The Seven Deadly Colors: Green
from the series “The Seven Deadly Colors”;
a series of seven poems originally published in The Lamp-Post.

Gabe was three years older than me
but he had no use for books
so we were in the same grade.
Momma was always after him:
“Gabe, why can’t you be more like your brother?”

I finished high school a year early
with nine offers of scholarships
including Harvard. It was a breeze
and I was summa cum laude.

      Gabe dropped out when he was fifteen,
      got his girl friend pregnant,
      did a couple of years in juvie
      for stealing an airplane.

I started up my own company
with a little capital from my father,
and we were there at the right time.
In ten years we were a Fortune 500.

      Gabe worked the drilling rigs for two years.
      Then he got onto Red Adair’s crew,
      snuffed fires and capped off blowouts
      from Afghanistan to Zanzibar.

When the war came along,
I was called to Washington
as a special adviser to the President
to coordinate the defense industry.

      Gabe joined the Marines early on.
      He saw it all, from Pearl to Okinawa.
      He came back loaded with medals
      and an eye patch.

I’ve been married fifty years
to my childhood sweetheart.
The children all turned out well:
Astronaut, doctor, physicist.

      Gabe never married. He always said
      women are where you find them
      but the best of all are in Iran
      once you get behind the veils.

I didn’t plan to get into politics,
but everything fell into place.
Governor, senator, and then
Ambassador to France.

      We heard from him once in a while.
      Shooting scrapes, a bank robbery,
      a plot to blow up the Glen Canyon dam,
      a couple of prison terms.

Life is winding down for me.
I spend my days writing my memoirs.
At Christmas, all the clan gathers,
four generations, still closely knit.
I am reasonably healthy,
have my own teeth
and shoot in the 90s.

      Gabe’s last hurrah was spectacular.
      He highjacked a load of plutonium
      on its way to Los Alamos.
      Things went wrong, a guard was killed.
      Gabe headed for the hills.
      He held out for two weeks in a cave,
      till they starved him out and shot him.

It’s been a good life, and I have no regrets,
but God, how I wish I’d had his.

Bob Johnston Bio

    Bob Johnston is a retired petroleum engineer and translator of Russian scientific literature. He waited until his sixtieth year to start writing fiction and poetry, and over the next thirty years he has been trying to catch up. He lives in the original Las Vegas, New Mexico with his wife, three cats, and some hope of completing his memoirs and the Great American Novel.

Please

Her eyes watched my face
like a leaf waiting
for the wind to set
it on a journey.

The Oak

I’m an oak that’s broken from the storm.
I lie upon the ground. Yet still I struggle
To reconstruct my trunk and spread my branches
And touch my leaves again against the sky,
Not for a god, but for the pleasure of it.
Once I was a willow, I went mad.

On Not Being Crazy

I take my medication. I’m not crazy.
Therapists are buckets full of crap
When - Jesus Christ! - there’s such potential there.
Anxiety that often overcomes
My senses. People have philosophies,
Jinxes, voo-doos, families and gods
To quell their fears and make the darkness safer.
I have none of these. I am alone.
Science thinks. Religious people know.
No, I am not crazy. Leo Nucci!
I am watching Rigoletto now,
My favorite of Verdi’s operas.
So long as I’m considerate of George
God and nature will be good to me.
If I were alone, I’d wash my hands
Til the skin cracked and the sores appeared.

Kill a man in Afghanistan, he stays with you

Kill a man in Afghanistan, he stays with you,
The others too but not as much.
The first one eats your soul forever.

You try to deny him, but he’s always there,
torturing you till you’re also dead.
Kill a man in Afghanistan, he stays with you.

It would be the same in Iraq.
It’s better never to pull the trigger.
The first one eats your soul forever.

I can’t sleep thinking of the Afghan man I shot.
My eyes & heart are drowning in the blood.
Kill a man in Afghanistan, he stays with you.

He walks with you everywhere you go.
He is your entrails & your soul.
The first one eats your soul forever.

Go to war & watch your spirit die.
See the light go out & subsist in frozen darkness.
Kill a man in Afghanistan, he stays with you.
The first one eats your soul forever ...

!

Let’s bomb the Greenpeace yacht

Let’s bomb the Greenpeace yacht.
They’re sabotaging a whale killing boat.
If they succeed, sushi prices will soar.

That’s more important than a big mammal
who’s more sensitive & as smart as man.
A whale can’t talk so he doesn’t object,

So let’s murder him for a few good bites.
Then we’ll slaughter a porpoise too
& stuff him into tuna cans.

He’ll make a good tuna sandwich or two.
Isn’t that better than an Auschwitz oven?
At least we can get some food out of it,

even if it’s not as fun as genocide,
as Nazis gassing Jews or Turks butchering Armenians.
Still it’s more fun than cutting up worms.

All the more reason to sink the Greenpeace yacht
& let Davy Jones solve the problem.
We can’t obstruct progress.
Let human nature prevail ...

!

The Last Stetson

The young man lost his Stetson
in a horizontal snow-blasting blizzard
between Amarillo and Canyon, Texas.
Visibility zero, he got out of the car to
clear the windshield of crusted ice.

He fell in behind an approaching snow
plough, following it to safety and warmth
and the waiting embrace of his young wife.
She went for his mug, filled it with coffee
and sat close beside him. She had waited
by the radio for any news—they had no
phone—frantic what with the blizzard and
their old car. Joyous in his homecoming,
she placed her open palms
on his wind-burned cheeks.

“ They shut the road behind the snow
plough and me. No one’s goin’ anywhere
tomorrow. Ranchers can’t get to their
stock. There’ll be losses.𔄙
He sipped the steaming brew.
“ The wind took my hat when I got
out to scrape the windshield.𔄙

“ But you’re here. You’re safe. You can
always get another hat.𔄙 The two sat
close, separate in their thoughts.
The wailing wind whipped the thin-paned
windows. The biting wind. The storm’s
fury shook the humble place.

The hat he lost that night was the last
Stetson the young man would ever own.
He and his wife soon left behind this
place where he’d grown up.

About Virginia Fultz

    A Merit Award in 2011 Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition

    Virginia was born in Shattuck, Oklahoma, grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, lived and taught English in El Paso, Texas, and California, where she earned two M.A.s in English literature, finally moving “home” to New Mexico. When not traveling, she and her husband Ed who have been together a wonderful long time, thrive on the clear air and stunning vistas from their home in the Sandia Mountains foothills in Albuquerque, NM. Virginia knows it’s true that happiness grows beautiful flowers, one pound tomatoes, and good friends.

Purification

I’ve prepared
a bath
everything
precisely inspected
I’m pouring
the lotion
stirring cosmetics
carefully selected

A towel’s prepared
fragrant
rainbow colors
thready
It will soon
be used
after the bath
when I’m ready

There’s everything
necessary
for total
purification
There comes
an occasion
to take from dirt
liberation

Kitchen knife
razor blades
and the scalpel
precision
Which shall I choose
to purify myself?
It’s a hard
decision

The time has come
to remove
my clothes
from naked skin
I chose razor blades
by washing
I’ll turn
into
an inert mannequin

I close my eyes
I can see
a screen shining
in the
candle light
The foam's ready
strikes one’s eyes
with
a beautiful
red colors’ sight

In Witness

911
Who’s going to catch these people?
I read the same paragraph over, and over.
Tuesday morning at 8:30 I was on my way,
to drink a cappuccino, and read for an hour before the gym!

911
I read the same lines over and over!

911
The woman on the corner of Jane and Hudson said, my neighbor went back to work this morning, after being on maternity leave.
I know she works in one of the towers, but, I don’t know which one!
or for who!!! I left and continued walking.

911
The first plane had already hit the South Tower 12 floors down from the roof.
I thought it was a waste of time to continue to read, and I paid for my cappuccino and left.

911
I stood paralyzed, watching the second plane, turn on it’s side, and hit the North Tower 20 floors down from the roof. I left and continued walking.
Crossing Hudson St. a man came towards me screaming, it’s a terrorist, it’s a terrorist attack, and I looked at him and said, don’t be ridiculous!
A terrorist attack, at the gym, on the ecliptic step, facing
the Hudson River, I watch people moving in tandem, migrating up from Battery Park, stopping in, asking to use the phone,
Serge gym, on West Street was the gym I belonged too.

Don’t be ridiculous, don’t say another word!
Can you believe this, one of the trainer’s said.
I want to call home, someone said, who stopped in, and let my family
know I’m ok.  
You see; Manhattan was on lock down, no one could enter the city, and no one could leave.
Serge gym on West street, and West 12th. Facing the Hudson River
Stood in witness while the towers discinigrated before my eyes.

Whose going to catch these people!
Whose going, over and, whose going to catch, whosewhose
Catching these people toppling, out of windows, looking like stick figures,
Flippingflipping flipping over, with rigid hands stretched out.
Plastic looking figures without motion,
flailing in the air, lifeless!
they were lifelesslifeless, figures without stretched hands,
With blank faces

911
I can’t get off this machine!
I can’t stop thinking
I can’t stop,
Whose peoplefalling, people,
Falling out of windows, stick figures
Without emotion?

I’m running, and I can’t get off this step!!
White powered suits, marching like zombie’s
rigid, and slow, and lifeless.rigid and slowlifeless
Life— less people

I want to get off this machine
I want these people to stop falling
In front of my eyes, and I want
Shooting balls of fire to.  to stop shooting,
I want this ball of fire to stop ,
I want this ball of fire to stop shooting
I wantwantwant this I wantwant
I wantthis
I wantthis
This to stop, I want this to stop,
stopto stopto  stop
Makeit, makeit,  STOP

I watch both towers crumble together, fall in on each other.
Wipe away any evidence of yesterday, pulverized concrete shoots up with
Suits, ties, dresses, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and the breath of the unborn.

Ice Gayle reading her poem In Witness live at the Café poetry open mike in Chicago 06/14/11 and 07/12/11

See the YouTube video of Ice Gayle reading her poem live at Chicago’s the Café 06/14/11

See the YouTube video of Ice Gayle reading her poem live at Chicago’s the Café 07/12/11

Moon Sleep

I stick
my hand
out toward
the sea
roll out my palm
I offer a plank,
a trail for you.
Follow out into the water
and the salty stars.
When you stretch out
and give your heart
to the final moment
to the glass night sky,
draw me in
sketch my face
on the edge
of the moon-
sad and lonely
over ages of moon
sleep and dust.

Michael Lee Johnson Bio

    Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, and editor, from Itasca, Illinois who lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era, published in 23 countries. He runs five poetry sites, his website: http://poetryman.mysite.com. His published poetry books available through his website above, Amazon.Com, Borders Books, iUniverse and Lulu.com.

An Artist’s Sketchbook (verse 1)

On Summer mornings
sacaly pinecones glitter
in the warm sunlight;
needle-sharp fir fingers stretch
across the wind, catching rain

Less of Who I Am

Less of who I am is
apparent day by day.
Perhaps life is a bore
and I want to be alone.
I want to shut the door
and open a window.
The air can come in.
No one else is invited.
I feel safe in here.
Perhaps life can be less
boring one day. I
stopped caring about things.
I will let idleness and
silence take hold.

Twin Peaks

There is a place, deep in the woods
where love conquers nothing
(DANGER DALE COOPER - DANGER DALE COOPER!)
alongside of a large town
where creepy, unsettling spirits reign

is there really a hell?

Dale is in love
He is such a moral being
But even Dale cannot be spared;
For his love has followed the strange, hypnotic scent,
to the place, deep in the woods
the barely visible curtain of sycamores
She has entered the dark domain of dirt,
Too late for Dale to claim her back--
here, his love is of no use;
here, he encounters death, tongues of fire,
here, he asks politely
if he can please have his love set free

his request is granted

but out there, he will emerge--sans love & goodness
out there, he will prevail and flail
out there, he will follow in the endless chain
of evil, misery, grief, and blackness.

Confession

What seemed like a curled up
piece of toilet paper your Dad
put on his chin after a nick
made by the Shick safety
razor was a moth slowly
crawling along one of
the velvet folds of the
curtains in the booth
where you had to make
your weekly confession

And if you barely heard
the number of Hail Marys
and Our Fathers the priest
told you to recite
for your penance

you now saw how
Nature had begun
nibbling at a church
whose plush velvet
interior was more like
an old funeral home
that would never again
wreathe a coffin in

Something Slides over the Water
Sestina Variation

Something slides over the water
like the sigh of the depressed man.
Don’t you wish you had the energy
to kill yourself? But this is L.A.
Find your sunglasses. Turn over.
Feel the sun on your back, almost
hear the smog slowly lifting.

Almost hear the smog slowly lifting.
Listen. Something slides over the water.
Turn over, feel the sun on your back.
Everything is like the sigh of the
depressed man. You are in L.A. Find
your sunglasses. You don’t have the
energy to kill yourself.

You don’t you have the energy to kill
yourself. You can almost hear the smog
slowly lifting in L.A. Find your sunglasses.
Something slides over the water like the sigh
of the depressed man. Turn over. Feel the sun
on your back.

Turn over. Feel the sun on your back.
You don’t have the energy to kill yourself.
A breeze sighs like the depressed man.
You can almost hear the smog lifting,
hear something slide over the water.
This is L.A. Where are your sunglasses?

This is L.A. Find your sunglasses, man.
Turn over, feel the sun on your back,
feel something slide over the water.
If only you had the energy to kill yourself
while the smog is slowly lifting. Everything
is like the sigh of the depressed man.

Everything is like the sigh of the depressed man.
This is L.A. You’ll need your sunglasses.
Can’t you almost hear the smog slowly lifting?
Turn over. Feel the sun on your back. You don’t
have the energy to kill yourself as something slides
over the water.

You wish you could kill yourself. But you can’t. Smog
is slowly lifting and something is sliding over the water.
Turn over, feel the sun on your back. Sigh. Get another
pair of sunglasses. You’ll need them. This is L.A., man.

