Children, Churches and Daddies

998998989

An Amazonian frog smaller
than my iris crawls up my cheek. The
picture makes my jaw bone twitchy
and I can not quit taking quick peeps
at your magazine subscriptions, all
saddle stapled IQ trivia
on semi-gloss bond, all purulence.
If I were in the dark forest
would I find an iris green as yours?

Plea for Anarchy

We stand dutifully erect,
Our heads bent in lazy servitude,
Our legs wobbling weak,
Our hands plastered to our breasts,
Saluting anarchy.
The banner leans, beaten
By youth assured by dissent,
Flogged against the blackboard,
Unraveled, unwrought, untold.
Red stripes of Bush’s blushing,
His dictionary out of reach.
Red stripes of Clinton’s agony,
Infidelity to impeach.
White stripes of empty promises
Falling from the skies.
White stripes of feigned purity
Sullied by tainted lies.
Blue sky of pollution,
Oil reeking into sin.
Blue sky of empty ozone,
Global warming scalding skin.
And fifty stars of incongruence,
Laws sanctioned by our idols,
False gods, innumerable flaws.
Anarchy, where are you?

woman by Dr. Deborah FerBer

The Spirit in Between

If a lion had you in its jaws I would attack it, If the ropes binding your soul are your own wrists I will cut them.
Sharon Olds

She is livid with life.
Her body overextends itself
to electrical outlets supplying
a current of breath
permanently exhaled
one icy afternoon
as she slid into a tangle
of glass and metal,
snow falling on wounds
that wouldn’t heal.

Without a voice
or the use of fingers
to shut herself off
she is a technological casualty
a prisoner of the war
between God and machine
She is the spirit in between.

Empty

I pour my coffee in a bottomless cup
Look in the mirror and
I don’t know who I see
There was someone’s reflection
But I can’t recognize her
I wonder if it could be me

Jesus photographed in Venice, Italy 2003

if Christ were guillotined

heaven knows
why I get so much
pleasure ridiculing
idols and religious
symbols
like the cross

the cross is a perfectly
gruesome symbol and I get
heartily sick of seeing
it everywhere

okay let’s say that his
Jesus person actually
existed and that he was
nice
even wise.
it’s said that he lived
two thousand years ago--
which by all indications
means that he was surrounded
by moronic barbarians so
if he was even decent--
well let’s just say it set
him apart but the book claims
that he was so much more than
decent
okay, fair enough.

Apparently being kind,
compassionate and wise
was a revolutionary thing
and revolutionary things
still get people killed

today I guess such a threat
to society would be either
shot, lethally injected
or gassed and his or her
followers
--so attached to a symbol--
would wear necklaces
and what not, displaying
a gun or syringe...

what would a tiny golden
gas chamber look like
dangling from your
beautiful neck?

VICTORBORGE by Rose E. Grier

GIANT BLACK BUGS EVERYWHERE

I wonder
if that giant black bug
that was walking on
my black sheet
while I was
laying in bed
was an
illusion

to be honest
I'd had a few
but I heard
something
and looked down
and saw it for
the briefest moment
then smacked it away

the black bug
flew across the room
and careened off
the fan
and lay on its back
slightly twitching

cursing
I picked it up
in toilet paper
threw it in the toilet
pissed on it
as it came to
from the shock
of the collision

then flushed

the rest of the night
I kept listening
jumping up and
turning on the light
screaming
“I'll kill all you little fuckers”

but nothing was
there
just
an illusion

2sunflowers by Cheryl Townsend

Priorities

I use a sly grin
to get a conversation
for a little while.p align="center"> It is easier
sometimes to get laid than to
find conversationp align="center">

goblet by Edward Michael O'Durr Supranowicz

Lena on the Bus

Fourteen years old,
and thinking pre-law
My Bosniak Girl
Her friends are all legless,
or dead, or moved on
My Bosniak Girl

The morning sunspray on her lenses
Hides her pretty black eyes from the stranger
Her coincidental traveling companion
The American soldier dispatched to her country
Much too late to save her childhood

She speaks English
much better than he
My Bosniak Girl
Spinning yarns too gruesome
for a child of fourteen
My Bosniak Girl

