Sorry
Rae Monroe
I’m sorry
For my uncensored words,
Thoughtless criticisms,
Ass-hat assumptions.
My opinion that falls flat and false
Your smug reactions verifying
That, yes, indeed, I am just like the rest.
I’m sorry
For my relentless passion
That stutters my thoughts,
Rearranges the rhythm
Until I don’t even know what
I’m trying to convey
So earnestly, I’m so earnest—
But not to any one goal
Unless love counts.
Does love count?
I’m sorry
For wanting something so typical,
So mundane your eyes roam
As I speak
I wish I could be original
But the only apples I have
Are crushed in my big hands
(2+3=47)
Do you catch the incoherence?
Do you comprehend?
I’m sorry
For all my questions
They bothered my parents, too
And my biological father—
Well, he stapled my mouth shut,
Gave me a “J” name,
Stuck on a penis,
And shoved me out of his house
That’s why I wander—
Or would I be rootless anyway?
Is it rationalism
And romanticism—
The constant need to escape life—
That makes me,
Or skewered chance,
A collision of atoms?
I’m sorry
For hating where I am
I used to align myself
With the tides
But now I have to reset
To the flow of traffic.
I’ll compare everywhere
To a dream I’ve never had,
Until they’re all unworthy of my residence—
I think I could keep eating
Until my jaw cracks
And my intestines melt
And I’d still be hungry.
I’m sorry
For gently saying “no”
And locking my door
For not replying to emails
And burying my head into the covers
When you call my name
For sticking headphones in
As deterrents to conversations
For deja-vu smiles
Then a ducked head,
Or a sudden interest in the distant horizon
Of pine tree tops.
The sky is baby blue today,
The cornflower color of your eyes
But it doesn’t matter,
Because I’ve pushed you away
(Do you pursue impossible relationships?)
But most of all, I’m sorry
For never apologizing for my behavior,
Anywhere other than the page—
Because I’ve spent my whole life
Trying not to make mistakes, have regrets,
Trespass on holy ground,
And I still bear the scars
Of those constraints.
I allow myself to be myself
And that entails
Action that requires apology,
Hearts that are broken,
Friendships that dwindle,
And I, I really am—
I’m sorry.
|
Lightly rowing
Minh-Tam Le
Upon the ocean,
I sat beneath your silver
Wings and wept with joy.
|
Collision
Minh-Tam Le
Stars,
Soaked in velvet charm.
Stars, spilling our past
Into the heavens where ships collide.
|
Waking up
Brandon Schaden
To the scratching
of the pillowcase
across my face—
squint my eyes open
to the laughing sun
mocking me from
between the sad blue
curtains with their
white designs like
ropes ready to tie
me down—
You’d think the
aroma of brewing
coffee from downstairs
would awaken the
senses of my body—
but it reminds
my nostrils of
rotting trash.
My mind is a rock
heavy with fearful
black cats that stick
up their hair and hiss
as they hide behind
boulders of gray matter—
my head pounding
with snorts and snickers
of cruel people in
my dreams—friends,
relatives, co-workers,
old classmates, strangers—
their thoughts and
judgments like knives
deep in my heart.
When I lie my head
back down and shut
my eyes, the alarm
on my phone shrieks
its blood crushing
cries into my ear
to remind me that
I’m not allowed
to rest in this life.
In front of my bed
there is a crucifix
on the colorless
wall—I try to
identify myself
in it—but He is God
and can withstand
the bile the spews
from people’s
cackling mouths.
With groans and sighs
I push my aching bones
off the side of my mattress,
trying to offer the little
compassion I have by
guiding my skeleton
down the stale, dusty
sunlit hallway watched
by the large window eye—
I stop when I approach
the staircase and stare
and the downward spiral
before me.
|
Leonard Cohen My Friend (V2)
Michael Lee Johnson
Death is a bitch and a whore
comes with hat on or off,
Jewish, Christian or lover years ago called Nancy.
Death is a passport, a left behind baggage note.
My leverage sinks, I see you pass human.
These my fears, your fright, being broke, old-royalties stole Suzanne.
Now branches, extended limbs, point outward nowhere-
doors Montreal collapse tomb, dance with me,
end perfume love, a few dead flowers.
|
Death is a Dog
Janet Kuypers
7/8/98
Death is an untrained little bitch
it pees on the carpet and barks through the night
and it’s always begging
for scraps at the table
seeing what it can take from you
when you’ve got your back turned
when you’re not looking
when you want it to heal,
well, it never does
and it never rolls over
and it never plays dead
I know what it takes to die
it’s not an emotional, rash decision
it’s cold
it’s calculated
it’s a numbing void
but one day it suddenly all makes sense
and from that moment on
you either look for it
or it looks for you
Death is an untrained little bitch
and I’ve been begging for it, I tell you
but it doesn’t come when you call
I leave a bowl of water out
and a bowl of dried dog food
and you know, I never see it eating
but when I check the bowl is empty
and I still refill the bowl
and vacuum the dog hair
that sticks to the couch
and spray air freshener
in the living room
because no matter how hard you try
you can never get rid of the smell
Death is an untrained little bitch, I tell you
and what it boils down to is this:
you won’t get along with her
and she won’t get along with you
she’ll claim her territory
under the bed,
eating your slipper,
while you try to sleep
and remind yourself
that there are no monsters
waiting for you
to shut your eyes
|
 
Watch this YouTube video
live at 6/11 in Chicago 06/11/02 |
3:32, 7/11 talk & poem, from the show 6/11 06/11/02
from the Internet Archive |
Listen   to the CD recording for the 06/11/02 performance art show 6/11
|
Listen  to The DMJ Art Connection,
 from The DMJ Art Connection Disc 1
|
Listen to this radio recording
from WZRD Radio (in a 2 CD set)
|
Order this iTunes track:
from the poetry audio CDetc.
...Or order the entire CD set
from iTunes:
CD:
|
Watch the YouTube video
The poems (I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well and Death is a Dog, 4:11) at the Jesse Oaks Lake County Politically UNcorrect poetry open mike on 05/24/07
|
Watch this YouTube video
(2:18) at Jesse Oaks 07/19/07
|
Listen: (2:24)
to this recording from Fusion |
Order this iTunes track:
from Chaotic Elements
(a 2 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes:
CD:
|
Watch this YouTube video
read at at the open mic Poetry Express (at Priya Indian Cuisine) in Berkeley CA 09/14/09
|
Watch this YouTube video
read at at the open mic Poetry Express (at Priya Indian Cuisine) in Berkeley CA 09/14/09
|
Watch this YouTube video
11/06/10 from the TV camera in Lake Villa’s Swing State, live in her “Visual Nonsense” show Sexism and other stories
|
Watch this YouTube video
1:54, 11/06/10 in Lake Villa at Swing State, in Sexism and other stories
|
See the full show of Kuypers reading from the TV monitor in the “Sexism and other stories” show, live in Lake Villa’s “Visual Nonsense” 10/20/011/06/10 with this poem at Swing State
|
See the full show of Kuypers reading in the “Sexism and other stories” show, live in Lake Villa 11/06/10 with this writing at Swing State
|
Watch the YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem at the open mike 2/29/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (w/ music from the HA!man of South Africa) from the house camera
|
Watch the YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem at the open mike 2/29/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (w/ music from the HA!man of South Africa) from the Kodak camera
|
See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem 2/13/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (from the Canon camera)
|
See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem 2/13/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (from the Sony camera)
|
See YouTube video
of Kuypers performng poetry including this poem in a last-minute mini-features @ the open mic 2/13/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)
|
See YouTube video
of Kuypers performng poetry including this poem in a last-minute mini-features @ the open mic 2/13/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (S)
|
See YouTube video
of 4 mini-features @ the open mic 2/13/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, where Janet Kuypers reads this poem in a “last minute” mini-feature
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 2 sets of 3 poems each, including the poems Death is a Dog, Everything Was Alive and Dying and Fantastic Car Crash in set 1, and Too Far, the Burning and Under the Sea in set 2, 8/11/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon fs200)
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 2 sets of 3 poems each, including the poems Death is a Dog, Everything Was Alive and Dying and Fantastic Car Crash in set 1, and Too Far, the Burning and Under the Sea in set 2, 8/11/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon Power Shot)
|
See YouTube video 6/13/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems Death is a Dog, and What I Want to Know and I Dreamt About You Last Night at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (from a Canon Power Shot camera).
|
See YouTube video 6/13/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems Death is a Dog, and What I Want to Know and I Dreamt About You Last Night at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (from a Sony camera).
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read her haiku “imprisoned / ignorance” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” poems “Death is a Dog” and “The one at Mardi Gras”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read her haiku “imprisoned / ignorance” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” poems “Death is a Dog” and “The one at Mardi Gras”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
|
State of Emergency
John F McMullen
Let’s see,
I have computers
and other devices
all over this building.
My home is here
as is my office
and my radio studio
It is just marvelous.
I can stay here
— and work
— and write
— and research
— and study
— and communicate
— and live here.
My virtual assistant, Alexa
even tells me how to spell words,
reads the news to me, plays music,
and helps with research.
It’s just marvelous.
It was just marvelous
until the “Bomb Cyclone” hit
and the power goes out
and then
I’m back in the dark ages
(Alexa, What’s the Dark Ages? —
“The Dark Ages is usually defined as
the period of history between Classical
Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance”
Thank you, Alexa)
|
bio
John F. McMullen, “johnmac the bard” is the Poet Laureate of the Town of Yorktown, NY, the author of over 2,500 columns and articles and seven books, five of which are collections of poetry, and is the host of a weekly Internet Radio Show (with hundreds of shows to date). Links to the recordings of all radio shows as well as information on Poet Laureate activities and an event calendar are available at .
|
Submission
John F McMullen
Dear Editor,
Enclosed are a few poems
which I sincerely hope
that you will choose to publish
in your fine journal.
In the event that you choose
not to do so, I hope that
your rag goes up in flames,
all your subscribers die, and
you and your staff rot in hell.
Respectfully submitted,
johnmac the bard
|
bio
John F. McMullen, “johnmac the bard” is the Poet Laureate of the Town of Yorktown, NY, the author of over 2,500 columns and articles and seven books, five of which are collections of poetry, and is the host of a weekly Internet Radio Show (with hundreds of shows to date). Links to the recordings of all radio shows as well as information on Poet Laureate activities and an event calendar are available at .
|
Animal Funerals
Robert Beveridge
kids are morbid.
squirrels buried
in cardboard coffins
forest wildlife
observe the rituals, pray
in animallanguage
when my best friend heard
the story of Jesus
he wondered whether
squirrels had a savior
constructed a cross
of twigs, a crown
of rose-thorns
|
Leave Me Now
(The Mushroom Pizza Trilogy, Part III)
Robert Beveridge
She stands bored
behind the cash register
in the old mom-n-pop
the only sign of civilization
the microwave
in the corner
two frozen mushroom pizzas
sixpack of Bud
eight bucks
she draws on her cigarette
lips cracked
with inhaled vertical furrows
takes my cash
she looks
like someone familiar
I grab her hand
instead of the two ones
she offers
and surprised
or shocked she says
“let go of me”
I drop her hand
and walk away
change crinkled
on the counter
|
Secrets of the Unforgiving
Eli Tomitch
I hang myself with the threads that you spin
Small and rigid the rope tightens around my neck and chokes my heart
leaves me blackened and sickly
gasping for air
If it is love you seek you will not find it here
not now after the scars have healed
and have been torn open once more
you can find my love in the words I cast off on the road to find you
gentle yearnings that suffocated on the page
because you belonged to another
Sweet death came quickly for the roses I sent you
with pink ribbons tied by trembling hands
the truck picked them up this morning along with your clothes,
remnants of our springtime love
yes they took the flowers and your smile with them
ill never see the gentle curve of your lips again
and much like the roses,
I wilt
|
Be Prepared
Kersten Christianson
In my town
they advise
we each pack
an emergency
box in case
of tsunamis,
earthquakes,
havoc generated
by mother nature.
Bottled water,
space blanket,
canned goods.
Nobody ever
suggests you pack
a survivor’s box
for, you know,
when your mate
dies. Marriage
certificate, online
passwords, booze.
|
Kersten Christianson Bio
Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing Alaskan. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing through the University of Alaska Anchorage and recently published her first collection of poetry Something Yet to Be Named (Aldrich Press, 2017).
|
For If They Fall...
Kasisi D. Harris
With a turn of a knob, Nick Jonas was silenced mid chorus and replaced by the sounds of squeaking brakes, several honks, and a man three cars away screaming at who knows what. Is this it? The leather crunched as Derrick gripped the steering wheel tightly and let out a long sigh. The green exit sign that normally marked relief gave him no comfort. After pulling into his driveway he placed the vehicle in park, laid his head back against the head rest and closed his eyes. I can’t do this anymore. Taking a deep breath he lifted the door handle and exited the vehicle. Derrick’s saunter to the front door was halted when the image of a small box on the porch came into view. His eyes were glued to the box as he closed the door. El Paso. He only knew of one person from El Paso, and that person was dead.
He used his keys to cut the tape just enough to rip the lid open. Inside, there was a ring and a card which read, It was his most favorite thing. Regards, Sarah. It was modest by Naval Academy standards. The ring was comprised of a white gold band with a mother of pearl stone flanked by two diamonds. Inside there was a portion of a scripture which read, “For if they fall... Eccl 4:10.” He began to breathe heavily. His cheeks and ears became hot and his nose began to sniffle. He clutched the ring tight in his hand and his watering eyes stared off in the distance as an explosion of memories filled his head.
Angel Mendez was one part troublemaker, two parts loyal friend, but a leader in every way. His charismatic nature and relentless work ethic earned him the respect of his fellow Marines. Upon his discharge, Angel was accepted to Baylor University. On the eve of his departure, Derrick met briefly with him.
“You’ve come a long way,” said Derrick.
“Thank you sir.” Angel began to smile.
“Life isn’t so regimented on the outside and you’ll have to be strong to survive.” Derrick looked down at ring on his hand. “You don’t know much about me. Like you, I came from a pretty rough background. I decided that I wanted more in life.” He slipped the ring off his finger and placed it in the palm of his hand. “This ring represents my journey. Effort and hard work pays off. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was downright hard. But, I did it. I want this ring to symbolize that for you. Don’t ever give up!” Derrick handed the ring to Angel.
Angel gazed at the ring. His blinking increased and the smile that had previously been so prominent transitioned to him biting his lower lip. Angel took the ring and held it in his fist raising it to wipe his wet cheek. Placing the ring on his finger, Angel said, “I won’t let you down Sir.”
“I know you won’t.” Derrick extended his hand and Adrian shook it. “Now go. Do big things!”
“Thank you sir, for everything.” Angel turned, picked up to his two duffle bags and placed them in the trunk of a waiting taxi. He looked back one last time, and after a deep breath, he smiled.
Derrick’s memories continued.
Once he was discharged, he remembered the late nights spent tutoring Angel through Chemistry and Calculus via Skype.
“I can’t do this Sir,” Angel said.
“Yes you can. Now let’s run through this problem again.” Derrick refused to let Angel give up. No matter how many times Derrick tried to get Angel to call him by his name, he refused.
“You’ll always be, Sir, to me,” Angel said.
Angel was in his third year at Baylor when it happened. While visiting his cousin, he pulled out a 9mm pistol and shot himself in the head.
Derrick snapped back to reality. His breathing returned to normal. For if they fall, one will lift up the other. His grip loosened and he put the ring on. He began to smile. I can do this. He looked up and in a whisper said, “Thank you Angel.”
|
A While Back
Frederick Pollack
She was too beautiful. I wasn’t.
And someone else was there –
a sister, I think.
Not averse to me, but tense.
She was tense. On the, an, edge,
but had been there a long time,
I sensed. I shouldn’t have come.
But the father was away. He was the problem,
I quickly gathered. “What’s wrong with him?”
I don’t remember her words,
or the sister’s, only dark hair, cheekbones,
and a downward-stabbing gesture.
He was Russian, an emigré.
Arbitrarily, convulsively repressive.
Not himself devout, he forced her to go to church.
Wouldn’t let her date. I visualized
grey, gnarled – a grandfather.
Decided I could at least learn something
psychological (I wanted to be a writer).
“Have you ever seen him enjoy anything?”
“He was watching public television.
It showed the Red Army
defeating Hitler, Nazi soldiers
frozen in the snow. He got up, sort of touched
the TV, and said “Haaaah! Haaaaaah!”
But he was very right-wing.
The apartment was vast, all velvet and Easter-egg.
Lots of money, I thought, in anticommunism.
We gazed across Fifth Avenue at the Met,
closed and floodlit.
My questions were naïve; nothing could be done ... Wait.
I told them (trying for dignity, self-containment,
maturity) I was sorry; left.
When I returned to campus I would talk
to Victor. He was (I think) a history major,
had severe curvature of the spine
and somehow dozens of friends at all the girls’ schools.
If you were desperate you went to Victor.
“Sometimes it clicks,” he had said cheerfully.
I wandered down Madison.
Already one knew better than to walk in the Park.
I’d like to think I was thinking
about the novel I wrote a few years later,
which the one agent I sent it to
dismissed by saying it was about
a man thinking about a man thinking.
I’d like to think I had an intimation
of something I only fully realized
much later: that there is no subject-matter
less fruitful than the anguish of young men.
Or – drily, detachedly – the fact that
so much in life and the self
is useless: flat facts, symbolizing nothing,
but exerting a drug-like appeal.
I’d like to think I noticed
the damp cool air and relative liberalism
of the era. But what I thought about was girls,
her, and probably suits and ties.
(Mine were tight.) I often said then
that the tie began as a neck-shackle;
lipstick, earlier, as blood,
proving that your man could provide you with meat.
Already I wanted never to wear a suit.
By 57th une pluie fine
(in French we were reading Flaubert) had not yet begun,
but over Greenwich Village thunder had,
which is really just the gods moving furniture.
|
.Stromer’s Rock
K.M. Luis
Darla was drinking lemonade. She pulled fluid up the straw as she stepped out onto the porch. It was bitter, but sweet.
Once her lips were free, Darla smiled.
Neighbor kids played below the bank a short distance from the houses. Maybe they’d get to play until dark, maybe not.
The weather was unpredictable this time of year. Rowboats were tied up at a neat little row of short docks. Only one dock was empty.
Robert wasn’t back yet.
Nerves unsettled inside Darla. Robert always went out on Saturdays to Stromer’s Rock, a large craggy formation about half a mile off the shoreline. Poachers came from the other side of the lake, went there to set traps for the albatross that lived further down the coast. Robert went there to destroy the traps.
Darla could see Stromer’s Rock in the distance. From her porch it was fuzzy, dreamlike. Robert knew what he was doing. It was still early. Not time yet for nerves.
A harsh gust of wind swept up the steps to Darla’s home. Darla had to put a hand down in front of her skirt to keep it from riding along. Another blast came immediately after. And a third. Small waves formed on the lake’s surface. The rowboats began swaying back and forth, clomping dully against the piers.
Darla looked out over the tree line at the far side of the lake. Dark clouds marched across the horizon and were making good time. Rain would follow, sea water would push up from the river that fed the lake. The water would rise tonight, plenty.
The neighbor kids were being joined by their mother, Rhonda. After a short argument, they’d have to go inside. No playing until dark after all.
