Of All the Words
Annin Brothers
Simon Raflinda cast a glance at the clock and got out of the car. A young man was walking to meet him from his entryway. Simon knew him right away from the light pouring out of the high-rise windows. It was Christian Boyden, his former neighbors’ son.
‘Hi, Christian. Been waiting for me? Is it my Mom?’
‘No, Mr. Raflinda, she’s okay. I called on her today to get your address. I mean to ask...’ Christian hesitated, then, emboldened, added: ‘You’re a physician.’
‘Hop in, let’s go for a ride.’ Simon opened the door of his Mercedes Benz. He knew outright, by the voice that was both tremulous and resolute, and by the look that now fled, now came back, that there was some morbid idea back of it, that the young man was not all there. So his unexpected idea was meant to meet the challenge. There was another thing, though, one that made Raflinda look agreeable – perhaps not just look that way. It was the idea that had flashed across his head: ‘Why not Christian Boyden?’
When the Mercedes sort of slunk off, Simon urged his guest with a word:
‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’
Christian looked at him in surprise.
‘No, Mr. Raflinda.’
‘Please call me Doc. We used to be good neighbors, didn’t we?’
‘Whatever. Two months ago my Pop died. You know, don’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t, Chris. Sorry.’
‘Yesterday Tony – my elder brother, you know – was told to leave the flat... because of the new neighbors. The landlord offered us a room downstairs.’
‘Downstairs...’ Simon smirked. ‘It’s a word that suits you to a T. No offense meant: you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘I do, Doc. That’s not what brought me here.’
Simon again detected in the young man what he had called ‘challenge.’ What challenge?
‘Chris, it isn’t money you’re after, is it? I could give you a handsome check right now.’
‘I’m no cocksucker,’ snapped Christian. ‘Tony... The landlord called Tony a cocksucker.’
‘Of all the words...’
‘It’s a lie! He’s a fucking fag, not a cocksucker!’
‘I was offering the money not to a cocksucker. I’m not buying you. As well you know.’
‘Yes, Doc. I said the wrong word.’
‘No, Chris, the word is just right. Come to think of it, cocksuckers aren’t just those who fellate. Cocksuckers are all those down there who sell themselves to those up there. You came to me, aware that you’d always be down there and resolute to put paid to it,’ said Simon with certainty. (He had no doubts left that Christian Boyden was challenging life itself). ‘Did I get you right, Chris?’
‘How did you know?’
‘By your answer. The word “cocksucker” and the fact of your arrival suggested the answer to me. But you don’t need me to end it all up.’
‘It’s Tony... I mean to help him...’
‘Don’t lie to me. You mean to help him take leave of this world because you don’t want him to be a fag?’
‘Yes, Doc,’ Christian could no longer hold back the tears.
‘Let’s have a deal, Christian... I’ll help you and your brother, and you’ll help me.’
‘Me... you?’
‘Precisely: you, me. Is it a deal?’
Christian hadn’t expected such a turn and answered with no questions:
‘Done.’
‘First, Anthony. For one thing, he won’t be evicted under any circumstances, ever. For another thing, should he agree to quit his current job and help my mom about the house, he’ll never look back. I promise... We’ll consider you a bit later,’ said Simon and turned on music.
They drove in silence for about an hour. Raflinda turned off into a shabby alley, and the Mercedes, leering first with one pair of eyes, then the other, contingent on the first, crept into the semidarkness... and stopped.
‘See that door across the way?’
‘The one on the right?
‘Yes. You’ll be asked: what brings you there? You’ll say you want to take the leap.’
Christian was back three minutes later.
‘I am to be here at eleven.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yes.’
At about eleven, there were three boys and a girl shifting from foot to foot next to the ‘special’ door that looked quite ordinary.
‘I’ll be going, Doc.’
‘Remember, Chris: I’ll help you, and you’ll be free.’
‘I don’t quite see your point,’ said Christian and made haste for the door.
A man of about thirty let in the desirous to take the leap without a question. He was obviously an iron-pumper of hospitable aspect. A corridor piled with cardboard boxes along the walls took them to a small room, five yards square. The curtains were drawn. It was harshly lit with a naked hundred-watt bulb under the ceiling. The floor was a set of violet thick glass squares (about three feet on the side).
‘Will each of you choose and take a square,’ the iron-pumper began. ‘I’ll kill the bulb next. When the music starts and a light wave runs over the floor, just stay put and keep your knickers on.’
‘Is it all right to dance?’ asked the girl.
‘Within your own square only.’
The light suddenly vanished and ‘metal’ whipped the ears. The glass underfoot blazed as if set alight by a splash of molten metal... The girl and one of the boys twitched and jerked in time to the convulsing eardrums.
‘A load of shit,’ murmured Christian. (No one heard him: he had thus charged himself for confidences with Raflinda, for the doc was to lump it.)
In another minute the light show was cut short. Only four squares still glowed violet, one of them highlighting a stock-still leap-taker. It was Christian.
‘You stay,’ said the iron-pumper pointing his forefinger at him. ‘Bye for now to the rest of you.’
Christian got back to the car.
‘What was all that shit, Doc? I’d have found my own way of kicking the bucket,’ he ventured impetuously when Raflinda’s silence was no longer bearable and his own chicken-hearted. ‘Help you... help me! What sort of help was standing in an effing square like a halfwit?! I say, Doc: was it much help?’
‘As a matter of fact it was,’ cried Simon in response all of a sudden. ‘You helped me by standing. That you did to help me make you free... from those up there... from those down there.’
‘It will never do, Doc, it’s bullshit. You’re full of shit. Can’t you hear yourself speak?’
‘You’d be free to choose. Never before have you been able to.’
‘That’s precious, Doc: I wouldn’t be there, but I’d be able to choose. A suit, wheels, chow. Would I, Doc? A suit, wheels, chow. Would I, Doc? Would I?’ Christian was actually shouting into his ear.
Simon stopped the car and said in full possession of his senses:
‘A boy’s been assigned the time and the place, and he’s shit his pants? What do you call it?’
‘Like hell I did. Let’s go back and I will take the leap. What do I want with your special door? Or does someone want a show?’
‘A show, yes!’ Simon was crying again. ‘Yes, there’ll be eyes there... those of perverts. But you’ll do what you came to me about. Not for them – for yourself... and for me.’
‘So you’re selling me as a whore and calling the death of a whore freedom?’
‘It’s all wrong, Chris. I don’t get a red cent from them.’
‘You don’t, do you? So I’m not the first?’ There was a caustic note to Christian’s voice.
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ Simon tried his damnedest to pipe down. ‘Let me explain. I don’t get a cent for all this. I’m a neurophysiologist and neurosurgeon. And I’ve got an arrangement with them.’
‘An arrangement, is there? You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, is that it?’
‘Tarry awhile, Chris. I don’t help them, not in any way. Just a jab once in a while, and that’s that. That jab is of the essence for me. Just me.’
‘Just you? A jab? What do I have to do with it all? Oh, I got it. You need my ass for that scholarly shot.’
‘You need it... you, whore. Just put it in your pipe and smoke it... for you not to be a whore, to get your freedom... for you to choose.’
‘Okay, okay, Doc. Much do I care. I did promise and I’ll take that leap.’
The Mercedes’ inside seemed to have gone deaf. For some time neither of them interfered with the deafness...
‘What’s the time set?’
‘Five in the morning tomorrow,’ said Christian glancing at his watch and then at Raflinda. Simon got the point: tomorrow was today.
...At half past four, when it was still dark, Raflinda stopped the car. They’d left behind the seventy highway miles between them and the city’s somnolent bustle. Straight ahead there was half a mile to the flyover across the dead highway in a hollow that Christian was to walk.
‘You walk the rest of the way, alone. There are CCTVs on the flyover. Those are the audience’s eyes. They’ll be removed when it’s all over... You have every right to change your mind: it isn’t punishable.’
‘I won’t, Doc. The freedom you promise is tempting.’ Christian gave Raflinda a wink.
Both got out of the car.
‘I’ll get going, Doc,’ said Christian (wistfulness in his voice), turned around and walked in measured steps... then added in a loud voice without stopping or looking back: ‘You must know, Doc: it isn’t for you, it’s for Tony.’
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cleaver
Joe Seale
I carry you all in my belly
somewhere beneath my gut
ribbing my spine in webbed clumps.
You churn me and burn me
until the bile is all I taste
and yet I remember.
Fleeting and teasing
swimming
you are inside me but
I am you are me.
I would cleave you out
like melon from rind, peeling
layers and letting them
dangle and drop and dangle and drop
into sloping heaps that curl inward
incestuously upon themselves
until they tip over and lie there
used up and exhausted.
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fixtures
Joe Seale
A fixture of verbs dangles at
the back of my throat like
a bruise —
lodged, jammed, stuck. A pocket of
blood yet to yellow.
Talk to me, you say.
Speak truths. Speak beauties.
You hold me in your hands as you speak.
I feel finger tips trembling around me,
Your grip is gentle. You never squeeze.
Tell me a story, you beg.
Read me a poem. Make me love
you. Believe you. Let me feel you,
you say with a smile. How do you feel?
My throat is a bruise, I say, my words the blood.
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Palpitations
Susie Gharib
My heartbeats have been lately impounding my ears, so I decide to seek the advice of a nearby GP, who remarks that the tempo of my heart could do with a cardiologist’s opinion. His nurse inquires on my behalf and instantly books an appointment on a Sunday since he is very busy every weekday or else it will be a very long wait for me.
On a sunny morning, I leave early to find the whereabouts of the clinic that looks far on my map. The address takes me to a house with a little garden, whose front door is locked, with no sign of patients, receptionist or any business astir. It is a bit early but I wonder if I am the only expected patient. I anxiously wait in a nearby park and begin to feel uneasy as my appointment draws near. Another inspective round brings me face to face with a tall, robust man watering some plants; his eyes flash from behind the gold-rimmed lens. It is Dr. Ivy, expecting the only patient booked for the weekend. Ushered in, I do not feel comfortable about the closure of the front door behind us. He asks me to wait in a tiny reception room whose every piece of furniture is covered with white cloth; the house must have some repair underway and the draping gives it an eerie, discomforting look. His room overlooks the street, which is empty except for occasional visitors to a house on sale a few blocks away. The closure of a second door unsettles me and I sit on the armchair to which he points cautiously. The chair has not received my full weight when I abruptly stand at the sight of a large can of Pif Paf in his strong hand, the other busy pointing at a big fly far above our heads.
“The buzzing will disturb me. I need to spray it,” he apologetically explains.
“I have allergies,” I affirmatively state, stridently walking out of the room then reluctantly standing in the middle of the opened front door wondering what to do. I have forgotten my handbag and would have gladly left without it had it not been for identity documents, which I carry everywhere because I am a new immigrant.
“I shall not spray the fly now,” he states in an assuring tone, “Come in please.”
He closes the front door but leaves the second wide open to win my sunken confidence. The patient-doctor relation is already marred and tension is written all over my very impressionistic face. He slumps in a chair before a computer and with decipherable annoyance all over his face begins inquiring after my family history, while pressing with two fingers the same two keys repeatedly. I cannot understand what sort of skills enables him to type my answers with only two figures. He asks me many questions that I believe to be quite irrelevant, but he knows better anyway, so I keep answering and submerging my irritation with ancestral calmness. He avoids eye contact but uneasily views the people who pass by the window on a tour of the house on sale. It seems like something he had not calculated. He fidgets before concluding the long interview with “Are you allergic to anything else, other than fly-spray?”
I am to undress and cover myself with the white sheet on the examination seat. He leaves the room, triumphantly closing the door behind him. As I am taking my woolen jumper off, an inner impulse propels me to look at the computer screen that he has abandoned without closing its content. I find many dashes and slashes. Not a single word is typed during the long hour I stayed. With “Mary, Holy Mother!” I rush out of the room and would have fainted had not the front door, which teems with various types of locks, given way to my frantic hands. I run, but feeling my legs too weak for the strain, take refuge in a beautiful lane and sit on the steps of a house with the most beautiful flowerpots I have ever seen to burst in torrents of tears of relief.
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Bio:
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Since 1996, she has been lecturing in Syria. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Literary Magazine, Down in the Dirt, Peeking Cat Review, and Adelaide Literary Magazine.
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Prescribe them Something,
Anything
Janet Kuypers
on Instagram and twitter, 2/22/19
I’ve played this game with all you doctors
I live on whatever prescription drugs you can hand me
and I try to make myself chemically better
So when I’ve decided I can’t take it anymore
I go to the doctor, start to cry to them, try to ask for relief
and they give me blank stares, afraid of emotion
They’re afraid of taking a patient’s hand —
they’d rather prescribe them something, anything, and say
their work is done and they’ve succeeded
But I think the average American
is sick and tired of your cookie-cutter answers, which are
sharper than a scalpel, and we’re bleeding
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Have You Ever Had” originally performed in her “new year’s unplugged” show and read from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, then her 2019 poems “Prescribe Them Something, Anything”, and “Queasy Feeling” (written on National Sword Swallowing Day), live 3/16/19 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Have You Ever Had” originally performed in her “new year’s unplugged” show and read from her poetry performance art collection book “Chapter48 (v1)”, then her 2019 poems “Prescribe Them Something, Anything”, and “Queasy Feeling” (written on National Sword Swallowing Day), live 3/16/19 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Alexa
Copyright 2019 John F. McMullen
Wanting the weather
in the area, I say
Alexa, Weather in
Mah-HO-pak, New York
She (or it) replies
The weather in
Mahopac, New York
is rainy ...
Mahopac is the correct
spelling but Mah-HO-pak
is the Indian pronunciation
and the real locals would
rather cut their wrists than
pronounce it any other way
It gets worse when I ask her
for information on
Houston Street in
New York City,
pronounced Howstan
(after William Houstoun)
and she replies
Houston Street is one of
San Antonio’s oldest and
most popular streets
Oh well
She does know how to spell
antidisestablishmentarianism
Afterword
I asked her
What does fuck mean?
She replied
I’d rather not answer that
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bio
John F. McMullen, “johnmac the bard”, is the Poet Laureate of the Town of Yorktown, NY, a graduate of Iona College (BA – English Literature) and the holder
of two Masters degrees from Marist College (MSCS – Information Systems & MPA – Criminal Justice), a member of the American Academy of Poets, Poets & Writers, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Mahopac & Yorktown Poetry Workshops and the Mahopac Writers Group, the author of over 2,500 columns and articles and eight books, six of which are collections of poetry, and is the host of a weekly Internet Radio Show (over 280 shows to date). Links to the recordings of all radio shows as well as information on Poet Laureate activities is available at www.johnmac13.com.
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March 11, 2019
Copyright 2019 John F. McMullen
It was
March 11, 1951
Sixty-eight years ago
That my father died
The sixty eight years
is twenty-two years longer
han the forty-six
that he lived.
It was
an accident
a head injury
Such a shame
A life change
for my mother
for me
We both
made out alright
but our lives
were different
from that day forward
He was NYPD
The son of NYPD
He was
Generous
Funny
Quick
And then gone
Such is life
Such is death
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bio
John F. McMullen, “johnmac the bard”, is the Poet Laureate of the Town of Yorktown, NY, a graduate of Iona College (BA – English Literature) and the holder
of two Masters degrees from Marist College (MSCS – Information Systems & MPA – Criminal Justice), a member of the American Academy of Poets, Poets & Writers, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Mahopac & Yorktown Poetry Workshops and the Mahopac Writers Group, the author of over 2,500 columns and articles and eight books, six of which are collections of poetry, and is the host of a weekly Internet Radio Show (over 280 shows to date). Links to the recordings of all radio shows as well as information on Poet Laureate activities is available at www.johnmac13.com.
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April in November
Daniel Owens
The dust in room 108 created a nauseating atmosphere, it’s as if it assembled the most grotesque of dust storms combined with a dash of dirt, only to then be transported into one confined airspace. Despite being dusty the view was great, and the walls were clean, nevertheless this room was inhabitable. The doorknob turned, and in walked two individuals, a man in his early forties, and a woman in her early forties.
“One hundred and nineteen dollars!” Bill said to the woman across from him.
“And ninety-five cents, but that’s if we are disregarding taxes Bill.” Lucy replied.
“I just think that’s quite a steep price to pay for a dishwasher.”
“If it’s any consolation I don’t think the Williams have a dishwasher either.” Lucy said to her husband whose head was firmly entrenched in his palms.
“Still want a dishwasher though, their just so expensive.”
“Bill, I get it you want to be hip like the other families on our street, but it’s nearly 1967, we should conform to the rest of society. The times are changing, why just the other day I saw some young men protesting outside of the park.” Lucy said this to the man across from her whose eyes were firmly rolling back and forth.
“Kids these days don’t respect their country, they say that we are fighting a pointless fight.”
The room creaked, it sounded like bones crunching under the foot of a giant. These disturbances startled the couple in the room who were already perturbed by the allergy-inducing elements present.
“This room is quite old I mean look at this pen on the stand, this model isn’t even being manufactured anymore.” Bill said to his wife.
Lucy grabbed the pen from the stand as a dust print of that pen was engraved on the desk. The print resembled a snow angel to the naked eye, but unlike a snow angel this print didn’t disappear as the angel would when snow faded. Dust took residence in this room, some would say it’s been paying the fee for the past forty years.
“It doesn’t have any ink left in it.” Lucy stated to Bill as she scratched at a piece of paper with it.
“You have to shake it.” A third voice chimed into the conversation.
Shivers ran down Lucy’s spine, the ambience was so cold Antartica would be smitten.
“Lucy, I think we have a ghost.” Bill said to his wife with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Why Bill, I believe we do have a guest.” Lucy replied.
“You can hear me?” The ghost asked.
“Of course, why wouldn’t we be able to?” Lucy asked.
“Nobody has heard my voice for the past forty years.”
“Well we hear you perfectly fine.” Bill added.
“What’s your name?” Lucy asked.
“April, my name is April.” The apparition said to Lucy.
“How long have you’ve been here April?”
“Well, Mr. Bill I’ve been a resident of 108 since 1926, so a very long time.” April said to Bill.
A hyena-like howl burst from Lucy’s lips, and arms just flailed about in hysteria at the words that came out of April’s mouth.
“Mr. Bill, it’s just Bill.” Bill said to April.