Further Adventures of Rocketman the Nash Rambler of Love

I was sitting at Schwab’s lunch counter minding my own business
Wondering what if I was wrong and there turned out to really be a heaven
Couldn’t at least the whole notion of color co-ordination stay in decorator hell
I was lost in thought when she took a place at the booth next to the window
Sliding in like continental drift and blocking out the sun like a total eclipse
She was big and about as beautiful an apparition as my heart could take
Without its smashing beat drowning out the jukebox and breaking my ribs
I worried that I might be drooling but I knew for sure I was staring
The abject disgust distorting her lovely features would have been enough of a heads up
Even if she hadn’t been flipping me off
I managed to look distracted for the rest of the meal but
I watched her every move in the reflection of the chrome trim on the stainless steel grill hood
Lust made time fly as I finished my BLT and silently practiced vowing eternal love
I’m not sure if she filled up or they ran out of food, but eventually she moved off and I followed
Once outside I closed the distance between us like the slow motion kiss scenes in really bad movies
When I was almost on her she turned with an out stretched ham that held a can of pepper spray and
Threatened to hurt me which of course I said was my absolute fondest hope
And asked if I could mount her then and there or at least dry hump the leg of her choice
You’re Rocketman aren’t you she said and not called that because your loving is out of this world
But because of how fast you come and go
She was quick herself and flipping the brake on my wheel chair with her toe she gave me a push
I coasted down Santa Monica towards the Pacific grinning like crazy not knowing if I’d make supper
In my world uncertainty is what passes for excitement

_

the cast of Jersey Shore is not my kind                                   God must exist
Harry Potter has come to an end                finally                   God does exist
every time a Republican speaks people die          not the rich ones, of course
actions speak louder than words      our president talks a lot and does a little
people raging  vs  the government  in the Middle East  are  freedom fighters
people raging  vs  the government  in England  are  gangsters  and  terrorists
Republicans are fascists in drag               Democrats are Republicans in drag
ordinary people are simply dragged              and gagged              and fragged
velcro    fingertips    are    entry   level    tools    for    hedge fund   managers
American,  antiAmerican,  and unAmerican  are  now  irrelevant distinctions
logos are flags         bumper stickers are philosophy        t-shirts are theology
money talks and bullshit walks    99% of all Americans are therefore bullshit
a priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a topless bar              no one notices
the revolution will not be televised  unless the media needs to improve its ratings
raising  cash  for  political  campaigns  is  a  breeze if  donors  don’t pay taxes
in   the   land   of     the   one-eyed   king     having   two   eyes     is   treason
x marks the spot                                            unless you’re on the spot it marks

A West Texas Thunderstorm

grumbles
through

the woodwork

rattles
my

Stability

Too Freakin’ Real

Is that what mania is?
Fallout, endless, bump and grinding night,
while the brackish red claws of the
Harpies
spin me their film of spider web
fright.

Is that what it is?
An impenetrable hole
in my senses
surrounded by crashing, blasting, raging
white light,
commanding my spine, keeps me
twisted and pale.

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party Revisited

There once was a white rabbit
that ran down a hole
for fretting that the world
was in poor shape;
a little girl (with big ideas)
ran after him...
thinking it might be an adventure,
and had to be better
than moping because her daddy
had just lost his job

White Rabbit, he had contacts
in high places
whom the little girl (with big ideas)
was so thrilled to meet
and get an invite to a Tea Party
hosted by a Hatter
even madder than the rest
of the guests,
including a Queen of Hearts
and (peculiar) Minds

‘Off with his head!’ Queenie
kept shouting
at anyone who might have been
listening and game
to give her their vote as Hostess
with the Mostest,
and saw the little girl (with big ideas)
as the ideal candidate
to try the very humbugs she’d slaved
over a hot stove at all day

‘Try these dear,’ said Queenie,
‘and tell me honestly
if you love them or hate them
though be sure
it’s off with your head if they’re not
to your liking.’
The little girl (with big ideas) insisted
she never accepted sweets
from strangers in case (who knows?)
they are poison

‘They will probably make you ill,’
agreed the White Rabbit,
‘and then you’ll be in a fine pickle
with no health insurance
to pay the bills, and not a soul
giving a damn
if you take to your bed. Oh and do
have some tea,
it’s a party, not a wake, leastwise
no one’s dead yet...’

‘Off with his head!’ cried Queenie,
but the White Rabbit
laughed and said, ‘You can have my head
for desert, it’s big enough
to go round, especially since all else
on offer here
is humbug, humbug, humbug - and
more humbug. Oh, and what
does Dormouse think he’s doing
with that teapot anyway?

The little girl (with big ideas) loved
every maddening minute,
was so disappointed when she woke up
to realise it was but a dream
that she pulled a white rabbit from a hat,
set it loose, made it an excuse
to chase The Dream, have a tea party
of her own, Mad Hatters invited,
she delighted to play Queen of Hearts
and (peculiar) Minds

The Old House

Nestled in the shade of tall eucalyptus
territorial roof and porch
the ranch house
old when I first saw it the year of Pearl Harbor

Headquarters for Canada del Oro ranch
George Pusch’s, there’s a ridge named for his father
branded Z bar K
I remember because I helped a time or two

We gathered country that is full of houses now
invading the foothills that should be left alone
for the mountain sheep or just left alone
Just cause it’s there doesn’t mean it has to be built on

I was in the old house a few times for coffee
or a noontime meal during roundup
Beautiful spacious living room but cozy
a real home

It was just south of the old Steam Pump Ranch
and the Butterfield Stage station
a bit before you crossed the Canada del Oro
there was just a dip in the road back then

Now there’s a bridge and cemented arroyo sides
tract houses waiting on the flood plain
road scars going nowhere
just bladed in and making the foothills bleed

Been watching the old house all through the years
the country around it changed
but the old house just stayed on
sleeping under the tall eucalyptus that kept growing

The mountain is east of the front porch
used to be an unobstructed view
but now there’s houses on the foothills
newcomers playing king of the mountain. Obscene.

Driving to town the other day I glanced over
as I always did to see the old house
It’s part of my life. Part of the history
Not many like it left these days of so-called progress

The bulldozers had ripped up the tall eucalyptus
all prone on the ground surrounding the old house
On the trip back they were gone and the old house stood
bare, weeping, awaiting its awful fate

Another trip to town a week later.
Only the mailbox by the highway kept watch
as the graders made the space ready for “progress’?
The old house had stood there for more than a hundred years.

Houdini Suspended

What they don’t understand is we escape:
free verse or rhyme, rhythm, symbols, tone.
Mind is Houdini suspended

underwater or above in cone
as body is liberated
from aches and pains that cloak us like black cape.

It’s almost as though we are dead,
afloat like a sail or gossamer drape,
adrift on sea without heavy bones.

No one or nothing can bruise us or scrape
invisible, orange butterfly,
transformed from child in adult full-grown.

Dreaming in sun on a green bed,
thoughts transport faster than light or sound
as we become cloud, stone, wave and gold leaf.

In darkness, we are the light shone
on the shadows who release form and shape.
We follow only where we’ve led.

What they don’t understand is we escape:
free verse or rhyme, rhythm, symbols, tone.
Mine is Houdini suspended.

No Home

I balanced on the edge of oblivion for forty days and forty nights
before I talked myself down from the fall.

Dark sunrises and painless goodbyes have
never made much sense to me–
but, then again, neither has anything against
the negative.

No dogs allowed.
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
No soliciting.
No resistance will be tolerated.
No martyrdom will save the future.
No one has come to save you and
No one is not alone.

No one is not alone.

When you and I looked out at the frostbitten void
you promised to tell me when I was out of control.
Maybe I didn’t get the message,
or maybe I forgot,
it’s just that
I could have sworn that we held hands that night
and I liked it.

All I ever wanted was a place to call my own–
a place to call my home–
but the answer was No.

Guilt

I was walking down the street one evening,
it was about 10:30,
I was walking from my office to my car.
I had to cross over the river to get to it,
and I noticed a homeless man
leaning against the railing,
not looking over,
but looking toward the sidewalk,
holding a plastic cup in his hand.
A 32-ounce cup,
one of the ones you get at Taco Bell across the river.
Plastic.
Refillable.

Normally I don’t donate anything to homeless people,
because usually they just spend the money
on alcohol or cigarettes or cocaine or something,
and I don’t want to help them with their habit.
Besides, even if they do use my money for good food,
my giving them money
will only help them for a few hours,
and I’d have to keep giving them money
all of their life in order for them to survive.
Once you’ve given money,
donated something to them,
then you’re bound to them,
in a way,
and you want to see that they’ll turn out okay.
Besides,
he should be working for a living,
like me,
leaving my office in the middle of the night,
and not out asking for hand outs.

I’m getting off the subject here...
Oh,
yes,
I was walking along the sidewalk
on the side of the bridge,
and the homeless man was there.
You see,
they know to stand on the sidewalks
on the bridge
because once you start walking on the bridge
you have to walk up to them,
and the entire time you’re made to feel guilty
for having money and not giving them any.
They even have some sort of set-up
where certain people work certain bridges.

Well,
wait,
I’m doing it again...
Well,
I was walking there,
but it wasn’t like I was going to lunch,
which is the time I normally see this homeless man,
because during lunch
there are lots of lights and lots of people around
and lots of cars driving by and I’m not alone
and I have somewhere to go
and I don’t have the time to stop what I’m doing
and think about him.

Well,
anyway,
I was walking toward him,
step by step getting closer,
and it was so dark
and there were these spotlights
that seemed to just beat down on me
while I was walking.
I felt like the whole world was watching me,
but there was no one else around,
no one except for that homeless man.
And I got this really strange feeling,
kind of in the pit of my stomach,
and my knees were feeling a little weak,
like every time
I was bending my leg to take a step
my knee would just give out
and I might fall right there,
on the sidewalk.
I even started to feel a little dizzy
while I was on the bridge,
so I figured the best thing I could do
was just get across the bridge as soon as possible.

I figured it had to be being on the bridge
that made me feel that way,
for I get a bit queasy when I’m near water.
I don’t usually have that problem during lunch
when I walk over the bridge and back again,
but I figured that since I was alone
I was able to think about all that water.
With my knees feeling the way they were
I was afraid I was going to fall into the water,
so I had to get myself together
and just march right across the bridge,
head locked forward,
looking at nothing around the sidewalk,
nothing on the sidewalk,
until I got to the other side.

And when I crossed,
the light-headed feeling just kind of went away,
and I still felt funny,
but I felt better.
I thought that was the funniest thing.

dreams turned into nightmares

Analyze this.
Get yourself on track.
All men are scum anyway,
Christ,
this was just your reaffirmation of it.
None of these people really matter.
Just get back to your work,
get yourself focused again.
That’s how to demonstrate your worth.

You don’t care about your work.
Who are you trying to impress?
Let it pile up. It doesn’t matter.

God, why does it always feel like this?
Why is it that you have to
depend on others for your worth,
and when there is one little crumb of affection
thrown at you,
you savor it and pray
that it’s a sign for more
and you hope
and your pray
and then when nothing comes
it’s all the same again
except this time
all of your hopes are shot.

Why are there times like this when you feel so alone?
There are other times when you relish in your solitude.

Look at the dishes pile up.
You should be doing laundry.
Slob.
Bitch.
Can’t even clean up after yourself.

Why does everything have to hurt you so much?
Why are you crying so much more now?
Why do you look for ways to feel bad, reasons to cry?
What do you feel guilty for?

Why do you go through this?

Oh, don’t even try to daydream
and get yourself out of this.
It will always be the same, you have to remember that.
You can try to dream that you deserve something better,
but don’t bother.
You will always keep trying,
with the hope that it will get better,
and you will keep failing,
every single god-damn time,
and that’s the way it will go,
forever and ever,
on and on.

It won’t stop, not until you do.

Can you resign yourself to this?
Can you resign yourself to not trying,
or are you going to keep building your hopes up
for nothing?

What is the good of anything that you’ve done?
Are you any happier for it?
God, how do you go through these cycles?
How the Hell can you deal with it?
There’s got to be a way to get out of it.

Try not to think of it.

You’re so lonely.

All you’ve got left to you is your mind,
and it’s destroying you, slowly.

When will it destroy you altogether?

When?
It’s only a matter of time.

Why do you dream? Are you trying to escape reality?
Are you trying to create a new reality?

I think you dream and dream
until you think that it’s all actually real,
and then when someone in your life
proves your dream wrong
your whole world falls to pieces.

Pieces.
Little pieces.
Look, there goes a few now.
Try to pick them up,
you’re going to lose them if you don’t pick them up
and try to piece them back together again,
and then you’ll be destroyed.

Can you create a new dream with what you have left?
You want to slip into it again.
It’s what keeps you alive, keeps you going.
It’s the only thing that gives you hope.

But what the Hell do you need that hope for?
You’ll be let down, you know it,
if you can step down from that dream of yours.
Just get out of it! Just stop.
All these good dreams keep reminding you
of what it could be like,
if only you were someone else,
if only you were someone liked
and successful and important.

And those bad dreams,
those are your way of punishing yourself for dreaming.
Your mind slips them in there,
when no one else is looking,
and then,
because you live in your dreams so much,
you have to play it out,
and then you’ll cry and cry
and there’s nothing you can do.

You can’t face up to it, can you?
You’ll be no better than this.
Your life will be no better than this.
Nothing will be better than this,
better than dreams turned into nightmares.

