The works in this collection are the property of their respective creators.

Leaf Garden Press

has been granted one time publication rights, which includes publication electronically and in
print.

Cover art: “The Flower” by Josh Petty

 Leaf
Garden
issue #7

Published by Leaf Garden Press, January 2010.

http://leafgardenpress.com
 Contents

Benjamin C. Krause (1)

Phil Lane (3)
Walt Burns (4)
Ryan Quinn Flanagan (5)
Curt Last (7)
Linda Rose Parkes (9)
J.H. Martin (10)
Constance Stadler (11)
Kirpal Gordon (12)
Courtney Elmlinger (13)
Kelley D. (15)
Justin Hyde (16)
Chris G. Vaillancourt (20)
John Grochalski (22)
Michael Cohen (23)
Michael Lee Johnson (25)
N. God Savage (26)
Eric J. Brinovec (27)
iDrew (28)
Douglas Pugh (29)
Mikko Harvey (31)
J de Salvo (32)
Lyn Lifshin (35)
Kit Kennedy (36)
David LaBounty (38)
Danny P. Barbare (44)
Justin Carmickle (45)
Corina Pia (55)
Susan Poindexter (56)
Lisa Zaran (57)
Heather Napualani Hodges (58)
Gary Lark (61)
Daniel Wilcox (66)
J. Bradley (67)
Subhankar Das (68)
Corey Mesler (69)
Gary Beck (72)
Connor Stratman (73)
Gary Lark (74)
Karissa Morton (79)
Derek Richards (80)
Adam Hughes (83)
Josh Petty (85)
Chandle Lee (86)
Hi folks,

Thank you for reading this issue of Leaf Garden. You're pretty, and people like you a lot.

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Your friendly editors,
Robert Louis Henry & Melanie Browne
Benjamin C. Krause is a software engineer from Youngstown, OH. His poetry will be
appearing in Counterexample Poetics in December and Tipton Poetry Journal in January. He
is also working on a novel about his battle with schizoaffective disorder, with which he was
diagnosed at age 21.

Disordered Rant 2

My brother is so inconsiderate
I had some Sam Adams
in the freezer at Thanksgiving
and he went and took the last one.

I don’t know why he thinks The Echo

he can just take anything he wants
and I wish I could
beat him up like I used to
and like my older brother used to do to me
but we’re all adults now
and that’s considered assault.
I remember one time when he was 8
he wouldn’t give me a sip
of his Hawaiian Punch
so I went and…
you know what,
forget I said anything
he’s not such a bad guy.
Nightmares from when I was 6 years old
return to terrorize me at twenty
and I keep discovering little things
that might mean more.
I begin to realize the intricacies,
hearing them whispering on the streets
and a news report in my head
reporting everything I’m doing.
Specters of people invade my room,
searching, sneaking, stealing,
taunting, tormenting, torturing,
and then fading into thin air.

Tell my doctor and he sends me

where I can’t wear shoe-laces,
or smoke a cigarette outside designated times.
They pass out pills, make me forget I exist.

And my body seems so far away

as memories turn to shadows and fade
and soon all that’s left is
the echo of a soul screaming out
for deliverance.
Classified 1

Journal for sale;

belonged to our grandfather.
He bought it after the war,
sat in front of it
every day with a pen,
and never wrote a word.

1
Disordered Rant 4

The god damn grocery store

wouldn’t let me buy regular Sudafed
at 3 in the morning
because it was behind the pharmacy
and they didn’t have the keys.

How do they expect me to sleep

when my nose is clogged up
with thoughts of how depressing life is
and I want to move far away from here
and elope with this girl
I went out with two years ago
who had long golden hair like Rapunzel
but in curls
her name was Becky

but all that’s not really important

because even if I had Sudafed
I couldn’t get her to take me back
and I doubt she would be awake right now anyway.

Classified 9

Cryptanalyst wanted
to decipher the codes I’ve found hidden throughout Finnegans Wake.
He should know how to jam radio frequencies
because someone’s using radio to control my family
and making them try to stop me from doing this important work.
For some reason when they tell me to stop, they have tears in their eyes.

Classified 11

Found: young girl’s diary.

Chronicles her change from a sweet, carefree 10-year-old
to a teen who’s absolutely in love with boys,
happy when they love her and depressed when they don’t.
The last page reads:
“I threw up this morning. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

2
 Phil Lane
has poems in various small magazines over the past five years. When he is
not writing, reading or hiking with his dog, he teaches English for a private tutoring company
in Northern New Jersey.