My immediate family was left intact
We were fortunate
Snipers never hit us while we queued
For bread or drinking water,
And the grenades in the lobby
Found only the neighbors’ children
So fortunate, we

On the road to an aunt’s house,
a well-earned reprieve
My Bosniak Girl
Sarajevo’s my home,
why ever would I leave
My Bosniak Girl

At a pit stop, the soldier buys her some
Blackberries from a roadside mother and
Her three stick-children.
Bosniak Girl scolds the American for not haggling,
Then explains patiently, as if to a child:

The adults, they say it’s the Serbs
And the Croats.
And the Serbs believe the Bosniaks
And the Croats are at fault.
And the Croats...well, you see, don”t you?
But it’s in each of us, this animal.
We all must try to understand this, change this...

Fourteen years old
So fortunate, we.

FUTILITY

I scrub spills and scuff marks off the
kitchen floor, only to find more the next day.

A slippery seal, fur slicked by an oil spill.
was caught by humans and cleaned up, at a
cost of eighty thousand dollars.
Spectators cheered upon its pristine release.
Cheers turned to gasps, when a killer whale
surfaced and seized the hapless seal.

Feet on Wood by Mike Hovancek

At the hotel

the rooms are
normally left
open
--on display for tourists--
but a door was
closed
and I knew
that the room
had not been rented
so I turn the knob,

just walk in.

There are two men,
arm wrestling.
First I’m embarrassed
and just turn around
to leave--
they’re grunting and getting
red
but then I
notice that only
one is grunting
and red...

on closer scrutiny
I see that it’s
Christ and Satan
and
you know which one is red.

The winner
gets earth for
the next thousand years

Christ is cool
and collected.

Satan is driven
and crazed
and wins,
however,
Christ is a good sport--

Christ is a graceful
loser

anyone good enough
Helena Wolfe
i used to think that i was no good
that i was worthless that i meant nothing