“Mr. Bill that is rich, I should start saying that now.”
April had never been noticed since she’s died, furthermore she couldn’t even fathom that the first people to notice her would be so exuberant.
“I saw it all you know, from down on their luck businessmen, to women making plans to play baseball.” April said to her two co-occupants. “I even remember this one guy who was a really good dance and singer, but when these kids were listening to his music a couple years later, their parents chided them.”
Lucy was fidgeting with the pen, shaking it up and down, hoping to get it to write. “You really been through a lot haven’t you April?” Lucy finally got the pen to write, and she scribbled down something on a piece of paper.
“I am sorry what you’ve been through April but do understand that you got to experience something we all could only dream of in this room.” Bill said to the forlorn ghost.
“Loneliness is rough but look on the bright side you’ve got Bill!”
“And Lucy!” Bill stated immediately after his wife.
“You got us, and you experienced the best and worst of those who came around here.” Lucy added.
The pen that Lucy wrote with sat down next to the dust, and the dust on the desk swam in the wind as Lucy cleared the desk off.
“All done!” Lucy said.
April was an apparition, she could see them, but they couldn’t see her, she could hear the world around her but until today the world couldn’t hear her. Bill and Lucy looked at their watches, and decided it was time to check out, after all this was only a short stay. The doorway they came in was also their exit, and to April this was also the end of the best forty minutes of the past forty years. Bill and Lucy looked back at the room where they had their interesting experience before closing the door and letting the dust meet the sandman. As the door closed, April was once again left to her lonesome, just her and the sound of silence. Still in a semi-dusty room cleaned up a bit by the former occupant, April decided to take a gander at piece of paper Lucy left on the now clean desk.
“See you next November!” April read out loud, and if ghosts could cry this one would create a waterfall.
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Homelessness
Ahsan Jilani
A young man lays himself down on a park bench
Attempting to get himself asleep out open in the cold.
Without any abode is he, unable to afford the expenses
Out of work is he, no form of emoluments does he possess
Jilted by his lover: as she saw him no longer of use
With parents, he stayed, until they could no longer afford him
Prolonged is his redundancy for months, struggling is he to sustain himself.
Despairing do feel the lives of many a homeless,
Dying are they to escape this state of utter despondency.
Tis at the dead of the night, a colleen is guided to the sleeping quarters;
There she sees many others like her at the women’s refuge.
Some preparing for bed, some already asleep,
During her sojourn she interacts with many like her;
Numerous amongst its refugees were disfigured like she.
Scarred were plenty of them: both in physique and the psyche!
Just as her, a lot of them reluctant to separate, owing to pecuniary dependency.
Eventually, compelled to part were they – subsequent to protracted suffering.
Despairing do feel the lives of many a homeless,
Dying are they to escape this state of utter despondency.
Innumerable are those that are stranded on the streets!
Some inebriated or narcotists,
Others unable to function due to insanity.
At times even veterans, former athletes and celebrities
To runagate adolescents fleeing their virulent families.
A lot amongst the vagrant are forced into crime for survival!
Despairing do feel the lives of many a homeless,
Dying are they to escape this state of utter despondency.
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At First There Was Only Night
Ken Massicotte
1)
At first there was only night,
infinite density expanding,
dark matter in outer halos
bursting in filaments;
before a planetary embryo
rammed the earth
exploded into moon, and their crusts
roiled in a magma sea;
600 million years and the earth pooled
a shallow ocean and small islands,
swamp, reptiles
and in the sand the small
bipedal prints.
Take my hand someone gestured.
I’m hungry and almost always afraid.
I’m lonely, someone tried to say
but there were no words.
So they sat at night and sang
low soothing sounds
till they huddled and slept.
2)
They ran in packs with darts and slings
cool, lithe, relentless;
feasted, foraged,
and woke some nights from dreams
of deadly nightshade, mandrake –
canine, feline
sailing on the wind stalking prey
on trails divined from avian heights,
before gods or prophets or laws.
And some sought night in daylight
in caves, visions of fractured time
in pigment and chisel in stone.
A black bull, 17 ft. long
hyenas, giant elk pulsing
in motion on the damp walls;
archers dancing on floating planes
poised like hummingbirds –
the souls of the slain
unbound by death;
handprints like prisoners,
pleading like ghosts.
3)
Look, look, the children cried,
leaping off the yellow bus,
racing up the prairie drive,
sundogs and last night an archer.
Diamond dust, said the middle one,
chronicler of sky and wonder –
summer’s radiant drift of meteor rain,
and white pelicans with black tipped wings
riding the harvest thermal.
We could have been gods.
We scan the galaxies for signs.
If they are watching they would see,
through thousands of years,
temples and shrines,
the smoke of sacrifice,
the blessed ones with slender limbs
and heron’s gait.
Celestials calling us
trapped like sand
in black eddies.
(Previously published in Ginosko Literary Magazine, Issue 20, January 2018.)
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Biography
Ken Massicotte lives in Hamilton (The Hammer), Ontario. He has published in several journals, including: Wilderness House Literary Review, Gray Sparrow, Poetry Quarterly, Ginosko, Crack the Spine, Matador, Sleet, and Easy Street.
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Throwing at the Sky
Matt Pasca
We went out back to pinch
the nose of brotherhood, blow
life into its rubber mouth. He
was louder, faster, made of restless
angels. I was contentedly me, 1983
& needed us to be teams: batters
from Baltimore, sidewinding
submariners from KC. He sought
newness, to find a seam. Our bare
feet sandpapered by crabgrass
near cesspool’s rim, punctured
by pinecone shrapnel, I was Buddha
with a bat, he an Einstein of vectors.
Seventh inning stretched like our father’s
callous palm across the wall of mom’s
caring and—beyond our suburban tar pit,
yard of quantum sorrow, childhood in
retrograde—traffic hummed, strangers
in cars zipping to and from imagined
ease where fathers had functional kidneys
& didn’t smoke or scream or wield
a black belt in psychological warfare. Sometimes,
I’d connect—loft a pitch high &
hard, headed for highway or mom’s
garden, white wiffle soaring into
treetop, lodging in evergreen hands.
Our suspension suspended, we’d spend
the next hour hurling objects overhead—
rusted golf clubs, hammers, empty
planters, footballs—anything to knock
from the sky our one chance
at winning. We’d dodge the descent
of sap-wet handles & cone-pricked
pigskin, toss them up again until
all our offerings were caught
in taut branches near our ball—
flung prayers we knew
were never coming down.
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About Matt Pasca
Matt Pasca is a poet, teacher and traveler who believes in art’s ability to foster discovery, empathy and justice. He has authored two poetry collections—A Thousand Doors (2011 Pushcart nominee) and Raven Wire (2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist)—and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of 2 Bridges Review. In his corner of New York, Matt facilitates The Sunday Grind, a bi-weekly writing workshop, curates Second Saturdays @Cyrus, a popular poetry series, and spreads his unwavering faith in critical thought and word magic to his Poetry, Mythology and Literature students at Bay Shore High School, where he has taught for 22 years and been named a New York State Teacher of Excellence. www.mattpasca.com
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Herbie and Squiggles
Anita G. Gorman
When Herbie met Squiggles, it was a day to remember: the beginning of fourth grade when everyone was starting to act tough at Public School 389 in the borough of Queens. The boys, anyway, if not the girls. I can’t speak for the girls.
Squiggles, of course, was not his real name, for a variety of reasons. First, no one named a kid Squiggles in those days, all those years ago. Today, well, today, a kid could be named almost anything: Paperbag, Peanutbutter, Presqueisle, and that’s only the Ps.
His real name was Frederick Aloysius Markey, and I’m not sure how he got the name Squiggles. The thing about Squiggles is that he was tough, really tough, at least tough for a fourth grader. You may be wondering, by the way, who I am. I’m Gerard Anselm Harbison. I was a witness to all that was going on in fourth grade, and I’m here to tell you about it.
We began the school year in September, which was a pretty normal thing to do. What’s with these school districts today that start school in the middle of August? For crying out loud! And I’m a school administrator these days, by the way, but that’s another story.
Herbie had been in our class since kindergarten, but Squiggles was new to our community, as they say these days. He was short and wiry and looked really tough, as only a fourth grader can look. Are you smiling? Yes. We thought he was tough, and Squiggles thought he was tough, but no one else did, not our teacher, Mrs. Wolinski; not our principal, Mr. Gambino; and not even Joe the janitor. But their opinions didn’t count. Who counted? The kids in our fourth-grade class at P.S. 389. They counted.
Squiggles was short and wiry, but there was something else strange about him. He had burn marks on both of his arms. The wrinkled flesh ran from his wrists to his elbows. We saw the burn marks because it was September in Queens and still pretty hot, so everyone was wearing short sleeves. Not Herbie, though.
So on that day, the very first day of school, in September, we were out in the schoolyard for recess. As usual, we boys were acting like a bunch of idiots, running around and trying to act tough. Yeah, that’s right. Tough. But no one was tough, least of all Herbie with his long-sleeved shirt and his tie. And there was Squiggles, our new classmate, who had decided, it seems, to be the quintessential tough guy, the Mr. Tough of Mrs. Wolinski’s Fourth Grade Class.
There he was, in his short sleeves showing those burn marks. Now, as I look back, I wonder how we even knew that his wrinkled skin was the result of severe burns. But we knew. Everyone knew. And now, all these decades later, I wonder how Squiggles got those burns. An accident? Abuse by his parents? Was he involved in a crime? Somehow, regardless of the cause, those burn marks were a sign of his superiority over the rest of us. No other fourth grader sported battle scars, but our Squiggles did.
Now, as I look back, it seems inevitable that Squiggles and Herbie would become adversaries. The kid in the shirt and tie on a hot day and the kid in short sleeves with burn scars: each of them looked at the other and saw what they now call The Other—the guy so different from me that I want to fight him and overcome him. And that’s what happened. Herbie and Squiggles started to fight right there in the schoolyard during recess on the first day of fourth grade. If we had known how to bet, we would have all bet on the tough guy, Squiggles, whom we had just met, and whom we were all afraid of for reasons we could not then, or perhaps ever, articulate.
Herbie was different. His mother made him wear a long-sleeved shirt and a tie no matter how hot it was. And when it was really cold, Herbie would wear his long-sleeved shirt and tie and even a sport jacket, though I’m not sure that’s what they called it in those days. Please keep in mind that I am talking about many years ago. I can’t remember what I was wearing, something stupid, I’m sure, that my mother made me wear.
Where was our teacher, Mrs. Wolinski? Somewhere, but not close enough. We all stood back as Herbie and Squiggles eyed each other and then began their fight. Punch, punch, punch! Nothing sophisticated, just a lot of punches. Suddenly we could hear Mrs. Wolinski yelling for them to stop fighting, but they didn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear her. Punch, punch, duck! And soon it was over. The loser was on the ground, and the winner was standing up with his foot on the stomach of the loser. And the winner was? Well, you’re not going to believe it, but the winner was Herbie in his shirt and tie.
Somehow, and I’m not sure how, that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, as someone once said in a classic film. And to this day, though I keep thinking about it, I’m not sure what the message is. Maybe there isn’t always a clear-cut message. But the odd part of it all is that Herbie and Squiggles became friends on that day. I can’t say why.
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Untitled (night moves under you)
Simon Perchik
You button this sleeve the way smoke
is trained –a sudden shrug
and the night moves under you
can’t see you’re still on your feet
and though they no longer fit
the ground is already a crater
where her shadow would have been
holding on from behind
as a clear, moonlit dress
and the last thing you saw left open
as the slow, climbing turn
that’s still not over.
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About Simon Perchik
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Forge, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Osiris Poems published by boxofchalk, 2017. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities”l please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.
To view one of his interviews please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSK774rtfx8
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haiku
Paweł Markiewicz
early spring and thaw
I writing summer poems
with romantic time
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About Paweł Markiewicz
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Poland (Siemiatycze) . He published his english haikus as well as short poems in the best literary magazines of world such as: Ginyu (Tokio) , Atlas Poetica (USA) or The Cherita (UK) . Recently he has published haiku poems in by Tajmahal Review (India) and Better Than Starbucks (USA) . He published furthermore his poems and prosa in Internet: Blog Nostics – to wit his mystical flash- the Druid...about fungi...
Pawel has published more than 50 poems in German in Germany and Austria and 3 chapbooks in Polish in Poland.
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The Grandfather Clock
Allan Onik
The grandfather clock chimed midnight. The sound echoed throughout the mansion, in all the corridors, guestrooms, mess hall, and even the entrance to the vault. The old man peeled open his red eye, his silken nightcap on his head in the large, oak bed. Then he shut it and went back to sleep. It’s just the old clock...he thought to himself.
In the basement crypt the specters lifted from their slumber and floated up next to the clock. It was ornate, golden, crafted with mastery 30 generations past. It was at that time that the family was heavily invested in oil.
“How long until this one passes?” the spirit mused.
“He is getting old. Albert from New York will come soon. When it is time. He will join us in our rest.” The ghost hissed.
“Just as all the line join...we are from the beginning.” A large, rat crawled out into the candlelight and quickly scurried back into his hole. The spirits rose and the old man gasped, dreaming of shadows. After, the silence was interrupted only by the creaking of the house in the wind.
The young man picked up the phone. He recognized the young woman’s voice on the line, his sister. “Albert, Father’s died peacefully in his sleep. The housekeepers found him this morning. Time to make the arrangements.”
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Clock Forests
Thom Woodruff
Clock Forests
Drip leaves
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The Question
Alex Fitzgerald
We are damned to die by being hesitant to change. If reality is the only way to pry open our hearts to save what is left of ourselves, so be it.
The air was crisp that morning when the sun was hidden from the horizon. The sound of turbines caught John’s attention as an airplane soared over the building beside him. He peered out at the masses of people who scurried by. With his hand propped against his cheek, he let out a deep sigh. John had been in his vehicle for hours. He didn’t normally give rides to clients at this time, but he just so happened to be awake. John rubbed his faced before he checked his phone. It was 3:05 am. Just three hours earlier, he was in his apartment passed out on the floor, and now he was at the airport.
He remembered when the news would talk about the problems. About all things that went on in the world. Things that needed to change. But people didn’t see a reason to, and neither did John. All he needed was himself, and his blue F-150. His truck stood out from all the drivers around him, like a bullet in a glass of water. Clearly visible.
His phone buzzed in his hand and he immediately swiped up. His eyes studied the message until he was interrupted by a knock at his passenger window. He turned to look as he lowered the window. “Are you ah-” He had no idea how to pronounce her name.
“-Azizah? I am,” the young woman offered.
John jumped out from his seat and helped her pack her things into the truck. John sat back against his headrest and smiled. “I apologize for that, I was uncertain when you were to step off the plane. Lost my train of thought.”
The woman gave a gentle nod. She wore a charcoal sweater that came down past her hips. She had on dark grey leggings with black boots. Her eyes were shielded by silver sunglasses that wrapped around her face almost like goggles. She had a slender face, like that of a model, beautiful. Her skin was lightly tanned. Her posture made her seem as if she held in a sense of purpose.
Azizah remained upright in the backseat before she turned to reply to him, “It’s alright, I am not one to leave one-star reviews, especially at this hour.” She had a stern voice, one of confidence and authority.
John smiled to himself as he began to drive away from the airport. “So what brings you to New York?”
“I have a meeting with some council members today.”
John nodded his head, “I see, what is it you do?”
“I try to bring like-minded people together to promote change.”
John paused for a moment. His foot slowly hit the break as they neared a stoplight.
“So starting a campaign?”
“A bit more powerful than that.” She smiled as she pulled something out of her luggage. “Mr. Ralh, When will the world ever change? Before something bad happens or after?”
John’s mind froze for a moment as he gave an gentle laugh. “Um, well.” His foot pressed down into the gas pedal as his hands gripped the wheel. “I don’t know really, that’s kinda a deep question”
Azizah looked out the window. “People want change, but when they are challenged to change, they choose not to.”
He made a calm right turn. “It’s their choice right?” His voice was more direct now.
Azizah laughed to herself. “In World War II, Hitler managed to persuade an entire country to move against the Jews.” She focused back on her driver. “Martin Luther King Jr. had managed to bring about the civil rights movement. Two people changed the world. The society is covering up the changes that must be made, and that’s what is killing our world. It’s a one way ticket to hell. People don’t care though. Unless it comes to taking away what matters most to them.”
The car slowly came to a stop before a grin swimmed across her face. The truck had stopped beside a colossal skyscraper which seemed to almost break through the clouds. John remained still as Azizah leaned back and spread out her arms.
“Mr. Ralh, I am what you would call an ultimatum towards the betterment of our world; giving the world a chance to change while there is still time.”
“And what if they don’t want to change?”
“Then there won’t be a world left to change, we’ll make sure of it.” She smirked. “Mr. Ralh, I will see to that review.”
The door shut behind him as the nemesis vanished into the night.
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Genesis 28
(verses 12-17)
Janet Kuypers
2/28/19
I had a dream the other night that there was a ladder here on earth which led
to heaven. God and angels descended it; I could climb it and be one with God.
What a splendid idea, I thought when I woke, because I believe my dream was
telling me that heaven is also on earth. So I’ll make changes here to make it so.
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See YouTube video live 4/14/19 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Genesis One” and “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, during “Spoken and Heard” at Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video live 4/14/19 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Genesis One” and “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, during “Spoken and Heard” at Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Edge Detection filter).
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See YouTube video live 4/14/19 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Genesis One” and “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, during “Spoken and Heard” at Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video live 4/14/19 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Genesis One” and “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, during “Spoken and Heard” at Kick Butt Coffee (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Threshold filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Trucking to Nashville
Amber Stafford
Driving a truck for a living wasn’t so bad, and after 15 years Barry never got tired of admiring the scenery as he drove all across the country. Though he didn’t always have time to sightsee, he knew that this job was the only way he could see outside his hometown of Bucksnort, Tennessee. Seeing cities at night and rivers at dawn was always breathtaking. Sometimes the sky would be adorned with watercolor paints after a storm. He discovered that the Kentucky bluegrass was actually real, there was more to New York than the city, and that people actually lived in Montana.
One morning he was just south of Columbus, Ohio, when he spotted a hitchhiker.
Barry pulled over and rolled down his window.
“Hi,” said the hitchhiker. “Can you give me a ride?”
