Poetry on a Stick Janet Kuypers 3/29/19 (written the day after National Something on a Stick Day, on twitter and Instagram and Tumblr) I’ve always said that everything is better when it’s on a stick. I mean, kids love ice cream bars on sticks at carnivals; the Republican Party even reveled in serving, during the Iowa caucuses, deep-fried sticks of butter on a stick — which supports my theory that everything really is better on a stick. And sure, you can put every food imaginable on a stick, and toys made on sticks or from sticks have been around forever. So why not poetry on a stick? You can find companies online like mad selling single phrases they call “poetry” on a stick... But get more creative, cut lines of a poem into one long stream and tape it to the end of a stick, wave it around like you’re doing an Olympic routine. Or etch poetry on sticks and leave them for others to find. Because if everything is better on a stick, it’s time poetry proved that’s true.

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her 2019 poems “Poetry on a Stick” (written for National Something on a Stick Day), “Queueing in Line and Shaping Your Life”, and “Unchecked Electricity”, live 5/18/19 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her 2019 poems “Poetry on a Stick” (written for National Something on a Stick Day), “Queueing in Line and Shaping Your Life”, and “Unchecked Electricity”, live 5/18/19 at Austin’s “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

April 30 In Search of America 1975 – Hitch hiking Tales John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller When I was young and foolish Broke and stubborn I hitchhiked across the USA Started in Salt Lake City Where my greyhound bus pass Was stolen The station manager Could have helped me But refused to do so Threaten to call the cops When I grabbed my bags Without the stolen tags I said Go ahead But I am so out of here Wondered about Salt Lake City Went to a bar Found I had to buy my booze Next door And they would mix it for me Had to order food too After a bloody Mary And a burger I walked about town Saw the Mormon Temple Finally about 3 pm It was time to hit the road Did not look back Ended up in Cody Wyoming Got a room shower Steak beer Using my rapidly depleted cash Spent 25 dollars Money really went far Back in those days A band of professional Communist agitators Gave me a ride To Des Moines Lots of weed, booze And politics later Got off the road Slept outside Next day A beautiful woman Drove me to near Chicago In a red mustang Might have been The girl in the song Took it easy Digging her vibe She invited home But was not sure If her estranged husband Would welcome me So, I am being foolish And inexperienced with women Did not go to her place And always regretted That I had lost My chance that day Then on to Chicago Several rides later Visited friends Hit the road again A series of uneventful rides With truckers And others And a week later I ended in New York City Slept along the way In cars In truck stops In high way rest stops Always moving Always going Non stop talking And lots of free weed And beer And conversation One more memorable ride Occurred outside Albany On my return to Chicago A middle age creepy looking man Picked me up In a brand-new Cadillac He was he said a dynamite deliverer For the Mafia Went to various places To blow up shit He hated a lot of people Particularly hippies from California And Jewish people Looking at me to confirm That I was both I told him that I lived in New York And had never been to California And although I might have looked Jewish As I what was called back in the day A “Jewfro” I was not Jewish Many years later I discovered That I am indeed part Jewish But then I did not know And I felt a bit of strategic information Might keep me alive Then I realized that he was just jiving with me And we relaxed And he pulled out some weed And beer And we mellowed out But I believe that he really was with the mob Perhaps not a dynamite dealer A real made Italian made mafia member By Chicago I had enough I called my Dad Told him what had happened Wanted a ticket home And he sent me a ticket And 500 dollars And I went home I told him I would tell him My tales some day But never did I learned so much About my fellow Americans And the strange vibe That was 1975 And now it is too late But I wanted to finally Tell the world Of my hitchhiking tales In search of America 1975

The Home of Hip-Hop Armine Zohrabian Eight AM. Any day of any week. Going 80 on the 210. Her fingers trying to find A song that she can relate. But all there is, is sex. Adolescent boys singing About their perceived powers, Girl’s booties, conquests and Their hollow egos. There are no more songs like, “Imagine” “I don’t Want to Miss A Thing”, Or “Crazy”. It’s a material world. World of bling bling and Bentleys Diamond crusted crosses On people who have forgotten The man who was crucified. Now there are more singers, songwriters Than anyone would care to know A few worth a dime Fewer yet worth remembering. We have arrived In her world Where the innocent is cast aside for being different.

Facing Breast Cancer Travis Green As I stood inside the doctor’s office replaying every stained square of sentences, I’m sorry to disclose this information to you, but it appears that you have stage one breast cancer, inside my mind, I could feel the troubled tears rolling down the side of my face towards a dying world, some place that I could not reach. I stared around at the closed space surrounding my sight, how the chairs and desk appeared to fade into each other, how the shadowy carpets and furniture seemed so dull and drowned, how the flashing lights became a slow unsettling lifeline, a lonely existence stunned under crimson seas. I walked towards the window and gazed outside at the various people passing by, a mother and son holding hands under the shimmering sky, a beautiful couple sitting on a bench watching the brilliant landscape. And these things began to make me cry a little harder. I could see the stretched and shuffled trees staring at the black hole in my heart, scraped brick and bones tingling half a dream, ancient ankles thinning in failure, the meaningless thought of it all, while I clenched my teeth, cry beyond cry, scabbed, stabbed, dragged, tumbling through stale surfaces. the grief was shifting me away from my existence, every memory sinking the yellow skin away from the navel, distorted truths swallowed, smoked, choked, impatiently shutting down in a river of strayed creations.

In the Deep Woods Travis Green I have brought my soul deep into the furthest woods unknown to mankind to feel the crushed chemistry rise and freeze inside my veins, misty physics thickening in layers across my hardened chest, sagging muscles slammed and rammed, straggly shoulders rolling in twisted kingdoms, smokey stained eyes drumming in slow songs, drenched with broken bottles and whiskey, poisoned, caged, a craggy stone shattering towards nothing, a solid white shadow spinning in pain, rotten to the core, between water and earth, sunken skies and drunken trees, raw and staggering, whirling without hesitation, a crazed rhythm reverberating in a moon of mangled nations, as my suntanned skin sifts in sloped and damaging angles, discarded, jumbled, unappreciated, stumbling in stiffened worlds. I gazed at the pond surrounding my broken body, how the blackened blue hues swirled in silence, how the frustrating sounds echoed in my ears, all inside my veins, squeezing and rumbling, growing too cold for my heart to sustain, the annoying brushstrokes of fallen dimensions breathing anger and pain in the sullied air, the way the bitter language stung my tongue in a sea of gasping drums, the grey fish swimming in sadness and despair, longing for escape and serenity, while I looked up towards the chilled clouds, inhaling the sharp diction falling in loneliness and confusion.

Innocence Travis Green Someday I will escape the broken days you stole away from my heart, the run-on sentences sifting down distant streets, cruel diction cracking inside my cheeks, how when I stood in a river of shadows upon your stained reflection embracing the voice of a drunken man diminishing my presence, anger eyes amplifying in chained syllables, burning lips leaving speechless words trapped inside featureless frame, twisted highs rising within my mind, brain drained, muscles flamed, oily fingers writhing in pain, falling rain beating outside my home on the rooftop, each exploding drop sinking inside my heart, the way his sharp tongue froze my flesh, crippled chests, tightened hips, loud thoughts banging beneath rotten liquor, the dark penetrating smell sparked in chaos, as I inhaled the chilly words, “You are never leaving this home! I own you! ” I could taste the sickening tears rolling down my face into shattered kingdoms that I could not erase. I could hear the wind howling at the moon outside my windowpane, the way fallen lovers scream at the scarlet skies, almost insane and disappearing. Those were the bitter memories buried inside my brain, crazy flashbacks confused and crashing, a wrinkled verb dripping stormy blues. Now I stare across the skyline at the silent dreams lingering in time, damaged designs stuck in space, smiling in disgrace, waiting to be cleansed from the pain.

Rain-washed Dreams Travis Green I emptied myself in a pool of slippery mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and dank lemonade to cleanse the rain-washed dreams of your existence from my deadened soul. I watched the last words from my drained eyes diminish under dimly lit gutters, low ceilings, all overcrowded and scorched, crusted cheekbones, cracked lips, cramped muscles locked inside a maze of alleyways, underground hips and ankles divided, lost in a sea of swelling contractions. I thought I could paint over the crimson landscape and feel the pain slowly expand and close into hollow holes, but my heart is crying drunken derivatives, metallic blue, splashing along the floor, dark and leaking, chilled and dying, a smeared depiction of crumbling continents crawling in collapsed rhythms, the way stripped trees compressed between falling leaves is more cold with little speech, gray and shifting, a smaller silence sinking, shuddering, a homeless heart creeping in stained shadows, becoming brick and board, unreadable, an abandoned scrap of plywood buried in a blanket of compounded fractions, damned, jammed, slammed, a crammed double negative closed for the last time.

Thanks For No Thing Sam Provenzano     One day I found the following ad on Craigslist:     Help needed- 70 year old man, flat tire, no spare, broke, hungry, out of work, no family, needs help. I have nothing to offer in exchange for a tire and a slice of bread. If this sounds like something you’d be willing to do, you can find me in my 1990 blue ford on citrus lane; just knock on the window if I’m asleep. Thank you and have a good day.     So, being the sort of fellow who is inclined to explore situations that might yield the unusual, I went to find the author of this notice, and here is my story.     I found the blue ford, which had a flat tire, and a very thin man with wispy gray hair sitting behind the steering wheel with his head leaning against the window. His hair, what there was of it, was long and unkempt, and he had a long white beard that went in all different directions. He was asleep, so I knocked on the window. He looked abruptly at me with intense green eyes. There was no discernable emotion in his eyes, only the look of a man who had come to a full stop, both literally and figuratively. He rolled down his window, and before I could speak, he handed me a piece of paper through the opened window. I took the paper and read it twice through. It read:     ‘Before you make any attempt to communicate with me, please be aware that I cannot hear or speak. I have not had anything to eat since Tuesday- it was now Saturday- and the police are telling me that I have until tomorrow to move my car or it will be impounded. If you are answering my ad and wish to offer me help, please bring me a cup of coffee and something to eat.’     I walked immediately to a corner coffee shop and ordered him a cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich. I walked back to where I had left him, and he was outside of his car, sitting on the front fender. He smiled as I approached. Without saying a word, I handed him the coffee and sandwich. He took them with little to no show of emotion. He took the wrapper off of the sandwich and took a bite of it then he opened the coffee and drank. I watched as he slowly ate and drank my offerings.     He looked at me as he finished the last of his coffee, and it appeared that something that had been missing from his eyes was now visible—hope?     I pointed to the flat tire, and he smiled. After investigating the trunk of his car and finding he had neither spare nor jack, I walked to my car and brought back a jack. He loosened the lugs on his flat tire while I placed the jack into position and jacked up his car. He removed the flat, and I placed it into the trunk of my car and brought it to a garage for repair. When I returned with the repaired tire, he handed me a gift-wrapped medium sized cardboard box. The gift wrapping said Happy Birthday on it. It felt light, like maybe it had only paper in it. I started to say something, and then remembered he couldn’t hear or speak. The box was taped shut, so I placed it on the ground and proceeded to place the repaired tire onto the drum. He knelt by my side and took over the chore, so I went back to the box and began to open it. The man was old, handicapped, homeless and destitute, so I figured whatever was in the box had to be of value only to him. He stood up and came to me before I could finish opening the box. He put his hand on my arm and motioned me to wait. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and wrote on a scrap of paper would I please not open the box until he had finished changing the tire. I was a little curious, but I motioned okay and I went back to his car with him. After we finished, he sat in his car and watched as I opened the box.     I removed the tape, opened the box and was somewhat surprised to find the box was empty except for an envelope. He was smiling as he watched me look into the box. I smiled back and closed the flaps on the box. I began to open the envelope as I walked back to my car. He blew his horn at me and when I looked back in his direction he waved goodbye, started his car and drove off.     I sat on the hood of my car and opened the envelope:     If you are opening this envelope, you’ve helped me more than words could express. Thank you. As stated in the craigslist ad, I don’t have any worldly possessions to offer you, so I’m hoping these few words based on my experience might benefit you in some way:     Greed hastens the death of spirit     Always strive to be where you are     Shun praise, as it deludes     Find comfort in silence, for therein lies truth     Give with your heart or not at all     Never question nor begrudge fate     Learn your nature and be true to it     Stay in tune with the rhythm of your being     A humble heart begets a grateful spirit

The Box Kyle Shultz     It was a normal day...or so it seemed.         I was renovating the house. Ripping tiles from the floor, replacing the sink and the cabinets as the hours went by. I was missing a few odds and ends and decided to run to the local hardware store. As the hours passed by, the day felt off; as if something was wrong. Couldn’t quite place it, but there was just that feeling, that intuition that something was off about that morning. The feeling slightly faded as I went on about my day. I finished grabbing the nails and screws I needed to finish my giant mess of a home and got in my truck and left.         As I pulled into my driveway I noticed a man in a suit in the distance, just standing there. I waved, he did nothing. “Creepy” I remember muttering under my breath. I step in the house and start working, several minutes go by then suddenly I heard a knock on the door. Soft thuds as if someone gently raised their hand and let gravity take control as their hand fell on the wooden door. I was several feet away and heard it through the commotion of my tools, by the time I got to the door the person was gone. All that was there was a box. Just a black box. No bigger than your typical shoebox.     I pick it up and sit down on the makeshift chair I have in my living room. I turn the box over trying to find an opening. Nothing. There’s no way to open this thing. No crease, no folds. Nothing. I get up and place it on the counter nearest to the kitchen and continue about my work. Hours go by and all I can hear is this noise inside the house.         “Dammit, what is that noise?” I remember saying. I remember hunting around the house trying to find the source of the sound. Each room I went it, the sound would dissipate or grow louder. I spent at least an hour looking and to no avail, I found nothing. I put earbuds in, thinking that would mute the sound. It did...for a second and it was back.         It was starting to drive me crazy. This sound would come and go. Now when I went to look for it, each room I entered the sound would stop. It would pick up in another room the minute I left that room I was just in like it was a game. Like this sound knew what it was doing. I go back to the room I was working on, put the earbuds back in, turn my MP3 on, I put another set of headphones on, some expensive noise canceling ones that I never use anymore, but they seem suitable now.         They seemed to work. Nothing but quiet. “Finally,” I remember saying with a heavy sigh. I continue work in the room for about two hours until suddenly the noise came back. No warning. It was just there, in my head like an annoying neighbor that doesn’t know when or how to mind their business. “Son of a bitch” I remember saying as I ripped the headphones off my head and the earbuds from my ears. I take my tools and I go room to room, tipping the carpet from the floor, tearing the drywall down. Nothing was out of touch for me. I was going to find the source of this sound.         It’s the following morning, I haven’t slept yet, I have the house stripped to the bare bones. You can practically look inside the house from the outside. I had an audience from the neighbors watching the show of me tearing my own house apart looking for this mysterious sound. Suddenly, I realize that not too long after I brought that box into the house, I started to go mad. I go back into the destroyed room where this started, I can’t find it.         I look under the rubble that is my kitchen just to find it, I know I look crazy now, but it has to be here & I have to open it. I know it’s there, but I can’t find it. Now I start to panic. First, the sound that haunts me and now I can’t find the box, the very thing that could’ve started this mess.         “Excuse me, sir?” I hear from behind me, it’s a cop and his partner. “What’s going on here?” he asks. “You don’t hear that?” I remember asking. The cop looks at his partner and looks back at me, “Hear what, sir?”. “WHAT?! The sound. QUIET!!! You’ll hear it.” As soon as I say that, the sound is gone. There’s nothing there. “OH, COME ON!!” I yelled. “Sir, you’re coming with us.” The cop moves closer to me, places handcuffs on me and they both proceed to move me to the cop car.         I look up and I see this man in a suit holding a black box, the very one I was looking for.         “LOOK!” I yelled. “There it is!!” The cops both look back and see nothing. “I’m not crazy!! LOOK it’s THERE!!” Now I’m in a white room with four corners and padding...though the sound is back. I look out the tiny crack of the door and I see that man in the suit, clutching the black box in his hands. He stares at me. All I can do is tremble. “It’s there” I mutter, under my breath. “It’s...he’s there.” I say softly, “Make it stop...what did I do?” The sound starts to become deafening and I cannot do a thing. I’m constricted to a straitjacket, my movement limited.         I lay there, succumbing to the sound and my own madness. I feel as if the world is closing in on me, as if I’m in the box and the Man in the Suit goes door-to-door collecting the madness of his victims. Maybe that is the point of his boxes, to collect the sanity of those around him as some sick trophy?