and then i got a good job
and then i got me a ton of money

and then i looked in the mirror
and i realized i was gorgeous

and people laughed at my jokes
and people thought i was talented and strong

and now i look around me
and i can’t find anyone good enough

and i wonder if i expect too much
but i know for a fact that i deserve more

Brazilian Budhead by Mark Graham

Looking Into the Abyss

The screams were the worst.
Abner Deal had been doing the vigilante thing for over a year now and had gotten used to the blood and the gore, the pleas for mercy, but he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the screams. The perv, as he and Attherton called the pedophiles, sat panting in the stainless steel chair, trying to catch his breath to do just that again. Scream.
Abner sighed, and ripped off a wide strip of Duct Tape. Wonderful stuff, Duct Tape. He slapped it over the perv’s mouth and held a finger up to the gray tape. “Shhh,” he whispered, looking deep into the man’s wide-open eyes. Besides, he was getting tired of hearing the perv’s cries of innocence, which only caused to piss Abner off even more. He considered it a weakness on his part though, that he couldn’t abide the screams of the damned. The perv nodded vigorously, as if by cooperating he might still get out of this alive. Silly rabbit.
The perv sat naked on the chair, his thighs spread out and Duct Taped to its legs. His genitals and thin buttocks poked through the bottomless piece of cold, metal furniture; a pair of alligator clips were clamped onto his bleeding and swollen testicles, the wires leading to a hand cranked generator capable of producing 3,000 volts. His penis was withdrawn like a frightened turtle, as if it knew what still lay ahead of it. A seemingly never-ending stream of urine dribbled into the dark maw of a drain directly beneath the chair. It echoed dankly in the soundproofed concrete cellar.
Abner cranked the generator and watched the perv’s body strain at his bonds. His body was covered in sweat, which just made the shock all the more efficient. Spittle bubbled at the edges of the tape and the perv’s cheeks ballooned out comically. Abner laughed and selected a safety pin from his satchel. He showed the pin to the perv and opened it slowly for his benefit. The perv was looking almost bored now. He obviously thought nothing could be worse than what he’d already been through.
Abner shoved the business end of the pin into the perv’s left eye. He felt the gelatinous eyeball pop under the pin and smiled satisfied that the perv was once again appropriately terrified. The perv looked as if he was going to faint so Abner pulled the tape free from his mouth.
“If you scream, I’ll take the other eye too,” said Abner, as friendly as a man saying, Good morning, to you on the street.
The perv nodded and squeezed his eyelid over the ruined eye trying to stem the flow of ocular fluid and blood. “Please don’t hurt me anymore. Please, I’ll do anything,” he croaked though his severely strained vocal cords.
Abner smiled. “Good. We’ll begin with “who” first of all.”
“Who?” said the perv, blinking the sweat from his one good eye.
“Yes, who did you take? I specifically want to know of those young girls you abducted and who were never found by the authorities. And don’t skip anyone Kent Wether,” Abner said, using the man’s name for the first time. “Because I have a good idea of “who” already.”
To Abner’s delight, the perv tried to bluff him. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name’s not Kent Wether, it’s John Tyler—Abner calmly picked up his garden shears from the satchel and proceeded to prune Mr. Wether’s thumb from his right hand. It plopped onto the drain one second before the perv began screaming anew.
Abner shook his head sadly. “Tsk, tsk, tsk Mr. Wether. What did I tell you about that screaming?”| he clucked, before shoving the dripping pin into the wildly gyrating eye of the perv. If anything, it only made the screams worse.
It took another finger before Kent Wether began confessing to every single abduction that Abner had him down for, but not without Abner’s help and prodding. Five more fingers followed the second, leaving Wether with only three remaining fingers; all on his left hand, as Abner had to remind the perv of each and every victim, as if he had forgotten all about them! Abner didn’t know what angered him more: the perv’s feigned ignorance or his callous disregard for the lives he’d discarded like so much trash. Abner wrote them all down though; the names of the victims, where he had taken them, what he did to them, and where he dumped the bodies. Six in total. Abner swallowed down the hate that was threatening to overtake his senses. It had happened before and the end result was always a quick death for the perv, which was the last thing Abner wanted.
