Untitled
Heather Woodward
i will climb into my pine box
and wait
like i have for so many months
in a sanctuary i've created
by moonlit remembrances
satiated shards of
dime-store recollections
traced and lined
like comic book pages
displayed and lovingly wrapped
in cellophane days
i wait
await
the moment
when you climb up on the pedestal
that i have created....
ZERO TOLERANCE
Jim Sullivan
Money has been added to the list of banned items on all Lakeside Airline flights. Already prohibited are guns, knives, explosives, lethal nail clippers, and vile-looking corkscrews.
Individuals attempting to bring on the airplane, paper currency or coins, foreign or domestic, will be not only denied a seat on the aircraft but risk arrest and prosecution of the attempt. This is a new regulation, so all potential passengers and crew members, even those hired at the last minute from temporary employee firms, on Lakeside Airline should heed this warning.
Along with cash, other financial instruments specifically prohibited on board are checks, money orders, and all credit, debit, discount, and check-cashing authority cards (known collectively on the street as 'plastic').
And don't forget to leave your unused postage stamps, which are becoming quite valuable these days, at home. The same goes for IOUs, UOMEs unredeemed gambling chips, rolls of pennies and the like.
If a person or persons tries to take funds with him, her, or them, or stows same in checked-in suitcases, carry-on bags, or other travel luggage, the identical prohibitions will prevail. Such rule-breakers and scofflaws, therefore, will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Also banned by Lakeside Airline are letters of credit, cashier's and treasurer's checks, stocks and bonds, puts and calls, stock options of any kind, commodity futures contracts, and any and all derivatives known to man, woman, or accountant, which could be hid on one's person or in one's possessions.
In fact, the only cash allowed at the Lakeside Airline Terminal or its loading gate or concourse is the price of a plane ticket that absolutely must be surrendered prior to boarding.
Why, you may well ask, is Lakeside Airline doing this? To avoid the obvious possible problems for travelers: being pick-pocketed, robbed, burglarized, heisted, stuck-up, broken and entered, lifted from, or any number of other crimes connected, in one way or another, with miscreants relieving you of your assets.
Such nefarious deeds are to be kept from the airport and off the airplane. If the general public knows, full well, that no one on the Lakeside Airline loading gate or on any of its flights has any kind of money, no criminal will bother passengers or crew. After all, most felons are wise enough to avoid their favorite mono where, and when, there's nothing to be gained. And with such crime deterred, Lakeside Airline can attract more customers because it can guarantee its passengers high-jackless flights and also crime-free rides to and from all destinations.
Few commercial air carriers today can make such a complete claim. Other airlines, however, are currently studying Lakeside Airline's policy of zero tolerance for money.
I'm still not sleeping
Heather Woodward
maybe i will forget you
crumple you up like an old string of papered dolls
throw you in the proverbial secular file
lose you to the reality of leather
the toughness of plastic
the rawness of on my fingers as they
try to push your ghostly figure
from between my psychic eye
i kiss you slowly in a blue-pick up truck
let you kiss my stomach and the feel the
flutter of eyelashes against my belly button
you sit up
i close my eyes breathing in
the preciseness of your smell
cigarette smoke that lingers with patchouli
coconut shampoo
i long for you to pull me up and kiss me again with
that masculine tongue
the puffiness of you lips
the strength of fate, the dizziness
how i have known you longer than this moment
when i touch you i burn with realization
that we have done this before
many times
walking through lanes of purple flowers
groves of oranges on either side
i am lost in premonitions..past remembrances
the magic of the cells colliding together
and how do i lose..
how do i chase down the answer
to the elusive question
let go of the puzzle
live another life to search for clues
sweep the astral plane for iron wrought keys
opening cabinets and treasure chests of 'what ifs'
no..i will just forget you
toss you to the sea in green jeweled bottle
wash you out to sea
and let Neptune have his way with you...
The Cycle
Michael J. Menges
The wash machine pounds incessantly with a hundred hearts' precision
While my own heart beats with an out-of-rhythm drum-throb's impatience.
My cigarette smoke swirls in the white-walled room, like the lakefront
Skyline of Michigan, tribute to a city's, people's addiction to the automobile habit
And I remember the girl who wouldn't grace a fellow (me) with her made-up lace
And presence unless he drove a car (and excreted in the air
An oxymor-ous poison and procreation of life and death the wash machine can't scrub.
But clean my clothes will be.
The water fills the machine like paper piling in my office
Until I feel almost as drowned as my garments.
The machine is as jammed as the buses during rush hour
When I grasp and gasp my sympathy for them.
They roll in the wash cycle with the chaos of the office
As I try to scrub the computer input errors out.
Soap cleans errors better than paper.