The Prophecy Lino A.K     “In this world, only a few women will remain with their first husbands till death do them apart.” My uncle told my mother. At that time I was only eight but I remember it very well. Not only the words come to me when I recall this. The cold December weather comes too and I shiver. You can say what you like but yes, I shiver. That northern Bahrelghazal winter rashes back with this memory, a winter without snowfall. Like anything else that uncle ever said, mama agreed with him on this one. I remember nothing more about the conversation but the eighteen words that uncle said that day and the only ones I remember have come to mean a lot to me. The words connected so well with what happened in the same family in which they were said. In a way, I have come to believe it was a prophecy.     In January of the following year, my aunt took me from our home in Makom village so I could live with her in Aweil town. I hated Aweil. The place was so noisy with calls for prayers by Muezzins. Aunt joked that she felt like walking into a mosque and kicking each of those bottoms tilted upwards in prayer. Of course that was a joke because she was a woman. Men actually kicked the buttocks of those Arabs, especially if they were in the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army. It was so boring in a way the five months I spent in Aweil felt like five good years, bad years I think. I looked forward to returning to Makom and when the day came, I was overjoyed. But the problem was, the joy was short lived. If I had actually known what awaited me in Makom, the calls for prayers would have sounded like some sort of rhythmic music.     When I arrived in my village of Makom, the first rains had just started falling and the grass was green. The goats and donkeys grazed on it. It was a beautiful sight to behold. Beautiful at least until I reached home to be embraced by a four months pregnant woman who was my mother. At first, I took it easy. Maybe father had returned from Khartoum and went back in my absence. But it was an empty consolation. Mama said father had not returned. I was eight but not stupid. I knew a lot of things; I knew that Baba and Mama had to sleep in the same room to make a baby. Older boys always joked, why do Baba and Mama sleep in the same room? and they always answered their own question, to make baby junior! To them it was a joke but to me, it was a precious piece of information. So I was learning, see. But when I saw Mama four months pregnant, I wished I hadn’t learnt anything. Seeing Mama that way sent shock waves into my heart. My heart felt like it was struck by a lighting bolt. I sweated and instantly knew that Baba and Mama would never ever sit down to tell me stories together by the fireplace. My family is ruined, I remember telling myself. The shock was so much that I now feel it would have killed me if I was an old man. Mama released me from her embrace and I was sweating amidst the cold evening breeze of Makom. The sun had yet to go down the horizon and yellow and white butterflies still flew about the green grass in the still uncultivated area of our garden. I used to chase butterflies but that evening, everything seemed dull. The butterflies looked dull and grotesque, like some unknown ghosts in disguise. I felt threatened. In fact even Mama looked like some ugly alien in those movies we used to watch at Paul Malong’s home. Uncle was nowhere to be seen.     “Mama, where’s uncle.” I asked. Mama smiled (I noticed she was faking it).     “He has gone back to Madhol to live with his parents,” she said     “But he was supposed to be here until Baba returned.”     “Old people change plans, Imma.” Mama said. I said nothing more but another channel of thought had been opened. Uncle Bol, Baba’s younger brother; would it be uncle Bol killing off our family? I did a double take. It was hilarious thinking about uncle doing that. But there was a possibility there, my young brain told me so. Then it came rushing to me, rushing like a waterfall in a mountainous area. I pictured the man who always came to Mama’s restaurant in Allah Kareem market. He always ate his food, paid for it and started bargaining with Mama on something I always missed. Mostly, I found him saying, “Adut please, please!” It was him! I told myself. That tall guy who lived on the other side of Makom swamp and had now relocated to Malualkhon. There was no doubt about it. I went into the house poured a good amount of tears, it always worked. After some minutes, I felt relieved and took a short walk to the neighborhood. Whoever saw me looked at me in a very funny manner. Some of my friends just laughed when they saw me.     Makom was a village and a small one. Apparently, everybody was aware of what had happened in Chol Deng’s house (Chol Deng is my father’s name). Such a thing was unheard of in Makom. Only girls got pregnant with no clarity of who was responsible. The incident therefore was a misfortune to the elders, a subject of gossip to the women and girls and a comical addition to the boys’ jokes. Even today in Makom if you tell a lady that she looks like Adut Aken, the lady will fight you and the village boys will only laugh. I turned around and walked homeward. I heard someone shout behind me,     “There goes the son of our village whore.” The words cut sharp into my heart, I sobbed. I did not see who uttered those words but I now think it was Malual Kuel because he repeated the same words sometime later. The phrase soon spread so that the next day when I went to play football at The Makom playground, the boys repeated it in unison. When I dribbled past someone, he would stand still and say out loud, “Why, the son of our village whore is playing so well today! “ They were saying the truth and truth pains. My muscles stiffened. My fists clenched themselves but I wouldn’t fight. It was like being beaten by your your parent. You get annoyed but don’t fight, at least if you have got your sense of reason. As I left the playground, Malual Kuel began to chant, he shouted, “Fat oh, fat belly eh! I wonder where the old man has gone. You could think he comes to swell the belly overnight and back to Khartoum.” Tears rolled down my cheeks uncontrollably but I didn’t feel relieved this time. My face just became hot as if some sort of fire had been lit there. At that moment, I realized Makom was no longer home. I didn’t return home as I didn’t want to look Mama in the face. I footed all the way to Aweil. When I arrived there, aunt did not ask me about why I had walked alone for miles. She just welcomed me. She knows, I remember thinking. I lived in Aweil, listening to the rhythmic music of ‘Allah Warkbar’ five times a day.     All was well save that sometimes I heard a distant chant while I slept in the dark room; “Fat belly oh, fat belly eh......”

Glazed Eyes Cristina Bresser     Watch the bear, watch the bear, mummy!     The naked toddler, body covered with sand, waves back at the cotton candy beach vendor, who is already dehydrated inside a yellow plush costume with a long snout.     The boy’s mother, embarrassed, turns around and pretends she can’t hear his son’s pledges. She tells her friend she can’t imagine how somebody can walk along the beach in such apparel, with all that heat. Her colleague adds: I wonder how smelly it is inside that garment. I would never, ever buy something from that guy. Oh my, it is gross!     The Bear man goes on waving to the kids at the beach. A baby girl with a pink hat on a trolley, screams. Her father beats the bizarre figure with his bare eyes.     A boy playing paddle tennis makes a sign to a friend and hits the ball hard in the head of the bear. The seller turns, the brat apologizes. The man walks, the two kids laugh.     The season hasn’t even started and the heat is over eighty six degrees. The outfit is heavy, and the only uncovered part of his body is the feet, on Havaianas. It should bring him some relief, if it weren’t for the scorching sand that invades the sandals, burning the sensitive skin inside the cracks of his heels.     The gringo, astonished by the number of vendors along the sand, turns to his Brazilian friend and asks what the heck it was, pointing to the man-bear. The host, tired of so much prejudice in such a fat body, does not respond.     One family sheltered in a big beach hut waves to the seller. He seizes the chance to stay, even for a little while, in the shade. He takes out the head of the costume and breathes openly while the children choose their candies. The boy picks up the cotton candy with a Spiderman mask. His little sister is in doubt between Frozen and Snow White. She can’t make up her mind and decides she is going to buy an ice cream later.     The older sister, a teenager, feels sorry for the man and gets a pink cotton candy with no mask on it. The beach hawker stares at her and sees a real princess. The father pays the man. He thanks them, put the plush head down again and points the muzzle ahead.     At the end of the day, he goes back to the candy distributor, returns the merchandise left, stores the shroud into a moldy closet and goes have dinner. The money made through the whole day barely pays a set meal of rice, beans, meat and salad.     On his way to the boarding house, he passes by a small building behind the waterfront block and sees the teenage princess of the beach. She puts moisturizer on her body, unrelated to anything other than the task of spreading the cream into each piece of that young, tanned skin.     The Bear-man climbs the construction next to the building, enters from the balcony and surprises the girl from behind, covering her mouth with his rough hand, muffling her cry for help. He penetrates the girl standing with renewed energy, many times, as if he hadn’t spent the entire day in that suffocating grotesque costume.     Joyful, he twists her neck back, violently. While exhaling for the last time, she stares at the beach hawker. The recognition is forever registered in those glazed eyes.

In Death I Dream of You Yet Christian Fennell     See me dying, withered and decaying between crisp white sheets. I wait for the prick of the needle—it comes, the warm reprieve taking me again.     I run. Dark and empty city streets. I stop, my heart pounding and resounding in my head, and I watch the thin pools of water gathered upon the road beginning to ripple. I look behind me, an immeasurable distance back to the birthplace of darkness itself.     I turn to run again and a two-headed dog with massive jaws that foam and drip sinks both sets of jaws deep into my face. We fall to the cobblestone surface, my faceless head lulling forward. The dog takes it, the heads fighting to enter my red dark hole. They hollow me out. They rip and consume the skin from my bones and they eat the bones so that all remains of me is a scull dripping in blood from a scalp that is nothing more than a few splotches of dark hair.     And now I see you, sitting at the end of our bed, wrapped in your heavy white bathrobe, your skin fresh and pink from a warm tub. And even with the stain of this life worn so heavy upon you, you are beautiful. Your blue eyes, long black hair, lips that crave red lipstick, still all shine, despite the fog that settles at the front of your brain, goes away, comes back and settles again.     I wake in the dark, the room silent and heavy with the smell of my pending death.     I open my eyes—where? I remember and close them again.     Together on the porch stairs we lean back, the sun warming on our faces, and we watch our four young children walking down our long, shaded driveway. They walk and talk and play and stop to see the horses come to the post and rail fence to see them off. The horses’ tails flicking at flies, the school bus honking and waiting.     We smoke and we talk and time passes in our words like a faint breeze across our world—a world that was ours for the making.      You wore faded and ripped jeans and a white tank top and we laid back flat against the warm porch boards and made love in the sunlight.     That night, you drank a bottle of red wine. You took another one with you, and you drove away. You drove down a dark country road. You drove onto an irrigated field of beans and you ran a jagged piece of green glass across your wrist. They said you wouldn’t make it. That’s what they said. But you did. You stayed.     And now the children are here, standing before me, so beautiful, still and quiet, their sad young eyes filled with such fear and uncertainty.     The needle comes and I go again.     You wake from a late morning nap and walk to the chair by the small side window and sit looking out at a cool autumn day without sun. You watch for a while, crisp red-brown leaves whirling and tumbling down the vacant road. You look at me, and I can see it, the very same as if it were an object you held in your hands before me. Your wellness has surrendered, betraying you again, our hopes held tight beneath warm sheets in the night—gone, fallen away again. A pain harbored in a darkness so utterly whole, you know it must come from somewhere beyond yourself. It must. How can it not? And it won’t be put off, not by doctors, not meds, not me, not you, not by the letting of your own blood. It will come.      You draw a warm tub and drink a glass of red wine. You lean your head back and cry, long and silent again. You put on your heavy white bathrobe and walk to our room and sit at the end of our bed.     I dream that I wake and see you there and you are beautiful.     We talk and we laugh, twenty years warmed by the sun breaking through the open window, and we stay like this—for a very long time. Somewhere in the house the kids yell and scream. One of us should go. Please, I hear myself saying, stay. The tears that come now are mine.      I wake and think back to that day not long after we moved to this little house in town. I wasn’t sick yet. I went down into the basement. I can’t remember why. I came back up, and you were gone. And it wasn’t like at the farm, there were too many places for you to go—too many side streets, dead-end streets, parks and strip malls.      They found you alone in the night parked behind an empty building. Gone. Empty bottles squeezed tight at your feet.     I wake, unaware I’ve been sleeping. I’m confused and unable to distinguish myself from the darkness. A warm touch upon my face. A whisper. In the guardianship of perfect silence, all shall be known.     Your eyes come, so blue and clear and there’s a breeze. Your long hair swaying. Your red lips before me, our feet are entwined, twisting and twirling in soft white sand on a vast empty beach I have never seen before. And we dance. A dance of time. All our moments spent.

Hotel Woman Corrina-Corinna     “Do we really need two beds?” Jade asked.     The decor of the room was quite dated with its dull paint and kitschy art. The two beds had matching cheap thin polyester comforters. There was a fruity smell from Fernando’s vape.     “It’s what I could get at short notice,” he said. “I hadn’t planned on coming down this way. Wasn’t my turn. Rich got hurt and Robert’s in Oklahoma. I volunteered.”     “You been volunteering a lot lately,” she said.     “The town is growing on me,” he said.     Fernando smiled a tight-lipped smile. He his shaven face pronounced his mouth with their full, protruding lips much like a frog. His glasses added to the frog image by enlarging his eyes.     “I got you a drink,” he said.     Fernando padded across the room. He pulled out a large can of ale from a convenience store plastic bag. Jade reached out for her drink and opened it with a grin. A familiar snap and pop came from Fernando. She took a long-drawn drink and let out a sigh at the end. A loud burp escaped her chest and bellowed from her mouth. Her eyes widen and cheeks pinkened. She managed a huge smile and a girlish giggle.     “It’s not bad manners, just good beer,” she said.     Fernando smiled his tight-lipped frog smile. He relaxed his posture and hunched his shoulders. He laid on the bed with his I-Pad in hand. He sucked his vape and fixated on Jade. She turned her position and stared back. She avoided his eyes, instead, she sorted the details of his tattoos. There was no rhyme or reason to them. The styles were all different, each with their own story to tell.     “How many tattoos do you have?” she asked.     “Not sure. Stop counting a while back,” he said.     “Never really looked at them ‘til now. Do they all mean something?”     “Some do. Some don’t.”     “Which was your first?”     Fernando pulled up the sleeve that covered his upper right arm. A naked red head with green eyes stared back at Jade in a sensual pose. She was not very well drawn and a bit faded.     “Got her when I was 15 after my first girlfriend broke my heart. Figured she would never leave me.”     “She got a name?”     “Jezebel.”     “Really?”     “Yeah, like in the song. Jezebel Eyes by the Dime Store Prophets.”     “What about the three sparrows?”     “My daughters. I have three.”     Jade nodded. Fernando’s left arm looked as if a five-year-old had drawn all over it. The words One love lay in bold face letters amidst all the doodles on his left arm. She sucked in her breath and took another very long drink from her can. She pointed at his arm.     “See, that is why I don’t mess around with married men anymore,” Jade said.     Fernando’s head snapped up with widen eyes. He swallowed before he opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out, not even the sound of hesitation. He sat up straight, his lips still parted allowing a glint of his teeth.     “Don’t worry I’m not referring to what we have. We’re not in that type of relationship. If that’s the kind of label you gonna put on our arrangement,” she said.     Fernando swallowed again and looked down at his I-Pad gliding his finger up as he sifted through his playlist. He stayed silent, as usual. Jade sat on the edge of the bed in the awkward silence. He pressed shuffle on his I-Pad and the song Hotel Woman filled the room.

Rail, photography by Kyle Hemmings

Williamsburg, NewYork, USA, photography by Olivier Schopfer

Alone Rhiannon Bird Lonely winds, busted windows steady breaths, the only sound Silent steps, flickering eyes sound of creaking, standing frozen Another creak, not alone slowing moving, creeping forward Heart beating, quietly hiding hands shaking, eyes shut tight Heavy steps, two sets of breaths can’t be found, too much at stake Hooded eyes, malicious grin scanning room, finding nothing Danger leaving, fear lingers cautiously crawling, no more threat No more risk, no more peril dissertated town, alone once more

Short Bio     Rhiannon Bird is a young aspiring author. She has a passion for words and storytelling. Rhiannon has her own quotes blog; Thoughts of a Writer. She has had a short story published on short break fiction.

Face-Punch Overpass K. Shawn Edgar     His flat snout—pinkish skin around the eyes, gums, and mouth—beams with potent energy. Meanness and cuteness equally combined, he possesses a familiarity, or kinship, informed by an inherited strain of caution, born in the distant wilderness from before domestication.     It’s the short, folded ears and long teeth grown for tearing. It’s the clear eyes that speak of a barely contained urge to chew. The white brute’s handler, an equally lean, wired monument to primal force restrained, has a causal, yet alert, connection to his pit bull’s leash.     Together, they dominate their three-square feet of sidewalk.     It’s cold outside Bremerton, and this is the HasBeans Coffee House. It’s under the Highway-16 overpass. It’s isolated. Out of the way. Never a hub of community wealth or urban rejuvenation; most traffic flies overhead at 75-mph without glimpsing its half-dead neon sign: For a Dollar, Mimi will Punch your Face.

Two Faced, art by Edward Michael O’Durr Supranowicz

Outside Caged Sky Thom Woodruff Ouside Caged Sky Space awaits.

The Secretary and the ABD Anita G. Gorman     I’m just the Sociology Department secretary, so what do I know? Well, as it turns out, I know a thing or two.     Claude H. Frackenburg was hired two years ago as an ABD. The department chair, Dr. Ernestine Goodenough, had a crush on Claude. At least that’s what I think. Not that I can tell that to anyone. I’m just the secretary. I could tell my friend Sadie over in English, but so what? Who cares? Well, I care, because I know that Claude is up to no good.     ABD, in case you’re wondering, means All But Dissertation. It sounds like doing the dissertation is no big deal, but let me tell you it is. Since I work here at Ashleyville College in the great but small town of Ashleyville, Ohio, I have met lots of people who were working on their dissertations. I’ve even done some of the typing for a few of them. Let me tell you, those dissertations are usually long and involved, to say nothing of unreadable. But the thing is, you don’t just throw it together in a weekend. In my opinion ABD should be changed to ABARLD, All But a Really Long Dissertation. Heck, it even makes an acronym. ABARLD.     OK, so Claude H. Frackenburg was hired on one condition: he had to complete his doctorate, meaning that pesky dissertation, in one year. That was two years ago.     I’ve been around long enough to know you can check these things out. I have access to all those databases at the Ashleyville College Library. You can look up stuff like who has written a dissertation lately. Well, not just written the thing; it also has to be approved and filed and accompanied by a really spiffy abstract so curious readers have some inkling of what it was about.     So when I have nothing much to do, I check stuff like that, and let me tell you, there is no Dr. Claude H. Frackenburg in the databases, no abstract written by our Claude. He remains, in fact, ABD, or ABARLD. I’m kind of proud of my new acronym.     But here’s the thing that really made me annoyed, that forced me to do something. Just a few weeks ago the fall semester began. Dr. Goodenough reminded me to remind all the Sociology faculty that they had to update their web pages with their syllabi and recent accomplishments and course policies and office hours. They were also to remove political statements. Dr. Goodenough tries really hard to be fair to everyone, and I think that’s good. Those political statements can get people into trouble.     I sprang into action and dutifully checked everyone’s web page. I got to Claude H. Frackenburg. There it was, at the top of the page: Claude H. Frackenburg, Ph.D. Below his name was a flowery description of our Claude’s recent work: “Dr. Frackenburg has done on-site investigations into the sociology of women’s hats of the 1930s and has researched with great thoroughness the implications of birth order among Alaskan youth.” I stopped reading. Dr. Frackenburg? When could Claude have become a doctor of anything?     Dr. Goodenough walked by and saw me frowning at the computer screen. “Everything OK, Melissa?”     I started at the sound of her voice. “Yes, Dr. Goodenough. I’m just going through the websites and taking notes. I see that a couple of faculty members didn’t list office hours for this semester, and one forgot to attach a syllabus.”     “Thanks for taking care of this. You know you’re the one who really runs this department.”     Dr. Goodenough was always complimenting me. But she wouldn’t be happy with me if she knew I was planning to expose her boyfriend. Boyfriend? I had no idea what these people did after hours, and I didn’t do any snooping in Ashleyville’s finest pubs. I did know, however, that our department chair liked Claude H. Frackenburg, ABD, ABARLD, and PPHD (Pretend PHD). What to do?     I decided to be indirect. CHF, as I had started to think of him in my own little mind, was committing fraud, or so it seemed, but I didn’t think calling the Ashleyville Police Department was my first move. No, he just needed to know that someone was on to him.     I decided to put a short letter in his mailbox, but I was afraid to do it with my office computer and my office printer. No, I did it at home with the shades drawn. I used a font I don’t normally use, not that I expected the APD to be checking my home office anytime soon.     This is what I said. I kept it short and not so sweet. “Mr. Frackenburg, you should not be referring to yourself as Dr. Frackenburg on your web page. Cease and desist right away, or Dr. Goodenough will be informed of your fraud.”     It was terse and to the point. Since I’m usually the first to arrive, I found it easy to place the letter in CHF’s mailbox. Then I waited.     Nothing happened. His web page still referred to Dr. Frackenburg. The next day I placed another letter in his mailbox. Here is what I said: “Mr. Frackenburg, you must stop calling yourself Dr. Stop it! Finish your dissertation asap if you want to continue working here.”     Later that afternoon I checked the webpage one more time. It was still there: Dr. Claude H. Frackenburg.     On the third morning I tried again. This time I was more direct: “Mr. Frackenburg, take that Dr. from your name or face the consequences.” But as I placed the letter in CHF’s mailbox, a booming voice said, “So it’s you, Melissa. You’re the one who’s trying to destroy me!”     I walked up to him and wagged my finger in front of his nose. “Listen, Mr. Frackenburg. . . .”     “It’s Professor Frackenburg to you!”     “Sure, Professor Frackenburg, but it’s not Dr. Frackenburg. Anyone who teaches here can be referred to as Professor, but only people who have successfully defended their dissertations can be called Doctor.”     “And how do you know I haven’t?”     “Because your name is not in the databases. I’m also wondering if you did papers on the sociology of women’s hats in the 1930s and birth order in Alaska. I’ll go check.”     He sat down in the chair reserved for visitors. It seemed appropriate somehow. “How humiliating. To be done in by a mere secretary.”     “What are you talking about, Claude?” Dr. Goodenough had arrived in the nick of time, as they say. I looked at Claude. He looked at me.     “Well? I’m waiting. What has Melissa done?”     Claude turned to Dr. Goodenough and attempted to give her one of his winning smiles.     “Well?” Dr. Goodenough wasn’t smiling.     “I put Dr. in front of my name on my webpage. Melissa discovered it.”     “Oh, then you defended your dissertation, Claude,” the chair said with a smile.     CHF looked at his shoes. “Well, not exactly.”     Dr. Goodenough frowned. “Then why put Dr. in front of your name on our website?” It was no longer his page, but our website. That didn’t sound good for the professor.     “I was hoping no one would notice. I can’t finish the dissertation. It’s just not in me.”     “And what about your other research?”     “What other research?”     “You’ve talked about your work with the sociology of women’s hats in the 1930s and birth order among Alaskan children.”     “Well, I made those up. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. They sounded rather preposterous.”     “Oh, you think those topics are preposterous? Just go to a sociology conference. That’ll show you preposterous.”     I got up from my desk. “Stay, Melissa,” Dr. Goodenough commanded. I sat down.     “Well, Claude, I was going to give you an extension for the dissertation, but if you’re not interested in finishing and your other research is non-existent, then I think you can clean out your desk.”     “But who will teach my classes?”     “I’ll do it. Melissa does most of the work of the department chair anyway. Oh, do bring me your textbooks. I’ll need to do a bit of review before showing up for class.”     I was pleased to hear that I did most of the chair’s work. But I don’t get even a fraction of her salary. That’s what my friend Sadie in English would call irony. What would she call what happened to Claude? Poetic justice.