Update 2011 on the Man who Loved me

It’s approaching
the anniversary
since you died

but the anniversary
of the date we started dating
is closer

and though we dated
I never got too close
because I knew you’d pass away
at an early age

though I didn’t know
it would be that early

I never got too close
you told me you loved me
and I think I hurt you
when I said I couldn’t reciprocate

I think I felt the way you did
but I couldn’t take the final leap

But I remember how you said
you loved me
then you would break up with me

it wouldn’t break my heart, of course
it’d piss me off
when I knew I was better than you
and you had the audacity
to break up with me

but it’s approaching that anniversary now
and all I wonder now
is how many chemicals they used in you
to preserve you,
before they buried you
and I wonder how well your flesh has held up
after you started to decompose

I’m sorry,
I don’t want to think of you as decomposing
but I don’t want to think of you as dead

so
do I need an update
or do I need these reminders
as it approaches our anniversary

Ruminating

“Performing Background Tasks”
equals
ruminating over everything
that went wrong between us

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the weekly Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, and the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook . Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).

A Moral Dilemma

    “Whew, thank the Lord I never had to make that kind of decision,” said Russell Sherman to his television set as he shut it off and glanced out of the window to see how his impatiens were doing. His mind was still on the movie—a young doctor in the emergency room of a large hospital was confronted with a difficult choice. Only one operating room was available but whom to give it to—a policeman with a wife and three children, or a hardened criminal with a long history of armed robbery, but whose wounds were of greater urgency.
    Russell sighed and recollected with satisfaction that in his long, legal career he had rarely had to deal with people under stress. As an attorney he had handled corporate matters—estates, trusts and wills—quiet, predictable activities that hardly involved emotional outbursts or life-threatening decisions. Truly an introvert, when time for his retirement came, he looked forward to a peaceful life devoted to his garden, his books, and his television set.
    With pleasure he glanced out of the window again, to enjoy the way the impatiens were responding to the warm weather. His daughter had said that now that she had a family of her own, and with her mother passed away, he had transferred his need for nurturing to his flowers. She might be right, he thought, as he noticed that the postman had just come and was leaving a large envelope in his mailbox at the end of the walk. The postman saw Russell through the window and waved hello, gesturing to the little flag that indicated that there was mail.
    Russell walked down to the mailbox, stopping to remove a dead leaf on the pachysandra that edged the garden pathway. In the mailbox was a large brown envelope from his old friend Jim Whitman. He hadn’t heard from Jim since their last law school reunion and wondered what he could possibly be sending him.
    Russell walked back to his living room, studying the envelope as he went. The return address was from the American Arbitration Association where Jim had worked for many years. At that moment, the phone rang and it was Jim. “Russell, I need your help. We are swamped over here, and with your expertise in estate matters, I wonder if you could arbitrate a case for me. Did you get the papers I sent you?”
    Russell thought about it for a minute. Arbitrators were used when the judges had a big backlog and the parties involved were willing to accept the arbitrator’s decision. An estate matter was the usual cut-and-dried case he liked to work on. Russell decided that it might be interesting to work on an estate matter again.
    Jim went on, “It’s quite a simple case, really. A brother and sister were left a million dollar estate in equal shares, so there is no problem there. But the mother’s rocking chair—it’s old, and may even be broken—but for some reason, they are both determined to get it. Think you want to take it on?”
    Russell considered it. It might be fun to get back into harness, and this case looked like it might take all of fifteen minutes. “Okay, Jim”, I’ll do it, but next time we meet, you buy the drinks.” Russell could hear Jim’s sigh of relief at the other end of the phone.
    Russell sat down in his most comfortable chair—his favorite TV program would not be on for an hour—and opened the envelope. Glancing over the salient facts, he decided that it was, indeed, a simple case, just as Jim had said it would be. He picked up the phone, called the Arbitration Association, and arranged a hearing for the following Monday. Then he went out to enjoy his garden. As he did so, he glanced up at the sky. Even when the sky was overcast, he was fond of it, because the rain nurtured his impatiens. But today, the sky was so blue, it could melt one’s heart—not a cloud dared to venture upon it. Russell was a religious man, and when he looked up at the sky, he often thanked God for giving him such a good life—a loving wife, a dear daughter, and a wonderful career.
    On Monday, he dusted off his old business suit, found the tie he hadn’t worn for two years and presented himself at the hearing. The brother and sister were there waiting for him, sitting at opposite ends of a long table. They seemed like a nice, respectable, sensible-looking pair. Both were dressed in navy blue suits—he with a Harvard striped tie, she with a gold necklace and matching earrings. As he read the will to them, checking all the details, they each nodded amiably and agreed to abide by his decision just as if he were a judge in a courtroom.
    “Now, about the rocking chair—” he began, but with that, both of the heirs stood up and began screaming at each other. He calmed them down, and said he would hear their sides, one at a time. He began with the daughter.
    “You can’t know what the chair means to me,” she said, almost in tears. “When I was young I had polio for three years. My mother would put me on her lap, while she rocked me gently, and tell me stories for hours. I don’t think I would have survived that illness without those stories and that chair.” She sat down, trying to keep the tears from spilling out of her eyes.
    The son was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, “Our father died when we were very young and that chair is almost the only memento I have of him. I helped him build that chair for my mother when she was pregnant with my sister, and every time Mom sat in it, I was so proud that she was using something I had made. Whenever I had a problem, she would sit in that rocking chair, listen to me, and try to help me solve it. And somehow, as she rocked, the question would seem to resolve itself. I wish she were here right now.”
    Russell ended the session, promising to give them a verdict by the following week, and went home dismayed. He realized that to each of them, that chair really was their mother, the one memory of her that would keep her with them forever.
    What was he to do? What would King Solomon have done if both mothers had refused to have the baby cut in half? He understood the longing they felt for a mother they would never see again but which of the two could he deprive of the need for this one last memory of her? He decided to put the matter aside for a couple of days, hoping the answer would come to him, perhaps when he least expected it.
    The week was almost over when Russell, again in his garden watering his plants, felt he could put the decision off no longer. There was no question about it—he would have to disappoint one of them. He looked up at the sky, at his sky, and wished the sky could give him his answer. Today, he noticed it was again a gorgeous blue, but now white, clouds danced across it. He remembered how, when he was young, he used to create animals in the shapes of the clouds. “All kids do that, I guess,” he told himself as he admired a big, round cloud just above him. “Gosh,” he thought, “it looks just like a baby’s face,” and suddenly, the answer to his dilemma came to him. With relief and happiness, and warmth for both the heirs, he made his decision.
    When they met again, he gave his decision. “I am going to treat this chair as if it were a child.” The son and daughter stared at him, puzzled.
    “In an equitable divorce case with caring parents, the parties each get custody of the child. Therefore, you will each get joint custody of the chair for six months. This is my verdict and it will stand.”
    Russell looked at the two but could read nothing in their faces.
    One month later, he received a letter from the daughter. “I want to thank you for your sensitive handling of our situation. Not until that hearing did I realize what that chair means to my brother and why he loves it so much. At the end of six months, I know that I will be glad to put it in the care of someone who will cherish it as I do. You will be interested to know that we have once again become good friends just as we were as children.”
    As Russell put the letter down, he realized that for the first time in his life, he was not just experiencing his usual sense of fulfillment at “a job well done”, but he had a deep feeling of warmth at knowing others were getting understanding and pleasure from what he had done for them. He looked at his impatiens and smiled at them.
    The next day he called Jim and asked if he had any other “simple” cases to be considered.

Money

    “You can take the girl out of the bar but not the bar out of the girl!” said the old Australian sagely.
    He flicked the few stray locks of hair that had somehow strayed from his ponytail back over his forehead, so spattering the young man seated next to him with droplets of sweat.
    “Not much you can tell me about these girls,” he continued, nodding towards the gyrating females behind the round bar.
     It was a typical Thai beer bar; brightly lit with Christmas tree lights festooned around it. A powerful sound system pumped out a continuous thumping beat of techno music. In the middle of the bar was a raised, concrete circular podium in the centre of which was a metal pole that the girls used for support as they did their bumps and grinds to the beat in a simulated sexual frenzy. The bar was one of a dozen or so in the complex surrounding a Thai boxing ring, all round, all garishly lit, all pumping out their choice of music and all stuffed with as many nubile, young Thai girls as was humanly possible to crowd into the tiny space.
    “Thai girls’ll smile at you, give you the old ‘come on’, jump all over you all night if you want but at the end of it all it all comes down to one thing – money! Money, that’s what they’re here for.”
    The young man nodded automatically, he’d been listening to the old man blabbing on about the trials and tribulations of relationships with the Thai girls for half an hour or so but his mind was on other things. More specifically on one of the sensuous, boyish figures dancing away behind the bar. The young girl was stunning. Slim of figure but with unusually full breasts and liquid hips. Her hair was coal-black and shining with health and seemed to have a life of its own as it swished about her face as she danced. Her eyes almond shaped and deep brown. Her mouth full and when she smiled she displayed a perfect set of gleaming, white teeth. She was perfect in every way. Several times their eyes had met and each time she demurely dropped the lids in a flicker of eyelashes and smiled directly at him.
     “Hookers! All of ‘em mate. All they’re after is your wallet. Been here fifteen years so I know all about ‘em. They’ll lead you one hell of a dance, mate, but when the old readies run out you won’t see their pretty arses for dust! Hookers!”
    He swigged the last drops of his bottle of Chang beer then slapped the polystyrene condom on the counter meaningfully.
    “What’s your name, mate?”
    The young man reluctantly tore his eyes away from the sensuously swaying hips of the girl.
    “Robert. Robert Hines. Another beer?”
    “Thought you’d never ask,” grinned the old Australian throwback to the sixties. “Hey Jimmy, stop wiggling your arse like a bloody girl and get us a couple more beers before we die of bloody thirst!” He leaned conspiratorially towards the young man and nodded towards one of the girls. “That one there’s a fella.” He chuckled lasciviously. “Here, you’ll laugh. Bloke in here the other night took a shine to Jimmy who was all done up in his sexy girly gear, you know, false tits, the lot. Anyway this fella wouldn’t believe us when we told him Jimmy was a ‘he’! Took old Jim back to his bungalow three nights in a row and he still wouldn’t believe it! Swore he was a girl!”
    “Do you know that girl?” asked Robert, indicating the girl with the liquid hips.
    “Fresh meat! Only come at the beginning of the season. You’re all right there, mate, she’s a girl right enough. Name’s ... Goy! That’s it, Goy. Why, you interested?”
    “She’s unusually pretty. Still naîve. She hasn’t got that hard, brittle look of all the other girls.”
    “Told ya, she’s fresh meat. They all come down here out of the sticks, straight out of the jungle, mate. Come in November for the beginning of the high season, spend five or six months fleecing the punters then bugger off back to the family with enough dosh to keep them for the rest of the year if they’re lucky. But you want something with a bit more experience, mate. Here, girl I know on one of the other bars down the street earns upwards of forty grand a month! In the season she takes home maybe three or four hundred thousand. That’s five or six grand in your English money. May not sound a lot to a rich Pommie like yourself for all that heaving and humping she has to do but to a Thai from the sticks it’s a small fortune!”
     “She sounds very ... experienced.” Observed Robert, his attention still on the nubile young girl who now seemed to be dancing only for him.
     “Not half! What she don’t know about the old boomsing ain’t worth knowing. Mind you, she’ll cost ya. She won’t even leave the bloody bar for less than a couple of grand. She’s been on the game for over twenty years now – nearly forty she is although you wouldn’t know it. Got a bloody great house up North – cost a million to build – and three kids, all from different blokes! Ya gotta hand it to her, she’s a good businesswoman.”
     “She sounds quite exceptional,” said Robert, his mind only half on what the aged Australian was saying.
    “You can say that again. Mind you, most of these girls barely make a living. Half of ‘em will end up alcoholics if they don’t break their bloody necks on them motorbikes they flash around on. Some’ll get lucky and marry one of the punters and end up being miserable back in Europe or wherever and bugger off back here ‘cos they’re bored or too bloody cold. The rest, well, they was never going to make it anyway and they’ll end up back with the family scraping a living from the land planting rice and that. I mean, you can’t blame ‘em. What would you do if you was given the choice as a kid of coming to a place like Lamai, where there’s night life, blokes, booze and parties all the time, or staying in some shithole of a village up to your arse in mud in a paddy field most of the time? Ain’t much of a choice, is it?”
    “You know almost all the girls then?”
    “Most of ‘em. Certainly them as comes back regular every year.”
    “Perhaps you should provide a service to the more nervous tourists, introduce them to a nice girl?”
    “Ain’t no such thing down here, mate! I told ya, they’re all hookers. A bloke wants a bunk-up he don’t need my help! He won’t be nervous or shy for long – not with these girls. Besides, too much hassle. Pick a wrong ‘un and you gotta carry all the flack! Pretty rough some of these kids, and light fingered? Christ, you wouldn’t believe it! Steal you blind give ‘em half a chance. So, watch your wad! Some of ‘em work with their Thai fellas, pick a likely mug, suss him out and one dark night...!” He spread his hands and shrugged. “So, watch your arse, mate!”
    “Thanks for the tip,” said Robert with a somewhat sardonic smile.
    He caught the dancing girl’s eye once again and inclined his head in an invitation for her to join him at the bar.
    The Old Australian grinned. “Taken a fancy to her, have you mate?” He chuckled a throaty, tobacco induced laugh. “Don’t pay her more than five hundred and two fifty to the Mama Sang for her bar fine.
    The dancing girl slid from the central concrete podium, curling gracefully down the metal pole to the floor all in one well-practiced movement. She came to the bar, smiled invitingly at Robert and leaned forward across the bar giving him a close-up view of her obvious upper torso attributes She extended her hand towards Robert.
    “Name Goy. You English?”
    “Partly,” answered Robert. “Robert. You speak English?”
     “Nit noy. Little bit,” she said demurely.
    “Perhaps you’d join me for dinner then?”
    She frowned, not understanding.
    “Gin cow, you silly Thai bird!” croaked the Australian. “Gotta learn a few words of Thai, mate, most’ve ‘em have only got bar English.”
    “Thanks,” said Robert. “I think I can manage.”
    He pulled the girl gently towards him over the bar until his mouth was close to her ear and whispered to her.
    The Australian leaned closer but couldn’t hear what was being said.
    “Watch it, mate, remember what I said.
    The girl giggled and nodded.
    “Thank you, I will.” Robert took out his wallet and extracted a large note. “Would you mind paying my bar bill? There should be enough left over for a couple or more beers for you.”
    The Australian took the note gratefully. “Right on! Sure, mate, anything for a friend. And I wouldn’t flash that wad around like that if I was you. They’d mug you as soon as look at you if they see what you’re carrying.”
    “Oh, I think I’ll be all right,” smiled Robert as he motioned for the girl to join him.
    “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    Robert left the bar with the young girl as she joined him.
    “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” warned the Australian as he swigged back the rest of his beer and slapped the condom on the bar again and indicated for a refill.
    As he turned away from the bar he noticed two unusually smartly dressed Thai young men leave the other side of the bar and discretely follow Robert and the girl.
    “Oh shit!” muttered the old Ausie as he turned back towards the bar, searching the crowded centre area. “Hey, Mama!” He waived his hand to catch the Mama Sang’s attention. “C’mere a minute.”
    The busty Mama Sang threaded her way through the gyrating girls towards him. “What you want Nobby? No credit, OK?”
    “No, no it ain’t that. I got me a stake here. That’s the problem. Bloke who gave me this flashed a large wad so every light-fingered bugger in Lamai could see! Then he left with young Goy and them two smartarses followed him!”
    He nodded towards the retreating figures of Goy and Robert with the two Thai men following.
    “I reckon he’s in for a bit of a dust up!”
    “Do you Nobby?” she laughed.
    “Nothin’ to laugh about Mama. Straight up, they was right on his tail like they was glued to him!”
    “They better be, they want keep job.”
    “Eh?”
    “Robert very powerful young man. Robert Hines-Wong. You no know him?”
    “Never seen him before in me life.”
    “Papa him English. Mama Thai. Robert educated Oxford England. Very clever. Speak good Thai.”
    “He speaks Thai? Well, I’ll be buggered. And he let me go on like that! Cheeky sod!”
    “He come every year beginning new season. Look new girls for smart club in Bangkok. Him like Goy – sure. Take her Bangkok, work for Mama him. She lucky girl.”
    “Yeah, well ... But what about the two goons who followed him?”
    “They bodyguard. I think him be safe enough, Nobby.” She roared with laughter as she left him and made her way back through the corded bar.
    “Well, I’ll be buggered,” muttered Nobby to himself.
    He fingered the thousand Baht note that Robert had given him then grinned and shrugged.
    “Ah well, not a complete cock-up Nobby my old mate. Hey Jimmy!” he hollered across the bar again.” Come on, I’m dying of bloody thirst here!”