He stared at the names of the dead; their bodies left to rot in a garbage dump, an abandoned building, lakes and rivers, and the Francis Marion Forest Preserve. He frowned at the varied dumpsites. It was unusual for a serial killer to be so haphazard. They were usually creatures of habit, often to the point of being predictable. It was almost as if Wether was making it up just to get Abner to stop torturing him.
Abner shook the troubling thought from his head and made a mental note to notify the families that their daughters’ killer had been dealt with, and that he had suffered greatly in the end for his sins. At least these families could properly bury their dead now and maybe receive some closure from the justice Abner was giving them this day. The perv, his eyes now useless, cried piteously in the cellar of Abner’s home, begging for a forgiveness that only God could give him. He would get no absolution from Abner Deal, just resolution.
The end was always the same for the pervs’. Abner severed the man’s genitals with a quick snip of his pruning shears and dropped the pale flesh dispassionately into an industrial blender he had set up earlier on a small stainless steel table beside his satchel. He then purŽed them into a bloody soup, which unfortunately Mr. Wether was unable to witness. His screams even drowned out the high shriek of the blender. Abner pulled a hose and funnel from the satchel and threaded the hose down the perv’s throat. He ignored the choking and the frantic head shaking as the blind piece of shit realized what was about to happen to him. This part was always better when the perv could see what was going on of course. Abner enjoyed the looks on their faces as he whipped their dicks and nuts into what would be their final meal. He had gotten a little carried away this time though, and ruined his fun by blinding Wether before the grand finale.
Abner picked up the blender and poured the vile mess into the attached funnel. It looked like Manhattan Clam Chowder running down the clear tube. Wether began convulsing and frothing at the mouth. Speed was of the essence now if the perv was to make it to the grand finale. Once it was all down, Abner tore the hose free and quickly Duct taped Wether’s mouth shut again. This was the best part, watching the pervs’ as they inevitably threw up their very “reasons for being in his cellar” into the closed confines of their mouths. They literally choked to death on their own genital soup. Sweet, sweet justice, that.
Abner watched impassively as the perv Kent Wether rock and rolled on the steel chair. He wasn’t worried that the chair couldn’t take the abuse. Like the sound proofed cellar and the van he and Attherton used to pick up the criminals, the chair had been constructed to endure extreme punishment. Extreme Punishment, Abner like the sound of that. That’s what he doled out to the worst of the worst, extreme punishment for extreme crimes against humanity.
“Paybacks a bitch, Mr. Wether.”
A little genital soup leaked from a loose flap of the Duct tape, as Kent Wether shuddered one last time. His face was bluer than a blueberry and his sightless eyes bulged out obscenely as if in the end he saw what awaited him in hell. Abner liked to think so anyway. He got up from his own chair and stretched. It had been a rough eight hours; from the “acquisition” of the perv at the Photo Hut, to its arrival in the Abyss—as Abner referred to the cellar—and finally to the physically draining torture session that ended with the death of one Kent Wether.
He slipped on a pair of elbow length rubber gloves and turned on the high powered hose he kept neatly rolled up beside the hot water faucet with a bleach dispenser connected to it. The floor of the Abyss sloped gently to a drain in the center of the room. Steam rose from the jet of hot water as Abner hosed down the dead perv. He then washed away the steaming pile of feces still leaking from Kent Wether’s protruding buttocks. It was, as usual, the final act of the dying animal. The strong scent of hot bleach won out though, as it not only cleaned all the surfaces, but neutralized the foul smelling air as well. Finally, Abner was left with the scalded remains of the perv, ready for disposal. Then after cleaning the tools of his trade, and putting them neatly back into the satchel, Abner took one last look around the room.
He decided to leave the rest for tomorrow. Maybe he could even get that baby Attherton to give him a hand! He blew a kiss to the clean and dripping corpse before shutting off the lights.
“Sleep tight scumbag.”

