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.





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.


(the July 2005 installment of...)
The 12 year anniversary issue of

Children, Churches and Daddies

Volume 149, June 22, 2005

The Unreligious, Non-Family-Oriented Literary and Art Magazine
Internet ISSN 1555-1555
(for print ISSN 1068-5154)

a collage of high rises in Shanghai, China, cc&d v 149 June 22 2005











Internet ISSN Barcode Internet ISSN Barcode

the boss lady’s editorial



When Does Life Begin?

I never want to bring this topic up. Everyone seems to have an opinion on it, and no one wants to believe in views from the other side.
Wait, I should probably explain what I’m talking about here. When I listen to talk radio, I hear Republicans all for the death penalty (I won’t go there), but they are so against abortion. They find a way to justify killing something that has been alive and has done something wrong, but they can’t justify stopping a fetus — a collection of cells, in the first trimester — from coming to term and becoming a full-fledged life (even if they can’t get food, they can at least breathe on their own). Now, the only reason I could guess these people think abortion is wrong is because people believe that a fetus (which cannot live on its own) has more rights than a living female human being, so it should to tax its host — I mean, potential mother — until it can become a life.
Oh, wait, that’s what people argue about. When does it become a life.

•••

Wow, I was just so slanted with all of that. And the thing is, no one can really talk about how they feel about the subject of abortion, because everyone will use religion as their foundation, or personal experience from something traumatic happening to them, and everyone gets quite heated about the subject.
I know where I stand, but I can’t just go around ranting about my beliefs and expect everyone to understand and accept my views. And I know that if we want to talk about this topic, I can’t let me personal biases get in the way of rational thought. So, I better start looking for the history of all of this, and get some facts and evidence to get to the heart of this matter.
First things first, the concept of abortions isn’t new.
Abortion induced by herbs or manipulation was used as a form of birth control in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and probably earlier. Abortions were common in the Greco-Roman world in which Hippocrates lived, even if the Hippocratic oath states that no assistance should be given to women who choose the end their pregnancy. Fast forward to the Middle Ages in Western Europe: abortion was generally accepted in the early months of pregnancy. However, in the 19th century, opinion about abortion changed. Abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s in the US, forbidding abortion after the fourth month of pregnancy (similar to the middle ages...). In 1869 the Roman Catholic Church prohibited abortion under any circumstances, and most abortions in the US had been outlawed by 1900. Since then, and since abortion practices have been safer for the woman’s health, attitudes toward abortion grew more liberal in the 20th century. By the 1970s, abortion had been legalized in most European countries, the United States and Japan. Since the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling, several state legislatures passed restrictive abortion laws in hope that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, but in 1992 the court reaffirmed the ruling to allow women’s rights.
As of late, U.S. abortion opponents have been more militant in their opinion (often encouraged by Roman Catholics and other militant Christian groups), first in the organized blocking of access to clinics which provided abortion services, to sometimes bombings or assassinations.
Which lead, lucky us, to now, where people try to ban third trimester abortions (calling them partial birth abortions), but our leaders have stopped these practices because it goes against the constitutionality of the Supreme Court’s decisions. We’re at the point now where we have people bombing medical clinics that do legal abortions saying that they are giving a “gift to Jesus” by killing people,
In other words, we’re in a mess, it’s like we’re Roman gladiators fighting in the Colisseum, but we’re not willing to listen to other people or agree to live fairly and peacefully together. So, we can be like some, and get our swords out, ready to fight to the death (fight to the death to ban abortion? That sounds so wrong...), or we can come to the bottom line rationally.