Lost at Sea

    The choppy sea sparkled with a million points of light reflected from the setting sun which now hung below the higher clouds, which all day had veiled it. Mary decided to sit abovedecks and watch the sun sink below the waves. It was a gentle time for her; it was a tender time, the end of twilight; the darkness would settle over her raising goosebumps, and then she would be ready for bed. John would go to bed first, before sunset, in the cabin below, having had a tough day of sailing, there having been a strong warm breeze. A day of cranking and pushing and pulling and stretching and raising his face to the overcast sky, which should have told him what kind of night it would be in the end; the clouds being a shroud, not lying but hanging, under the beauty of the blue sky which wasn’t really there anymore because it couldn’t be seen anymore. The blue sky was a shade, a wraith, a symbol of death, hiding above the clouds.
    Good night, he told her gently.
    Good night.
    The kiss.
    Like a snake slithering into its den he slipped belowdecks into the tiny cabin. Stay on the boat, is the first rule, always; she didn’t have to be told any more than he had to be; there are rules to boating, as there are rules to everything. She sat cross legged near the bow as he slipped onto the firm mattress of the bunk, below her; clean sheets and blankets and a cozy pillow and the faint sensation of rocking, in the pitchblack; the pitchback where everything was safe, because there was nothing there; foolish are they who fear the dark. And he knew how far it was to the bottom and felt the weight of all that water in between, filled with creatures that he would never see and which didn’t know he was there, nor did they care. Outside of their watery home, there was nothing to them, they with their fins and teeth and scales and gills.
    The boat rocked far above them, in a light chop. The sun sank below the waves. John fell off to sleep curled up under the covers, snugly. Swathed as a baby is swathed in a crib, his mind less than a baby’s mind because it was gone asleep. Up above, she remained sitting, under a wide canopy of stars. Quiet is was, with just a chop—but at last a great snarling wave came out of the dark washing over the boat. Something called a rogue wave found its prey. Mary went off into the water. Slid off the deck by the water in a flash, just like that. Below decks the sound of rushing water came from above and a light clatter and the faintest sound of a splash off of the boat, that John didn’t hear because he was asleep-and the wave didn’t rock the boat enough to wake him; just slid across it enough, to take her.
    Wear a life vest, is the second rule, which they broke as a matter of course. Having no such thing as a life vest, Mary passed through the surface of the water; the surface which is the exclamation point between the air and the water; between the words of the sentence and the emptiness after, the whiteness of the page, the blankness. The same exclamation point as between the air and the solid ground which, if you traveled far enough, would replace the water as you plunged through the second exclamation point into the silt and next to the basalt, and further, to the molten core. On land Mary would have just taken a bad fall; she’d have lain there on the solid exclamation point with some chance to survive. But what would have knocked her down, on the dry land. Great blue foaming waves don’t come on the land; and the land does not rear up and slam down on a person, washing them to God knows where. The water is evil, John had often thought, but without knowing it. He knew the water was just too alive. This is the real reason he liked to sail the deep water. He had a touch of the sea evil in him. And as she went into the water he just lay like an undead corpse in the coffin of the boat, swathed in his shroud, hands clasped in the pitch black black as within a sealed coffin. The wave just rushed on, having done its work; it sought the next thing to wash over, the next thing to take.
    Learn to swim, is the third rule. Mary had never learnt this skill; so she cleared the exclamation point and went deeper and held her breath but at last, at the end of her rope, she began to breath water. It felt good flooding in; what a great, great relief; no more need to hold her breath. No more need to feel her brain pushed to bursting. The horrible tension of waiting for the moment she could hold her breath no longer immediately dissipated. The weight of her lungs full of water sank her deeper and her consciousness became fluid, heavy, slow.
    Learn to recover someone whose fallen overboard, was the fourth rule; but John was not there to recover Mary, instead belowdecks where he lay he dreamed a strange dream of having to fight something huge and something horrid, to struggle to regain a lost love, caught somehow in some web woven by some terrible spider, the lost love’s name being unmentionable for him, because of the sorrow it would invoke; he just knew the name had a strange ring to it; now where could such an odd name have come from. She was someone he had known long before, on some summer night that magically lasted fourteen years; but finally they were like two skeletons, sitting together in a glider on the porch in the moonlight, and that was the last night. Their bony hands finally parted, and now he strained to recover those lost times; the dream overlapped Mary and John for a few moments and then was his only and shrank like a sheet of paper being balled up tight and disappeared painfully into his heart, but not painfully enough to wake him.
    He slept on.
    The night wore on.
    At last Mary’s soul rose from deep below; her soul and body had bloodlessly ripped apart soon after her lungs had filled and killed her brain; the night wore on further and the morning approached and John woke and reached for the light, and switched it on, and he saw she was not there beside him. He threw off the covers and rose and went abovedecks into the emptiness of the space between the surface and the sky, clad only in his underwear, in a great rushing hurry, to find her sitting there, where she had been all night, for some odd reason, he hoped upon hope. He stood tall on the deck and scanned the horizon—he rose, but only so far, while unseen to him her soul rose up from the water past the boat on its way to someplace much farther.
    The fifth rule; have life preservers on hand. But for what, if there’s no one to throw it to, when it doesn’t matter how tangled the rope is, tangled from disuse, as ropes tend to become. John stood on the swaying deck, alone, nobody in sight to see. Her soulless body slowly still sank toward the bottom, sluicing in spirals down through the heavy water toward the silty bottom far below. Miles deep it was out here; it took a long time to fall. She fell farther and farther away from him, her memory already blurring, her remembered face a pale mask in his panic.
    Always have a safety boat, was the sixth rule. A smaller boat tied to yours to trail behind. He didn’t obey this rule because he just had a twenty five footer and it made no sense to him. It was a rule for larger powerboats mostly, but it made a lot of sense—roar across the open water dragging the safety boat; it would be like plunging forward being chased by all the rest of life packed inside that safety boat. To be way out front, alone, before the future, strangely—not following the future, but leading it. Dragging it forward— plunging forward into the past; this seemed like somewhat of a revelation, and it hit him in the head so fast and hard he didn’t have a chance to really think it. He just felt it as he felt the sun on him. The sun had been up a half hour now. John continued to scan the far horizon, around, and around, and around, spiraling down with her. His mood sank. His mood sank with her, unknowing.
    Mary! he cried out, at last realizing.
    The emptiness of the bottom sucked her down further. Further from her soul now, further by the moment; her soul was up away far out of sight. Even if a soul could be seen, it was now too far away; farther even then her body was away down in the black water. He stared at the choppy black water, trying to see her. But she’s gone, his gut cried.
    Mary! he cried at last realizing.
    Mary!
    The seventh rule; first aid equipment is the next thing to have. But what good is it for this? If he were not so panic stricken now, he would have dashed belowdecks to find the lousy first aid kit. He’d fling the useless redcrossed box into the sea. It too would sink. It was only good for when you had the person there stretched out before you to be treated, to be bandaged or splinted, when the person was alive and could be helped. It would sink down toward her where it might have been of use, but there is nothing in it for lungs filled with water, and no one to use it anyway. For lungs full of water you have to pound and press the chest with the person lying on the solid ground; nothing was right to save her; first aid kits were useless; no dry land lay under her; she was out of reach, dead; his head spun.
    Mary, he sighed, realizing more deeply.
    Powering up the boat, he mindlessly headed to the dock on the island they’d come from. His hand was on the wheel but the wheel guided his hand.
    Three hours later, at the dock, he leapt from the boat and went and told the first man he saw.
    My Mary’s gone overboard.
    As though he could bring her back.
    And to the next man.
    My Mary’s gone.
    As though he could produce her, somehow magically.
    And the next.
    My Mary.
    Pleading.
    My Mary.
    Pleading.
    My Mary.
    Pleading.
    Finally, a policeman stood there, all in blue.
    What happened, he said.
    John pointed violently toward the sea.
    My Mary’s lost overboard three hours out.
    Come on.
    Tell us about it.
    They went to the police station and he sat in a small square yellowpainted room at a bare table facing a policeman with a great wart on his cheek. He examined this defect and his look spiraled into it, just as her body had spiraled toward the bottom, and her soul had spiraled up out of sight, but he saw nothing but filth in the wart; no clean silt, no clear space, no God. The wart moved with the motion of the policeman’s jaw, filthily.
    So what happened, he asked.
    John quivered inside but his voice was steady as he let what happened come out, flow out, like a river.
    She decided to sit on the deck and watch the sunset, he said. I was tired and went below to bed. I came up in the morning and she was gone. Something must have happened in the night; something came and took her; a slip of the foot, a rogue wave, and trip and a fall and a bang on the head. Doesn’t matter, could have been anything. What’s the difference, she’s gone. Mary’s gone.
    That was the gist of the story repeated again and again, the words in different sequences and sometimes added to and sometimes taken away from, but the words came more quickly to push back the pressure; the pressure of accusation coming back at him from the policeman’s filthy writhing mouth.
    How do we know you weren’t responsible?
    How do we know you didn’t get rid of her?
    How can you prove it didn’t happen that way?
    Words filled the air, pressing in.
    But there was the eighth rule; that firefighting equipment is the next thing you must have aboard. The fiery words about him licked at him hotly. It made sense to follow the rule, but he hadn’t. Pressure, pressure; the pressure of the water all about her, the pressure of the words all about him, all three hours out and three miles down; the pressure of sitting in school searching for the answer that would satisfy and make the questions go away and bring out the words they desired to hear—and at last, he must have said them, though they weren’t known to him. The words had become a flow of vomit. But they were at last satisfied.
    All right. We’re sorry for your loss, they said.
    Vomit.
    You’re free to go.
    Vomit.
    But before you go, what else do you know?
    What kind of question was this? What else is there to know—
    Anything that could help us find her body.
    Vomit.
    A void lay before him that no words would fill. He sat at the table knowing that when he finally rose, he’d be on his own. He’d have to face her parents. He’d have to tell them.
    Your daughter is gone—
    Or would the police do this? The police should do this—
    No.
    He had to do this.
    Before he rose, he looked down at the slatted floor of the police station, through the boards, to the grass below. The knife lay there again in the coarse grass of the cemetery. They had found the knife in the cemetery in Bermuda, the last time they had stopped there. It was a sunny Sunday morning; the knife was what was left of someone’s night before.
    Look, he said, pushing it with his foot.
    A kitchen knife. A steak knife.
    Something common found in every kitchen.
    How did it get here, said Mary.
    I don’t know.
    A story wrapped tight around the knife. The cemetery vaults were silent all about them. There were no bodies because they couldn’t be seen. The knife’s story couldn’t be unwrapped because it couldn’t be gripped, torn away, to expose the truth, any more than the slabs of the vaults could be ripped away with his bare hands.
    What more truth was there?
    She was gone.
    The slatted floor covered the knife over again. He sat in the police station again.
    That’s all I know, he sighed.
    She lay deep. On the bottom. Too deep for weeds; the bare silt of the bottom.
    It was all he knew any more.
    The ninth rule had been broken also. They had no jacklines on the boat. You’re always supposed to have jacklines to rig when there’s a chop. A chop, a bounce; like bouncing and grunting happily in a wheelchair during the parade, filled with the moment, one moment after the other, no past, no future; the solution is to be that way.
    Live. Just live. In the moment.
    Like the ill. Like the very, very ill.
    Finally, there being no evidence against him, John was let go, to be alone. He remembered the show he’d seen on TV about the hippos swimming in their long wide pool, and the masses of dung clouding the water.
    You mean I have to go in there, said the new zoo worker.
    It won’t hurt you. Nobody can hurt you. Nothing or nobody can hurt you any more. The hippos swam clouding the water with a constant flow of feces. And the older zookeeper was right; it didn’t hurt him. The water where she was would not be like that, but it was water holding a corpse now, not her, just a corpse like those in the vaults in Bermuda, the three milesof water being the vault, that body that would slowly decompose as the fishes ate it. He went down the steps of the police station and out into the light.
    Lastly, the tenth rule had been broken; you’re supposed to have running lights on your boat, for the night. Lights to sparkle far away in the black signalling there’s life out here, though you can’t see it, it’s out here with blood coursing and heart pounding and hands clenching, standing firmly on deck. But John’s running lights were burnt out, burnt out with grieving over the lack of hands folded in a coffin to kneel by and pray over. He went down to the dock, in the twilight, to his boat, and he took it out, to go over the spot where she went down. He needed to do this before seeing her parents; he needed to do this before seeing anyone. In three hours flying far above he would be, to her, if she were alive and standing down there, arms reaching up toward him.
    Come, she would say.
    Come, she could say.
    Flying far above on the chop, with no jacklines, or running lights, he leapt from the great height as though from a great building, and slowly fell to the hard dry ground at the bottom, and took her by the hand again to start all over, made ecstatic by her regained touch.