I Want More Than That a poem’s Kannada translation tranbslated by Mackenzie Silver

He keyed the freight elevator, which was the only way to access the cellar, and stepped inside. There were three floors to choose from. The first floor of the Deal Funeral Home was for the mourners; with its dark and somber interiors and its tasteful, unpretentious furnishings, it was meant to be the first stop in the grieving process. This floor also held a Chapel room, complete with a crematorium for those who preferred the fire to the earth.
The second floor held Abner’s living quarters.
The cellar, which was split into two rooms, was where Abner really made his living; changing the mask of death—if but briefly— into a peaceful repose of final rest. Down here in this windowless room of death, Abner tended to the dead in more ways than one. He kept the business of the funeral home separated from the ugly business of retribution though, refusing to even use the same space for his acts of vengeance. It wouldn’t be right, he reasoned, to taint someone’s dearly departed with the presence of the depraved individuals he disposed of in the adjoining room.
The Deal Funeral Home had once held a staff of three, not including Abner and his dead wife, Sheila, who had once seen to the mourner’s needs. Now it was just Abner. He had reluctantly fired his three long time employees after his wife’s death, knowing that he couldn’t take the chance of them finding out about his future extra-curricular activities.
As Abner spent more and more time seeking out the perv’s that had eluded the blind eye of the law, his funeral business became more neglected. The once beautifully manicured lawn, which fronted the old Georgian home, was now overgrown with weeds and grass that came up to a tall man’s knees. It was no longer a place that soothed one’s senses. Now, only the very poor sought out his services, which was exactly how Abner Deal wanted it. He wasn’t in dire need of funds at this point anyway.
He punched the second floor button and felt the old elevator lurch upwards, the overhead lamp sputtering like a dying flashlight. It was his constant fear that one day the decrepit service elevator would break down between floors, trapping him inside with one of the dead. The elevator door wheezed open on the first floor and Abner breathed yet another sigh of relief. He walked through the dimly lit hallway and down the center aisle of the Crematorium Chapel.
He flicked on the gas and ignited the jets inside the cylindrical chamber to make sure it was still in working condition. Abner felt the familiar sting of heat as the oven doors opened up. The glow of the fire flickered across Abner’s gaunt face, giving him a hellish aspect.
He was exhausted by now but his night was not yet at an end. Unlike the cellar, he couldn’t afford to leave the van in its present condition. In his line of work Abner could never be too careful or too thorough. Usually Jim Attherton took care of the van but lately Jim had become distracted. Abner thought that his friend might have lost his stomach for what they were doing. Last night, Jim had taken off after helping Abner bring the perv into the Abyss, without so much as a goodbye.
Abner went outside into the chilly October night and went over the van with another hose and bleach combination. The van had no carpets, and the bucket seats were covered in plastic, which they of course replaced and disposed of after each “acquisition.” Then he wiped down every surface with bleach—which covered up traces of blood and bodily fluids efficiently, as well as cheaply—and vacuumed the whole thing twice to catch any stray hairs. Jim had taught him well of that old forensic adage, ‘a killer always takes something away from every crime scene, and leaves something of himself as well.’ He then took the rags and the bag from the vacuum cleaner to burn in the cremo-oven.
“Damn,” he said aloud. “Forgot Wether’s clothes!” He’d left them in a corner of the Abyss. “Well, I’m not going back down there tonight. I’ll see to it with the body in the morning.”
After turning off the oven and disposing of the ashes in the septic tank in the backyard, Abner trudged upstairs to his bathroom. He always felt filthy after dealing with a perv. Their sins were so vile that just by being near them he felt as if he’d just taken a dip in the septic tank. He scrubbed his skin until it was pink and raw, washed his short cropped hair twice and blew out his nose into the steam of the shower, as if the mucous in his nostrils was now radioactive and must be expelled, lest it infect him.
He stepped out of the shower and dipped his hands into a mixture of bleach and water he’d prepared in the bathroom sink. His hands were the worst for it too. They were dry and would often bleed at the ever-widening cracks on his knuckles. It reminded him of how his mind sometimes felt. Bloody and cracked. He rinsed them under the cold tap afterwards and rubbed some aloe-Vera crme over them. It was odd how his skin drank in the oily lotion, like a dry and cracked riverbed soaking in a thunderstorm and not leaving a trace of it behind.
His room, which had once been the guestroom, held no furniture other than a twin size mattress shoved against one wall. Abner flicked on the light and walked naked over to the closet where he kept all his clothes. His underwear and socks were all on the top shelf; he took a pair down and slipped them on, leaving his feet bare. Abner liked the chill, he slept better in a cool room. Yawning, he turned the light-switch off and stumbled across the dark room and into bed.
As tired as he was he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. They had gotten their man after nearly six months of legwork, but he wasn’t happy with the end results. Kent Wether had been a very bad man and had deserved a harder death than Abner had given him. He had also been hoping that the death of this seriously deranged individual would finally give him some closure. But like all the others, it hadn’t. His anger and hate still burned bright. He would have to continue it seemed. If only he could lay his hands on the man who had taken Dewey from him, then this nightmare might finally end. That particular monster, however, had escaped Abner’s wrath forever by taking his own miserable life.
Abner rolled over and stared at the wall in the darkness. It had been a long road that had led him up to this point. He wasn’t the same man as when he started. When he looked in a mirror these days he saw a stranger. He knew that if his wife or son were still alive that they wouldn’t recognize him either, might even be frightened of him in fact.
The thought of his family brought shame to him. Sheila wouldn’t have approved of his violent deeds. And little Dewey...well, Dew was too pure of soul to even think about in the same context as these men. But it was because of Dewey and Sheila that Abner was doing these horrible things in the first place. And for Abner Deal, that was the cruelest irony of all.