Corporate, photography by J. Ray Paradiso

Good Writer, Bad Writer, A.D. 2151 Tom Ball     I had been told I was clever and that, “I had thrown it all away.” I just got drunk and chased women. I was sure I had a lot of good conversations, but I couldn’t remember them.     I was an identical twin. My twin brother drank in moderation and spent his days writing and had gotten kind of famous.     The next thing I knew I was 55 with jaundice and overweight. My twin brother was fit and trim. But then when we were both 55, my brother suddenly died of a massive heart attack.     This sobered me up and I began writing, not good things like my brother but rather horror stories. It is a world of horror I told everyone. But I couldn’t find a major publisher for my works.     Then one day I was 65 and I gave up on writing and turned into an all out alcoholic. I had a woman from Philippines, but no kids...     I felt like an alien in this world.     And I thought about the Devil. He accounted for my selfish behavior, my madness, my chaotic behavior, my anger against the publishing world. And my excessive drinking.     The dark side is mysterious and shadowy and deep. Real depth is to find yourself in a clever new situation. That’s the devil.     There were protesters who protested the 80@ tax, and there was no middle class. The Leaders were 12 in number and were rich beyond belief. But I didn’t care as I had enough to live.     The specter of death bothered me. I was clinging to life waiting for eternal youth to be discovered. I loved life more and more.

Killing the Clever Tom Ball     I said to her that people as clever as me were being eliminated by the ruling tyrants. They were doing irreparable damage to the human brain trust. I was in hiding, I told her, and most of my friends had disappeared. I told her, “I didn’t want to toe the line.” And they had put us all on tranquilizers, so we went along with our Leader’s dictates. The tranquilizers caused one to drool and be sleepy all the time. The spies didn’t care if we lived or died, we were just a nuisance to them.     They got into our minds with MRT (mind reading technology) and determined whether one was clever or not.     I said there is no new science as the powers that be forbid it and there is no good, deep art either.     I said geniuses had made all human achievements possible.     But now there were no more geniuses. The Leaders admitted to killing “The greedy and selfish who wouldn’t blend in.”     My test was tomorrow, and I knew I wouldn’t pass so I vowed to her that I would become an assassin.     But she squealed on me to the authorities but I was hiding across the street and so they launched a man hunt.     But I killed one of the testers and took an MRT machine.     I just needed to wear headphones and keep the machine within 6 m (18') of me, the range to read minds.     So, I snuck into the Leader’s palace and got in the Leader’s head through a wall. I controlled him and got him to do my bidding.     Finally, the Leader announced he was stepping down and was passing the leadership to new blood, me. But he said the new leader would not be seen in public and there would be no coronation ceremony. Then I killed him by turning up the power and literally blowing his mind.     But everyone was out to get me. I was paranoid.     So, I never appeared in public, just on TV.     I lived deep underground, 14 km down where I was safe from assassins.     I had a loyal group of 35 bodyguards and I ruled from the comfort of my living room.     Finally, there was war and 99@ of the people were killed. I had a dozen wives who had each 250 incubator children a year and so populated a new city of relatively clever youth.

The Drugs Were Too Good Tom Ball     I told them to get off the drugs but 99.99@ were on them. There were no hospitals to help them get off the drugs, so I set up a rehab center but few managed to kick the drugs.     We called the drugs “lotus” and most people just lay around all day enjoying the drugs.     I tried to tell them that, “Life was not a joke,” but my sayings fell on deaf ears.     Everyone seemed to be content and even very happy. The suicide rate was only 1@ per annum. Nobody did anything that wasn’t pleasurable.     All drugs had been legal as far as anyone could remember at least.     Clowns and jokers were everywhere and just carried on, laughing with the drugs. Actually, there were drugs for all possible mood combinations. There were more than 10,000 drug combos. And each had their own delicious taste. Different regions had their own specialties and so some people toured the world.     This, with a population of 100 million on this planet.     Everyone had their senses enhanced for more ecstasy. You could go through 100 enhancements over 100 years. But the 100-year-olds were often sick of this world and often died finally in a happy wake.     And people would record their dreams on the various drugs and would trade dreams with others. The best dreamers were in demand and people enjoyed the Masters’ dreams.     No need to eat, the drugs were all nutritious.     Those who were older would all shake all the time from the drugs. Some tried to be graceful and danced while shaking. Most people would overdose frequently and often died. But nobody cared.     I said, “Life is infinitely deep for cleverer people than they and I asked them why not try to be cleverer?”     It was hopeless so finally I opted to go into space, which was very dangerous. But most people in space were also lotus eaters and were so easygoing and carefree.     I wondered why I was different.     And I had been brought up to believe that love existed, but I couldn’t seem to find it. The only women that would have anything to do with me were prostitutes. I convinced them to have sex with me the old-fashioned way and have old-fashioned babies.     In space I raised my children to believe they were special, and that love was their destiny.     I told them that space was for the taking.     I taught them using ancient computers that weren’t used any more.     And I just walked into the leadership that no one wanted, and I gave the people Virtual Reality and video games.     And machines created art such as music and movies to entertain the people.     But then there was a man who said he was the “New God.” And he would bring love to the people. I sussed him out; he was a charlatan. And I had him killed. People suspected I was behind the killing, but no one was saying anything.     And one day after perusing through the ancient computers I discovered the formula for eternal youth. I announced it to everyone but only 10@ signed up for it, believing that life should be short.     Only 1@ of the populace was able to get off the drugs and live immortally.     I was now 130 years young and I said I still loved sex and alcohol. It was how I got my kicks.

My Kind Of Town Doug Hawley     “How are you doing Dimebag?”     The clown expanded to twice his size and says in a James Earl Jones voice “I told you to call me Pennywhistle”.     “Sorry Pennywhistle, I’ll try to remember.”     “That’s quite the trick, mayor. I guess that it’s some clown secret how he changes like that.”     “There’s even more to the story. There’s an urban legend that he shows up at 25 year intervals and leads kids into the sewers never to be seen again. There’s a bunch of teens that believe it and are trying to stop him. As if any of the stories were true. But there have been a lot of missing.” The mayor’s voice stopped suddenly and he looked momentarily concerned, but then brightened again.     “Dick, I travel a lot. How easy is it to travel from Rock Castle?”     “I’ve got some bad news there. The Bangor Airport disappears at random times and flights have to be rerouted to Boston. Quantum physicists have some crazy explanation, but I don’t understand it. Of course there was that time that we were trapped in an enclosure for a while with no way out. You probably heard about that.”     “Right. I think that the Simpson’s did an episode based on your experience. Didn’t somebody write ‘The Dumb’ about it?”     “I got to tell you that neither version flattered us much, but ‘The Dumb’ was a lot more accurate.”     “How about the school system?”     “More problems. The Prom Queen from a few years back, Sissy Spacey, went crazy when somebody shot her with rapid fire paintballs as she was crowned. She turned on all of the faucets and hoses telekinetically and flooded the place. Hoo-wee, the students all looked like drowned rats. The building was ruined and every time we tried to rebuild, the new place is flooded. We gave up and bus everybody to the next county over. I think that she got that way from her crazy religious mother. But, and this is a secret, her mother wasn’t as prudish as she claimed. I’m Sissy’s dad.”     “Isn’t Sissy governor now?”     “Yeah, it is almost as if she has mind control. She turned all the police into plumbers and all of the plumbers into police, and yet she always gets elected with 90% of the vote.”     “How about parks?”     “We were going to develop the Cockknocker property into a park, but it turned out that anybody that went there turned green and went crazy. They are politicians and mass marketers now. Something about a buried alien spaceship. One good thing about the radiation from the property is that nobody can use a cell phone here, so we missed the mass murders caused by faulty cell phones.”     “What do people do around here?”     “There used to be a big military base, but since their experiment unleashed monsters from another dimension, they’ve been shut down. At least that’s what we’ve been told. There was a laundry, but one of their machines went crazy and killed a bunch of people. The biggest store is “Things You Need”. Great bargains, but something always seems to go wrong with the sales. Other than that, it is mostly an artist colony, mainly writers.”     “Well Mayor, the place sounds perfect for me.”     “I’m sure that you will enjoy it Mr. King.”

Spit 2, photography by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

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

Seven Shamar English     I look deep into the mirror and see someone who looks exactly like me looking back at me. I don’t recognize that person. This person is a vessel for lust, so he subsides it with a plethora of masturbation, and pornography. It makes him feel filthier than dirty laundry.     This person is envious. He roots for the failure of others around him. He knows it’s wrong, but he can’t help himself. Old habits die hard especially when you’re caught in a storm of madness.     This person is a prisoner to the confinements of his own wrath, he drifts through life being passive aggressive. He wears bliss on his exterior and holds aversion in his interior. He drifts in misery and discontent because it is inescapable.     This person is a gluttony. He eats like he has no bottom. He eats with stomachaches. He eats like there’s no tomorrow. He eats so no one else can quell their starvation. It’s one of the foulest abuses to convey upon his intestines and others.     He is a sloth. He is sloth. He doesn’t work, hibernates in the winter, fall, spring, and summer. The avoidances of living his life is his weakness. He’s invigorating, but always sleeping. The laziness is stitching into his spine.     This person is drowning in the swamp of his pride. He rejects the avenues of helping hands. He rejects a generation of quality wisdom. He’s the greatest, his versatility extends to every activity. He murmurs it to himself every second. A schism exists between him and his heart, brain, and conscience.     This person is avaricious. He’s greedy, but dirt poor. He still lives with his mother, spends the little bit of currency he has on clothes, shoes, electronics, and video games. He leaves her to pay all of the bills on her own and she’s on a fixed income. Like I said, this person in the mirror staring back at me looks like me, but it isn’t me. I don’t know who this person is wearing my face.

About Shamar English     Shamar English is originally from Santa Barbara, California, but he lives in Douglasville, Georgia. He has an Associate of Arts Degree in film from Georgia State University. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree at Georgia State University. He has pieces published in literallystories2014, Better than Starbuck, the writing disorder, the mystic blue review, eskimopie.net, not your mother’s breast milk, Susan/The Journal, Litro Magazine, Terror House magazine, Bull & Cross, Stinkwaves magazine, and The Stay Project.

mirror Janet Kuypers haiku 2/17/14 I look and see all that you’ve affected. The world, this house. The mirror.

Visit the Kuypers Twitter page for short poems— join http://twitter.com/janetkuypers.

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her haiku mirror live 9/27/14 on Chicago’s WZRD 88.3 FM radio (Canon)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her haiku mirror live 9/27/14 on Chicago’s WZRD 88.3 FM radio (Sony)

See YouTube video 9/27/14 of Janet Kuypers on Chicago’s WZRD 88.3 FM radio performing many poems, including this one (Canon)

Download this poem in the free chapbook “6 Second Poems”, w/ poems read on 9/27/14 WZRD 88.3 FM radio

See a Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her twitter-length haiku mirror as a looping JKPoetryVine video live live on WZRD Chicago radio 9/27/14 (Canon fs200)

See a Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her twitter-length haiku mirror as a looping JKPoetryVine video live live on WZRD Chicago radio 9/27/14 (Sony)

See a Vine video of Janet Kuypers reading her twitter-length haiku mirror from Scars’ Down in the Dirt ISBN Book the Relic, the Effort, the Yell as a looping JKPoetryVine video 10/15/16 (from a Samsung at B.B. Rover’s in Austin TX)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix 2500).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers 12/17/17 reading every poem in her “100 Haikus” book reading at the AIPF booth / 2017 Awesmic City Expo, including much, out, can’t get you, of his thirst, know, pleading, coincidence?, found haiku, close, defenses, destroy, floor, hold, forever, jumped, study, Even with no Wish Bone, addiction, stagger, everyone, last, bruised, organs, choke, ends, explosions, fit, fought, heaviness, extinct, feel, escape, opening, pant, strike, civil, found, need, kill, kindness, run, pet, John’s Mind, humans, mirror, elusive, keep, greatest, instead, Arsenic and Syphilis, life (Periodic Table haiku), life (2000), timing, Two Not Mute Haikus, He’s An Escapist, Ending a Relationship, nightmares, knife, free, years, groove, errors, job, jobless, out there, gone, console, form, knowing, oil, cage, evil, faith, guide, behind, sort, barbed, difference, predator, blood, easy, existence, judge, fog, upturn, Translation (2014 haiku), sting, enemies, Deity Discipline (stretched haiku), Ants and Crosses, energy, knees, force, you, this is only a test, misogyny, ourselves, key, scorches (Lumix T56).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ November 2018 Book Release Reading 11/7/18, reading her “WZRD” poems “civil”, “mirror”, “instead”, “need”, “eight people outside”, “floor”, “of his thirst”, “hold”, “fought”, “strike”, “console”, “relegated”, “extinct”, and “couldn’t”, all from ther 2014-2015 Chicago poetry book “a year long Journey”, during Community Poetry at Half Price Books (PL2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ November 2018 Book Release Reading 11/7/18, reading her “WZRD” poems “civil”, “mirror”, “instead”, “need”, “eight people outside”, “floor”, “of his thirst”, “hold”, “fought”, “strike”, “console”, “relegated”, “extinct”, and “couldn’t”, all from her 2014-2015 Chicago poetry book “a year long Journey”, during Community Poetry at Half Price Books (PL2500; Polarize).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ November 2018 Book Release Reading 11/7/18, reading her “WZRD” poems “civil”, “mirror”, “instead”, “need”, “eight people outside”, “floor”, “of his thirst”, “hold”, “fought”, “strike”, “console”, “relegated”, “extinct”, “couldn’t”, “ruminating”, “barbed”, “gone”, “out there”, “knife”, “pet”, “kindness”, “found”, “pleading”, “only”, “humans”, “stagger”, “At the Camp”, “Suicide (heat) Poem”, and “sting”, all from the Janet Kuypers 2014-2015 Chicago poetry performance art book “a year long Journey”, during Community Poetry at Half Price Books (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ November 2018 Book Release Reading 11/7/18, reading her “WZRD” poems “civil”, “mirror”, “instead”, “need”, “eight people outside”, “floor”, “of his thirst”, “hold”, “fought”, “strike”, “console”, “relegated”, “extinct”, “couldn’t”, “ruminating”, “barbed”, “gone”, “out there”, “knife”, “pet”, “kindness”, “found”, “pleading”, “only”, “humans”, “stagger”, “At the Camp”, “Suicide (heat) Poem”, and “sting”, all from the Janet Kuypers 2014-2015 Chicago poetry performance art book “a year long Journey”, during Community Poetry at Half Price Books (video filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Sepia Tone).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