David T. images

•••

As I started researching, I started reading notes like “Roe v. Wade has corrupted the law by defining the innocent unborn child as a nonperson.” Sara Diamond wrote in Abortion Politics, that “Christian Right leaders ... want to keep up the drum beat about ‘abortuaries’ and a fetal ‘holocaust’.”
I read on Mr. Israel Steinmetz’ site http://www.mrdata.net/ state “that the abortions (murders of the unborn) are continuing at the rate of FOUR THOUSAND ABORTIONS PER DAY in the USA.” I knew they used all caps to make that figure sound startling, so I researched percentages for populations around the country for abortions, and saw that the US’s abortion rate was below the worldwide average, and that the US was not even listed as having the highest abortion rate (never mind if abortion is legal at all in the countries analyzed).
You see, this is why I have to do the research. Because anyone will say anything to try to make situations sound terrible.
Then I read an AP article titled “Federal appeals panel: Web site targeting abortion doctors is protected speech” ... Now, to quote this AP article, “The defendants maintained they were political protesters collecting data on doctors,” but after the verdict came through, the circuit court judge Alex Kozinski still called the Web site “blatant and illegal communication of true threats to kill.”
Yeah, there’s a lot of hatred out there. I’m going to have to put on my hip-wader boots to get through it all — I mean, even though President Bush is a Roman Catholic who himself opposes abortion, he has said that real Christians don’t murder. And even former President Clinton is quoted as saying “No matter where we stand on the issue of abortion, all Americans must stand together in condemning ... tragic and brutal act(s)” such as sniper killing doctors at abortion clinics.
Hmmm. So I think we all agree that killing someone for doing something you don’t agree with is not a way to make anything better. But if I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to have to come up with pros and cons about abortion to get somewhere.
Pro lifers say that human life begins at conception. Pro Choicers say that “personhood” at conception is a religious belief, and not a provable biological fact.
Well, that seems pretty straightforward. But the two sides argue on so many points... Pro lifers say that the right to life must be protected, so abortions should be made illegal. Pro choicers say that laws never stopped abortion, but only relegated it to back-alleys using unsafe practices. Pro lifers say that abortion is morally wrong, but pro choicers note that most Americans reject the absolutist position that it is always wrong to terminate a pregnancy — in some situations, it can even be seen as the morally “right” decision. Pro lifers remind us that a fetus is a separate and distinct human being fro, its mother, but pro choicers say that the fetus is totally dependent on the body of the woman for its life support and is physically attached to her by the placenta and umbilicus.
Wow, that reminds me that a fetus can’t live on its own, and has to tax its host — I mean, potential mother — until it can become a life.
Sorry, I can stop the list of differing opinions between pro choicers and pro lifers, but I need to mention one more (that I’ve noted before): pro lifers think an abortion is wrong because it is taking human life, but pro choicers note that pro lifers say that about abortions, but not about the death penalty. To pro lifers, are people who are convicted of murder are no longer human?
And speaking of these “titles” these two groups have for each other, calling yourself a “pro life” group makes them sound much holier than they actually are (you know, if these are the same people that are for the death penalty), and calling the other side is “pro choice” implies that choicer have the right to choose anything — like choosing murder, which is what the pro lifers say they are doing.
It’s great to see how both sides can work so hard to give themselves names that people can misconstrue as both good and bad.
Okay, seeing these differences didn’t help me out much, so I thought I’d go to Planned Parenthood to see what information they had about abortions. Now, they have a lot of information about retaining women’s rights, like: Laws against abortion kill women, but forcing abortions into non-sterile-non safe procedures, because making abortions illegal doesn’t stop abortions. And having abortion legal is healthier for the woman, and it allows the woman to be more than an incubator. But the point I found most noteworthy was that a free society, there is nothing more personal and private than this, and making abortions illegal is the most extreme invasion of privacy. I like their government thoughts on this: “If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop?”
Then again, did I just choose to go to a place that is so slanted for women’s rights that I’m missing the big picture? I was told to look further into the foundations of Planned Parenthood, and I found out that Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, and probably also the one who inspired Adolph Hitler in his views of eugenics,
You think I’m kidding? The woman who’s actions later formed groups which merged into Planned Parenthood advocated abortions on Afro-Americans in order to eliminate what she called “socially undesirable people.” She even referred to blacks, immigrants and indigents as “...human weeds,” “reckless breeders,” “spawning... human beings who never should have been born.”
No lie.
Don’t believe the nature of this woman? Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial “purification,” couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization (is that starting to sound more like something that Hitler would have loved?).
So I guess there are always two sides to every coin...
But while looking for information, I stumbled across John Ku (who in 2005 is working toward his Philosophy PhD at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who has also written “Objections to Objectivism”), who pointed out that “the view that abortion is murder has implications that hardly any Pro-Lifer would be willing to accept.” Considering the number of abortions performed in a year, this would equate the “problem” with abortions to the Holocaust, because “bombing of abortion clinics would be unquestionably justified” and killing abortion doctors would be preventing their future murders. But pro-lifers distance themselves from these extremists who kill in the name of the unborn.
John Ku jumps to a fantastic conclusion in his writing “A Challenge to Pro-Lifers”, by stating, “Where then is the trouble with killing abortion doctors? The trouble is that abortion is not murder.”
He said what? He didn’t defend it. He jumped to a conclusion. But in his defense, he wrote that if an abortion doctor is killing innocent persons, then “he should be punished. But if he should be punished, then one must judge that the belief that abortion is murder is unreasonable, and therein lies the dilemma. Either one admits that the view that abortion is murder is false and unreasonable or one must endorse or at the very least, condone the killing of abortion doctors.”
Hmmm. Well, statistically, abortion doctor aren’t considered murderers, meaning the belief that abortion is murder is unreasonable.

•••

Well, that’s the view of our laws. It doesn’t get to the ethical heart of the matter, the stuff we’re all so willing to blindly argue over without facts. Maybe we can come to a better conclusion if we know as many facts as possible, so we can arrive at a good educated opinion.

•••

Since John Ku, who wrote about the problems with Objectivism, helped me out on my last point, maybe I should look for an objectivist (you know, to balance the references here...) for thoughts on the issue. I found on the web site http://www.abortionisprolife.com/ (which seems to be a screaming Objectivist site), a lead quote on abortion by Ayn Rand: “I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, ... but hatred, a virulent hatred...”
My husband read that quote and said that if this “collection of cells” is just an embryo, then he asked why a loved one of ours felt so depressed over the miscarriage, it if is only an embryo.
And all I thought when he said that was that there was a difference between finding out you’re pregnant and deciding to carry something to term to start a human life and have a child, and finding out you’re pregnant and deciding to halt the production of the embryo so that it wouldn’t become that human life. When it comes to a woman trying to become pregnant, as soon as their pregnancy is discovered they are gratefully planning and anticipating their child after their pregnancy. They start buying clothes for their eventual child. They decide on a name. They decorate a room for them. They anxiously await their future child’s arrival. To these parents, they have ascribed meaning to this “embryo,” they have given it an identity before it could ever breathe on its own.
I would guess that for someone who had no intention to get pregnant (whether or not preventative measures to stop pregnancy is irrelevant), an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy wouldn’t leave them waiting with baited breath for an eventual child. That potential mother wouldn’t be “personalizing” this potential child (by giving it a name or buying them clothes or stuffed animals or decorating a room for them); they would never attach themselves to the idea of this pregnancy becoming a child.
And although historically women can feel a sense of loss after having an abortion (because they are stopping a potential life), their sense of loss is extremely different from someone who was anticipating a child, who had a miscarriage.
So yeah, it’s an emotional issue all around. And Leonard Peikoff noted, “Abortions are private affairs and often involve painfully difficult decisions with life-long consequences. But, tragically, the lives of the parents are completely ignored by the anti-abortionists. Yet that is the essential issue.”
And you know, I tried to use a quote from Ayn Rand before (but it didn’t help out much at all), so let’s see if she had a better stance on this issue with this: “Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born.” (Hmmm, maybe she did have something appropriate to say about this subject...)
In the first trimester, the status of the embryo is the focus of this discussion. The embryo has everything that can become a human, but it is only religious beliefs that call this embryo a person. I think it’s also interesting that historically (even from the Middle ages, or when laws first came into effect in the US in the 1800s), laws against abortions only applied to after the fourth month. Considering science now, doctors can keep incredibly premature fetuses alive, but no science even today can sustain a first trimester fetus until it can function on its own. At that point, there is just no way that a fetus could ever function on its own without the dependency of its mother to help it get to the point of being able to exist as a life form on its own. Leonard Peikoff also noted that “an embryo is a potential human being,” and we all know that the embryo can (as long as the woman choose it) develop into a human child. But in that first trimester, it is something that cannot function on its own at all — and we can’t assume that the embryo is what it wants to become. According to Mr. Peikoff, “we must acknowledge that the embryo under three months is something far more primitive” than an infant.
So maybe this starts to answer the question of when life begins. Most agree the notion of life beginning at inception is based solely on religious beliefs (which are always not provable). If you adhere to these beliefs, then you’ve already decided. But to those who don’t use a religion as their moral compass, or for those who whose to use logic and science and reason, it could also be difficult to condone abortions at second or third trimesters — because the potential mother has known that she is hosting a potential life form, and has waited until after the point where it is medically possible to keep the premature baby alive. But at a point where this potential life form is still a mass that cannot under any circumstances survive on its own without a mother helping it to grow, the question becomes more obvious that it is all in the hands of the woman — and it is their right to decide if they choose to carry the fetus to term, so that it can become a life of its own. But before that fetus is ever capable of understanding choice, the choice is all in the woman’s hands.