The clothes spin in rinse, as I watch the bar people at night
Spin to and from each other, with whirling vibes of manipulation,
Bitchery and bastardy until their real selves are as unseeable as the whirling cloth pieces.
Heartbreak stains will stay on the uncleansed, uncleansable souls.
My pinned-together socks, like man-woman couplings in our
Age of light-year speed transition, apart will be torn.
Handkerchiefs, like Golden Gate Bridge jumpers,
Will drown themselves in the graveyard of the waterwork's pipe system.
The water overflows from the tap like frustration-energy vibrating at Group Therapy,
And sinks through the grated holes like bar-bathroom alcoholized urine.
I wonder, does God pace the universe? And say
"When I do my damage on the final day of judgment,
I will not be convicted by a jury of dogs."
The beat of the throbbing radio springs and ricochets like
Pistons move the auto's wheels but no deals
Two not one, deal and compromise
Unless two be in one me; like the television and radio
Smothering and mothering my outside-battlefront-to-inside-headquarters reality
Unperceptive senses through to my parent programmed computer brain
Spewing out junk and sheets of confusion as my
Mouth spews out cigarette smoke (symbolizing the haze in my heart which
Lies in my Coca-cola addicted fuel-tank stomach)
Which compels and electroschocks
My robot-body to release the window open
But unreleased my soul and humanness
And I wait patiently for a
Human, not artificial, what (not love) unknowable satisfaction because
Love is a sentimental song or a blurry oneupmanship for hope that,
But for someone to touch me and again to break my
Rotating cylinders and make me an inheritor of
...
Derron the Aromatic
Michael Fowler
mmfowler@fuse.net
Once I got a job with the welfare department sitting with thirty others at open desks in a section on the top floor of an old building. The floor was cracked linoleum, the walls chipped, discolored yellow paint, the ceiling low and stained by water from the leaky roof. I worked in budgets, and my group sat beside a squad of caseworkers. The caseworker in my row and just to my right was a guy named Derron who wore the most powerful cologne I ever smelled. I sat beside him my first day out of training, and within five minutes developed a headache as if a nail had been pounded into my skull. I couldn't concentrate on my budgets.
There was no air circulation in this space. I glanced over at Derron and thought I saw the aura of his cologne rising off him like mist over a river. In fact I, who out of sensitivity avoided even a drop of the stuff, could only wonder at someone who obviously splashed on a Niagara in the morning. His stench field, as I thought of it, surrounded me and made my vision quaver. To my immediate left was a narrow aisle and a bare wall, the yellowish paint peeled away in a large circular patch just there. Could it be that Derron's effluvium had, over time, actually stripped away the paint? In that case my delicate brain cells seemed to have little chance, and I began to wonder if sitting by Derron was like inhaling gasoline fumes too long or sniffing glue. A chemical lobotomy or some sort of grisly personality change seemed a real possibility.
Derron was a nice guy who introduced himself within minutes, though, so it was hard to dislike him. "How ya doin? I'm Derron. Welcome to the salt mines." He was a good-looking guy, and a sharp dresser given to bold colors, tight fits and shiny shoes. He was thin as a pencil and wore his hair styled into ringlets. There was a relaxed air about him and a way he had of slouching at his desk as the work piled up that made me admire him. I got the impression right away he didn't care for office work and would have been much happier as a male model or perhaps perfumer. And he spent a lot of time, as much as possible it seemed, away from his desk, so there were times I could draw breath almost freely. I say almost, since even in his absence I recalled his smell by a sort of nasal memory, to the point where I began to worry that my nose was producing its own Canoe. Not only that, but the first time I rode an elevator with him, the caustic stink of his musk in that tiny dead space cut into my brain like a knife and I had to down four pain caps. I knew I couldn't last like this.
There was no window in the wall beside me to pry open, so on my second day I brought in a battery-driven personal fan and set it up to blow air on me from the direction of the peeling wall. It didn't create much fresh air, about as much as a hummingbird flitting about over an open sewer, I imagined. Derron saw it and said, "Hot?" "For my asthma," I replied, and at once realized that pretending to have asthma could be my ticket out of Derron's field of force. But how many here already had asthma, I wondered, looking out over the expanse of desks and counting at least five other tiny electric fans. As yet I hung on without voicing my complaint.
And a complaint was surely justified, due to the lack of ventilation in the building and the stifling heat alone. There was supposed to be air conditioning, but the antiquated system was always breaking down or plain inefficient. Naturally that made any complaining pointless. Derron, I noticed, usually had a blue plastic glass of something at his desk that he drank from all day, to refresh himself. As my headache worsened, I decided it must be cologne he was drinking. He was maintaining his shield of corrosive stench, I decided, and to do that he had to drink at least a quart of cologne daily. I wondered if he drank Black Suede neat, or maybe English Leather on the rocks was his favorite. I never asked him, though.
To my surprise no else seemed to mind Derron. There was a caseworker to his right, and another in front of him, and neither had a fan or took pain pills all day the way I did. Nor did they faint or ran away gasping at intervals or seem put out at all. But they were women, and women seemed to find Derron's aroma an aphrodisiac. Young, stylish women from all over the building would visit Derron at his desk and just hang on him, drinking him in. "Derron, you smell so gooood!" they'd say. Then they'd laugh and nuzzle up to him. I expected their hair to wilt and their makeup to run at that proximity, but it didn't happen. Derron would just sit there grinning at them. I'd already heard rumors that he was engaged, but had been and perhaps still was a real player. He had the kind of soft bedroom eyes that made you believe it, and even on Wednesday you could tell from his eyes that he was still thinking of his bedroom conquests of the previous weekend, and of those to come in two more days. I was certain from his eyes that he was high on cologne fumes too, and probably the women who smelled him for any length of time got as stoned as he was. A large number of them could be addicted to him by now, I thought.
Only old Laverne, my sixty-year-old coworker in budgets who was my trainer, agreed that Derron reeked. I sat beside her one day, the two of us at her dented metal paper-covered desk several rows removed from my and Derron's similar battleship desks, as she showed me a budgeting maneuver. Glad to put some distance between myself and Derron, if only for a few minutes, I told her I found his cologne a bit strong. "A bit!" she said. "I sat beside him in the cafeteria one day and was afraid to light my cigarette. I thought we'd go up in a fireball like an exploding stove." So I knew it wasn't only me.
By my second week I'd had enough. The weather outside was hot and sticky, and not much better on my floor indoors. Under these conditions Derron's cologne affected me like a gas attack. I went to my manager, Mr. Richardson, whose office was a cubicle along the wall that Derron and I faced, well out of range of the cologne that I suffered through each hour of each day. In fact Derron and I were in the final row of desks from Mr. Richardson's cube. Lucky Mr. Richardson.
Mr. Richardson was an older gentleman whose calm demeanor and obvious focus on imminent retirement I admired as much as Derron's savoir-vivre. Nothing seemed to bother him. Nothing, that is, until my request that he move me away from Derron. First off he didn't understand about Derron's odor. "He smells bad, you say?" he asked me with a scowl.
"Yes, it's his cologne," I said. "It's terrible." How could he not know this? I thought. Even if he doesn't sit near Derron, he's worked with him for years, or so I'd gathered. "And I see there's an empty desk up front here since John left, so I thought I could take that spot."
"Hmmm," said Mr. Richardson. "Well you know I got some bad adenoids and can't smell too good, so I don't know what you mean." In fact Laverne had told me that Mr. Richardson had a drinking problem for which he periodically took a leave of absence, and perhaps this was what he meant by bad adenoids. Just my luck, I thought, that I was complaining about Derron to a man who couldn't have sniffed out a truck of manure if it pulled into his cube.
Mr. Richardson kept straining his eyes at me, though, and I knew something else was up. He craned his neck to see the vacated desk I had described, that happened to be beside a young woman whom I had already noticed for her good looks and bralessness. Mr. Richardson said, "I know what you got in mind. But I already promised Ted Bailey he could move next to April." At that he shot me a grin and a wink.
"It isn't that at all, Mr. Richardson," I said. "It's much more urgent. Derron's smell is making me sick."
"Can't help you," said Mr. Richardson, the smile gone. Since Ted Bailey, whoever he was, clearly outranked me, I was dismissed.
I wished I could breathe a sigh of relief as I took my seat beside Derron once more, a new desk assignment in hand, but I could hardly catch my breath for disappointment.
It turned out, though, that my problem resolved itself. I have mentioned that Derron wasn't exactly on top of his work. Things seemed to be reaching a crisis about the time I came, and Derron's conversation with me was usually about how much he hated his job. "There's people in to see me, and I don't know who they are," he'd say, leaving for the interview area down on the first floor. I often wondered what those clients thought of their heavily spiked caseworker. I guessed they too were in no position to complain, though, being welfare applicants. Or he'd be on a phone call, hang up with an angry bang after a minute and say, "Your job pay the rent?" "Barely." "I need to switch jobs right now." And he'd lean back and shake his head, taking a sip of cologne from his blue glass to console himself.