Fascination Sharon Frame Gay     Nan and I sit at the kitchen table. Sunlight streams in through the window, etching the lines on her face. She pours coffee, cradles the cup in her hands and weeps.     “He’s leaving me.” Nan tells me.     “Oh God, no,” I say. “What the hell?”     Nan reaches for a doughnut, takes a bite, slides it on to a plate. She holds one up for me. I shake my head.     “He told me two days ago. Walked in the door after work, said we had to talk. After the kids went to bed, he told me he was moving out. Wants a divorce. Said he made up his mind. Just like that, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t even have a say in it. Poof.” Nan explodes her fingers apart like a bomb detonating. She looks at me, deep circles under her eyes, shoulders slumped.     I rock my head from side to side. “The bastard.”     Nan is my best friend. My heart hurts watching her crumble. I take a sip of coffee. Bitter runs down my throat.     “It gets worse, Beth.” She sets her cup on the table, hard. “There’s someone else.”     “Tell me.”     “He told me he’s in love with her. They’ll start a new life together. Leave the area, begin again.”     Now she gives in to sobs, slides her chair back, paces about the kitchen.     “He doesn’t even care about the kids! He’ll leave them, too!”     “Nan, what the hell are you going to do?” I follow her around as she wipes the counter, the stove top, rattles a pan, flops back on the chair.     Nan stares out the window. She clutches at the edge of the table as though it’s a life raft.     “I’ll move back home with Mom and Dad for a while.”     I nod. That makes sense. Her family is well off. They own a house big enough for Nan and the kids. They live in a small city in Iowa, a town where crickets sing at night. One traffic light. A place to heal. I feel better, knowing her parents will surround her with love and protection from the coming storm.     “You can start again too, you know,” I tell her, struggling to sound optimistic.     Nan reaches for another doughnut, takes swift, angry bites. There’s powdered sugar around her lips, a clown mouth. I wonder if I should tell her. I decide to let it go.     “Yeah, sure,” she says “ Crap, look at me! I never lost the baby weight from having the kids. I’m a mess. Nobody told me I had competition.”     My mouth tightens with pity. I have seen Nan naked. We go to the gym together, spent hours in her swimming pool, swapped clothes in dressing rooms. Her belly sags, stretch marks marching across her abdomen like a picket fence. The babies sucked all the perkiness from her breasts. I have been the recipient of clothes she has outgrown. So many things that once belonged to her don’t fit anymore.     She bows her head. Silver strands are laced in among brown ones. On the wall is their wedding picture. Even then there was a hint of sadness in her smile as if betrayal was baked into the crumbs of the cake as she lifts a piece to his mouth.     “He’s going to walk out of my life, Beth. Just like that.”     I reach over, smooth her hair. “No, Honey. I’m sure he’ll do right by you and the kids. And maybe things will work out, “ I say, thinking it never will.     “That’s what he did to his first wife. Said goodbye and waltzed away. Shut the door. KaBoom.” Again, the exploding fingers. Nan wipes tears from her face, smearing the powdered sugar in a slash across her chin. “I guess I deserve this. After all, I was once the other woman myself.”     My cup rattles as I set it down.     “What?” is all I can say, jarred, confused. “He was married before? You never told me.”     She shrugs. “We didn’t want anybody to know. I’m sorry I never told you, but we aren’t proud of it. We wanted a fresh start.”     I stand, walk around the table, wrap Nan in my arms.     “I have to go home.” I hold her a little tighter. “I’m here for you. Know that. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”     She nods, lifts her face to mine.     “You know what really hurts?” Nan smoothes her wrinkled robe, fidgets with the button. Yesterday’s oatmeal crusts the corner of her sleeve. She looks older, defeated.     “He told me she is ‘fascinating’. He finds her so damned fascinating.” Nan winces, words that pierce her heart. In a broken voice she whispers, “That’s what he used to say about me.”     I am swollen with anger and righteousness. “That’s just cruel. So disrespectful. Why did he say something shitty like that?”     She bursts into harsh sobs, throws her cup across the room. It shatters in a hundred pieces, coffee flooding the tile, a tsunami of despair. I try to help, slice my finger on a shard. Blood spatters on her robe, the floor, swirls with the coffee in patterns. She wraps my hand in a kitchen towel.     “I’m so sorry” I whisper, eyes filled with tears.      Nan and I sit on the floor in silence as the coffee laps at the hem of her pajama bottoms and cry together. There are no words.     We mop it all up, then I walk home. Dinner will be late. I open the door and walk past the hallway mirror, willing myself not to look, a stranger in my own house. #     It’s past midnight, we’re in bed. Spent from lovemaking, my limbs are soft and yielding. Nipples still taut from his mouth, my chest flushed and rosy. I move over, yank the sheet up to my neck, stare at the wall.      Luke lights a joint, takes a drag, passes it. I put it in my mouth, taste him, inhale, blow out with a sigh.     “What’s wrong with you tonight?” he asks, stroking my thigh with his fingertips. We smell like one another, his sweat, my desire. It blends and tracks along the sheets.     Peering up at him, I take another drag on the joint, hand it back roughly, almost burning his outstretched fingers. I don’t want it anymore.     I glance around the room, see the moving cartons in the corner. Take a breath.     “Well, for starters,” I say, “Why the hell did you tell her I was fascinating?”

About Sharon Frame Gay     Sharon Frame Gay grew up a child of the highway, playing by the side of the road. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines around the world, including Typehouse, Gravel, Fiction on the Web, Literally Stories, Lowestoft Chronicle, Thrice Fiction, Literary Orphans, Crannog Magazine, Chicken Soup For The Soul and others. Her work has won prizes at Women on Writing, The Writing District and Owl Hollow Press. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. You can find her on Amazon Author Central as well as Facebook as Sharon Frame Gay-Writer. Twitter: sharonframegay

Temporary Duty Mike Schneider     No. 30 walked into the break room, drew a cup of coffee, sat down across the table from the room’s only other occupant.     “How’s it going 45, where’s the Old Man sending you this week?”     “Manila to cover a tsunami. I’m getting tired of these natural disasters. Too much work, too few troops.”     “Too few is right. I had six capsized boatloads of Syrian refugees in the Mediterranean to contend with in one night, by myself, a couple weeks ago. I forget the exact number of drownings but the boats were grossly overloaded and only a half dozen survived. I’m hoping for something a little easier this week.”     “Like what?”     “Maybe the California wildfires, just a handful of people cashing out there, 20, perhaps 30, and generally well spaced. Important but not nearly as sad. They’ve had much better lives than those dodging bullets and living in the rat-infested rubble of the Syrian Civil War.”     They were silent for a few minutes, 45 chewing on a chocolate doughnut from a box of Krispy-Kremes in the middle of the table, 30 looking off into the corner rather plaintively.     “What you thinking about?” 45 asked.     “About how much easier it was when the complement was still 5000. We were busy but we could get it done with relative ease. The Old Man cuts staffing by 60 percent and now it’s nearly impossible.”     They stopped talking for a few more minutes while 45 enjoyed a second doughnut, glazed this time, and 30 fiddled with his cell phone.     “Forty-five, what’s the worst case you’ve ever been assigned?”     “I don’t know. The Titanic wasn’t the worst in terms of fatalities but it stands out as one of the most tragic. Fifteen hundred people died for nothing. It wasn’t in the original plan, then the Old Man got a wild hair up the ass and ‘Boom!’ iceberg.”     “Yeah, that wasn’t good. How many more years do you have on this detail?”     “Only one hundred and three. You?”     “A hundred and five.”     “I don’t know about you but half a millennium on this assignment is way more than enough for me.”     “Same here buddy. It’s going to feel so good getting back to being just a regular angel again.”

The Editor Natalie N. Aydin     It was 8 a.m. I had to have this entire 300-page book manuscript edited by 5 p.m., and I was already starting to feel the pressure build. Getting it done on time would be somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory though, since I’d probably be absolutely exhausted by the end of it all. But I had to finish this—my job was on the line and I had to get started.     But first—I made some coffee. Coffee was my ambrosia, you could say—my elixir of immortality. I brought a cup over to my desk and sat down gingerly, looking out the windows that vaulted toward the ceiling in my small but cozy apartment. I stared outside at the gargoyles that guarded the building across the street, projecting out from the gutters. Meanwhile, in the streets below, I could hear the hustle and bustle of New York City traffic crowding Broadway on the entire Upper West Side of Manhattan.     So I opened the manuscript to page one. Already, I could tell this was going to be a colossal headache. Just by skimming the page, I could already pick out punctuation errors aplenty out of the corner of my eye. Out of pure curiosity, I turned to page two—and saw more of the same. I got on the phone with the literary agent.     “This is riddled with mistakes. I can’t edit 300 pages of junk.”     “It’s a great story, though.”     “I don’t care if it is The Odyssey incarnate, I can’t do this.”     “You mean you can’t, or you won’t?” There was silence on my end.     “This is close to impossible.”     “You said you could get it done in one business day.”     “Yes, I said I could get it done. But I was presuming the writer knew the basic functions of mechanics.” I treaded carefully here, though—this editing job was worth a thousand bucks, and my rent was almost due.     “So can you get it done or can’t you?” I bit my bottom lip.     “Yeah, I’ll do it. Ugh!”     “Thanks, Rebekah. You rock.”     “Oh yeah...sure. Have a good day, Charity.” I hung up the phone, somewhat nonplussed. This day was going to be epically difficult. But I knew I couldn’t do this alone. Thank goodness I had an extra copy of the manuscript. A call was placed.     “Hi...can I speak with Graham Tulane, please?”     “I’m sorry, he’s out of the office right now.” I tried to be cordial without sounding too bossy, which was a tall order for me.     “Well, do you know when he’ll be back? This is pretty urgent.”     “Let me see what I can do. Can you please hold?”     “Um...yeah, that’s fine.” And...thus commenced the annoying elevator music that plays whenever someone is put on hold. Then again, this wasn’t too bad as elevator music went. It was the Kreutzer Sonata by Beethoven—classy!     My cat jumped up on my desk, and I was trying to keep him away from my coffee. While I had my phone in between my cheek and my shoulder, I moved the two copies of the manuscript to the island in the kitchen. Then I was taken off hold.     “Hello?”     “Graham! How are you?”     “I’m well, Rebekah...thanks for asking. I suppose the more important question might be, ‘How are you?’ Usually when you call me, it’s serious. So what’s up?”     “Graham, I know this is a huge favor to ask...”     “Ask away.”     “Okay, well—I have a 300-page manuscript that I have to have proofread by 5 p.m. today. And, I’m freaking out because it looks like the book is loaded with errors. I could tell the punctuation was atrocious from the get-go. But, rifling through the rest of the pages, here—it looks like grammar, semantics, and syntax are all going to be issues as well. Like, there’s a comma splice in the second sentence of the first page already, and I am losing my mind—losing it!” I tried not to sound hysterical, but my cat looked up at me and then got down off the desk and left the room to go hide in my bedroom. This was not good.     “I have an idea, Rebekah. Why don’t we have lunch at Ollie’s on 114th Street and you can show me the manuscript?”     “No way, we can’t do that—no time for lunch. This is crunch time, Graham. I have to have this completely edited in like...seven hours.”     “Do you want to meet up at the library?”     “Can you come over? Normally, I would never call you like this, and I know it’s a big ask, but—”     “I’ll be right over, okay. I just have to catch the 1 train to 79th and Broadway.”     “Oh, man—you’re awesome. I hope you can hear me smiling over the phone.”     “I sure can. Just one thing...do you have coffee?”     “For sure! You know I do. Always...” I grinned, barely able to contain my excitement.     “Super! See you in a few, okay?”     “Okay, Graham. Bye.”     After hanging up, I fidgeted in the apartment trying to tidy up my living space a bit. I folded the afghan on my little couch, fixed the pillows, dusted the furniture, did the dishes, mopped the kitchen, cleaned the windows, and took the trash out. I couldn’t believe Graham was coming over. He was one of the associate editors at The Paris Review, and he was taking time out of his busy day to see me. We had been friends for years since having been English majors in undergrad at Columbia University. I guess there was perhaps a little chemistry there, but I tried to put it out of my mind while getting my apartment suitable for company. Before I knew it, it was time to buzz him into the building and he was on my doorstep straightaway. I opened the door.     There he was in all his charming handsomeness. I wasn’t quite sure what to say at first. Graham gave me a hug and picked me up a little bit till I was on my tippy-toes.     “Hey there, Mister! How are you doing?”     “Who, me? Oh, I’m fine, you know,” he said, trying to be coy.     “How did you get out of the office?”     “I told my secretary I’d be out of the office for the rest of the day. You’re more important.” He smiled. “So where is this book manuscript of which you speak?”     I went over to the island and picked up a copy.     “Here.” I put it in his hands. Graham quickly made short work of it, rifling through pages like nobody’s business.     “Oh my. Am I seeing this right?” He put his reading glasses on for more in-depth scrutiny, perching them on the edge of his nose. “Wow, Rebekah...you have some real work on your plate, here.”     “I know. I took the job because I need the money, but this seems like a Herculean task to me. Can you blame me, though?”     “Yeah. I understand.” He paused. “Well, let me ask you this. What if we split this up 50-50. You edit half...I’ll edit half. We can get it done by 5 o’clock, easy.”     “You think so?”     “I know so.”     “I’ll give you half the fee...” I trailed off.     “No, it’s okay. You keep it. Consider it an early birthday present.”     “You’re a real gem, you know that?”     “Aw...shucks. Thanks, Rebekah. You’re sweet.”     “Here’s your coffee, by the way...”     “Wow, that’s great...thank you! Well, look...why don’t we get started?”     “Do you want to take the first half and I’ll take the second half?”     “It sounds like a plan to me.”     So we edited together all day. We stopped to take a brief break for lunch.     I made us some tuna sandwiches with watercress. We also drank more coffee and had some pistachio ice cream to cleanse our palates.     Four o’clock arrived. We each only had a few pages left to proofread. We hunkered down at our respective command centers—Graham perched on the couch with Mr. Whiskers, and myself at my cedar desk near the windows. We edited furiously. By the time 4:45 p.m. rolled around, I was sealing the galley manuscripts in a manila envelope and handing it off to the courier. I turned to Graham, thankful for all the help he’d given me.     “Well, Ms. Falls...it seems we got a lot accomplished here today.”     “Thanks, Graham...I couldn’t have done it without you.” He got close to me before he got ready to leave out the door.     “Hey, um...I was wondering...”     “Yes, Sir! What is it?” I asked, curious.     “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner on Saturday evening?”     “I would love to,” I said.     “Great. Well, I should go...”     “Graham.”     “Yeah?” he asked, turning back around to face me.     “You’re swell.”     “Well, you’re pretty awesome yourself,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.     After he left, I did a little happy dance, smiling at the gargoyles on top of the building across the street.

keyboard Janet Kuypers Instagram haiku, 11/9/18 my hands, my fingers, slammed against the keyboard to make the world better

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

Story at a Campfire Kyle Shultz     A fire crackles softly in the night. Howls of animals in the distance. Wind slightly breezes through the area.     “Perfect night for camping,” a rough voice says to himself as he pokes at the fire. The man with the rough voice leans back and takes in the scenery & sound of the nature surrounding him. The sound of crunching leaves approaches the campsite, startling the man with the rough voice.     “Who’s there?!” the rough voice calls out as he reaches for his gun. The sound of leaves crunches once more, the man points his gun towards the direction the sound originates from. “I’m only going to ask this once more. Who is there?” the man says as he cocks his rifle back, taking a position, ready to fire.     “WHOA!! WHOA!! I’m not going to harm you!! I’m friendly!!” a voice in the distance trembles as words escape its mouth. “Mind if I warm my bones? I’ve been walking a while and I’m injured.”     “Sorry, I’m not used to the company but sure, you can rest for a bit. I’ve got some things that can help you.” The man with the rough voice says as he sets his rifle down, “I apologize about the gun. You startled me, plus I’ve heard stories about this area. Was told to be on my toes if I’m out here,” he says as he hands the man a first aid kit and a bottle of whiskey.     “Oh, whoever told you that is correct. That’s why I’m injured. Ya see I’m no hunter or anything of the sort, just a normal fella out for a stroll, I took a wrong turn down the road up there and ran into something...unpleasant. Name’s Tobias, by the way! Yours?”     “Jonathan. The name is Jonathan. What attacked you? You look like you were bitten by a wolf or something.” Jonathan sits down across him.     “Ohhhhh,” Tobias says with a pained chuckle, “You’d think it was a wolf by the looks of it, at least a dog. But this was something else. It had these pointed years, Tufts a fur, a lot like a Lynx, but a muzzle like a German Shepard. It starred me down yipped and barked as I stood there just shocked at what was in front of me. I thought ‘Maybe if I stay still it won’t see me’ but nope. It didn’t help at all. Damn thing barked one time, I ran for the hills and the darn thing caught up to me and just started attacking me.”     “Holy hell,” Jonathan says with a questionable look on his face, “How’d you escape? I mean, you’re pretty banged up and everything, but you had to have killed it or something.”     “Oh, that was the easiest part,” Tobias says as he drinks a shot a whiskey, “Oh boy, this certainly helps with the pain, but as this creature was gnawing on me like I was his dinner, because boy I was close to being dinner, I was near a busted tree. The thing had limbs and branches all over the place. I simply took a branch and whacked a good one and off it went.” Tobias puts the first aid kit down and places the whiskey next to it. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any food? If it’s no trouble with me to ask.”     “Food? Oh yeah, I’ve got some cooked rabbit and squirrel in the tent, hold on a second,” Jonathan gets up and heads towards the tent. “It sounds like you were in quite the trouble earlier, sounds like you ought to bring a gun with you, at least a pistol. You never know what’s out there. Animal or not.”     As Jonathan turns around he sees Tobias with his rifle pointed at him. “Dammit...should’ve seen this coming...” Tobias slowly cocks the rifle back.     “Now, I’m sorry to do this, but I need more than just some food and a shot of whiskey or two. I’m going to need you to give me all you got, food, money and all,” Tobias speaks with a bit nervousness catching up to him.     “All right,” Jonathan says, “Let’s just take it easy, have you ever used one of those before?” he says with his hands calmly at his hips.     “Uhm, no...but I see my Dad and Brother shoot plenty of rodents at the farm a bit when I was younger. Shouldn’t take much! Now I’m serious, and I apologize sir, but just hurry and give me all that’s on your person, I’ll leave you with what’s in your tent.”     “Right,” Jonathan quickly pulls a revolver out of his back and squeezes the trigger, Tobias wasn’t sure what hit him. Quick and painless. Jonathan places the revolver back into its spot in his belt. Starts to drag Tobias’ body away from the campsite.     “It’s like I said Tobias, you should at least carry a gun with you. You never know what’s out there.”

our differences Janet Kuypers on twitter and instagram, written 8/23/18 this isolation here, with our differences this distance is a universe

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “our differences” 9/25/18 during the Chicago open mic she guest hosted for Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera; Posterize).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “our differences” 9/25/18 during the Chicago open mic she guest hosted for Poetry at The Gallery Cabaret (filmed from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

Killer party Kyle Shultz     “Stupid,” he said under his breath.     “How could you be so stupid?” Ethan says as he angrily shuts his car door.     “Sure, just decide to drive out of town and not fill up on gas, that makes so much sense, Ethan!”     He stops and stares blankly at the long winding road ahead of him. “Dammit...this is going to be a long walk,” he mutters to himself as he starts his unexpected adventure. An hour goes by, he hasn’t made it far. Cars pass him, honking as he tries to signal one down. He knows he won’t make it far, he’s honestly not sure where he is even at. Another hour goes by, Ethan has his shirt wrapped around his head, gas can in one hand the other had stuck out still trying to signal someone for a ride. Ethan is paying more attention to the cars on the road than his own feet in front of him.     He stumbles on a pothole on the side of the road, twisting his ankle. Ethan admits defeat as he lays on the curbside basking in the sweltering heat from the sun and the aching pain from his ankle. As he lays there, he hears a vehicle get closer and closer. The sound of a door closing echoes as he fades in and out from consciousness.     A couple hours go by. It’s now night time. Ethan wakes up, in the back of a truck feeling sort of claustrophobic. “Where am I?” Ethan says in a worried tone. “Ahhh...” he hears a voice come from the front, “he wakes...” the mysterious voice says in a curious tone. Ethan is scared, “Who are you?” he says with his voice shaking. “Now, you don’t need to worry about who I am,” The driver says to him.     “I’m just someone who found you on the road, passed out, and I’m taking you somewhere safe.” He says. Ethan can’t make out his face as he is wearing a mask.     “Safe?? I just need to go home; can you drop me off at the nearest gas station?” Ethan says in a scared tone.     “No can do, boy. No can do.” The Driver tells him, shaking his head.     Ethan tries to get up, but he realizes he is latched down in the backseat. He suddenly starts to panic and causes a commotion, trying to shake himself free. This causes the Driver to lose focus on the road, he starts to skid off into the curbside.     He stops & gets out.     Ethan can hear the footsteps coming around the truck towards his side, he begins to panic and tries to find something that can free him. The door opens. “LISTEN HERE, if you don’t quit squirming now, I’ll kill you here and now and you won’t make it to dinner!!” The Driver says before he knocks him out.     An hour has passed. Ethan is starting to come to...he hears the truck stop and the door open. Footsteps recede and ascend to his side. He starts to panic and cry. He’s worried that this is the last person he’ll ever see, he’ll never see his family again. Never hear the sound of his wife’s voice ever again. The Driver opens the door, loosens him up and begins to drag him out. Ethan attacks the guy and starts to run, heading towards the building closest to them. Lights are on and music is coming from the inside, sounds of a party.     “BOY!! Get back here!” The Driver yells.     Ethan knocks into the door and begins to yell in a panic only to be halted by a big “SURPRISE!!” by a crowd of familiar people. Ethan starts to gather his surroundings, looks at everyone, The Driver enters the room. A friend comes up to him “So...what did you think? Did you ever guess it?”     “Gues-guess it?” he says as he is still confused. “This was all a plan?!? What the hell is going on here?!”     The Driver walks up to him, takes off his mask, “As I told you before...” his voice begins to sound familiar, “I wanted to throw you a killer bachelor party, brother!”