art by John Yotko

Once upon a time, the Deal family had been an American anomaly: a truly happy family. Abner had never known anything else in his life. So, for him, happiness was a given. The only child of Clarence and Agnes Deal, his childhood had been nearly idyllic. Some might say that growing up in a funeral home, with dead people laying about downstairs, wouldn’t be a healthy environment for an especially sensitive boy like Abner—he would often cry for those dearly departed that he didn’t even know—but it taught Abner that nothing in life is as natural as the inevitably of death.
He learned the trade of preparing the dead for the afterlife from his wise father, and preparing the living in their grieving process from his caring mother. He was an only child, born late in the lives of two very gentle souls. Abner never dreamed of any other life than the one he’d been born into. He was in his last year of high school when his elderly parents died three days apart. His mother went first in her sleep. Abner awoke to the screams of his father in the middle of the night, when he’d discovered his wife’s cold dead hand resting on his cheek. Clarence Deal never recovered. Three nights later Abner found the old man dead in bed as well, his open eyes fixed on his wife’s bare pillow. He’d died of a broken heart.
Abner was heart-broken too but his mother and father had taught him well. He had his father’s assistant prepare his mother for burial. Not because Abner wasn’t strong enough for the task, but because he’d understood his mother would have wanted it that way. But when it came time to prepare his father, Abner saw to the unpleasant job him-self.
He finished high school because he knew that’s what his mom and dad would have wanted, but there was no need to attend college. His own father had certified him as an undertaker the year before. The family business fell to Abner and he didn’t miss a beat. The Funeral business is a recession proof line of work and by the time Abner was twenty-three he had already earned his first million.
Work became his life and life was good. And then it got even better. Sheila Farnsworth walked into the Deal Funeral Home one cold and wet January morning looking for work. She was attending Francis Marion College in nearby Florence, and needed a job to help pay for her tuition and books. Abner didn’t need any help. The funeral home still employed the same three employees from when his father was still alive. But there was something about the fresh-faced girl that he couldn’t say, no, to. She was a mess, dripping in the foyer, with her dark hair plastered to her head. Her makeup, which she’d taken such care in applying before going out to look for work, was running down her face in dark rivulets.
Abner had never seen anyone lovelier.
He hired her on the spot as a “Customer Liaison,” inventing the title right then and there. If the dark haired beauty ever caught wise, she never let on. Abner’s employees knew right away, of course, but said nothing at all. They were all quite fond of Abner, all of whom had known the boy his whole life, and they all wanted to see him fall in love before life passed him by.
He paid the struggling sophomore a ridiculously high salary, which enabled her to finish school on her own terms. Like Abner, Sheila’s parents had died and she too was all alone in the world. She fell in love with Abner almost as quickly as he did her. But Abner didn’t have much experience in matters of the heart, much less the female of the species. Two years went by without him making a move. By this time Sheila was aware of his feelings; he stuttered and blushed furiously whenever she looked him in the eye, and heaven forbid if she should touch him, poor Abner would nearly faint!
She finally took the bull by the horns and kissed him one afternoon while the two of them were alone in his office. He was bending over her shoulder as she worked at his desk. They were going over the books and it suddenly hit her that if she didn’t do some-thing right then and there, then she probably never would. She turned her head and the two of them locked eyes. She grabbed Abner by his face and kissed him feather soft on the lips.
When she opened her eyes she was sure she’d made a terrible mistake. Abner was looking at her thunderstruck, as if he might be sick. But the slow moving boy kissed her back instead. That afternoon in the office the two of them made up for lost time. One month later, to the day, they were married. If there was a time after that that could be pointed to as an unhappy period, it was the two miscarriages that followed. Both of them wanted to start a family, but what neither of them ever knew was that they both wanted it more for the other, rather than for themselves. And though the lost babies made them sad, they still had each other and quite frankly it was more than enough.
Then came Dewey.