Darla thought about going in for her a sweater. Something caught her attention out on the lake, out at Stromer’s Rock.
Her eyes narrowed, and she jutted her head forward slightly. Her eyelids flew up with surprise. She let out an involuntary gasp.
Water was crashing against Stromer’s Rock. Those nerves began kicking at Darla’s insides. She was suddenly running out of time.
Darla leapt from her porch, tossing the glass of lemonade onto the grass. She flung the sandals from her feet and raced towards the rowboats. Poachers hammered spikes into Stromer’s Rock, tied to rope traps. One could come lose, fall below the water line, get wedged where a man might be walking...
Frantic, Darla swept by the neighbor kids and their mother, almost barreling into them as she passed.
“Woah, Darla,” Rhonda called out, “is everything okay?”
Darla turned, but didn’t stop. Breathing heavily, she managed a hoarse, “I need to borrow your boat.”
Darla pulled hysterically at the ropes that tied Rhonda’s family rowboat to the pier. Each growling tug pulled the ropes a little looser, until they were finally free enough to pull over the top of the post. Darla threw the rope into the boat, jumped in, and pushed away from the pier with an oar.
Clouds blocked the sun entirely, and rain was pouring down in sheets. Darla tossed quick glances over her shoulder as she rowed. With each darting glimpse, Stromer’s Rock grew clearer. Clearer, and smaller. The water was rising fast.
Fatigue engulfed Darla, ever slowing her progress. Her heaving grunts got louder with each stroke of the oars. At the same time, her mind raced quicker and quicker, the feeling that she wouldn’t be in time growing stronger and stronger.
The abrupt crashing against rock startled new life into Darla. A jagged section had pierced into the rowboat. Water rushed in from the hole. It would sink soon. That didn’t matter now.
Darla bounded from the boat onto the mangled, jagged surfaces of Stromer’s Rock. She climbed over the rock’s uneven surface, cuts on her feet and scrapes on her legs be damned, and swiftly made it to the other side.
And there he was! She wasn’t too late. Robert was submerged up to his waist, struggling weakly with something that had his leg caught near an outcropping of rock. Darla heaved a sigh of relief, stopped to catch her breath. Robert heard Darla, and hope sprung at once into his eyes.
“Darla, my God!” Robert didn’t know whether to continue pulling at his leg or reach for his wife. He tried at both and failed at both. “My leg is caught in a trap. It must have come loose up there and gotten wedged in down here.”
The trap could have come loose and fallen to where it now held Robert. Or, someone could have pulled it loose and set it there, to trap him.
Robert screamed, “Darla, you have to hurry!”
Rain drenched Stromer’s Rock, soaked Robert and Darla. “I know, Robert.” It was the way she said it that dashed all hope from Robert’s eyes.
“What?”
“I know. About you and Rhonda.”
“What? Are you nuts?” Darla just stared at him. Robert added, “This isn’t the time. Please!”
Darla listened to Robert scream and watched him flail for a while longer, until the water was at his chest. Then, she turned to go. She’d have to swim back.
“You can’t leave me! You’re crazy!”
That’s what they’ll all say. Darla, you were crazy to go out to Stromer’s Rock. There was nothing you could have done.
|
The Last Guru
Steve Carr
Jeremiah sits on the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets. In front of him, feathery wisps of smoke from a burning stick of cinnamon incense jabbed into the bottom of an overturned Styrofoam cup curls upward and drifts away in the heat. He has his legs crossed beneath his ankle length tie-dyed robe that also cover the sandals he wears on his dirty feet. His naturally wavy snow white hair cascades down to his shoulders. His full beard comes to a scraggly point at his sternum. With his arms outstretched and his hands held palms up, he emits through his parched lips a monotone, “Ohmmmmmm.” Most of the time his eyes are closed.
Some passersby put coins or dollar bills in the cigar box sitting on the sidewalk next to the incense. Most hurry by him, glancing at him furtively. Tourists snap pictures of him with their iphones before getting on the streetcar heading to Market Street. Those who pass him as they go into the neighborhood coffee shop nearby regard him with same disinterest as they do any of the fixtures on the streets. But inside while they sip they their coffee, they talk about him.
“He’s been sitting there every day since 1972.”
“I heard he’s some kind of guru.”
“I think he did a little too much LSD when he was young.”
“Putting money in his cigar box will bring you good luck.”
“I’ve never talked to him. Have you?”
“No.”
When Jeremiah has his eyes open he lowers his arms and places his folded hands in his lap. He nods congenially at those who gaze at him with curiosity and at the tourists polite enough to ask if they can take his picture. He has a bundle of sticks of incense that he keeps in a small canvas pouch that he has placed behind him. They are different aromas. He had a brass incense holder, but it was stolen while he had his eyes shut.
At noon each day Maggie Albright brings him lunch. She lives alone nearby in a large Victorian home painted a brilliant sky blue. Like Jeremiah, her hair is white. Her face is a topographic map of wrinkles. She brings his lunch on a paper plate covered with aluminum foil. She sits down next to him and crosses her legs as he eats from the plate placed in his lap.
“Too many people are complacent,” she says. “Back in our day people really spoke up.”
“The process of change is very slow,” he says as he puts a forkful of food in his mouth. “People wake up to the problems in the world, then go back to sleep for a while, then wake up again.”
Maggie carries a wallet in the pocket of her skirt. In the wallet are photographs of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk, Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. She frequently flips through the photographs. She lovingly runs her long, slender, pale fingers over their faces.
“You live too much in the past,” Jeremiah says.
“There’s no one to look up to anymore except you,” she says.
After he’s eaten he folds the aluminum foil and places it in the middle of the plate and hands it to her.
“You nourish my body and soul,” he says.
In late afternoon when the pastel colored sunlight blankets the streets and buildings, Jeremiah stretches and bends while in his seated position. Aging has brought with it sore muscles. The high school has let out and most of the teenagers go by him seemingly unaware that he is there. Their voices linger in the air like discordant music. Occasionally one will talk to him.
“Why do you sit here?”
“This is the spot I feel most spiritually centered.”
“Are you some kind of preacher?”
“I hope not.”
He breaks off the end of the burning incense stick and puts the remaining piece in the pouch. He closes the cigar box and stands up, with it, the cup, and the pouch carried in one arm. He then he rolls up the ornately sewn prayer rug that he sits on and tucks it under his other arm. He leans back against the brick building, feeling the blood coursing through his cramped legs.
With her schoolbooks in her arms, Angela walks up to Jeremiah. Her eyes are deep blue and piercing, like his. Her face is luminescent.
“Are you ready to go home, Grandpa,” she says.
“Yes dear,” he says as he steps away from the building and places his hand on her shoulder.
Together they walk across the intersection.
“How was school today?” he says.
“Boring,” she says.
“It will be more interesting in hindsight,” he says.
Jeremiah throws the cup in a trash can. At the food bank he goes in and empties the money in the cigar box into a large glass jar with “donations” written on a piece of paper taped to it.
On the street where they live, Angela says, “Did anyone ask for your advice today, Grandpa?”
Jeremiah shakes his head. “That doesn’t happen much anymore.”
In the house, Jeremiah goes into his bedroom and puts the pouch and cigar box on the top of his dresser. He takes off his robe and hangs it on a hook on his closet door. In his boxers and t-shirt he sits on the edge of his bed and takes off his sandals. He goes into his bathroom and turns on the faucet in the bathtub. He sits on the edge of the tub and puts his feet under the flowing water and watches the dirt swirl around before disappearing down the drain.
He turns off the water, dries his feet, and puts on his terry cloth bathrobe and slippers. He goes to the living room and sits in his rocking chair and turns on the television.
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Steve Carr bio
Steve Carr, who lives in Richmond, Va., began his writing career as a military journalist and has had over 150 short stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals and anthologies. Sand, a collection of his short stories, was published recently by Clarendon House Books. His plays have been produced in several states in the U.S. He was a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee. He is on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012966314127 and Twitter @carrsteven960.
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Grandpa’s Not Feeling Well
Karen Schauber
Grandpa has been sighing a lot lately. He sits at the kitchen table tap tapping the checkered cloth, twisting salt and pepper shakers, brushing off non-existent crumbs, trying to make things right.
Grandma makes tea, lets the bag float till the water turns crusty. He doesn’t touch it.
The news is on all day now. Times have changed he keeps saying. Grandma can’t console him. If only he was younger he says. He would do something.
His vacant stare lets me know he is listening intently to the reports. I don’t dare interrupt. He’s told me he can’t miss a thing; that it can change from minute to minute. There is no telling what can happen. He whispers ‘no one will be safe’.
The lump in my throat does not want to go away. I can feel his pain, his deep disappointment. His worry.
I have never seen my Grampa like this before. I can’t tell if he’s aging before my eyes, going downhill fast, or what.
I look at Grandma hoping she can do something. Maybe she knows what he needs. She is starting to sigh too. I’m not sure if it’s because of what is happening with Grandpa or if it’s about what Grampa is so upset about.
I pretend to do my homework, but I am really too distracted to study. I am starting to sigh too. It’s all very unpleasant, even a little scary. It feels like my family has been taken hostage, but I can’t figure out by who.
He keeps repeating ‘I feel the Bern’ but it doesn’t seem to be changing the situation. I’ll keep watching, and waiting, with him.
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Karen Schauber Bio (2018)
Karen Schauber is a seasoned Family Therapist practicing in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her earlier writing is non-fiction and details three decades of psychosocial and analytical cases. Flash Fiction is a new and welcome adventure for her. Fictional short stories are much more fun to read and write!
As an emerging artist, Karen hones her craft at home and at the dog beach on the west coast (when it’s not pouring out). The upcoming Group of Seven Flash Fiction Anthology is her first editorial novella-in-flash venture. http://GroupofSevenFlashFiction.weebly.com. Karen’s flash fiction can be read at http://rebelshorts.weebly.com, at Spillwords, Blood Puddles, AdHoc Fiction, and forthcoming at Yellow Mama.
She can be reached directly at: http://karenschauber.weebly.com
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Subsequently
Chella Courington
You gave me a cactus pear
before our daughter
tumbled
off the boat & you
swam
under spiral blades
to raise her
from the bloody floor
one rose anemone
waiting
for spring
not for you
Did you jump
for her
did the white lady
with silver hair
like the moon
reach up
pull you down
into an ocean
not salty
enough
to bear your gamy
carcass
spitting it back
to me
night
after night
I dive
past star feathers
sea pansies
for my child
not you
until I find her
asleep
in a conch shell
skin unsuited
for sun
luminously pink
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About Chella Courington
Chella Courington is a writer and teacher. With a Ph.D. in American and British Literature and an MFA in Poetry, she is the author of six poetry and three flash fiction chapbooks. Her poetry appears in numerous anthologies and journals including Non-Binary Review, Pirene’s Fountain, and The Los Angeles Review.
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Her Son’s 8th Birthday
David Stallings
When the kids go outside to pursue
a 12-clue scavenger hunt
my daughter says, I need to lie down—
but soon returns to the living room.
Breathing shallow, rapid,
she walks over
to her mother and me, long-divorced,
says,
It’s happening again.
I don’t want it to—it mustn’t....
Her hands cradle lower belly
where in the last six months
a bowel blockage
has twice sent her to hospital.
Now, she’s learned to eat well—
slowly, small amounts—
to rest, to meditate.
And yet....
She sits on the couch
close to me. I place a hand
on her lower back.
Her mother pulls over a chair,
leans in, takes the three of us
through release tapping—
top of head, facial points,
hand and wrist—
again, again.
The three of us breathe
united as we
have ever been.
When her pain subsides
she relaxes
just as
her son and his friends
charge into the room with presents.
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About David Stallings (2918)
David Stallings was born in the U.S. South, raised in Alaska and Colorado before settling in the Pacific Northwest. Once an academic geographer, he has long worked to promote public transportation in the Puget Sound area. His poems have appeared in several North American, U.K. and Swedish literary journals and anthologies, in Resurrection Bay (Evening Street Press), and in Risking Delight (forthcoming, Kelsay Press).
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Herr Tod
Salvatore Difalco
Jörg had never been to the Bavarian Haus, a smallish tavern on the north side of town. That is to say, all its rustic flourishes—exposed cross beams, decorative steins and burnished wood surfaces—made it feel like a tavern, at least what he conceptualized as a tavern. What exactly differentiated a tavern from a pub or a beer hall, he didn’t know, except that he associated the pub with the British, and a beer hall sounded vast. Why he had stopped at the Bavarian Haus escaped his understanding. He could have easily gone to another, less old world venue for a drink. But after an exhausting day at his brokerage, and a thirst for alcohol, something he could not fathom had compelled him to come to this of all places. Had he dreamed of it? Had he suffered any premonitions of going there? No. As far as he could tell, an invisible hand had guided him there, working his strings like a marionette.
Jörg laughed to himself. Seriously, how had he been steered here? He could only conjecture. He thought the people sitting at the bar resembled caricatures. He wondered what that meant, and if he himself resembled a caricature.
The man beside him, teeth like terracotta, grimaced continuously. Perhaps it had become his default mode, this expression, as though he suffered from some unspeakable, internal torment or disorder. Down from him, a man who bobbed and swung his head about like a passionate accordion player, tried drinking his beer but couldn’t make his hand and mouth come together. The bartender, in white-jacket, black sideburns lacquered on, assisted him by reaching his hands across the bar and stilling his head. He maintained the head rigidly as the man brought the beer glass to his lips and tasted the creamy foam.
“Two men walk into a bar,” said the man beside Jörg, apropos of nothing. “One asks the bartender, I’d like a gimlet to go. Bartender says coming right up. Second man says make that two. Bartender asks who’s paying for the drinks. When neither makes a move to his pocket, the bartender reaches behind the bar and pulls out a shotgun. He asks again who’s paying for the drinks. When the first man says he is, bartender shoots the second man. When the first man asks why he shot the second man, bartender says, it was his time.”
The man’s nostrils quivered, and he issued a chuffing or huffing sound through his clenched teeth that, after a moment, Jörg realized was laughter.
“Funny, right?”
“What’s so funny about that?” Jörg said, unwilling to humour this man, possibly suffering from mental illness.
He didn’t seem angered by Jörg’s response. On the other hand, he didn’t seem pleased by it either. He summoned the bartender with a finger-snap.
“Wolfgang,” the bartender said, “I think you’ve had enough.”
“I’ll know when I’ve had enough.”
The bartender produced a small black baton and slapped it in his hand. Then, without warning, he clipped the grimacing Wolfgang across the brow with it. Wolfgang’s head fell forward and struck the bar with a thump.
Jörg reacted with a start. He gripped the bar counter.
“He’ll be okay in a few minutes,” the bartender said. “Now and then I have to soften him up or he gets outa hand. Shouldn’t be drinking at all, truth be told. What’s your story, mister?”
“Story? I have no story. Just came here to quench my thirst. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“No one said you were looking for trouble. I was just trying to be folksy. A bartender can’t be folksy these days? But why here? Why did you come here of all places, with so many other places to go? I wouldn’t have recommended it, not today.”
“What are you talking about?”
He smiled. One of his front teeth was dead. “They say that as the end approaches there are no longer images from memory, only words, words taken from the mouths of other men, mutilated words, words denuded of all meaning. I’ve seen it before, man. Guys like you come in here and have no idea why. Think about it.”
Jörg tried to disregard the bartender’s blathering. Think about it, think about it. What was there to think about?
“You were transported here by a secret impulse,” intoned the bartender, as if quoting a passage from a book, “an impulse deeper than reason.”
“Barkeep,” said the man with the bobbing head.
“Be with you in a sec, Deter. Deter over there has palsy. Don’t you make fun of him, boy, not on my watch. Don’t do it.”
“I hadn’t noticed him. I’d like another Manhattan, please.”
“Wait your turn, buddy. Deter needs help. If I don’t help him how’s he going to get tanked tonight, huh? Tell me that.”
Jörg shrugged. The bartender’s tone irked him. His entire being did. But he didn’t feel like taking a baton to the head for a misspoken word. While the bartender assisted the palsied man, holding his head as he drank his beer, Jörg surveyed the bar. Two women sat side by side in a booth, one dressed in muted blue, the other in violet. They lovingly held hands and the harmony between them achieved a gentle, decorative presence that soothed Jörg’s eyes and spirit.
In a dim corner by the latrines loomed a lone sketchy figure, nursing a glass of beer, suds long dissipated. He sat there in silent detachment, like a disembodied soul, staring nowhere, thinking nothing, unable to expiate his suffering through drink.
Meanwhile, Wolfgang continued dozing, or had fallen into a coma caused by the baton blow. As his face was turned away from Jörg, it was impossible to tell if he still wore that grimace. Jörg jumped off his stool and circled Wolfgang to inspect his face.
“What do you think you’re doing?” barked the bartender.
Jörg froze. Then with a smooth, quick movement, returned to his stool.
“He’s leaving shortly, no need to stir him up.”
“Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere anytime soon,” Jörg ventured.
“Wanna put your money where your mouth is? Bet you twenty he’s outa here in five.”
Jörg didn’t want to wager anything on Wolfgang’s recovery and exit from the bar. It was none of his business. And he had no money to spare. Whatever was going on here didn’t sit well with him. And yet he made no move to leave. What was holding him there? He had no inkling. The bartender scoffed and turned to the task of making his Manhattan—a fine drink, a sophisticated drink. Jörg prided himself in having, at the very least, a little more sophistication than all the rubes around him.
Two tall men dressed in black abruptly appeared at his side. For a moment he thought they were agents of some kind, there to interrogate him about homeland security or whatnot, or religious fanatics, intent on converting him and saving him from a life of sin. But they weren’t interested in Jörg. Instead, they seized the unconscious Wolfgang by the arms, each interlocking one with theirs, and tight on his flanks carried him out, giving the impression that he was exiting with some assistance, and not completely unconscious or dead.
“Where are they taking him?’ Jörg asked.
The bartender, toweling the bar, thinned his eyes.
“What is it?” Jörg asked.
“You owe me twenty.”
“I didn’t take that bet.”
“Deter,” said the bartender, snapping his towel.
“P-p-pay the man his money.”
“Yoo-hoo, ladies!’
“Pay him his money!” they cried from their booth.
“You’re gonna pay one way or the other.”
“I’m not paying,” Jörg insisted.
“To my way of thinking,” said the bartender, “that conclusion is unacceptable.”
Jörg sensed someone behind him. When he looked to see who it was, he started. The loner from the table by the latrines stood there, head bowed, eyes staring nowhere.
“Who the fuck is that?” Jörg asked the bartender.
“That’s Tod,” he said with a smile. “Meet Herr Tod.”
“What are you talking about?”
The loner pressed close to Jörg, his foul breath heating his neck.
Making air quotes, the bartender whispered, “It was his time.”
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Creatures and Thoughts
Mike Schneider
When my eyes open the clock on the dresser reads 3:53. Three hours before I have to get up. Same thing every night a few minutes either side of 4:00 a.m.
Looking toward the vanity I see one of the creatures perched atop the mirror. Its form is vague. About the size and shape of a woodchuck, its red fur appears matted, like a stuffed Tickle-Me-Elmo that’s been handed down a time or two. Elmo might be a poor example, the creature’s fur is not as strong a red, more like halfway between Elmo and rust. Or Elmo and auburn, or henna. I’m not good at colors. The dark doesn’t help. I can’t see its eyes but sense it’s drawing a bead on me, preparing to attack.