Bipolar depression Christine Seery You shoved her away from your face like you would an annoying nat. He crushed her under the heel of his cowboy boot, like he was putting out a smelly cigarette butt. She ripped out her heart, like she was studying a corpse. They flayed the skin from her bones, like she was a fish dinner. Those travesties didn’t touch, what bipolar depression did to her. A few good days here and there, filled with, hope, optimism, and love. The kind that melts your insides and makes you feel giddy. She couldn’t stop smiling. And why would she? Oh that’s right..... Her bipolar depression woke up. Plunging her into the abyss, like a sunken ship. Bone rattling fatigue, like a bear in hibernation. Constant repeat of a negative voice, like a broken record. Being lost in the dark, like a lone camper. Everything comes crashing down, like building blocks. This sounds like the end. But, heed my words, fear not my friend. There are good times ahead On this perilous path. But in her heart lies strength. Compassion that will see her through. She will persevere.

Sorceress of Soup and Bread Scott Thomas Outlar Every moment of temporary stability is research into the next abstraction Chaos has wings God plays favorites and you promised our love was forever Now that the curtains have all been torn down please do release the spell that was cast Order is flimsy heartbeats are partial and no one claimed honesty put food on the table

About Scott Thomas Outlar     Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17Numa.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, reviews, live events, and books can be found. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Outlar was a recipient of the 2017 Setu Magazine Award for Excellence in the field of literature. His words have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Dutch, Italian, French, Persian, and Serbian. He has been a weekly contributor for the cultural newsletter Dissident Voice since 2014. His most recent book, Abstract Visions of Light, was released in 2018 through Alien Buddha Press.

From the Melting Pot Lydia Flores I don’t tell people I’m Puerto Rican because I’m not enough of it I’m only a tea spoon of Sazón Even though you can smell the acapuria when my mother parts her lips to smile I don’t know what that means; which means no, I don’t speak Spanish which translates to, I think assimilation wrongfully touched the weariness of my mother’s heart and I’m the wedlock child of America. Now Santurce is a ruined city buried beneath the thick earth of my black nappy hair. I don’t look like home I look like misplaced pride. My father is from Trinidad and I don’t speak that language either I speak the emptiness that is left in the liquor bottles, he pours into the ocean, where I should be The slurring tide of forgetfulness pulling under, all of who we are. what I mean is, he loves me but not enough to braid the flag of his country into my ponytail. And I don’t look like him either, I look like melancholy in the eyes of a child staring out the window of someone else’s culture. So— I learned to twist silence into a dutty whine I learned to roll into the R’s of sorry I learned that jealousy is the cousin of shame who replaces our conversation when my abuela rolls her eyes at me for answering to her in English. If America is the melting pot it only makes sense why diversity is the stew that burns our tongues. This is why the hook of question marks hang the deception of what you should look like over your head and the rain pours on you for what you do look like. I can hear the ghost of Latin America whispering wepa. On the day of the parade, a man says “oh, you don’t look it” on the day of independence I can hear the inebriated cries of Trinidad and Tobago from the grave part of me I never knew. Now, I cook a meal and re-cook it till it’s right, singing not in the language my tongue was forced to cluck but in every language, I know because my body is its own country out on the waters of the Caribbean. and I will boil my heart until it tastes like pasteles taste like roti. until it tastes like me, like poetry. I serve myself up to love, who speaks with the accent of history but looks like colonization, like violence with nappy hair I will look at her, in the mirror and say que linda— this is what I am and let the teeth of my own language comb through the knots in her hair.

Author Bio     Lydia Flores is from Harlem, New York. She is a Writographer (writer & photographer) educator, & a multitude of mysteries. Her work has been featured in Pretty Owl Poetry, Kettle Blue Review, Crooked Teeth Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, Deaf Poets Society, & several others, with more forthcoming. Find her at inlightofmysoul.com

Excerpt from ‘Mr. Man Candy’ Bobby Horecka     Now before you start calling me a straight up asshole, you’ve got to understand how we two first met, ol’ Bubba and me. Not that what you might call me matters much. I been called worse. A lot worse. Today, even, and I ain’t even finished my first cup o’ Joe yet. If the boot fits, I always like to say, wear that sumbitch proudly. But how we met says an awful lot to how we’ve put up with each other for so long. It says a lot about what makes us tick, how we view the big wide world around us.     I didn’t know Bubba at all back then. Seen him around the jobsite a few times, but that was it. We worked different crews in different trades. He was a framer, or carpenter to folks outside the business. Me, I’m an electrician. Were it not for landing on the same floor that one afternoon—and that dumbass kid—I doubt we ever would’ve said word one to each other. It’s kind of an unwritten rule on a construction site: You don’t fuck with other crews and they won’t fuck with you back. Makes everything a hellova lot easier, most days.     But every crew has its dumbass. This kid was theirs.     I’d seen hands like him a thousand times. This fresh-out-of-the-box, know-it-all little prick who couldn’t keep his yap shut if you paid him. He may know every obscure fact about how the Martians built the pyramids and how his piss-ant wages were single-handedly funding the welfare system—I know this because he told us all about it, all morning long—he somehow had not yet mastered the fine art of working a tape measure.     Every stud he touched somehow came up a few inches shy of the wall he needed built, much his bewildered confoundment all morning long. Let me tell you, such a thing can get downright irritating. Enough to make you plumb lose your mind. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty who did.     But not Bubba. No sir. He drew that kid in close, tucked him right under those big ol’ dragon wings of his. “Gawwwlee,” I heard Bubba say, not long after we came back from lunch. “This one’s coming up short, too.”     You’d have sworn he was just as perplexed as that kid was, standing there biting his lip, peering up at Bubba on the ladder. There wasn’t an ounce of meanness in his tone, just a kindly observation offered in the sweetest granddad baritone. Ol’ Bubba played it up, too, doffing his hat, scrunching his brow, and scratching his big shaggy head like he trying to work out astrophysics up there.     “Boss is gonna be awful mad if we keep going through lumber like this,” he added in that same sticky sweet drawl. Even from across the building, you could see those words take all the wind out that poor kid. His shoulders slumped. Feet shifted. I almost felt sorry for the little bastard.     Bubba had him right where he wanted.     “I know,” he said, stroking his beard like it dripped answers. “Yeah... That’ll fix it.” He darted his eyes across the room. “Why don’t grab me that ratchet with the big, orange handle out of my box over there?”     The kid lit right up, flitted across the room, and spent the next several minutes rummaging through the heaps of crap Bubba kept in his big green chest. Meanwhile, Bubba climbed down and measured out the correct dimensions for his walls.     “Orange handle, you say?” the kid said after a few minutes of rummaging, ass in the air, his whiny vice echoing inside the box.     “Dadgumit! That’s right. I loaned it to one of the electricians earlier this week. Why don’t you go grab it from them? Tell them I sent you to get my board stretcher back.”     That kid sprang up on a mission and trotted right for me. “Don’t suppose you might know who borrowed Bubba’s board stretcher, do you?” he asked.     I ain’t gonna lie. I had hard time keeping a straight face. Bubba’s doubled over laughing in the back of my line of sight wasn’t helping, either.     “Let me see,” I said, imagining endless checkout lanes, crippled puppies, webcam hemorrhoid surgery footage—anything at all, really—to keep that shit-eating grin off my face.     “I think Larry Carver did, just after the safety meeting earlier this week. You ought to check with him. I think he’s working on the sixth floor today. Yeah, you should probably go ask him.”     Now, let’s ignore the fact we were standing in the basement and I just sent this kid up seven flights of stairs. Let’s ignore the fact, too, that Larry remembered Chuck using the board stretcher last and sent him back down another six flights of stairs to find him. Or that Chuck, upon hearing why he needed such a fool thing in the first place, decided another fellow probably had an even better tool for the job.     “Go find Jamal,” Chuck told him, just as serious as if he’d witnessed Jesus hisself descend from the heavens on the fleet wings of archangels. “He was working on the roof yesterday, but he’s the only one I know who has what you need. Tell him Chuck said to let you use his 14-inch pantalón snake.”     Before all that settled in, Chuck grabbed him by his shoulder, looked him dead in eye, and added: “Now this part is critical. It’s gotta be the fourteen-incher. Anything smaller just won’t do.”     Head bobbing up and down to show he understood, he was off again. That kid must’ve spent the better part of the afternoon on this snipe hunt before the big boss finally sent him home. Either way, I sure didn’t lose any sleep over it, nor did the rest of us. Still, the super gave us all a stern talkin’ to at the next safety meeting. The dangers of pranking somebody on a jobsite or some such.     I sure as hell couldn’t tell you. We were still drunk from the night before, Bubba and me both, and well on our way to becoming fast friends.       Endnotes     The preceding selection is from a larger work short fiction (5,100 words) by emerging Texas writer Bobby Horecka entitled “Mr. Man Candy,” first published in May 2018 by Bluestem Magazine, http://bluestemmagazine.com/mr-man-candy/, put out by English faculty at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. This story is one of a dozen or so pieces that have been accepted for publication at various literary magazines and nonprofit writer organizations since Horecka began submitting stories, poems and nonfiction pieces in January 2018, where in addition to completing his MFA in creative writing and teaching writing classes as an adjunct at his hometown junior college, Horecka also attended nighttime trade school classes to become an actual state-licensed electrician when he wrote this piece. Before that, he spent 25 years chasing stories on deadline across eleven foreign nations, as well as coast to coast in these United States, working as professional journalist in his home state of Texas.

The Legend of Chunk Bobby Horecka     August was just about the best month of the whole year, we thought growing up. Some may say I’ve got it all wrong. June’s a better pick, at the start, when everything is still new. Maybe, but most kids, I think, get so giddy about the schoolyear ending and the exponential possibilities of summer ahead, they waste most of their first month. They sleep half a day that first week because they can and spend the next couple weeks just finding their groove. Like relearning the afternoon TV cartoon lineup, and after all the family vacations, extended stays with relatives, and assorted camps and such, you’ve gotta find who’s still around. Besides, the mindset’s all wrong in June. Who cares if we didn’t do it today? We still have all summer...     Not in August. Even as kids, you sense its mortality. Summer’s about gone. By then, you’re full-on summer grooving. None of that amateur crap like in June. Plus, you know your days are numbered. You wanna make it count. You’re a bit more adventurous, a bit more courageous. And I’ve never seen better embody that spirit than my old buddy Chunk.     If you never met him, you know the type: Kinda whiny. Clumsy. A ginger with milk white skin that never tans, and every inch of him, freckled. Coke-bottle glasses. An inhaler. And a belt-size twice my dad’s. He swore it was his glands, of course, even as he scarfed Butterfingers, two at a time.     Believe me, Chunk, was an improvement, far as names go. His real name was Marion Mansfield Manersik IV, meaning his relatives saw fit to curse three male generations with a name like that before him. Had to feel for the guy.     But just ask anyone: Chunk became legend beside the pool that day.     Our swimming instructor made us watch Olympic divers as part of our lessons. They’d launch off platforms and twist, spin, flip, and then, right before they touched water, they’d straighten and part those waters like Moses with Egypt on his tail. None of us came even close, but for a dude like Chunk, it’s practically impossible. Wrong shape, you know? If he was gonna splash, anyway, he’d learn to do it right.     His first attempts bombed. Instead of a cannonball—knees tucked, hitting the water with your butt—he kept rolling forward and SPLAT! Two of the worst belly-flops you ever saw.     Determined, he tried again. He ran, got to the edge, planted his foot and—FFfffft!—he slipped. Then, suddenly airborne, nothing but pasty white-boy, just kinda... suspended, mid-air, trajectory completely unknown.     Samantha Summerly was a few years older, but we were all smitten. I was, anyway. And It’s embarrassing, but she the first girl I’d ever seen in two-piece bikini. She glistened in tanning oil, on her inflatable lounger.     And Chunk was headed right for her.     He tried everything—spinning, twisting—he even kicked and pumped his arms, up in the air—no use, though. Just one trick left. With distance closing Chunk lets this blood-curdling shriek that hit octaves I’ve never heard equaled, prior nor hence. Startled, Samantha, belly down right then, rolled just in time to see this freckled blob closing fast. About half a second later, full body contact, and both went down bubbling surface.     Had he not sounded like a ring wraith right about then, I’m sure he would’ve been proud. You should’ve seen the wall of water he displaced that day. It was truly something. But, that wasn’t even the best part.     Somehow in watery collision of slippery flesh, Samantha lost her top, a fact no one realized until Chunk finally surfaced, arms flailing and gasping for air. Perfectly perched atop of his head, much like a set of Disneyland mouse ears might fit, were two perfect aquamarine cones. It didn’t take long for our minds catchup to our eyeballs—each in his own time—but if Chunk was wearing her top like crown, guess where else it was probably not?     Samantha must’ve realized what happened early-on. She dove for bottom after Chunk knocked her off her float, and there she stayed following the curved floor up the wall at the far side of the pool, away from us boys. She presently rested her chin and forearms, her front side pressed to the wall, nothing visible at all.     Chunk was the absolute last to realize what treasures he was inadvertently carrying. Even then, it took serious prompting from those of us at poolside. But he finally reached up and plucked his mock ears. You should’ve seen him as his brain cracked code on exactly what it was he held in his hands.     Like us, his lightbulb eventually flickered on, too. But unlike the rest of us, hoping for eyeful of boob, Chunk is searching the water—serious—he said later he was scared he’d hurt her. But then spotted her across the pool, clinging to the wall, looking helpless and small. Then all the sudden, Chunk straightens himself like one of those Olympians, and unleashes this sleek, fast, impressive swimming machine. He keeps to her back, a perfect gentleman. His first words: I’m soooo sorry. What they said afterward was anyone’s guess. Chunk never shared.     Then Samantha looked backed and smiled, says something to Chunk. He turns, smile clean ear to ear. With a swift and powerful kick, he launches, clear above his waist, and at the height of his thrust, he pumps his fist, Samantha’s top, fluttering prize flag, as he sounded his best Woohoohoo! We couldn’t help it: Chunk had earned a cheer.     I left the neighborhood later that year when dad got a new job. Never saw most of them again. I did meet with one, though, couple years back. Would you believe Samantha became Mrs. Marion IV? They live in the old neighborhood, still. I hear he even passed that awful name of his on to No. 5. Who’d ’ve guessed?

Injured Shadow (V3) Michael Lee Johnson In nakedness of life moves this male shadow worn out dark clothes, ill fitted in distress, holes in his socks, stretches, shows up in your small neighborhood, embarrassed, walks pastime naked with a limb in open landscape space- damn those worn out black stockings. He bends down prays for dawn, bright sun.

Michael Lee Johnson Bio     Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, editor, publisher, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. He has been published in more than 915 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites. Author’s website http://poetryman.mysite.com/. Michael is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom (136 page book) ISBN: 978-0-595-46091-5, several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems. He also has over 101 poetry videos on YouTube as of 2015: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, IL. nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015 & Best of the Net 2016. Visit his Facebook Poetry Group and join https://www.facebook.com/groups/807679459328998/ He is also the editor/publisher of anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762.

Concentration Sarah Conklin Potential poison seeping through my pores I can’t see anymore blinded broken striving for peace in a world where peace is shattered into pieces. Because the war is not yet over and the poison is flushing through my eyes blinding me and binding hatred because I decided to wear a star on my chest; prideful.