Anger Moves

    You know, it’s funny what you think about sometimes. Today this bitch up at the station said something and I started thinking about this guard dog my daddy bought us once named Gemini. Now, why my daddy thought we needed a guard dog, I’ll never know. My daddy was the meanest son of a bitch that ever lived. And when I say that, I mean that with the sincerest respect. My daddy made sure I knew things about this world. That was his responsibility and he took that shit seriously.
    When I was a kid, he’d have me sit in the living room with him while he watched TV and when he finished his beer, he’d have me run into the kitchen to get him another one. Only after a while, he’d start to get a little edgy and it would scare me, you know? I was a just a kid. So when he wasn’t looking, I’d sneak off and hide down in the basement. There was a false wall between the piping and the rest of the cabinet under the sink down there so I’d crawl up under the piping and prop that false wall up against my knee. Eventually, I’d hear my daddy come down looking for me. He’d be pacing and cursing and I’d be praying he didn’t hear that false wall trembling. He would have beat the living hell out of me if he’d found me, but he never did. I guess I was lucky. I’d wait down there until he’d go to sleep and I could always tell when he passed out because the whole house would suddenly go eerily silent like a tornado had come through. Then the next day he wouldn’t even remember he’d been looking for me.
    Now at the time, I didn’t understand what my daddy was doing but now I realize he was just trying to teach me a little respect. Sometimes you got to knock people around a little bit to make them see. I mean I love my momma and all, but Lord Almighty that woman would never listen. My old man always had to beat her ass to keep her straight when all she had to do was follow his instructions. It was really that simple but she was always trying to take away his power. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why he got us a guard dog in the first place. Not to just to keep the bad people out, but to enforce his power inside the house. I mean it got to the point where Gemini was like the physical reminder my daddy was around even when he wasn’t even there.
    And that was the funny thing about my old man. He was always doing things you didn’t expect like when he brought Gemini home. He didn’t tell us he was getting a puppy or nothing. Just brought him home one night and chained him up in the backyard. I was excited because I’d never had a puppy before. I wanted to spoil him but my daddy said if Gemini was going to grow up to be a big tough dog, he needed discipline. So I started out by just shooting little pebbles at him like I’d seen the big kids shoot pebbles into the lake. Only problem was Gemini thought I was playing. So I threw the pebbles harder. I nailed him once real good. He yipped and then he never made the mistake I was playing with him ever again.
    But my old man really made sure Gemini knew who was in charge. Sometimes he’d come home at night and just beat the living hell out of that dog. I’d see the whole thing from my bedroom window upstairs. My daddy would be wailing his fists down on him. He’d kick that dog’s ribs like he was kicking around an old soccer ball. It finally got to the point where Gemini would see my daddy coming and immediately lie down to take the beating. Now that’s how it should be. There shouldn’t ever be any doubt about who is the king of the castle. And the old man enjoyed giving a good beating every now and then. I think it was because he liked to feel the pain as he beat something down. Gives a man a sense of empowerment, you know?
    Anyways, after a while I didn’t pay much attention to Gemini and before I knew it, he’d grown up to be twice as big as me. I wasn’t afraid of him but he sure did look like a mean son of a bitch. One day I was down the street hanging out with a bunch of boys when I looked up and saw Gemini running down the street towards us. It was so weird seeing him outside of the backyard. He looked big and powerful, but he also looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with his new freedom either. I held my ground but the boys I was with, they all scattered. It didn’t take Gemini long to catch up to Wesley Chastain. I never liked Wesley. He was always the pussy-ass tattletale of the neighborhood. He’d apparently made a run for his house which was only a couple of doors down, but when Gemini charged him, he laid Wesley out flat, right on his own front lawn. Wesley started shrieking. He tried to get up, scramble to his feet but Gemini wasn’t going to have it. He grabbed Wesley by the side of his face and shook him. Wesley just screamed louder so Gemini stopped, got a better grip and shook him again. I can still remember Wesley’s mouth as he was screaming. It looked like a perfect “o”. Anyway, Gemini continued shaking Wesley like that until Wesley’s body had gone all limp. His body was silent but I could still hear his screams echoing through the neighborhood. Eventually, his mama shot out of the house and began beating Gemini with a broom but I knew that wasn’t going to do any good. My daddy had given Gemini worse beatings for nothing at all. Finally the fellow from across the street came out with a pistol. He got as close to Gemini as he dared and then fired one shot into the back of Gemini’s head. Gemini’s body went limp right on top of ole Wesley Chastain.
    I must not have seen the rest because everything after that is just real hazy, but I can remember that one incident so clear as if it’s still happening right in front of my face. Isn’t that strange? You know, later one of my teachers asked me if I was happy that monster was gone. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

I Am the Homeless Piece

    I want to be everywhere all at once. I want to be on forever, circulating through every vein. I want to be at rest in glassy pages, hummed and hawed about. I want to feel the currents, to have a home.

    They turned me away from the golden gates, eyeing my rags with distaste. I rang the bell with my dirty index, and they were shocked by my audacity. A tin voice finally answered; I don’t know whose it was. It thanked me for coming, then it told me to leave.

    I am the homeless piece: riding the railways, cinching my belt, blowing into harmonicas. A nip at the bottle, and I feel less lost. A drag at a smoke, and I’m at rest anywhere. My toes wiggle through my shoes. I was just looking for work.

Brian Looney Bio

    Brian Looney was born 12/2/85 and is from Albuquerque, NM. He likes it when Lady Poetry kicks him in the head. The harder the better. Check out his website at Reclusewritings.com.

A Long Drop and a Short Stop

    Victor, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten there. It was as if he’d been catapulted into some strange parallel universe with no recollection of how it happened, everything an amnesiac blur in his mind. But the worst part was, despite the uncanny oddness of his situation, Victor seemed to know the place. His surroundings resembled his old hometown so closely that, for a second, he was sure he was back in Kansas. Tears welled in his eyes as he took it all in. There was Peter’s Pharmacy and Old Man Kelly’s Taxidermy standing juxtaposed in the still night air, and the central park, which had played host to so many town events throughout the years, stretching out before him. Victor, though, even in spite of the disturbing peculiarity of it all, felt truly at home, at peace. It was only after looking around curiously that a real sense of disquiet began to set in.
    “Where the hell am I?” Victor said beneath his breath as he surveyed the town square, trying to pinpoint the source of his unease. The windows of Peter’s Pharmacy were dark, but that wasn’t all that odd, as night had fallen. Still, something didn’t set right. Taking a closer look, Vincent could see the utter blackness beyond the windows, suggesting more of a complete vacancy, an absence of being, rather than just the lights out for the night. Victor gazed upon the thick strands of cobwebs lining the windows of the Taxidermy shop and shuddered, thinking of the army of arachnids that must have spun the intricate tapestry. Even the town square itself seemed empty and foreboding. No sound filled the air, not the faint hum of grasshoppers chirping a late-night song or a slight breeze bleating out atmospheric ambiance. There was nothing. No, not nothing, Victor thought, listening closer, hearing a faint trickle of sound that somehow seemed to be coming more from within his own mind than any other source. It was only a whisper of noise, half-caught, like snippets of conversation heard from a broken radio, but the words were ominous, “...willfully and maliciously...death...” and their grim portent made Victor shiver. A part of him wondered if this was the first stage of insanity. They always hear voices, he thought and then shook his head. As quickly as the words had come, they vanished, leaving Victor wondering if he’d even heard them at all. Probably my mind playing tricks on me, he thought bitterly as he began to walk forward, deeper into the town, wanting to leave the central park and its sinister solitude behind.
    Despite the streetlights, everything seemed impossibly dark. Victor turned from Creek Street to Owl Road and continued on, wishing he could escape this nightmare of a town, desperately hoping that it was all a just dream. He felt like a man trapped in the Twilight Zone, awakening only to find that he was the last person alive. Thoughts along those lines stopped abruptly as he took another corner, coming face-to-face with a very tired and haggard looking old man. The relief Victor felt, knowing he was no longer alone, was dashed instantly as the stranger spoke, “Hey Victor, you miss me?” The elderly man chuckled, a hysterical tinge to his laughter. Victor took a step back as the wizened man moved closer. “Oh, come on now, you couldn’t have forgotten me? Not after everything we’d been through.”
    The beggar’s dark-rimmed eyes, deep-set into sunken sockets, fixed him with a stern look. It took Victor a minute, but he realized he really did know the old panhandler. The recognition, though, only made Victor more terrified and he retreated a step further. “Mr. Jones, is that...is that you? But, how?”
    The beggar laughed again, this time fiercer and harder, and Victor could see flecks of blood on the man’s lips as he spoke. “Well, after Johnny was killed, I didn’t have anyone to help me with the shop so I lost my store.” The recollection of Mr. Jones’ old candy shop tugged hard at Victor’s heartstrings. It was a place where he’d spent many summer days when he was a kid. Victor didn’t have time for remembrance as the man continued on, “I was grieving so hard...and, well, I got TB, and I guess now that’ll take me away, too. But that won’t really be so bad, now will it?” Mr. Jones fixed Victor with a glare that was penetrating, knowing, and suddenly Victor felt very, very afraid.
    Turning quickly, wanting nothing more to do with this strange place or its inhabitants, Victor took off running. The darkness seemed to increase as he went and he could once again feel the cool sting of tears in his eyes. Victor took one corner and then another, finding himself on Paradise street. A bright light split the darkness in the distance and Victor ran to it, hoping it was some miraculous way out, a gateway home or something of the like. Only as Victor drew closer did he realize that the glow he saw wasn’t some portal, but merely the illumination cast from an overly-bright street lamp. Two seconds later Victor noticed the silhouette of shadow in the ray of light, and he looked up. That was when Victor saw it, hanging from the crosspiece of the light. “There’s no way....” Up above him, suspended by a noose, hung a corpse, swaying in the still night air. Like everything else about this strange place, the dead body was all too-familiar. “Gerald?” Victor asked, and even as he spoke, he found himself shocked to see the body shaking, the corpse’s eyes opening and fixing him with a harsh, condemning glare. “...Strung me up and left me to die...” came an accusatory voice, but Victor refused to listen, once again continuing his frantic running.
    Within a few short turns Victor found himself back in the town square. “What the hell...” he said, exasperated, his terror magnifying as he realized the town square, which had been so dead, was now alive with activity. The carefully groomed grass was being torn asunder by hands pawing their way up from the dirt. The vengeful eyes and screaming mouths of corpses emerged from the ground, broken fingernails clawing their way free. Victor had seen this same scene many times on the silver screen, the dead once again coming back to life, but, unlike the movies, this was really happening. Six bodies, riddled and marred with various gunshot wounds emerged from the Earth and immediately they headed in Victor’s direction. He recognized one of them as Johnny, the beggar’s son, and instantly the truth of what was transpiring struck him like a freight train coming at full force. Victor felt paralyzed, his memory returning to him and the horror of it freezing him dead in his tracks. The one he’d identified as Johnny spoke up, sounding eerily like the snippet of sound he’d heard earlier, “...and for the malicious and unrepentant crime of eight counts of first degree murder...” Victor shivered, feeling the weight of the corpses’ gazes upon him.
    Victor turned away, only to see the most familiar face he’d seen in this horrible place staring back at him. “Best friends forever, right?” came the well-known voice. There was a smile on the man’s face that was both sad and malicious and then the person who had been Victor’s closet buddy for years spoke again, “...and for those crimes Victor Abrams Johnson, your sentence is death...” Victor didn’t even had time to respond as cold hands seized him, gripping tight. Victor screamed as he was dragged into the ground, but despite the terror, he knew, deep down, that he was truly home.