Across the room the other creature sits on the molding above the door. It’s identical to the first but instead of perching parallel to the wall it can somehow sit there facing out from the wall. In order to do this its body has to either go through the wall, or accordion flat up behind its head. Without the light on I can’t tell which it is. Like its counterpart, it’s poised to action.
The only difference between them is how they fly.
Door Molding strikes first, springs from his perch, flies straight at my face, swift and sure like a peregrine falcon diving from a 41st floor office window in the canyons of downtown, locked onto an unsuspecting pigeon it has marked for dinner. When it’s within two feet of me it executes a chandelle, shoots straight up to within a foot of the ceiling before making a 180 and leveling off, back to the door like a pilot escaping a box canyon into which he has unwittingly flown. It repeats this maneuver every night, with graceful perfection.
Three of my medications list hallucinations as a possible side effect. They’re the ones for PTSD, ADHD and ALS. Like nothing has a name anymore, everyone talks in capital letters-RBI, PSAT, LGBTQ, HVAC, LOL, ICU. I see you, too, Alphabet Linguist, you thieving bastard, standing there naked without so much as a stitch of resonance, sonicity, cadence, pulse or inflection, swallowing up more of our language every day while looking like the cat that ate the canary, a cliché you haven’t gotten to yet but when you do will become TCTATC. English needs to force syrup of ipecac down your throat, make you regurgitate its beautiful words back to their rightful owners, those of us who speak, write, hear, read and translate it.
With Door Molding safely back Vanity Mirror jumps from its perch and flies toward me like a bat, its wings flapping silently, out of sync with anything in nature. When it approaches it stops and hovers no more than six inches from my face, reminding me of the army’s old Shawnee helicopter with twin rotors and bent fuselage that was more than 50 feet long, 15 feet high and looked too big, broken and bulky to be able to hover but somehow did.
I don’t know which of my medications is causing the hallucinations, only that when I close my eyes they go away. Instantly. I allow Vanity Mirror to hover only three seconds before killing him for another 24 hours. I never give him longer because I don’t know if he would actually attack and do not care to find out.
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Eleanor Leonne Bennett Bio (20150720)
Eleanor Leonne Bennett is an internationally award winning artist of almost fifty awards. She was the CIWEM Young Environmental Photographer of the Year in 2013. Eleanor’s photography has been published in British Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Her work has been displayed around the world consistently for six years since the age of thirteen. This year (2015) she has done the anthology cover for the incredibly popular Austin International Poetry Festival. She is also featured in Schiffer’s “Contemporary Wildlife Art” published this Spring. She is an art editor for multiple international publications.
www.eleanorleonnebennett.com
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Misbelief
Emily Strauss
I knew if I just asked, I would be told ‘yes’
warmly invited into the group, welcomed
wrapped in their arms, if I just asked
I would become part of them, an intimate
member smiling in the circle, holding
hands with children, I could sit in the middle
of laughs, belong to the cloud of friends
but it never happened. They always said ‘no’
and I felt cold winds, wet leaves slapping at me
left outside the shed, the games played
elsewhere and when I complained, mother
said I shouldn’t care, I was fine without them—
but I wasn’t. Tears ached behind my eyes, I stared
across the circle’s boundary, an invisible wall
I couldn’t crawl through, the belief in
membership gone before I was ever asked
to join Cub Scouts, the dodge ball team,
the circle of children.
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About Emily Strauss
Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry, which she has written since college. Over 400 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the U.S. and abroad. She is a Best of the Net and twice a Pushcart nominee. The natural world of the American West is generally her framework; she also considers the narratives of people and places around her. She is a retired teacher living in Oregon.
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Running in High Heels
Emily Strauss
in New York after 9/11
women’s high heels were found
littering the dust and ash-
filled streets by the towers
black and red, stiletto,
pumps, platforms, wedges
under cars, bushes, benches
strewn across the sidewalks
as women ran away
instinctively kicking off
their unwieldy shoes,
they lay scuffed
broken, unwanted—
impossible to run in high heels
swept up days later
along with the bricks
eye glasses, hand bags
all the waste left after
the fact
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About Emily Strauss
Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry, which she has written since college. Over 400 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the U.S. and abroad. She is a Best of the Net and twice a Pushcart nominee. The natural world of the American West is generally her framework; she also considers the narratives of people and places around her. She is a retired teacher living in Oregon.
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The Day After Tomorrow, chapter 2
Marc McMahon
“That will be thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents please” the man behind the glass in the parking attendants booth growls in his weary, I would rather be working at McDonald’s then this crappy subterranean job voice. Kenny’s mom hands the young man fifteen dollars and tells him to keep the change as she also extends a warm parting smile. That was the largest tip this young man has seen since he started working in the underbelly of the Doctors building almost seven months ago. All of the sudden being a parking garage attendant does not seem so bad. Visions of owning his own garage one day now flood the man’s mind as he drifts off into the glorious land of the day-dream.
“How was your first visit with Doctor Sullivan Kenny?” The boy’s mom asks as she pulls her estrogen-powered Ford F-350 Super Duty into their driveway. Kenny’s mom loves her big truck. It is the closest thing to having a man in her life that she has had since her step husband passed. The closest thing that can flex the family muscles on outward appearance causing most to not make the mistake of thinking she is a pushover. Far from it this one. That and the fact she is now a brown belt in Taekwondo and pities the fool who raise a misguided fist to her again.
“Kenny I asked you a question and I am tired of you ignoring me every time I do so. Now close that damn door young man you are not going anywhere. Kenny, I swear if you, 1,2.” And with a force to be reckoned with Kenny slams the truck’s door. “Fine, you’re the mom, like I even have a choice. I don’t like her o.k. There, we talked, are you happy? Can I go now.......Mom!” Thinking how disrespectful Kenny has gotten as his thirteenth birthday quickly approaches she wonders how best to respond. She thinks back to Gil and his sometimes not so level-headed approach when he would get mad at the boys as a resource, but she does not like the visual her mind gave her on how that may go down so she quickly accesses male role model number two memories for direction. That person although second on her list is her Father. Loving, caring, and the man who spoiled her beyond any little girls wildest dreams. Though his kindness may not suit him too well in this situation. Not that an outpouring of love, gifts, and trips to vacation spots around the country wouldn’t make the boy happy but help him, I am not too sure about that.
In an attempt to keep order Piper agrees to the boy’s request and with an added stipulation to his offer she replies, “fine, go ahead, we will pick this conversation up after dinner now. Go get started on your homework.” As the two walk up to the porch of their suburban log home which she and Gil purchased while married and, which she inevitably was able to keep as part of the divorce settlement. It is a beautiful structure built out of Old Growth Cedar that had been purchased just for this job as the entire home is a 2,303 ft. architectural masterpiece. Boasting two floors, the 1,488 ft. main floor which holds the master bath with river rock shower that looks like a waterfall as you shower under it. A 200 sq. ft. walk-in closet and its own covered porch off the tinted glass sliding door. Then the 820 sq. ft. upper floor with two bedrooms and a loft that overlooks the great room below. Piper always jokes that being married to Gil was all made worthwhile by getting the house free and clear in the divorce and I must agree, a beauty it is.
“Mom, telephone” Kenny hollers as he runs up the stairs to his room. “No running in the house damn it, Kenny.” “Hello, yes this is Mrs. Ginelli, oh hello, yes, yes, at seven p.m.? Shoot ok it kind of slipped my mind it has been a day but thank you so much for the reminder and we shall see you all at seven then for dinner. Uh huh, Okie Dokie, you too, goodbye. Kenny, come here a moment” she hollers up to the boy. Appearing behind his mother the boy shouts “here mom!” Startled Piper jumps and tells Kenny to go shower they have dinner at the Ginelli’s at seven. With a very large smile on his face, the boy streaks off to his bedroom to shower without another word. Mrs. Ginelli has a boy the same age as Kenny the two have literally grown up together, almost closer than Kenny is with his real brother but that’s another story entirely.
As Kenny and Piper drive to the Ginellis, the boy breaks down crying for seemingly no reason. “What in God sakes is wrong with you now son,” Piper softly asks. “Take me home! Take me home now mom, please! Stop, stop it I said, no, oh God no!” “Putting her hand on the boy’s shoulder Piper whispers softly ok son, ok let me turn this truck around sweetie and we shall go back home.” It doesn’t take Kenny long to realize not only did his mom pass the turn to go to their house she also passed the grocery store as well which is what Kenny was hoping she drove by their street for. To take him to the grocery store to buy him his favorite flavor of ice-cream like she always does when he gets upset and only that store carries his favorite kind! In case you were wondering the Kind is black licorice, that’s the boys favorite and no other will do. How could it: what other kind of ice-cream turns a young boys tongue army green!
“Where are we going?” Kenny insists. “To get you some help son and to make sure of what we need to do — if anything — in order to keep you safe.” “Are we going to the hospital mom?” “No son Dr. Sullivan is going to meet us at her office. I sent her a text message about what just happened to you and she said she would like for you to come and talk with her again if that is o.k. with you Kenny. Otherwise yes, it’s the hospital.” “We can go see the doctor mom. I will talk to her and tell her what happened to me again.” “So then you like your new doctor Kenny?” “Mom I said I would talk to her is all.” As Kenny lays his head back on the seat and starts to think about whether or not he will tell the doctor the truth about all he sees or not, Piper anxiously pulls the big rig into the tiny, made for Japanese imports parking stall in the underground garage of Dr. Sullivans building and the two proceed to the elevator. Kenny likes the doctors building now because the elevator goes up to the forty-seventh floor and the good doctor’s office is on thirty-six so it’s quite a ride for the young lad.
As the elevator door opens the two are greeted by the security guard from the last visit, who had just finished his nine o’clock rounds and was waiting for the elevator to return to his post in the building’s lobby. When Piper opens the door to suite one-twenty-three there is the Doctor, feet kicked up on the receptionist desk giggling like a little girl. Piper blushing says “oh, sorry I should have knocked.” “Don’t you be silly now the good doctor remarks and you can take my spot here and me and that wonderful son of yours will go back and have a little chat. Of course, if that is alright with you Kenny,” the doctor asks. “Yes, Dr. Sullivan,” Kenny replies. The doctor immediately glanced to piper and the two grinned as a small victory in the breaking down of a little boys defenses has just been won. As the two walk to her office suite, I must add, the doctor’s heart is warm as she thinks back to Kenny’s chosen name for her at the last visit as a very harsh, Lady. “where would you like to sit today Kenny?” “In the chair doctor.”
“Your mom was telling me that the two of you were on your way to your friend’s house for dinner when it happened again, is that correct Kenny?” “Uh-huh.” “Would you like to tell me about it?” “ya, I guess.”
“It was kind of different this time Doctor. This time when I walked down the path. You know the one with the crosses as far as I can see?” “Yes Kenny, go on.” “Well I started on the path and I was walking and the bodies they smelled doctor like death and they were all moaning and begging for water and I couldn’t find any doctor and I looked everywhere. Then as I walked I noticed all the people hanging from the crosses were ladies, they must be moms of children to I think doctor I don’t know but by each woman who is nailed to the crosses a child swings from a swing under each of her outstretched arms. Kind of like the scales of justice my history teacher has on a painting in his classroom. Blood from the women drips tiny crosses of blood down each cheek and on every forehead of every child swinging from each cross. Some crosses have one kid in the swing some have more. I think its the ladies children and that they are all moms like mine, bad ones!”
“Bad ones Kenny?”, the boy seemingly frustrated at the doctor’s last remark replies “God that’s what I said, lady. Do you know that when I wake up I have scars on me, doctor?”, “Scars Kenny?”, “Ya like these.” As Kenny stands and pulls up his shirt, there lie what appear to be scratch marks all the way down the boy’s stomach starting just below his chest. It looks as if he was clawed by a three-fingered demon hell-bent on eating whatever lies just beneath the skin’s surface. That’s just me though it could be something else entirely. “Are you sure you did not accidentally scratch yourself, Kenny?” “No, it wasn’t me doctor.” “Kenny, if it was not you then who do you suppose did that to you?”
“They do it every night right before I wake up. It is when the bright light shines, when I see that I know its time to go and they know I am about to leave and they stretch their disgusting, smelly, rotted arms after me and grab a hold of me doctor and they won’t let go, and I scream, and I rip dangling flesh off their arms, and they scratch me, doctor, just as I am waking up. That’s why I cry sometimes, it scares me, doctor, would you be scared?” “Of course I would be scared Kenny I think any person in their right mind would be scared.”
“What we need to figure out Kenny is why you are having these dreams and what we can do to stop them for you ok. I see in your chart you tried medication one time before but did not like it. Was there a reason for that Kenny?” “Ya, doctor the medicine made it worse. It makes it to where I almost get stuck in my dream because the light only comes to get me very quickly then and if I don’t get to it I won’t get out and I don’t want to stay in there doctor, please don’t make me take the medicine, please.” The boy pleas. To Be Continued
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My Liff.
Bruce Costello
I dont know anything bout riting and Im only doin it because Chris said I oughter. Hey, he is an alrite fella and I know he is becaus I’ve knowed him for a long time. Chris said it mite help me to rite it down and he said I oughter start at the begining so here goes
sory I cant spel but Chris say it dont mata
me mum was a pissshead and I nevr knew who me father was but mum rekoned he mite of been some man from a fishin boot she met at the port. I got took off me mum wen I was a kid and put with a new famly and the man fuked about with me and his wife KNEW and never said NOTHIN!!!!! like i was a dog or sumething and once wen I tryed to stop it he point a gun at me head. And he dun stuf wat I’ve nevr told any barstid about and ain’t never gona no matter what and I hadta do stuf to him and I stil spoo up when I think bout it
I nevr don any good at skool and the techers al said I was norty and lazy, I got into trouble with the cops steeling stuf from shops and me and me mates got into fites and once I beet a girl up and she got hurt bad. afta that I got put in a home for bad girls and that was alrite, I kinda liked it but I got into trouble there and got sent to fuken Lake Alice Hosptipal and the doktors said I was a skitzofreenik and give me shok tretment but Chris says I aint skizofreenink and nevr was. Chris says I was just treeted reel bad and no barstad cared about me and I was reel angery. but he says i sure as hell aint no sktizofreenik and Chris has been reel nice to me. When I got outa hostipal I lived on the streets under bridgers and sumtimes wen it was reel cold I sleep in one of them clothes kolectshun bins, it was reel nice and cosy.
I met a boy Peter and he was my boyfrend til he topt himsef
I got a job in a massage place and made lotsa mony but I used to do shoplifting dunno why becaus I already had enuff money, but I just did, kinda liked it. anyway, I got cort and the probashun ofiser said I need counsling and I got sent to see Chris.he was nice to me but I gave him a hard time and he culdnt do nothin to help me then
Enyway that was how I first met Chis. Id learerned to be tuff and not do stuff like crying but he was so nice to me that one day I neerly cryed. so after that I had to be angery so he would be angery with me and stop being kind to me. but the more angery I got the more nicer he was and I hated that so I stopped going to see him
After that I met Jed and we got on ok but after a while he start to slap me round and punch me because he said I was fucken one of his mates called Horse but I wasn’t.Jed got put away for aggeratavted burglery and I shacked up with Horse and that was alrite, xcept he had sum kids and they hated me so I went to stay with Sophie me best frend. We had a pipe in the morning and anuthr one in the afternoon and lisened to music and we got on good
One day I was in a shop and a man came up behind me who lookd like the man who fuckd me when I was a kid and I got a frite and punched him on the nose and knocked him out. I started to scream and yell and a ambulanse came and police and I got loked up in hostipal.
When they let me out I got put in a house with some othrs and they said I had to have counsling so I arsked to go back to Chris
Chris REMEMBRED ME!!!!!!!!!!! after six years he stil rembered me, shaked my hand and said he was reel glad to see me again. I started goin to him evry week and he arsked me about stuf and I told him about the man who fuked with me wen I was a kid after I got took off me mum and about the mans fucken dipstik wife who KNEW but didnt do nuffink to stop it!!!!!but I never told Chris xaxctly what that barsted done to me and Chris never arsked.
Chris was reel nice to me again and one day I cryed a lot so after that I got angerier and angerier and said I hated him and called him a fuken wanker and gave him a reel hard time then I mist apoyntments and stopped going to see him again but I never fergot him. I met a man who married me and he was alrite, treeted me good only he was a pissshead and used to beet me up when he was pissd but mosta the time he was reel good, he had a job and buyed me nice clothes and he had a Chevvy ragtop and we used to look reel smart wen we kruised around town. we were togethr for years then he went nuts one nite with a gun and the polise came and broke into our house and he got took away and put in the slammer so I was on me own again and I was scared and too fritened to go outta the house on me own. I culdnt do me shopping becaus I was shitscared in the soopermarket. my frend Sophie rang the pysch peple an I got stuck in the hostpitl again and after a wile they let me out as long as I promissed to go back to Chris and not to stop goin to see him this time.
Well!!! Chris still rembered me, shaked my hand reel polite and looked reel pleezed to see me like I was sumebody importint to him and I said hey, we got a history now, you and me, and he said yeah we’ve known each other a long time now eh.”
After that I kept goin to see him every week and we talked bout all sorts of stuf and I started to feel better and start goin to soopermarkits and even got this job in a nursin home with old peple and Im doing reel good at it.
One day Chris says to me Sorry to have to say this but I’m going to have to close my praktise soon and wont be able to see you any more
I started to cry and he exsplaind he was going to have to stay home to look after someone in his famly who was dying with canser
At the end of our last sesshion I arsked Chris if I could hug him and he said he’d like that. Id never touched him before xcept when he shaked my hand and he felt very VERY VERY THIN thin when I hugged him he was like a SKEERCROW!!!!
I startered to borl me eyes out and cryed and cryed like a girl and hung onto him for a long time and I think he neerly cryed to.
Anyway thats all.
Gotta go to my job now
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Bruce Costello bio
Bruce Costello is a New Zealander. After studying foreign languages and literature in the late sixties, he spent a few years selling used cars. Then he worked as a radio creative writer for fourteen years, before training in psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy and spending 24 years in private practice. In 2010, he semi-retired and took up writing for fun and to avoid housework. Since then, he’s had 62 stories accepted by mainstream magazines and literary journals in six countries. He still does housework.
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The Chipmunks
J L Higgs
Seated around the table, we stared at John. Stunned. In disbelief.
“The Chipmunks,” he repeated.
“No way,” I said.
Placing an index finger against the bridge of his glasses, John shoved them back into place. He turned the laptop around so we could see the results on the screen for ourselves.
As our new four-year high school building neared completion, the town council had decided it was time to retire our school’s mascot. We’d been the Indians for forever. But mascots like Indians, Braves, Redmen, Redskins, etc... were no longer considered acceptable.
I don’t know who suggested The Chipmunks. When it showed up among the list of potential candidates, everybody took it as a joke. With Eagles, Spartans, and Pioneers as other options, we, the student council, set the date for the vote certain one of them would win.
But the unthinkable had occurred.
“How did this happen?” asked Sue.
“Obviously, lots of people didn’t take it seriously,” responded David.
“My brother didn’t even vote,” said Linda. “He thought changing from the Indians was stupid.”
“Some probably decided they’d just do something different and totally unexpected,” said Marsha.