Martin Annin Brothers     There was a warp before his eyes, before his right eye, an uncommon warp—something like two faces, like two halves of different faces. One for real, living, responsive to the world. And the other . . . about which, echoing your senses, you would say: Whatever for? It shouldn’t be there. It shouldn’t be born in the first place, because whatever’s born is there to embrace life, not repel it, not clam up, not frighten it, not for it to repel the born, not one about which you would say: He’s stamped with life’s anti-sense. And the secret of the other face was hidden inside that ‘something’ there, instead of the left eye. And this ‘something’ was looking out of the eye socket as a bunch of black filaments that made whoever looked at it shudder.      Martin was standing in front of the mirror when Samuel came in.      ‘That you, sonny? What’s wrong?’      Martin smirked.      ‘I don’t often go to look at myself in the mirror, you know . . . No, you don’t. How would you? I mean, I came up to the mirror to look at myself . . . I hadn’t done that to admire myself in a long time, you know . . .’      ‘Stop beating around the bush. Out with it.’      ‘Uncle Samuel, answer my question. Please, do.’      ‘Shoot, sonny, ask your loaded question. I never prevaricate, you know.’      ‘Uncle Samuel, what do you know about me that I don’t? Tell me.’      Samuel thought for a while and said:      ‘You know all there’s to know . . . about your mother, about your father, about yourself. All except what I thought might be painful to you . . . It’s your eye . . . your left eye.’      ‘What about my eye?’      ‘What about your eye? You know you were to the manner born: the lightning that struck Martha was to blame. But when talking to you, I never mentioned another thing, and I’m not sure it’ll be plain sailing this time . . . What about your eye? The physicians—some quite eminent among them—couldn’t answer this question. Or wouldn’t. At least, there was some understatement about it all. After examination, they gave it up for lost, each of them. I think we shouldn’t have taken you to all those clinics. All to no avail. However, the first of them, an old dear (I believe, it was his strange ways that put us off), warned me that there had never been such a case in modern practice and no one would go beyond initial examination. We should’ve given it up as a bad job, just as he’d suggested, and let you be.’      Samuel shifted his eyes to the window—he needed a pause—and continued after a silence:      ‘You wanted it without reservations, and I’ll be frank with you, to the bitter end . . . He said your eye . . . had developed a new quality, an unknown quality . . . He also said—it was probably a bon mot or a resignation for all I know—that the quality wasn’t . . . I can’t get my tongue around it; it’s such a mouthful . . .’ Samuel could get his tongue around it, all right, but he seemed to have lost confidence in his agitation (Martin had not known him to be that agitated before). ‘It didn’t quite go with our idea of being as we regard it with our brains, our brains not all that clear-visioned as all that . . . I’m not in a position to judge how much of it’s true, how much idle talk. However, the more I think about it, the more I believe it’s all for the best, their having resigned themselves to non-interference. You want to know why?’      ‘Why, Uncle Samuel?’      ‘Because what doesn’t go with our idea of things is the stuff of the bag of tricks with all sorts of secret services, and they would’ve surely pried into it. Whenever I’m lost in a reverie, I think the doctor hinted at just that. When talking to me, he mentioned a certain case. It, too, involved a patient that didn’t quite go, with a hidden third eye that could see as well as his other eyes had been able to before he lost their use in a fire. He could see not just what other people could, but something else besides. He could see . . . through obstacles: walls, you name it. The non-medico feds let the sawdust out of the poor thing . . . That’s that . . . I don’t think you wanted to hear that sort of thing from me, sonny.’      ‘I hardly know what I wanted to hear. But I wanted to hear and I have. It’s okay.’ * * *     Seventeen years earlier . . .      Francis and Martha Garber were racing on their way to hospital spurred on by the son, yet unborn but scrambling on his way out before term and making the minutes of the essence.      They had been staying with Samuel, Martha’s older brother: both the mother and the ‘bun in the oven’ were in need of wholesome air, and the forester’s hut made of wood and in the middle of a wood were just what the doctor ordered. Those were the fine days in July, and, it seemed, nothing would upset yet another two to three weeks either in nature or in Samuel’s home or in Martha’s womb. Martin would have waited another day or two to see the light of day, if he had known that he would come by his name not through the grownups’ exacting choice or their last-minute whim, rather in memory of his mother whom he was never to see—if only he could have known that there would be no light in the space between heaven and earth, that thousands of black clouds would darken it and disgorge a mighty force that would consume Martha when she . . .      ‘Frank, I can’t . . .’      ‘Hold on, darling: it won’t be long.’      ‘I’m out of breath, I can’t. Stop, please, stop . . .’      ‘Martha, pray hold on, there’s not a minute to waste. Our kid . . . You’re sick because he’s impatient to be out. But he’s before his term, and we can’t risk his life . . . your life. You must hold on, darling . . .’      ‘Why talk? Why talk and talk?’      Francis knew his words irked Martha, they were probably out of turn. But he had to play for time, while the wheels were winding on mile after mile (there were just a few left).      ‘Oh that we could make it! Oh that the three of us could make it! You must understand you shouldn’t move now, trouble the kid, or shift your position by an inch until we’re there. Or else . . .’      ‘Shut up! I can’t, can’t, can’t!’      ‘Or else it’ll be all over. If we stop now, it’ll be all over. Hell, I can feel it. It’ll go to hell in a handbasket. I can feel it.’      ‘You don’t understand!’      ‘I don’t care. I love you.’      ‘You don’t understand!’      ‘I love you.’      ‘Frank, Frank, Frank, I’m sick. I’m ever so sick . . . I’m out of breath . . . I’m suffocating, Frank. I’ll be stifled next!’      ‘I can quite understand, darling, but . . .’      ‘Stop that frigging car: I’ll be dead in it next!’      Francis looked at his wife and braked down, unable to persist in his being reasonable and cruel.      ‘Wait a mo, I’ll help you out.’      She pushed the door (she did not give a damn to the moment or to Francis’s words; she did not hear them probably; she did not care for the mind-boggling warps of space in throes of the darkness, or for the fiery stings probing the strength of the metal skin that protected her) and had hardly stepped down when . . .      ‘Maternity ward, quick?’ the doctor called as he examined the lifeless body of Martha who had been struck by lightning, for he had heard a life in it.      A quarter of an hour later, the obstetrician looked away (for just a few moments) unable to keep his composure while the midwife fainted as the infant was extracted from the burnt-out flesh, turned face up, and they saw instead . . .      ‘Jesus!’ whispered the convulsed lips of the doctor who had seen it all, as he forced his eyes to look back at the mask, whether dead or alive, that they resisted seeing again.      The mask gave a sharp squeal as it paid tribute to the darkness . . . the darkness that had left the freak alive for some reason . . .      Two years later, when Francis got married on the rebound, it was definitively decided to entrust the education of Martin to Samuel, the father, while officially remaining one, providing child support for the growing boy’s needs and, on top of that, for nannies and teachers (thank goodness, there was no talk of him going to school, whether ordinary or a special-needs one).      So the word ‘sonny’ Samuel had used for many years now when addressing Martin was charged with anything but a condescending or age-related meaning.

Memory Thief JD Langert     Her wedding photo was gone.     It was early morning, the vestiges of sleep still present in the corners of her eyes, while brewing a pot of Blue Mountain Roast, that she noticed the photo was missing. Its former place above her kitchen table was mysteriously empty; a noticeably clean rectangle of paint left behind where it once loomed over the dining room.     Instead of acknowledging it more than she already had, she returned to her coffee and got ready for work.     After returning from work and opening the front door, she noticed her living room seemed particularly empty, larger even. After a moment, she located the space where the living room sofa had been, dust bunnies and spare change left on the ground where it once resided. An old, ugly green thing. Impossible to find a comfortable position upon it with all the springs straining to get out and the upholstery covered with stains.     She smiled, noting that the room smelled pleasantly less of alcohol and sweat at its disappearance. She resolved to schedule an appointment with the furniture moving company tomorrow, hoping they still had that white leather chaise lounge she had been eyeing.     While putting away her laundry, she opened one of the drawers in her dresser and was met with the sight of emptiness. Once it had held meticulously folded large t-shirts with various sports logos that she could never accurately name or find interest in.     It was admittedly peculiar to see the once crowded drawer now over-flowing with space. Once, it had been getting to the point where she needed to take out her own clothing in order to make room for the increasing number of rarely worn men’s sports jerseys. Now, there were just traces of dust and lint upon the wood.     In response, she removed a few of her favorite scarfs from a box hidden in the back of her closet and placed the tie-dye colored apparels into the wooden drawer. She smiled, brushing her hand through the ticklish, silky fibers as she recalled warm summer days of years past. She had never had space for them before. Perhaps she’d buy more.     It was another few days before what had once been considered as the most valuable thing in the house winded up missing.     Sipping at her morning coffee, she stared at the empty glass container upon her television set. Though it was currently filled with dust and scratches, she had once meticulously polished and shined it every day. Sometimes more. For, at that time, it had held a gold trophy.     But not just any trophy. Awarded in an individual’s college days, it was the highest honor that one could receive during the hockey season and worthy of years of bragging. Or so she had heard.     In the face of a great loss, she took another sip of her coffee. The warm, rich taste lingered upon her tongue as she wondered what would be missing from the house tomorrow.     She looked forward to it.

About JD Langert     JD Langert moved from the rainforest island of Ketchikan, Alaska to pursue her degree in creative writing in Orlando, Florida. Her work has appeared in Down in the Dirt, John Hopkins Imagine Magazine, Fiction on the Web, Flash Fiction Magazine, and other publications. You can follow her on Twitter @JDLangert.

Relief, photography by Fabrice Poussin

The Drunk Joseph S. Pete The lost soul sat on a bench just off the meticulously lawn-lined asphalt ribbon of the Erie Lakawanna Trail, reading Baudelaire in translation in the darkening twilight. “You have to always be drunk... But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.” The pimpled teen was sober as an AA guest speaker reliving the glory days in an alleged cautionary tale. But he could relate to such an imperative to inebriation, wasted as he was on a liberating spell of words as he wended his way toward downtown. An indie film in a mustily vintage one-screen theater beckoned. The acne-scarred reader was so vastly alienated that he spent every waking moment reading any scrap of text. His bibliomania was such that he always read while walking, strained his feeble eyes until the very sky turned black as slate, until the velvet curtains parted and the flickering projector danced across the screen. So immersed was he in inky verbiage, he occasionally needed to escape his preferred method of escapism. Head inevitably crooked in a creased hardcover, the awkward assemblage of gangly limbs longed to be ensconced in a grimy, popcorn-scented seat, transported to some faraway world where he was no longer tormented by his isolation, his many failings, all the stinging, nettling mockery, where he was no longer alone in the rust-daubed iron prison of his head. He never felt such joy as he did when his rubber-soled sneakers planted on that sticky carpet, when he was intoxicated on those art films that got him good and drunk on reverie, took him outside himself, outside his relentless inward focus, outside the cramped claustrophobic confines of his mind.

About Joseph S. Pete     Joseph S. Pete is an award-winning journalist, an Iraq War veteran, an Indiana University graduate, a book reviewer, and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. He is a 2017 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee who was named the poet laureate of Chicago BaconFest 2016, a feat that Geoffrey Chaucer chump never accomplished. His literary work and photography have appeared or are forthcoming in Down in the Dirt, Stoneboat, The High Window, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Steep Street Journal, Beautiful Losers, New Pop Lit, The Grief Diaries, Gravel, The Perch Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, Chicago Literati, Dogzplot, Bull Men's Fiction, shufPoetry, The Roaring Muse, Prairie Winds, Blue Collar Review, Lumpen, The Rat's Ass Review, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Euphemism, Jenny Magazine, Vending Machine Press and elsewhere. He once wrote an author bio that just trailed off...

Rising to the light Marlon Jackson I’m sifting through the dirt non-stop I keep moving I know the light is there, I can feel it ebbing. I think of it as smoke pilfering and billowing and on my way I sift through to stand among it. Yes, yes I know i’m right. Once I make it through the night, All the smoke will help me escalate my rise to the light.

Still Missing< C.V. Blaisdell All the photographs on the wall speak a skewed perspective, framing fast a family, hiding signs that someone is missing. She who sees, yes, she who gave birth to children smiling through the aperture like a window’s worth of future, she who was always always there is still missing.

The Woman Who C.V. Blaisdell dropped the jar of sauce in the pasta aisle— its solid smash of glass, red- faced apology, sauce splattered up the shopping cart, as if the linoleum hemorrhaged against gravity— a mother in a hurry a guilty cook looking for shortcuts a poet in search of something new

Bones of the Holy Aleksandra Pandyra     The junior high school I attended in the early-nineties was a two-story, brown monstrosity. It must have been built in the late fifties and was named after a saint. There was a gas station right at the nearest bus stop. The gas station worker, a sallow complexioned man in his mid fifties, doled out sour and sweet small gummy candies which cost one cent apiece. It was the beginning of grade eight and I just turned fourteen.      Our homeroom teacher was Mr. Mentini who was also the school’s gym teacher. Although in his mid twenties, he was already balding. Every morning in homeroom, before scattering to our scheduled classes, we had to massage each other, just the shoulders, for five minutes. Mr. Mentini said that it was a good way to start the day as it got the circulation going. Whenever there was an odd number of us, he would pair up with a student, always a girl.      Rob Lessack was in my homeroom. He was tall and pudgy and I got stuck massaging him a lot because I sat behind him. He had a bowl haircut parted in the middle and usually wore a dark green turtleneck and black sweatpants. His parents were rich doctors and Rob always had five dollars for lunch. Rob would buy two bags of Little Ceasar’s crazy bread and some candy at the gas station for lunch. He gave a bag and most of the candy to Preston and his hoodlum friends. I once heard Preston ask a handicapped man rolling by on the sidewalk in his wheelchair, if he was able to whack off.      Rob had two friends. One was Bobby-Joe, who had failed a couple of grades because she was away so much. Bobby-Joe was as tall as Rob, had large breasts, glasses and long hair she wore in two idiotic pigtails. At first, I thought she was very diligent as she always took careful notes in her neat little handwriting but somehow it never amounted to much. Rob’s other friend was Miss Moon, our language arts teacher. Miss Moon was a stubborn leftover from the eighties: she had teased hair, wore big padded sweaters, tight grey jeans and talked to us a lot about her live-in boyfriend Terry. She made us write essays about what we did in the summer. As I didn’t do much except read a lot of Stephen King novels, I wrote about the different kinds of ice cream flavors I tried at the gourmet ice cream shop that had just opened up next to the IGA. I meant this essay to be an ironic response to her idiotic assignment but she just gave me an A followed by a couple of smiley faces.     That year Miss Moon talked to us seriously about bullying and I knew that she was mostly talking about Rob. One time, I came in early for class and heard Miss Moon talking to Rob about how a special person like him would be appreciated later on in life.     As the year darkened into October, the attacks on Rob continued. One time I hurried into the school’s side entrance after the final lunch bell rang and noticed a trail of crazy bread garlic sticks lying there like soft garlicky pillows. I longed to take one. Although on the grass, they were still a better alternative to my stale sandwiches. When I came in, I saw Rob sobbing on Bobby-Joe’s heavy capable shoulders.     Rob and I were partly on the same bus route home. Unfortunately, any of the other kids who took the bus were also there. Rob would grimly sit at the front and someone from Preston’s group would routinely run up the aisle and give him a whack on the head, yell and something obscene.     Maybe Rob was hoping that by sitting at the front, the bus driver, an adult with some authority, would protect him. It didn’t help. Most people knew what was good for them. There was something about Rob, like a disease that might be catching. Although he was picked on unfairly, he did possess a combination of petulant whininess and insular wealth that aroused contempt. His sniveling responses naturally evoked contempt. He deserves it, I would sometimes think.     One late afternoon in October, Rob sat down beside me. I instinctively turned around to see if the popular kids were there but luckily they must have caught an earlier bus or else were stuck in detention.     ‘You want to come over for a bit?’ I really didn’t but was caught off guard by the proposition and couldn’t recover enough to say no.     ‘Um ok, I guess.’ It’s not like I had anything better to do. I would come home to an empty house and just watch TV. This is what I did most evenings after I finished the easy homework. Like most newly minted Canadian citizens, my parents were understandably preoccupied with money and that meant that all they did was work at their menial jobs for which they were over-qualified. In the late evenings, my mom and I would watch shows like My So Called Life and Party of Five. That was family time.     The coiled driveway leading up to Rob’s house was outlined with pine trees pruned into teardrops. The house was an imposing two-story red-brick colonial. Inside I heard the distant whirr of the vacuum cleaner.     ‘Let’s go tell Albena we’re here.’ Albena was a dark, dumpy little woman who barely glanced at us and when she did, she looked like didn’t care whether we were here or not.     ‘There’s spaghetti in the fridge for your supper. Enough for your friend too.’ I cringed at that. Albena turned back to her vacuuming.     Rob led me up to his room. I was afraid of touching anything as it just looked so unlived in. At least Rob’s room was messy and pungent with scattered dirty socks and random school supplies.     ‘Here let me show you something.’ Rob pulled out a box from the jumble underneath his bed. It was filled with little firecrackers, the kinds you could only get in hunting stores.     ‘I found them in our basement, it must have been from before I was born when my dad used to go out and shoot.’ I had noticed a few horny animal heads hanging above the giant fireplace when we passed the living room.     ‘Sometimes Marco doesn’t close his locker. It takes a while for them to start off, I lit one already. I can slip it in right before he comes.’     Shit I thought, now I’m going to be an accessory to a crime.     ‘Hey don’t be stupid.’     ‘You don’t know what those guys do to me.’     It was true, I didn’t. But I didn’t think that a few firecrackers would make them stop. I quickly left after that. I considered saying something to Miss Moon but it annoyed and embarrassed me the way she tried to be everybody’s friend.     Rob went through with his plan a few days before the Halloween dance. He had more balls than anyone but me would ever know. He was not caught. Marco almost lost an eye when a firecracker shot out of his locker but it jut skirted the edge of his cheek.     That Friday was the Halloween dance and I went with my group of quiet and studious girlfriends. We just stood on one side of the gym with the other girls. Everyone was just pretending not to wait for the slow numbers when the boys would amble over to the girls’ side. I was never asked to dance as I was flat chested and by then had a reputation for brains. Even Bobby-Joe with that rack was getting asked to dance by hopefuls wanting to cop a feel.      I did not want to awkwardly shuffle on the gym floor to Brian Adam’s I will always love you with some pimply boy but still I was embarrassed to be found so lacking. Even my girlfriends were dancing with a couple of other geeks and I almost wished Rob would ask me but he was nowhere in sight. This drove me outside where it was quiet. The actual Halloween when kids would be trick or treating wasn’t until tomorrow.     I walked around the school and stopped in my tracks when I reached the back corner. Rob was there, surrounded by Preston, Marco and one other kid, the one with the mustache, Chris something. Their bare bums shone in the moonlight. From my vantage point, Preston was most visible and I could see a thatch of pubic hair blooming above where his pants were lowered.     Marco said something I couldn’t hear and then the rest of them started pumping. Then I heard Rob crying and Preston shout.     ‘Come on, just take it out.’     ‘Fuck you.’     ‘It’s easy just think of something good.’     ‘Hmm yeah, I’m thinking of those giant titties in my dad’s hustler.’ Chris groaned. He was the first to finish, his semen shooting out and aimed at Rob who by then was curled up on the ground, arms over his head. One by one, they each showered him. I ran back to get Mr. Mentini and by the time he got there Rob was huddled on the floor, alone and sobbing.     Rob never came back but transferred to a private posh school. I heard all this from Bobby-Joe. Preston, Marco and Chris were suspended for a week. As for me, I was left wondering what would have happened if I just walked up to them, boldly revealed myself. What would they have done? There’s nothing quite like surprise to make people momentarily drop the mask and expose whatever is lurking underneath whether monstrous or tame.