    “Oh God,” one of the witnesses said with a kind of reverence.
    “I know,” another said, “Didn’t show any kind of repentance or remorse, even at the end.” The two men stared at the dead man’s feet which had ceased to kick a few seconds before. It had not been a clean fall.
    “A long drop and a short stop is usually enough to make even the most callous bastard rethink their ways,” the first one said, feeling the melancholy vindication that was commonplace in the aftermath of execution.
    “Yeah, but a guy who can gun down seven of his closest friends in cold blood after hanging Gerald, well, that takes a certain kind of sickness,” the other replied.
    “And don’t forget Johnny.”
    “Don’t worry, Mr. Jones, I’ll never forget your son.” They sat there for a second, even as the sheriffs began to usher people out of the execution viewing room. “You know, maybe that old quote Jackson quote about houses fits people too. Some of them are just born bad.”
    Mr. Jones just sat there for a second before picking up his cane. “I don’t know, I really don’t. But I don’t think anyone is beyond salvation if they ask for it.”
    “Yeah,” the other man said solemnly, “but you just said it. It’s a matter of asking for it.” Neither said another word as they made their way out of a place of death, feeling like they were carrying a piece of it with them as they went, but knowing, that at least now, some things could be put to rest.

portions of the novel
Some Other Place

Chapter 6

    She was a sharecropper’s daughter. And if he hadn’t happened to be making some odd deliveries that week, he may never have seen her at all. Her family had moved into town from the country for the fathers and brothers to do hiring-out work. From the outside, the unpainted house looked just the noticeable bit larger and better constructed than the usual shotgun. There was an additional room, besides the kitchen, and a full back porch. What an onlooker couldn’t see was that both these areas had floors that had fallen through to the ground and settled there, now at home in the soil.
    Winslow hitched up and drove in each morning that week, taking a slow pace, his senses pleasurably absorbed. Fall was his favorite season. The days were still warm, but it was cool enough at night by that time that the chill threw up an early mist over the fields. Cattle along the road peered at him in the morning, with some blank but expectant expression, out of what seemed to be white, empty space. He drove into the city limits through the colored section, although being on business, he didn’t strictly have to do it that way. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have noticed the house. But he knew there were women. Young women. These he watched, going and coming. And he overheard the laughter. It was a pretty sound, women laughing together. Womanhood delighted Winslow. And Winslow, at that time in his life, delighted womankind. A tallish, slim fellow with neat little mustache and short beard. Winslow shaved the area around his mouth, so that the beard was little more than an accent. His mouth was large–and so fine, it could have almost been said to be feminine. He had a self-confidence about him—he was an outstanding dancer. He also sang. And he had all the manners of a gentleman—which came easily enough, because Winslow genuinely liked women. He charmed his own mother, did little favors for Birdie. And in turn, the two of them doted on him. For a fact, women were among the finer things of life, by Winslow’s lights. The finest, even. All of them pleased him. But not one of them had ever moved him, in some way that he was waiting to be moved.
    When he passed by in the wagon, Winslow watched for the three young women, distinguished from one another to him at first only by the color of their clothes. Later he would learn that Clarice was the one that often wore the pink blouse—actually, close up, it was red and white striped. There were four of them, it appeared. The three oldest seemed to be around the same age—Mittie, Elvira, and Clarice, he would learn. Then there was Jewel, the much younger one, whom the older ones spoiled and pampered, generally preoccupying themselves with. On the day Winslow first heard the laughter, they had pulled a table into the yard, for the laundry. They were, all three of them, at the pump, with a whole lot of splashing and squealing. It was obvious that all the to-do wasn’t necessary.
    He had noticed that it was the one with the pink blouse who most often came out to the mailbox. He had the definite intention of making the acquaintance of all four of them, but he hadn’t yet decided exactly how to go about it. But Winslow had been hungry on a particular afternoon, had stopped his horse, and taken the notion to walk a few blocks past that house to a nearby store, for a can of sardines and some crackers. So he saw her that first time at the mailbox. Clarice had turned around at the sound of somebody walking. And Winslow didn’t remember if he had actually stopped, or if it only felt like he had. Everything else stopped. There was no one other thing for that moment in time but this woman. Just the look of her. Her face. Although it wasn’t so much the face in itself, which was usual enough, even nondescript; Winslow saw mainly her eyes, which seemed to feel their way deep into his. The eyes were dark and moist as blackberries. And the set of the eyebrows was peculiar—they were straight, but tilted upward slightly toward the bridge of her nose. It gave her face a questioning—to Winslow, a heartfelt—sort of expression. The eyes moved him—the expression in them moved him. Winslow had stared so hard that Clarice was for a few moments frozen, like an animal caught in the glare of a headlight. Was it a matter of seconds—or whole minutes? Winslow didn’t know. He passed on without speaking to her, a thing which wasn’t like him. He was shaken and pleased in some way that was new.
    But he was also, from that instant, determined. He made it his business each day that week to drive by the house, while it was still too early for him to be noticed by anyone in her household. He had nothing that he could give her, with the exception of a bird’s nest. A tiny and round perfect thing, that he had kept for years. He left it for her in the mailbox.
    In the mornings, now, the thought of her was with him the minute he woke. He dawdled his way to the wood shed. He took the long way into town, a sunken dirt road, where there was an overhang of leaves, just slightly touched with color. The change of season, alone, could have put Winslow into a mild delirium—that much he loved the Fall. The air had that touch of new Winter in the mornings. Even more new and special, now, because of her. Winslow moved through his days with all the significance of a man possessed of a secret gladness. He told no one; it was a thing of too much importance to tell, this discovery. He had found her. Out of all days, on one particular afternoon, he had found her. At an everyday spot on the edge of a street. He tormented himself to think that he could have just as easily missed her instead of finding her.

    “Your name?”
    “I be Clarice.” She looked down.
    Clarice. Not something ordinary, like Clara. But Clarice. A beautiful word.
    Neither one of them moved. Then Winslow had taken a step at the same time that Clarice did, and this little trifle made both of them laugh.
    “Beg pardon.”
    Clarice brought her hand to her mouth. There was a special attractiveness to Winslow in a shy woman.
    He had always been one for joking—as a rule, Winslow jollied around when he flirted. But right away he discovered he couldn’t do this with Clarice. She made him quiet. Solemn, almost.
    “Be all right if I call on you, Clarice?”
    She had smiled and moved her head—almost ducked it. A gesture he would come to know well.
    He would call on her, then. Which meant, of course, in a sense, that he would call on all four of them. With the others he would do the usual teasing and carrying-on. But then, the others seemed to know when to drift away, even the youngest one, Jewel. He was for Clarice– when they had feared that there would be no one for Clarice! And with Clarice he was different, because she made him feel things that were new. It was in nothing particular that she did—Winslow was aware of that, from the first; but he was in no mind to ask himself questions. What she made him feel was that hard-to-say thing he had waited for, imagined, wanted to happen. A thing very close, he thought with surprise, to some kind of reverence. It seemed fitting to Winslow that his courtship should take place in the Fall, when all the world sang its lapse into Winter. The two of them sat together toward the side of the house where he had first heard the girls laughing. Light lay over the yard like a patina. All of it touched with this same, unexpected new-like feeling. He liked to sit with her as the afternoon faded into dark.
    He was a talker. She wasn’t. And this—he wouldn’t admit it until much later—was his first small disappointment. His love for conversation, however, had been noted with great relief. At first the sisters had knotted at the side of the house, tense with apprehension. Would it be all right? Would she ruin it all? They collectively held their breath. And gradually each had begun to breathe freely again. At some point they abandoned the eavesdropping altogether. He was a talker, this one–and what a talker! How fortunate for Clarice that he was also mannerly and good-looking. Enough so that one or two of the others may have found herself contriving her own flirtation. If it had been any of them but Clarice. No. Never a thing like that, where Clarice was concerned–she could never have taken care of herself.
    For his own part, Winslow had thought that when he got her away to himself, away from all of the sisters, or when she had time to get past her shyness, then she would talk; and he would listen. He looked forward to listening to Clarice. Clarice sat very still. She could sit at any length, it seemed, with her hands lying in her lap, to listen or wait—whatever was required of her. But Winslow was a talker who, for all his love of it, knew just as well how to listen. So Winslow, too, waited. He couldn’t have said, then, exactly for what. At last it had happened, he felt, that he, she, could unburden their hearts—although there was nothing in Winslow’s heart at that time but contentment to unburden. And she would understand him in some way that no one else had ever been able to. But it didn’t happen that way. He talked to her, instead, about little things. And that pleasured him. Everything pleasured him—he was foolishly, deliriously, in love. His stories were for the most part simple or silly stories, and those made her laugh. He felt a jump in his heart at her laughter. He’d talk to her about little nothing sorts of things, some ordinary sight he had seen. Sometimes Clarice just looked back at him, as though she were waiting for him to get to the point. Animals had always amused Winslow; and he blandly assumed at that time that any amusement of his would appeal to her, too. Had she ever noticed, he wondered, the expression on a calf’s face when it suckled, little head bobbing up and down so fast. Grateful-looking—looked outright grateful, it did. Then the squint-eyed, patient look of the mother while she stood there, waiting for it all to be over. For a fact, animals had a right way about things that human kind didn’t seem to have. Clarice looked at him blankly, then.
    She could have been interested in gossip. But Winslow wasn’t. And he didn’t understand the difference, yet, between gossip and talk about people. People had interested Winslow since he was a boy. Had she ever noticed that old Mr. and Mrs. Givens looked about enough alike to be twins? She wasn’t interested. And there was that young couple who’d had to take a house right next to the Mack’s store, which was at the end of a run-down block for whites. That story seemed to interest her a little. Winslow was touched by the little signs of settling in that the young wife made, the one-piece curtains, the geraniums set out in a lard can. Something about its being their first place to themselves—a sad, gray little place, but theirs, all the same. But Clarice had lost interest, when she realized there was nothing more rewarding to hear. And Winslow was interested in far more than just talk. Her breasts were still of course forbidden him; he could imagine the luxurious softness of them under his hand. But he knew he would have to wait. He would have liked to take little tastes from a spot on her neck just beneath her ear—which by itself worked its influence on Winslow.
    It astonished him, later, that even young as he was, he hadn’t required something more. Clarice was more predictable than any child.
    “You be foolin’.” “Have mercy!” “Well, then.” For the most part, these were her replies to whatever he had to offer. But Winslow found her quietness fitting. And so they conversed like this, quietly, back and forth, while the Fall noise of crickets twisted through the air like the sound of birds twittering. When Clarice did talk to him, it was a little breathily, as if she were relishing her bit of news or just recovering from the flurry of it—there was always a flurry, with the sisters. She spoke of little domestic events, generally. And at those times when Winslow’s look grew too intense, she ducked her head. Her life to Winslow seemed simple and good, in the way that bread was simple and good.

    But why was he carried back to all of this, now? Winslow wondered what had set him off, remembering—he considered that he’d long ago worn all of it out. He suspected that it had something to do with his talks with the Jemson fellow, the fellow being so different and all. And being white, free to do just what he wanted. It thrilled Winslow a little to think of that, being a young man like that, white and free and able to do pretty much anything. He had suspected at first that the fellow had a sweetheart, back in Mobile. Maybe that idea had done it, started him off on the thoughts that led back to Clarice.
    Winslow moved around the barn with his thinking. But he wasn’t absentminded, for all his revery. He had milked Buttercup, who had just calved and had to be milked morning and evening. He’d carefully soaped and sponged the teats, as he always did, talking to the cow as he worked. Dick and Doc needed their evening ration of fodder. For all his denial of it, Winslow knew good and well that Doc kicked, and kicked hard—he wouldn’t let anyone else go near the mule. It was agreeable to Winslow to be alone with his animals. And he’d always liked the smell of the barn—he kept his stalls clean. He kept his tools greased and ranged—there was a repair shed that opened up as a lean-to, near the stalls. Winslow had put in some rough shelving; and at the end of one row, there was a single decorated square tin. Bag Balm, it was called. A pretty little enameled green box with a cow’s head and red clover flowers on top. It sat on the shelf next to the shed wall, where no one would ever touch it. And it no longer contained liniment, but was lead-like with coins. Nellie’s piano lesson money, Winslow told himself.
    The barn dimmed, as the light began to drain from the afternoon. Along with the odor of hay, there was the bitter and homey scent of wood smoke, drifting out from the kitchen. He couldn’t smell what was cooking. They were simple, competent cooks, Birdie and Clarice. They made no effort to do anything different or out-of-the-way—but Winslow had never minded that. Birdie was a manager, more than she was one for domestic flourishes. Their mother had been one for the special touches, when she could manage them. Winslow remembered with particular affection the way she’d take the trouble to crack and pick hickory nuts. But she was, for the most part, a plain country woman. She’d had a fondness for the color yellow—a fondness they liked to tease her about. But all of them remembered. And one Christmas they’d bought her a string of amber beads, which she loved above all things. Winslow remembered catching his mother at times on an afternoon wearing the beads to do housework. He’d make a point of noticing that small fact in such a way that his mother would smile self-consciously and touch the beads. She liked a little bit of sunshine, she explained.
    Then, that other time with Clarice was suddenly with him again–when he thought he had beaten it down. Driven it out.
    Clarice never seemed to have had any such special fondnesses—he couldn’t imagine why that was so. When they were first married, he had looked forward to discovering the little mysteries of how she lived. What her nightclothes looked like, the way she might unbraid and rebraid her hair, whatever little trinket she might have that especially pleased her. But there were no such things, no little gestures to hang a picture or memory on. Clarice simply did whatever it was she thought she should do. With no complaint about it—he couldn’t reproach her for that. The fact was that he couldn’t reproach her for anything, which was why his long anger against her had at first so confused him. The thing of it, he figured at last, was that she seemed to have no special fondness for him, either—beyond that gentle, absent sort of affection that she had for the children. Winslow sighed, without even realizing that he’d drawn the breath. It was long gone, now, all the questioning. At one time it had driven him half mad.
    “Do you love me, Clarice?” He remembered.
    “Why, Winnie—.” She was hemming a blanket for one of the babies. She stared, her hands dropped to her lap.
    When would that have happened? Not during the first years—he hadn’t realized yet, then. Winslow had stayed on in town, to work at the ice house. They’d rented a little house around the corner from her family’s place. There was so much going and coming with all the sisters–who seemed oddly protective—and so many family meals, that maybe they’d been too crowded at first for him to realize. There were also Clarice’s brothers, Obie and Dewitt, who dropped in on Winslow—he was fond of them. And there was his own family. He was wild for the nights, when he could have Clarice all to himself—he lost any semblance of thought then. And Clarice wasn’t withholding. She was generous—kind, because it was her nature to be kind; to have been otherwise would have cost her an effort. And the babies had started right away. He remembered, with the first one, imagining the baby inside Clarice’s just slightly distended belly, which he kissed all over, like he would have the baby, itself. He loved the very blood that moved under her skin, her breath, her taste, every bodily thing about her. Being good with a tune; he sang little foolish love songs, in those days, to Clarice.
    If I had a nickel, I tell you what I’d do. He was a man made right and whole. I’d spend it all on candy, and give it all to you.
    Clarice was good with the babies. As she’d been affectionate, devoted even, with her sisters. He remembered being moved by her fondness for the others, especially the youngest one, whom she touched often, on the face or the sleeve. She was gentle and easy with the children. Again, he saw that same touch to a face, a collar or sleeve. But he could never recall, once he began to listen for it, hearing her actually converse with any of them. She was a presence. They were a presence. In the beginning, her silences had made her seem special—she didn’t just give herself away, cheap. Or so he had thought.
    Then there was that night when it came clear to him, when Winslow found himself sitting alone in the wagon, sitting and wondering. He was outside the Kilbourne house, waiting to drive them around the corner to home. Clarice and the children were still inside. One of them, Roland maybe—he couldn’t remember—had a birthday. There’d been a cake and a whole lot of fuss, laughter and noise making. Winslow remembered that he was cold; he’d started to shiver a bit, there on the seat. But his stomach was hot. He had realized. And he didn’t know what to do about what he had realized. He was as good as alone. That empty place inside him that had wanted her—she didn’t fill it up. He wasn’t comforted; he was wanting. And she didn’t see him. It came to Winslow that she didn’t actually hear him or see him. He was just one more human object that crossed her line of vision. He was a fact of life for her. A circumstance. She didn’t know him or recognize him. Another person altogether could have slipped into his skin; she wouldn’t have known the difference. Just as later, when he had ceased to love her, she didn’t know that difference, either.
    No. There was no reproach he could make. There was nothing in particular that she had done against him. To the rest of the world she would have seemed a good and gentle creature. She was no doubt spoken of as shy, Winslow once reflected. Only Winslow knew. She wasn’t shy. She was vacant. He thought he had loved a woman; but there was no woman there, in the way he had wanted a woman. It came to him later that there was no fault involved—nobody at fault, that is, but himself. For being too stupid in love to have seen her as she truly was. Blind fool, he had been, to have come to her, like he had. Had always been a plumb fool, he thought now, where his feelings were concerned–he couldn’t have said whether or not other men had such strong feelings. Why, to look at him, Winslow Wright, the farmer, no one would have ever suspected. Yet he sometimes had a vague sense of himself as a man in some ways set apart. He’d shame himself, though, for this feeling—there was no cause for it; Winslow would have described himself as the most ordinary of men. An aging colored man of no consequence. But about his daughter, Nellie, he could indulge himself. Now, there was one that was not ordinary. Loved her he would have, even if she had been ordinary; because she was his own. But no, his girl was special–marked, even. And for her, things would be different. It was an important word: different. He couldn’t have said, even, exactly what it would entail. In some way, she had a natural right to what he would not have dared lay claim to for himself–nor any of his race hope to lay claim to. But life would give itself, in armfuls, to Nellie. She would have what she wanted, in whatever way that was possible. He would see to it that she did.