from Heroines Unlikely by Stephen Mead

After the third pregnancy was confirmed, Abner and Sheila held their collective breath until the child was born deep in the night of September 19th, 1989. To say that Dewey Farnsworth Deal was born without incident, though, wouldn’t be at all accurate; for September 19th, 1989, was also the date Hurricane Helga made landfall on the coast of South Carolina. It tore through the state, leaving death and destruction in its wake; Marion was directly in its path.
Sheila went into labor just as the power went off at two a.m.. Abner tried several times to load his wife into the family van, but downed trees and power lines, not to mention the howling wind and driving rain, kept the harried couple trapped in the darkened funeral home. Abner called for an ambulance but was told that due to all the storm casualties it would be at least two hours before they could get there. Three hours later he picked up the phone to find the line had gone dead. They were on their own.
Abner looked over at his wife, who was sitting up in bed with her legs spread wide. She was doing her breathing exercises she’d learned in Lamaze. Abner had brought up every candle in the house and the room was ablaze with flickering light. A fine sheen of sweat lined Sheila’s upper lip and her hair was a fright. To Abner, though, she was a vision of beauty. When he told her the news she was all smiles.
“Look at it this way Abbie,” she said, calling him by the pet name he detested. “At least this way we won’t have a hospital bill.”
Abner returned her confident smile and excused himself to get everything ready for the delivery. He threw up in the downstairs john and splashed his face with cold water. He wanted to get his nerves under control before going back into that room. His flashlight illuminated his pale face in the mirror eerily. He looked like an escaped lunatic from a Mental Ward. He closed his eyes and for the first time since his mother’s death, he said a prayer.
“Dear Lord, please guide my hand this night. Please don’t take away all that I love. Please.”
One hour later, Dewey Farnsworth Deal was screaming lustily to the joy and relief of his mother and father. Outside, it seemed the end of the world had arrived. Several tornadoes, spawned by the high winds, were responsible for the most damage; destroying over sixty homes in Marion, including two of the Deal’s neighbors. Every tree on their property had blown down, including one old oak that had stood for over two hundred years and had withstood the winds of countless other storms. But the home and its occupants came through without a scratch.
After the loss of his family later on, Abner would often wonder if maybe his earnest prayer that night had but forestalled the tragedy that was meant to befall Sheila and his unborn son during the storm. It was a torturous thought that plagued him, especially in the darkest part of the night. For that death would have been far more merciful than the one that awaited them down the road.
Dewey was the cherry that topped off Abner and Sheila’s lives so perfectly. Now, most parents think that their children are special, and I suppose that they are; each in his or her own way. But Dewey really was special. Not in some progeny way, Dewey didn’t excel at the piano or math. His clumsy artwork was only appreciated by his parents. He wasn’t an overachiever on the field of play or in the classroom. What set Dewey apart from the rest of the pack was his humanity.
At the age of two Dewey had made it his business to hug the bereaved during the “viewings.” He seemed to understand the concept of death at a remarkably young age, and could often be found praying in the Chapel for those strangers whose last stop on earth was at his home. Sheila worried that a funeral parlor was an unhealthy environment for their overly sensitive son but Abner argued that he had grown up there, and he had turned out just fine.
And Dewey was fine. At times he got too close to the pain of others, but that was just his nature. The first time he saw the movie The Yearling, he mourned for a week. After that, such movies were avoided at great pains in the Deal home. But his son’s caring heart just made those close to him love him more. It was like living with a young Jesus or Buddha.
Sheila would often say, “He’s here to teach us, not the other way around.”
It was this raw empathy though that made Abner aware his son wasn’t meant to take over the Deal Funeral Home someday. You couldn’t survive this business if you were unable to disassociate yourself from the grief of others. Dewey wasn’t meant for any line of work where the pain of his fellow man was so evident.
At the age of five Dewey began to express an interest in the afterlife. He wasn’t a religious kid, though Abner and Sheila were casual Christians and took him to church regularly, but he was very spiritual. He believed the Christian teachings but was one of those rare Christians who did so without the baggage of intolerance and self-righteousness. He and his father would have long talks about the meaning of life, especially the why, and what his purpose in life was. This, at the age of five.
Abner never knew what to tell his son when he said such things. He felt like a child discussing Quantum Physics with Albert Einstein. Completely out of his element. It was clear to he and Sheila that their son was meant for great, great things. Surely God wouldn’t create such a human being without having great plans for him?
And then came the days of darkness.
A day before Dewey’s sixth birthday he was abducted. His mother had stopped at the Car Bright Car Wash on the spur of the moment. They had been on their way home from the bakery, where Dewey had chosen a specially decorated cake for his birthday party, which was to be held the very next day. Sheila, seeing how dusty the family van was, thought it would be a good idea to give the car a good wash. What happened next was a cruel lesson to Abner; that life had no rhyme or reason. It was odd, though, that someone like Abner, who had been raised in the midst of death, didn’t already know this by then.
Abner couldn’t stop torturing himself with all the “Ifs.” If Sheila had just waited till she’d gotten home to use the restroom or had at least insisted that Dewey stay with her, if only she’d bypassed the carwash that day, if only he’d cleaned the

art by Xanadu

Carpet

The apartment needs to be dusted. I can see
some cat hair, and the carpet doesn’t
soak it all in, even though it does a better job
then those damn hardwood floors
that I’m so used to. Everyone seems to want
hardwood floors in their home, but why?
They are loud and look dirty quickly.
And dust doesn’t settle on them, so the air
always has things floating in it.
But carpet, carpet muffles the loud noises,
it keeps your feet warm when you step
out of bed on a cold winter morning,
it makes things more pleasant.
You have to vacuum it, true, but you
don’t need a mop. You have to be more careful
that you don’t spill things. But you shouldn’t
be spilling things in the first place, right?
Well, anyway, I have to remember to dust
this apartment. It should be perfect.
You can’t see the dust here, the carpet
doesn’t let all the dust get into the air
but you have to make sure that you clean it
more often. Is it worth the effort? I think it is.