P1010009, art by Wes Heine

Guessing Game David Francis A plain-faced girl in colorful New York clothes flanked by her mates. The retarded child singing loudly being led home from school. One side of the street in a gray penumbra of sunless shadow. The other bathed in the enviable light of a blue sky. Which is which? Which belongs with whom? Guess. You might be wrong. It makes you think, this conundrum. You might be wrong. But you must guess.

David Francis Biography     David Francis has produced six albums of songs, one of poems, and “Always/Far,” a chapbook of lyrics and drawings. His film “Village Folksinger” has screened in the US and England. David’s poems and stories have appeared in a number of journals. http://davidfrancismusic.com

It All Depends Who Wins John F. McMullen Werner Von Braun was a Nazi. He designed rockets for “the bad guys”. The bad guys lost so he came over and designed rockets for the good guys and Kurt Jurgens played him in a movie. Chuck Yaeger relates “emptying his guns on German civilians as he flew home from missions”. He thought “We better win this war or we’re in deep trouble.” Saul of Tarsus held the coats for those who stoned St. Stephen to death. Then he headed out to Damascus, changed to the winning side and became St. Paul. David Horowitz was a left-wing loonie who worked with SDS. David Brock was a right-wing loonie who tried to destroy Hillary Clinton. They each “saw the light” and switched sides. Would you trust either one? It seems that the only team worth being on is the winning one.

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.

A Unique World Linda J. Wolff I believe the deeper I fall into this abyss of life the more I need to write poetries. The madness of high or low moments I live in, the more I want lucidity and presence of spirit. The more idiocy and asininity I see from sites of power the more I need the learning of poetries. A unique world and I birth it, that began when I am denied for lack of clear credentials and I refuse to quit.

When Blood Wants Blood David Estringel     There is nothing like the smell of Santeria. It is a distinct smell that jolts me into my body the second I find myself enveloped in it: one that suggests cleanliness—in every respect—but with a little magic mixed in. Not easily reproduced, you won’t find it anywhere but homes or other places, such as my botanica—a Santeria supply store—where regular orisha worship happens. It is the intoxicating blend of lavender-scented Fabuloso All-Purpose Cleaner, stale cigar smoke (used for various offerings to our dead and these African gods), burning candle wax, and subtle, earthy hints of animal sacrifice from the past, offered for the sake of continued prosperity, spiritual protection, and other vital blessings from the divine. You won’t find it anywhere else. No, it is not common fare, much like the smell of ozone immediately after a lightning strike: it is a right time, right place kind of thing. But why wax nostalgic (besides the fact that my own home hasn’t smelled like that for a long time)? It will be Dia de los Muertos tomorrow and there is much work to do.     My boveda or spiritual ancestor shrine has gone neglected for months now, squatting in my cramped dining room, cold and lifeless like the spirits it was erected to propriate. A thick layer of dust has powdered the picture frames of my dearly departed, making their rectangular glasses dulled and cloudy. I look at the faces of my maternal and paternal grandparents and find that details that were once fine have phased into each other, as if viewed through a thin curtain of gauze: I can’t clearly see them and they—likely—can hardly see me. That is how it feels, anyway. The white tablecloth on top of the table is dingy, looking yellowed and stained from months of occasional sprinklings of agua de florida cologne and errant flakes of cigar ash. The water glasses (nine of them to be exact—one large brandy snifter and four pairs of others in decreasing sizes) seem almost opaque, now, with their contents having long evaporated, leaving behind striated bands of hard mineral and chlorine, plus the occasional dead fly, who’s selfless sacrifice was likely not met with much appreciation by my dead Aunt Minne or Popo Estringel, my mother’s father. Various religious statues call for immediate attention with frozen countenances that glare, annoyed that my Swiffer hasn’t see the light of day for some weeks, now. Then there is the funky, asymmetrical glass jar on the back right-corner that I use to collect their change. The dead love money (especially mine). This fact has always suggested to me that hunger—in all shapes and forms—lingers, even after the final curtain closes. Makes sense, if you think about it. We gorge ourselves on life, cleave to it when we feel it slip away, and then after we die we—     The statues—mostly Catholic saints—each have their own specific meaning and purpose on my boveda. St. Lazarus provides protection from illness. St. Teresa keeps death at bay. St. Michael and The Sacred Heart of Jesus, which are significantly larger than the other figures, are prominent, flanking either side of the spiritual table, drawing in—and out— energies of protection and—at the same time—mercy: the two things I find myself increasingly in need of these days. At the back of the table, there is a repurposed hutch from an old secretary desk with eight cubbies of varying sizes, where nine silver, metallic ceramic skulls reside that represent my dead, who have passed on (the number nine is the number of the dead in Santeria). They usually shine, quite brightly, in the warm, yellow glow of the dining room’s hanging light fixture, but they look tarnished, as of late, save the eye sockets, which seem to plead for attention, glistening, as if wet with tears. A large resin crucifix rests in the half-full, murky water glass (the largest one) that rests in the center of the alter. It sounds sacrilegious, but it isn’t, as placing it so calls upon heavenly power to help control the spirits that are attracted (or attached) to the shrine, allowing positive ones to do what they need to do for my well-being, while keeping the negative ones tightly on a leash. Some smaller, but equally as important, fetishes also haunt the alter space, representing spirit guides of mine: African warriors and wise women, a golden bust of an Egyptian sarcophagus, a Native American boy playing a drum, and four steel Hands of Fatima that recently made their way into the mix after a rather nasty spirit settled into my house last year—for a month or so—and created all kinds of chaos and havoc, tormenting me with nightmares—not to mention a ton of bad luck—and my dogs with physical attacks, ultimately resulting in one of them, Argyle, being inexplicably and permanently crippled (but that is another story). Various accents, which I have collected over the years, also add to the ache (power) of the boveda: a multi-colored beaded offering bowl, strands of similarly patterned Czech glass beads, a brass censer atop a wooden base for incenses, a pentacle and athame (from my Wicca days), a deck of Rider-Waite tarot cards in a green velvet pouch with a silver dollar kept inside, and a giant rosary—more appropriate to hang on a wall, actually—made of large wooden beads, dyed red and rose-scented. Looking at all of it in its diminished grandeur, I am reminded of how much I have asked my egun (ancestors) for over the years and can’t help but feel a little ashamed of my non-committal, reactive (not proactive) attitude in terms of their veneration, as well as their regular care and feeding.     This year’s Dia will be different. It has to be. It’s going to take more than a refreshed boveda and fresh flowers to fix what is going wrong in my life right now; a bowl of fruit and some seven-day candles just won’t cut it. Business at the botanica is slow, money is tight—beyond tight—and all my plans seem to fall apart before they can even get started. The nightmares have come back—a couple of times, anyway—and the dogs grow more and more anxious every day, ready to jump out of their skins at the slightest startle. My madrina, an old Cuban woman well into her 70s that brought me into the religion and orisha priesthood, told me last night that we all have a spiritual army at our disposal that desperately wants to help us in times of need, meaning our ancestors. She said with enough faith one could command legions of them to do one’s bidding, using as little as a few puffs of cigar smoke and a glass of water. While a powerful statement, that isn’t how things roll for me. Her prescription for what ails me was far from that simple. “This year, your muertos need to eat and eat well! They need strength to help you and you need a lot of it. When they are happy, you will be happy. When they are not, you won’t,” she advised, searching my eyes for an anticipated twinge of panic and they didn’t fail her. I knew—right then and there—what she meant, making my stomach feel as if it had dropped straight down into my Jockey underwear. That feeling may have very well dissuaded me from going through with tonight’s festivities if things were so dire at present. Eyebale is a messy business, regardless of how smooth one is with their knife (blood sacrifice always is, which is why I have always had such a distaste for it. Thank God I only do birds). Regardless of that fact, my egun eat tonight at midnight. I give thanks to my egun tonight at midnight. I—hopefully—change things around tonight at midnight. What else can you do when blood wants blood?

Windows David Estringel     About two and a half months ago, I was abruptly told via voicemail that my mother was going to have emergency brain surgery. Wednesday night’s social work class—the first one of the semester—had just wrapped up and, after the last of my students exited the building, I headed to my office to grab my satchel, lock-up, and head home. Per usual, I checked my phone and saw my favorite niece Lauren had called. “Tio,” she said, “I don’t know if you know this but grandma is having brain surgery in the morning. Has a couple of blood clots. Call mom. OK? I miss you. Bye, tio.”     I chuckled—a bit—at the irony of the situation, as I had ended the class with an exercise that a colleague suggested I try that involved exploring personally held attitudes about specific stages of human development, ranging from birth to old age. I had students stand against the whiteboard in front of the classroom and share their thoughts, thinking this would be a nice way to bond as a cohort. Things went along smoothly for about five minutes, until all the crying started. They cried about their childhoods, fathers that left them, bullying in high school, divorces, and empty nests. I wanted to strangle Cynthia, the colleague. One of my older students (probably in her 50s) got up next. She started to share but then completely broke down. We were all stunned. Apart from her crying, it was so quiet in there that you could have heard a blotter of acid drop back in the 1960s. Eventually, she composed herself, apologized, and informed the class that she had just lost her mother a few days prior. She talked about how difficult it was to have the tables turned on her and watch the people that took care of her all her life deteriorate, requiring her to take care of them. Embarrassed, she wiped her eyes and promptly sat down, surrounded by her very empathetic peers. I remembered the picture of my mother and that I have on my refrigerator door that I see every morning when I grab some rice milk for my cereal: she is on a couch with perfect hair and make-up with me—shirtless in pajama bottoms, holding a copy of The Hungry Caterpillar. We both looked happy. Overcome with guilt, I threw myself upon the pyre and decided to suffer along with everyone else. Plus, I knew they would remember this night, during instructor evaluation time. I took a deep breath, dove right in, and did well until I got to “old age,” but got through it, somehow.     “Class dismissed.”     I made it to the Neuro ICU at about 10 PM. When I got to her room, I saw her disheveled and confused. Her gown—a yellow so ugly she would have left against medical advice if she were more lucid—was off one shoulder, exposing more skin than I was comfortable with. I looked over at her sitter, who had been there ten hours, already, due to her having tried to get out of bed multiple times that day. “Son,” I quickly blurted at her. My mother kept trying to pull her gown from her legs, unaware of how scantily clad she was already. I pulled it back over her knees and grabbed her hands to try and calm her.     “I thought you said you didn’t have a son, Alda,” the sitter said.     Foggy, my mother answered, “I don’t.” She looked at me blankly. “I have Lisa, my daughter. I have Katie (Lisa’s daughter) ...” She started at her gown, again. “No. I don’t have a son.”     I was prepared for that, but it still stung. “Wishful thinking, old woman.”     She laughed. Apparently, she remembered somethings about us. After scanning my face more, a light turned on. “Anthony! Where were you?”     “Teaching. I just found out about this an hour ago.” I squeezed her hands, noticing how pale she was. I didn’t remember her skin being so white. “You OK?” My eyes began to sting.     “You love me,” she asserted after watching me melt some in front of her. “No. You don’t love me. You like me, but you don’t love me.”     “Well, not right now I don’t.” Again, she laughed.     “I love you, mom,” I assured, using the tank-top under my maroon dress shirt as a tissue to mop up tears and snot. I told her about the picture I had looked at that morning—not knowing what else to say—but it didn’t seem to register.     The next hour or so was spent calming her down, dodging her pleas to take her home. Intermittently, she would speak word salad: random words strung together in nonsensical sentences. Other times she would talk to her father, who had died thirty-five years prior, repeating over and over, “Ayuda me, papi!” (Save me, daddy!)     At some point, she seemed more lucid, so I asked if she was scared about going into surgery, but she was oblivious. “They’re doing a procedure, mom. In and out. Easy.” I smiled, hoping the last conversation with my mother wouldn’t be a lie.     “Not with my hair looking like this!” (If you knew my mother, you would know this was a really good sign).     “It looks fine,” I laughed, but as soon as things started to look more optimistic, the pleading and agitation returned. Midnight had already come and gone, and she showed no signs of tiring. I was physically and mentally spent. I was thinking about her. The surgery. The “what ifs.” I held back tears, holding her hands, still. Then out of nowhere, her restlessness subsided, and she just looked at me. She wanted to talk but couldn’t. Our eyes locked and in that moment, I saw her, the mother on the couch, and—through all my bullshit and artifice—she saw me, shirtless in pajama bottoms, holding a copy of The Hungry Caterpillar and for a few seconds we were both happy.

Victoria Cross Allan Onik     The auctioneer displayed the medal. “Our next item is The Victoria Cross. Awarded to Private Edward Kenna of Australia for valor in the neutralization of a Japanese machine gun in Wewak, New Guinea in 1945. Do I hear one half million?”     Prague (north of Prague Castle): 27 May 1942     The curve in the road was sharp and the assassins waited. The Mercedes 320 convertible B approached from a distance and slowed. The man stepped out of the brush and onto the road with his Stem submachine and pulled the trigger. “Blast it. Jammed,” he cried. Heydrich stood up and pointed his Luger pistol. The mod anti-tank grenade was thrown at the car from another angle, ripping its rear and sending shrapnel into the tyrant. He staggered out of the car, gripping his gun. Two assassins fired M1903 handguns but missed. One hoped on a bicycle and rode off, the other chased away and escapes by tram. Heydrich griped his side and grimaced. “Get that bastard!”     “The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns Himself. We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum.”     —Heydrich (in hospital before passing of sepsis)

Multiply Thoughts, art by Denny E. Marshall

Cicada Cronies Alexander Wijangco relax my bones nerves help me breathe sleep Where do they all go those planes up in the sky Lights flicker, flashing staring with childhood wonder Birds of the night Soul of the stars Help me breathe again

Bio     In early childhood, Alexander Wijangco spent most of his time with a pen and paper always within reach. His fondest memories are sitting on the front porch writing stories. Now into adulthood, not much has changed as he has multiple projects in varying genres to work on at any given time. He has been previously published in Eskimo Pie.

Flannel In the Summertime Alexander Wijangco Backpack straps over an open mic That doesn’t make any sense Though wolves howl in my stomach and the years flash on by What were you doing yesterday today tomorrow doesn’t matter No one you know will find you here

Bio     In early childhood, Alexander Wijangco spent most of his time with a pen and paper always within reach. His fondest memories are sitting on the front porch writing stories. Now into adulthood, not much has changed as he has multiple projects in varying genres to work on at any given time. He has been previously published in Eskimo Pie.

Rude Awakening Chery Speaks     I was woken up by the loud and soon to be unsettling ringtone from my phone which that was tucked under my pillow. Exhausted from the night before, I allowed the unknown caller to make friends with the voicemail so that I could retrace back to my dream state. Yet once again I didn’t learn my lesson of leaving my phone by my pillow, causing another wave of vibration from the same unknown caller. You see I was now annoyed for two reasons. Firstly my boyfriend still wasn’t yet back home from his night of partying and now I’m being woken up by a caller that didn’t know how to quit. Vision blurred from sleep deprivation I picked up the phone and greeted the caller to that maybe hint from the tone of my voice as to why I didn’t pick up at 3:45 am. I swung my legs from over the bed feeling the comfort and heat of my azure blue sheets leave my body, following soon after my feet kissing the white icy cold floor causing even my unshaved leg hairs to stand up on all ends. Due to the debut of the impeccable timing of the screeching trolley I made my way to the kitchen to hear the caller more clearly. Waiting for my signal, I brought my attention back to the caller asking them to now speak up so that I could get back to what really mattered, for that moment I wish I hadn’t. I felt every sensation meet it’s full capacity throughout my half-clothed body causing me to drop my phone. I quickly shuffled my way to the cabinets, then to the fridge, where I snatched a cheap bottle of vodka and started guzzling the tart taste in hopes to rid of the frog forming in my throat. Followed soon after to burn the sensation of pain and regret brewing. Moments later, now halfway down the bottle, I slowly made my way back to the bed as though hearing the bells of judgment ring upon my lifeless body. At the edge of the bed, there laid a maroon sweater, I gently picked up it up as those it was liable to break and closed my eyes. Hell’s sweetest nectar dripped from my lips, as I cradled the sweater to my senses so that I could smell his masculinity, his love, his presence one last time.

The Box of Polaroids Charles S. Manuel     Kayleen opened the door and was surprised to find no one there. She looked around and called out but there was no response through the hall of her apartment complex. She was about to head back inside when something on the ground caught her attention.     A small black shoebox sat in front of her door.     Kayleen look around the halls once more before picking up the box and bringing it inside before closing the door. She brought it into the living room and set it down on the coffee table in front of her, looking over it once more. There was no postage, no wrapping. It was just an ordinary shoebox.     Kayleen took a sip of the evening wine she had just poured herself before opening the box, gasping when she saw a photo. It was of her husband, it was his military photo, all dresses up in his formal Marine uniform. She lifted it out, her hands shaking as she stared at him. Another look in the box showed something just as shocking. The shoebox was filled with Polaroids.     Kayleen picked up the first one. It was the one that he had taken on their last date night before he shipped out almost eight months ago. The next was them embracing when she had dropped him off at the base. She kept going through them, pictures of him on the base, then on a transport, a naval ship, then on another base in full gear.     One after another the pictures of him were there. There was one though that wasn’t moving as she shifted through the others. It had been taped to the bottom. She looked at it, eyes going wide as she covered her mouth with a hand. The picture was of him, but behind him, was her door, and in front of the door was the shoebox.     Kayleen ran over and opened the door, starting to cry as massive arms wrapped around her. He was home. Safe and sound.

Philosopher at the Blue Note Janet Kuypers he seemed so interested in philosophy, which seemed strange, sitting at a bar at about one-thirty in the morning, it didn’t seem the time or place for philosophy. but i asked questions anyway, so do you believe in a god, and if so do you believe in a mono- or polytheistic religion? and he answered by saying that everyone has a god, whether it be their soul or an icon they pray to every night before they go to bed. and that it doesn’t matter what form the god takes for a person, because the moral values are similar in most every religion, what matters is that we have a god of one sort or another. that most people don’t pay attention to their spirituality, who they are or what they really want. no, they don’t, i thought, and was amazed that this drunk man was able to formulate cohesive thoughts at two-thirty in the morning. but then, of course, he had to mention something about sexuality, and then i realized that it was all one long, drawn- out come on, then he asked me for my phone number and i gave him a fake one, and then he tried to kiss me, and i pushed him away and he ended up running out of the bar. so much for phil- osophy, i thought, and i went home once again, alone with my morals, or values, or whatever the hell you want to call them, wondering if there is anyone out there like me.