JK under beams, Pasadena, Caligornia kuypers

Janet Kuypers
Editor In Chief











poetry (the passionate stuff)



Deracination

Michelle Greenblatt

An older name, say a word Shakespeare created (theoretically:) deracination.
A newer name replaces it: uprooting. A geological term for it which my computer does not recognize: upwarping.
Really, it was the foundation--the slope--of his body that day we returned came back from lunch, turned silver to the curve of the beseeching moon--she appeared in different depths, but still knifed & as we studied it we realized we were kissing. Sun and moon in the same sky, a sonorous face-off. Or maybe the noise was our hands, holding. We were folding & I think that day he must have diagrammed me a thousand ways. A fully charged lithium battery, a camera blinking pictures. Was how our eyes were. Snap of the picture, perspicacious in our knowledge that each adjunct second we were spawning words for later ponderings. The persiflage of our bodies. Some sort of dreaming, uprooting, upwarping.
Total deracination.

3.28.29.2005, final edit 6.15.2005











news you can use



Moral Values Without Religion

The alternative to the dogmatism of the religious right and the emotionalism of the egalitarian left is a code of moral absolutes based on reason and individualism.

By Peter Schwartz

Does morality depend upon religion? Most people believe it does, which is a major reason behind the appeal of the religious right. People believe that without faith in a supernatural authority, we can have no moral values--no moral absolutes, no black-and-white distinctions, no firm demarcation between good and evil--in life or in politics. This is the assumption underlying Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent assertion that “government derives its authority from God,” since only religious faith can supposedly provide moral constraints on human action.
And what draws people to this bizarre premise--the premise that there is no rational basis for refraining from murder, rape or anarchism? The left’s persistent assault on moral values.
That is, liberals characteristically renounce moral absolutes in favor of moral grayness. They insist, for example, that criminals should not be reviled, but should be seen as tragic products of their “social environment”--that teenage mothers are just as entitled to welfare checks as wage-earners are to their paychecks, and that to deny welfare benefits for a child born into a family already receiving welfare is, as the ACLU declares, to “unconstitutionally coerce women’s reproductive decisions”--that America is morally equivalent to its enemies, with our own policies having provoked the Sept. 11 attacks and our “unilateralist” actions in Iraq being no different from any forcible occupation of one nation by another.
Repulsed by such egalitarian, anti-“judgmental” absurdities, many people disavow what they regard as leftism’s essence: secularism, and turn to religion for their values.
But this is a false alternative. Secularism is simply a viewpoint that disclaims religion; what it embraces, though, may be rational or not. And the absurdities of the left stem precisely from its irrationality--its pervasive emotionalism, its insistence on doing whatever “feels right,” its contention that there are no fixed truths, its credo that morality is anything one wishes it to be. The left maintains that no objective principles exist to validate moral judgments. From its multicultural equalization of all societies--savage or civilized--to its belief in an indefinable, “evolving” Constitution, the left rejects the logic of objective standards and enshrines the arbitrariness of subjectivism. Thus, what the left’s opponents should disavow is not secularism per se, but rather the replacement of a religious variant of unreason--blind faith--with a secular variant: blind feelings.
The real alternative to the leftist claptrap is a morality of reason. Such a morality begins with the individual’s life as the primary value and identifies the further values that are demonstrably required to sustain that life. It observes that man’s nature demands that we live not by random urges or by animal instincts, but by the faculty that distinguishes us from animals and on which our existence fundamentally depends: rationality.
With reason as its cardinal value, this code of individualism espouses fixed principles and categorical moral judgments. It demands, for instance, that the initiation of force--the antithesis of reason--be denounced and that an unbridgeable moral chasm be recognized between the criminal and the non-criminal.
Since life requires man to produce what he needs, productiveness is a moral value--thereby making moral opposites out of the industrious worker and the parasitic welfare recipient. Since life requires man to use his own judgment rather than submissively accept the assertions of others, independence is a moral value--making moral opposites out of the person (or nation) acting on his own rational convictions and the one deferring to the consensus of his neighbors (or the U.N.). Since life requires the mind, man’s political system must allow him to use it, i.e., freedom is a moral value--making moral opposites out of America, the defender of liberty, and America’s enemies, who seek liberty’s destruction.
A morality of reason counters the relativism and the undiscriminating “tolerance” of the left.
It also counters a morality of faith, and establishes a genuine “culture of life.” Individualism upholds your sovereignty over your life--and refuses to subordinate the preservation of that life to, say, the preservation of embryonic stem cells in some petri dish. Individualism defends your inalienable right to your life, including your right to end it--and evaluates, say, opposition to assisted-suicide as a desecration of human life, since forcing someone to live who wishes to die is no less evil than forcing someone to die who wishes to live.
There is indeed morality without religion--a morality, not of dogmatic commands, but of rational values and of unbreached respect for the life of the individual.

Peter Schwartz is chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute (http://www.aynrand.org/) in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

Copyright © 2005 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.











poetry (the passionate stuff)



CITY’S SONG

Marisa Foltz

The screaming subway
hurls complaints
down the corridors,
internal echoes
spreading eternally,
and death itself is no escape.