“Where to?” Barry said, looking the kid up and down.
The hitchhiker was a young college-aged man with perfectly brushed hair and a sweater vest. Barry knew that type anywhere, some spoiled kid who wanted out of his perfect life. Even the kid’s shoes were in pristine condition. This oughta be good, Barry thought.
“Nashville,” the kid said.
“What’s in Nashville?” Barry replied.
“A new beginning for me.” The kid reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of cash. “I can pay you.”
Barry rolled his eyes and took the money. “Get in.”
The hitchhiker got in and the truck was off again. The boy thanked him, but Barry waved away his gratitude.
The ride was silent for some time, with the kid trying to make small talk here and there. By the time they crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky, Barry noticed a patch on the boy’s bag that caught his attention.
“You’re a Harvard boy?” he asked.
“Used to be. Got a full ride but decided it wasn’t for me.”
“That’s why you’re running away?” Barry asked. “Because you got a full ride to one of the best schools in the country?”
“It’s more than that,” the boy replied bitterly. “I was forced into it. There were always plans for me. I could never do what I wanted. It was always what my parents wanted, and it was always Harvard. No exceptions. I had to get in because every man in my family has been a Harvard man. But that’s not what I wanted—”
“What did you want?” Barry asked.
The boy was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. Everything I did was always determined by my parents and their connections.”
Barry grunted in response. What the boy said took him back to his own childhood, and he could not believe the irony. The boy’s story was slightly similar to his own, but with a significant difference: Everything he did was determined by his parents’ lack of money.
After barely graduating high school, Barry took a job as a truck driver and never looked back. Coming from a poor family means a child can’t explore their interests, and eventually the child begins to go through the motions, wondering what his life would be like if his parents had a little extra dough.
“Why do you have to run away to find yourself?” Barry asked.
“So I can be free to think for myself,” the boy replied.
I guess I did the same thing, Barry thought. How can two people with completely different upbringings experience similar struggles?
The rest of the ride was silent again, and in a few hours the pair had made it to Nashville. Barry was filling his tank when the kid said his goodbyes. Though, the last thing the kid said before he left would stay with Barry for a while.
“Thanks again, and hey, it’s never too late for anyone to make a new path in life.”
Barry just stared at him, and then the kid was off into the sunset like the end of a cheesy movie. He wasn’t sure if his life was suddenly supposed to change from this encounter, but for now he would ponder, and wonder if it should.
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You’re a proper little child, you do what you’re told.
You follow your parent’s orders, let them define you.
So you take the path to get ahead in school, because
this is what you see everyone saying is best for you.
You go through the motions until you find yourself
choking back your own bile, and think: everyone else
made your choices. You never thought for yourself.
Everyone has held your hand and guided you this way.
Can you step off their path, and for once, truly live?
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Instagram poem “You Do What You’re Told” (then shows her Twitter and Instagram image from the poem), then her 2019 poem “Vibrations Echo” that will be in her upcoming (August 2919) poetry book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry”;, and “On This Day” (written on her birthday) 6/29/19 while she hosted “Poetry Aloud” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Instagram poem “You Do What You’re Told” (then shows her Twitter and Instagram image from the poem), then her 2019 poem “Vibrations Echo” that will be in her upcoming (August 2919) poetry book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry”;, and “On This Day” (written on her birthday) 6/29/19 while she hosted “Poetry Aloud” (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violation”, “Exterior”, “Eminence”, “Earth”, “Lost”, “Jumped”, “Uphill”, “Essence”, “Upside-Down”, “Enjoy”, “Ghosts”, “You Do What You’re Told”, “Control”, “Enemy”, “Quarrel”, “Xeric”, “Oceans”, “Escape (2017 haiku)”, and “Aflame”, all read from her poetry collection book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry” 8/13/19 outside Grant Park with the Millennium Bean in the background in Chicago (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Violation”, “Exterior”, “Eminence”, “Earth”, “Lost”, “Jumped”, “Uphill”, “Essence”, “Upside-Down”, “Enjoy”, “Ghosts”, “You Do What You’re Told”, “Control”, “Enemy”, “Quarrel”, “Xeric”, “Oceans”, “Escape (2017 haiku)”, and “Aflame”, all read from her poetry collection book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry” 8/13/19 outside Grant Park with the Millennium Bean in the background in Chicago (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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It’s All Over Now
James Hold
“Well baby used to stay out all night long...”
It had been weeks since Rowena last heard that Rolling Stones song. Wyatt owned two records, that one and Jim Reeves’ “He’ll Have To Go.” He played them constantly, hours on end, until she and the neighbors were sick of them.
Only who could be playing it now?
“She made me cry, she done me wrong...”
If this was Harper’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t funny.
She eased the front door open, skin tingling as though someone had dumped a slushy down her back. Crickets were everywhere. They crackled underfoot like spilled potato chips.
Rowena hated crickets, for no other reason than Wyatt had not. Long nights he would sit outside, rocking in his chair, saying nothing. “Abigail always said listen to the crickets,” he once told her in one of his talkative moods. “They never sleep if there’s unfinished business.”
The thing was no one knew who Abigail was. Wyatt had lived alone with his pa. Then pa died and Rowena found herself married to Wyatt, a round hulking bear of a man, all hair and whiskers, attracted to something different about him. That attraction quickly faded. She cried the first night he touched her. And every night thereafter.
But that was over now. The poison had done its work and Wyatt’s body was in a briar thicket far back of the house, waiting discovery. Wyatt had no friends, only enemies, and no one would suspect her of anything. Or, if they did, they wouldn’t blame her.
Of course, she hadn’t drug Wyatt out there by herself. He was too big for that. Harper had helped her. Harper, who had come along too late, or maybe just in time, to save her.
#
The song was still playing. Rowena stumbled through the dark, found the turntable and shut it off. Thank God that was over. She remembered how a neighbor once complained about the noise. Only once. Something happened after that, Rowena didn’t know what, but it involved the neighbor’s dog, and no one ever complained again.
“Well,” Rowena told herself, “We’ll fix that,” and snapped the record in two. She switched on the lamp to look for the Jim Reeves record, wanting to break it as well. But it wasn’t there.
Instead there were some marks on the wall where a dirty finger had written:
Abigail says hi.
#
Rowena struggled to keep calm. After all, far as she knew, Wyatt didn’t know how to write. She’d never seen him sign anything.
Then the phone rang and she lost it, with screams loud enough to wake the dead. It was a long minute before she recovered enough to answer it.
“Harper!” She yelled into the receiver. “Harper, if this is your sick idea of a joke...”
But the voice at the other end was not Harper’s.
“Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone...”
Just a record of Jim Reeves singing:
“Let’s pretend that we’re together all alone...”
That and an overwhelming sound of crickets.
#
Rowena’s sweet lips were close to the phone the next morning when they found her. The rest of her body was scattered throughout the house. Investigators gathered what they could and bagged it. They weren’t sure if they got everything. It didn’t matter. There was no way she’d get an open casket funeral.
The same went for Harper, back at his place. They couldn’t find enough of him to piece together either.
Several days later, a deputy on patrol saw a circle of buzzards. He followed them into the woods where he came across some mushy footprints.
Wyatt’s body lay stretched across a bed of dead crickets. Atop the mound was a moss-coated stone on which someone had scratched the name Abigail. Despite the briars and the buzzards, there was more left of him than there had been of Rowena or Harper.
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BIO
Mr Hold is the author of INCIDENTAL CONTACT: THE WEIRD MENACE ADVENTURES OF O’RYAN AND HIS OSTRICH and the ongoing OUT OF TEXAS adventure series, all available in Kindle and paperback form from Amazon. His short stories and poetry have been in Childrens, Churches, & Daddies; Down in the Dirt, Eskimo Pie; and Frontier Tales magazines. He lives in Texas with his wife and any number of cats. He loves rock‘n’roll music and firmly believes he will someday receive posthumous recognition as one of the greatest writers of the century.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Explosive Energy”, “imagination”, and “Quickly, Life can Turn” from her poetry book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry” during the multi-person intro 9/15/19 at “Spoken and Heard” in Austin (Panasonic Lumix T56 video camera, posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Explosive Energy”, “imagination”, and “Quickly, Life can Turn” from her poetry book “(pheromones) haiku, Instagram, Twitter, and poetry” during the multi-person intro 9/15/19 at “Spoken and Heard” in Austin (Panasonic Lumix T56 video w/ Sepia; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Room 26C
Matt Matkowski
Jared stood in the elevator in a haze. He was used to working on Christmas Eve, this had become standard for him ever since moving into the city. This year however had been particularly bad, as he was late not only going into work but also coming home, thanks of course not only to the onslaught of last-minute shoppers but also the less than stellar cleanup. It had stopped snowing several days ago, and what had been left of the once pristine blankets of snow were now ugly black mounds of filthy mush surrounding slick sidewalks and roads.
What was worst of all about this day was that Jared had failed to obtain the last-minute gift for his son, Hunter. An action figure of some kind of robot superhero, he presumed, a pretty in demand item. His store had run out of them on several occasions that season, and Jared being a manager meant he had caught a lot of flak from customers over the matter. As if moving into the city to work in retail was what he even planned on doing in the first place.
The store had even gone so far as to order a shipment to arrive on Christmas Eve itself. Jared had placed one aside for himself to purchase, which wasn’t technically allowed. Perhaps due to this reason or if someone had simply taken it for themselves to purchase, it was not there by the time Jared had gone on his lunch break to buy it himself. It was the thing that Hunter wanted the most, him and probably most kids his age anyway, Jared didn’t know what he was going to do without it under the tree the next morning.
Arriving at his floor, he sluggishly shuffled over to the door of his apartment, he didn’t notice the package that was sitting at his doorstep until his foot made contact with it. Jared looked down to find a brown Amazon box, too large to fit into the mailboxes. Still, it was unusual for packages to be left unattended like that without any kind of signature from the recipient. Jared didn’t recall ordering anything else either, he shrugged and scooped up the box. After fumbling for his keys for a bit he managed to pop the door open.
Jared was greeted by darkness, he noticed the door to Hunter’s room was slightly ajar, he then went and popped his head in and glimpsed at the silhouette of Hunter asleep in his bed. He didn’t like leaving Hunter by himself, especially on an occasion like Christmas. Jared’s sister Margot had proven herself time and again to be an unreliable babysitter, but he often had no other choice, as this wouldn’t have been the first time she’d left early on the grounds of Jared coming home later than expected. Jared took out his phone to text her, before promptly deciding that he didn’t have the energy, he would have this argument with her another time, if at all.
Jared plopped the package down onto the kitchen counter, he took a pair of scissors out from the junk drawer and cut the box open. The package contained another box, concealed in bubble wrap, which then held the actual item itself. After struggling with the taping and bubble wrap for a little bit, his heart stopped. Now at a more frantic pace, he peeled the wrapping completely off and there it was, ‘Redd Raider: Deluxe Combat AR Figurine.’ Jared could hardly believe his eyes.
According to the box the thing stood at 12 inches tall, and also read; ‘Compatible with the Redd Raider: Exo-Wars,/I> Video Game! Scan the AR code within to access some exclusive bonus content!’ Clearly well over the head of aging Jared, yet this didn’t stop him from gazing upon its candy-colored plastic finish and shiny metallic buttons with the wide-eyed wonder of a ten-year-old.
How could this even be? Was this a surprise gift from Jared’s mother? She barely even knew how to use Amazon. Could it have been from Hunter’s other Grandma? Or perhaps somebody else from Hunter’s mom’s side? He was hardly in any position to question it, he then hastily performed a late-night wrapping job and placed the box underneath the tree with the rest of Hunter’s gifts. Jared let out a sigh of relief and triumph.
He then returned to the kitchen counter to clean up the scraps of wrappings and the discarded Amazon box, when he caught a glimpse of the shipping label. ‘Room 26C,’ it was addressed to, his heart sank. Not only had it been delivered to the wrong room, but he didn’t even recognize the name, a James Connelly. Not that Jared actually knew any of his neighbors. A momentary contemplation and a glance at the present under the tree were enough for Jared to make his decision. He dropped the empty box into his recycling bin along with the rest of the scraps.
“It’s time Dad won Christmas for once,” he thought to himself, as he shut his bedroom door for the night and went to sleep.
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The Dialogue Project
Cameron Patterson
A woman who wasn’t from around here stood in front of several rows of folding chairs, each holding its own divorcee.
“Love is not a word,” she said. “It’s a powerful concept, and it takes a lot of energy and dedication. Spiritual, physical, mental. When someone says I love you –
“When someone says I love you, you’d better not sign anything,” the portly man next to Clarise Becker whispered. “They’ll try and take it all and leave you dealing with the lawyers and the booze.”
“Divorce doesn’t mean that love still isn’t there, inside us all,” the woman continued.
Clarise looked over to the man on her right, her puffy eyes protected by cheap sunglasses.
“What’s a nice looking gal like you doing at a divorce support group?” the man asked, the glance of his blue eyes questioning, eccentric.
Clarise didn’t answer as she reallocated her capricious attention to the woman in the burgundy suit. The man looked a little too much like Jim, her second husband after William died in the Cambodia Incursion about five years before.
“You know, meetings like this remind me an awful lot of AA ... court ordered me to go to a couple after I crashed my old falcon into a convenience store on the east side. Not the first time, you know, for a man like myself.” He sighed a contrived sigh and looked away.
“Not everything is meant to be done alone ... don’t be afraid to build support in others. Get to know those who have been in a similar situation. Put yourself out there –”
“You get sober?” Clarise asked, voice toughened and rasped by smoking through the previous night. Her eyes watched the woman in the front of the room
“Sober?”
“Yeah, sober. The whole AA thing.”
He smiled and put his hand over his stomach. “Hell no; I got half the house.”
Clarise let a couple of raucous laughs through her chapped lips by accident.
“What about that name or yours?” the man asked again.
“What about yours?”
“Thought you’d never ask ... name’s Rawley Burks.” He extended an inviting hand and waited patiently for a reply.
“Clarise Becker.” Hands were shook.
“Try to go out in the world,” the woman in the burgundy suit said. “Take a notebook and just listen at first. You don’t have to talk to anyone. Just listen and record a few lines of positive, uplifting dialogue to share for our meeting next Saturday. Consider it a project.”
“But teacher, it’s only the third class,” Rawley said impishly as he leaned over so only Clarise could hear.
“Jesus Christ, you’re going to make me laugh again!”
Clarise was letting herself be happy for the first time since her and Jim signed the divorce papers.
As everyone arose from their seats, the two of them did the same, their conversation no longer restricted by propriety and volume. The woman in the burgundy suit left out of a backroom and drove off in a brand new 450sl, heading to the next event.
“Why don’t we get out of here ... maybe go somewhere, get a burger and start this project of ours.” His hands gestured outwards with animated cadence. “Sound like a plan?”
Clarise’s smile retreated for a moment; her trust was being sentimental. “Well,” she scratched her neck, “I guess that’ll be fine -
“That’s the fucking spirit!” Rawley belted, wrapping his arm around Clarise.
She stumbled into his posture, surprised and delighted all the same. She thought of the old picture of William in her breast pocket, the one he sent with a letter from Vietnam. She thought of her mother’s silver cross that was against her bare chest.
It was the same one that was there when William died. The same one when she was raped at her old job at the exotic show bar in Fairfield. The same one when she married Jim in the city park. The same one when Veronica and Ryan were born at St. Joseph’s.
And now Clarise was here with Rawley Burks. That same dogeared picture and that same tarnished cross right along with her.
However, once they were in the gravel parking lot of Revelation Baptist and out of view of everyone, that man’s hand conspicuously found her ass.
Clarise slapped the hand away, jumping from his grip. “What the hell you tryin’ to do! Don’t you dare ... don’t you fucking dare –”
“We both want the same thing, Clarise. Why are still playing this stupid game?” Rawley asked, looking at her, all of her. “It’s fine, you and me are the same.” He winked as he tried to grab Clarise again.
She punched Rawley Burks in the shoulder with everything she had. He stepped back, astonished.
“We’re not the same!” Clarise shouted, disgusted with herself for thinking that man could make her happy as she swatted his lecherous hand away again. Walking away, she turned around. “I don’t try and look for a good cheap time in a Goddamned groups of divorcees, you perverted bastard!
Others had noticed what was happening in the parking lot of Revelation Baptist.
Rawley Burks finally accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted, so he stopped faking nice. “No wonder you aint got no husband. Going around acting like some snooty slut!” A more comforting tone followed as he followed Clarise to her orange Camaro. “I’m sorry Clarise –”
“It’s Mrs. Becker, asshole!” she yelled, body halfway into the car.
“You make a fool of me? Whore! Don’t be mistaken, you’re Miss Becker now ...” Not another word was heard as the car was thrown crudely into reverse and spun out of the parking lot, a fist full of small rocks thrown riotously at the back window. They ricocheted off harmlessly, leaving nothing but surface scratches.
Trying to drive to the Polka Dot on Fairmont, Clarise cried and cursed herself. She still thought a burger sounded like a good idea, and she always made a point of carrying some scrap college rule and a ballpoint in her purse along with a withered checkbook and some pain pills.
Once she sat in a reassuring booth, a black coffee and a single was ordered, light on the mayonnaise with no onion. Some paper was placed atop the table after it was wiped languidly with a napkin.
“Positive dialogue. Positive dialogue,” Clarise repeated to herself, unbuttoning her flannel and kicking off her flats.
Truth is, people seemed to talk like they wanted everybody to listen. While most of it didn’t make any damn sense, it was all distinctive and pronounced if you listened carefully enough.
A put together and combed man across the room was sitting over a plate of steak and eggs, his wife across from him. “I heard one egg is as bad as four cigarettes, so I’m thinking I should start smoking again.” He grinned wildly and shoveled a piece of egg into his mouth, his wife chuckling blithely as she sipped her tea or cola.
In the booth behind Clarise, two men were talking about a band she didn’t quite catch the name of. “You think their guitarist is good?” one of them asked.
“Yeah, he’s kinda got that Jimmy Page sound.”
“You think he sounds like Zeppelin? You should hear me play a Stratocaster. Been at it since I was nine, and I’m twenty eight now!”
“I thought you said eleven last time you told this story.” A laugh. The other man hadn’t lied; he had just forgotten the truth.