“Great.” I shook my head. “So between people not taking this seriously, others voting against the alternatives for the hell of it, and some not voting at all, we’re now stuck with The Chipmunks.”
“How about The Fighting Chipmunks?” suggested John.
“Yeah.” Sue frowned. “That’s so much better.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“We could always lie and say one of the other mascots won.”
“Oh sure, let’s do that.”
“Shit,” I said.
The following day the local paper reported we’d adopted The Chipmunks as the school’s new mascot. After that, the story got picked up by the national press. Then internationally. Calls came in from news agencies around the globe.
At first, the attention our little-known town received was exciting. But then, what was being written and broadcast? Bumpkins, boobs, buffoons, those exact words weren’t used, but that was how people viewed us. A laughingstock. One TV station even featured us in their You Can’t Make This S#*T Up segment. Their reporter couldn’t stop laughing. With tears running down his face, threw the broadcast back to the anchorwoman in the studio. Gasping for breath amid laughter, she begged him to stop, saying she’d wet her pants.
That led David to call an emergency meeting of the council.
“Give it time,” said John. “The story will die. Something else will soon replace it.”
“You’re sure?”
“85.57%,” replied John. He swung the laptop around to face us.
“And if it doesn’t?” I asked. “Then what?”
Sue shook her head. “At lunch, some kids were saying they voted for The Chipmunks. They said we’re a bunch of sore losers and anyone who doesn’t like it can...”
“But why would anyone vote for The Chipmunks?” asked Linda.
“What does that matter?” Sue rolled her eyes.
“Well, I was only asking...”
“It’s a stupid question.”
“You’re what’s stupid Marsha...”
“Screw you, Linda!”
“Hey!” yelled David. “Cut it out.”
Sue and I looked at each other. This was getting pathetic.
“We’ll just have to hope John’s right,” said David.
John’s analysis proved fairly accurate. The story mostly died away. Still, we’d have preferred the 14.43% not to have remained lurking out there to spring out every once in a while.
Though no one wanted to admit it, it was obvious we felt embarrassed to be students of the school that voted to be The Chipmunks. I quit wearing things that identified me with my school. So did others. At the regional shopping mall, if asked where we went to school we lied. I even heard my father and mother hesitate on the phone if a person on the other end of the line requested their home address.
Sports events were the worst. Taunts of “We want Chip and Dale” and the squeaky noises other school’s fans made were humiliating. At a basketball game against our main rival, we’d had enough. Despite being the visitors, by halftime, we were crushing them 70 – 22. When our team came out for the second half, our coach emptied the bench. Our guys’ faces said they were determined to stomp our rivals into their own gym floor. When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard showed US 153, Them 55. We’d done it. Regained respect.
But as we rushed onto their floor in triumph, a song started playing over their gym’s loud speakers. Alvin and the Chipmunks. From the stands, their school’s supporters serenaded us. The song, accompanied by laughter rained down on us. Even annihilating your enemy did not change that once respect is lost, it’s hard to regain. The same being true of one’s self-esteem and self-respect.
Some enjoy high school and wind up with fond memories. Me? Graduation can’t come soon enough. I can’t wait for The Chipmunk nightmare to end.
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An Elephant, photography by Aparna Pathak
Firestarter
Allan Onik
The Nazi hid behind the rock and dug his heels into the sand. Holding his Flammenwerfer 35, he eyed the Marines as they crashed onto the beach. Many of the Allies were getting cut down. He stepped out and sprayed the flamethrower, the darkness creating a contrasted halo. Five Marines fell to the ground writhing, dropping their weapons and screaming.
The commando stepped out of his zodiac and crawled in the sand aiming his M1 Garand. A medic crawled beside him.
“You see that wannabe pyrokinetic over there?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s toast.” He pulled the trigger. The tank punctured and the soldier went up in flames. He ran for the water, then fell on the ground—squirming.
Hitler added some wood to his fire.
“My Fuhrur?”
“Yes?”
“They’ve landed in France, and all beachhead sectors are connected.”
“Blast it.”
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Oleander
Allan Onik
Hiddako walked amid the rubble. It was a cloudy day, and she placed a paper crane on a bent, metal beam. Miazaki chucked a stone at a broken window, causing it to further shatter.
“It’s been nearly a year since Little Boy,” Hiddako said. She sat on a melted tire.
“My father is gone. So are my bothers. The that day in August is behind us. But we’ll never forget.”
Hiddako sighed. “And we will die soon too. The blast was too close.”
They walked past the rubble, up a dirt hill, and to some dead trees. Hiddako rested against the tree and looked down. A pink flower was growing out of the dirt. She picked it.
“For the years ahead. When we are forgotten. And all they remember is this bloom.” She hugged him and placed the flower in her ear.
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You Remember the Evergreen
Allan Onik
On Route 66 you pass tourist shops in the small towns and long stretches with semis and rest stops in the night. You stop at small motels and read the local newspapers and eat at the local diners. One night the headlights ahead of you seem like the light reflected off the lake when you were feeding the ducks as a baby and you remember how your mother used to give you the pieces of bread and you’d follow the flock down the river. You remember the evergreen white with snow in the winter when you’d make snowmen with your sister and use a carrot for the nose. You remember your uncle’s red convertible and driving Cape Cod, trips to the ice cream shop and hiding in the condo from Hurricane Bob. You remember the lights of Halloween and trick or treating after Hellraiser (too scary for little boys). Hatchet and A Wrinkle in Time and Never Ending Story. After the city’s college you remember thinking you’ll die in this place, this city you grew up. This place that’s warm like a lamp light in the attic while telling Alvin Schwartz ghost stories. The turnoff comes and put on your blinker, then stop—turn it off. Just a little while longer and you’ll be back. To the Evergreen and their crystalline.
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Excuses
Devin S.
“Yeah, I’m just tired.” My dad has asked for the third time today if I’m okay, and for the third time this is my answer. It’s the truth, well, kind of. Last night I was out late with a friend, driving aimlessly around our hometown. After, I sat with my car on in the closed garage of my home.
“Yeah, just didn’t have a good time over break.” I say to a friend. We’re drunk on a bus, going to some on-campus magic show neither of us really cared about. He puts the pressure on, but years of silence have trained me for this. I turn away so he doesn’t see the tears that are beginning in my eyes and tell him I’m fine.
“I just don’t think you need it,” my mom tells me after I ask to go to a therapist. I know, mom, I know that sometimes people have bad days, I get that. But it’s not just that. I don’t have the courage to tell her I think about harming myself. She tells me she’ll look into it.
“Well, I think you’re becoming an alcoholic,” my first therapist tells me. After weeks of asking my mom, I’m at my first appointment. He is a short bald man who is a spitting image of Benjamin Franklin. But unlike the Water-American, he offers me no grand philosophy. I tell him that I drink to get drunk with friends, that there isn’t some hidden addiction within me. He tells me to drink less and get over it. This is my last time seeing him.
“You need help,” my girlfriend tells me after I have a breakdown in her apartment. My lungs can’t seem to hold air, and she holds me, saying, “Breath in, slowly. Now, out, slowly.” It seems endless. We haven’t been dating two months, and I’m crying into her shoulder. The next day I call my parents and ask for a therapist. My dad is heartbroken.
“And how are you today?” my therapist asks me. This is her usual greeting. She is an older woman, kind. It is our weekly Monday appointment, and again, I have nothing to say. I talk about a few minor things, but never open up that much to her. I don’t know why. We end the session early, like we do every week, and I leave.
“So you’re feeling better then?” my dad asks. I tell him yes, and I mean it. After a while in therapy, I feel like my head is finally clear. I didn’t resolve any of my “deeper” issues, but it was nice to just talk to someone. I don’t freak out anymore; I don’t go without eating anymore. I feel in control.
“I would like to remain on the waiting list,” I reply to my college’s counseling center. It is a year and a half later, and I have regressed. I’m ashamed, and don’t want to tell my parents again, I can’t have that conversation. I don’t enjoy things the way I used to, and it’s beginning to affect others. In my relationships, I am selfish and uncaring, and I am beginning to loathe myself for it. I struggle to get out of bed every morning and skip assignments.
“I’m not the guy you fell in love with anymore,” I say to my girlfriend. She cries, and I say I’m sorry over and over again. She begs me to reconsider, to get help; we can go on a break so I can figure myself out. I agree, reluctantly. I tell her that if I can’t pull myself together, we should go our separate ways. Not because I don’t love her, but because I can’t stand by and see our relationship turning more and more one-sided. She deserves everything, and I give her nearly nothing.
“I’m skipping class,” I tell my friend. I had been debating it all day yesterday, and now have made it official. I pack my laptop into my backpack and head to the bar across from campus. I order two beers and a shot. I’m a lightweight, and I haven’t eaten yet, so I stumble home from the bar at five in the afternoon, kind of drunk. I go home and smoke, and everything goes hazy. I go to bed at 6 PM and sleep until 6 AM.
Still, I am exhausted.
(previously published in the online literary journal LitCat)
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Working At Food Lion
Travis Green
I’ve spent the last 4 years
working at Food Lion, scrubbing and
sanitizing cash register tables and
scanning and scanning, then weighing
and bagging items and pushing carts,
sweating my life away with the same
monotonous routines, depressed,
passionless and sinking in the shadows,
my hopes and dreams fading away
as the hours pass by, thinking about
the lonesome road ahead and the draining
questions destroying my brain like
“Where is the vinegar located?” or
“How much does this bag of grapes cost?”
“I will prevail and prosper.” I thought, as
my lifeless body drifted into long and hard nights
of sweeping and mopping dirty floors like
I was a fragile and old man struggling with
the weight of the world on his back. Day after day,
so similar are the dragging days that hang over me
as I stare outside at the rain and the sounds
of the rumbling storm pounding inside my soul.
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Looking Death in The Eye
Travis Green
I feel a tear trickle down my swollen face
as I stand behind these steel bars, broken,
covered in filth, frigid, stripped of my freedom,
forced in solitude and stained by my own existence.
Everything has slowed, crumbled, swallowed
by my own soul, as brutal blades cut deep into
my beating heart. This guilt inside of me is
tormenting my mind, conflicting thoughts
never fading, my life ceaselessly existing,
embracing the cold days and gazing
at the crimson sun that shines its darkness
upon my face, drowning in my own dimension,
slain by the heavy deep breaths suffocating
my heart like the violent winds viciously striking
the swaying trees into submission. I’m falling beneath
the surface, burdened by my own wounds,
never letting go, squeezing my soul relentlessly
into nothingness, slowly fading away in the shadows.
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Mirrors
Doug Hawley
Tape recording found amongst the possessions of Jack Lyle by the police after his overdose death.
“Despite all of the security, I got into the billionaire software developer Jason Atkins’ mansion on Mercer Island east of Seattle. I know that the family is in Majorca, and the staff has the night off except for some security people who ate sedated pizza an hour ago. Not as big and grand as the Gates’ place, but pretty damn big and fine. While looking for the facilities I found myself in the guest bedroom. It is huge with mirrors from the floor to ten feet above the floor. Despite my experience picking places apart, I can’t seem to find anything of value.”
“There are eight buttons above the bed. Just for the hell of it, I punch in his birthday 02/10/1953. Much to my surprise, all the mirrors light up and a menu appears in the wall just to the left of the bed. A number of kinky options are listed.”
“With no idea what awaits me, I choose straight sex.”
“The next menu gives me more choices. It names prominent Hollywood and porn stars to choose from as well as scenarios like: after the prom, first date, anniversary, bar pickup. I choose after the prom.”
“The mirrors become 3D screens which don’t require glasses. I get a show much as requested with my chosen actors, doubles or damn good simulations. The scene starts with the guy picking up his date from her parents’ house. The various mirrors show the scenes from different angles. Nothing out of order here. They drive to the dance and act like affectionate dates at an average prom. After awhile, I get bored of the prom scenes and notice a slide bar at the bottom of the menu. I move it up from 30 minutes to hour 3. By this time they are in a motel room and having a very good time. Now that I have the scroll system down, I go back and forth looking for the good stuff. It sure looks like Cathy Simpson from that restaurant show and Chuck Grant from that office sitcom, but could it be? Before I notice, two hours have gone by.”
“On the next try I get a lot of well known Hollywood stars. At least when dressed they look like the usual Hollywood stars. After another half hour it is time to leave. As much as I would like to try it, I don’t have time to try the voice activated controls. I check out the drawers one last time and spot a list of visitors. It includes the A list of politicians and executives who have spent the night in the room with dates and show preference. Surprise, surprise several conservative religious leaders have watched the mirrors.”
“I get out safely and back home; I do a little internet research. I see that the people on the list have done a lot of favors for Mr. Atkins. There is certainly a way for a smart guy, which I am, to monetize this information. A few anonymous calls should loosen some purse strings.”
Conversation after tape has been played:
Sergeant Stevens –“Captain, can we use this tape for anything?”
Captain Rogers – “We could never get a probable cause warrant on Atkins. What have we got, the ravings of a junkie thief on tape? Atkins has lawyers that make as much as our whole police department and we have nothing to show that anything illegal has been done. What we suspect and what we can prove are two different things.”
“Makes you wonder why Lyle was taping his robbery. Was he going to publish ‘The Memoir Of A Junkie Thief’?”
Sergeant Stevens – “That’s one of a long list of questions we’ll never get answered.”
A slightly different version was previously published in the defunct AWS.
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Road Trip
Myisha Myles
As the sun is just peaking over the horizon, I’ve just touched down on 65 North. I’m eading back to the brutal winter that’s been anxiously awaiting my arrival in Illinois on this fresh brisk April morning. I get lost in the sounds of the wind whooshing past my car, the smell of two-minute old hash browns from the clowned face establishment, and the calming melodies of the saxophone oozing through my radio. Out of nowhere a clanking noise shoots from the front of my vehicle. The wheel starts to tighten up and the lights on my radio and dash start fading in and out.
I step on the brakes lightly as I make my way over to the shoulder of the road and smoke creeps from under the hood. As I come to a complete stop everything in my vehicle silences. I place my injured ‘07 Toyota Corolla into park and rip out of my seatbelt and turn off the car. I cautiously glance behind me looking through my side mirror to ensure I don’t swing my door open in front of a passing vehicle. I wait until it is clear for me to exit and I hop out of my car and head to the front of my vehicle to raise the hood.
I reach under the hood and search and brush around for the latch to lift the somewhat heated hood. I raise the hood and smoke meets my face with a startling embrace. The problem is clear that I’m out of coolant and need to get some as soon as possible. I pull out my phone in hopes of being able to search for a close location nearby. Just a few miles up the road off the exit is a gas station with a market attached. I gather together my items as I feel a sudden chill climbing over my back as I’m leaning into my car. The clouds have begun to cover the sun. I close my car door and begin to walk onward.
The cold crisp air lingers around me and the sounds of vehicles flying by ring through my ears as I try to keep from falling over from their strong gusts of wind. As I look up in hopes of my destination closer than the app made it seem, I hear a vehicle coming up behind me, but it has a different sound to it. I glance back and see an old Chevy pick-up pulling up behind me. I slowly come to a stop, being cautious, making sure that it doesn’t seem as if I will be caused any harm. The driver rolls down his window and sticks his head out and yells, “Hey do you need a ride?” as he flags me over.
I turn around and start running for the passenger side door and reach for the cold silver handle. The door makes screeching scream as I pull it open and do a bounce step into the passenger seat.
“Thank you so very much for the ride. I’m actually just headed two exits up to the gas station. I ran out of coolant.”
I glance around the vehicle and over to my personal Good Samaritan and I note everything about him from head to toe. He’s wearing a tore up baseball cap that has his long loose wavy hair hanging down the brim of the hat. His blue t-shirt says, “Nashville’s Finest Dad” and he’s got on fairly new Wrangler dark denim jeans on with bulky tan boots on with dried up mud. The smell of manure intertwines with the smell of cigarettes and beer. Tennessee Whiskey plays on the radio and the sun is peering through the clouds now causing the crisp air to have a touch of warmth.
The Gentleman leans over and sticks out his hand as he pulls back onto the road, “Hi my name is Keith.”
All of a sudden, the feelings of caution, uncertainty, and danger turn into comfort, gratitude, and safety.
“Hi Keith, my name is Sarah!” I say ecstatically as I reach back out to meet his hand half way.
Keith then reaches for the volume dial on his radio and the radio blares out Chris Stapleton’s voice singing, “You’re as warm as a glass of brandy...”.
I lean my head back and tap my fingers on the resting part of the door. Road trips are always the best even in the mist of unfortunate events.
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Doors
Linh Tran
The air shimmered and shifted constantly, as if bent by the sun. Exotic foods from the Far East had just been imported; the vendors were making the most out of their new goods. People of different colors bustled around, yelling, shoving each other out of the way.
The boy flitted through the aisles and in between the distractions, running from the sweltering heat, his only friend the dull ache in his stomach. The boy had no money; all he had were his wits. He weaved his way through the throng, trying not to be tracked.
Like a chameleon’s tongue, the boy’s hand snatched out, grabbing an exotic sweet. As his fingers closed around the treat a massive hand locked onto his wrist. A big, burly man was shouting at him in a language he did not understand. Spittle flew from the man’s mouth, his small, beady eyes filling with rage. Struggling, the boy wrenched his arm from the man’s grasp.
The boy ran.
People were shouting, chasing him through the crowd. He knocked over pots, pans, mumbling apologies as he sprinted. He knew all too well the punishment for theft. Desperate, he turned around, anywhere, looking for escape. And then he saw her.
Impossible, he thought. She was gone. She was never coming back.
She smiled at him, beckoned him towards her.
The boy ran into a strangely colored tent. Bright lights beckoned. In front of him, a hallway filled with open doors. He tried running toward them. The floor started crumbling away; the doors started falling out of his grasp. The shouts behind him grew louder and louder. Panicked, the boy knew he had little time left. The doors were so far away now.
He leaped. Almost there, almost there...
Icarus flew too close to the sun.
Tackled to the ground, the boy, kicking and screaming and fighting, was dragged away. He knew the punishment for theft. The days he spent languishing in the cell passed in what seemed to him like minutes. The rapp on the door he had been waiting for finally came. It was time.
Slowly, he walked up the steps, each wooden thud a cruel complement to his beating heart. As he stood at the top the noose tightened around his neck. The boy looked around, saw the excitement in their eyes. Silence filled his head. A single tear shed, tracking its way down his dirty face. He closed his eyes; he saw her face. The executioner pulled the lever.
The boy felt fear for the last time.
He was falling, flying, flailing.
The boy opened his eyes. In front of him, a final door. Gingerly, he nudged it open. She came running and picked him up and held him in her arms. The boy cried. She almost did too, but tears are for children. She went out and bought some cans of his favorite soup. She loved the boy, but she worried for him. He spent too much time in his head.
The next day, she caught the boy eating a strange food. It was some kind of sweet.
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Street Scene Monarch Hem, photography by Kyle Hemmings
Black and white keys
Natalie Segura
She glances forward,
Her bright forest green eyes taking in black and white pages.
Warm sunlight streams in through the large windows,
Making her carmel brown hair gleam.
She gracefully glides her fingers over the black and white glossy keys,
Never missing a note,
A smile spreading across her face.
The same smile that can light a room along with everyone in it.
The girl whose laughter is contagious.
The girl with the heart of gold.
She plays with nimble, quick fingers.
So much so, that they practically move on their own ,
Without much thought or struggle.