Fluorescent lights
seep disgust in the murky puddles,
blare uncertainty from so many windows
and shake their chains
in silent rebellion.

Caverns
haunted by the
drifting cry of a saxophone
in search of men’s souls.

I, too, have come here
searching for something
lost
amongst other’s
scattered remains.











YOU LITTLE MEN OF DESPERATE HOUR

SHARI O’BRIEN

With staggering ironic pride,
you launch a scud that shreds a child,
convinced I bless this homicide.

You arrogate my name and brashly claim
you do my will in building arsenals
to blast earth from the cosmic map I made.

I marvel as you grab for power,
adept at preying, inept at prayer,
you little men of desperate hour.











untitled

Bobbi Dykema Katsanis

she carries her body uneasily
as though ashamed
of how tall she is, and longing
to be a half-inch shorter.
Her hair is several different shades of red,
all of which clash.
she had a man once,
there! over in the corner
she left him one morning
and when she came back
he was gone

stolen, she guessed
although she did not file a police report
she assumed he’d return
when he got hungry
so she made twice-baked potatoes
his favorite
every night
for three weeks.











Window Shopping

CL Bledsoe

Pale, white, and ugly
as a newborn bullet
wound before it bleeds, he hides
in the cookie aisle
behind a bag of macaroons.
Something in his eyes
is lapping at the stock girl¹s face
like a dog at a bowl of water.

She bends to stock a box of crackers.
He stares at the rounded curve
of her jeans, stretched
over scrawny skin, door locked, phone
unplugged just in case anyone calls;
the ring might slap him awake,
jiggly and crying
into the sunset of the world.











bicycle iced bicycles in Luxembourg bicycles in Luxembourg bicycles in Luxembourg

ODE #1 TO A STING RAY BICYCLE

Kenneth DiMaggio

While we saw their V-shaped handle
bars banana seats and tall prong
sissy bars as the abstraction
of a Harley Davidson

our aluminium framed pedal
powered Sting ray bicycles
could go in urban
crevices and rural waste scape ditch-
abyss-es that would break the springs
or blow the tires

of any evil bad-ass chopped motorcycle

And no matter how hard you pedaled

there was always before us
a chalkboard slate gray
horizon
just waiting to teach us
a lesson

not unless we taught you one first

at the highway overpass

from which we threw off swamp water
filled balloons or gobs of spit
that we liked to imagine
would sizzle through your now speeding
sedan roof

But no police cruiser was ever quick
enough

And even if it was

it was just too damn big

to fit into escape routes
tunnled through a cut away
barbed wire topped fence

or between the marble and Celtic cross-
stone rows at the cemetery

Only
when we were finally out of breath

would our delinquency stop

and only then
long enough

to light up
a Marlboro

that our eight nine and ten year old
lungs could easily inhale

And then after we had a good long exhale
complimented by the word Fuck!

we would ride towards the horizon

that still needed more legends

for us to vandalize upon

bicycles in Luxembourg bicycle image in China bicycle image in China










MOTHS

Arthur Gottlieb

Crazy for the blazing midnight
bulb, they come bumping
the summer screen in furious
fluttering furry blurs,
scraping the rough mesh.

If I put a match to the whole house
hundreds would fly into the fire
like religious fanatics,
leaping, and dancing as the intense
heat cracked their wings.

Then they’d smolder in the embers
like the ash of a burnt-out passion.

I wish I had a fraction of their flame.
I’d snap off the lamp and let
my luster shine on in the dark.

But there are some others
more practiced and down to earth
who sneak in and nest in the soft
folds of cloth in the closet.

Pulling the wool over their eyes,
they wait until their hatched eggs
eat their way out of my blue serge suits
and into the busting yellow beams
of another summer.











BANG BANG ( HIV )

Chris Major

She recalled the day
easier than his face;
being woken by
her children, hands
curled around
imaginary guns ;
invisible killers.

“Bang, bang, you’re dead.”

He pulled the sheet
over her head;
their crying faded ;
they were led
from the ward.











Thoughts of Him

Cody Callahan

I know the scraps

That you don’t see
You say it’s great
As you look away
And laugh so low
As to not offend
But my eyes are trained
To hear your scoffs
And all the dirt you mean

(But somewhere there’s a girl
With thoughts of him
Just waiting for the person
Who knows just how shes been)

Say what you will
Say what you want
I know the underlying
Meanings you cover
So sweet to hold back

(But somewhere there’s a girl
With thoughts of him
Who would never lie
And wants to take him in)

I’m smart enough at least
To decipher your code
To break down your words
And hear your truth
To break down your words
And see your truth

(But somewhere there’s a girl
With thoughts of him)











Gentle Tapping

Cody Callahan

Shadowed all my implications
Rose and tore my words out
Eating with seamless immunity
Tilling flesh to plant their legs
And fill up all my space...

Diggin trenches, laying eggs
Why is speaking so hard for me?
Spiders
Spiders make my stomach spin
Picking at my everything
Questioning your every step

So soon they came to my door
So soon they were to arrive
Built from stitches, suicide
No one knows what they came here for

Gentle tapping at my eye lids
Urging me to open wide
Digesting lies you’ve woven sweet
Untangling brand new tapestry
All before I go to sleep

Spiders
Spiders make my stomach spin
Picking at my everything
Questioning your every step
Digging trenches, laying eggs
Spiders make my stomach spin











Annelida

Cody Callahan

When they are inside me
I long for restitution
Hanging on to my skin
They never die
They never sleep
They drink and drink
But seldom keep

When they are inside me
Rotten apples feeling lonely
And tricked so clever by an
Angel with paper wings
That paralyze and hold on tight
And fill my head with thoughts
So cracked and scarred

If they are inside of me
I know nothing that I see
Like picture films
My memories turn to dust

Is it my fault
I live so lowly
Or is it is just the
Nature of the leeches
That make me waste away
And crumble hard