Order this iTunes track: also in different forms: from the Chaotic Collection ...Or order the entire 5 CD set from iTunes: CD:

Listen to this from the CD release from the first performance art show (08/14/97) Seeing Things Differently for $6.22

Listen Live at the Cafe, now available in a 3 CD set

Watch the YouTube video (1:54) live 08/05/07 at Beach Poets

Order this iTunes track: from Chaots in Motion (a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes CD:

Listen to this track from the DMJ Art Connection

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems Precinct Fourteen, Philosopher at the Blue Note and newspaper ink’s the blood of a dying species 7/31/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her 3 poems Precinct Fourteen, Philosopher at the Blue Note and newspaper ink’s the blood of a dying species 7/31/16 at the Austin open mic Kick Butt Poetry (this video was filmed from a Sony camera).

See YouTube video 5/13/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Knelt and Cried”, “Philosopher at the Blue Note” and “I Started Writing This Poem When” at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (Lumix).

See YouTube video 5/13/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Knelt and Cried”, “Philosopher at the Blue Note” and “I Started Writing This Poem When” at Georgetown’s “Poetry Aloud” (Sony).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

She Was a Woman Janet Kuypers She was a woman who thought too much. She was a woman who had dreams. She was a woman who accomplished everything she set out to. She was a woman who wore a crown of thorns. She was a woman who was punished for things she had not done. She was a woman who was strong. She was a woman who was beautiful. She was a woman who was beaten down. She was a woman who was angry. She was a woman who would walk into a coworker’s office,      stand on a desk and do the twist,      just to relieve corporate boredom. She was a woman who worked twelve-hour days. She was a woman who cried at Kleenex commercials. She was a woman who fought for her rights. She was a woman who should not have been born. She was a woman who believed in nothing but herself. She was a woman who begged to be loved. She was a woman who deserved more. She was a woman who picked flowers      from her neighbor’s yards in the middle of the night. She was a woman who belched out loud. She was a woman who laughed too hard. She was a woman who swore too much. She was a woman who grew up too fast. She was a woman who would turn up the stereo      and dance alone in her living room. She was a woman who read philosophy. She was a woman who needed a reason. She was a woman who always saw the irony. She was a woman who demanded perfection. She was a woman who was always looking for something else. She was a woman who would jump on hotel beds      every time she travelled and booked a room.      Because it was hers. Because she could. She was a woman who hated how she looked. She was a woman who wanted to be better. She was a woman who hated to lose control. She was a woman who planned everything. She was a woman who always had to feel secure. She was a woman who never played drinking games,      because she never needed an excuse to drink. She was a woman who showed off her legs. She was a woman who raised the pitch of her voice      when she was asking for something. She was a woman who talked to her cat in a baby voice. She was a woman who could not eat something she could not kill. She was a woman who wrote letters to the editor. She was a woman who went to the manager      when the service was bad. She was a woman who liked making waves. She was a woman who wrote poetry. She was a woman who could drink most men under the table. She was a woman who loved dirty jokes. She was a woman who seldom crossed her legs. She was a woman who worked on eight different projects      at once, and still managed to get them all done on time. She was a woman who never asked for help. She was a woman who always had the answers. She was a woman who admired ability. She was a woman who did everything to extremes. She was a woman who wanted to be alive. She was a woman who was never satisfied. She was a woman who was always trying. She was a woman who was always. She was a woman who was. She was a woman who She was a woman. She was a She was.

Order this iTunes track: from Chaots in Motion (a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes CD:

Listen to this from the CD release from the first performance art show (08/14/97) Seeing Things Differently

Watch this YouTube video live at the Yammer Chicago mini-feature 11/17/99

Listen to the DMJ Art Connection

Watch this YouTube video (4:03) recorded of dancing Boobies (birds called Nazca Boobies, Punta Suarez, Espanola Island 12/25/07, Galapagos Islands)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

Too Far Janet Kuypers When he met me he told me I looked like long blonde locks but as time wore on I knew I wasn’t her and I could never be her     and I was never good enough thin enough pretty enough I got a perm straightened my bought a wonder bra     but it wasn’t doing the trick I bought slimfast used the stair stepper     ate rice cakes and wheat germ but I wasn’t only dropped so I went to the peeled     soaked wrapped myself in cellophane bought the amino acid facial creams but I knew they didn’t really work so I went to the doctor     got my my tummy stapled my thighs sucked thought about removed like Cher but I figured they’ve got to be there for something and hey, that’s too far

Order this iTunes track: from the Chaotic Collection ...Or order the entire 5 CD set from iTunes: CD:

Order this iTunes track: from Chaots in Motion (a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes: CD:

Listen Live at the Cafe, now available in a 3 CD set

Watch the YouTube Urbanation video (1:21, 02/22/04)

Listen (or listen live) to the DMJ Art Connection, off the CD Contact•Conflict•Control

...Order this on oh. — the audio cd!!!

Listen to the CD recording from the CD Rough Mixes, by Pointless Orchestra

Watch the YouTube video (1:41) live 08/05/07 at Beach Poets

Listen to this radio recording from WZRD Radio (in a 2 CD set)

Watch the video (3:46) 3 poems read live (05/19/07) at the Jared Smith book release: Too Far, Headache & the Burning. This film is from the Internet Archive

Listen Live at the Cafe, now available in a 3 CD set bonus track from the Chicago Poetry Fest, 2004

Watch this YouTube video (1:43, 11/21/95)

Listen to the Second Axing off the CD Live in Alaska.

Watch this YouTube video airing 4 times on TV 12/06

from the show A Night of Firsts: This film is from the Internet Archive

Watch this YouTube video (1:41, 06/22/04)

Watch the Urbanation YouTube video (1:21, 02/22/04)

Watch the video at Poetry Visualized

Watch the YouTube video (2:24) 04/01/05 (April Fool’s Day) Live at the DvA Chicago Art Gallery show Conflict • Contact • Control

Watch this YouTube video live in the Peter Jones Gallery 10/09/08 Chiago show HA!man Collaborations

Watch this YouTube video poem video broadcast on Nashville TV, show #1 of Speer Presents

Watch this YouTube video poem video broadcast on Nashville TV, show #2 of Speer Presents

Watch this YouTube video performed for C Ra McGuirt (Penny Dreadful Press) in Nashville 12/20/08

Watch this YouTube video Live at a Woman on the Beach (Beach Poets 08/02/09) (camera#1)

Watch this YouTube video Live at a Woman on the Beach (Beach Poets 08/02/09) (camera#2)

See the full a Woman on the Beach (Beach Poets 08/02/09) show video (08/02/09, from camera#1) This film is from the Internet Archive

See the full a Woman on the Beach (Beach Poets 08/02/09) show video (08/02/09, from camera#1) This film is from the Internet Archive

Watch this YouTube video live at the Café in Chicago 06/22/10

Watch this YouTube video of part one of the “40” show live at the Café in Chicago 06/22/10

Watch this YouTube video of pt. 1 of the “40” show w/ camera 2 @ the Café twith this piece 06/22/10

Watch the Full Video from camera#1 as a downloadable mp4 file, live at the Café w/ this piece 06/22/10, from the Internet Archive.

Watch the Full Video from camera#2 as a downloadable mp4 file, live at the Café w/ this piece 06/22/10, from the Internet Archive.

Watch this YouTube video 12/04/10 from the TV camera in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her show the Stories of Women

Watch this YouTube video 12/04/10 in Lake Villa at Swing State, live in her “Visual Nonsense” show the Stories of Women

See Kuypers’ full show video (45:01, of the full show) with this & more from the TV monitor in the the Stories of Women show, in Visual Nonsense, live in Lake Villa 12/04/10 at Swing State

See the full show video of Kuypers reading this & more in the the Stories of Women show in in Visual Nonsense, live in Lake Villa 12/04/10 with this writing at Swing State (last line of last story cut off)

Watch the YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem at the open mike 2/15/12 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, from the Kodak

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem (about Ani DiFranco, and not Kim Basinger) 9/26/26 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Canon)

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem (about Ani DiFranco, and not Kim Basinger) 9/26/26 at the Café Gallery in Chicago (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers’ open mike 9/26/26 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, plus her poetry (including this poem)

Order this iTunes track from the poetry music CD Live in Alaska ...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes:

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem 4/8/13 at the Frankenstone art center in Chicago (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers reading this poem 4/8/13 at the Frankenstone art center in Chicago (Canon)

See YouTube video of Kuypers performing poetry including this poem in a poetry reading as she was called the “Headliner” 4/8/13 at Chicago’s Frankenstone art center (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers performing poetry including this poem in a poetry reading as she was called the “Headliner” 4/8/13 at Chicago’s Frankenstone art center (Canon)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live 6/12/13 as the intro to the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (Canon)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live 6/12/13 as the intro to the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (Sony)

See YouTube video of Kuypers hosting the open mic 6/12/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, including her reading this and other poems & prose!

Watch this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live in Chicago 8/28/13 (C) at her interview & reading

Watch this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live in Chicago 8/28/13 (S) at her interview & reading

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 2 sets of 3 poems each, including the poems Death is a Dog, Everything Was Alive and Dying and Fantastic Car Crash in set 1, and Too Far, the Burning and Under the Sea in set 2, 8/11/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon fs200)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 2 sets of 3 poems each, including the poems Death is a Dog, Everything Was Alive and Dying and Fantastic Car Crash in set 1, and Too Far, the Burning and Under the Sea in set 2, 8/11/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon Power Shot)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 3 poems, Too Far, the Burning and Children, Churches and Daddies 9/16/15 at In One Ear open mic in Chicago (Cfs)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading 3 poems, Too Far, the Burning and Children, Churches and Daddies 9/16/15 at In One Ear open mic in Chicago (Cps)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers singing her poem Made Any Difference (to John Y.’s music), then reading her poems Fantastic Car Crash and Too Far 9/16/15 at the Poetry At The Gallery Cabaret open mic in Chicago (Cps)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers singing her poem Made Any Difference (to John Y.’s music), then reading her poems Fantastic Car Crash and Too Far 9/16/15 at the Poetry At The Gallery Cabaret open mic in Chicago (Cfs)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon fs200)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Too Far live 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago (Canon Power Shot)

See YouTube video (Cfs) of Janet Kuypers reading 5 poems: Once Wanted You as my Friend, Escaping Every Cage, and a Scars medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000, then Too Far and Children, Churches and Daddies 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago

See YouTube video (Cps) of Janet Kuypers reading 5 poems: Once Wanted You as my Friend, Escaping Every Cage, and a Scars medley (based on parts of the prose poem Scars and the poems Scars 1997 and Scars 2000, then Too Far and Children, Churches and Daddies 10/6/15 at Quenchers open mic in Chicago

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems from memory, Too Far, Fantastic Car Crash, and Under the Sea 6/26/16 at the Austin music open mic Kick Butt Poetry (this video was filmed with a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ 3 poems from memory, Too Far, Fantastic Car Crash, and Under the Sea 6/26/16 at the Austin music open mic Kick Butt Poetry (this video was filmed with a Sony camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” in the first round at the final Austin installment (at her house) of the Poetry Plus open mic 7/22/16 (video filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” in the first round at the final Austin installment (at her house) of the Poetry Plus open mic 7/22/16 (video filmed from a Sony camera).

Listen to this from the CD release from her first performance art show (8/14/97) Seeing Things Differently - or click on the CD cover to order tracks from this release.

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Us, Actually Touching” from her v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, her poem “Too Far” from her interview/ journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then her poem/ song “Made Any Difference” with John on guitar, from her performance art poetry collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/10/18 @ “For to Famous” (from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Us, Actually Touching” from her v5 cc&d boss lady poetry collection book “On the Edge”, her poem “Too Far” from her interview/ journal/poetry book “In Depth”, then her poem/ song “Made Any Difference” with John on guitar, from her performance art poetry collection book “Chapter 48 (v1)” 9/10/18 @ “For to Famous” a(from a Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, then her micro-prose “Phone Calls from Brian Tolle” from her “Getting Wired” show, both performed from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 48 (v 1)”, and then her poem “Each Trigger Pull” 3/3/19 @ “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, then her micro-prose “Phone Calls from Brian Tolle” from her “Getting Wired” show, both performed from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 48 (v 1)”, and then her poem “Each Trigger Pull” 3/3/19 @ “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix T56; Posterize).

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, then her micro-prose “Phone Calls from Brian Tolle” from her “Getting Wired” show, both performed from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 48 (v 1)”, and then her poem “Each Trigger Pull” 3/3/19 @ “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Chicago poet Janet Kuypers reading her poem “Too Far” from her “a Woman on the Beach” show, then her micro-prose “Phone Calls from Brian Tolle” from her “Getting Wired” show, both performed from her poetry performance art book “Chapter 48 (v 1)”, and then her poem “Each Trigger Pull” 3/3/19 @ “Recycled Reads” (Panasonic Lumix 2500; Sepia Tone).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

Click here for the Janet Kuypers bio.

Transcribing Dreams 3 Janet Kuypers I was walking into your living room and there was a ten-gallon fish tank there. You just bought it. You were looking at the fish, that’s when I walked over. And I saw a shark fish in the tank, one about eight inches long, and he was at the bottom, killing and eating a four-inch fish. There were other one-inch fish swimming at the top, neon tetras, small things. And I walked over and the shark was just eating the four- inch fish, and soon he was completely gone. And you were just looking, you could do nothing to save the fish. And then another four-inch fish came out of hiding from behind a plant on the left side of the tank, and he darted around. It looked like he was in a state of panic, maybe he breathed the blood of the other four-inch fish, his ally, his family. And he started darting around the tank, and the shark was just sitting at the bottom of the tank, and the other four-inch fish darted more. And then the shark opened his mouth, and in a darting panic, the four-inch fish swim straight into the shark’s mouth. All he had to do was close his mouth and swallow the fish whole. There was no fight, like with the first one. There was no struggle. And I looked over at you, and you were amazed that this shark just ate your two fish, which were probably over ten dollars each, and that they didn’t just get along in the tank together. And I looked at the tank, and I saw the one-inch neon tetras darting around along the top of the water. They knew they would be victims later, trapped in this little cage, and that the shark would just wait until he was bored until he administered his punishment. I wanted to ask you why you bought all of these different-sized fish and expected them to live together peacefully. Maybe you didn’t even realize that the shark would need more food than he was prepared to but him. Besides, a shark that size shouldn’t even be alone in a tank as small as ten gallons. He needs room to grow. But before I could say anything, I saw the shark swim to the top of the water, push his head and nose out of the water, open the lid to the top of the aquarium. You weren’t looking, so I told you to look to the top, and not to get too close. And the shark just sat there, looking at you, and it looked as if he wanted to show you what a good eater he was. It was almost as if he was looking to you for approval.

Order this iTunes track: from Chaos in Motion (a 6 CD set)...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes CD:

Listen to a live track from the performance art show Dreams 2/3/04, or order ANY track of the CD Dreams through iTunes.

Listen to this from the CD release from the first performance art show (8/148/97) “Seeing Things Differently” - or get ANY track of the CD “Seeing Things Differently” through iTunes.

Watch this YouTube video (2:46) from the Dreams show, 2/3/04

Watch this YouTube video (3:17) the TV screen broadcast from the Chicago show Dreams, live 2/3/04 You can also see the above video on msn

See Janet Kuypers’ entire 2/3/04 “Dreams” show in Chicago through the television camera (which includes this poem), from the Internet Archive

Order this iTunes track from the poetry music CD the Elements ...Or order the entire CD set from iTunes:

Watch this YouTube video read live 01/18/11 from the ISSN# & ISBN# book Finally, Literature for the Snotty and Elite, live at the Café in Chicago

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her Periodic Table poem Transcribing Dreams 3 from her book Finally, Literature for the Snotty and Elite live 11/20/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poem Transcribing Dreams 3 from her book Finally, Literature for the Snotty and Elite live 11/20/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (S)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poetry from her book Finally, Literature for the Snotty and Elite including this poem live 11/20/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her poetry from her book Finally, Literature for the Snotty and Elite including this poem live 11/20/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (S)

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers hosting the open mic 11/20/13 at Gallery Cabaret’s the Café Gallery in Chicago, where she read many poems in mini-features, including this poem.

Listen to this from Kiki, Jake & Haystack, or order ANY iTunes track off their CD “an American Portrait”.

See YouTube video live 10/21/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Transcribing Dreams Three”, “People’s Rights Misunderstood” and “Dreams 01/28/07 (Seeing Mom)” from her book “When you Dream Tonight” at “Recycled Reads” open mic (from a Panasonic Lumix camera).

See YouTube video live 10/21/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Transcribing Dreams Three”, “People’s Rights Misunderstood” and “Dreams 01/28/07 (Seeing Mom)” from her book “When you Dream Tonight” at “Recycled Reads” open mic (Lumix camera; Cyan filter).

See YouTube video live 10/21/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Transcribing Dreams Three”, “People’s Rights Misunderstood” and “Dreams 01/28/07 (Seeing Mom)” from her book “When you Dream Tonight” at “Recycled Reads” open mic (Lumix camera; Threshold filter).

See YouTube video live 10/21/17 of Janet Kuypers reading her poems “Transcribing Dreams Three”, “People’s Rights Misunderstood” and “Dreams 01/28/07 (Seeing Mom)” from her book “When you Dream Tonight” at “Recycled Reads” open mic (Lumix camera; Posterize filter).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers, while hosting the Poetry Aloud open mic 4/28/18 in Georgetown TX, read 3 her poems, “And I’m Wondering”, “Transcribing Dreams 3”, and “The One at Mardi Gras” from her book “Chapter 38 v1” to a live audience for National poetry Month (Panasonic Lumix T56).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers, while hosting the Poetry Aloud open mic 4/28/18 in Georgetown TX, read 3 her poems, “And I’m Wondering”, “Transcribing Dreams 3”, and “The One at Mardi Gras” from her book “Chapter 38 v1” to a live audience for National poetry Month (Panasonic Lumix 2500).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her "“Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix T56 camera).

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers’ June 2019 Book Release Reading 6/5/19, where she read her poem “Outsider” for the Brian Lamont dedication (that will appear in her book “(pheromemes) haiku, twitterverse, Instagram & poetry”, released August 2019), then her Down in the Dirt v164 May-June 2019 issue/book “The Deep Woods” poem “Poetry on a Stick”, and her haiku poems “mirror”, “keyboard” and “our differences”, then her “Seeing Things Differently” show poems “Philosopher at the Blue Note”, “She was a Woman”, “Too Far”, and “Transcribing Dreams Three”, during Community Poetry @ Half Price Books (Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera).