soul
your eyes
swallow me
my words
drown you
all in ways
nobody knows
except us
feminine
masculine
blend
become one
as we are
all this
and love
too
deckard kinder
Guardian Station
deckard kinder
newman@ntr.net
an evening visitor:
sinister company
looking to do mad nasty business
on the late train
crowding me for warmth and
running from the law
nuance is everything right now
whether or not
to kill this guy
is the question
righteous interrogation
ruthless indignation
on the run again
doubting my judgment
on the ragged edge of exhaustion
still the secret goes untold
you come along for the ride
regardless of the consequences
[still
nobody knows you here
do they?
why not means nothing
that not is everything and then some]
you seem to enjoy this little spectacle
tearing entertainment out of fear
[not yours of course]
delving into everything but the issue at hand
eviscerating this
sublimating that
licking your thin lips in anticipation
even so - I read
you like the old testament sweetheart
grotesque pornographic peep show thrills
elevated to some ecstatic cosmic level
religious rummage sale
my evening visitor
defers to you
satisfied that you know the score
trading control for safety
never doubting your intentions
delivering the goods
trading evasions
slipping the noose one more time
like the sleazy little rat he is
eventually he must show his hand
regardless of the danger involved
unless he wants this business to dead end
eventually I will have my way
you can’t
stop me
even though you want to
sometimes you just take the loss
deliver the goods and let it pass
yielding to me
to my karmic scheme
every deal doesn’t go like
this
sweet pea
every deal doesn’t go this well
since questionable souls
are involved
like you I am nervous
sometimes
dodging shadows
saying what needs to be said
doing what needs to be done
unlike you I have no choice
and you are never my evening visitor
IF YOU COULD SEE
deckard kinder
newman@ntr.net
and if you could see my dreams
could see my dreams of you
you would wish you were me
not that that would change anything
except the gender of the dreamer
you could see my dreams
if you could see my dreams
see my dreams like a theater of the heart
and feel my great love for you
not that that would change anything
despite the gender of the dreamer
feeling my great love for you
that would not change anything
however you would feel what I feel
exquisite as that may be
my dreams
if you could see my dreams of you
not that that would change anything
despite the gender of the lover
seeing my dreams of you
exquisite as they may be
grandiose as they may be
romantic as they may be
seeing my dreams of you
taken away by my dreams of you
until there is nothing of you left
greedy relentless urgent grasping
like a child neglected
seeing my dreams of you
until there is nothing of you left
guilty in your heart
regardless of your aching past
urging you on
excruciating as that may be
useless as that may be
torturous as that may be
going deep into your soul
despite the gender of the dreamer
until there is nothing left
there is nothing left but love
nothing left but dreams of love
exquisite as they may be
like a child’s heart
refusing to give up my dreams of you
touching you softly endlessly so and so and so
elegant as that may be
exquisite as that may be
that may be
useless or fruitless or futile
overwhelming as that may be
empty as that may be
even if you could see my dreams of you
jackson pollock threw paint
deckard kinder
jackson pollock threw paint
around like a muscatel wino tossing his cookies on the
corner of ninth and who-gives-a-shit
knowing no one would dig the deeper meaning
slinging paint
on canvas
not giving a good god damn what
people thought
or said
lingering in intuition
lounging in emotion
orgasmic organic
compulsively careless
kinetic karma king on the ragged edge
totally wasted on the dregs of his own disappointment
every day he slang the blues blacks and reds
torn between the gutter and the glory
guiltlessly guilelessly godlessly
turning battle fatigue into jazzed-up joy
surreptitiously superstitiously suspiciously
turning out portraits of gods and demons
dancing in his head
nattering about in his heart
conjuring who-knows-what in his soul
screeching and singing and speaking in tongues
eagerly earnestly effortlessly
turning out hyperanimated visions of eternal turmoil
so endlessly extraordinarily effective
you stopped
and stared
torn between the sewer and salvation
succulent satisfaction and endless emptiness
divine devastation and demonic delivery
the tyranny of taboos torn to shit
like atlanta after grant
smoldering shattered silent
hyperoptic hyperbolic hyperotic
luxuries
extemporaneous
duplicities
non-negotiable
superficialities
yielding
to
charisma
so jackson pollock threw paint
every day
somehow hoping to find release
or
a little bit of peace
NO LONGER
Allison Eir Jenks
ajenks@students.miami.edu
All seems safe in my little box.
Invisible drapes tie my eyes.
Simple words glue my teeth.
Everything I can picture in my mind, exists.
On some other side,
hearts shoot through careless floods,
Undetected eyes float,
Phantoms crawl through heavy dust.
Rebellious sleepwalkers sing a universal chorus.
Serene mornings are disturbed by foul-handed wolves.
Creatures move through hidden parts of the moon
Birds speak their marble language.