I feel them peeling slowly
Shedding all of me in hopes
Of some chance recovery
I feel them peeling slowly
Calm away calm away
And crumble hard











over water


Tanya L. Ranta

when rain falls in mysterious ways
it may only be that you are paying too much attention
when wet feet slide across dry floors
someone is bound to get scolded
and no one cares how wet they are
of if they were caught in a storm

when dry socks get soaked through
and the feet in them feel the chill of musty water
that which ran off of skin
and clothes
and hair
and shoes
to invade the dry floors and carpets
you feel as cold as the rain did

when tempers flair over little messes
and unkind words are strewn about
over water
and nothing else
it makes you want the rain back on you
at least it will embrace you
back in the dark alleys
where feet were dragged through
and buses were ridden

still you walk and walk
to come home to have ears pierced
in anger
over water











{personal note}

kuypers birthday, 27 The editor’s birthday happens to be the same date as the release of the 12 year anniversary issue of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine. Twelve years old. I was worried about the magazine moving into its teen years - you know how teens can get moody. Then I thought, "wait, this is a poetry magazine, if its not moody it probably isn't good."
kuypers birthday, 6 We tried to find birthday photos of Janet but the only photos found of the editor from a birthday was from when she turned 6, and when she was surprised at a bar by friends for her 27th birthday... I guess photographers try to stay behind the lense instead of in front of it.
There have been some technical problems at Children, Churches and Daddies magazine at the release of this issue. I’m sure that with 12 years of Children, Churches and Daddies magazines, Janet will pull through this as well.
In light of the computer problems they were having, I hope Janet has a great birthday.
And hey, if you’ve got e-mail access, bug her by writing her a happy belated birthday e-mail message...


- John Yotko
Perl Webmaster
& Photographer









art



The Harvester's Hands, art by Mark Graham

The Harvester’s Hands

art by Mark Graham



Gift of a Flower, art by Edward Michael O'Durr Supranowicz

Gift of a Flower

art by Edward Michael O’Durr Supranowicz



from 'Heroines Unlikely', art by Stephen Mead

from “Heroines Unlikely”

art by Stephen Mead











prose (the meat and potatoes stuff)



THE GAME

A. McIntyre

Check. I had him, my Knight attacking his King. My father took a deep breath. Good move son, you’re definitely improving. He pondered the situation, Bishop takes Knight, you didn’t see that did you? You’ve got to be careful of those Bishops. We played on, the oil lamp flickering in the damp breeze, the tropical dark seething with unseen things beyond the verandah. The garden was out of bounds at night, recently the gardener killed two cobras near the compost heap uncovering a nest. I watched a lizard stalking a moth across the ceiling. Home from school for the holidays, and I was beating my father at chess. Wait till they heard next term. I saw myself announcing in no uncertain terms, I played my father at chess, and I won. Then I perceived the opening. If only . . . if only he moved that Pawn. He moved the Pawn. My Queen closed for the kill, the Rook supporting, mate in three. Check. He watched me, a faint line of sweat beading his brow, You’ve been playing a lot? I nodded, In the team, Mr. Robinson’s the coach. He grinned, Well, when you see Mr. Robinson next term, you tell him from me that he’s been doing a good job, you hear? Yes dad, I replied. In the meantime, he added, Go fix me a pink gin will you? The lizard caught the moth, mashing the dusty meal in its jaws.

I poured the clear liquid into the glass, breathing juniper. Then tonic, finally a touch of Angostura bitters, the drops exploding like blood. Mixing the contents, looking over my shoulder, I took a sip, then another. With his back to me, focused on the game, my father didn’t notice. I placed the glass in front of him. He looked up, Thank you son. We resumed play, but the situation had changed. A Pawn was blocking my Rook. You moved, I said. No, not yet, he replied. But the Pawn. What Pawn? That Pawn wasn’t there before, I insisted. Nonsense son, you just don’t remember. Frowning, I stared at him. He stared back. The darkness a crescendo of crickets, the occasional screech of a monkey. Knight fork, he said, Watch how the Queen works here. It was dangerous but there was a way out because I had more pieces. For a while I blocked, then came the opening. This might be the end, I said advancing my Bishop across the board, Check. My father started laughing, Good gracious young man, you could be right, let me think carefully about this one. For a long time no-one spoke. The wind was strengthening, far away a rumbling of thunder. My father looked up, I think there’s going to be a storm. Go and make sure the windows are shut, will you? And tell your mother.

I ran through the house closing windows. There’s going to be a storm, I shouted when I saw my mother in the bedroom, Dad told me to tell you. I dashed away before she could reply because she would tell me to go to bed and I was going to beat my father at chess. Lightening illuminated the sky revealing big puffy clouds the color of mud. Pulsating shadows danced along the walls. I sat down ready to finish the game. Then I noticed a Pawn blocking my Bishop. You moved again, I said. I most certainly did not, replied my father. You did, I know you did, my Bishop had you in check, and now there’s a Pawn. Look here, young man, I think you’re imagining things. Isn’t it time you went to bed? Outraged, the words spilled out of my mouth, You’re cheating, I know you are, you’re a cheat. Then I realized what I’d said. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, and I burst into tears. My mother appeared. What on earth is going on here, she asked, What’s all this dreadful noise? Dad’s cheating, I yelled before my father could say anything, I was winning and he keeps changing the board. Hands on her hips she glowered at him, Is this true? You ought to be ashamed of yourself Peter, she scolded, Teasing the boy, you’re supposed to be teaching him chess. Leaning back in the creaking wicker chair, my father was laughing. Actually, he said gradually regaining control, Actually, the boy’s teaching me chess, but I’m teaching him life.