Her playing is magnetic and enticing.
But this girl is not her.
She is the girl faking the smile.
Faking the laughter.
Her heart not of gold, but instead, fragile as glass.
Any moment threatening to completely shatter.
Threatening to break her part into a million pieces.
Still she continues to play, never missing a note.
But then she catches a glimpse of the little pale lines on her arms.
And her head begins overflowing with her thoughts.
The constant thoughts that no matter how hard she tries,
Never seem to leave her.
Tears begin to roll down her pink rosy cheeks.
She struggles to continue playing as the single tears become like running waterfalls.
Uncontrollable and fast flowing.
She is sinking and she is afraid to drown.
Afraid not of living, but of not.
And she knows what they say is true,
That happiness is not something that can be bought,
But the hardest thing
is telling people you’re okay when you’re not.
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Worn
Natalie Segura
Rain falls, splashing against the worn, battered roof of the barn.
Crimson paint chips away to expose the bare, grey wood underneath.
Slowly,
bit by bit,
The rain strips the barn of the beauty it once held.
Revealing what can not be seen with the naked eye.
Water from the clouds smashes,
Into the roof and onto the hard rocks of the gravel.
And there, amidst the chaos, stands a man.
A man whose hair now resembles those timeworn walls.
Who is battered and bruised.
Only he is not sure he will make it through the storm.
The shuddering thunder pierces through his skull.
Yet his thoughts, spinning out of control, are unclouded
The thunder reminds him of the guns.
The guns
That ripped
The only thing
He had left
Away from him.
The shots
That penetrated
Through his son’s heart and body,
Spilling scarlet blood
Forever leaving it’s scars
The loud bangs resonate all throughout the man’s body.
Through his neck, his arms, and his fragile legs.
The sound of war intensifies in the sky.
He wants to take cover,
But he feels paralyzed.
He does not move from his spot on the gravel.
Then, for just a moment, all he can hear is the rain.
The gentle droplets falling to the ground.
It is quiet.
Peaceful.
But then the old, tattered roof collapses
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Reflections
Lamont Luther
I don’t know where my shoes are. I guess I should find those because I need to get ready for work. My name is Charles, but for this short time together you can call me Charlie.
I found my shoes under my bed. I need my keys and I am set to leave. I work at the movies, I am the janitor there. I like to clean-up after people but not talk to them. I wait till they all leave then I sneak in and clean everything up.
I am a hard worker. My boss likes that I clean up quickly and pay attention to detail. Yesterday I mopped the floor because there was soda spilt on the ground in one of the rows, you couldn’t see it but it was very sticky and it would be a shame for someone to fall.
Tomorrow is my first day of senior year of high school, most people look forward to it. Me on the other hand- well it’s a different experience for me...
When I was a freshman I was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder. Which explains why I never had friends. Growing up people made fun of me because I said I didn’t like girls. It’s not that I don’t like girls I just don’t desire intimacy or really anything from another person. I wish to be alone. If I could help it I would move to Antarctica and live in my own igloo. That sounds like a good plan actually. I wouldn’t have to go to those group sessions anymore or have to eat at the dinner table with my family anymore. I won’t even need a cell phone. I actually sort of look forward to the year being over with. I guess I should get to work now before I am late. I can look for an igloo later on Zillow I guess.
It’s a slow night tonight. There is no good movies out this week. I don’t have a favorite movie. Well except maybe WALL-E. The little robot who lives alone on Earth.
This world is really strange. I think society is such an odd concept; the others rely on each other to build relationships and trust to move forward. Then there’s me, I don’t have anything to build, I don’t have tools to build with either.
I do not consider myself screwed by not building things but, I don’t think of myself put together either. I feel I am in this purgatory mind-set that doesn’t allow me to move. Am I going to Heaven or to Hell? Do people like me get to go to Heaven? I hear small footsteps... Incoming one of the normal people, to start a conversation. I dread this too much.
“Hey Charlie!” this small voice pierces my ear drum.
“Can I help you?” I say politely.
“How is your day going? You never say much to me or really anyone here at work”
“I am just very introverted I guess you could say, I’m not a people person”
“Well I was wondering if you had a date to prom?” This small voice says to me. This voice is a girl in my English class we work together. Her name tag says Kara.
“Prom...People...”
“If you do not want to go its ok, I just thought I would ask.”
“When is it?”
“ In two weeks from today. You can help me pick out a dress if you like tomorrow since we both off!”
“Ok.” I said as to conclude the conversation however Kara kept going on about colors and styles of dresses. I can tell she was very interested in clothing. She lacked the idea that I am unsure how to keep a conversation about other people’s interests.
“So 10am in downtown for coffee and then dress shopping?”
“Ok. Yeah, sure, see you.” I am nervous. I fear she sees me as a potential mate and I am not cut out for this.
10am rolled around we decided to meet at a local coffee shop in the downtown district of Fairhope, from there she went and tried on a red dress, blue dress, and a gold dress. I don’t see why the color matters but to her it does. My tie has to match her dress and a red tie is easier to find at a department store than a gold one. So she picked that one.
When I am not in therapy sessions discussing Kara with my counselor it appears I am with her. She knows I am different. She has a way of being there but being absent as if she is not with me. I don’t mind her presence because it feels like she’s not here.
I looked in the mirror, to see that blank stare in my eyes once more before I face the world tonight. I never thought I would have a date to prom. Kara sees the blankness in my eyes and yet she enjoys that I am an empty cavity. I have feelings but no way of displaying them. She says she’s into that.
Bright lights and loud music overwhelmed me, yet I did not disclose my anxiety with Kara. Walking in the room full of people gave me a heart attack. Especially seeing the looks on people’s faces when they saw us together. It wasn’t our looks it was just that everyone knows I have a personality disorder. Knowing that about me is part of freshman orientation now- I think.
I like to think my physique is great. I eat healthy and I go to the gym late at night when no one is around. I like the pain I endure during heavy work-outs. Maybe that is why Kara wants to be around me? Does she like me like that? I can’t cross the bridge that allows us to connect any farther than we already have, and I truly think it hurts her.
Back to prom; sorry I was distracted by my own reflection again... I limited my socializing to myself in the bathroom mirror and to Kara. Occasionally one of Kara’s friends would approach us and ask if we were dating; I chimed in with a sincere “no”. My face was stone cold, and most don’t yet understand this aspect of me and think I am heartless for my decisions to not date Kara but that is ok with me.
We ended the night with a slow dance. She placed her arms around my shoulders. I gripped her waist and her blue eyes pierced through my green empty eyes. “I know I am hurting myself. I know you may never like me or love me. But I trust you. In fact, I know it senseless to tell you but...”
“Kara, it is ok. If you like me that is ok. I do not like you like that however I thank you for taking the time to get to know me. You are different. You are a good friend. “
“Thank you.” Kara whispered as she collapsed her head into my chest. We finished the final slow song and went our separate ways.
I removed my tuxedo from my body as if I was peeling skin off. Dancing and being social is a lot of work for me. I plan to lock myself in my room for a few days and read books.
My first night in social hibernation was interrupted from an unfamiliar number. “Hello?” I said.
“Is this Charlie?”
“Yes”
“Charlie, Sweetheart” The voice on the other line was a woman. “This is Kara’s mother. There has been an accident...” I dropped my phone and all my organs stopped working for a moment. My heart didn’t even beat.
“Darling there was an accident on the Bay Way. Kara’s car was hit by a drunk driver and flipped over into the bay. I thought you should know since you two seemed to be very close.”
“Thank you.” I said in a monotone voice. “Thank you, Mrs. Wright.” I hung up the phone and collapsed into my bed. I did not sleep for the next few days.
I stayed in my room watching the news day and night keeping up to date if Kara was found yet. I had high hopes she was safe somewhere. I dreamed last night that she climbed through my window to say hi. She was adventurous and enjoyed sneaking around at night without her mom knowing.
I decided to make a decision about what to do next. I am holding off on my igloo in Antarctica. The rescue team stopped looking for Kara after they found her car with no body. So, I will find her.
It was very late at night I left around midnight, so no one would notice I was gone. I am determined to find her. The water was very cold. I carried a flash light with me to see in the pitch-black darkness that is Mobile bay. From Fairhope pier to about an eighth of a mile it was ankle deep. Suddenly I am knee deep in heavily polluted water. It gets deeper and deeper.
I never learned to swim so what am I doing here? My foot slipped, and my head went under. I feel my heart racing. What is going on? Should I yell for help? No.
I found the ground again this time my mouth is covered, and I can smell fish and sewage. I inch forward in faith hoping to find Kara out here. The water is getting colder and I can’t mobilize as well.
It feels like a hand has gripped my ankle. It shocked me, and I slipped back. There’s several inches of water covering my face. It’s too dark to tell which way is up. I have no choice but to inhale brackish water. My lungs will soon look like a fish tank if I do not stand up. I think that was Kara grabbing my ankle. She wants me to come down there with her. My last attempt to find air fails me. Finding Kara in the bay water was a success. My new home is kinda like an igloo. I swallowed more water and prepared to greet Kara. I think this is love. Death is my healer... I decided to love her.
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About Fabrice Poussin
Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry and the advisor for The Chimes, the Shorter University award winning poetry and arts publication, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and dozens of other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review and more than 250 other publications.
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Tolstoy: Renunciation 2
Stefanie Bennett
Best forget why he’s here
And from where he came.
If his step thundered
The blunt black bloodstone
Of gunfire
Amid the roses. The Crimea
Wasn’t a parking-lot, then.
A September suburb
Pummelled
By a double
Or nothing
Sequestrator...
Now – eaves-droppers
Unerringly find him
Defrocked... servile – and
Beating
Tellable ploughshares
Into words;
Into a peace
That shatters.,P>
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Olivier Schopfer bio
Olivier Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland. He likes to capture the moment in haiku and photography. His poetry has appeared in numerous online and print journals and anthologies, and his artwork is featured in After the Pause, Die Angst Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Former People: A Journal of Bangs and Whimpers, Gnarled Oak, Otoliths, Peacock Journal, Sonic Boom, Streetcake Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly and Window Cat Press. He also writes articles in French about etymology and everyday expressions at: olivierschopferracontelesmots.blog.24heures.ch/.
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The Parasite
Copyright © 2018, Frank Beghin
Awareness of my self and my surroundings came to me at a time when most others of my kind have the I.Q. of an amoeba. I was within the host’s body, still at the prenatal stage. The term “mother” was not yet within my vocabulary, and it would be a while before the term even had much meaning for me. Although I was dependent on my host, she was more a vessel to me than a person for whom I should care for. This may sound cold, dear reader, that I should think of her in that way, but concepts such as love and hate, or for that matter, other emotions as well were too alien for my mind to grasp.
Raw, unfiltered information is what I received at an alarming rate. Images of the outside world would appear in my mind’s eye, as they were perceived through the eyes of my host. Somehow I shared a rapport with my mother but my connection wasn’t limited only to her. Sometimes my developing mind was able to touch those of others besides that of my host. This tenuous linkage enabled me to understand the position I was in, and how vulnerable this state actually was. Through experimentation, I attempted to determine to what extent I could use my unique abilities to influence the actions of my host. During these times, she was unaware of my subtle probing, thinking that her actions were entirely self-motivated. Perhaps, on a subconscious level, she was aware of my influence, but I have no evidence of this. My probes were not yet strong enough to read, accurately, that part of her mind.
I had no desire to take control of my host. My concern was for my well-being, and, should the need arise, this seemed to be my only avenue of defense. As fate would have it, I was right in taking such precautionary measures. There were those who were trying to convince my mother to have an abortion. Her feelings of anxiety as a result of this proved painful to me. She remained confused and undecided about what to do, which was fortunate for me since it made her easy prey for my powers of persuasion. If she had been adamant about terminating my existence, I doubt if I would have been able to change her mind. The conflict would have been too apparent, and it may have meant revealing the nature of my abilities to her. This is something I did not wish to do since I feared the consequences. What affect this knowledge might have had on my host during this difficult period is unclear. I imagined many scenarios, but the one that seemed most likely, the one that my paranoia led me to believe, was that of my mother, out of superstitious fear and loathing, ridding herself of this “abnormality” rather than suffer it to live. At the very least, I would have been labeled a “freak” if my secret had been discovered. Telepathy is a rare and frightful gift, especially for the unborn.
My fears, though, were eventually abated. The abortion did not occur, and my development continued without hazard.
I wasn’t always aware that I was unique. Early in the pregnancy, I had the chance to encounter, who I thought, was someone else of my kind. I sensed his presence near me. Reaching out, expectantly, to link minds, I was disappointed to receive only the most rudimentary thoughts in return. Confused, I probed the minds of the two adults carrying us within their wombs, who were busy conversing with each other. It was then that I realized I was different. It was quite a discovery and, in hindsight, perhaps it was to my benefit that this happened. Eventually, if this hadn’t occurred, I might have tried communicating with my host, not realizing that this was far from normal.
During the months of my mother’s pregnancy, her thoughts and feelings had ranged, initially, from fear and uncertainty to acceptance and, finally, to timid expectation. She had grown to care for me a great deal and, although the future still seemed bleak for a single mother, she was prepared to meet the challenges head-on on my behalf.
Even though emotions, for the most part, still remained a mystery to me, I found it comforting to know that my mother cared for me as much as she did. It was at this time that the temptation was strongest to reveal my awareness to her and assure her that our future would be far from bleak but common sense - and fear - kept this longing in check.
When the day of my emergence into the world finally came, I found myself, somewhat, apprehensive. I had been so eager, making plans in advance, but now all my well-laid plans seemed secondary to this gnawing fear in the back of my mind. Suppose something went wrong.
The contractions had begun, and I could feel my mother’s pain. Why was I so suddenly unsure of my future? Was there something wrong with my host, perhaps? I tried reading her mind but sensed nothing but the normal tension of an expectant mother.
The contractions were getting stronger and were more rapid. I was being pushed out. Panic seized me as I began to suspect that the real danger was outside where I was vulnerable and defenseless. A buzzing started somewhere in my mind. It was getting hard to think. Things were happening too fast.
As my head emerged first, explosives seemed to go off in my mind as the danger suddenly became apparent. As I was completely pulled out of my mother’s womb, I shrieked in terror. Somehow, while in my mother’s womb, I had been shielded but now, every single thought, every single feeling of those in the immediate vicinity came to me unbidden. It was too much to handle at once. My mind wanted to shut down instantly.
Desperately, I sought out the mind of the woman who I shared a symbiotic relationship with, hoping to use her thoughts and feelings as an anchor in this maelstrom of sensory overload. I hoped to derive the necessary strength from her to survive this ordeal and establish the necessary psychic barriers.
The nurses gave me to my mother to hold, and she cooed, softly, to still my cries. Her thoughts were of pure love and joy. The psychic noise around us began to diminish. Eventually, it became a mere whisper as I slowly regained control. The effort had exhausted me. I felt weak and tired.
Now that the danger had passed, I could feel the anger rise within me. I hated this fragile state! How could I accomplish anything in my present condition?
So it would seem that I would remain dependent on my mother for the foreseeable future but, given time, that would change. Still, it would not be difficult to play the role expected of me with the person who went through so much to give me life. I had grown fond of her, and how could I not? Her love for me was so unconditional that it was impossible not to respond in kind. Perhaps, then, I finally began to realize what a special bond existed between a mother and her child.
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Frank Beghin Bio
Frank Beghin is a University of Toronto graduate, married father of two, and a writer of literary fiction and poetry. He has been writing stories and poems for as long as he can remember.
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Weighty Matters
Tom Ball
Even though anti-fat medication had been invented in 2040 A.D., it was now 2059 A.D. and there were still a lot of very fat people who had a grotesque sense of the human body. “Fat is beautiful, fat is natural,” They said. But in Fat City on Luna gravity was low and the fat people floated around.
The babies were non-existent as they took contraceptives. And anyway, most were too fat to have sex.
And they wore elaborate costumes and their average weight was 1000 pounds. 454 kg.
Their leader was a fantastic 750 kg and was forever getting replacement organs.
And they were competitive with their weight. They liked Sumo wrestling but most were too fat to move their limbs and could just roll. They also liked to play video games just using MRT (mind reading technology) as many were too fat to use their arms. They had robots to feed them and wipe their bottom. And the robots dressed them. Some were naked and covered in flowers which grew on their bodies.
They also engaged in eating contests, the winner typically could eat 45 kg, 100 pounds of food in 20 minutes. Many got a stomach enlargement surgery. Some were vegetarians which allowed them to eat nearly continuously.
The robots also dispensed drugs of the fat people’s choice, mostly stimulants.
The food machines on Luna were automatic and that was pretty well all they needed here.
In a new development, some of these Lunar heavy weights attached a monkey head or two or three to their enlarged stomach to allow them to eat more. These heads were known as “Gobblers.”
No matter how big and fat they got they were kept alive by modern medicine.
They kept in touch with each other via video phone. But most were kind of loners.
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Genius Viruses: Armageddon
Tom Ball
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...
There was peace and there was war, but people loved fighting...
And one day in the year 2120, a clever new virus spread from computers and electricity. It got in all the power grids and destroyed them and then moved from the grid to attack people directly who were hooked up to power such as computers or electric light.
And it passed from human to human. Death came in 5 minutes after exposure.
And it was in the air, preying on thinking creatures (i.e. humans).
It was a biological/cyber virus which had never been seen before. And was becoming cleverer and more destructive by the moment.
We survivors lived in Moosonee numbered only 100. We still had batteries so we radioed Toronto and they said they had 1000 survivors but not to use any electric device as it was certain death. So that was the last we heard of the outside world.
After Armageddon I had woken up after being in a coma for 2 weeks. They said I should have been dead.
Most of the survivors were either very rural or had a bunker to protect from the apocalypse and were prepared with many years of food. Many were religious fanatics apparently from what we were able to glean.
The world leaders mostly died as it was so sudden.
It was par for the course to blame Dirk Smythe of NYC for the virus which also consumed him. Some said the viruses had mutated to be just like him.
My memory had been erased, they told me we were in Canada in a village of Moosonee, population now 100, with 35 children included. Communal lovers...
We didn’t see any air cars or airplanes or drones etc. We figured people were everywhere dead.
We used the dammed local river to provide power for our computers which had all knowledge inside them, but we didn’t dare use wi-fi or internet cable.
So we all tried to study science...
All the forests were said to have burned, but we lived in the tundra.
But after the cataclysm the temperature in our village went up 10 C, partly due to bombing of the ocean rifts, or so Toronto had said.
The Internet was down and so too the satellite phones. We were cut off and didn’t know what to do. Some said head south, others said head west.
Everyone worked hard in the rebuilding of our bombed out small settlement.
And the viruses lurked inside caribou and other animals waiting for humans to eat them. Toronto had told us. So we grew our own meat using stemcells... After a few years there were no more caribou and even the moss was dying.
Finally our tunnels were breached by the virus and almost everyone died quickly.
XXX
But then at the same time, the few remaining scientists in Los Angeles found a cure for the virus. And suddenly all was good again. Everyone had shadow armor. And we 10 survivors here had hope.
Leaders really didn’t stand for anything except war. And personality cults.
Democracy was long gone.
War between cultures. Constant war.
But finally there was peace.
Cities built up and the birth rate expanded.
Our task was to rebuild civilization.
So we had a few cars and five of us went down the dirt road to the south. In a glass battery-powered jeep. But they hit a roadside bomb and 4 were killed, the other lost his legs and subsequently died. We didn’t find them until two weeks later.
We had a battery solar powered electric grid and the virus could not find us at first.
Another foray and we met mutants who looked like zombies and they said “We eat you.” But we gunned them down.
So we concentrated on our small village, a hamlet really. Apparently there were only a few tens of millions left. In Toronto there were 250 survivors congregating there, so we all set out for Toronto. And we made it with roadside bomb detectors and geiger counters...
Toronto people welcomed us with open arms and we had a grand week of parties. It seems we were the first new blood to make it here after the apocalypse.
We heard in Toronto they knew a man who was 97 years old and he was the oldest officially, but the remaining leaders were said to be older, but no one knew for sure.
But the people of Toronto were all paranoid and most feared to step out into the light. Nevertheless the city grew slowly and everyone was given the micro bot medicine which could destroy the dangerous virus. The virus was called Armageddon One.
Some reflected it was just like the period of the voyageurs from France. We were all pioneers again. This time we lived in communes, some of which were scientific, others artistic and still others in business. Most communes had a few businesses going. Such as selling food, wood and metals. And there were drug traffickers. Some sold their new home for drugs. And addiction was a real problem. But what could we do? It was a free society.
But we continued to build architecturally interesting homes and buildings.
And the new culture didn’t allow any weapons, even large knives were forbidden. People had to give up their guns...
And we resolved to elect the kindest people to be our leaders. That’s what the world lacked: kindness.
And love. We made sure that everyone had at least one lover.
Power was produced by several dams on local rivers, no more nukes.
We had a new breed of spies who kept everyone in order. In fact they’d made numerous arrests and sentenced the criminals to change their brain.
World internet was finally restored and genetic science began again.
But this didn’t worry the people as they were on the whole not dissidents.
I was elected leader in the year 6 (Post Apocalypse, PA). I presided over a new culture, that I had to admit recreating the world, we had known.
I had my secret police arrest several dissidents who wanted a love world or a peaceful world. I believed there was no way to have peace in this world.
Finally an anarchist overthrew me, and executed me.
XXX
But I left behind these notes in my journal behind for future survivors to know of our struggle.
I suppose it was a seminal time to change the world, but it didn’t change like we thought.
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Man in Black
Ivars Balkits
It’s Johnny Cash in the Javalina. Not the singer this time but his song. By two moonlighters, who performed earlier at the university theater. Their band played during the 60th year celebration and screening of “Salt of the Earth,” about the Empire Zinc Mine strike of 1950-1952 in Bayard, New Mexico.
It had been hard for the men. The court injunction threatened arrest and jail time. The wives and other women took control. That was the hard part for the men. Two of the woman who walked the picket line were part of the panel. One of them recalled being deliberately hit and dragged by a scab’s car. Fourteen at the time. She had never seen the film, had been unable to. Her husband and children convinced her to give it a try.
In the Javalina, we listen to the song by the “Man in Black.” A hipster with dark biblical beard and long hair sits in the back of the room (works at the food coop), listens, knitting. I can sense the approval of the crowd: “He’s knitting, good for him.” He is knitting and mouthing the words: “I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die.”
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About Ivars Balkits
Ivars Balkits has most recently been published on the web sites for cahoodaloodaling, Angry Old Man, Plural Prose Journal, Uut Poetry, Helios MSS, Unbroken Journal, and Otoliths. He is a recipient of two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, for poetry in 1999 and creative nonfiction in 2014.
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The Universe Expanding at Faster Rate than Once Predicted per the Science Times Section of the New York Times
Ivars Balkits
Measurements to be re-measured – new physics pending – reordering of dreams and superstition. Is there a pull on the body as the universe expands, and is that why my fat cells are getting larger? Might there be increasing room in my synapses for bigger ideas?
Examples of imagination stretching beyond what once seemed reasonable:
Microscopic hydrae tearing apart with the pressure. Increasingly more orcas beached in a New Zealand bay because they haven’t adjusted to the magnetic signals bent by ballooning energies between faraway celestial bodies. Old moral stabilities facing new light and dark material realities. Truth recalibrated in the blind.
Okay, more:
Red shifting left to right. Oligarchy fighting for the people’s right. Fake news uncovered by a false president. Ninety-seven percent of scientists wrong about anthropogenic climate change. Economy outperforming the planet. Earth flattening out. Dinosaurs reacquainting themselves with hominids. Waiting room times getting longer. Are these all not caused by the unpredictable increase in the universe making no sense again, until corrected for?
Could it account for my own swelling of hubris and head? My words blown out of proportion?
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About Ivars Balkits
Ivars Balkits has most recently been published on the web sites for cahoodaloodaling, Angry Old Man, Plural Prose Journal, Uut Poetry, Helios MSS, Unbroken Journal, and Otoliths. He is a recipient of two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, for poetry in 1999 and creative nonfiction in 2014.
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Saved by The Bell
Jalicia Hart
Some nights I can sleep, but most nights I don’t. Eerie silence holds my thoughts hostage taking full control. Fear often paralyzing my body; while my memories scorch my soul. Her sweet moans penetrate drums of my ears, drowning me in desperation. Every plan now just a plan. All the things we have done will be all that we will do. There’s no me without her; the future we once had will never occur. I have no willingness to shelter the pain. Making peace with the decision to set my soul free as an uncaged bird. The coldness of the steel chilled my warm sweaty palms. The pounding from my chest grow louder and louder in my ear. Visualizing my last memorable moments, reminiscing about the warmth of her embrace. Chiming bells ringing in my ear intercepted my harsh fate. Warm tears streamed down my face uncontrollably. Whoever that was on the other side of the door had the worst timing ever.
Opening the door, but to my surprise there was no one there. Only a mysterious box address to me. Tossing the box aside; I was eager to complete the mission I’d started. Landing on my foot was an envelope from my wife handwriting scribbled across the front. Shocked with confusion I hesitantly peeled it open.
Dear, Joshua this letter is for your eyes only. It’s a long story just know only did what had to be done to ensure your safety. This is not a joke, there are dangerous people after me. We will talk about everything when you get here. Check the box all you need is there, and the rest will be on the plane under your chair. You must follow these instructions precisely and please be careful these people are extremely dangerous. P.S. burn this now love you see you soon, the letter read.
Rushing to pack my bags to leave. I rambled through my belongings grabbing only what was important. My Queen was alive which made my life worth living; destiny had granted me another chance to be with my soulmate.
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A Dog Named Mu
Mark J. Mitchell
Two monks raking stones.
One pointing. Not at the moon.
Stiff tail. Dead cat. Leap.
*
Rat running. Give chase.
Gate. Two monks. Talking. Pointing.
Rat. Gate. There. Running.
*
Roll. Lick. Water. Falls.
Mud cool. Bird. Bird. Bark. Lick. Roll.
Licking. Two monks laugh.
*
Monks throw rocks. Too close.
Bush jumps. Sniff. Bitch. All day gone.
Two monks. Not home. Stones.
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Mark J. Mitchell Bio
Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologiesIt has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. Good Poems, American Places,Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. A length collection, Lent 1999, was ,just released by Leaf Garden Press. His chapbook, Three Visitors has recently been published by Negative Capability Press. Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, was just released from Folded Word and his novel, Knight Prisoner, was recently published by Vagabondage Press and a another novel, A Book of Lost Songs is coming soon from Wild Child Publishing. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster.
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Zugzwang
Mark J. Mitchell
A German word meaning: a compulsion
to move or making a move under duress.
—A Dictionary of Modern Chess |
Marcel Duchamp gazes
through a glass chessboard.
His hair is very neat.
His face carved out of granite.
The shirt is checkered, black
and white and perfectly pressed.
His right shoulder looks tense,
ready to claim a knight or pawn.
The ancient photograph
freezes this one moment
but everyone knows across that board
sits a very pure, very naked girl.
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Mark J. Mitchell Bio
Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologiesIt has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. Good Poems, American Places,Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. A length collection, Lent 1999, was ,just released by Leaf Garden Press. His chapbook, Three Visitors has recently been published by Negative Capability Press. Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, was just released from Folded Word and his novel, Knight Prisoner, was recently published by Vagabondage Press and a another novel, A Book of Lost Songs is coming soon from Wild Child Publishing. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster.
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The Guide Awake
Mark J. Mitchell
| Should we have stayed home and thought of here?
—Elizabeth Bishop
Questions of Travel |
Pale sun and the pinprick pains
return to your body like seasons
each cruel-pretty morning.
Coffee quick, then breakfast.
Begin again, like repeated bars
in sad, over-written music.
Cold commute bus. Rough music
leaks from a kid’s headphones. Your pain
is misplaced, like steel bars
on a third-floor window. Baseball season
coming up at you fast
as a pitch on an Arizona morning.
T-shirted tourists ready for your morning
circle. You want a voice like music
and a driver who rolls fast
through yellows and takes pains
to keep your body from being seasoned
with bruises as you speed past bars
and landmarks. New construction and rebar
slow you to a crawl but catch morning
light like a shortstop late in the season.
Remember, now, that visual music
is your job. You have to explain
it all while not talking too fast
to make sense. So your cold breakfast
has bounced around. A motorcade bars
progress through two lights. Sirens pain
your ears as you dissect the morning
for people who treat your words like music
they don’t like. So starts the tourist season.
But it means a big-league season
too and pitcher’s arms grow fast
in desert light while bats compose music
with leather and landmark bars
migrate. They’ll return some morning
to relieve lost souls of their pain
and your tiny pains are meant to season
a spring morning. Flowers bloom too fast,
becoming only colored bars and light becomes music.
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Mark J. Mitchell Bio
Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologiesIt has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. Good Poems, American Places,Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. A length collection, Lent 1999, was ,just released by Leaf Garden Press. His chapbook, Three Visitors has recently been published by Negative Capability Press. Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, was just released from Folded Word and his novel, Knight Prisoner, was recently published by Vagabondage Press and a another novel, A Book of Lost Songs is coming soon from Wild Child Publishing. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster.
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Behind the Glass
Liz Betz
It’s the part of Sheena’s day where everyone has time to have their pictures taken. This professional photo session is to be Sheena’s graduation gift, but it’s her mother that really wants this. But the dress cost a fright and Sheena has her hair and make-up done professionally and you only graduate from high-school once.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Hannah said and the deal is sealed. A glare in my direction warns me to stay sober at least to this part of Sheena’s day. I don’t have the words to argue. I haven’t had any words that mattered since that...since the accident. Since we lost our grandson Luke.
Sheena will rejoin her classmates after this hour with the photographer. He’s got us in the park standing on a carpet of fallen leaves; even I can see how the blue of Sheena’s dress will stand out from the background. That’s what you want on your special day, to stand out. It’s a celebration.
The parents with the graduate. Mother to the left, father to the right. Maybe both of you lean in to kiss her cheek, one from each side.
“On the count of three, Andy.” Hannah adds, because she expects me to slosh off kilter.
Lots of parents today expected nothing less from their children but for them to graduate from high school. The bare minimum. At least that. After all their work to keep them well and safe and on track and...shuffle to the right. Smile. Hold it. The sound of the shutter.
For some there is a big sigh of relief, so far so good. Or it looked bad there for a while but here we are. It’s a celebration. I can see that. I can see how their eyes shuffle this way or that when they look at us. What can they say? There are no words but I find refuge in my aphasia.
Congratulations Sheena. They might say but the words cut off in their throats. Congratulations? But some have never said their condolences, so now what? No word meets in the middle. Many of our neighbors and friends are caught in the middle.
Hannah isn’t in the middle; she’s proud of her daughter and will hear no other option. I’m not in the middle either but I’m not in the same place as...anyone; reduced to a brief summary – He’s the man who ran over his grandson. No wonder he drinks.
Sheena in the middle standing, then the graduating beauty seated in the chair, then Hannah’s turn. How about everyone look up at those tree tops? Now champagne flutes, a toast. To your bright future, then. Certainly this drink is sanctioned, permissible. Don’t expect me to say no.
I don’t think of moving forward, I haven’t been given a second chance to seek my purpose. It’s not said in so many words but Hannah and Sheena have reached a place I don’t want to go. In that place Luke’s death is seen as the second chance and now Sheena can graduate and maybe go on. She is no longer a teenage mother.
I’ve never been so left behind. Hannah’s encouragement does not reach me. Sheena’s apparent release from responsibilities is an evil twist of someone’s ill-advised wish.
Another pose, with balloons, the same color as Sheena’s gown, the same color as Luke’s eyes. Hold them this way and now that. Now let one go. Now the rest. They rise out of sight. I’ll disappear myself as soon as this is over.
“Don’t forget the luminary.” Hannah gives it to Sheena to light. I draw close to see the picture on the side. It’s Luke, 18 months old and a good walker, he’s headed somewhere. I reach down to stop him, as if he were still here, a toddler that needs to be kept out of danger. I almost burn myself and bump in Sheena. Her gown traipses through the flame, but she quickly brushes the sparks away. Hannah grabs my arm.
For a moment our faces are illuminated by the little light flickering behind the glass. I cannot look away from the flame as it throws my life into sharp focus. In this light you can learn a great deal about yourself, not to mention about those around you.
The truth; Hannah and Sheena are not afraid to let Luke become a memory. They have gone on sad and yet hopeful but that balance inside me that is gone. I always feel myself falling into darkness.
Take the pictures. Sheena is beautiful and young and her life is ahead of her. I won’t deny her, but there is only a permanent shard of grief in my heart. Let it not show in the picture, can you manage that professional photographer? Let the shots be like every other graduate’s family portrait. It’s a celebration.
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Liz Betz Bio
Liz Betz is enjoying her retirement pastime of writing short fiction which has been published in a variety of markets. She writes from rural Alberta.
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A Heart Shaped Box
Marc McMahon
Just because I invited you doesn’t mean that you’re safe. Just because I said I love you doesn’t mean I don’t hate. He always used to say that to me, you know he never used to treat me like that, he only used to bring me flowers but maybe his love for me has grown. Maybe this is how he loves, how he really feels. So much emotion he must have to display, to show it to me in such a way. I wonder if his mom loved like this? His Father, Or no that is right, his father is doing life in prison. The murder of those two girls. You know the two, they were all over the news.
I can remember hearing that he had severed the corroded artery on the one before dismembering her lower half, and the other, the other, well, let’s just say that they never did recover an entire body for that one which still leaves investigators wondering what he knows that he is not telling. Either way, it doesn’t really matter, it just goes to show he was not much of a role model for Brian when he was young. Maybe that is where he gets it, I really don’t know. All I do know is that I have never met anyone else who loves in such a fierce way.
I guess if I had it to do all over again I would. I would go back to him. Oh yes, in case you had not figured it out I left him, for good. It was not that I could not take the violence any more or maybe I should say, his love anymore because in a weird way I think I kind of liked it. I don’t know it made me feel useful, wanted, like if I let him do that he would love me more because it really does show how much you love a person when you let them abuse you or as I say, love you hard! That’s really all it is, love. Why do so many call it abuse, I mean for me it is how I was taught.
My dad loved like that, and I can remember when my brother and his friends would play with me when I was young that they to must have loved me a lot because sometimes, well, it really is a secret but I can say this. Sometimes when we played together the three of us I did not like it. I know for the boys that its ok that I didn’t like it because it hurt me but I did not like that part. I am not really sure I am even making any sense here. You know trying to explain this, and you know how when you look at things in hindsight that they will often times have a new meaning. Or your perception of the event is different from the original. Well, that is kind of what has been happening to me lately.
Since I left him since we parted ways since everything changed and this darkness set in. Well, it is only dark in this room, the other room is much brighter I just haven’t decided if its time to leave this room yet because I know when I do he will be gone forever, even the memory of him. So although uncomfortable, I stay, for him, because now that I am gone it is my turn to show him my love, so I stay. I stay out of the light with a hurt heart full of love for him. My only regret is that he would have bought me more flowers. There were only 3 bouquets when I left. I remember when my mom left the family had bought her so many flowers you could barely count them all. Oh well, its getting cold now I better go back to sleep, goodnight.
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Behind the Glass
Kassandra Heit
Click. Click. Click.
Her heels echoed against the tiled floor as she passed the front desk. The sunlight that poured through the windows behind her highlighted every curve and detail on the stone bodies, every brush stroke on the framed canvases. The Greek-like columns, at least triple her size, only made her rapid heartbeat sink to her stomach.
He sat on the long bench in front of their favorite painting. His black suit and groomed hair demanded the attention of each soul in that room. No one dared to step in front of his gaze. His eyes memorized that painting from corner to corner, but that didn’t keep anyone’s eyes away from him.
Click.
She stood behind him, far enough away to avoid physical contact. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to wonder if you would actually show up,” He said, not bothering to turn his attention towards her. “I don’t like being ignored.”
“I don’t like being a rag doll either.” She glanced down at the floor. She walked around the bench and faced the painting once more. “This ended six months ago, Evan.”
Evan held back his amusement as he took his place next to her. “I don’t have to abide by your wishes.” His fingertips ran through her hair and picked out the layer of purple she added since he last saw her along with the crescent moon branded underneath her left ear.
She swatted his hand away from her neck. “I gathered that when you left me tied up in your office to go have dinner with your wife.”
“Tina,” he said with all the air in his lungs, “I did that for us.”
“That wasn’t for my benefit.” Tina stared up at the different colored paint in front of her. “Five years.”
Evan sighed and closed his eyes. “I know I promised things would be different at this point, but you have to trust me. I’m doing this for us.”
“There is no us anymore.” Tina said. “My internship turned into a job offer. I move within the month.”
Evan grabbed her wrist with white knuckles. “You will not leave. I will call that company myself and tell them they are making a mistake.”
“You wouldn’t.” Tina glared at him. She yanked on her arm, but he only tightened his grip.
“The opinion of a congressman can go a long way, sweetheart.” Evan said with a smirk. “I’m the only one you can count on. I’m so close to the goal, baby.”
Tina restrained herself from punching him. “What goal?”
“The Oval Office.” Evan whispered. “You stuck around for five years because you care more about your career than your morals. I’ve seen it.” His eyes scanned down her body. “I need you as my first lady when that happens.”
“You think you can bribe me.” Tina raised her eyebrows at him.
Evan smiled. “You didn’t come here to see me,” he said. “Be patient with me.” His arms wrapped around her small frame. “This painting is damaged. It’s falling apart as you can see.”
Tina looked at portrait. The cracked and chipped portions of the picture only proved him right. The paint in the corners started to peel off long ago. It hardly changed since she left for that internship in Chicago. “What’s your point?” She asked.
“Although it looks weathered, it still holds the power to inspire people and gather a crowd,” Evan said. “The museum could put this painting away, preserve it like the Egyptians did to their deceased loved ones. What good would that do? No one could enjoy it. The artist who painted this didn’t want his creations to be stored away for safe keeping.”
Tina pushed herself out of his arms. “So, what are you suggesting?”
“Larkin already has his next term in the bag for the Presidency.” Evan glanced around for any curious wanderers. “I can have my divorce squared away by the next election. We give it a year to keep the press off of us. By the time the new campaign rolls around, you could be married to the new President.”
“You’re asking me to marry you, my rapist.” Tina nearly growled at him.
“I’m asking you to marry me, your career catalyst,” Evan said. “So?”
Tina ran a hand through her hair, utterly frustrated with the man who had been her tormenter for years. “We’ll have to do some extra campaigning in Pennsylvania.”
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A Day Remembered
Andrée Gendron
A distraught young man enters the local police station. In a soft voice he asks to be arrested. The officer on duty peers up from a mountain of paperwork, takes in the sorrowful looking lad standing before him and asks, “Why?”
He says he wishes to confess to a crime. A murder. The unsolved murder that occurred one year ago of Sarah . . . Sarah Ann Landry.
The officer recalls the incident well. He didn’t peg this kid for a smart-alecky punk. Too clean cut: no pierced body parts, ink or hoody. He has to get back to his filing. Then again, he knows the Chief tends to humor every clown that calls in with a hot tip. Some actually come down to the station house thinking a dramatic scene might add some legitimacy to their story. But he knows nine out of ten times they’re just police radio junkies. Everyone seems to want a reward or to see their names in the papers. He tells the kid to beat it, that a dead girl is no joking matter.
The boy insists he did it. He came to confess.
“You want to turn yourself in, buddy?” the officer asks. The kid nods and expects to be placed in a jail cell. But the officer hands him a pencil and notepad instead. He then tells him to sit and write everything down: where it happened, what she looked like: what she wore, how he did it, why he did it. “Whatever you can remember.”
The boy quietly does what he is told. At least this time he can provide evidence of his guilt. The last time he tried turning himself in, one year ago to the day, the woman at the front desk never took his statement. She said he had a sweet face then dismissed him saying the police were too busy investigating the case and trying to find the real perpetrator.
After an hour of writing and sobbing he hands a lengthy account of his deed over to the man behind the desk. He expects his parents are certain to be informed of his predicament next. That saddens him more so but he feels comforted knowing they will understand. He has lived with his pain and loneliness long enough. Surely, they have seen how unhappy he has been. “Something had to be done about it but what I did was wrong,” he admits. He realizes Sarah’s killing changed nothing. His torment lives on oblivious of his suffering.
But the station phone keeps ringing and the officer is working there alone. The boy was willing to patiently await his fate but his resolve weakens as he is ignored for another agonizing hour. He becomes anxious about what the townspeople will do upon hearing of his crime and leaves the station unnoticed.
The Chief of police arrives later and asks how things are going. The officer says, “Quiet.” Then he tells him about the kid who was there earlier and shows him his notepad. He reads the written confession completely then shakes his head. “These details are all wrong,” he says. “She had blue eyes, not green. Her sweater was yellow, not pink. The pendant she wore was red, not brown. You let him leave?”
“Yeah,” the officer replies. “Yes sir, I did. He seemed upset about tonight’s memorial.”
The chief accepts that explanation. “Kids.”
Later in the day they get a 911 call from a person out walking their dog. Another girl’s body has been found. Lori Anderson. The police recognize the name. She was the same age as Sarah Ann and was, in fact, her best friend. Lori had taken Sarah’s death pretty hard. Her parents helped her through her grief by starting up a scholarship fund in Sarah’s name. The girls had made plans to attend the same college together.
The desk officer grabs the name and home address off his notepad. He and the chief look everywhere for the boy who had turned himself in for the Landry murder but he is nowhere to be found. Reluctantly, they speak to his parents who are both questioned about their son’s relationship to these girls. They read his confession and weep. The Chief says their son is not a suspect in either case and tells them about all the discrepancies in his written statement.
But they know he is guilty of both crimes.
The mother says he had always hated those girls for spreading ugly rumors about him in grade school. He called them liars when it happened but the other kids chose to believe the girls and began calling him names and worse. He was bullied every day ever since then right into high school. It was difficult for him to attend classes, focus on his studies or even play or walk through his own neighborhood without getting harassed. She added that everything he had written was accurate as far as he knew. Their son had total color blindness so that reds looked brown, blues looked green and yellow looked pink to him. The police had let him get away. As a result, they allowed the other girl to be killed. It was the anniversary date of the first death. Her son had wanted to prevent another killing from happening. He tried turning himself in. They let him go. Lori’s death was on their hands. All their hands. “Lying and bullying robs kids of the joys of childhood and can ruin the reputations and careers of adults. It turns good people bad.” She believed both girls would still be alive if only her husband had agreed with her to move away. “I told him the boy just needed a fresh start somewhere else where no one knew him. I should have insisted we move.”
The father interrupts her and apologizes to the police for his wife’s hysteria. He claims to have addressed the problem years ago. He recalls telling his son, “Bullies and liars are an unpleasant fact of life. They’re everywhere and come in all sizes,” meaning grownups as well as kids, “and we all just have to get used to them always being there.” He thought his son had understood at the time everything he was saying. “It was the honest truth, right?” He considered the matter closed. “Moving was never an option. My commute to work is only fifteen minutes.”
The police listen to each parent and jot down notes. Their son listens too from a hiding place within the wall, a plumbing access cubbyhole behind the half bath off the kitchen. He waits for the two fools to leave him alone with his weak mother and insensitive father. Once they go he will end all of it, the ignorance, theirs and his both. No more grief counselors asking him if he needs help coping with the pointless deaths of well-loved classmates. No more having to attend another dumb memorial service. No more lousy excuses for why his family could never move away. No more wondering why they couldn’t stay and stand up to those who held them down. And no more being dismissed as an unlikely suspect. It was high time everyone knew his name. People were not likely to ever forget it after today.
Never.
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Cantaloupe
William Ogden Haynes
The old Black woman spends ten minutes fondling the cantaloupes
at the farmers market. She raps gently on the melon as if knocking
on a guest room door. Her head is cocked slightly to the right and
her face shows the strain of listening for a distant, but important
sound. She remembers her mother saying that the good ones sound
hollow and the bad ones have a dull thud. Then she presses her thumb
against the dark greenish-brown areola that once was a stem, the digit
finely calibrated over the years to determine how much give there is.
A little give is good, but not too much. She lifts the melon to feel if
it has weight and density, which is better than the lighter ones. Then
she sniffs it to see that it has a sweet, musky smell. She likes the color
to be more brown than green. Her fingers trace the raised netting
pattern of the rind which is better than a smooth surface. A man in a
business suit arrives and in ten seconds grabs the first melon he comes
to. It was one the old woman never even considered evaluating
since it was green, smooth and still had a partial stem. That night
in the kitchen of her ramshackle shotgun house she cuts the melon
and the room is filled with sweetness. The flesh is dark orange
and tender. She takes a tray of large crescent slices out to the front
porch for the neighbor kids playing in the street. She thinks of the
business man in his expensive house with the family sitting around
the table for dessert. It will be a cantaloupe whose flesh has just a
tinge of orange color and will push back hard against the spoon.
There will be no sweetness a good musk melon should possess.
She decides the next time she buys a melon she will invite the children
in and show them how to choose a cantaloupe before she cuts it.
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About William Ogden Haynes
William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published six collections of poetry (Points of Interest; Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings and Going South) and one book of short stories (Youthful Indiscretions) all available on Amazon.com. Over a hundred and fifty of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com
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Pink Bunny Rabbits
Richard Tattoni
“Don’t you like it here, Dick?” asked Dr. Everything-Will-Be-Alright.
It was the oldest hospital in the city. I was in the emergency room. To be honest, there wasn’t a hospital room on the planet where I would want to stay. My last surgery, ten years ago, was done by Dr. Feelgood. I saw stars when I had the hip surgery. God, it hurt. But this was far worse. I was always bad with names, but Dr. Feelgood got to talking about heavy metal albums, before I went under. Doc told me he felt good. Next thing you know, I was sedated. Whenever I got a needle, everything numbed and I got to thinking about pink bunny rabbits and lazy flamingos. Flinching from sharp reoccurring pain, I was brought back to a dingy emergency room. I came to the hospital with some throbbing around the chest, but it turned much worse. There was a pounding in my chest and I thought I was going to die.
“Everything hurts something fierce.” I winced again.
“Oh, you’ll be up in no time. You can see the street from outside of the corner window. You’ll be alright,” Dr. Everything-Will-Be-Alright said.
“I can’t get out of this hospital bed,” I said.
“Give it time,” he said.
“This is no vacation,” I said and jostled around.
“No,” he said. “No.” He turned away. I slumped back down in the bed. The hospital smelled distinctly familiar, but it was like the white room was closing in and suddenly I was claustrophobic and I thought my next breath would be my last. What if I would never wake up again?
“I’m going to die,” I said and I could hardly breathe.
“Nurse,” the doctor ordered her closer.
“Yes,” the nurse said.
“Inject the patient with Lot Eleven.” The doctor turned to me. “It’s a chemical compound,” he said. It sounded familiar, like something I’d read from a book. Soon my mind would be in a different space and time.
“This won’t hurt,” the nurse said, strapping me down and trapping me with a needle.
“Shit,” I said. It wouldn’t be a soft needle.
“You won’t feel a bowel movement. You won’t feel anything,” the doctor said. “Nurse,” he instructed, “We need a catheter.” The doctor was deathly calm. What if I would die alone and they never got a hold of my family? I watched everything in a blur. The middle-aged nurse with red hair injected my arm. Dizziness at first, a tingling and then peace.
The nurse and doctor exited the room. I fell asleep and never felt anything except my body moving to a different place in time.
What’s the doctor’s name?
***
Swoosh. Swoosh. The wind blew behind me and I stood tall and started walking. All of a sudden, I was sixty years younger, holding my wife’s hand tightly on a romantic getaway. She was alive and we were alone on vacation in Italy.
There was a beautiful view overlooking Florence from the hill. I was standing and gripping her hand, like she was heaven and I didn’t want to let go. I sneezed and sniffed almost violently. My nose was congested. I had to pull my hand away gently. I discretely took a step back. Sniffling again, something was lodged inside my nose. It was annoying. I took my finger and began digging. First, I was digging around the edges, and then I went deeper inside my nose until half of my index finger was buried inside. I carefully picked out green and brown boogers. It was relief. I wiped my hand clean on the blades of grass behind me and went back to holding my wife’s hand. She was beguiled by the view and didn’t notice my incident until she might have clued in when she saw my face, but she smiled sweetly. I would never know if she knew the truth about the ugly situation from the vacation.
Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.
***
I woke up and I was back in the hospital bed. There was no pain, except the pain from losing my wife, but I had my family. A male nurse with a moustache and dark tan leaned over and handed me a cup of water. Everything was white in the room with curtains and apparatus. I sipped water from the plastic cup. “Dick, your daughter and her newborn baby are waiting to see you.”
God, I wanted to see them. “Bring them in, please!”
“Meet baby Dick,” my daughter said.
“He’s named after you,” my son-in-law said.
“Bring him closer,” I said and I didn’t feel eighty on my death-bed, ready to meet God. It was the spark of life I had been waiting for all these years. It was a miracle. They rushed to my side, carrying my grandson tightly with apprehensive smiles.
“Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay,” I sang jubilantly.
“You must be feeling better,” the nurse said.
“I am,” I said happily.
“I’m glad we made you excited,” she said.
God, I felt so young.
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the State of the Nation
Janet Kuypers
Summer 1995
my phone rang earlier today
and I picked it up and said “hello”
and a man on the other end said,
Is this Janet Kuypers?
and I said, “Yes, it is, may I ask
who is calling?”
and he said, Yeah, hi, this is
George Washington, and I’m sitting here
with Jefferson and we wanted to
tell you a few things. And I said
“Why me?” And he said Excuse me,
I believe I said I was the one
that wanted to do the talking.
God, that’s the problem with
Americans nowadays. They’re so
damn rude. And I said, “You know,
you really didn’t have to use
language like that,” and he said,
Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve been
dead so long, I lose all control
of my manners. Well, anyway, we just
wanted to tell you some stuff. Now,
you know that we really didn’t have
much of an idea of what we were
doing when we were starting up
this country here, we didn’t have
much experience in creating
bodies of power, so I could understand
how our Constitution could be
misconstrued
and then he put in a dramatic pause
and said,
but when we said people had
a right to bear arms
we meant to protect themselves
from a government gone wrong
and not so you could kill
and innocent person
for twenty dollars cash
and when we said freedom of
religion we included the separation
of church and state because freedom
of religion could also mean freedom
from religion
and when we said freedom of speech
we had no idea you’d be
burning a flag
or painting pictures of Christ
doused in urine
or photographing people with
whips up their respective anatomies
but hell, I guess we’ve got to
grin and bear it
because if we ban that
the next thing they’ll ban is books
and we can’t have that
and I said, “But there are schools
that have books banned, George.”
And he said Oh.
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Order this iTunes track:
from the Chaotic Collection
...Or order the entire 5 CD set from iTunes:
CD:
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Order this iTunes track:
from Chaots in Motion
(a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes:
CD:
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...Order this on oh. — the audio cd!!!
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Listen to this from the CD release
from the first performance art show
(08/14/97) Seeing Things Differently
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Listen to this live at
Live at Cafe Aloha (Janet Kuypers/Jason Pettus show)
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Listen Live at the Cafe,
now available in a 3 CD set
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Listen live to the 2nd Axing
at the open mic Sing Your Life
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Watch the YouTube video
10/03/06 the Lake County Poets Society on TV 4 times, 12/06
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Watch this YouTube video
(2:16) from the Poetry Fest 2006 Lake County Poets Society practice performance, live 08/22/06
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see the entire performance
at the Lake County 08/22/06 Prep Show live, via the Internet Archive
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Listen to the full show
or the poem read live as the final scheduled feature 08/26/06 for the Society of Professional Journalists show thru Chicago Poetry Fest ‘06.
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Watch this YouTube video
performed for C Ra McGuirt (Penny Dreadful Press) in Nashville 12/20/08
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Watch this YouTube video
live at the Lake County 2010 Poetry Bomb at Independence Grove forest preserve 04/18/10
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Watch this YouTube video
read live 12/18/11, at the Café weekly poetry open mike she hosts in Chicago (with music and video shown from the HA!man of South Africa)
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Watch this YouTube video
of ther reading many poems 12/18/11 at the Café in Chicago (music bt the HA!man of South Africa, vocals by Suzanne Hettinger, guitar by John Yotko) including this writing
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Watch this YouTube video
read live 12/18/11, at the Café weekly poetry open mike she hosts in Chicago (with music and video shown from the HA!man of South Africa), from the Samsung camera
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Watch this YouTube video
read live 12/18/11, at the Café weekly poetry open mike she hosts in Chicago (with music and video shown from the HA!man of South Africa), from the Kodak camera
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Watch this YouTube video
the majority (all but th last 2 poems) of her reading many poems 12/18/11 at the Café in Chicago (from the Kodak camera) including this writing
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem at the open mike 7/4/12 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (from the Canon)
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem at the open mike 7/4/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (Sony)
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers’ open mike 7/4/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus her reading poems, including this one (w/ live piano from Gary)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 7-8/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose “‘Type A’ Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuyperspoem #janetkuypersbookreading
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 7-8/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose “‘Type A’ Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her “Finding Where We’re From and the Future” performance art poems “Barbie” and “Burn It In (reaching the end edit)” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose ““Type A” Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her “Finding Where We’re From and the Future” performance art poems “Barbie” and “Burn It In (reaching the end edit)” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose ““Type A” Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500).
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“Type A” Person
Janet Kuypers
1997
I was in my friend’s car once, and she was driving through the streets of Chicago, and she was letting people in who were getting in the right lane at an intersection when that right lane really should only be used for turning right but they go straight and try to cut off the long line of traffic waiting at the light. Well, as I said, she’s letting these people get in front of her, and she’s stopping at four-way stop intersections and waving other cars to go in front of her, and when she is going she’s going under the speed limit, and I’m thinking, my god, she’s under thirty years old and she’s driving like she’s twice her age and I want to tell her to get going because damnit, I don’t want to die in this car, I’ve got a lot of living to do, I’ve never jumped out of an airplane or made a million dollars or been in a lustful affair with a high-ranking political candidate, and if I am going to go out I surely don’t want to die of boredom while someone else is staying in the most congested lane of traffic when they could just as easily get into the next lane and cut everyone off in front of them when they eventually have to merge, like I would most certainly do.
And then it occurred to me, and of course it filled me with a complete and utter sense of elation, because I just love being pigeon-holed into stereotypical psychological categories: I really am a Type A person.
There’s an intersection near my house where from one direction you can either go straight or turn right, and there are two streets that merge into this one, both turning right, so the middle street has a “no turn on red” sign. And usually when I’m on this road I’m on the street that’s going straight, the left-most street, and these two streets are on my right, merging into my street. And I always catch the red light on this street, it’s like the traffic gods are displeased with my constant efforts to circumvent their wrath, so I’m always catching the red light at this street, so I’ve learned a new trick: I turn right, onto the first street on my right, but instead of doing a U-turn I turn left at the next block so I can get on that second street, all so I can turn right onto the street I was on originally before both of the other streets get to go so I can beat every one of those slow bastards to the next intersection.
I mean, yes, I’m the one that’s yelling and banging the stering wheel of my car when people on the road are idiots. Yes, I’m that person who has to race so that I can slam on my brakes at that next intersection, only 100 feet away, and yes, I am only driving a Saturn SL1, a sedan with about as much power as a 1982 Ford Mustang, but damnit, I won’t go down without a fight, I will be out there cutting everyone off, weaving in and out of traffic; I will be the one getting there before you, trust me, I will.
And even when I’m tuning the radio while driving, because, you see, I do that and put on my make-up and take notes for work and check over my schedule and if I was the Hindu god Vishnu and had ten arms I’d get a cel phone and send out faxes and eat dinner and write a novel while I was at it, but, as I said, even when I’m tuning the radio while I’m driving I only let the first second-and-a-half of the song play before I’m disgusted and change the dial to the next pre-programmed station, just to instantaneously become disgusted another six times and have to find a tape to play because all those stupid corporate pieces of shit think they should play crap over and over again in order to keep the mindless tuned in.
Well, not me, thank you very much, I don’t have the patience for that.
So, needless to say, I’ve discovered that this is a problem of mine, I wish there was some sort of therapy group for this so I could go to my weekly “Type A Anonymous” meetings, but we’d probably all be pushing each other out of the doorway thirty seconds before the meeting is supposed to start, saying, “Get out of my way ass-hole, you should have thought about being late before you tried to cut me off,” and the meetings themselves would probably be filled with people yelling, “Hey, jerk, I think I was talking, what, do you think you’re god or something, show some respect.“
God, and I know this is a problem of mine, I know this “Type A-ness” transcends into every realm of my life. When I get on the elevator in the morning to get to my office on the eighteenth floor, I try to make the doors close as quickly as possible so no one can get on the elevator with me, because you know, I really do hate all people and surely don’t want to be in a cramped confined space with a bunch of strangers. But when people do get on the same elevator as me, they invariably press the buttons for floors fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, and I start pursing my lips, stopping myself from saying, “Oh, you people couldn’t stand to walk a flight of stairs, you just had to press all of these buttons and stop me from getting to my god-damned floor in a reasonable amount of time.”
Even walking on the sidewalk in the city, I always get stuck behind someone that’s a full foot shorter than me and a full thirty pounds heavier, someone who labors to walk very, very slowly, someone who actually sways rhythmically when they walk, like a metronome, or like a person standing on the edge of a dance floor, rocking back and forth, back and forth all too afraid to actually ask someone to dance, or else afraid to go out and dance and make a fool of themselves in front of the cool people who have figured out what rhythm really is. And I’m walking behind this person, almost tripping over myself because this walking pace is just unnaturally slow, so to pass the time until there’s an opening on the left side of the sidewalk so I can pass them and walk like a human being again I start to mimick them, swaying with my walk, more for my own entertainment than anyone else’s.
Yes, more than a human being I’m a human doing, and I hate having to depend on the schedules of others in order to get ahead of them all.
Yes, I am the person in line at the grocery store with three items, shifting my weight from foot to foot, frantically scanning the other lines, the person who wants to ask the person in front of them, “can’t I get in front of you, I’ve only got three items and you have two full grocery carts full of crap like Cheetos, Pepsi, fish sticks and Haagen Daz Cookie Dough ice cream.” Yes, I am the person who has four different sets of plans for any given evening because if any one event gets too boring I can pick up and say, “Oh, sorry, I’m supposed to be at a meeting by now,” instead of having to tell them that they’re too boring or that I just have no idea whatsoever of how to relax. Yes, I am the person who coasts toward an intersection when I know the timed pattern of the traffic lights, and know that I can manage to get to this intersection without ever having to make a complete stop so when that light does change I can accelerate faster than everyone else, pass everyone by, and have the open road to myself, wide open in front of me.
I’m already guessing that at my funeral, when the long procession of cars is creeping toward the cemetery, I’ll be opening that casket up and whispering to the driver of the hearse, “hey, what do you say we floor it and blow everyone off in line? We could probably grab a beer at the corner bar and still be able to beat everyone to the grave site,” because, as I said, I’m a “Type A” person, and I’m going to make damn sure I do as much living as I possibly can, I’m not going down without a fight, and wherever that god-damned goal line is, I swear, I’ll beat everyone to it.
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Order this iTunes track:
from the Chaotic Collection
...Or order the entire 5 CD set from iTunes:
CD:
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Listen to the CD recording of this piece from the CD (used for the show) Changing Gears - or order ANT track from the CD Changing Gears through iTunes.
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Watch the YouTube video
(3:35)
Live at Changing Gears 06/17/03
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Listen to this from “Live at Cafe Aloha” (Janet Kuypers/Jason Pettus show) - or order ANY track from the CD “Live at Cafe Aloha” through iTunes.
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Watch this YouTube video
(8:03) recorded of dancing Boobies
(birds called Nazca Boobies, Punta Suarez,
Espanola Island 12/25/07, Galapagos Islands)
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Listen to this live recording
from the book Urbanation release show
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Watch this YouTube video
(5:30) live at the Café in Chicago 10/12/10
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Watch this YouTube video
of the intro from the open mic @ the Café in Chicago 10/12/10, w/ Kuypers reading her prose “Type ‘A’ Person”
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Watch this YouTube video
(4:43) live 10/15/10 at Power Networking for Success JK poetry show
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See the full Youtube show
live JK poetry show w/ guitar 10/15/10 at
Power Networking for Success with
“Type A Person” & “Communication”
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See YouTube video from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “Type “A” Person”, then her poems “Venture to the Unknown” and “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” toward the end of the Austin 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video from 4/29/18 of Janet Kuypers reading her prose “Type “A” Person”, then her poems “Venture to the Unknown” and “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much” from her performance art collection book “Chapter 38 v1” toward the end of the Austin 2018 Poetry Bomb at the Baylor Street Art Wall (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 7-8/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose “‘Type A’ Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 7-8/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose “‘Type A’ Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her “Finding Where We’re From and the Future” performance art poems “Barbie” and “Burn It In (reaching the end edit)” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose ““Type A” Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her “Finding Where We’re From and the Future” performance art poems “Barbie” and “Burn It In (reaching the end edit)” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose ““Type A” Person”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56).
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the one at mardi gras
Janet Kuypers
winter 1996
i was at mardi gras last weekend
and i got a bunch of beads from parades
(no, i didn’t lift my shirt for them) -
and a friend of mine had a balcony
on bourbon street, and so we were on it
on friday night, and the swarms
of people stretched for over a mile. it was
a mob, no one could walk and the crowd
just kind of carried them along. and all
the men expected women to get naked
for them for beads, and from my balcony
i would see every few minutes a series of
flash pops, coupled with a roar from the
crowd, and i knew a woman lifted her shirt
for the screaming masses. i refused, however,
to strip for drunk strangers, when i knew
they all expected me to, being on a balcony
and all. so men would look up at me and stretch
out their arms, looking up inquisitively, as
if to ask either for me to give them beads
or for me to strip. and since i wasn’t stripping
and had plenty of my own beads, i decided
to turn the tables and see if men would accept
the same conditions they asked of these women.
when they looked up at me for something,
i would say, “drop your pants.” they would look up
at me, confused, because the women are the
ones that are supposed to be stripping, but
in general i got two responses from the men:
either they would look at me like i was
crazy and walk away, or they would shrug,
as if to say, “okay,” and then they would
start unzipping their pants. then they would
make a gesture to turn around, as if to ask,
“do you want to see my butt?” and that’s when i’d
yell, “the front,” and then they’d turn back
around, with their pants and their underwear
at their knees, and start moving their hips
(which i never asked for, by the way).
so over the course of the evening i
managed to get at least twenty men to
strip like this for me, and i was amazed
that there was this society, this micro-
cosm of society, that allowed this kind
of debauchery in the streets, a sort of
prostitution-for-plastic-beads form of
capitalism. so i was reveling in this bizarre
annual ritual when this man, average to
everyone else, wearing grey and minding
his own business, decided to look up at me. so
i asked him to drop his pants, and instead of
disgustedly leaving or willingly obliging
he crossed both hands on his chest and looked
up at me, as if to ask, “you want to me do
what? you naughty, naughty girl.” and he
smiled and looked up at me, and it occurred
to me that i finally found someone in this
massive crowd that thinks they way i do.
now, new orleans has a population, from what i
hear, of about one million, but during mardi gras
there are about nine or ten million people, and
all i could think was that of all these people
here, i finally found someone who wouldn’t
blindly do what i asked, but at the same time
wouldn’t think i was crazy for asking.
of course as i looked at him i also happened
to think that he was stunning, by far the best-
looking man i had seen that entire night, he
looked like he had style, like he was self-
confident, but then again, i’m near-sighted
and was on a balcony drunk at mardi gras.
we hit an impasse when he wouldn’t strip
and neither would i, so his attention was
eventually diverted to other balconies. but i
noticed for that next half-hour that he never left
from under my balcony, and every once in a while
he would still turn around and look up at me. oh,
boy, i was thinking the entire time, i know
this is no way to start a relationship, hell,
i’m sure this guy lives nowhere near me, and
i haven’t even had a real conversation with him,
but he’s damn near perfect. and all that time we
were screaming and partying at mardi gras,
he would still occasionally turn around and
make sure i was still there. and finally he
looked at me, signalling that he had to move
on with his friends, and i held up my index
finger to make him wait and then i threw
a bunch of beads at him. part of me threw
them because he was a good sport, putting
up with my taunting and still not giving in,
but a part of me threw them because i
saw in him the strong values and the sense
of self-worth, the sheer love of life, the
desire to be alive, that i possessed all along
and have always longed for in someone else.
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Order this iTunes track:
from the Chaotic Collection
...Or order the entire 5 CD set from iTunes:
CD:
|
Listen to the DMJ Art Connection
,
off the CD The DMJ Art Connection Disc One
|
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Listen to the CD recording of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes
03/18/03
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Watch half of the show video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
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Watch part of the poem video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (1:59)
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Listen to this live at
Live at Cafe Aloha
(Janet Kuypers/Jason Pettus show)
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Watch this YouTube video
(1:59) performed live of the beginning of the 03/18/03 live performance art show Death Comes In Threes.
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Watch this YouTube video
(4:42) live 03/08/11 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
of the intro to the 03/08/11 open mic at the Café in Chicago, plus the poems The One at Mardi Gras and Coslow’s, plus the Morrissey song Place in Hell covered
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Watch this YouTube video
(4:54) live 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
(4:54) live 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
|
Watch this YouTube video
live with a Blue Screen Key Filter 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
live with a Green Screen Key Filter 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
live with a Pastel Sketch Filter 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
|
Watch this YouTube video
live with an Old Film Filter 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
|
Watch this YouTube video
live 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
live with a Metallic Filter 02/16/10 at the Café in Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
live in Chicago 02/20/12 at Café Ballou (the day before Fat Tuesday, via Waiting 4 the Bus)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers, while hosting the Poetry Aloud open mic 4/28/18 in Georgetown TX, read 3 her poems, “And I’m Wondering”, “Transcribing Dreams 3”, and “The One at Mardi Gras” from her book “Chapter 38 v1” to a live audience for National poetry Month (Panasonic Lumix T56).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers, while hosting the Poetry Aloud open mic 4/28/18 in Georgetown TX, read 3 her poems, “And I’m Wondering”, “Transcribing Dreams 3”, and “The One at Mardi Gras” from her book “Chapter 38 v1” to a live audience for National poetry Month (Panasonic Lumix 2500).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read her haiku “imprisoned / ignorance” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” poems “Death is a Dog” and “The one at Mardi Gras”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ August 2018 Book Release Reading 8/1/18, where she read her haiku “imprisoned / ignorance” from the cc&d 7-8/18 book “Black and White”, then she read her Down in the Dirt 6/18 book “The Last Guru” poems “Death is a Dog” and “The one at Mardi Gras”, in Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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Burn It In
Janet Kuypers
Summer 1997
Once I was at a beach
off the west coast of Florida
it was New Year’s eve
and the yellow moon hung over the gulf
like a swaying lantern.
And I was watching the waves crash in front of me
with a friend
and the wind picked up
and my friend just stared at that moon for a while
and then closed his eyes.
I asked him what he was thinking.
He said, “I wanted to look at this scene,
and memorize it, burn it into my brain,
record it in my mind, so I can call it up when I want to.
So I can have it with me always.”
I too have my recorders.
I burn these things into my brain,
I burn these things onto pages.
I pick and choose what needs to be said,
what needs to be remembered.
Every year, at the end of the year
I used to write in a journal
recall the things that happened to me
log in all of the memories I needed to keep
because that was what kept me sane
that was what kept me alive.
When I first went to college
I was studying to be a computer science
engineer, I wanted to make a lot of money
I wanted to beat everyone else
because burned in my brain were the taunts
of kids who were in cliques
so others could do the thinking for them
because burned in my brain were the evenings
of the high school dances I never went to
because burned in my brain were the people
I knew I was better than
who thought they were better than me.
Well, yes, I wanted to make a lot of money
I wanted to beat everyone else
but I hated what I was doing
I hated what I saw around me
hated all the pain people put each other through
and all of these memories just kept flooding me
so in my spare time
to keep me sane, to keep me alive
I wrote down the things I could not say
that was how I recorded things.
When I looked around me, and saw friends
raping my friends
I wrote, I burned into these nightmares with a pen
and yes, I have this recorded
I have all of this recorded.
What did you think I was doing
when I was stuffing hand-written notes into my pockets
or typing long hours into the night?
In college, I had two roommates
who in their spare time would watch movies in our living room
and cross-stitch. I never understood this.
In my spare time, I was not watching other’s stories
or weaving thread to keep my hands busy
I was sitting in the corner of a cafe
scribbling into my notebook.
I was sitting in the university computer lab
slamming my hands, my fingers against the keyboard
because there were too many atrocities in the world
too many injustices that I had witnessed
too many people who had wronged me
and I had a lot of work to do.
There had to be a record of what you’ve done.
Did you think your crimes would go unpunished?
And did you think that you could come back, years later,
slap me on the back with a friendly hello
and think I wouldn’t remember?
You see, that’s what I have my poems for
so there will always be a record
of what you have done
I have defiled many pages
in your honor, you who swung
your battle ax high above your head
and thought no one would remember in the end.
Well, I made a point to remember.
Yes, I have defiled many pages
and have you defiled many women?
You, the man who rapes my friends?
You, the man who rapes my sisters?
You, the man who rapes me?
Is this what makes you a strong man?
you want to know why I do the things I do
I had to record these things
that is what kept me together
when people were dying
that is what kept me together
when my friends went off to war
that is what kept me together
when my friends were raped
and left for dead
that is what kept me together
when no one bothered to notice this
or change this
or care about this
these recordings kept me together
I need to record these things
to remind myself
of where I came from
I need to record these things
to remind myself
that there are things to value
and things to hate
I need to record these things
to remind myself
that there are things worth fighting for
worth dying for
I need to record these things
to remind myself
that I am alive
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Watch this YouTube video
(5:03, of just the poem)
live at the Yammer Chicago mini-feature 11/17/99
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Watch this YouTube video
live at the show Questions in a World Without Answers 10/05/04, Chicago
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watch the full Questions in a World Withough Answers video live, including this poem in Chicago 10/05/04 (~21:56)
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Listen to this radio recording
from WZRD Radio (in a 2 CD set)
|
Listen to the live reading
from the Side A/Side B feature 12/09/03
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Watch this YouTube video
(5:18) live at Jesse Oaks 07/19/07
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Listen to this live at
Live at Cafe Aloha (Janet Kuypers/Jason Pettus show)
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Watch the YouTube video
(:56) live at Beach Poets 08/14/05
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Watch this YouTube video
(5:22) recorded on the Pacific Ocean
12/07 near the Galapagos os Islands
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Watch this YouTube video
(5:13) recorded of dancing Boobies (birds called Nazca Boobies, Punta Suarez, Espanola Island 12/25/07, Galapagos os Islands)
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Watch this YouTube video
(2:22) from the Poetry Fest 2006 Lake County Poets Society practice performance, live 08/22/06
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You can also see the above YouTube video at
blinkx and Google Video
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see the entire performance
at the Lake County 08/22/06 Prep Show live, via the Internet Archive
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Listen to the full show
read live as the final scheduled feature 08/26/06 for the Society of Professional Journalists show thru Chicago Poetry Fest ‘06.
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Watch this YouTube video
03/05/11 from the TV camera in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her show Letting it All Out
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Watch this YouTube video
(4:32, of just the poem) 03/05/11 in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her “Visual Nonsense” show Letting it All Out
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Watch this YouTube video
of Kuypers from the TV monitor in the “Letting it All Out” show, live in Lake Villa 03/05/11 at Swing State
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Watch this YouTube video
(34:48) to the Letting it All Out show, live in Lake Villa’s Swing State 03/05/11 with this piece
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem 2/27/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (from the Canon camera)
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem 2/27/13 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (from the Sony camera)
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers hosting the open mic 2/27/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus this poem
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God in Vicci’s Chicago studio 7/20/14, with video behind her of her drawing this poem (C, take 1)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God in Vicci’s Chicago studio 7/20/14, with video behind her of her drawing this poem (C, take 2)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God in Vicci’s Chicago studio 7/20/14, with video behind her of her drawing this poem (S, take 1)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God in Vicci’s Chicago studio 7/20/14, with video behind her of her drawing this poem (S, take 2)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 3 poems 9/14/15 at the Chicago open mic Weeds, w/ “So”, Beauty in the Eyes of Einstein, & Burn It In (Canon fs200)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 3 poems 9/14/15 at the Chicago open mic Weeds, w/ “So”, Beauty in the Eyes of Einstein, & Burn It In (Canon PS).
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See YouTube video 1/3/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems White Knuckled, Women’s Very Existence and Burn It In from her book Rape, Sexism, Life & Death and her poem ever leave me from the cc&d book When the Walls are Paper Thin at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (Nikon CoolPix S7000)
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See YouTube video 1/3/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems White Knuckled, Women’s Very Existence and Burn It In from her book Rape, Sexism, Life & Death and her poem ever leave me from the cc&d book When the Walls are Paper Thin at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (Canon Power Shot)
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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. 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. Starting at this time Kuypers released a large number of CD releases currently available for sale at iTunes or amazon, including “Across the Pond”(a 3 CD set of poems by Oz Hardwick and Janet Kuypers with assorted vocals read to acoustic guitar of both Blues music and stylized Contemporary English Folk music), “Made Any Difference” (CD single of poem reading with multiple musicians), “Letting It All Out”, “What we Need in Life” (CD single by Janet Kuypers in Mom’s Favorite Vase of “What we Need in Life”, plus in guitarist Warren Peterson’s honor live recordings literally around the globe with guitarist John Yotko), “hmmm” (4 CD set), “Dobro Veče” (4 CD set), “the Stories of Women”, “Sexism and Other Stories”, “40”, “Live” (14 CD set), “an American Portrait” (Janet Kuypers/Kiki poetry to music from Jake & Haystack in Nashville), “Screeching to a Halt” (2008 CD EP of music from 5D/5D with Janet Kuypers poetry), “2 for the Price of 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from Peter Bartels), “the Evolution of Performance Art” (13 CD set), “Burn Through Me” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from The HA!Man of South Africa), “Seeing a Psychiatrist” (3 CD set), “The Things They Did To You” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Hope Chest in the Attic” (audio CD set), “St. Paul’s” (3 CD set), “the 2009 Poetry Game Show” (3 CD set), “Fusion” (Janet Kuypers poetry in multi CD set with Madison, WI jazz music from the Bastard Trio, the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and Paul Baker), “Chaos In Motion” (tracks from Internet radio shows on Chaotic Radio), “Chaotic Elements” (audio CD set for the poetry collection book and supplemental chapbooks for The Elements), “etc.” audio CD set, “Manic Depressive or Something” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Singular”, “Indian Flux” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “The Chaotic Collection #01-05”, “The DMJ Art Connection Disc 1” (Janet Kuypers poetry to music from the DMJ Art Connection), “Oh.” audio CD, “Live At the Café” (3 CD set), “String Theory” (Janet Kuypers reading other people's poetry, with music from “the DMJ Art Connection), “Scars Presents WZRD radio” (2 CD set), “SIN - Scars Internet News”, “Questions in a World Without Answers”, “Conflict • Contact • Control”, “How Do I Get There?”, “Sing Your Life”, “Dreams”, “Changing Gears”, “The Other Side”, “Death Comes in Threes”, “the final”, “Moving Performances”, “Seeing Things Differently”, “Live At Cafe Aloha”, “the Demo Tapes” (Mom’s Favorite Vase), “Something Is Sweating” (the Second Axing), “Live In Alaska” EP (the Second Axing), “the Entropy Project”, “Tick Tock” (with 5D/5D), “Six Eleven”
“Stop. Look. Listen.”, “Stop. Look. Listen to the Music” (a compilation CD from the three bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds & Flowers” and “The Second Axing”), and “Change Rearrange” (the performance art poetry CD with sampled music).
From 2010 through 2015 Kuypers also hosted the Chicago poetry open mic the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting weekly feature and open mic podcasts that were also released as YouTube videos.
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 three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), 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, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc&d hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed. 2017, after hr October 2015 move to Austin Texas, also witnessed the release of 2 Janet Kuypers book of poetry written in Austin, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 poems” and a book of poetry written for her poetry features and show, “(pheromemes) 2015-2017 show poems” (and both pheromemes books are available from two printers).
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Thanks to John Yotko for photographing Janet Kuypers in her July 2018 Book Release Reading 7/4/18, where she read her Down in the Dirt 7-8/18 book “The Last Guru” performance art “Live at Café Aloha” poem “The State of the Nation” and her prose ““Type A” Person” live in Austin, Texas during her Community Poetry @ Half Price Books reading.