When the waitress made her rounds, Clarise ordered two bologna sandwiches cut in halves and two applesauce cups so her kids could have some lunch after her roommates were done watching them at one o’clock.
Folding up the paper, she gathered up everything and put her flats back on. She knew she was good mother, and she knew she had tried to be good wife, whatever that meant. She didn’t know what the future held for her, but she knew she loved her two kids, and that was the truth.
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DSCN2272_1, photography by Wes Heine
Reagan
L. Carina Bracamontes
The only thing Reagan knew, although she knew many things this was the only thing she was sure of, was how desperately tired she was. It had been only a four-hour shift, but she still felt drained. She worked in retail, mostly to save money for a car, nonetheless, she hasn’t quite started the saving part even though she had been a working girl for over a year. This wasn’t unusual for Reagan, she was known amongst her friends to be bad with money and this was proven time after time when she spends half of her checks on Groceries or things she deemed “necessary.” With that being said she always knew how much she needed for bills and utilities.
After work, she normally gets Chinese take-out but today was different, she couldn’t be bothered with feeding herself and wanted, nay needed, to go home.
Reagan worked in retail and was a fulltime student, and most days she’s well prepared for the workload that both required from her, even so, today was not like most days. She had a morning class, which she almost missed, and a mid-afternoon class, in which she slept in, and a closing shift. At the end of the day her hair was ratted and twisted into what resembled a bun and she smelled of regret and shame from not being born into a wealthier family, or as others called it, sweat.
She worked at a grocery store, and her job was essentially being whatever they needed her for: cashier, stocker, floor, maintenance, custodial, getting carts. And today she felt like the weight of it all as if finally, the other shoe dropped. She hoped that the universe would see her struggling and give her some luck, however, the universe was not on her side.
Her car was stalling and her being the simple girl she was, she had no idea what to do. Now Reagan is a smart girl, she knew that hitchhiking was dangerous, especially at night and especially for a girl, but her phone was dead, and she couldn’t sleep in her car in an empty parking lot with little to no lights, and she knew the security cameras were just for show. Hitchhiking was her best option. But, again, Reagan is a smart girl, she knew that she needed a contingency plan for the worst. She pulled out a piece of paper and wrote a little note in case they found her car and her missing.
She wrote:
The car broke down. If I go missing check security camera from the gas station across the street. If the body is found, check in fingernails for the assailant’s DNA.
- R
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She shivered. The note itself was redundant but she has always been precautious, unnervingly so. The idea alone made her whole body go tense. Maybe sleeping in the car might not be the worst idea. Reagan shook the idea out of her had she could barely see, but she could hear the shuffling of what she hoped was animals settling in the darkness. This road was known for harboring criminal activity, the darkness helped shield them from the cops. Luckily it was also a busy street and was only nine o’clock. Cars are zooming back and forth, hurrying to the comfort of their homes, something Reagan was grimacing with jealousy at.
She ripped out the note, placed it on the driver’s seat and hoped to god no one steals her car, a thought that only now just popped into her head, but she would rather they steal the car without her in it.
She ran over to the gas station. She had never done this before, and hopefully never will, she only knew from what she saw in movies and tv shows. She put out her thumb and waited, possibly for her death. It didn’t take long for someone to stop. A red truck came down the road; one of those trucks that back in the day one would drive down the coastline with passengers in the cargo, hands up ready to fly. Maybe it was because she was just 5'1$ and a thin white girl, aka easy target, or maybe it was because the driver felt a little more Christian today, whatever it was it scared the living hell out of Reagan. Nevertheless, Reagan put on a big grin and waited for the driver to roll down their window.
“Need a ride?”
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The Christmas Card Caper
Norm Hudson
The card caper started after Claire died. I’d never sent a Christmas card before that let alone had a Christmas card list. I’d left that to Claire. Like I’d left everything. Now I felt I owed it to her. Somehow. My pen hovered in the air as I looked at this year’s list. Claire’s list. Always started early. Always started in October. One name to cross off.
God, I thought. Is that all we are? A name to be scored out on someone’s Christmas card list. When we die. Was that what I’d be someday? A name scored out on someone’s Christmas card list. No, I couldn’t let that happen to me. I scanned the list. All names. Names I knew well. Except for the question mark at the end. I wondered who that was. Well, they wouldn’t be getting a Christmas card. But it niggled at me. I didn’t like loose ends. God, how I hated this time of year. Not only because of Christmas. Not only because of Claire. But because every wacko in the world seemed to be at their worst in the winter.
Take the case I was working on now. I wished someone else would take it. But I knew I was the only one who could solve it. My other police colleagues were relying on me. Two successive deaths of police colleagues in the police department took priority. Pat Grant. And now Bob Merrill. Both colleagues and friends of mine.
Somebody was deliberately targeting the police. But what motive? Revenge? Revenge for what? There seemed to be no link between the two men except for the fact they were cops. They hadn’t worked on the same cases. They had no common social contacts apart from their police colleagues. And any informants they had were different.
The only clue I had was the card. The Christmas card that the perpetrator had left by the side of each body saying “Merry Christmas!”
No fingerprints. No DNA. Nothing to lead me further.
Merry Christmas to you, chum, I thought.
I’d known both guys well. I’d even begun to wonder if I was next.
Bob Merrill. He’d been my best man when I’d married Claire. Now he was dead. Another body at the morgue. A gigantic hole through his gut.
Bob, who’d said to me at Claire’s funeral, “You will need to move on. Claire would want that, you know.”
But it was Bob who had moved on.
I couldn’t. I owed it to Claire.
Claire. The only cup for my compassion. My personal feelings. My love.
The things the academy had taught me to suppress.
The academy. The place I’d met Bob Merrill and Pat Grant. Two idealistic, rookie recruits. Like me.
We soon got all that knocked out of us as we were stripped of all personal feelings.
If I hadn’t met Claire, I don’t think I could have coped.
I’d been about to hand her a ticket, after pulling her over on the highway for driving dangerously, when she looked at me with those innocent, iolite eyes.
Fuck my training, I thought. Life was personal, wasn’t it?
A beautiful blonde deserved a break, didn’t she?
Stuff police procedure stating personal relationships with the public could be distorted and cause chaos. The public weren’t the enemy, were they?
We were married the same year.
Pat Grant had given Claire away. Stepped in when she had no one. Pat Grant. Dead. With a .22 caliber bullet in his head.
It’s tough being a cop. And tougher being a cop’s wife. I can appreciate that now. Claire was alone a lot. I was on the job. Like the next day.
“Everything o.k.?”
The chief had just passed my open door.
I nodded.
He didn’t pursue the “Any developments?” line.
Since I’d been on this case, he’d stayed off my back. Even though there was immense pressure on him. I was grateful. He’d attended Claire’s funeral. And been wonderfully supportive. As they all had.
But I knew I had to get to grips with the case. The job. And the Christmas card list. I owed it to the guys. And to Claire.
I had a lead. Someone in the department. A corrupt cop. It had to be. Pat and Bob would never have let anyone else bring them down. I just had to track down who.
And finish my Christmas card list.
Now that was really niggling me. Who was the question mark at the bottom of Claire’s list? Could that be the killer? Was it someone to do with Claire? It had to be someone in the department. Everyone on the list was. But why had Claire put a question mark? Why had she not put down their name? A terrible thought surfaced. Had Claire been having an affair with someone in the department? Someone I didn’t know. Was that why Claire was dead? Shot down in the prime of her life.
Surely not. I’d taken every precaution to stop Claire being lonely when I was caught up with a case. Pat or Bob had been only too happy to keep an eye on Claire when I was not around. Surely they would have known if Claire was having it off with someone. Particularly someone in the department. And surely they would have told me.
Now they’d never get the chance. The question was would I get the chance to find out? Or was I next? Next to receive a Christmas card.
Whoever the killer was he was a cold son-of-a bitch. Someone devoid of personal feeling. I had to stop him. Somehow.
The chief passed my door in the other direction.
“Time you went home,” he said. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
I nodded, grateful for his concern.
I’d add him to the Christmas card list. If he wasn’t already on it. I wondered if Claire had already given any out. I’d always thought it was ridiculous writing your Christmas cards in October. But Claire had always been well organised. She liked to be first at everything. I guess it was her way of getting attention.
The chief hadn’t gone to his office. I looked across at the string of Christmas cards decorating his window. I’d check whether Claire had already sent one from us.
I took a detour on the way home. To a leafy suburban house in a quiet street. I stopped outside a house. It was dark but the lights were on in the house. I could see the woman inside decorating a Christmas tree. She deserved a Christmas card. I pulled one from the box on the seat next to me and wrote inside it quickly.
Just in time. A car pulled into the broad drive. I opened the glove box and pulled out the gun with the silencer. I slid out of the car and headed for the bushes in front of the house.
He was surprised. I could see it on his face.
“You all right?” he said.
“I am now,” I said, squeezing the trigger.
The chief’s body lurched backwards and he fell to the ground. I laid the card that said “Merry Christmas” on it on top of him and left for home.
I thought of Claire on the way home. I thought of her last day. The day she’d said she was leaving me. The day she’d laughed in my face and told me about her affairs with Bob Merrill and Pat Grant.
“But that’s not why I’m leaving you,” she’d said. “There’s someone else. Someone better than you. Someone you’ll never find out about.”
She’d still been laughing when I pulled the trigger.
I looked at Claire’s Christmas card list. I’d scored off Bob Merrill and Pat Grant when I’d killed them. Now I scored off the question mark, the same sinuous question mark I’d seen on that Christmas card on the chief’s window. The card Claire had sent him. The card from her. Well, he wouldn’t be getting any more cards from her.
Or anything else.
There was just one other name to score out on Claire’s list. I did it thinking the academy had done a perfect job of stripping away my personal feelings after all. Or was it Claire? My compassionate cup. Crumpled. Crushed. Causing me not to cope. Maybe the police were right after all. Relationships with the public could be distorted and cause chaos. Were the public the enemy after all? Or was it me?
All I knew was no one was going to score me off their Christmas card list.
I put the gun in my mouth.
I was going to do that myself.
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Backyard - London, UK, photograph by Olivier Schopfer
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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To Be Queen
Katheryn Everson
“Hey, dumbass, you can’t fly,” called a tall male.
“What makes you think I can’t?” I asked from the wrong side of the railing.
“Well, lady, you don’t have wings for starters,” he said, drifting closer to where I stood at the edge of the cliff.
“True, but do witches need wings to fly?” I asked.
“No, but they don’t exist.”
“That could be true,” I said as I lifted my face to the sun and raised my arms to feel the wind, “but what would be the point if all those stories weren’t true. In some way at least.” The man cleared his throat.
“Do you want me to call someone? Are you here alone?” His hand drifted to his jeans pocket.
“No, no need. A queen is never alone.” I climbed back over the railing, the man shifted on his feet and let out a breath he had been holding.
“Queen eh?”
“Yes.” The man bit his lip and scratched his head.
“Are you sure your okay ma’am?” he asked.
“Absolutely, it’s a beautiful day, dogs are playing,” I said, gesturing to the fenced-in dog park behind the man, “and I’ve got a stranger worried about me.”
He smiled.
In return, I smiled too, my lips parting to revel razor-sharp teeth. The man gasped and took a step back.
“I don’t bite. Unlike my northern kin, I prefer befriending humans,” I said, laying a hand on his arm as I closed the distance. “Would you like to fly?” I asked the male.
“Ma’am?”
“It’s quite exhilarating,” I told him as I pulled on the fabric of my scarf.
“What are you?” he asked. He’d become still, as most prey does.
“Well, that’s not a very nice thing to ask a woman,” Meredith said, sauntering out of the tree line. “My queen, why do you insist on provoking the wildlife?” I licked my lips, the man swallowed.
“I wouldn’t call it provoking, I’m offering him flight, in exchange for his kindness,” I said, releasing the man as I turned to my General.
“Kindness? He called you a dumbass.” Meredith said, scanning the man for any sign of threat.
“Please, I didn’t mean to, well offend the, well the queen in any way.” The male said, his hands raised as he backed away from what he perceived to be his death.
“No need for that,” I said, freezing the man with a simple command.
“Are we done here? Did you get what you needed?” Meredith asked, ignoring the frozen human.
“Yes, the wait is over, time to wipe the canvas clean,” I said as the light faded from the sky.
“The court waits at the Glass gate.” My general said, turning back to the woods as she shimmered until she vanished. The man’s breath quick and eyes darted about, yet still frozen to the spot.
“Right, yes, time for your reward human,” I pulled off my scarf and slung it around the tall male’s throat, “Now, when you wear this and utter the word volant, you shall sore through the skies.”
I followed my General to the woods, I snapped my finger and the man fell to the ground as he regained his ability to move. The man scrambled away as I too stepped through the portal and onto a road no human could ever find. My form rippled and my casual blouse and jeans became my usual leather combat gear.
To explain the contrast between the human world and my own is heart-breaking. Our world has only strokes of dull, muted colors of a long-ruined land. Many of my kind wishes to invade the mortal’s lands and make the colorful, prosperous world their own. I won’t let them; the humans deserve their chance at a world full of possibilities. We’ve wasted our realm away, our end bearing nearer.
I stopped at the curve of the road leading to the Glass Gate, four lines of soldiers stood in my way. All clad in silver and gold-plated armor carrying shields and lances. One came forward, my sister and rival to the throne.
“Sister, we have come to ask you to reconsider your position on the mortal realm.” She dared to leave my title off her plea.
“Silvia, what an un-surprising visit, please let us be civilized and remember who here actually has the title of Queen for once,” I said, motioning to my General only a few steps ahead of me, who gave a sharp whistle. The tall brown weeds in the field around us shifted as my own warrior’s stood from their concealed area. Silvia’s intake of breath and the whispers and movement in the lines of traitors reveled their fear.
“If you wish to take the mortal lands sister, you’ll have to go through us,” I drifted my hands across the air, my army numbering twice as hers, “My court stands for a better world, one we don’t kill for. Can you say the same for yourself?”
“If you wish for us to die out in this hellish world, you can have your honor, I stand for our people’s future existence.” Her face contorted, her movement mechanical, as she had long since turned from the path of light; just as our world had.
“I have failed you, sister, for that I am sorry. In trying to save our world we all have made mistakes, please let this not be another.” I held my hand out to her.
“I, too, am sorry.” She turned her head, pulled her sword and bellowed her command to attack. I lifted my hand for the same, knowing this was the end of our people.
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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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Relic Menagerie
Lauren Haynes
A headstone, unassuming
marks the somber earth that separates you from death,
deeply etched words superficial to a dying heart.
grass bows in deference to your misery,
grass you would’ve plucked and peeled as a child....
...a rattle in the attic
no culprit in the beam
the neglected ghost
shuffling just to be heard.
lavender perfume cascading from a balcony,
your first kiss on a replica sunken ship
cliffs on the corner of the planet
a wind you wished might move you to freedom.
ears feasting on ivory and bone
at a party hiding out from gold confetti
examining a brass sculpture of a monument you never saw.
the defunct camera with a blinded eye
too easily pawned at a flea market
having seen lives you’d never know
now resigned to prove your culture.
the tortoise timepiece mocks you, the hare, in a race you’re bound to lose,
clicking its tongue at your finity.
yet the photo albums sit dusty, untouched
yesterday locked away in a forgotten drawer, a familiar smell,
creeping in, an old fear, a haunting melody,
the past just beneath your feet
as you move ever closer to the earth.
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Funeral Clothes
Ted Jackins
This is the room
You died in,
It’s also the site
Of my first public
Reading,
Seated there in
The edge of your bed,
With you bathed in
A halo of dimming
Sunlight and Barclay
Smoke,
Me still fresh faced,
boyish and
Unrelentingly anxious,
a few years
Shy from my
First attempt at
Medication.
You always gave
Me undivided
Attention,
It being such a
Rarity for me
To open up
And share that
Any time I did
Was like some small
Revelation.
You were my first
audience,
My first critic,
And my first
Number one fan,
And now you’re
Gone and this
Big,
Quiet house
On the hill
Feels quieter
Still,
My poor dad
Now alone with
His thoughts
And his Marlboro’s
For the first time
In nearly fifty years
Of sharing these
Faded walls with
Four,
Then three,
Then two,
And now one,
Not to mention the
Many pets and
Grandkids who
Roamed them
in the ever
Dwindling preceding decades.
I want so badly
To provide comfort
But all I can do
Is listen,
I don’t even have a
Real handle on
My own neuroses
At 36,
Nearly twenty years,
five therapists
And countless
Combinations of
Medication later,
Both legal and
Illicit.
I can’t imagine
My dad meditating,
And he essentially
Quit drinking along
With me in solidarity
Nearly ten years ago,
I only ever see
Him with a beer
On our yearly
Family beach trip.
I used to think
I got my mental
Makeup from you,
Mom,
But I now see it
Is fifty-fifty,
You were always
More prone to
Intense depressions,
while my dad was ever
The worrier,
Now living on
Three Xanax
A day.
Both his parents
Were alcoholics,
One escaped
And the other
Never had the
Chance.
It’s been nine
Years since I last
Craved a drink,
And still my
Hands shake
From time to
Time,
No longer having
To watch for dropped
Cigarettes,
I hung those up
Almost two months
Ago for the second,
And hopefully final
Time.
I am trying
So hard to be
Their rock,
Mom,
As much as you
Would have wanted,
But I crumble just
As easily as the
Rest of them,
My sister is still
Local,
While my brother is
A high school
Teacher up notth,
How we used
To laugh about
That little
Development.
Perhaps that’s what
I can provide,
Hope via laughter,
Enough to hide
My own tears
Behind,
As I dress to
Say goodbye
To you one
Last time.
I know that
Saying a few words
Will help fill
The void left
In your eternal
Absence,
But as always
I let the music,
Carefully chosen,
Say the things
I cannot.
This poem previously appeared
in the Ted Jackins 2018 chapbook
Close To the Bone, published
by Analog Submission Press.
|
Untitled (lost)
ayaz daryl nielsen
next-door neighbor
a quantum physicist
pondering our place
in the universe
lost while
driving home
|
Untitled (overcast)
ayaz daryl nielsen
overcast evening
the last five syllables of
a day like burnt soup
|
Not Yet
Carol Anne Perini
“You ready?” Molly called up the stairs.