Shoes, art by Cheryl Townsend

“Shoes”, art by Cheryl Townsend











{stripped} performance art show

performance art



Perfoprmance Art

{Stripped}

The June 7, 2005 performance art show (live at the Cafe in Chicago)













Key To Survival

“the poem of j”

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 I

Have you ever seen someone
who has a flock of people around them
and that someone is just naturally talking
but people are attracted to them like moths to a flame
people there are like sun tanning high-school girls
facing this person’s bright light,
wanting to soak them all in
and hoping they’re more beautiful for it

You see these people,
everyone smiling,
circled around this special someone
it’s like an animal magnetism
{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 you can’t help but
try to nudge in,
to hear their words
to try to get a little of that narcotic for yourself

it’s like being a child again,
with a ton of kids in a candy store
where someone’s giving out free candy
and all the kids are so thrilled
and they’re grinning from ear to ear

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 You haven’t even gotten close enough
to hear their words,
but you’re already starting to smile

II

have you ever seen someone
standing at the corner of an intersection
they look dirty and disheveled
and you try to keep your distance
‘cause you’re guessing they’re homeless
and asking for money
but you have to pass them
they’re right on the street in your way
so you try to walk
on the farthest edge of the sidewalk
but you watch them with your peripheral vision
and you see them making animated gestures
and you see their face contorting
like they’re having a great debate
with no one
like they’re giving the speech of their lifetime
to no one

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 because, you see, no one wants to listen
everyone knows this is a madman raving
so you just try to ignore them
you make a point to not listen
I mean, there’s a Hell of a lot of noise
we tune of out of our minds,
cars going by, honking their horns,
the low rumble of other people talking nearby
the shuffle of your footsteps
well, this is another one of those noises.
you don’t want to hear them
you had a bad feeling about them
as soon as you saw them
just ignore them
and hopefully they'll go away

III

I knew of a woman
who went on a date
with a male friend of mine,
and after the date
the guy talked about how great she was,
how they talked about their future
and what they both wanted
he talked about the inside of her place,
but after he left messages for her repeatedly,
she never called him back again

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 saw this woman weeks later
at a Starbuck’s
and she said she felt bad
but she never wanted to see him again
because during their date
they never talked about what they wanted
he just talked about what he wanted
like how she wouldn’t work
because he even told her how many
of his children she would bear

she wouldn’t let him into her home
(does that mean he was looking through her window?)
and she said that after the date
she showered for hours
because she felt mentally raped

poor girl
she saw someone who seemed nice
but it took her only a short while
to know what he was really like

IV

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 sometimes you look at people
and you just know

sometimes it takes you a little while
but people can’t hide their souls forever

everyone gets feelings about someone
whether or not they want to admit it

it’s not women’s intuition
men feel it too
you feel it in your chest
when you see someone good
and you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach
when you see someone bad

sometimes you look at people
and you just know
and you can try to avoid that feeling you get
and you try to shrug it off as nothing
and you try to run away from the feeling for years
but you can’t hide from your soul forever
it’ll catch up to you
when you least expect it

{Stripped} 3 cars in Bad Gastein, Autstria May 2003 sometimes you just know
you’ve felt it
I’ve felt it too
we know what to run to
and what to steer clear of

we’ve got to
it’s in our nature
it’s a key to happiness
and our key to survival











{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05

get me out of this cage

you’ve been trying to censor me
for God knows how long

I don’t know, maybe you didn’t want to hear my views
because you didn’t believe those views should be expressed
but you never knew what I stood for
you never wanted my voice to be heard
because you always thought of me as a possession
and not a person

yeah, I can be a real pain in the ass
to anyone that doesn’t want to hear me
but you know what?
people do want to listen
people value the right to speak their minds

Taste of Logan reading and people know that if you take that away from someone
you’re taking it away from everyone

so you can try to leave me in this locked cage
you can try to keep me away from everyone else
but you know, I’ve been clawing at the roof
I can feel the grooves in the ceiling here from my fight
but I still have nails on the tips of my fingers
so I know I can keep clawing,
I know I can keep fighting
because I know I have more work to do
and I’ll get it done, I tell you
I’ll be free again

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 your cage isn’t air-tight
I’ve seen light from outside
when you’ve had me trapped
and every once in a while, I’ve seen shadows
and I’m sure there are people there

you can’t keep me trapped like this forever
because people will hear my screams
through the cracks in your precious cage

and no, I don’t care what kind of cage you put me in
cause I’ll keep fighting
I’m strong like that, you know

I don’t want to hear that you think I go too far
because as much as you try to oppress me
as much as you try to repress me
I’m supposed to have some inalienable rights here

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 I’ve heard the way you think
and I know you think I already have too many rights
and I know you’re a product of the MTV generation
and I know you’re addicted to playing video games
yeah, you’d rather spend you time
interacting with a story on a screen,
with your precious little joystick,
than actually talking to someone

but just because you don’t feel like reaching out to people
doesn’t mean you can force me into that cage again

I suppose if you don’t think
if you don’t watch the news
if you don’t interact with people,
you think,
why should anyone want to talk to people?

JK political poetry reading, Chicago a grab J Naples beach, Florida
if you want that for yourself, fine
if you don’t mind giving up rights
because you have nothing to offer
fine
but the rest of the world doesn’t think like you
and we sure the Hell don’t want you
ruling over us

since nine eleven, laws have been passed
to legally take our rights away
you know, to make us more safe

fair trade, freedom for perceived safety

but I’d rather fly in the face of danger in this country
I’d rather make it on my own without the likes of you
if it means I might be more free

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 I’ll look over my shoulder
I’ll watch out for myself

I’ll do whatever I have to
to make sure that the likes of you
can never stop the likes of me



²²

What the Hell is She Complaining About

i can’t go around telling people
about what you did to me
you see, nobody wants to hear it
and nobody wants to hear a girl whining
shower faucet running what the hell’s she complaining about anyway?
but you know, nobody knows
the effects of what you’ve done
nobody knows that I showered for weeks
no, months
to try to feel clean after you did that to me
nobody knows why i have
violent fits of rage
how I’d hit the wall, rip up the plaster

you want to know what i think of men now?
you want to know their place in my life now?
you see, i didn’t know what else to do
so i became the rapist
and now i let men do nice things for me
but i always keep them at a safe distance
i never let them get too close
because i don’t care how nice you are
i’ll always keep you at arm’s length
i learned my lesson

a collage of men so yeah, you had an effect on me
and i have to bottle it all up
because no one wants to hear the details
i mean, i wasn’t physically injured
what the hell could i be complaining about anyway?

but you know, there are times
when i wish you left a mark,
like a bee sting or something,
so people could see a welt
from what you had done

j sweep wait, no, i take that back
i’d wish i was stung by a bee
and i was allergic to bees

because then my blood pressure would drop,
my pulse would get rapid,
i’d fall into anaphylactic shock
my skin would turn white
before I got the the hospital
as they tried to keep me alive

all because of a bee sting

while everyone else is thinking,
a bee sting,
what the hell is she complaining about













{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 Lisa under water

your minions are dying

we seem to have allowed ourselves this fate
we seem to have asked for this
but maybe we didn’t know what we were asking for

I

Arlington National Cemetery and the Washington Monument, 08-26-04 we thought we were doing the right thing
when we chose you
but I suppose that’s what all battered housewives say
“he wasn’t like this when I met him”
“he’s a good man, really”
but it was only after we accepted you
that you asked us to sacrifice
you told us to have faith
like all those preachers who ask you to give
when you’ll only be rewarded after you’re dead (if you believe ‘em)

you told us we’d be free
if we stayed together as a family
and it was like you placed your hand on a Bible
and asked us to give up more for you

(don’t most dictators ask their followers
to sacrifice until they’ve been sapped dry?)

II

you weren’t the only one fighting for me, you know
you had competition
you both tried to woo us over,
even though you two were
more alike than you think
(who am I kidding,
you two were just like everyone else)

you two were two sides of the same coin
yeah, yeah, you may have been opposite sides
but you were the same damn coin

Jesus on tree, Austria, May 2003 Religion statue, Austria, May 2003

you all wanted us to trust you
and even though we were harmless
you still pulled out all of your weaponry
to keep us in line
when we weren’t looking,
all while saying
it was for our own good

with you two, my choice
was to either
jump in and drown in someone’s abuse
or be dragged in by the other
for the same fate

III

lion, 05-30-05 bear, 05-30-05 bison, Wyoming, 1998 snake, 05-30-05 leopard, 05-30-05


you can keep throwing your generalities at us
and expect us to eat it up
like hungry animals
waiting for your handouts

but if we were hungry animals,
we’d take what you gave us,
then kill you and eat your remains

but we’re not animals
so stop treating us like fools

monkey, 05-30-05 polar bear, 05-30-05 rhinoceros, 05-30-05 elephant, 05-30-05


IV

yeah, you had competition
but no one could save us from your fate,
you all were just so much alike
that we only had to choose the lesser of two evils

but did we make the right choice?

V

you keep saying you’ll make me feel safe
but all I can think of
is that dictators
historically played on fear
to make their minions
feel like they need their leader
well, you don’t make me feel more safe
you make me feel more scared
and I wonder if I can take care of myself
and I never needed any of you anyway

VI

others have come along
and tried to save me from the likes of you
but they never told me how I could be free
I never knew how I was going to be rescued

when I was little
I played office with my friend Sheri
we had a little board painted white
with little toggle switches stuck on it
and buttons and dials on it
it probably had the ear piece of a phone on it too
and we had this little control panel,
this little console
sitting on our little desk
and we’d sit there with it
and press a lot of buttons
and we’d flip the toggle switches up and down
and act like we were receiving important calls
and it looked like we were doing something
it looked like we were accomplishing things

and all you men, you all say you have a plan
but I haven’t seen it
I haven’t seen how you can
save me from the madness

you men are trying to flip those damn toggle switches
and you don’t know what the Hell they do
but you’ll act like you know,
and you’ll act like you’re accomplishing something

are we supposed to blindly accept
whatever the likes of you hand out to us?

cross statue in Ponce, Puerto Rico VII

you try to act like you can save us
but there are people dying over here,
we’re jobless, homeless, dying

we’re drowning in this ocean of helplessness
and we’ll grab on to whatever line
we can get a hold of

is that why we counted on you

but your minions won’t be stong enough
to support you forever











We Listened

yeah, we listened to MTV
and we listened to the rap stars
they told us to get out there
and let our voices be heard
well, we did what you said
because the wool has been
pulled over our eyes
for far too long
and no one has been held accountable

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 but yeah, we listened talk radio
where people are stuck in their cars
every day on their commute
home from work
where people could call in and agree
with whatever was spouting out at them
over the radio waves

where’s the gratification
when you can’t talk to rap stars
or have your voice heard on MTV
and you can’t be broadcasted on the radio
where everyone stroke your ego
and agrees with you completely

yeah, we’ve tried to listen
but we’ve been bombarded with
war images in the tee vee
and you know, congress
hasn’t declared a war
since world war two
but we can still blow people up,
can’t we?
cause our view is getting clouded
because now we can see for ourselves
that war is so gory,
that war is bad
and we’ve got those images in our heads
and we hear quote unquote news
from every source under the sun
some reliable, some not
i mean, we’ve got cable news,
we’ve got the internet
and you know, some of the
reputable news sources
even give us slanted information
who are we to trust now?

well, we listened
but most of us mustn’t have known
what we were listening to
when you idolize a rock star
and they tell you what to do
wouldn’t you just follow?
and when you get your voice on the radio
to talk someone you’ve grown to idolize
and you’re busy
stroking each others egos
wouldn’t you do whatever they said?
yeah, most us didn’t know
how to decipher the jargon
thrown at us
but we soaked it all in anyway
and spit it out as our new mantra

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 maybe we all just followed blindly
after listening to one side of the story
over and over again
without getting all the facts
it was like we were told
to jump in a pool, that we’d like it
and we all just ran to the pool and jumped
without looking to see if
there was any water in the pool

but looking back, after we’ve chosen
we’ve got a more ethnically mixed leadership,
but we’re ignoring some of our problems
to help others
{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 people pull some of our rights away
to help us somewhere else

but you know, i’m trying to remember
what ben franklin said
that people who give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither

so i guess,
thanks to our choices,
people are taking some of our
essential liberties
and do we feel
temporarily
more safe?
And does that mean that we deserve either?
because i can tell you,
i don’t feel more safe
and i sure the hell don’t feel more free
and i see that pool up ahead
that everyone’s just rushing to
but i can’t see any water in there
and i’m trying to stop
this mob rush
as everyone is jumping in without looking

Lisa under water the way jews were forced in mass
to run
and they’d see they were running
to the edge of a cliff
but the ss was behind them
and they had to keep running

and the ss’d shoot them as they were
about to run over the edge
so they’d fall to their deaths

i see this, i see the mass grave
in the bottom of that swimming pool
and we listen to our leaders
as they tell us to jump in











{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05

marry me... whatever you are

I have gay friends who considered leaving this country
because George Bush was re-elected

hits to Canada’s web sites for immigration skyrocketed
after the election results came in

and I thought, hey, a president may have some problems,
but that’s no reason to desert your home

but they were sure after this election that
same-sex partner rights would never be granted to them

I mean, when one person is ill and in the hospital
the other has no rights to be there for them

and I thought, if Bush was trying to appeal to a vast majority
of people, he’d be good for everyone, right?

I even heard Bush say that rights should be given to
same-sex partners, even if they don’t call it “marriage”

and I thought, well, it might sound rude, buy he’s gotta
respect the red-neck back-ass country folk in this country too

and they only believe in man and woman marriages
while screwing the animals at the farm

but at least he was going to give same-sex couples rights,
that’s a good sign, isn’t it?

but then I heard that Republicans want to make a
constitutional amendment defining marriage

they wanted to define something that is not the
governemtn’s business

(then again, they make enough laws now that overstep
the bounds of any rational government already)

Then fourteen states made laws defining marriage
as only between a man and a woman

okay, I’m beginning to see why some of my friends
are worried











{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05

Outsourcing the American Dream

 {Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05




we’ve been doing pretty well over the years
and I’ve seen you strutting around
showing off all your peacock feathers
feeling like you’re the big man on campus

The Quad, {stripped} performance art show and you know, it had to feel pretty good
I know what it was like, I’d hold parties
& I’d change from one fancy dress to another
& I’d be the center of attention

I remember my novel release party, my
sister came, and I know she likes Red Rose
wine, and I was standing in the kitchen
chatting it up when I saw her approaching

so I turned to the fridge to get the wine
and as soon as she got to me I tilted the bottle
toward her glass and just started pouring
& she said, hey, I was coming to get some

wine & I said I know, and I just kept grinning
& talking to others & having a splendid time

yeah, I know the feeling, like you own
the world, you’d be dressed up wearing a
red robe & a hat & it looked like you should
be saying “where are all of my bitches?”

or when you’d take your black convertible
out, top down, as you’d be dressed in your
fancy suit, ready to hold open your
car door, just like you’d hope the man

who owns the world would. You’d show up
to parties in the tuxedo you own, you’d
give flowers to a girl you were smitten with
just after you’ve met her to woo her

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 you’d go jet-setting throughout Europe, visiting
China — you’re the one on top, aren’t you?

well, you always have been, you’re the man
with the plan, you’re the one who lives life
to the fullest, you show the world how
arrogant you are with your past successes

but Houston, there’s a problem, you
might not want to believe it, but since
we’ve been resting on your laurels all this
time, since our fat uncles have been

sitting on the couch, burping with their
cans of beer, watching the football games
while someone else has been doing all the
cooking and cleaning for them, well,

while we’ve all been feeling cocky,
thinking about how great we are,
other countries have been training their
students in our schools, and because

we’ve been busy basking in our glory
we’ve outsourced all the work we’re too
lazy to do & we’ve trained everyone else
to beat us at our own game

(oh, I forgot to mention, we were so busy
celebrating our military and business
accomplishments that we gave up
on training ourselves to stay ahead)

well, while we’ve gotten lazy and taken a
break for a while, everyone else has started
excelling past us, so we buy our Japanese
technology and drive our German cars,

drink our French water when we’re not
drinking our French wine, and we get
as far away from the United States as we
possibly can when we want to take a

vacation

well, I’m waiting for someone to realize it,
maybe having the economy fall out from
underneath our overzealous desire to
get rich quick didn’t allow us to see

but we’ve always been the giant, we were
first to fly an airplane, the first to land
on the moon, we’re in front in the world
with medicines and health care

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 hmmm, speaking of healthcare, most people
can’t afford it now, because we’ve researched
the Hell out of the diseases we choose
to kill ourselves with, I mean, stats say

us North Americans have the highest rates
of cancer verses the world, our kids are
fat, we work so many more hours but still
can’t keep ahead, and at this point we

can’t afford the fruits of our labor any longer

do we bring it upon ourselves when we
want to get rich quick by suing doctors,
forcing them to charge higher prices,
driving up the cost for everyone?

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 we complain that people who are on welfare
still on average own two television sets
and every teen in America now seems to
expect their own free cell phone

is it that our standard of living has risen
so dramatically that everyone now expects
everything handed to them on a silver
platter? do we ask for more without

working for more?

teens complain about not getting a job out
of school, while their guidance counselors
tell them they might have a chance if
they get rid of the excessive body piercings

or not wear a mohawk or color their hair
pink or stain their skin with tattoos
& that’s when the teens complain that
they don’t want to work for a place

that can’t accept them for who they are

our President wants to protect our borders
from terrorists, but he wants to give
temporary work visas to illegal Mexican
immigrants, so that other nations can do

our work for us

and we wonder why we’re unemployed

we get rid of excess building & manufacturing
metals, which we think would cost
too much to melt down to reuse, & our excesses
go to China, where they build high rises

from our scraps

yeah, we can talk about how we were the
high school quarterback, & how we
scored so many touchdowns & everyone
loved usback then

while we credit card ourselves into debt
because we deserve the good things in life,
as we train other people to help us
lose more in the world economy

{Stripped} performance art show, 06-07-05 pretty soon prices will keep going up
& we won’t be able to afford that convertible,
or the nice clothes, or for that matter,
any of the niceties anymore

& we’ll become a people who have the
basics, but not much else, & we’ll wonder
how we’ve become a third world country
& never saw it coming

because we’re on a mountainside, slipping
into the canyon holebut instead
of enjoying the roller-coaster ride before
we crash & burn, can we stop it?

can we stop asking our government to tie
our shoelaces for us, because you know,
man didn’t land on the moon because we didn’t
work for it, so can we start to live off of

what we can afford, so we can look ahead
to what we can accomplish?















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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.