Finally the huge tower of unopened mail in the in-box on his desk, that leaned at an ever more precarious angle each day, collapsed. The in-box sat on the edge of his desk nearest me, and the mail was stacked so high some of it actually landed on my desk, while more hit me on the leg, though several feet separated our two desks. I looked over, and through the steam of some particularly heady scent viewed a most dispirited Derron."That's it," he said. "I'm going to Personnel." He left the welfare department and I never saw him again. We had worked together three weeks. An obese young woman in glasses who seemed at least adequate at the job took his place, eventually. She had no odor at all, it seemed, though on especially warm days she perspired and I thought I detected the aroma of baking sourdough. It was a big improvement. I still had a headache, but now it was only the work.
Goodbye
Heather Woodward
saying "I love you" is one thing
saying "I'm over you" is so much more fulfilling
to be lost in a wave of my emotions
that has nothing to do with you
or how you are
or what you're doing
or why you don't love me
to exist without your price tag on my back
to live without your shallow breath on my neck
to *be* without *being* with you
those are the roses, the sweet nothings, i've always wanted
they exist inside me
and lately i've been kind of accustomed to sunflowers.
Transit
Michael J. Menges
Pace by the open-aired prison with a bus-stop sign symbolizing bad and slammed lock, as
Winds, from the arctic and echoing reverberations of stabbing, poisoned darts
From my girlfriend's mother, mother-out-of-law outlawing me from my windless, warm
flesh and sheets,
Penetrate my brain's flesh, and I hope, tense-slanted, hope, envisioning for sanctuary
from the acid-wounded hurricane.
With resentment grabbing my elbow I toss my soldier's coins
Into the smooth metal jagged maws imprisoning my pay, and I march down the aisle
with roadblocks of flesh and cloth obstructing and
I grasp my chess clock enveloped and concealed by the brown pouch,
Ready to swing and lash if any swaggering mean-eyed hoodlum wants
me to feed his ravenous fare-boxed wallet.
The stinging of gusted needles from the grayness of buildings,
skyscrapers and sky scrape my imaginings of
Warm kisses and soft exhilarating fleshly touches tingling
happily my blood which at this
Forlorn outpost of a miniscule, (as my position in the firmament
is also too tiny), signpost
Seems to be drained as by mosquitoes of seconds,
minutes of emptiness holding the wind.
Lying on a green-and-orange-squared gaudy coffin,
Dying, to the air giving out chloroformed breath,
a puzzled boy,
Age about seventy, moves, not by himself by but the
processionless hum of the bus's engine, and
I, like a vulture, thirstily plunder his coroner's
liquorish medicine.
The August globed, heavenly (outer) space heater outside
and the liberation ofrom weighted medication anchored in
the bloodstream inside
Resurrect the outer-spaced voices from the bus engine hum,
maybe? Transmitted to the gray-haired lady's
Interference-loaded receiver of hopeless static, and her
lips respond with careful, audible garble,
Enjoying the lightened burden and, oblivious of embarrassed
eyes watching while averted, and relishing the half-heard
staticked argument.
Above the child, wanting to run in the bus aisle, pinioned
by his father,
Is a poster blazoning the Bible, and I reflect of Absalom
and
Me, and half symbolically caught by my loving, cloying mother
and
My father stabbing me with word darts, invisibly concealed
gloom and bull-shit "caring."
Downtrodden and defeated by the evanescence (of love-glow),
like the cars fleeing reverse of the bus's direction,
I watch the lady and the bus driver play (with an invisible
rope) tug-of-war over the fare,
While unfairly the bus stalls, like my future visions, stopped
by intransigence (his) and unvanquishment (hers),
Until a screaming-inwardly (or is it mine inside, I hear?) man
throws the dollar in for the two-block ride of the crazy,
undefeated embattler (hers).
The blue and red flag sleeps in the dust of the over-elongated
back bus seat, longer than a bed,
While the torso-bearer of the emblazoned jean-jacket stares
paraleyes'd at nothing me.
My nerves sing to my stomach of dusty dreams turned to cyclones
and under-elongated pockets of non-money among million dollar
skyscrapers and of
Eyes of timid reaching for me she fearfully groped in our equal-
shared double bed looming over my jeans.
"You born white--what you complainin' 'bout." black and white
duel with swords of roar and outrage over a standup-bus seat,
While in the avalanche-ruined pueblos monickered apartments
flowing sluggishly past I hear the silent pugilistics
of a thousand growls and shrieks.
My nerves shriek, not sing of five minutes ago sitting peacefully
on the park bench, remembering her silent importunings, and
Beg for ten minutes hence, tromping the clamor into the pavement.
I Look At The Letters Again
Marina Arturo
"This isn't supposed to happen,"
I said under my breath
as I threw the letters aside.
Thoughts quickly rushed through my mind
as quickly as the nights passed
in the Arizona heat.
Why do I even save these letters?
Why do I keep reading them over and over again?
Why do I hold them to my mouth,
hoping that you may slip out between the words,
touch my face, kiss my lips
I picked up the letters again
I remember when you asked me
about my political and religious beliefs
You asked me about my past
and my dreams for the future
It seemed as if you wanted to know
every little detail about me,
so that you could only love me more
I was happy to tell you
I look at the letters again
I hold them once more to my lips -
but this time,
not in the hope that you may touch me,
but in the hope that I may be able to touch you
I kiss the letters
I can't put them down.
Leather Jacket
Faded Away In The Morning Fog
Marina Arturo
at five-thirty in the morning
I sat in the kitchen
straining to swallow the tears
and you raced
to get your luggage into your truck
my mind wandered
to the candles
the roses
the pizza
and all I could think
was that the best chapter
of my meager life
was coming to a pathetic end
I looked at you
in your leather jacket
and you took my hand
and led me to dance
I really didn't mean to
but I couldn't help but cry
for the idea of our last dance
destroyed me
as you drove away
I dreamt that you came back
and said you wouldn't leave
but as the car lights
faded away in the morning fog
and you tuned the corner
I fell to the floor
screaming and crying
I had no one to blame but circumstance
and I couldn't fathom going on
a stand-off
Aeon Logan
Too many things bombard us
we scan from channel to channel
eyes darting, first war, destruction,
then a weight loss commercial.
I know you're thinking society is
ludicrous - and it is - but don't you see
that when I watch that t.v. screen
all I see is that I'm not thin enough?
I've tried to make things right with
us. I've tried to bring us one glimmer
of happiness, I've tried to turn off
that media mudslinging
tried to make things a little better
even if it is only in our bedroom
and even if it is only for one night.
And you, you look away
and think I'm hopeless. I'm grasping
at whatever straws are left.
Childhood Memories one
Aeon Logan
I was in the basement, the playroom
that's where all my toys were, you see
and I had just run in there
after yelling at my family
sitting in the living room
"I hate you"
now, I've never said that before to
my family, nor would I ever say
it again I knew better
and I had just run into the playroom
slammed the door shut
I couldn't have been more than five
and I ran in, and I looked for things
to put in front of the door so they
couldn't open it and find me
I took one of my chairs
from my little play set
and dragged it over to the door
then I took the little schoolhouse for
Fischer-Price toys, the side opened
up, it had a blackboard and everything
I took that little schoolhouse, put it
on the chair guarding the door
patiently obeying my orders
I was running around looking for
something else I could carry
to the door
when I heard the door knob turn
and my sister, with one arm
pushed all of my toys away
and opened the door
I knew I had been defeated
Childhood Memories four
Aeon Logan
I was in the first grade, in Mrs.
Lindstrom's class
and every morning, probably
around ten-thirty, we would have
snack-time. And everyone would
get their snacks that their mommies
made for them, and we'd all
sit and eat. But me and Lori
Zlotow, we would take our math
books, hold them up like a tray,
throw a napkin over our arms,
put all of our snacks on our books,
and walk around the room
bartering for better snacks. "I'll
give you this apple for your
candy bar." We'd finish trading,
come back with a quarter of an
orange, an extra piece of gum.
We'd put the orange quarter in
our mouths, peel and all, and
act like monkeys. And laugh.
Childhood Memories six
Aeon Logan
It was Sunday night, I was
put to bed for school
the next day at around noon,
but by now it was already
eleven-thirty,
after a weekend a fun I
could relax enough to go to sleep.
So it was late, and I was in
bed, listening to my clock-radio,
like I always did. And suddenly
there was a news report
and John Lennon was shot.
A few minutes later
and the reports were
that he was dead.
And the next morning I walked
downstairs and my mother
was reading the paper.
And the news was there, it
wasn't a dream, I knew
the news before my parents did.
After he died I remember
in school one of my teachers wrote in
calligraphy on a piece of paper
and put it on their bulletin board,
"You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us
and the word will live as one."
and my seat, the chair with the little
basket under the seat
for my books, the chair
attached to the desk,
my seat was in the front to the side,
right in front of that bulletin
board.
And every day I would look up
and see it there, my first
brush with death.
poam: a conversation with Jimbo Breen
Shannon Peppers
dedicated to Steve, a marine
we sat at the poolside together;
you asking me about how I've been
as the sun beat down
and we talked about nuclear war.
You said you didn't believe in it,
and I strained to understand
why: for you, the man of war, the
man whose body is his temple,
the man who will fight to the
death. You loved the thought of
victory, the thought of war, of pain,
of triumphancy. And I sat there
in the swimming pool while you sat
on the edge. I paused. Then it
occurred to me: you would want
a method of fighting more direct,
slower, more painful, more personal,
than a nuclear war. You'd want to
fight them one on one, man to
man, with your fists. And your eyes
lit up. I was beginning to understand,
now, only years later. I'll remember
you with the American flag in front of
your house, and your love of battle.
transcribing dreams
Shannon Peppers
III
I was walking into your living room
and there was a ten-gallon fish
tank there. You just bought it. You
were looking at the fish, that's when
I walked over. And I saw a shark
fish in the tank, one about eight
inches long, and he was at the bottom,
killing and eating a four-inch fish.
There were other one-inch fish
swimming at the top, neon tetras,
small things. And I walked over and
the shark was just eating the four-
inch fish, and soon he was completely
gone. And you were just looking,
you could do nothing to save the fish.
And then another four-inch fish
came out of hiding from behind a plant
on the left side of the tank, and he
darted around. It looked like he was
in a state of panic, maybe he breathed
the blood of the other four-inch
fish, his ally, his family. And he
started darting around the tank, and
the shark was just sitting at the
bottom of the tank, and the other
four-inch fish darted more. And then
the shark opened his mouth, and in
a darting panic, the four-inch fish
swim straight into the shark's
mouth. All he had to do was close
his mouth and swallow the fish whole.
There was no fight, like with the
first one. There was no struggle.
And I looked over at you, and you
were amazed that this shark just ate
your two fish, which were probably
over ten dollars each, and that they
didn't just get along in the tank
together. And I looked at the tank,
and I saw the one-inch neon tetras
darting around along the top of the
water. They knew they would be
victims later, trapped in this little
cage, and that the shark would just
wait until he was bored until he
administered his punishment. I
wanted to ask you why you
bought all of these different-sized
fish and expected them to live together
peacefully. Maybe you didn't even
realize that the shark would need
more food than he was prepared to
buy him. Besides, a shark that size
shouldn't even be alone in a tank as
small as ten gallons. He needs room
to grow. But before I could say
anything, I saw the shark swim to
the top of the water, push his head
and nose out of the water, open the
lid to the top of the aquarium. You
weren't looking, so I told you to
look to the top, and not to get too
close. And the shark just sat there,
looking at you, and it looked as if
he wanted to show you what a good
eater he was. It was almost as if
he was looking to you for approval.
hancock suicide, chicago, december 1994
Mackenzie Silver
so me and the guys
were just taking a break
from the construction
on the hancock building.
you know they've been
doing construction work
there, right? they put
that big wall up around
the block, the tall
fence, and they've been
doing remodeling stuff.
well, i had been working
on some tile work and
we were just walking
around the building, me
and three other guys,
walking kind of like a
square, in formation,
sort of, and i'm at the
back and i stop and step
back to check some of
the grout work, so i just
kind of lean back while
standing still. well, one
of the guys says he heard
it coming, like a big rush
of air, like a whistling
sound, but much heavier.
i didn't even get a chance
to look up, though one of
the other guys did and
saw it coming a split second
before it happened. and the
next thing i knew there was
this loud cracking sound
and i felt all of this stuff
hit me, like wet concrete
thrown at me, but i didn't
know what the hell it was.
and i opened my eyes and looked
down and i was just completely
covered in blood
and there was just this
heap of mass right in front of
me. it took a while for me
to realize that a woman jumped.
she hit the fence, her head
and spinal cord were still
stuck on the fence and the
rest of her was just this red
pile right in front of me.
the police had to take all of
my clothes. every inch.
they say she broke through the
glass at the fiftieth floor, i don't
know how, that glass is supposed
to be bullet proof or something.
and the one thing i noticed was
that she covered her head with
panty hose, in an effort to keep
her face together. funny, she
was so willing to die, but she
wanted to be kept in tact. i know
i won't hear about this on the
news, they try to down play suicides,
but other violence is fine for them.
and they say she was handi-
capped, but then how badly, and
how did she get the strength
to break the window and throw
herself out of the john hancock
building? she must have really
wanted to die.
it really hasn't sunk in quite yet,
seeing her fall apart in front
of me like that. i don't think i'm
ready to think about it yet.
before i learned better
Courtney Steele
you'd think that the people that are most like you
are perfect for you
but if you find someone like that
and you're dating someone like that
you'll see
that they now have the same faults as you do
except their faults seem so much worse
and you want to kill them for the faults you have
and you want to crack their head open
and see their brains flowing out in the street
yeah, i know your mood swings, your hatred
your love of life and truth and fairness and art
and your anger
are all as strong as mine
but i'm still going to be hard on you
i'm still going to be hard on you
for being me
before i learned better
a woman talking about her rapist friend
Courtney Steele
He was my friend, and we had been
through a lot together, our psychological
ups and downs,
but he mixed drinks exceptionally well
at his college frat parties, and his
ice-blue eyes
always spoke the truth to me. It's amazing
to think that the only reason we ever met
was because one day
he wore a turtleneck that perfectly
matched his eyes, and I had to tell him.
I don't know why
he put up with my mood swings, with my
self-destructive social life and man-hating,
maybe he knew
how hard it had to be for me, being the
victim of an acquaintance rape. Maybe
normally he didn't
care about women, never gave their opinions
much thought, just tried to get them
drunk at parties,
maybe he knew that and that's why he
listened to me. Then for a few years
our friendship
drifted, we didn't see each other much,
I heard through the grapevine that he was
failing in school.
Then one day, out of the blue, he comes
over and he has two black eyes. And he
says to me
that when he was in the parking garage
two guys came and beat him up, and one
of them said,
you raped my girlfriend. And then he looked
at me and said, and you know, looking back,
he was right.
I raped her. And I know he wanted sym-
pathy, he wanted to hear me say something,
but I couldn't.
And he said, I know this has to be hard for
you to hear, but I wanted to tell you. I know
it was wrong.
A part of me wanted to hate him. A part of
me thought that if he was my friend I would
be condoning
what he did. And a part of me thought that
our friendship made him realize what he
actually had done.
I tried to be there for him. I wasn't much
good at it. Eventually, he moved away.
I didn't try
to lose touch with him. But it's just that a
part of me is still trying to figure out if I
can be his friend.
content with inferior men
Courtney Steele
there are some theorists that say
that women need to be able to look up to a man
in order to feel complete. these theorists
would say that a woman could not be president,
at least not on a personal level.
think of it - here is a woman, the most important
person on earth, and she would never know of anyone
who had more power than her. how could she
look up to any man? how could she admire
any man? how could she respect any man?
and you know, i can kind of see that point,
how can you love someone you don't respect,
i mean, i want someone in my life that can teach
me something, that can help me grow, and if
i was the most powerful person on earth
i would probably think that no one could teach
me anything. but the only thing i could think of
in response to this theory is, why don't men
who are the presidents of the united states
of america find themselves unhappy with their
boring, unequal, supportive wives? why is it
that men are content with inferior women
but women aren't content with inferior men?
chances two: here I am
Sydney Anderson
you asked me if you have
only so many loves in your life
and the answer is yes
and it's not because of fate
or religion, or chance
but the chances are just so thin
that you can find someone
that you can love, revere, respect
someone that always keeps on moving
and someone that makes you feel alive
just by listening to the things they
say, to the way they think
that only happens so often, you know
so I guess you do only get so many
loves, so if you need one, here I
am
fire alarms
Mackenzie Silver
we were driving through
Sequoia National Forest
up a winding road
along the mountainside
and along the road
a sign in the forest said
check your fire alarms
and we looked at each other
and laughed, and joked
because there are no fire
alarms in a car to check
Japanese Television
as reported in the New York Times:
one new television show in Japan
boasts young women in bikinis
who attempt to smash aluminum cans
in between their breasts
another television show in Japan
brings a young boy on stage
to tell him his mother
has been shot and killed
to see how long it takes him
to cry
I wonder what they'd think
of Rosanne
and Married With Children
the measuring scale
Gabriel Athens
Here's an addition for your
degrading terminology
of women list. In the
construction field they
(men) have devised another
form of measurement.
When something is being
lowered or fitted into place
they will often refer
to an inch or so as:
up or down about a cunt hair.
They have gone so far
as to determine that blonde
pubic hair is the smallest
increment and at the other
end of the measuring scale
is black pubic hair.
Pam, via the internet
why don't you dissect me,
take every single part of me
and equate it with power tools,
sports and violence?
bang me, screw me, nail me,
hammer me, bag me, pump
me. shoot it in me. maybe you
can even score.
if we're talking about
measuring scales, what about
the scale that defines the way
you treat us:
on one end is the minor stuff,
calling us "baby" and "sugar,"
whistling as we walk by, but
then move along the scale, get to
the blonde jokes, yes, they're so
funny, then how about a pinch
in the rear at the office,
well, that's harmless enough
and while you're at it, porn
movies and magazines, what harm
do they do, and hey, women
have always worked at home,
so you should have all the jobs
and get the better pay anyway
and since we're just your pro-
perty, fuck us whenever you
want, i mean, hey, you're doing
it already in every other aspect
of our repressed, oppressed lives
so rape us, smack us around
knock us down a flight of stairs
that's what we're here for
god, i don't even know how to
measure these things any more
Making Sense Out Of The Insane
Gabriel Athens
I can't see the silver lining around the clouds
I see the dripping blood from poorly cut wounds
they haven't healed, I tell you
making sense out of the insane is pointless
and the insane starts to make sense
so bottle up all the hate to understand
so change all the goals in life
yes, change them all
after a while that has an effect on you
after a while you start to feel like a prisoner
with the life kicked out of you
by a bunch of other prisoners
while the guards are paid to look away
it's funny how the prisoners get the coin
to pay all the good guys off
When you start to see that
And when you start to feel like that
the line between sanity and insanity is blurred
Pressure On Me Again
Gabriel Athens
Man, you put a lot of pressure on me
I'm so sick of not being in control of everything
I'm tired of defining how everything goes
I define my own life
how do I make all the changes
I'm all alone on this one
I have to define my own life
I need to take a magic marker
a big black bold marker
and create the path that defines who I am
I need to make my own choices
and color everything in
and make sure that I don't go past the lines
so it looks like I did a bad job
because no one I want to make sure
that no one can put that pressure on me again
A beacon alone
Helena Wolfe
I know I'm meant to be standing alone
and I've done it all my life
and I'm completely used to the feeling
and I've been living without anyone for so long
and I wanted to let you know that
I'm used to that
and I can do it on my own
and I don't need someone to help me pick up the pieces
and I don't need someone to wipe my nose
or tell me how and when to brush my teeth
and comb my hair and fold my clothes
Have I said this to you before? Probably
Do I think this needs repeating? Usually
no one gets what I want and what I do.
But this is what I've been used to all my life,
this rejection,
this feeling like I'm supposed to be this way,
this feeling that there's no chance for me
You might think it The rest of the world does
But let me tell you once,
in the easiest way I know how,
let me tell you that
I am strong
and I know what I need
and I know what to do
and I've been fine on my own all of this time
maybe that's my job, to do it all,
and someone else may notice
I don't know if I'm a beacon, but
I wonder when someone will notice my differences
I wonder when someone will think I'm different
I wonder when someone will notice
know how the truth is
Helena Wolfe
how many times do you fight the same battles
and lose your battles against the world
how many times will you still fight
knowing no one will listen
all of your efforts will be to no good
no one will notice or care or even act interested
let's not fool ourselves, say it like it is
don't get our hopes up over all that goes wrong
we all know how the truth is
each time we try to get anywhere in life
when you try to accomplish things
when you try and try and try
someone tries and usually succeeds at kicking you in the teeth
making you feel hopeless
sometimes I'm not the best with words
but maybe I've said enough
without saying any more than I have to
Against My Will
Alexandria Rand
There have been so many times
Where I have been raped
Not that some man
Some quote unquote man
Had physically held me down
Has forced himself inside me
Against my will
That way is just to obvious
Not the "someone tried
To beat me up" thing
Because that is old news
If you have done the research I have
If you have gone through what I have
If you have lived the life that I have
Because
You know
I should be above this
I should be a feminist
With a capital fucking F
I guess with that in mind
I should not mind the cat calls
Or the whistles
Or the fact that the word "woman"
Is the word "man"
With a couple of letters tacked on
Like how "she" is "he" with an "s"
Like we're an extension of them
Or the fact that men
First look at me
By looking at my breasts
And not my eyes
I should be aware
That a woman with power
Instills fear
And a woman with power in a company
Can still be demoted outside of the company
Where she can still be down-played
I can handle the jokes
About being a blond
Or being dumb
Or being both
I can hear the line
Always said insultingly
That we HAVE to be irrational
Because we are so damn emotional
I mean
How can you trust something
That bleeds for five days every month
And doesn't die?
Fine
If they want to brush off
Everything that makes us strong
Fine
If they say we can not hold a job
Fine
We will just depend on you for money
And work on our OWN jobs
On our OWN time
And stash enough away for our OWN little nest-egg
And how much money
are you boys going to have
when it comes to the end of your family line?
How much of a life
are you boys going to have
when it comes to the end of your family line?
How much happiness?
Morning Will Be Kind
Alexandria Rand
Kiss me, stoned and drunk
flesh is the answer
Listen
to the wisdom, moaning
in my foreign bed
and the scent and
smell of new skin
An apex of blinding
then close your eyes
wondering vaguely why
You let me enter,
hoping
morning will be kind
the explanation
so we figured we'd have to write out information
that our readers might want to know
in the form of a poem, since
they seldom look over the ads.
ha! we got you, you thought
you were reading a poem, when it's actually
the dreaded advertising. but wait -
you'll actually want to read this, we think.
Okay, it's this simple: send us your
poetry, prose or art work to
alexrand96@aol.com. Then sit and wait.
Pretty soon you'll hear that
(a) Your work sucks, or (b)
This is fancy crap, and we're gonna print it. It's that simple!
is that all? yeah, we think that's pretty much it...
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
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.
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