“Not yet!” Fred hollered back. He had taken a Viagra about 30 minutes earlier and it still hadn’t begun to work.
Known to be impatient, Molly grabbed her keys and walked out to the carport, thinking she could go to the grocery store for ten minutes or so while Fred waited at home. She was also known to multitask so it wasn’t an unusual choice on her part.
Fred heard the car start and, surprised to think she may be leaving, ran down the stairs to the carport, flinging the door wide open and sticking his pelvis out to show her that his cock had, indeed, suddenly begun to get hard.
“Wait,” he yelled out to Molly, just as she pulled away, removing any barrier between he and Mrs. Lawrence, the 83-year-old woman who commonly walked her dog down their side of the street.
Surprised and pleased, Mrs. Lawrence yelled back, “Just a minute dear,” grateful to be seeing a live cock instead of the ones she saw on her favorite porn site. “I’ll be right there, darling,” she added, hoping he may have actually meant this little display just for her.
This was published in her first collection of short stories, Inexplicably Irrational, at labookshelf.com.
|
Nothing
Carol Anne Perini
“What’s for dinner?” Arnie called, his tone friendly, upbeat, hopeful. There were no pots on the stove, no scent of something yummy perhaps in the crock pot, no empty wrappers from salad bags or cutting boards or soiled knives lazily strewn on the counters. No garlic.
“Nothing?” Arnie asked out loud into the silence.
There were no faucets dripping, no clocks ticking, no radio heads talking nor music playing; no talk show hosts welcoming Hollywood celebrities or game shows shouting from the TV.
Nothing.
He searched the house.
She wasn’t in the living room. He found her there, sometimes, smoking, a swirl of smoke dancing up from her lit cigarette, both she and the tobacco smoldering in the darkened room, shades drawn, drapes closed.
She wasn’t in the laundry room. The only things there were piles of clothing draped over the gleaming appliances. A dusting of laundry powder had been sprinkled like snow throughout the small space, now lightly crunching under Arnie’s work boots.
She wasn’t in the bedroom. He was hoping she was. Maybe curled up under the covers like a fetus waiting to be born, or, at least, resting while waiting to be born.
She was, in fact, in the bathroom.
She was, in fact, in the bathtub.
She was, in fact, lying neck deep in water, chilled now after having been there so long. Arnie felt for the temperature, his big, rough hands unable to register the actual temperature as the callouses prevented much from getting through.
Arnie thought she looked like a heavenly angel with her eyes closed, her formerly heavy breasts lying on either side of her chest, like wings. Her bones poked out of her neck and there was a bluish tint to the skin that covered them; her ribs; her hips; her cheekbones each specters beneath the pale covering.
Arnie touched her face. It startled her eyes open. The bloodshot brown pools peered up at him, lovingly peered up at him, a gesture Arnie remembered from when they were first married, before the rape she suffered at the hands of the friendly neighbor. Then she scowled. She pushed his arm aside, sat up, then uneasily stood up again pushing away Arnie’s second gesture to help. She grabbed her towel, hastily covering herself, startled aware of her nakedness. She did not want him to see the results of what she had done, what she had been doing. She did not want him to see how she starved herself.
Nothing, Arnie thought. There is nothing for dinner. Maybe just not today, he thought.
This was published in her first collection of short stories, Inexplicably Irrational, at labookshelf.com.
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La Vida es un Cigarillo
Jo Szewczyk
The black plastic of the credit card groaned as it swiped through the register’s handle; small shreds fell from the back of the card, erasing any evidence of the name signed in red. The machine spit out a receipt while Jim ran the numbers through his head like a week old calculus problem, trying to convert Citgo 7-11 prices into real grocery store currency. The game was something he created to keep the rest of him numb to the fact that he just paid $18.50 at 26.75/ a month for half a cold ham and cheese sandwich, one can of Tab, and an orange that was partially green. In a place where a credit rating was more important than SAT or blood pressure numbers, Jim was lucky to even have the gas station credit card. He picked the paper bag off the counter and slipped the card back into his pants; the leather chewed into his flesh and threatened to keep his hand prisoner, but he ignored the effort and retracted his hand in time to slap the green 74" sticker, some sort of safe guard against would-be criminals, on the stores door as he exited.
He crossed Maryland Parkway as the blacktop bonded with the skin exposed through the holes of his Puma sneakers. Jim once heard a story about a man frying an egg on a car’s engine and thought that the tar melting under the 118 degree sun could provide a similar cooking surface, but he sure the hell didn’t want to give Citgo another week of blood to find out. Jim wandered through the UNLV campus; when he was a freshman the orientation informed him that, although Las Vegas is a party town, the University held a no-tolerance attitude towards the use of alcohol or drugs on campus. Fear of being kicked out, found out as a fraud, and shipped back home to Iowa kept Jim in check for most of his freshman year; but he wasn’t in school anymore, he didn’t have to worry about being intoxicated on school grounds, about the three valium, two Vicodin and the shot of vodka he used to maintain a level of normalcy, all he had to worry about was paying off this goddamn Citgo bill. After losing his grant to study Environmental Engineering, Jim’s Citgo bill traveled at the rate of 18-24 dollars four times a day, every day, for five weeks; the interest alone came to over $800 a month. Well okay, he didn’t lose his money in the traditional, “I was robbed by a man in a giant green foam cowboy hat while crossing Freemont street” type way, but rather gabled away his grant, okay, is betting on the Cincinnati Bengals at home against a team that hasn’t won all season actually gambling? Six points, not even six and a half points, was all the spread needed to be. A sure thing, Jim thought; he thought it when the Bengals were up 7 to nothing, then 10 and 13 to zilch, he continued to think it in the third quarter when the Browns scored their first touchdown—what harm can one touchdown do—and again in the 4th quarter on a 53 yard field goal attempt tying the score. Overtime isn’t so bad, is it? At least that is what Jim thought. Even if the Bengals go to over time and score only a touchdown the bet then became void, six points even, a complete wash; he wouldn’t win fifteen grand, but he wouldn’t lose double his net worth either. Could you believe a field-goal? Who kicks a fuckin’ field goal at home, in overtime, on 2nd down? The Cincinnati fucking Bengals do, that’s who.
Jim maneuvered through the bodies laying down to sunbathe out in the field near the undergraduate admissions building; yellows, greens, pinks and red all blended together to form a sea wreaking of pina colada sun oil; girls lined up and smothered with so much of the lotion that, if given enough of a running start, Jim could picture himself gliding across their bodies like an impromptu wet-weasel slide-n-glide. But Jim wasn’t wearing shorts, he had on his leather pants, the only pants that never required washing, and his mesh black and white long sleeved shirt, assuredly the method in which Pollacks gain freckles, seemed more fit for Halloween at some town hall instead of the Las Vegas campus the week before summer break. He skipped over a sunbather who was lying face up with headphones and some really big sunglasses on; her skin matching the color of her bikini. An obstacle course of mostly nude bodies kept Jim from reaching the campus equivalent of Skid Row, the small tuft of Harmon Avenue that connected the dorms housing co-eds on daddy’s money to the underbelly of filth, human garbage too big to fit through the drains and too persistent to be escorted permanently from the city limits.
As he crossed past the last oiled Barbie doll, Jim picked up the pace; his Pumas ran roughshod over the blisters left from the melting pavement. The smell of dirt flooded his nostrils; dirt from the abandoned Avis rental car lot on the right, dirt from the burned down Hotel De Mayo on the left, dirt from the construction dust being blown around the whirlwind of new money down the Strip, and dirt from his louse ridden pants. One last street to cross before nestling into his room at Harbor Island apartments; the corner of Hard Rock Café and shitty Japanese movie rental plaza. There lay a bum, crumpled on the ground, leaning slightly on the light post, looking like the world’s dirty socks that didn’t quite make the hamper. The guy barely lifted his head as Jim walked to the stop light in order to exchange a red stationary icon for the white walky dude. A faded black shirt mired in fluid stains and a pair of jean shorts, which, guessing from the spaghetti tendrils, started out life as a pair of boot-cut Levi jeans finished the look; no socks, no shoes, no hat, only the t-shirt and shorts accompanied by a card-board sign currently used by the man to keep the sun off his neck, the sign read, “HOMELESS VET” in big letters and “Who am I kidding? I just want a beer” in smaller case letters neatly done in black sharpie.
The light turned and the white walky dude flashed across the screen. Jim started his way across Paradise Road and made it to the Hard Rock Café parking lot before he turned back towards the other side of the street. He put his left foot in the cross walk, took it out, and put it back in; the street light changed again before a full step could be delivered. Jim punched at the walk signal and stared at the homeless guy across from him. The light changed and Jim put his left foot back into the crosswalk, but this time the right followed; one by one the Pumas marched until they came across the bum. Jim nudged the man with his foot, waited, and re-nudged a bit harder to the place where the guy’s chest met his stomach. The old man looked up, taking care to keep his sign close to him, and examined Jim.
“Hungry?” asked Jim.
The man responded by clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth; the lack of moisture sabotaged the man’s ability to talk so he just nodded.
Jim handed him the bag, “Here.”
The man grabbed the bag from Jim’s hand and explored the contents; Jim couldn’t help but catch a look of disappointment when the guy’s eyes met the pink of the Tab can. A lecture of beggars and choosers came to Jim’s mind, but he decided against it; even irony can outstay its welcome. The man, apparently too sun stroked to find Jim’s hand, grabbed Jim by the forearm and shook it. A nod was all Jim could manage in return; the eyes say more than the mouth cares to let slip. As his arm was returned to him, Jim turned around to cross back into his world, but stopped when he saw the man’s foot. One foot, if it could indeed be classified as such, curled downward upon itself—toes deeply armored with yellow nails—blisters covered in black tar and blood tangled with broken skin and dirt.
Jim sighed and kicked off his Pumas, the man looked up at him and then at the shoes, “but these have holes in them!” the man yelled after finally finding his voice. Jim shrugged and continued across the street.
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Just Like Claude Rains
Jon Beight
When I was in high school, I loved to watch old movies. I would stay up late and watch them until the sun came up. Then I would gather my things and go to school. Of all the movies I watched, none was better than “The Invisible Man.” Claude Rains played this chemist named Dr. Griffin. He takes a drug called monocane, which makes him invisible, but also causes him to slowly go insane. As he sinks deeper into his insanity, Griffin develops a plan to dominate the world through terror and murder. As he goes mad he goes on a killing spree and even causes a train derailment.
Eventually, the police track him down and shoot him. On his deathbed he expresses his regret of toying with science and admits to his girlfriend that there are some things in this world that are best left alone. The thing about that is he’s really a sympathetic character that simply didn’t know what he was getting himself into. When he finally dies he materializes, and everyone sees what he looked like before he took the drug, which was not a monster, but instead was a normal looking person, just like you and me.
Well, time marched on. I grew up and moved out. I rented a cramped little apartment in the city. Because I had this low paying job as a graveyard shift janitor at a factory, I had to share the apartment with Jack, who worked part time as a bag boy at the small market across the street, and part time as the local drug dealer.
I would buy uppers for work and pot for the rest of the time from money that came from raiding the employee’s lockers at work. Jack used to pester me to buy his meth. I resisted, but not because I was afraid of it. It had to do with seeing the before and after pictures of meth users, and I was afraid of looking like that. I hadn’t seen my family in quite a while, and the last thing I wanted was for them to see me as a D.A.R.E. billboard model.
What Jack lacked in ambition with his job at the market, he made up for in his persistence with selling drugs. Finally, he caught me at a weak moment and we sat down one afternoon to get high. Jack pulled out his glass pipe, put a small rock in the bowl, warmed it over the burning candle on the orange crate that served as our table, and slowly drew in the vapors.
He reloaded the pipe and passed it to me. I warmed it and took the hit.
I’ve always felt the world was a pretty fucked up place. Hatred, disease, poverty, ignorance, corruption, and apathy, are around every corner. It makes life seem like you’re wandering down an endless dark hallway, with no doors or windows. Suddenly none of that mattered. A warm rush swept over me and I felt a sense of euphoria and starlit energy.
My life turned from one of a dreary gray sameness, to one of colorful excitement. I looked forward to each and every hit with the anticipation a child has opening gifts at Christmas. I couldn’t wait to get to work for the money I could collect. My life was all about getting my next hit. Never had I felt so motivated.
But as it turned out, like so many things in life, the first time was the best time. And in my fruitless quest to recapture that feeling, I was consuming more than I could afford. The change from the lockers wasn’t covering my needs anymore, so I started to steal. Anything that wasn’t bolted down was fair game. I now had three full time jobs: janitor, thief, and meth head. Sleeping and eating didn’t figure much into the equation. But like I said, no amount would give me the feeling I was looking for.
One day I accused Jack of cutting the meth he was selling me. In the raging shouting match that followed, he said that it was time I moved out. He didn’t like my hot merchandise that was piled in every corner and he was worried that the cops would bust in and search the place and find his stash. The argument escalated and I slammed him into a wall. Jack crumpled in a heap on the floor. I left, and slept at this girl’s place that I worked with.
Her name was Gina. She said I could stay as long as I needed. I said I only needed a place to sleep and store my stolen goods until I could sell them. I promised to either give her a cut or get her high, her choice.
Eventually, I was fired from my job. A security camera caught me stealing a computer from a back office. The camera does not lie, and neither did I when my boss confronted me with the evidence. To keep from going to jail, I returned the computer.
So now I had no job and I was too afraid to steal because I thought the police were watching me all the time. It struck me that until I could find another job, begging for money on the street might sustain me.
I made my way down to a corner far away from anyone that might know me and started pestering people for their spare change. I would make up stories about my sick kid, my impounded car, or my wife needing an operation. Whatever came to mind.
It was degrading work, but the shame I felt did not outweigh why I was doing it. Some people would toss some of their spare change at me. Some even gave paper money. Some said they were sorry they couldn’t help me and more than a few were just plain nasty. Most people did their best to avoid eye contact. They would keep walking, looking at their feet, the sky, or even straight past me as though I was invisible. I began to notice that when they did make eye contact, many people looked at me with sudden wide eyes, followed by a look that was a mix of fright and pity. One guy finally said to me, “Dude, you should take a look at yourself.”
One night I did. I took a real good look. What I saw was someone else. I was twitching. I had skin lesions. My face was drawn. I was real skinny. I even had a few teeth missing. What was funny was that I had logical explanations for every last ailment. I learned too late that the ability to rationalize can be a powerful enemy.
Then there was the night that was the beginning of the end. I was on the street, begging as usual, when these three big guys came up to me. They looked familiar as they walked up and circled around me. I got a good look at the eyes of one of them. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that kind of hatred before, but it was frightening. They kind of forced me into an alley, and then all three of them took turns kicking and punching me. The one I got a look at earlier pulled a knife and stabbed me a couple of times before he carved up my face. He said he wanted me to remember him every time I looked in the mirror. I managed to ask why I would want to do that. He said that it was for all the money and belongings I had stolen from everyone’s lockers at the factory.
Well, anyway, now I’m in this hospital bed. My hands shake. I hear voices in the room that don’t answer when I ask who’s there. My body is a beaten up pile of broken bones. My head is completely wrapped in bandages. The doctor has told me that because of my meth habit and my diet, I have destroyed my heart and liver, and there was little hope for me surviving much longer.
It doesn’t much matter to me.
Gina comes by to visit about every day. She is a good friend. Yesterday, I told her that very soon I will die in this bed. Then, the people who don’t know me, who’ve only seen the bandages wrapped around my head, will finally get a good look at me. They will see that I am not the meth head monster they thought I was. They will see that I’m someone that naively got into something he didn’t understand. They will see that I’m a normal looking person, just like them. Just like Gina. Just like you.
Just like Claude Rains.
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Silver Pole
Peter Silverman
The train booms into the station. Subway station. I hold tight onto the silver pole. So does she. The pole reflects streaks of chaotic colors and mysterious fluorescence.
Train lurches, stops. My station. Is she getting off? Yes. We let go the silver pole at the same instant and turn to the door.
A lot of people are getting off. Exit choreography, mass pirouette. Our eyes still not met, never . . . almost never. Once maybe, on the ten minute ride. But we have seen each other.
Doors open. Right in front of me she walks through the door, over the gap, the deep space between car and platform, onto unmoving concrete. I follow her towards the exit, two persons now between us. A staircase to the surface, and the crowd bunches up. Five steps and the stairs bend a blind corner sharply to the left as another man bumps past me, in a hurry, of course, the train was twenty minutes late—he’s late for work. He comes between us, forces me to stop. I lose sight of her. Shit.
I come around the corner. There she is, to the side, pressed to the wall. She is looking back. She is waiting.
She sees me, smiles a soft shy smile. I’m standing next to her. Her eyes are still hazel. Her voice comes out of the sky.
“I’m Daphne.”
We flow, leaves on a current, unaware of the meander taking us to the sea, and we are speaking to each other.
We sweep up onto the street and walk on.
# #
Platform crowded. Trains arrive on the southbound side, thunder on into the tunnel, nothing northbound, my direction. Bundles of winter coats descend from the street; no one gets on a south. You’d think it would be warmer down there, closer to the equatorial zones. So the crowd thickens. Finally here it comes, a northbound train packed to the gills, no room for us. People inside stare out the big windows, neutral at best, no pity.
The train stops, doors open, don’t try to get on their faces say, none of youse.
It takes three attempts to close the doors. Someone down the platform is blocking a door—I’m at the first car; who knows what’s going on. So finally off they rumble, rumble towards the downtown where they’ll all pile off and go to work.
It’s cold outside. Which means everyone’s extra layers, coats, hats, all increase density on the platform.
The platform encrowds. The vacant spaces shrink. Newcomers place themselves equidistant from preexisting awaitees, encroaching on personal spaces. Feet shuffle, eyes do not make contact.
Okay finally here comes another northbound. Not full. They still look out the big windows at us, challenging, are we up to it? Yes, it’s crowded but not packed. So I step into the car, following a half-dozen fellow ex-platformers. There is space inside the door but there’s also space a few feet to the left, next to a hang-on metallic silver pole. I take my place, turn to the side to face the wall and there she is.
Who is she? Why? Whence? Oh dear.