The drinking mind is the universe.
Here, heroes take their stations.
Murderers dress in suits.
Crazy animals are devoured.
Profiles of death chase.
I will add to the collection of sleeping fields;
Graveyards with names and names.
Who are they?
Who were they?
Who will I be?
Years bring attics of deteriorating photos.
Not all are equipped for fame.
Ancient signs in the stars are dormant.
We’ve forgotten how to cross borders.
Facts limit us from our own endurance.
The disturbed howls from the underground
are blocked by grass.
I can no longer let every day be close to the same,
Confining smiles to certain places.
The Chocolate Woman
They gave her a lethal dose of
chocolated
as her gift
Really fine pieces, not
chocolates confected at a fancy farm
not chocolates rustled up on a stove -
O, no -
drooling, sucking, smacking primo pieces these were,
with internal parts
heretofore unknown to
the probing tongue of man
slurpily liquid, dripping down the clutching fingers
yummily gummed together
dark, passionate, bittersweet
like an interracial love relationship
She couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop
Flopped she across the bed, legs spread
arms flung above her head
inflated cheeks walloping the mattress
while they swalloed up her ears
like a pair of pink fluffy pillows
Before the chocolate’s binge -
earlier i nthat day -
her cheeks had been as dainty as
two small cushions of sachet
Nancy L’enz Hogan
Gutters
John Hayes
johnhayesaw@worldnet.att.net
Summer rains flood the gutters
of city streets
boys grab toy vessels
set sail in roaring seas.
Mouths pressed solemn
eyes ever alert
bodies soaked.
Kill the enemy!
Gaping sewers devour
swamped paper ships.
Splash. Holler.
Villains exterminated
heros generated
on fantasy seas,
cunning boys,
masters of the battle
bored no more.
Words flood the minds
men maneuver atomic ships
roaring, soaked
ships blown
food for the sea
guileless, puppets
of the battle
bored no more.
Making Sky
By Richard M. Grove
writers@pathcom.com
Ripped trees tearing fall,
Sky struck branches rattle,
Every which way piled,
Brittle grey arms lie,
Now in shadow,
Beside brother’s branches deep.
More cutting,
Dismembered, chopping piled,
Waiting winter’s frosty creep,
Now in warm brilliance stacked,
Damp musty undergreen,
The first time mother earth,
Gentle breeze and sky has reached.
michael estabrook
MEstabr815@aol.com
time for a change
the office my car the post office the Acton Public Library the book store in Concord the book store in Newton Atkinson Pool the drug store The Barber Shop the Mobil Station the hardware store the New England Historic Genealogical Society the Acton Arboretum Logan Airport my son’s car the video rental place Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge my house my back yard my front yard my wife’s car Emerson Hospital the stream down back Walden Pond the grocery store Merrimack College Bentley College the tax accountant’s the Boston Lyric Opera the soccer field McDonald’s Wendy’s Burger King the cemetery Bowmar, Larkin, Lilly, & Barton’s the dentist’s the doctor’s the railroad tracks my daughter’s car Shawmut Bank BayBank the dry cleaners our friends’ house the Emerson’s Umbrella Theater the veterinarians Barnes and Noble’s the coffee shop Le Lyonnais Restaurant Papa Gino’s the town dump . . .
michael estabrook
MEstabr815@aol.com
Tuesday morning about 8:20
Dave’s getting some iguanas to keep in his
apartment at college (I told him they
were cheaper than having girls in
his apartment). Laura’s joining
a sorority, that’s another
$700, but what the hell whatever
it’ll take to help her adjust.
Robin’s been rather cranky, but 14
year old girls need time to
find themselves, Patti keeps
telling me. And Patti’s planning a
Thelma and Louise trip out to Detroit
to link-up with Linda, her best friend
from high school, so I
have to worry about her coming
home and letting me know that after 25
years, finally, she sees me for
the complete asshole I really am.
I’d like to become a Marine
Biologist but with 2 kids in college
I can’t afford it. My back is killing me.
After 25 years
my father-in-law still
hasn’t accepted me as part of his family.
At work I’m on this Sales Compensation
Planning Team, spending
countless hours sitting around in
a windowless room talking
and talking. And all the while I’m
asking myself why in the hell I didn’t
enroll in that stupid Ph.D.
program in Comp Lit at
the University of Connecticut 2 years ago,
I’d almost be out by now.
Sonnet XXXXXI...
on the road to Tetlapayac
J. E. Dorsey
It is raining here in my heart, cascading teardrops
But through the clouds of your fading memory
There are bright stars looking down upon us by the millions
O weeping sky - my sadness is reaching out to your black countenance
Searching for your vanished kisses in the wet heavens
O love, it is you clinging to my bones aching
And in your liquid eyes of tears immeasurable loss
I am drowning, O suffocation of water & air filling lungs inhalations
I am immersed completely - where the deep blue sea
becomes the dark night - no longer breathing
Surrounded by tiny hungry fishes in a seething frenzy
Eating flesh and blood - their tiny bubbles exploding
My love, here is the longing dark sky of your missing body
Only the moving head lights show the way to loving you.