Clouds for Matthew, by Mart Graham

can’t answer that one

i have a better job than you
i have more talent than you
i’ve made more money than you

i’m attractive
i’m funny
i’m kind

i’m strong
i’m intelligent
i’m beautiful

and i look at what we had
and i wonder why i ever tried
and why i ever bothered

why did i ever put up with you
why did i think i needed you
why did i let you make me unhappy

with all my talent, with all my
brains
i still can’t answer that one

“No Left Turn”

precinct fourteen

it was a long night for us, starting out
at your apartment with your roommate’s
coworkers coming over and making

margaritas until two in the morning,
but of course we then decided that the
best thing to do would be to go out

and so off to the blue note we went,
found some interesting people to talk
to, closed the bar, i think that was the

first time i ever did that, closed a late-
night bar, i mean, and at four-thirty you
drove me home down milwaukee ave

and i know it angles, and you can see
the traffic light for oncoming traffic
as easily as you can see your own light,

but i’m sure the light was green, and not
red like the cops said, when they pulled
you over. you could have been in big

trouble that night, no insurance, no city
registration sticker, a michigan driver’s
license when you’d lived in illinois for
over a year now, a cracked windshield,
running a red light, probably intoxicated.
so they brought us to the station at five a.m.,

and all they did was write you a ticket,
and they gave me a business card, said if we
had any problems to give them a call.

you drove me home, and the cops met
us there, too, hitting on me again, and
although we both agreed that the night

was a lot of fun, even with the involvement
of the fourteenth precinct, i still believe
that damn light wasn’t even red.

Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on “Children, Churches and Daddies,& #148; April 1997) Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the “dirty underwear& #148; of politics. One piece in this issue is “Crazy,& #148; an interview Kuypers conducted with “Madeline,& #148; 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.

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.

Ed Hamilton, writer #85 (of Children, Churches and Daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I’m not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious. 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.

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.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I’ll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers’. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren’t they?

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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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C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) 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. I really like (“Writing Your Name& #148;). 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& #148; 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.

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

Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars& #148; 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.

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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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Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great.

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.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They’ve got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on “Hope Chest in the Attic& #148;) Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.& #148; I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies& #148; and “The Room of the Rape& #148; were particularly powerful pieces.

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.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new CC&D looks absolutely amazing. It’s a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can’t wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

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.& #148; Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.

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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& #148; 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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Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

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& #148; presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

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Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
“Hope Chest in the Attic& #148; 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& #148; 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& #148; 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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Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

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, 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!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
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& #148;, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive& #148;, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph& #148; and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy& #148;, 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...

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.
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars& #148; 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.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
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...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: “Hope Chest in the Attic& #148; 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& #148; 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& #148; 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.

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.& #148; 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.

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.
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.

Children, Churches and Daddies the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine Scars Publications and Design ccandd96@scars.tv http://scars.tv Publishers/Designers Of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine cc+d Ezines The Burning mini poem books God Eyes mini poem books The Poetry Wall Calendar The Poetry Box The Poetry Sampler Mom’s Favorite Vase Newsletters Reverberate Music Magazine Down In The Dirt magazine Freedom and Strength Press forum plus assorted chapbooks and books music, poery compact discs live performances of songs and readings Sponsors Of past editions: Poetry Chapbook Contest, Poetry Book Contest Prose Chapbook Contest, Prose Book Contest Poetry Calendar Contest current editions: Editor’s Choice Award (writing and web sites) Collection Volumes Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) has been written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England, India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Turkey. Regular features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues (via news and philosophy) as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published quarterly by Scars Publications and Design. Contact us via e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for subscription rates or prices for annual collection books. To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; if mailed, include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through e-mail preferred. Previously published work accepted. Authors always retain rights to their own work. All magazine rights reserved. Reproduction of Children, Churches and Daddies without publisher permission is forbidden. Children, Churches and Daddies copyright through Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches and Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights remain with the authors of the individual pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.