I stand holding the silver pole. My hand is two inches above hers. She is looking straight ahead at the pole, 85 degrees off my face. She is fair, skin transparent, slightly ruddy, small nose, can’t see her eyes, what color are they? I would not call her beautiful but what do I know? Pretty. Attractive. Wearing a red-rust-yellow-green knit cap can’t see her hair what color is it?
She knows. She knows I am looking at her. Cheek flutters, a little dimple? I look away.
Out of the corner of my eye I see. She glances at me a passing glance. We both know what this is.
She is not tall, not petite, not knock down gorgeous but I like how she looks, can’t see her figure cocooned in the winter jacket. Ears, nose, mouth, eyes. Hand. I see them.
The train jogs. I tighten my grip on the silver pole. We sway, everyone. The space between us moves, repels, pulls.
I think about her thoughts, her life. What kind of house does she live in? Probably a row house on a narrow street, neighborhood cats sitting in windows. We have nothing in common except a silver pole.
A station. Train jerks to a stop. Doors open, no one moves. One aggressor pushes on, the rest are shut out. We have filled it up. Now I think that if I had gotten on the first train, none of this would be happening. None of what? Nothing is happening, what are you crazy? None of nothing.
Train jerks forward, speeds onward, our eyes dance around each other’s. Now I know: hers are hazel. Her face avoids again, but yes, dimples by God. She glances, my eyes shy away. I shift my hand on the pole. She looks straight ahead six inches past the front of my nose. We occupy a column of awareness. No sound but the roar of a train in the black.
Another station. Many people exit, but only after the doors open. More space for everyone but she and I don’t move. I can’t. Why not her?
I stare at the silver pole. It actively reflects only streaks of the overhead fluorescent. I intransitively reflect: leave this alone. Stupid. Then she glances at me again, so maybe not so stupid. Her nose is cute as a button. What makes a button cute? Also stupid. But her lips . . . pale pink, bent up at the corners . . . a smile?
Another glance, then she looks down, then straight ahead at the silver pole. Is she too reflecting?
The train starts up. I stand there, thinking I must be a jerk. Lurches. I need pressure on the pole to keep from leaning toward her. She looks down as I shift my feet. There is a moment when I can keep my eyes on her, on her ear. Small lobe cute as button, a small blue stone earring. Wisps of light brown hair from under her red-rust-yellow-green knit cap. She raises her head, glances at me, looks away.
What would I whisper in that ear?
I wonder what she does, in the red brick row house on the quiet little street. She writes poems, sitting in the window sill of her bedroom looking out at the tall buildings of the city. Poems about her life and her loves, about her heart and her dreams. Maybe she draws, or paints. She draws the things she sees, sitting in her window looking out over her street and the city, or looking back into her bedroom at her ginger cat sleeping on her bed, on her soft pink and yellow comforter. She paints at the easel standing in front of her window that floods her room with cool north light. She paints with pastels and she draws with soft colored pencils.
The car lurches. Our grips on the silver pole tighten. I feel through it, through the spirit-conductive metal, the tenseness of her muscles. Her knuckles are white, like mine, and the whine of the tunnel-roar pinches our ears.
We enter a station. Mine is next. The doors open and I risk a look as I turn my head to scope entering passengers: a one-child family with the solitaire in father’s arms, a man and two women caressing their cell phones trusting that the transit company has not opened before them a trap door onto the tracks. As I turn my head and pass my eyes over her face, she is still looking straight ahead, but when I turn away from the door, she is looking at me. Then we both look away, at the turbulent space in front of our faces.
My station is next. Is this it? Is this the end? End of what? End of nothing.
Train pulls out of the station, booms into the tunnel. We continue to not see each other, but I do see her from the trusty corner of my eye. Hooray for peripheral vision. God what an evolutionary advantage!
Another ripple across her face. There’s that hint of a dimple. Slight flush?
The train booms into the station. I hold tight onto the silver pole. So does she, onto this axis of intimacy. The pole reflects unreality, streaks of chaotic colors and mysterious fluorescence.
Train lurches, stops. My station. Is she getting off? Yes. We let go the silver pole at the same instant and turn to the door.
A lot of people are getting off. Exit choreography, mass pirouette. Our eyes still not met, never . . . almost never. Once maybe, on the ten minute ride. But have we seen each other?
Doors open. Right in front of me she walks through the door, over the gap, the deep space between car and platform, onto unmoved concrete. I follow her towards the exit, two persons now between us. A staircase to the surface, and the crowd bunches up. Five steps and the stairs bend a blind corner sharply to the right as another man bumps past me, in a hurry, of course, the train was twenty minutes late—he’s late for work. He comes between us, forces me to stop. I lose sight of her. Shit.
I come around the corner, look up the stairs but there is no red-rust-yellow-green knit cap. Don’t see one. Where? . . . Out on the street only clouds in the sky. Behind me, below, I hear a cry of metallic anguish as the train leaves the station.
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BIO
Peter Silverman has lived in Philadelphia for most of his life. His careers have included archivist, librarian, electronics plant manager, and computer programmer analyst. He has two daughters. His flash fiction work, Mourners, appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of East Coast Literary Review.
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Shared
Alison McBain
I met her newly divorced
—me, not her, although it
was shared trouble behind us
(before I had an idea of permanence).
In height, I tower
but I lack stature
unvarnished by the nicks and scratches
of abnormal wear.
In the dark of tribulations
she carries a glow
like fireflies—
captured imagination.
Today, I see her chains—
the cages of the past
unnoticeable from afar.
Close by, holding freedom’s key.
Like her,
I seek absolution.
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Sphinxes and Daughters
Alison McBain
Behind closed doors
insinuation escaped
instead of voices.
In the fifties
with a kid to support
divorce was a dirty word—
her daughter born months early,
blinded by hospital error:
too much oxygen.
The school kids called her “Missus”
but what they really meant
was “Don’t matter.”
So she went home
to a teenager
now too busy for a
worn-out singleton parent.
What could she show her daughter
about love?
A lonely road,
as they say:
the teacher,
not the doer.
Family paths moved away
and turned sharp corners
out of sight
while she walked unhurriedly
through the decades
strong and silent
as a Sphinx,
arriving at last
to where textbooks couldn’t reach.
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Why I Haven’t Worn Shorts in 23 Years
Emily Jo Scalzo
when you sat next to me
I thought I was prepared
bullying was expected
at age 12 in small-town Illinois
my mother told me when I was four
if a boy or man bad-touched me
kick him in the crotch
and come running to her
but on the school bus
trapped against the window
your hand on my still leg
slipped up my shorts
I froze mind and body
this new tactic stripping me
of my defenses and lessons
terror like bile in my throat
as you leaned in told me
you liked my unshaven legs
moved your fingers toward
my inner thigh crippled me
then stopped laughed in my face
like I was meant to be disappointed
you didn’t really want me
and went back to your seat
I don’t remember the ride home
my legs shook my parents’
demands for action stonewalled
told I should learn to shave
new awareness sliced
tendons settled in my kneecaps
planted a seed of trauma
bound me across decades
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bio
Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others. Her first chapbook, The Politics of Division, was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.
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Last Night I Dreamt I Killed a Man
Emily Jo Scalzo
In California, when the local crack addict
jumped the five-foot wall onto my porch
at 3am while I was watching TV,
I heard him trip over my recyclables
on his way to the sliding glass door.
Before, he’d settled for ringing my doorbell
in the wee hours until I staggered from bed,
listened various stories to convince me
to open the door, like I was born yesterday,
ending with a threat to call the cops.
When I called 911 the dispatcher
scolded me for cursing in my panic—
“There’s a fucking guy on my fucking porch!”
No need for that language, and I told her
I had a knife; if he got in, I’d use it.
He was gone when the police arrived,
run off by me, half-dressed and fear-crazed,
a sharp kitchen knife parting the blinds,
and “I’mma stab you, motherfucker;”
he never rang my doorbell again.
I slept with a knife in my bedside table,
had a knife by my couch and front door,
slept in my brother’s room while
house-sitting with his Army knife
on the floor by the bed.
I still dream of home invaders,
defending myself against violence,
blood spilling on carpet,
of taking life to protect my own,
not quite trusting the police.
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bio
Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others. Her first chapbook, The Politics of Division, was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.
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Parched in Fresno, 2010
Emily Jo Scalzo
Last night I dreamt of walking the streets of Chicago at twilight with the lake air hitting my face,
a warm summer night, with the streets perpendicular to the lake humid and loud,
the wonderful cool flow of the intersections, the city breathing around me, alive.
I slept through the day, through noon, dreaming happily of home.
I woke to a wasteland of California, heat in the air threatening to smother me,
artificially-cooled air blowing on me in a cruel mimicry of my dream,
and no river, no lake, no ocean to bring me life.
My professor at Purdue talked of missing New York, the view of the ocean only a few blocks away,
of how humans crave water—we know without it we would wither and die.
In my life I have always known water is nearby,
from the creeks I played and swam in during my childhood, undeterred by mud caking my body,
to the Great Lake which has always impacted the weather I experience and stretches forever to my eyes like an ocean,
to standing on the bridge over the Chicago River on State Street and looking down on the discolored water while ducks swim by,
to the Wabash River bisecting Lafayette, surrounded on each side by bluffs, with a hiking trail leading to cliffs where eagles nest.
Even in Oxford while I lived at Oriel the Thames was nearby and I could walk the towpath along the row of houseboats every day if I wished.
In Paris the Seine seemed to run everywhere,
and in Cuba the streams and rivers and lakes, and the ocean I swam in during my time there.
I could always feel it, a sense of water flowing and refreshing.
Except here, where I know there is a river nearby,
know there are artificial canals threading
through the city in which I now live
like feeding tubes in a dying man,
but I cannot feel it in the air,
promise of rebirth,
and it slowly kills me.
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bio
Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, New Verse News, and others. Her first chapbook, The Politics of Division, was published in 2017 and awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.
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Inaccessible
Donna M. Davis
Every week, he would hike
past the school parking lot
toward the near West side.
First, I noticed how he wore black
like a rock star or eccentric artist,
Chelsea boots brushing his jeans;
how he clicked his heels
and pushed one foot ahead of the other.
Then I observed his pale, impassive face;
how white hair skimmed his shoulders
in a loose tail with a thin streak of gray.
He strutted for blocks, backpack slung
across narrow shoulders.
In winter, his walk slowed,
burdened by a bulky coat and scarf,
but still, the expressionless stare,
eyes translucent as tap water,
the sharp turn of the heels.
I wanted to follow—
without conscious motive—
an inaccessible, emotionless man,
discover where he went and why.
If he spoke to me, I would be worthy,
chosen by someone who seemed
to have no need for anyone else.
But I was left dangling,
not knowing whether
under his black shirt,
he would flinch from my touch,
or if blood would pulse
with turbulent passion
beneath his colorless skin.
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About Donna M. Davis
Donna M. Davis is a former English teacher and current small business owner who lives in central New York. Her work has appeared in Slipstream Review, The Comstock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Homestead Review, Red River Review, Muddy River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Pudding, Gingerbread House, Halcyon Days, Third Wednesday, Poecology, and others. Publication is forthcoming in Stoneboat Journal.
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Insurrection
Donna M. Davis
Makeup helps women look more attractive.
Wear skirts, nail polish, and heels at all times.
Excerpt from “Dress for Success” guidelines,
General Michael Flynn’s Defense Intelligence Agency office.
Gentlemen, we will dress for success;
polish our nails in demure pearl;
wear skirts that are the right length,
heels that accentuate the calf muscle
with a flexed ready-for-business flair.
We will blush cheeks in peach
and gloss lips in prim pink
to frame submissive smiles.
We will only present ideas
with our hair coiffed to perfection,
even though you won’t listen.
We will do that today,
and tomorrow, and the next day,
until the time comes.
There will be a reckoning.
We will march into the office
with ten-inch stilettos
dangling from our necks
like boxers hang gloves
before entering the ring.
We will smear our lips
in garish crimson,
go the full twelve rounds,
strip off all skirts, all gender,
wrap fiery flags around
our naked, natural selves.
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About Donna M. Davis
Donna M. Davis is a former English teacher and current small business owner who lives in central New York. Her work has appeared in Slipstream Review, The Comstock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Homestead Review, Red River Review, Muddy River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Pudding, Gingerbread House, Halcyon Days, Third Wednesday, Poecology, and others. Publication is forthcoming in Stoneboat Journal.
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Desperado
Donna M. Davis
My friends and I played catch
across the hardscrabble patchwork
of city backyards, until one afternoon.
A pint-sized tyrant with a grimy face
yelled through a picket fence:
Get lost. This is my house.
Don’t come any closer.
His yard was a junk pile of metal parts,
rotted tires, and dented hubcaps.
When we wouldn’t leave,
he made pies of mud and grass,
lobbed them at us ferociously,
smearing my Donald Duck t-shirt.
So I took revenge in the trajectory
of a well-aimed rock.
It caught him on the forehead.
Splotches of red zig-zagged his face.
He squalled pitifully, mouth opened
round as a bloody vowel.
I raced back home and hid in my room.
The kid didn’t know my name
or where I lived, but the next day,
I heard he had to have six stitches,
and his folks were talking to the cops.
For three weeks, I didn’t go outdoors,
fell into agitated sleep every night,
dreaded some sour-faced judge
sentencing me to reform school,
where I’d wear a striped smock
and sew leather shoes.
But they never found me.
It all blew over in a couple weeks.
I didn’t feel much remorse.
The brat had it coming.
Ten years old, and I was already learning
what it meant to be self-justified,
my misdemeanor rationalized and catalogued
with other childhood traumas
and transgressions.
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About Donna M. Davis
Donna M. Davis is a former English teacher and current small business owner who lives in central New York. Her work has appeared in Slipstream Review, The Comstock Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Homestead Review, Red River Review, Muddy River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Pudding, Gingerbread House, Halcyon Days, Third Wednesday, Poecology, and others. Publication is forthcoming in Stoneboat Journal.
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Roses
Marlon Jackson
So au natural and beautiful like no tomorrow.
At night the way they glow and sustain.
The way the water trickles from them after the falling rain.
The colors are always the same, even when it dries out;
the swirling aftermath.
Survival is their only true name.
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From Me To You
Jennifer Benningfield
The cliche goes, every man wants a son. A boy. A little version of themselves, a continuation, an heir to some imaginary throne. If he wants a daughter, she must be the prettiest little girl with an ever-present smile, and she must wear the cutest pinkest clothes and think her daddy is the greatest man alive.
I’ve never liked cliches. I had a messy childhood, a rough adolescence, and I never wanted to pass that on to some flesh and blood facsimile. Lucky for me, nature agreed.
It’s been some time, hasn’t it? Once in a blue moon a guy gets a second chance. Fathers and daughters, a hell of a thing. I’ve never tried to understand you, and I hope you’ve never tried to understand me. I’m currently out in the mild West, the big 5-0 looming, and my head’s gone to the birds. So let’s talk.
I can assure you that I love you. Just because I haven’t been around, doesn’t mean I’ve been out of the loop. I have connections. What I don’t have are judgments. My dad was a top-notch fault-finder. Hard on everyone and everything and everywhere. Himself most of all, which is a big reason why you never got to meet him.
I’ve been bothered by the recent discovery that you don’t care if you ever hear from me again. It seems my nagging fear I’d left a bad impression on you was wrong—turns out I made virtually no impression! If you haven’t already, this is where you open up the photo I attached to this e-mail. It’s nothing more or less than a picture of your old man, taken an hour or so ago by a sweet cleaning lady. (I’ve seen dozens of photos of you over the years, so it’s only fair.)
See the dimples? Look familiar?
I’m sure you have your own questions. Like—why now? I spent a year in Ocean City before moving out here. Something went down there that made me think of you even more than I already did, to the point where for a solid week it was difficult to focus on anything else. I’m going to tell you the story in the next e-mail and I want you to please PAY ATTENTION. Because everyone dies, but naive ones die quicker.
######
—Homeless, harmless; my derangements also detectable in more fortunate men
—Store: candy bars, soda
—Risk=salvation
—One man’s quicksand is another man’s springboard
—Don’t “infantilize” her!
—Clouds in abundance. They are hiding rain (for now)
—“Going To a Go-Go” has been in my head all day. She still into Motown music?
—Should really put a shirt on
—Even if inside-out
—She couldn’t keep a dress clean...gorgeous and rebellious girl
—Lots of cretins dancing around the periphery of this place
—Whoever’s at the door, I’m on a roll! Kick rocks!
—50x sit-ups (2x)
50x push-ups (2x)
—Hate the store. Maybe get a guy to bust into the vending machine w/ me, split profits?
—Snickers, Twix, Reese’s. 3M and Hershey’s for emergencies
—Skin so dry—LOTION?
—Would she care that I’m a minor legend at the b-fast buffet? “Hey buddy, want some waffles with that syrup?”
—Take charge, love
Take charge. Love
Take. Charge. Love.
######
I almost reached out sooner. When I’d heard about your car accident. (I am not at liberty to reveal who’s been keeping me up to date, but I will say it’s someone we both love and trust.) Who knew there was such a thing as fourth degree burns?
I stayed silent, but I knew. How you rose to the occasion in the horrible aftermath. How you helped your friend’s family. I heard about your compassion, your strength, your devotion to the truth. You learned the value of life.
So you know, sweetie, I understand your wariness. My grandmother didn’t learn to drive until she reached her 60s. When her husband broke his arm, she had to call a friend to take him to the hospital. She felt so much shame that she got her license not long after. True, driving provides a person with increased freedom and allows them to act more independently, but there is such a thing as too much freedom. Too much independence. It’s up to you when. It’s up to you if.
When I land at a fixed address, I’ll send something your way, something you can hold in your hands. Maybe I can visit. Maybe you can visit.
My old man once told me, “Everyone is a salesman.” I’d like to add: be sure you don’t overpay, or undercharge. And don’t roll over, because you have no idea what you might end up crushing.
With love, Your Old Man
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About Jennifer Benningfield
Jennifer Benningfield’s stories have appeared in several publications, including Black Dandy, The Sonder Review, Fiction On the Web, and Maryland Literary Review. A lifelong Marylander who has been in the (mostly) benevolent thrall of words since receiving “Green Eggs and Ham” as a birthday present, her writings can also be found online at www.trapperjennmd.blogspot.com.