The Pane Glass War
Our Government at Work

Prologue

    It all began quietly and without undue fanfare. Senator Al Ways Waist, chairman of the Congressional Armed Services Committee, added a paragraph to the annual appropriations bill, requiring the military to evaluate the use of reinforced window panes for border security, arguing that this approach would not only seal off the border but also allow the military to still see what the enemy was doing on the other side. The paragraph also stipulated that the window panes must conform to the specifications of Pane Glass, a company located in Senator Waist’s home state and best known for its slogan, “You don’t know what real pane is until you use one of our products”.

Eight Months Later

    General Mishap climbed from the armored vehicle, surveyed the huge nine foot tall by eighty-two foot long glass glistening in the sunshine, and frowned.
    “Major, it’s damn hard to see what the enemy is doing with that glare,” he growled.
    Major Problems hustled over and handed him an elaborate pair of goggles. “The Combat Innovations and Toilet Design Center developed these. The wearer has a clear view, because it flushes away the glare. We ordered one million of them in case we become engaged in combat. I’ve also brought in an additional combat company to reinforce our current token force. You can see them marching up the road now to take defensive positions.”
    “Excellent planning, major. How much enemy activity have we seen?”
    “Surprisingly, none up to now.”
    “That’s worrisome. They would hide only if they are planning a sneak attack.”
    A soldier came running up. “Sir, the enemy is moving troops onto the other side of the glass barrier.”
    “Get your one tank up to the barrier and have it point its gun toward the enemy as it moves back and forth along the barrier.” General Mishap commanded. “We’ll shove a show of force in their face.”
    Major Problems looked admiringly at General Mishap. “They’re doing exactly what you predicted, Sir. And you don’t hesitate to respond with action.”
    “That’s why I’m a general and not the president. All right, soldier, what do they have?”
    “We see one armored vehicle and a group of soldiers marching toward the barrier.”
    A moment later, the soldier shouted. “Sir, our observer has spotted an enemy tank on our left side.” Then he shouted again. “The observer in the middle has also spotted a tank.” His voice quivered. “And now one has been seen on the right.”
    “They have us outgunned.” General Mishap muttered. “What are their troops doing and how many do they have?”
    “Still marching toward the barrier,” the soldier replied. “Our observer estimates about the equivalent of a company in size. Also, the middle observer and left observer have seen another tank. But there’s something strange about their troops. The observer says they look very similar to our soldiers.”
    “Damn.” General Mishap growled. “Terrorist infiltrators. That’s a prelude to a major assault.” He punched a number on his cell phone. “This is General Mishap. Prepare for an air strike and deployment of an airborne division immediately. I’ll give you more details shortly.”
    “I’m deploying our new combat company into position for battle.” Major Problems shouted. “Those enemy bastards won’t get past us without a lot of casualties.”
    “The enemy is also deploying into attack position,” the soldier called out.
    “Get the fighter bombers in the air now and the airborne division headed toward us.” General Mishap shouted into his cell phone.
    Another soldier rushed up. “I figured out what’s happening.”
    Major Problems glared at him. “Sergeant, we’re in the middle of high level decisions here. Get back to your squad and fight for your country. Leave the big decisions to the men chosen to lead their troops.”
    “But this is important, Sir,” the sergeant persisted.
    “It better be,” the major growled.
    “The barrier shield is not a pane of glass. It’s a mirror.” the sergeant gasped.
    Major Problems glared. “Are you insane? You think I’ve been here for a month guarding this border and didn’t notice that it was a mirror? We ordered a pane of glass, not a mirror. It was certified and accepted by the General Accounting Office. In fact, a bonus was paid for delivering it only two months late and less than twenty percent over budget.”
    “But look at it, Sir.” The sergeant motioned toward the barrier. “It shows you and me standing here. It shows General Mishap. Every time our tank passes by, the observer reports another enemy tank.”
    Major Problems turned toward the general. “By God, he’s right. Everything that we thought was enemy activity were just reflections of us. None of it is actually happening. We almost launched a war for the wrong reasons. What a disaster that would have been.”
    “That’s not the real disaster,” General Mishap replied. “The real disaster is that we don’t know what the enemy behind that barrier is actually doing. We could be face to face with the greatest threat of this decade and not even know it.”
    “Oh wow,” the major said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “That’s why you’re not a general,” General Mishap replied.
    General Mishap paced back and forth in front of the barrier. “We need to somehow determine what the enemy is doing on the other side.”
    “I’ll walk around the end of the barrier panel and look,” offered the sergeant.
    The general shook his head. “No. That’s exactly the provocation they’re trying to trick us into. They’ll launch an attack, saying we invaded them first. I’ll rush through an emergency authorization to build an observation tower.”
    The sergeant stepped up to the major again. “One of our men has been on the other side of the barrier. They were playing pitch and catch and the ball rolled past the barrier. He went to retrieve it.”
    Major Problems scowled. “Without my authorization? I’ll court martial the bastard. He’s just lucky he didn’t provoke a war. Bring him here.”
    “He’s in the medical tent. He was injured while on the other side, but he says he saw activity.”
    “They tried to kill him, but he fought his way back,” General Mishap said. “Fought his way back, despite terrible injuries, to bring us vital information. I want to talk to that brave soldier.”
    The major nodded. “The man deserves a medal.”
    In the tent, General Mishap shook the soldier’s hand. “The doctor says you’re going to live.”
    “Yeah,” the soldier replied. “I twisted my ankle when I stepped in a hole. They were digging a lot of holes.”
    “Probably for burying land mines,” the major said.
    “Or for missile silos,” General Mishap replied. “Okay, soldier, tell us anything you can about the people there.”
    “They said they were members of a WMD team.”
    The general grimaced. “They openly admitted they were working on Weapons of Mass Destruction?”
    “No, Sir,” the soldier replied. “They said they were members of the Wholesome Meals Dieticians team and were planting vegetables and potatoes.”
    “Clever subterfuge, but we’re not falling for that old story.” General Mishap punched in a number on his cell phone. “This is General Mishap. I need to talk to the President immediately. I know he’s always in meetings with Congressional leaders on deficit reduction, debt ceiling, and tax increase crap, but this is urgent.”
    He scowled. “Well, if he’s not in the meeting, why can’t I talk to him now?”
    He listened and then growled. “He certainly has a telephone in there. We are facing a major military confrontation and I need authorization to fight back now.”
    He waited a moment, listened, and then replied. “I’ve had the same problem, Mr. President. Prunes always worked best for me. We’ve just uncovered a covert operation by a foreign enemy to launch Weapons of Mass Destruction against us. The damage to cities, loss of lives, and disruption of sports programs could be astronomical. They always blame the President when that happens. So I want to launch a full scale invasion now, before they can finish their preparations.”
    He listened again and then turned to the major. “He wants to know which country we’re talking about. He says if it’s Mexico, it could cost him a lot of the Hispanic vote.”
    The major shrugged. “I don’t know which country it is. They just sent me here to guard the border where the glass barrier had been erected. Never told me who it was protecting us from. But it’s been expensive for the soldiers to get illegal drugs and contractors say they can’t find cheap labor.”
    The general shifted his attention back to the cell phone. “It’s not Mexico. I’ll have to get back to you on who it is. But I need first strike war approval now.”
    He listened and then replied. “I know they say you can’t authorize going to war without the approval of Congress. But I plan on a surge that will overwhelm the enemy. It will all be over before your political opponents have time to protest. Once we’ve won the war, you’ll be praised as the gutsy President whose quick action saved the nation from a looming WMD catastrophe, rather than an inept politician who continues to dodge difficult national deficit decisions.” He leaned over toward the major and whispered. “George W. was my kind of President. Just say WMD and he’d have bombers in the air. His father was a good President but wanted to know who we’re going to destroy before he approved it. This one figures if he talks long enough, either the problem will go away or someone else will figure out what to do or he’ll find some group to blame.”
    He shifted back to the cell phone, listened, and then replied.. “I figure somewhere between ten billion and five-hundred billion dollars. And we’ll commit to bringing home thirty thousand troops before the end of the year. That’s not a problem. We simply send forty thousand more than we need. Let me remind you again, Mr. President, this war could make you look like a real leader rather than an indecisive wimp.”
    “Thank you, Mr. President.” General Mishap punched off his cell phone and turned to the major. “The President says go do it. We can’t openly take the credit, but you and I both know that we made it possible for the United States to fight another war.”
    He started to leave the tent and then turned back to Major Problems. “Find out which country is on the other side of the barrier. The President says the damn news media will harass him until he tells them who we’ve gone to war with.”