DEAD SUMMER
Joan Papalia Eisert
my face swells
with silent screaming
as heat creeps
over my skin
ve been sculpting
with running clay
Consumed By Fire
Rachel Crawford
luna@pacbell.net
I saw two eyes of flame
In my sleepy dream
My voice was silent
I could not scream
I thought I was
But no one came
To save me from
The eyes of flame
They pierced my body
And my soul
Over me they hovered
In a short time
The eyes of flame
Became my passionate lover
The Cicerone at Antietam
(for W. S.)
A perfect day for imperfect bodies:
The mild sun on the well-ramped walks
And glinting in the creek as the pair
Roll and gimp among memories of bodies
Suddenly shattered by a leadstorm;
Then hacked by quick unsterile
Surgeons with nothing to kill the pain;
How they would envy the cicerone’s
Plastic and aluminum knee, his elegant
Cane which blooms into a chair
For rest and close observation,
Also his friend the architect’s
Power chair humming subserviently,
Agile beyond the smoke-wreathed dreams
Of those who triaged snapped spines
To death tents and lopped limbs
While cursing and being cursed.
Like McClellan, they have the slows,
Drifting leftward on the union lines
Following the eruptions of death
Through the long day of 17 September 1862;
Hooker assaults Lee’s left flank;
He cannot reach the Dunker church;
Nor can they, the reconstructed building
Has too many steps; they lack ability
To deploy bodies where needed, again
Like McClellan; further left they note
No corn in Miller’s cornfield;
The sunken road is now on the level;
Sinking his cane the cicerone finds
The shallow fords ignored by Burnside,
Who let his troops be slaughtered by the bridge,
Then got across so late that A. P. Hill
Had marhced his troops to the field,
Driving unlucky Burnside back;
Then Lee withdrew, McClellan did not follow;
Upwards of a score of thousand corpses rotted,
One more bloody compounding of errors.
The architect asks: “So who won?
McClellan lost more men, but then
He had more men to lose, Lee had
The field but had to go back home,
McClellan should have pursued but did not.
Lincoln pretended the stalemate was a win,
Although he fired McClellan, then issued
The Emancipation Proclamation, a very
Tentative thing on a shaky base.”
The cicerone sees their wives
Approaching laden with a trove
And eager to move on; he knows
There is no ending on the surface
Of a sphere, nor in time moving all
At the rate of one minute per minute,
The past receding into warp and blur,
The future forever beyond our kenning.
Anyhow he speaks: “There is no victory
When so many die. Maybe Lincoln,
Everybody’s favorite rail-splitting
Corporation lawyer and bloody saint,
Our master of myth and spin control,
Did well to use this mess as fulcrum
To move a nation to a good end;
You and I are joined for a good end, too,
Usinbg what is at hand, which is all we have.
Come, no more time to rake this over,
Though it has been a good and useful pause,
It is time to roll the movement on.”
j. quinn brisben
poems by
Elisavietta Ritchie
SAVINGS & THRIFT
I buy clothes second-hand,
haunt Goodwill for plates,
yard sales for chairs,
rent ramshackle houses,
invest in used cars.
My lovers also
have seen better days.
But what bargains I find...
THREE INTER-GENERATIONAL SARTORIALLY CORRECT HAIKU
Mother wore white gloves,
a hat with veil, high heels.
I wear patched jeans, cast-off boots,
but always travel in black lace
underwear. Never know
whom I’ll meet. And
in case of mishap,
Death or rescue squads
may still find me enticing.
PLACE SETTINGS
My mother’s plates, gold-rimmed
Limoges, all matched, could serve
soup, fish, roast, salad, fruit,
cake and demi-tasses for thirty guests.
In my house, every dish is different.
Not just because six kids will break
six plates apiece within six years,
but husbands do get shaky, mad, or drunk.
Better they throw plates than us,
and I haunt yard sales and Goodwill,
glean jetsam from strange women’s lives
perhaps as hazardous as mine but tidier:
when their wedding china dwindles
with the husbands, children, years,
to seven saucers, one chipped cup,
they dump them at the church bazaar.
I hoard poor-cousin cups, orphaned plates,
enrich my stock with fresh gene pools
from other clans, so what one bowl’s plum
clashes with some platter’s rose.
I conjure how another’s nicks,
chips and cracks occurred,
weigh her losses and my own
bargains and diversities.
FROM GOODWILL
Mostly stainless steel gussied up
like real silver, they glitter through
their nicks, flecks of rust, bent prongs.
What doesn’t shine may even be sterling.
Greyed, tinged blueblack, camouflaged
as if ashamed of how it’s fallen.
Yet an old duckess hit by hard times
might just polish up....Discreetly, I spit
on the bowl of one dingy spoon, rub until
my finger turns black, the spot emits a shy gleam.
Illegible symbols on the back of the shaft
hint lineage, simplicity intimates taste.
Each piece in the bin costs 25 cents.
At home, it takes hours’ worth of my time
to find polish, pry up childproof caps,
scour first with brass polish, then gunk
for silver. Fingers aching, I buff
the whole spoon to a dull, very dull, glow.
Most silver’s gone. How many washings, how many mouths,
and whose....New: a shimmering gift to a long-ago bride.
Worn thin: hand-me-down to a fourth daughter’s dowry.
Too drab to join my Grandmama’s matched set adorned
with curlicues, monograms, every piece radiant, unscratched.
Yet I can’t relegate this - prize - to the kitchen.
So it stays in my cluttered study where I allow
only poets, exiles and refugees, my tarnished familiars,
friends with unfortunate histories, a story to tell.
THE BLACK GLOVES
Long, with silver snaps. Bought
at an Arlington Thrift as if brand new,
they have yet to take the shape of my hands.
Who owned them before? Did she die?
By her own hand, and her angry family hope
to recoup something at least on consignment?
Did she merely resell them because
her hands swelled, or shrank, she moved
to the tropics, gave up black, or was broke?
No matter. Two dollars and by the fragrance
real leather. I’ve bought them.
Bought into her life.
Until I lose them, lend them,
toss one out as a challenge,
or recycle them back to the Thrift,
I’ll wear them through difficult winters,
my hands assuming their shape,
the lines on my palms retracing her fate.
WITH A GIFT OF HAND-ME-DOWNS
Feathered boa, sequined shift, paint-
splattered Brooks Brothers khakis
bought years ago second-hand -
You’ve just become someone else.
Aviator. Tap dancer. Grande dame.
Courtesan. Poet in borrowed clothes.
Ruffles. Velvets. Tatters. Here
is my flowing sarong from Java, printed
with indigo kingfishers, ginger buds -
you could not have garnered, so young,
all the romances that faded batik
inspired, absorbed in its folds...
Now fly to the islands with your disguises.
Gallivant unfamiliar lanes
under a different sun, unpredictable moon,
while you play out my dreams,
wear out my lives,
multiply all your own.
DECISIONS
It’s like that one
pair of shoes
you wear everywhere:
Perhaps the color is
a bit off, you aren’t sure
of the origins, but
you know a good last
when you see it.
ON THE EVE OF
A GOODWILL PICKUP
Like this old tee-
shirt you’ve kept
since school
where the stains
now form part
of the fabric.
You could not
discard this
or rag it:
Did you lose your
virginity in it
or win a team cup,
later wear it
to paint a house,
a portrait, the town....
You become
what
you become.
FOUR POTATOES
“They’ll poison you, green,” Aunt Tanya warns.
“Such a waste....Potatoes are all one needs
for a meal, topped with sour cream, dill...”
I bought them beige, if pocked and scarred,
from the REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE cart,
did not shade them from treacherous light.
But I grew up with tales of potato famines,
the knowledge that wealth and life can disappear
with a drought, revolution or war, so hoard
those holey clothes, expired tinned fish, rutabagas....
Four dangerous spuds, like stones in a stream green
round their gills, loll weeks in my chipped brown bowl.
Suddenly now the bottom ends (which side is the top?) sprout: tiny rosygreen fingers probe air the way goose-barnacle
tentacles fathom the sea. A miracle born of neglect.
Might these nascent - roots? tendrils? leaves? - transmute
into creatures to stalk my yard, or feed the neighborhood....
I seize the cleaver, chop, plant sixteen cubes in my window box.
HAND-TO-MOUTH
Yes, that’s how I live
in the literal sense
now you’re away.
I hang out in twenty-four-hour
restaurants, the kind
with pie a` la mode,
two refills of coffee free,
the radio always on.
I space out my visits
and always pay for my tea.
When the owner is out
the waitress brings soup.
Crackers and water come with.
And they have vinyl banquettes.
One morning the waitress
insisted I try a bite
from her steaming pan
of fresh-baked liver
sprinkled with sesame seeds.
I’m still vegetarian, darling,
but never, oh never, have I
tasted anything quite so good
as that liver with sesame seeds...
I almost asked for the recipe.
But who knows how long
I’ll be out sampling
the tiny seven-grain cubes
on the Bakery counter,
hotdog slivers in barbecue sauce
the supermarket’s promoting,
the new labels of punch
doled into thimble-sized cups...
I market-test everything.
I buy just enough packets of chips
or from the Bargain Cart
spotted apples and rotten pears -
“Fruit tastes better ripe,” I tell
the well-coiffed cashier who watches
I don’t run off with the escarole,
yellow peppers, ruby radicchio.
I skip the marked-down potatoes:
nowadays I don’t cook.
Hairy carrots, squidgy zucchini,
I scrape with your Swiss army knife
and scrub with snow in the park.
Squirrels leap through the drifts
to eat from my table.
Some days the sun’s out,
dances on patches of ice.
I must watch my step
on the unshovelled walks,
but how you and I would skate
on the frozen pool. They’ve shut
off the fountain for winter.
Some days I go to the library
though my eyes can no longer spell,
or I take a subway - how many
invisible miles, peculiar people...
In the bus station one night
I found myself curled around
by a girl in her twenties,
also come in from the snow,
each of us wrapped
in our separate coats
pillowing on each other.
Sometimes I pass her now
on the avenue: We don’t speak,
though our eyes for an instant meet.
Her fortune seems to have changed,
or she’s dressed for a better role:
spike-heeled boots, and a fur.
Even at 20 below I still wear
my tweed coat, prudent galoshes,
the red dress you bought me,
my velvet hat with the veil.
Once a week I go home to check
if there’s mail left outside,
but never go in. The day you
departed, I stopped the papers.
But I keep up with the news -
classifieds left on a bench,
stock market reports jut from a bin -
yes, you’re doing all right -
I read whatever cover-to-cover.
What luck, today’s horoscope!
My stars predict dining out,
a new romance in the offing
or else an old one resumes.
I await more precise information,
and perhaps a postcard.
MAIL CALL: AFTER LONG ABSENCE
Each envelope brings threats:
one will cut the water off by noon,
a second, douse the lights, stop time,
another, disconnect the sewer pipe.
No more utility in my utilities:
every card in my Monopoly
leads straight to jail.
The only heat left is on me.
The bank warns of foreclosure,
dispossession of my car.
American Express and Mastercard
shine plastic countenances full
of usury and menace.
No more safety in numbers
nor bulls in the marketplace.
And all my memberships have lapsed.
SEVERAL MEANINGS OF COLD
for Pedro,
Toronto, October
The kid from Mexico saws the dead cedar
to logs. He’s newly arrived, and broke.
She needs the tree cut, spreads her hands
the width of the barren hearth.
“Win-ter comes soon,” she enunciates,
shivering in the futile sun. She flutters
gloved fingers skyward as if the red-orange-gold
fallout of leaf flakes were icy white.
Has he seen snow in his mountains?
Or only soot falls from cities, volcanic ash,
the dust of drought. Perhaps blizzards
of russet wing flakes from migrating monarchs.
Here, he will learn several meanings of cold:
the cold, how cold, a cold, cold shoulder.
What of the ice of the muted voice,
deep-freeze of the heart...
She’ll pass on her son’s outgrown parka.
The grocer sells chilis, red-devil hot.
She thaws one can of juice. “Drink.”
Should she offer hot coffee?
His notched blade grinds the resistant trunk.
She picks up a log, sniffs the maroon-pink core.
“Fragrant. Good smell....Log. Saw. To saw a log.
Two logs. Saw. See. Sawn. Seen. Seesaw. Say...”
How vital the shift of one letter.
Gusts whirl sawdust like beige snowflakes.
“Cold. Frigo.” She hopes that’s correct.
“Wind. Cold wind. Win-ter. Win-ter. Cut. Cut. Cut.”
SAUCERS
All that is left
of my mother’s set
of pottery, white
rimmed with sky-blue,
are the saucers.
I use them under
clay pots of chives,
oregano, dill,
an impatiens.
My mother had
already smashed
the plates and cups
(alcoholic nights,
mornings shaky).
Summers, plants go
back in the garden,
leaving the saucers
muddy, stained, unfit
even to store.
But I remember
my mother, and scrub,
soak hours in bleach,
then slide them
under iced tea,
in autumn under
the pots again,
year after year
till they also break.
Now, like old black women
in South Carolina
who place broken plates
on family graves,
I arrange blue-and-white
saucer shards around
the perimeter of her own.
THEM
St. John’s, Newfoundland
The leathered man hauling his mule,
the immigrant woman throwing slops at dogs,
the kid at billiards, his hands smelling
of fish or the scent of a girl...
This brutal blessed gap, as between two
arms of the harbor when even at low tide
ice like dumped paving blocks,
it’s dangerous to cross.
Yet some nights
after too much sweet wine or poppyseed cake,
we dream their dreams. We do not mean to,
we cannot wake in time to shut them out.
With the long reach of dead lovers, they
grasp our sleeves, scratch our skin,
snatch our pillows, leave us naked
on mattresses stuffed with corn husks.