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The Unread Daughter
LJ Phillips
Angela was a book. Erotic verse trailed down her thighs and hips, dirty limericks circled the indentation of her navel. She couldn’t recall when the words first appeared. Perhaps it started with the onset of puberty; while other girls grew breasts and downy pubic hair, her skin sprouted sentences. By the time she was twenty, her entire torso was infested with poorly written erotica. Her arms crawled with verse.
“Infested.” That was Daddy’s word. At his insistence, she wore men’s shirts and heavy leather jackets whenever she left the house. During summer, she sweated under her stifling layers and missed her mother.
Angela’s nights were haunted by dreams of escape. She tossed in her spinster sheets, hands tracing the punctuation between her thighs.
One day she would slip out the front door and run through the neighborhood naked, skin bare to the sun. Daddy’s thin shrieks would go unnoticed. She would fling her arms open and let the world read her.
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Bio
LJ Phillips is a professional artist who has had three solo exhibitions. He has also published numerous articles and pieces of short fiction. Currently he lives in South Africa and spends his free time working on his creator-owned comic, Silver Bullet Nights.
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Lost in a Society That Longed For a Beach
Felix Purat
in isolation I scratch an earlobe
facing Place des Vosges in a city
called Paris, no golden apples in hand
how could I give Athena what she wanted?
I wanted her to feel love, not the
usual appetite of fear. Eric did not
trespass any new weddings, I did;
no longer was I able to become the smartest
man in the world, I became a dog, a cynic,
lost in a society that longed for a beach
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Vulnerable
Felix Purat
Tremors report earthquakes:
West Coast, first class
A luxury item if earthquakes
were commodities
The air feels colder
A breeze could push me over
In time our shelter will
prove much stronger
But don’t let go of my hand
just yet
The hour is too late for us to have regrets
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moscow
Laura Johnson
sex was nothing to you in
that garden off tverskaya.
we saw zhivago that night
jumping headlong: your history,
my departure collide. si-
rens wailed. it was 1991
after all.
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southwest side
Laura Johnson
on volgina street we
danced in night snow. you
asked if anyone was wat-
ching. like who? i laughed. maybe
god. i kissed you slipping by.
bells rang and your eyes shimmered
sadness.
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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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Speedway, West Leonard
Todd Mercer
Sunday. The woman behind bulletproof glass at the sketchy Speedway near US-131 wears a T-shirt that reads, “Monday My Prince Will Come,” the “Monday” in red over a crossed-out “Someday.” The customer paying for gasoline with cash appreciates her optimism, but he’s worried about dripping blood on the floor before he pays and leaves. One customer between. Five gallons plus a roll of duct tape: $19.95. The third shift cashier is apparently planning for a royal homecoming. This man with several puncture wounds hopes it’s true, that duct tape patches anything. Another day he would’ve asked her name. It’s Karen.
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About Todd Mercer
Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. Mercer won 1st, 2nd & 3rd place of the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. Recent work appears in: The Lake, The Magnolia Review, Praxis and Softblow.
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Legacy
Christine Liwag Dixon
we cross stitch our lips
choke on the bitter spittle that builds up each time we think of that night;
this is not our fault.
we know this.
but neither is it his--
it is our mothers’ fault for teaching us that
silence is a virtue
that pretty girls should walk with magnets between their knees.
we carry our trauma in our pockets
like loose change,
easy enough to forget so long as we don’t walk too fast.
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legs, photography by John Yotko
Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us
Robert Levin
Although the guises may differ, people who study history are no less doomed to repeat it than those who don’t. The reason for this circumstance is not so mystifying once we are prepared to acknowledge that the apprehension of death, and the necessity to mitigate that apprehension, always has and always will prompt and shape virtually every human activity. If our responses to the prospect of death can, for sure, be benign and creative—can, for example, result in works of art that will survive our demise—they are, as often as not, malignant. And this is a grim reality that despite lessons from the past we are compelled to perpetuate.
Let me try to explain.
When F. Scott Fitzgerald remarked that ”In [the] dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning,” he was talking about the fundamental burden of human existence, of the terror that inhabits a life that is aware of its fate. To live with just a modicum of equanimity that terror has to be managed, and what we do to this end is we bury it. We repress it. But notwithstanding our success at repressing an all consuming death dread—even to the point of becoming apparently heedless of death’s inevitability—our trepidation never entirely disappears. Indeed, it remains subconsciously constant and dynamic and, however incognizant we may be of its processes and consequences, it is the determining force behind all manner of destructive behavior.
Simply put, beings who know they will die cannot withstand extended periods of amity. Unable to confront the ultimate evil of death directly, it’s essential to have enemies, enemies that can be confronted. We need, that is, human surrogates for evil who are at the very least potentially vanquishable. Persons of races, cultures, religions, nationalities and sexual orientations different from ours serve this purpose well. Through our hostile engagement with these designated embodiments of evil, we simulate what constitute symbolic struggles with death, struggles that absorb and preoccupy us and that allow us, when we win, to experience the pleasure of securing what feels like a victory over death. Pleasure, as Epicurus noted, is the absence of pain, and pain is definable not merely as physical suffering but also as fear and anxiety. The eradication of manufactured adversaries affords us the sensation of killing our own death.
Of course, since the basic problem still exists, our elation in these contrived instances is transitory. It wears off. We are forced then to make new enemies. (When we lose we may feel as good as dead, may enter a profound depression that will not lift until we identify fresh villains with whom to do combat. And while I’m in the aside of a parentheses, I don’t think it’s farfetched to suggest that what we really mean by the “social contract” is the unspoken agreement to supply one another with antagonists for the battle with mortality.)
Born in 1939, only a couple of decades after the “war to end all wars,” I’ve been a witness to World War Two, the Holocaust, the dropping of the atom bomb, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam, not to mention 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, genocides, assassinations and countless mass murders. All of these travesties were intended to enable their perpetrators to deny their abominable destinies. The Donald Trump administration is among the most current of such travesties. Should I last a little longer I’m quite likely to attend the disintegration of democracy itself.
In the prominent case of Trump, and following what I’ve attempted to describe, we can clearly see why he ascended to the presidency in 2016 and why (barring genuinely intolerable investigative revelations—I write this in early spring of 2019) he may yet win again in 2020.
What Trump did was address our very deepest requirement, the necessity to mollify the anticipation of extinction. He accomplished this by providing scapegoats for our untenable predicament. Mexicans, Muslims and an illegitimate black president were responsible for the jeopardy in which we find ourselves. His posture in this respect was, I’d argue, more crucial to his election than his promises of jobs and economic security. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, offered programs and policies that, devoid of monsters posing existential threats, were limited to the wholly rational. Contrary to how it may often appear, people do vote in their best interest. Hillary failed to recognize what, at bottom, we truly want.
I don’t know what man made horrors await the planet in the coming years. I do know that they’ll be impervious to history, that they’ll be abundant and that the unacceptability of death will be at their root.
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Michael y Miguel
Charles Edwards
Miguel awoke to a loud rattling sound to his right. He woke quickly because he hadn’t slept deeply since he got here. He was constantly on alert, even when he was asleep. He had to be vigilant. He didn’t have much, but that didn’t matter to the other kids. It was common for shoes or a blanket, or even a stale ration of bread tucked away from dinner to turn up missing when the owner awoke in the morning. The loud sound Miguel had heard was the older boys fighting again. Who knows what had started it. It was usually a theft, or an insult, or just pent up frustration. Whatever the cause, one of the older boys – Miguel knew from the other boys that he was a Salvadoran named Ademir – was alternating between slamming the boy’s head into the fencing and using it like a grater to scrape the boy’s face back and forth across it. Miguel didn’t recognize the other boy, but blood was pouring from his face and he was screaming in pain, unable to fight back because blood was running into his eyes and he could not see. By the time the boys were separated, Miguel was softly crying to himself as most of the other boys near him pressed up against the side of their fence closest to the fight to get a better look.
XXX
On the second trip Michael’s father made to his room to wake him up, Michael was still sound asleep, so this time his father pulled the covers off the bed, exposing Michael’s skin to the cool air-conditioned air. This was part of the routine. Every morning, Michael had to be poked and prodded out of bed. When he was an infant, his parents used to brag about his sleeping habits to other envious parents. “Michael sleeps through the whole night,” his parents would brag, in that annoying way that his parents and all of their friends would boast when they thought their child was pulling slightly ahead of the other children in meeting developmental milestones. Now his parents found his sleeping habits a hindrance to starting their day. “C’mon, Michael,” his father urged. “Get moving. I still have to drop you off at daycare, and I can’t be late for work.” Michael sat up in his bed shaped like a race car, stretched, yawned, and finally set his feet on the floor to start getting ready.
XXX
Time passed slowly here. There was no sunlight creeping into the converted storefront that used to house discount electronics. There were no clocks, either. The children told time according to the schedule the guards kept. Breakfast in the morning. Lunch in the afternoon. Each of the groups of boys – there were no girls here - had their own time to go outside for an hour in the afternoon to “get some exercise.” There was no playground equipment in the patchy grass field behind the building, just a newly-installed fence with barbed wire surrounding the top. There were no toys. Miguel and the other boys housed with him, the infants to five-year-olds, got to go outside first. The boys spent much of the time huddled close to the building to avoid the summer Texas heat by staying in the shade. Despite the heat, the five-year-olds, like Miguel, would talk amongst themselves and wish they had a fútbol to play with.
XXX
From the car seat in his father’s SUV, Michael could see that his “friends” in his class – everyone was referred to as a “friend” at the daycare – were outside for their morning playtime when they pulled into the parking lot. Through the chain link fence that separated the parking lot from the heavily equipped playground, Michael could see Connor and Jonathan arguing over the blue shovel. Michael was in the five-year-old classroom, and all of his “friends” coveted the blue shovel. The teachers knew this and watched the shovel closely, so they were quick to intervene when Connor and Jonathan started their struggle over it. They separated the two, and gave the shovel to a girl in the class, Katie, to teach the two children the value of sharing. A news story started on the radio with the reporter announcing, “Now we go to Texas, where the ongoing crisis involving illegal immigrants being separated...” Michael’s father turned off the radio even though the car was still running, and Michael waited patiently for his father to get out of the car and to unbuckle the straps of his car seat so that he could go play with his “friends.”
XXX
Lights out came after dinner every night. There was no talking allowed. The overhead lights were dimmed, and the boys in each of the three cages were supposed to lie down on the concrete ground with the “space blankets” the guards had given them and go to sleep. Miguel had heard the guards call them “aliens.” He knew what that word meant. “Space blankets” for “aliens.” Since he had been there, Miguel ended every night the same way, by praying that he would get to see his mother, and then crying softly until he fell asleep.
XXX
“Okay, time to turn off the television and head to bed,” Michael’s mother told him just as the ten o’clock news came on with a “Breaking news” story about the “children being held in detention facilities.” Michael’s mother turned off the television as he groaned and stalled. It was part of the routine. However, Michael eventually brushed his teeth, changed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed, where his mother was waiting to read him a bedtime story, which he loved, even though he rarely stayed awake long enough to hear the end. This night was no different, as Michael was fast asleep as his mother finished the book. She kissed him on his forehead and turned out the light, leaving his door open just a crack, so that the hall light could trickle in.
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The Good Copper Pan
Keely O’Shaughnessy
Some people say it’s the seven-year itch, but for you it’s always been three. Reaching two is a milestone- two is firm, becoming solid. Two is a reason to celebrate, whereas three fades away.
The love notes in lunch boxes have stopped. You mention something about his grey T-shirt with the holes. Milk bottles are left on the sideboard, half-drank. In bed, he doesn’t stroke your hair. He rolls over without speaking.
Silently, each night, the space between you grows until he’s gone. You watched as he removed his copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s from the bookshelf. As he reclaimed, his towel, the spider plant, and the good copper pan. You heard the door shut. As he left, your neighbors were arriving home: Kim ushering the kids inside and Tim collecting groceries from the car. He’d have nodded to them, for sure.
Alone, in a room that was once shared, you do some math. You make yourself a mug of hot milk and switch on the TV, and you arrive at the figure, 1460. 47.9 months. 208.57 weeks. Broken down into its component parts the weeks become hours, 35,040 of them, and this subjunctive time pools around you’re your feet.
Instinctively, you hug your knees to your chest. You divide the hours into minutes and then again into seconds, so that you can almost count the breaths not taken, the kisses or looks or knowing gestures. Below you, the carpet swells, clogged up with the moments that could have been.
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bio
Keely O'Shaughnessy is a fiction writer with Cerebral Palsy, which she sometimes writes about. She has been an editor at 101Words and is currently a lead reader and editor at Flash Fiction Magazine. She has an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Gloucestershire. Her short fiction has appeared in Duality 6 Literary Magazine, as well as anthologies Smoke: New Writing I, Fire: New Writing II and Compass, online at Flash Fiction Magazine and most recently Chaleur Magazine.
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The Nomadic Hearth, photography by Aparna Pathak
maroon
Carol Lynne Knight
when I was marooned in a marriage,
I created an island of day dreams
& remained silent, hush-hush,
saved words for later, much later —
I am writing them now — all the verbs
& nouns, & wandering adjectives
hidden, sh sh sh as I packed
them away, never knowing if they
would escape, & fall into stanzas
or remain sealed in plastic under the bed.
every work night, I laid my husband’s
navy blue shirt across my lap & transferred
his brass from a dirty shirt to one just washed,
put a clean cover on his kevlar vest, emptied
his pockets & tossed away the shredded foil
from his rolaids while he showered.
the bare room in my head filled with duty
like a chair pulled away from a table,
every day a little more varnish scraped away,
the room like a nun’s small cell, the door clicking,
clicking shut as he left for the midnight shift,
& stray cat women who loved the uniform
I’d washed & hung in the closet.
a small maroon smudge on his t-shirt
in the laundry basket, not my lipstick
shade at all, deep breath, deep breath,
just breathe, & forgive, forgive until
the heart’s door swings shut. shut.
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BIO
As co-director of Anhinga Press, Carol Lynne Knight has edited and designed more than 100 literary publications, including books by Diane Wakoski, Naomi Shihab Nye, the late Robert Dana and Judith Kitchen.
Her book of poems, Quantum Entanglement (Apalachee Press) was released in 2010. Her poetry has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Louisiana Literature, Tar River Review, Poetry Motel, Earth’s Daughters, The Ledge, Slipstream, Broome Review, Comstock Review, Northwest Florida Review, Epicenter, Redactions, Iconoclast, Epicenter, HazMat, So to Speak, J and others. She is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for the Arts and the Bowers House.
Born in Traverse City, Michigan, she grew up in South Florida and graduated from the University of Miami and Florida State University. She has exhibited drawings, pottery, sculpture and digital images throughout the eastern United States. In other lives, she worked as an art teacher, potter, videographer, copy writer, and graphic designer. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
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rust
Carol Lynne Knight
after you left, I built a house
around my heart with blue-gray
doors to weather rain,
to open slowly on rusty hinges,
& windows meant to shine,
to fracture light & welcome dust.
above this rickety house,
sky alternates between
a coverlet of clouds
roiling in blue-gray whiffs,
a pearlized wall of slate —
the last warning
before a downpour.
to be sky at the moment
of its forgiveness,
its rain pretending to cry,
all the rust like blood
in pools forming at my door.
all the symptoms of an ego in crisis —
nails falling out of the wall, shingles
giving in to wind, shattered glass
in the hall, a rattling like mooring chains
pulled thru the house, outlets
& light bulbs exploding,
a gasp of plaster before
the ceiling gives way.
all this imagined in a cloud, a cirrus of thought,
contrails diffused into the grayish atmosphere
of a dream — worry & fret, the muse
wrecking her house, the pounding.
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BIO
As co-director of Anhinga Press, Carol Lynne Knight has edited and designed more than 100 literary publications, including books by Diane Wakoski, Naomi Shihab Nye, the late Robert Dana and Judith Kitchen.
Her book of poems, Quantum Entanglement (Apalachee Press) was released in 2010. Her poetry has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Louisiana Literature, Tar River Review, Poetry Motel, Earth’s Daughters, The Ledge, Slipstream, Broome Review, Comstock Review, Northwest Florida Review, Epicenter, Redactions, Iconoclast, Epicenter, HazMat, So to Speak, J and others. She is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for the Arts and the Bowers House.
Born in Traverse City, Michigan, she grew up in South Florida and graduated from the University of Miami and Florida State University. She has exhibited drawings, pottery, sculpture and digital images throughout the eastern United States. In other lives, she worked as an art teacher, potter, videographer, copy writer, and graphic designer. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
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Some Other World
Michael Fitzgerald
Uncle Willie lived in the backroom
Off the kitchen
He brought up my mom
Orphaned at nine or ten
His loves being
Booze, betting, and broads
One afternoon I arrived home early from school
One of his loves was in the kitchen
In a tight dress and red high heels
“Whatta ya doing home this early”
barked Willie
“Where is mom and dad?”
“Go out and play”
I started to back down the hall
Willie’s friend gave me
A wink and smile
Freezing me
The room was filled with her scent
Her face wasn’t scary
But it wasn’t safe
What did I know?
I was in second grade
I moved down the hall
Willie and friend to his room
I stood at the front door slamming it
Staying inside
Tip-toeing into the kitchen
I could hear a pounding sound
Along with Willie’s voice
Willie was not a religious man
But “Oh my God” and “Ahh! Sweet Jesus”
Emanated from his room
My approach
Like a rat on the pier
Scurrying behind a chair
I could see Willie’s pants
Were around his ankles and his friend
was on her knees
I didn’t think she was praying
Making sounds like a fat boy
At the bottom of a milk shake
I crawled under the bed
Closer
A compact lay on the floor unopened
I snatched it
Opened it
Placing the mirror at the perimeter of
The bed
Near the grunting twosome
A periscope view
Mysteries unfolded
A tent of lush black hair uncovered
What Uncle Willie called the Cyclops
I moved closer to the mirror
Finding Willie’s eyes staring right at me
“What the hell are you doing down there?”
I scrambled deeper under the bed
“Come out you little devil”
I hugged the bedpost against the wall
Willie frantically jumped on the bed
Screaming for me to come out
The springs made a sound
Like cicadas mating on a summer night
I stared up at the springs of the bed
They were like spirals up to the stars
Or some other world I’d rather live in
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Sometimes It’s Not
Janet Kuypers
12/13/98
turn back the hands of time
but maybe I might still think
that I could live forever then
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Watch this YouTube video
from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
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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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Listen  to the CD track of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes 03/18/03, or order ANY track from the CD “Death Comes in Threes” any time through iTunes. 