Two Months Later

    The President toured Fresno, California, telling the shocked residents that the federal government would move quickly to help them rebuild their city, devastated by the preemptive surge attack. General Mishap continued to insist that he misunderstood Major Problems message, thinking he said France instead of Fresno. If it had been France, those wimps would have surrendered the first week, the General added.
    At the Rio Grande River, the Texas Border Patrol commander stepped up to the podium and gazed out at the mass of news media people and illegal immigrants selling tacos. “I’m pleased to announce that the leftover barrier panes installed along our border have greatly enhanced our ability to block both illegal aliens and drug smuggling. In the past two weeks alone, we have apprehended four busloads of illegals while they were stopped at the barrier to allow the women to comb their hair and put on lipstick. Also, a heavily armed group of Mexican Cartel drug smugglers ended up in a furious three hour battle with a seemingly equivalently armed border patrol. They finally fled in disarray, having two men killed trying to rush the border guards with a flame thrower, and another nine injured by ricocheting bullets. I must say that all of us are impressed by the amazing ability of those barriers to withstand brutal punishment. The CEO of Pane Glass said the pane material was originally developed as part of an effort to supply glass to the “IN CASE OF FIRE, BREAK GLASS AND PULL LEVER” market. While the unfortunate burning down of three apartment buildings limited their profitability in that business, it ended up being a godsend for the military and the border patrol. We believe the heavy losses sustained in the battle by the Cartel will make them abandon efforts to move drugs across our border. So you dumbass Californians better put up a similar border or you’re going to have a lot of traffic. ”
    His speech was interrupted by an officer of the Sierra Club, who called installation of the barrier panes a potential environmental disaster. “Because of hungry illegal aliens crossing the border, the Mexican Turtle and Hacienda Snail are already on the Endangered Species list,” he shouted. “Now those turtles and snails face the added danger of smashing head-on into the barrier. Additionally, the EPA reports a big increase in the number of rattlesnakes with severe headaches. This data can only be explained by acceleration in global warming.”
    In related news, the Supreme Court released its eagerly anticipated decision on the legality of the new Arizona law encouraging police officers to check the immigration status of Hispanic women with neatly combed hair and well applied lipstick. In a 7 to 6 decision, the justices voted along ideological lines that the law was legal. At a hastily called press conference, the Chief Justice denied reports that a fight had erupted when Justice Scalia slapped Justice Elena Kagan with the right wing of a roasted turkey and she retaliated by clobbering him with the far left side of a union picket sign.
    At the press conference, the Chief Justice was interrupted by the Sixty Minutes CBS anchorman. “Do you think that American news media is too stupid at math to suspect the supposed 7 to 6 vote? You only have nine justices. So how could you end up with an even dozen votes?”
    The anchorman went on to say that Sixty Minutes had just taped a scathing expose of the Supreme Court’s strange vote total. To give the program strong credibility, they had brought in Professor N. Competent, Dean Of Lots Of Things at the Diploma Duplication University in the Cayman Islands. Professor N. Competent has a wall lined with doctoral degrees from seven Ivy League schools, Stanford University, Notre Dame, and Phoenix Correspondence School. Additionally, he was a 2009 Nobel Prize winner for his groundbreaking thesis confirming the theory that ‘Complex data is easier to understand if you write down the conclusions before studying the information’.
    The Chief Justice leaned over the top of the podium. “Your problem is that you used the wrong expert. This is a legal matter and only a lawyer could provide the proper critique. All nine justices graduated from Ivy League universities with degrees in law. Thus we represent the absolute pinnacle of legal brilliance. If you had consulted a similar expert, he would tell you this. A vote of 7 to 6 is a total of...” he paused to punch in numbers on his handheld calculator. “...thirteen. In all legal cases, lawyers receive thirty percent of whatever is there. That leaves...” he punched in more numbers. “...seventy percent for everyone else. Seventy percent of thirteen is 9.1, statistically matching the total of the nine Supreme Court Justices votes.”
    The Chief Justice smiled as murmurs of awe came from the crowd. “Now you understand why we insist that all judges at all meaningful levels must be lawyers. Otherwise, the entire legal system would collapse into chaos. That would destroy our fundamental right to have lengthy, seemingly endless trials; for criminals to go free based on vague legalities; to make all documents and legislation voluminous and incomprehensible; and for lawyers to get rich from frivolous lawsuits.”
    In other news, the President again refuted allegations of the Republican leadership that he had “grimaced and rudely walked out of the three hundred and twenty second meeting on deficit reduction”. He had merely made a necessary trip to the restroom as a result of considerable pruning over the past two days. He quickly reassured anxious senior citizens, government employees, and big contributors that his use of the word pruning referred to a personal need and certainly did not mean he was now going to reduce the rapidly increasing federal government spending.
    MSNBC said that a survey of their staff indicated that seventy percent of them strongly supported the President’s explanation. Twenty-eight percent said they couldn’t give an answer until they determined whether the current president was a wonderful dedicated liberal or a mean right wing extremist conservative. MSNBC said it was dealing with those who knew the political status of the current President but still said the President was wrong.
    Fox News Network said that their poll showed seven out of eight people blamed the President for the lack of progress on deficit reduction. Realizing that they had somehow queried a Democrat, they revised the poll to show seven out of seven.
    The Atlanta public school system reported that providing a federal government tutor to help students during standardized tests had virtually eliminated cheating by teachers and had also slightly increased test scores. The director of the Federal Education Department said those encouraging results meant they would use this approach in their Every Child Shoved Ahead Regardless Of Capability program, with a goal of having seventy percent of all students scoring above average on federal tests by 2020. “I know that many of you say it is impossible to have seventy percent scoring above average,” she continued, “but we firmly believe it can be done in just..uh..whatever number of years there are between 2011 and 2020.”

Epilogue

    The President expressed pleasure at the quick rebuilding effort in Fresno during a brief trip away from the daily debt reduction/tax increase/government spending cuts meetings with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders. Before flying out for Washington, he also told workers to remove the “Mission Accomplished” banner still fluttering from the gutted city hall and presented a medal to the soldier who first notified his commanding officer that they were attacking a place in California. That information was rushed quickly through the Pentagon, resulting in an end to the attacks seventeen days later.
    Asked by the news media how he knew it was California, the soldier, Private Dudley, said he noticed that there were Medical Marijuana Stores on virtually every street corner. His commander was initially dubious. But the commander believed him after Dudley pointed out the one billion dollar public school system elementary school with plush swimming pools, gourmet cafeterias, a mini Disneyland, and imported Italian marble hallways; all designed to make students want to stay in school. Some had already been in the elementary school for nine years, proof of the idea’s merit. The pending bankruptcy of the city as two more schools were being built was attributed to the refusal of voters to triple the city tax.
    Asked how his tank managed to be the first to break through the defenses and reach the center of the city, Dudley said he realized that, with three of them in the tank, they could use the Carpool Lane. He chuckled as he related watching his gunner spot a man alone in a car, a clear violation of Carpool Lane rules. “Always hated those cheaters,” the gunner said, as he blew the car over eight lanes of the congested, deadstop freeway. “The only delay we encountered,” Dudley said, “was when I stopped after plowing through a traffic jam, to push the crushed vehicles aside so others behind me could continue into the city. I did it because I felt kinda bad that I was texting while driving the tank and didn’t see the traffic jam until I had already hit it.”
    In another texting-related incident, the President returned from another pruning-related trip to find all the congressmen from both parties gone, except for one New York Democrat who was busy texting and didn’t notice everyone had left. When questioned by the press as to what was so important to text, he said he was briefing the National Defense Center. Shortly afterwards, a high school student working on a class computer assignment inadvertently hacked into the National Defense Center secret files and discovered that the congressman’s briefing was actually a series of pictures of himself in Michael Jordan briefs sent to all the women employees. The Congressman said that he had not intended for them to receive the pictures. He was actually putting them on Facebook, but for some reason Facebook forwarded them into the top secret files of the National Defense Center. Congressmen in both parties expressed outrage at the computer breach, declaring that Facebook needed to get their computer system straightened out so that it didn’t keep hacking into confidential government files.
    After walking out of the meeting, Congressman Bonehead, majority leader for the Republicans, again reiterated their proposal to cut spending by five trillion dollars over the next ten years, beginning with ten billion the first year and rapidly escalating by making some kind of significant reductions in spending, to be determined sometime in the future. The Sixty Minutes anchorman announced that their program would do a scathing expose of that proposal. They would again draw on a world renowned expert, Professor Diddily Squat, Dean of Economics and Heroin Procurement, at Afghanistan Pollyanna Tech. Professor Diddily Squat won a Nobel Prize for his brilliant thesis “My Economics Program, based on having everyone work for the government, will assure that every nation will have balanced budgets, economic growth, and well being for all citizens”. Greece was the first to put Diddily Squat’s plan into action seven years ago. Spain and Italy adopted many parts of the program two years later. When told that all three nations were currently bankrupt, Professor Diddily Squat declared that the countries had only reached having 50% of their people working for the government and that they needed to quickly escalate to 100% to avoid further fiscal problems. When asked about the Sixty Minutes program, Congressman Bonehead replied, “I don’t know Diddily Squat, but stand firmly behind this proposal.” The proposal was developed at a Tee Party meeting, where they were distributing tee shirts with the slogan, “No matter how bad things are, government run by the Tee Party can make things worse”. Later, a Tee Party representative claimed that the last word was supposed to be “work” rather than “worse”. He said the mistake was made because of language misinterpretation by the Bangladesh company that manufactured the tee shirts. The Tee Party promised to furnish, free of charge, MarksALot crayons produced in China ,so people could cover up the wrong word and write in the correct one. They also began distributing tee shirts with the “Buy American” slogan.
    Meanwhile, Al Gore praised Santa Claus for trying his proposal to switch from using a sleigh drawn by reindeer to a GM all electric Volt. He admitted that the frequent stops to recharge the Volt had slowed down the delivery of gifts to children, but that Santa Claus insisted he would be finished delivering no later than mid March. Santa Claus said Gore’s addition of a solar panel on top of the Volt had not helped since he only delivered at night. Gore said it was unfortunate that there wasn’t a full moon on Christmas Eve. He proposed having two air force B-47 planes circling above the Volt at all times with large electrical batteries and long extension cords so that the Volt could be recharged while in flight. ”I’m just trying to save the planet,” he commented.
    In a surprise move, the President and Congressman Bonehead announced an agreement to resolve the debt limit increase/government spending/deficit reduction impasse at the conclusion of the six hundred and thirty-second meeting. The President will accept Bonehead’s proposal, which would lead to a rapid reduction in the national debt by 2050. In exchange, Congressman Bonehead agreed to the President’s proposal to add three-thousand new government administrators, authorized to hire as many additional employees as needed to drive a relentless program aimed at reducing government spending and excess manpower.
    When interviewed by the news media, most taxpayers said the results of the legislation would be similar to the results of the President’s pruning.

g’ joob g’ goo—goo g’ joob
(I am the egg-man, ooh they are the egg-men, ooh)

    In his final moments as President, George W. Bush sits in the Oval Office listening to A Whiter Shade of Pale. The headphones are new, a gift from a corporate contributor he can’t name, and he’s thinking that the song is coming through clearer than it ever has before—the Hammond organ speaking to him in a way it was meant to; and he wishes he’d really listened when the song first came out, in another year, when it’s message was clear and present.
    The song that precedes it is Midnight Hour and the one that follows is Louie, Louie. Neither brings comfort to him, though the former seems a thing that can be addressed with swift and appropriate action, while the latter has an ephemeral quality less likely to show up on the infrared sensors or answer to satellite-guided instruction.
    As the helicopter lifts off from the White House lawn for the last time, George W. Bush still fears the reporters’ constant question: How can he justify his unwavering choice to “stay the course.” Lately his closest associates, those he believes things with, have reflected discredit upon him and called into serious doubt his judgment, his ability to do business. He’s not feeling well liked, even by his most loyal and trusted sycophants. But sitting now beside his wife, he doesn’t want to think about that. Somehow the soft drone of the chopper’s rotors reminds him of the Proco Harem song. He’s feeling sentimental and a little sincere. He takes his wife’s hand.
    “I really want to know what, you know, pleases you,” he says. “Now that we can begin again.”
    “We can’t talk about that here.”
    “The thing is, that once I get in the saddle, you pretty much know where I’m gonna come down. You don’t find me flip-flopping. I can stay the course with the best of ‘em, can’t I sugar? I mean the proof is in the puddin’—”
    “Not now.”
    “—but it’s not the same with you. I feel I’m in a guessing game, did she or didn’t she? What did I do right—or wrong? Where are the latest polls, I’m asking myself. I can acknowledge that mistakes were made. I can take corrective action.”
    “I don’t know what to tell you.”
    “What can I do to make it happen? I ask myself. One time it’s, you know, a little of this, a little of that,” his shoulders sway and he gives her that Howdy Doody grin, “sort of mid-tempo. The next thing I know you’re wanting a little AC/DC slamdancing.”
    “AC/DC??”
    “I just want to please you. What’s so unusual about a husband who wants to please his wife?”
    “I’m not complaining.”
    “But you’re not exactly coming back for a second term, either.”
    “Do you want me to?”
    “Oh, geeze.”
    “Think about it like shopping—”
    “I’m gonna open a vein now.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way, George. When women go shopping, they don’t have to make a purchase—”
    “Oh, Sam Walton, where are you?”
    “—they don’t measure their fun, when they shop, by how much they buy.”
    “Take me to the mall. I’m working now within your metaphor?”
    “So when you and I do it, like this morning, I can say I really, really liked it—”
    “But nothing rang up at the register. Oh, baby, I’m just looking for a little good news.”
    “You’re taking this much too far, George.”
    “This is my point; you’re absolutely right. Where is far? How far is too far? Where is the end, really? How far?”
    “Don’t get all metaphysical on me, George.”
    “I’m trying to figure the laws of the physical. Who’s getting metaphysical?”
    “Look at you, you’re all worked up when I thought we’d had a very pleasant, low-impact, reasonably satisfying few minutes.”
    “Really? You mean it?”
    “Yes. I can lie there—“
    “While I’m being very—presidential?”
    “Yes. Or no.”
    “Don’t do me like this.”
    “And I can think, Oh, I like that; that feels good.”
    “You’re window shopping.”
    “Not exactly.”
    “Then what!?”
    “Well, maybe.”
    “Oh, geeze.”
    “We’re talking about pleasure here, George. I can experience pleasure, feel it, think about it, without considering how it’s going to turn out.
    “Like a nice shopping trip.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you can like it as much as you like shopping? I mean, while I’m Mr. Buckeroo? Without pressure to withdraw when I don’t feel like it or think about how it’s gonna turn out?”
    “You second guess yourself too much, dear.”
    As George considers this, the moment is shattered by a thought and the whisper of a reporter’s voice in his ear. The voice says, “His-t-ory?” But the voice is Aretha Franklin’s voice to the tune of “Res-p-ect.” George is not well equipped for such incongruities.
    The chopper touches down with the gentle satisfaction of a satiated breath. Its rotors no longer play the note from Whiter Shade of Pale. Instead George Bush hears the oscillation of a dissonant two-note pattern, something he’s heard before but can’t name, a song he knows but doesn’t like, I Am The Walrus. He looks over at his wife, who smiles out the small oval window. She fingers the flag pinned above her breast.
    George Bush takes a deep breath. “Can you imagine our ever having sex again?”
    “Not at the moment, George. Not now.”

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”). It’s one of those kind of things where your eye isn’t exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked “knowledge” for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

    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” 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”)     Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.” I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “The Room of the Rape” were particularly powerful pieces.

    Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.

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” 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” 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, WrBrian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)     Brian B. Braddock, WrI 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” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
    “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

    want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

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!

    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”, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive”, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph” and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy”,which all have issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us and tell us you saw this ad space. It’s an offer you can’t refuse...

    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” 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” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

 

    Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
    Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

    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 monthly by Scars Publications and Design. Contact Janet Kuypers via e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for snail-mail address 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 Copyright © 1993 through 2012 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.