The funnel blast that calls them back
to dory, barge or ship, we hear
miles from any port.
And their blood
matches our own, the murk
of their minds and lives seeps
into ours, as we try to ford
the straits, cross the ice in time.
COMPANIONS
That goose hides in your knapsack
cackling or venting an awkward honk
when you least expect.
You zip the bag, lace the strings tight.
A beak pokes out, long neck snakes around,
eyes gleam like hatpins, weedy breath on your neck.
Down clings to your hair like milkweed fluff.
One night it’s a Canada goose,
another: plain barnyard, or showy white.
And you could not kill him, or her,
though you hint a taste for pate.
You hang your pack on an oak, slip away....
The goose wiggles out, lifts the strap off
the branch, and, as if mated for life,
waddles down the road after you, bag in beak
like an elderly lady lugging her purse,
day and night keeping watch, keeping you.
SPRINGBOARDS: ANOTHER ARS POETICA
Something someone would throw away.
An unspoked umbrella, ruptured tire,
a rag shredded beyond absorbing more.
A dimestore dress bought for a doll
or for disguise in an improper moment.
It’s the momentness of the thing
and all its life before you
picked it up or out, cast off
but retrieved despite face values.
Then, the story inside, and how -
in an unintended hour caught
in a summer thunderstorm
in a fast food shop, radio blaring
the odor of popcorn and fries -
how to rewrite it.
RECYCLING PROCESS
A sack of garbage serves a whole community.
Last evening neighbors put it out,
last night raccoons clawed it apart and when
they left, the all-night outdoor cats
picked through, at dawn the first dogs
given liberty. When they were whistled home,
one starling, then a flock, took over. Crows,
squirrels and pigeons raided in between.
Rain dissolves the paper. By the time
the garbage truck grinds down our way,
only aging grapefruit rinds, a well-licked
tuna tin remain, and bits of plastic bag
blow about, catch in trees, clog sewer drains.
AS AFTER A THIRTY-YEARS’ WAR: OLD LOVERS
They remember every word we spoke,
our coffee mit schlag or smoked oysters
served with lacy promises of eternal love
even as they moved on. Yet rivers are
always in flow, though some dry up,
leave us to plod the dusty wadi
glancing over our shoulders
in case of innundation.
Suddenly, old codgers now,
they flood or trickle back,
bony, shrunk, or bloated, hungry.
Billy goats with white bristles,
less hair on those domes, the same
cleft hooves, bunioned of late.
Once, we thought them our soulmates.
Now, we shudder: our doubles.
BARGAINS
Did parsimony begin when my mother
insisted redheads should not wear red,
and she bought me dresses in avocado,
ocher and brown, too well-sewn to wear out.
She fitted me into glistening oxfords
when scuffed saddle shoes or loafers
with pennies were in. At the prom,
ridiculous ruffles covered my throat.
Always I’ve bought the Edsel,
off-brand computers that won’t compat,
thrift shop clothes with the ghosts
of their owners still playing tricks.
I’ve rented old houses that slip apart
beam by beam, bought third-hand boats,
fibreglassed their porous hulls
while mice spun the sails into lace.
For my second wedding I’ve bought
second-hand silver spike heels
and a decollete pink faille dress.
My hair is a staunch apricot.
I’ve got this curious bridegroom,
a hand-me-down too, but game
to travel cut-rate with me.
Still, I worry a bit.
IN PRAISE OF PARSIMONY
The groom? There he is.
The guy in the tux
from the rental shop.
Simpler to borrow but
Cousin Jerry, just his size,
has a dinner tonight.
And his buddy, Bob,
has not filled out
so much in the gut.
He bummed that for his
third daughter’s wedding
to the wrong man.
Today RENT-A-TUX has a sale,
as for last year’s cars
at Avis or Hertz.
Took him hours to settle
on plain satin lapels,
the black cummerbund.
Should he go for a floppy
midnight blue bow? Clip-on?
You’d think of some woman
hunting comfortable pumps
or choosing a hat - feathers
or perhaps the red velvet?
Forget frilled front and studs.
He’s got a white shirt at home.
And it’s not the first time
for the bride either. He pays
cash, departs reassured: others
tested the merchandise first.
WEDDING RING WALTZ
The ring barely slips over
my swollen third-finger joint (broke
on a long-ago boat), slides round
the thin inside inch of my finger.
Mum’s wedding ring. I wear hers
because my bridegroom does not
believe in symbols, or lacked
time to shop, or the cash.
But then, aren’t we regardless
always more tied to our mothers
than to whatever spouses....This could
spring into a psychological novel,
dangerous, concentric, drag on
for tomes. Therefore best I wind up
the topic in sixteen lines, go
soap my hands, wrest off the ring.
ONE WEDDING NIGHT
He blinks to note the old
woman parked in his bed, all
wrinkles and bellies, breasts
not as full as they seemed.
Which psychological drive, she
wonders, pushed her to sleep
with this grandfather figure,
and what if, in the midst
of things, his heart fails?
What would the rescue squad -
those husky bucks - speculate?
Not the usual bimbo here
who makes an old man’s pump
seize up when he tries -
He turns down, she turns
off, the unkind light.
In silence they strive
to ignore imperfections,
remember the rules, or
at least work around them,
holding each other
lightly as luna moths.
essays and philosophy monthly
MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF FAMILY PUNISHMENT
by courtney steele
X punished Y for doing Z by doing W.
person (parent)punished offender (child) for doing wrong action by punishing (penalizing) them.
What makes certain punishments within a family morally right or wrong? What makes the parent morally justified in punishing their child?
The rights based view in reference to punishment is a very general viewpoint. In the book Right Conduct, the rights based view is elaborated upon: however, it is only elaborated upon in reference to capital punishment. But what types or sorts of viewpoints should be taken into consideration when it comes to raising a child? The family situation poses quite a number of new questions when it comes to the appropriate punishment of a child. What forms of punishment are too harsh?? When should punishment be used? These questions may seem hard to answer, but when taking on the standpoint of a believer of the rights based viewpoint, the conception of the best, most correct, most appropriate, or the healthiest method of punishment for a child in a family situation is much more clearly outlined.
In teaching a child “rights” and “wrongs”, the child is usually taught that they cannot do something wrong (something which will badly or poorly effect others). Hitting a sibling causes harm to the object- in this case the sibling- therefore, it is wrong for the subject- in this case the child- to do the action (hitting the sibling). The child not cleaning their room as they were told to do forces someone else, usually a parent, to clean it, causing them undue stress and work and a reduction of their time. This is not the right thing for the child to do- not only because they were told by their parents to clean their room, but also because their not doing it caused someone else- in this case, one or both of the parents- extra work.
In respect to the protection of the offended’s rights (in the family case, the parents): the parents have the ability and the right to use force to defend their rights, and more importantly in reference to the preliminary factors of the case of punishment for a child, the parents have the ability and the right to “make threats”.
The parents, in essence, have the right and the duty to inform the would-be violators (in this case, the child) of possible punish- ment. This can simply be referred to as “threatening”, for the parent has the right to threaten the child with possible punishment if they feel that the child is planning to (“threatening to”) or going to deviate from what the family household heads consider “right”.
Following with this thought, it would seem plausible that if a parent has the right to protect their rights, then a parent would have the right to coerce their child by way of threats in order to stop the child from doing something wrong, and in turn violating the parent’s rights. When a parent threatens a child, with bodily harm or otherwise, on the condition that the child violates the rights of the parent, or, say, another sibling’s or friend’s (the rights of a third party), the parent still doesn’t remove from the child the liberty of violating those rights. However, the liberty that is removed from the child is the liberty to violate the rights of others without having those said “threats” or conditions actually inflicted upon him or her.
An aspect that now needs to be addressed is that there are two consequences to the fact that the parents each hold the right to punish.
1) Guilt is a necessary condition of the permissibility of punishment. Because there is no logic and no reason for punishing a child when they have not violated anyone else’s rights, it cannot be allowed.
2) It is not allowed or permissible to punish a child without having previously stating the threat of punishment. If the intent to punish was not previously announced in the past, then the child should not be punished because the child did not know that they were actually doing something wrong. Never stating the threat or the intent to punish allows the statement to follow that the parent cannot carry out a threat that they did not make.
These guidelines can be summarized in the following equations:
1) X cannot punish Y for doing Z if Y did not do Z.
2) X cannot punish Y for doing Z by doing W if Y did not know that they would be punished for doing Z.
When determining the appropriate amount of punishment of a child after the child has committed a crime, it is necessary to consider the extent of the “crime” that had been committed- in other words, there is a direct relationship between the extent of the deviance on the part of the child and the extent of the punishment
on the part of the parents. Then there are three basic points in determining the correct or appropriate amount of punishment to inflict upon the child.
1) The proportionality of the degree of severity of the punishment of the child by the parent should be directly proportional to the degree of severity of the deviation on the part of the child. This statement was said in the preceding paragraph. An example is as follows: it would be inappropriate for the parent to yell at their child after the child hit their sibling, if in another situation the parent would hit the child if the child was only yelling at their sibling. A constancy of punishment helps the child develop a better understanding of their guidelines.
2) There is an upper limit to the amount of punishment a parent should give their child, and that upper limit is never to exceed the importance of the rights of the child. In other words, the child’s rights that the parents are removing through punishment cannot be of greater value that the rights that the child was removing by going against the parent’s wishes. As an exaggerated example, it can be said that a parent cannot kill their child because the child hit the parent, because the parents would be removing a more important right from the child than the child was removing from the parent (although killing the child would be wrong for a variety of other reasons as well, of course). The most (in the physical sense) that the parent could do to punish their child would be to hit them. However, some may argue that it is morally wrong to hit a child, and that point will not be addressed in this essay.
3) It is not correct morally for the parent to use more than the minimum necessary punishment in order to teach the child the sense of right and wrong in a particular situation. In the example of a child hitting a sibling, it may be permissible for the parents to ground the child for a month. However, if all that the child needs in order for them to learn their lesson is to be grounded for a week, then it is morally wrong to punish them for an entire month. If it is not necessary to infringe the rights of the child, then it is not permissible.
These guidelines can also be summarized in the following equations:
1) X cannot infringe upon the rights of Y if Y’s rights to M are greater than X’s rights to N.
2) X cannot infringe upon the rights of Y if it is possible to only infringe upon rights that are of less importance for Y than M.
M and N in these cases are the rights of the child and the parent, respectively, that would be infringed upon in the event of the child acting in a deviant behavior to their parent’s wishes and in the event of the parent punishing the child for the action.
However, one must always keep in mind that there never seems to be a clear- cut and entirely appropriate form of punishment for a deviant child. Raising a child in the best way possible means so much more to the parent than the appropriate form of punishment for a criminal in a court of law (which is the reference that the book Right Conduct makes to the concept of the rights based viewpoint, which has been elaborated upon in this essay). Furthermore, the growing years in a child’s life are absolutely crucial- the childhood and adolescent years in a child’s life are where they learn their exact sets of standards and morals and values. Even in the infancy years showing the appropriate amount of restraint toward the child’s abilities shows the child that there is a certain set of “rights” and “wrongs” that the child must adhere to. It is imperitive to build a framework for the child to follow, for building a framework for the child to follow with an exact set of standards enables the child to know exactly what is considered right and wrong, and enables the child to know exactly what the consequences are for doing the wrong thing versus the right thing. Studies show that psycho- logically disturbed adolescents and children often come from parents that each possess different frameworks when it comes to punishing their children. One parent may be too harsh while the other parent may be too lenient, and the child often then becomes confused and disturbed. Children that are insecure tend to come from a household where the parents both had weak and fluctuating standards when it came to punishing their children. The child wouldn’t know what was right or wrong because their parents never taught them, and the child wouldn’t know what the consequences were for their actions, for the consequences for their actions were always different because their parents had no strict guidelines when it came to punishing their children. Children can grow up to be meek and fearing if their parents were too strict in their punish- ments, and children can grow up to be overly defiant if their parents were too lenient in their punishments. It is not possible to even begin to explore the possibilities for what is considered too strict or too lenient of punishment. Some may argue that hurting a child through punishment is morally wrong and should not be done, whereas some people may argue that sometimes punishment through, for example, hitting a child, is the only thing that will help the child learn that what they did was wrong. The question of the harshness of punishments can often only be addressed in particular cases and in particular families.
As a general remark, it is very possible to adversely effect a child by inappropriate punishment. The best way to ensure that the child grows up in the healthiest way possible is to develop a solid set of standards or guidelines for the child to follow, let the child know what those standards are, and then follow through on them.
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One piece in this issue is “Crazy,” an interview Kuypers conducted with “Madeline,” a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia’s Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn’t go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef’s knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover’s remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline’s monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali’s surrealism and Kafka-like craziness.
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Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
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As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers’) story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch.
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Children, Churches and Daddies.
It speaks for itself.
Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these.
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what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don’t consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.
why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.
so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.
A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.
vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444
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I really like (“Writing Your Name”). It’s one of those kind of things where your eye isn’t exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked “knowledge” for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.
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Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor’s copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@scars.tv... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv
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MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)
functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen
We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.
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Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.
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Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.” I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “The Room of the Rape” were particularly powerful pieces.
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C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.
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Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.
Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.
You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We’re only an e-mail away. Write to us.
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The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST’s three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST’s SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does “on the road” presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061
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Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
“Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
“Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.
want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.
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The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright �
through
Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.
Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I’ll have to kill you.
Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.
You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: “Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.
Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
ccandd96@scars.tv
Publishers/Designers Of
Sponsors Of
Okay, it’s this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you’ll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we’re gonna print it. It’s that simple!
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It’s a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the 1999 book “Rinse and Repeat”, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive”, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph” and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy”,
which all have issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us and tell us you saw this ad space. It’s an offer you can’t refuse...
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It’s your call...
Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.
Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.
the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine
Scars Publications and Design
http://scars.tv
Children, Churches and Daddies magazine
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through
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pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.