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Order this iTunes track:
from Chaotic Elements
(a 2 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes
CD:
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Watch the YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem from her book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab at the open mike 4/11/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago (accompanied by live piano music from Gary)
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Watch the YouTube video
of Kuypers’ open mike 4/11/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus the entire open mike, w/ this poem (w/ music from the HA!man of South Africa, & piano from Gary)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with an Edge Detection filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Threshold filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Black & White filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Hue Cycling filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “With You” {edited for this live reading}, “Moonlight” and “Sometimes It’s Not”, all from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 38 v1” during Thom’s multi-person intro 6/24/18 to “Spoken and Heard” @ Kick Butt Coffee (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Hallucinations
Janet Kuypers
2003
So yeah, I was just loving being in that hospital, trapped in that room, I imagined I was actually at my apartment and not in a hospital bed. I even talked about this, and my sister, not wanting me to hallucinate, told me,
“Okay, you say the bathroom is just past the door,
(which was my hospital room door),
why don’t you show it to me.”
And so I’d walk out the hospital door and
look down the hall,
and I was stunned,
this wasn’t right, I thought,
and I stood there for a split second,
and I said,
well,
it was here.
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reading:
Hallucinations
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(SAMPLE) studio track
or order the full track: |
Imagining Friends and Loved Ones
Janet Kuypers
2003
Day in and day out I would stay in that hospital room, and I was really going nuts ... I imagined my friend Brian, who now lives in San Francisco, becoming my roommate, dressing up as an old lady so no one would recognize him and no one would think that he was my friend visiting me, so that I would have someone there to talk to when I was sitting there all alone, all by myself, day in and day out.
No, my friend Brian never visited me, and I did have an old lady for a roommate, and no, I never talked to her, but I kept thinking to myself that this was how I could keep myself sane,
by imagining that a stranger was a friend,
just so I could get through my days.
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reading:
Imagining Friends and Loved Ones
|
(SAMPLE) studio track
or order the full track: |
| (Imagining Brian, vocals track for CD, 465k, :39) |
| (Imagining Dave, vocals track for CD, 541k, :46) |
Imagining Dave
Janet Kuypers
2003
And I was never able to get over Dave’s death, where he died three months before my death ... and I wasn’t able to get across the country for his funeral, so I could never see his face to say goodbye to him. So, I would fantasize, I think, oh him appearing at my room, coming in through a side entrance so no one would see him, and he would come up to visit me, and I would say,
“How did you get here, you’re supposed to be dead, did everyone see you”
and he said, “no, no, no, I managed to hid so no one would spot me because no one knows I’m alive. But I wanted to know how you were doing, because I didn’t want anything to happen to you, and I wanted you to be okay, and I wanted you to not die.”
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No One Gave Me Flowers
Janet Kuypers
2003
One day, in what seemed like an endless stream of weeks, I got flowers, and I was stunned, I was thrilled, no one had sent me flowers before wile I was here in the hospital, I didn␁t know who they were from.
When we looked at the card, they were flowers for a Janet Spinoto, a woman who apparently was somewhere else in the hospital, and I thought, that␁s what I get for thinking that someone would buy me flowers.
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reading:
No one Gave Me Flowers
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(SAMPLE) studio track
or order the full track: |
| (vocals track for CD, 315 k, :26) |
As I Recovered
Janet Kuypers
10/16/98
I was supposed to be
saving a life by turning the wheels
and avoiding an accident. Well,
I did. I turned the wheels of my car
and that saved the motorcyclist’s life.
My car was pushed by someone else into
oncoming traffic so another car could hit me,
i think the first car hitting me was
enough, but while we’re at it, let’s
get someone else to ruin me as well,
they can even push me over 100 feet.
That’s what I got for saving a life.
After the hospital, after I
got out of the coma, no one
even visited me - no one
that did this to me visited me.
Not the people who hit me, not the guy
who’s life I saved. Did he even know
I saved his life? Did he even know
he could have been dead that day?
None of those people even attempted to
pay me back. For my car,
or my time, or my coma. This is what
I get for being nice. I have the
physical and emotional scars
from that day. And
no one ever apologized to me
for the pain they caused. None of them
even visited me as I recovered.
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Watch the YouTube video
Live at Taking Poetry to the Streets, at a Florida gas station 12/27/08
|
Order this iTunes track:
from the poetry audio CDetc.
...Or order the entire CD set
from iTunes
CD:
|
Order this iTunes track:
from Chaotic Elements
(a 2 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes
CD:
|
See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading this poem live at Dan Shapiro’s rigged open mic in Logan Square (Chicago) at Cole’s bar 4/14/13
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See YouTube video
of Kuypers reading a set of poems (“the Burning” and 3 near-death accident-related poems) live at Dan Shapiro’s rigged open mic in Logan Square (Chicago) at Cole’s bar 4/14/13
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “As I Recovered” from her book “Rape, Sexism Life & Death” live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (from a Nikon Cool Pix S7000).
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “As I Recovered” from her book “Rape, Sexism Life & Death” live 1/6/16 at Rad Radam Open Stage in Austin TX (from a Canon Power Shot camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Any Help At All
Janet Kuypers
11/14/98
I’m tired
of doing things myself and
I’m tired
of looking for my own answers
for all the troubles I experience
I’m tired
of looking
I want someone to help on this one
in the past,
with my head on my shoulders
they got tired
of looking in my direction
to see if I needed anything
now I can’t get any help at all
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edit this poem in wandering words...
rearrange the words... or make a new poem
either in Flash or in Java (Windows only)! |
Watch half of the show video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
|
Watch this YouTube video
from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
|
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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
|
Watch this YouTube video
live, the Cafe’s Poetry Wheel (Mach 2) 08/26/08, Chicago
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See YouTube video of a compilation of Janet Kuypers’ poems Holding My Skin Together, Any Help At All, conversations three (a day of grieving), transcribing dreams one, the flashback, By Who I Don’t Know, and Did you know I was watching? in the Cafe’s Poetry Wheel (Mach 2) 08/26/08, Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
C Ra McGuirt reading live at the 2009 Cana-Dixie Union 05/09/09, Memphis
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Will Be Just Fine
Janet Kuypers
7/6/98
there’s a pot on my window sill
terra-cotta, i think
and it used to have a spider plant in it
once
now there’s just a pile of dirt
shaped like a terra cotta pot
with a few dried stems
coming out of the top
i could never take care
of anything, you know
and i wonder what i’ve done
to you
could I find you again
hold you in my arms
rock you like a baby
stroke your hear
and tell you everything
will be just fine
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Order this iTunes track from the collection poetry music CD
Side A ...Or order the entire CD from iTunes:
|
edit this poem in wandering words...
rearrange the words... or make a new poem
either in Flash or in Java (Windows only)!
|
Order this iTunes track:
from the poetry audio CDetc.
...Or order the entire CD set
from iTunes
CD:
|
Listen to the CD recording
of this, from the CD Change/Rearrange
|
Watch this YouTube video
from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
|
Watch half of the show video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
|
|
Listen to the CD recording of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes 03/18/03
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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They Wouldn’t Trust Me with a Razor
Janet Kuypers
2003
After being in the hospital so long, my hair was growing long, I never even got to shave my legs even, I was completely unkept. I wanted to at least be able to shave my legs in the shower, but they wouldn␁t trust me with a razor.
I had to have a family member watch me, just so I could take a shower and try to get myself in order.
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reading:
They Wouldn’t Trust Me
With a Razor
|
(SAMPLE) studio track
or order the full track: |
| (shaving in the shower, vocals track for CD, 316k, :26) |
(vocal track, reverb filter
and an old time radio effect, 52k, :04) |
Get It Over With
Janet Kuypers
9/17/98
sometimes you just forget life
what you’re living life for
life passes you by
you’ve got nothing to show for the years
do I have another 60 plus years of this to go
of forgetting
of not being missed
When I almost died, I didn’t think about death
I had to get better
I had to teach myself how to eat
and walk
and talk
I had to get out of that wheelchair
and people can make fun of me for it
but they don’t have to start from scratch
they don’t have to start with nothing
Even when some of us
think we have it all together
someone throws us the curve ball
of death to tell us that we might have
been wrong, that we might not have
been prepared for everything
How do you prepare for something like
this, though
|
Order this iTunes track:
from Chaotic Elements
(a 2 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes
CD:
|
Listen to the DMJ Art Connection,
off the CD Manic Depressive or Something
This also exists in another version
(called Life Passes You By) off the CD Indian Flux
or Listen to & download
 this track from the DMJ Art Connection
|
|
Listen to the CD recording of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes 03/18/03
|
Watch half of the show video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
|
Watch this YouTube video
from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
|
See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/4/19 reading her poetry from the Down in the Dirt v167 Nov./Dec. 2019 issue/book “Why Peace Will Forever Elude Us”,including her poems “Prescribe them Something, Anything”, “Genesis Twenty-Eight”, “You Do What You’re Told”, and “Imagination”, then her “Death Comes in Threes” poems “(from) Sometimes It’s Not”, “As I Recovered”, “Will Be Just Fine”, and “Get It Over With”, all read live (interspersed with Thom poetry) during her December 2018 Book Release Reading through Community Poetry! at Half Price Books in Austin (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera); this video was posted on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Tumblr.
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Like My Motto
Janet Kuypers
12/27/98
It is so easy to hope for things
It is easy when you’ve got nothing
to hope for something
I know women who think that
it would be nice if there was a nice rich guy
that would come along
and sweep them off their feet
and then the rest of their lives
they could eat bon bons
and watch movies on their television
and they could decide where their adopted child
would go for private school
I never said I thought that way
but I know that ideology exists
and at times I just get tired of fighting it
I figure that no one is listening to me and
I figure that this whole hope thing
is over, well,
overdone
over-rated
overly confusing
over-something
so I’m wondering that if
I’m getting tired of fighting it, well,
why am I even fighting any of this?
everyone has been stepping all over me,
so why don’t I just get used to
the whole cycle
I’ve got treadmarks on my back
from the bicycles and motorcycles and cars
all running me over
and there are heel marks and toe prints
as people were using me as their stepping stool
to climb the corporate ladder
my face is now covered with soot
because every time I try
to clean myself off
someone fights me
and steps on me
and pushes my cheek into the asphalt again
strands of hair are matted into my face now
into ny mouth
almost touching my eye
and this is the cycle, I think,
this is the way it goes
so stop fighting, girl
stop fighting
get used to it
these are the words
I have to keep telling myself
until they are like my motto
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Being God
Janet Kuypers
4/30/98
I’m tired of dying for your sins
over and over again and why is it that
I am the one that’s doing the dying
when you are the one that’s doing the sinning
I don’t think you’re learning your lesson
I’m tired of taking this knife to my hands
over and over again giving myself the stigmata
the blood gets all over my clothes
and I can never get the stains out
and for what, for you to see how I suffer
I’m tired of being humble when I’m
supposed to be the one with the power
over and over again I become your servant
and never are you bowing to me
I don’t even get a thank you
I’m tired of preaching to the converted
when the converted aren’t even really listening
they’re snoring in the back rows while I
deliver my sermon and there’s not even air
conditioning in here and I’m sweating
I’m tired of coming to you and healing the sick
taking away the problems, over and over again
giving you something to look forward to
and all I have is an eternity of waiting for
someone to take my place and tend to my wounds
I’m tired of giving the earth up to you
watching the devil’s work be done, and you know,
he’s just sitting down there looking at me
and laughing, over and over again because it’s
so easy for him when he doesn’t have to work
I’m tired of being your salvation
over and over again you turn to me
and I have no one to turn to but myself
it’s a bitch, you know, being your own god
since no one can save me from me
I’m tired of being your teacher, handing you
what you need on a silver platter and waiting
for that damn collection plate and someone
is always stealing out of it from the back row
I know who you are, you who leave me nothing
I’m tired of wearing this crown of thorns
over and over again the needles prick my skin
and even gods bleed, at least this one does
and when I ask you to wipe the blood
out of my eyes, well, I can’t see you anywhere
I’m tired of being something for everybody
when everyone is nothing for me
maybe the devil has the right idea, you know
maybe I’ll sit back and wait for you to miss me
as you wonder who’s your messiah now
|
Listen: (3:48) to this recording from Fusion, which you can order any time from iTunes... |
Order this iTunes track
from the poetry audio CD
the DMJ Art Connection Disc 1
...Or order the entire CD
from iTunes:
or Listen to & download
this track from the DMJ Art Connection
|
Order this iTunes track
from the poetry audio CD
“Oh.” audio CD
...Or order
the entire CD set from iTunes:
|
Listen to the CD recording
of this, from the CD Change/Rearrange
|
|
Listen to the CD recording of this piece used with the performance art show Death Comes in Threes 03/18/03
|
Watch this YouTube video
from Death Comes In Threes, live 03/18/03 in Chicago
|
Watch half of the show video
from Death Comes In Threes, with this writing, via the Internet Archive (31:34)
|
Watch this YouTube video
(3:12) at the live Jesse Oaks live
“UNcorrect” feature 06/21/07
|
Order this iTunes track:
from the poetry audio CDetc.
...Or order the entire CD set
from iTunes
CD:
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Watch this YouTube video
read at at the open mic Poetry Express (at Priya Indian Cuisine) in Berkeley CA 09/14/09
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Watch this YouTube video
read at at the open mic Poetry Express (at Priya Indian Cuisine) in Berkeley CA 09/14/09
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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
of this poem read over video of her walking around a Serbian church and gravesite in Gurnee, Illinois 01/03/11
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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
(2:22, 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 Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God (from the book Get Your Buzz On) in Chicago 11/24/13 (C) at her feature Book Expo 2013 Chicago
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Watch this YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God (from the book Get Your Buzz On) in Chicago 11/24/13 (S) at her feature Book Expo 2013 Chicago
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See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading poetry from assorted books at the 2013 Chicago Book Expo (S) - WITH THIS POEM
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God (in the chapbook “Attacking with Poetry”) 4/27/14 (C) at Chicago’s 2014 Poetry Bomb (in Lincoln Square)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God Threshold (in the chapbook “Attacking with Poetry”) 4/27/14 (C) at Chicago’s 2014 Poetry Bomb (in Lincoln Square)
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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 her poem Being God at the Wormwood Poetry Collective in Chicago 3/10/15 (Canon Power Shot)
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God at the Wormwood Poetry Collective in Chicago 3/10/15 (Canon Power Shot, Posterize)
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See YouTube video (Nikon CoolPix S7000) of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Being God 12/20/15 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry
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See YouTube video 12/20/15 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems Being God, Looking For A Worthy Adversary, and True Happiness in the New Millennium at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (Nikon CoolPix S7000).
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See YouTube video 5/13/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems Violence There & Quibbling over Religion, and Being God at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s (from a Sony camera).
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See YouTube video 5/13/16 of Janet Kuypers reading her 2 new poems Violence There & Quibbling over Religion, and Being God at Georgetown’s Poetry Plus open mic at Cianfrani’s (from a Canon Power Shot camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” live 4/23/18 at the Austin Buzz Mill open mic (Panasonic Lumix T56).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” live 4/23/18 at the Austin Buzz Mill open mic (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, and then it was given a Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” live 4/23/18 at the Austin Buzz Mill open mic (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, and then it was given a Threshold filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” 4/23/18 at Austin’s Buzz Mill open mic (Panasonic Lumix 2500).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” live 4/23/18 at the Austin Buzz Mill open mic (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, and given an Edge Detection filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Being God”, then singing her poem/song “Made Any Difference” to John’s song with him on guitar, then reading her poem “Vent” live 4/23/18 at the Austin Buzz Mill open mic (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Posterize filter).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Hue Cycling filter).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera, with a Sepia Tone filter).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with an Edge Detection filter).
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See YouTube video 9/26/18 of the Janet Kuypers Chicago show “Life and Death and Everything Between” during Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret, where she read her poems “Only Choice is to Build”, “Marry you in Autumn”, “Violations tested”, “Echo in my Mind”, “I’m Thinking About Myself Too Much”, “erasure poem: ‘One of the Most Hated Women in America’”, “Build Your Own Cross”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Confounding”, “Only Half the Story”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear” (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera, with a Threshold filter).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Gary’s Blind Date” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, “Being God” from her “Lake County Poetry Bomb” show, and then her poem “Keep Driving” and her prose “Driving by His House” from her “My Soul in the Trunk of my Car” Evanston show, all from her book “Chapter 48 (v 1)” 12/15/18 @ “Recycled Reads” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Gary’s Blind Date” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, “Being God” from her “Lake County Poetry Bomb” show, and then her poem “Keep Driving” and her prose “Driving by His House” from her “My Soul in the Trunk of my Car” Evanston show, all from her book “Chapter 48 (v 1)” 12/15/18 @ “Recycled Reads” (from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ May 2019 Book Release Reading 5/1/19, where she read her Life and Death and everything between poems “Echo in my Mind”, “Erasure Poem: ‘One of the most Hated Women in America’”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Cofounding”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear”, all read from the cc&d September-December 2018 issue and chapbook collection book “This is Where I Live”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).
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See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ May 2019 Book Release Reading 5/1/19, where she read her Life and Death and everything between poems “Echo in my Mind”, “Erasure Poem: ‘One of the most Hated Women in America’”, “Being God”, “Evolving, Connecting and Cofounding”, and “Only Voice He Could Hear”, all read from the cc&d September-December 2018 issue and chapbook collection book “This is Where I Live”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).
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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), KOOP (91.7FM), 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 ISBN# ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, Prominent Tongue, 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# ISBN# hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry (with poems written for every element in the Periodic Table), a year long Journey, Bon Voyage! (a journal and photography book with select poems on travel as an American female vegetarian in India), 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 her 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). In 2018, Scars Publications released “Antarctica: Earth’s Final Frontier” and “Antarctica: Wildlife” (2 Janet Kuypers full-color photography books from the first passenger ship to Antarctica in 2017), performance art books “Chapter 48 (v1)” (2009-2011) and “Chapter 48 (v2)” (2011-2018), the v5 cc&d poetry collection book “On the Edge”, and the interview/journal/poetry book “In Depth”.
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