CATHARSIS PATCHWORK

We are all cut

Sometimes we look this gift horse—life—
from the same cloth,
in the mouth, ungrateful ragged as a beggar’s
as tramps, uncouth as shawl, fine as the
the angry young man, rich man’s suit,
the last just fella it’s all a matter
who always of how you
comes in last; wear it;
Some of us sleep in the rain, Me, I’m wearing
soaked to the skin the cloak of misery,
under a nebulous sky hanging by a thread
without parasol or prayer, beneath the jib
we toil and tremble in the spit of jilted love
but never get cleansed. draped across
my slump
Sometimes in the last place
like an albatross,
you look, in a corner
upholstered with
of your own dust, you find the silken stitch
a fragment of heaven, of all that’s gone
fleeting before it is forgotten; wrong, of every grief.
Sometimes morning breaks
over sun-soaked sheets In the pitches of night,
and you stretch, somehow this patchwork
taller than you were falls all around me
yesterday, while today stretches like amnesia, but amidst
out like a bounty, the fabric of memory
an orchard at apple-time, you do not come,
And so you take this so I turn off the lights
moment, this farthing and lay up
in this October country
and forsake it in your pocket,
with only the shirt
a coin you found heads-up
on my back,
on a city sidewalk with only my
amid the concrete long black coat
chasms, the chimera, and the promise
and the cold, of redressing
calculated hopelessness— in this room
surrounded by dust,
by books,
histories that can never
answer me back
except with the epiphanic
echo that fear of death
is no better
than fear of life—
3
 Walt Burnstried out for the voice of Larry the Cucumber. He didn't get the job.

from the bower

i need a rake across the chalk of my dander

by fathomless opera, akin to life, unaware
passing through scales of wonderful people
hidden in husks of my own prejudice

everything I touch, i keep in a garden

everything I breathe, i put in a carcass

ostracize ostriches? my head, in the clouds,

pounds the brown earth with broken capillaries
hemorrhaging puddles from white picket fences
flowers nudge through but the coast isn’t clear
as the children we saved run to pick them

everything I want, i truly have it

everything I need, is just a habit

i wouldn’t rain down if it was your head

you mollified my heart when you gave me a pardon
my verdant soul is no eden
the trucks line up and wheel from the bower
pitching the grounds of my piteous weeping

4
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a wheezing asthmatic. As such, he prefers short walks on the beach and
the company of inhalers.

Sunrises Trade-offs

I’ve seen more sunrises than When I was five

I care to remember. I knew how to fly.

The only people who think sunrises are romantic At six

are those who get a sound night’s sleep. I had ESP.
If you loaded up on Benedryls By the age of nine
and Cognac each night I could run faster
and watched infomercials ‘til the sun came up than a speeding bullet.
you would soon understand the error of your ways.
Now that I am thirty
Sunrises are not something to be enjoyed by I can do none of those things
lovers in each other’s arms but I know how to shave
as the sun comes up. and fill out my tax forms.
Sunrises are something to be endured Life
by skinny junkies is all about trade-offs.
who can’t sleep.

Insomniacs who order 5-speed vegetable choppers

and wait 6-8 weeks

for delivery.

Parking Lot

We pull into an empty parking lot

and she parks
in the parking spot
For Expectant and New Mothers.

Trust me,

it’s a lousy way

to find out.

5
The Year Santa Claus Came Early Barbie After Ken

One year A nurse I know

Santa Claus came early at a long term care facility
leaving with our TV said Barbie was admitted
VCR old and sandpaper wrinkled
and some of mother’s jewellery. and that she was possessed.

The cops said he didn’t use the chimney Apparently,

as his point of entry this time Barbie has a blue film grown over her eyes
and that he must have left his and spends the whole day yelling
reindeer-led sleigh at home Damn you, you mothers fuckers
cause he was spotted fleeing the scene damn children fuckers
in a blue late model Camry. in a daemonic croaky voice.
They feed Barbie coke
For the next few days and Hershey bars
I set milk and cookies out to keep her happy
just in case
but Santa never came back. but all to no avail.

A couple of weeks later Barbie after Ken

Richard Nixon and the Easter Bunny is not a pretty picture
hit a bank but then again
three blocks away. I guess no one is

with time.
A Little Game
Barbie after Ken
Try stopping at a walk signal pulls out her foley catheter all day long
sometime and and reeks of stale urine.
wait until the light changes.
As for her pink convertible,
The swelled city throngs
will be immediately angered I believe the state was awarded possession
at your defiance and sold it off
as they manoeuvre hurriedly around you for parts.
to make the light.

When the walk signal returns

proceed at the usual pace
as you follow your previous self home
and envy their punctuality.

6
 Curt Last
lives between Huntington Beach, California, and the city of Tumon, on the
island of Guam. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Pre-Law from U.C. Santa Barbara and
his Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from California State University, Long Beach. His graduate
video work for the “Guam Series” of poems may be viewed at Myspace under the link
http://myspace.com/curt_aka_tha_realest (contains some scatological content).

He is currently working on two book-length collections of poems—one based upon his various
stays on the island of Guam, the other following a three-month trip along the Pacific Rim to
locales such as Fiji and Bali. He travels for his writing and out of curiosity. He lives to write
and writes to live—which is why he recently signed on to the United States Naval Reserves
under their Hospital Corpsman program, and awaits further orders.

His poetry has appeared in The California Quarterly, The Chiron Review, Pearl, and Spot(lit)
Magazine, among others. His letters and essays have been published in The California
Quarterly as well.

The Clouds

Out here the rains pass quickly

As the equatorial sun comes
And dries their liquid shadows
As if there was never any rain,
Only the foliage that sits in wait.

Out at sea unimaginably white

Clouds pass, reflecting sunlight
Into all colors, the best photos;
But the black clouds loom and
Roam, passing slanted sheets

Of rain onto the seas they weave

Over; seem like dark jellyfishes
Against a thin, blue, heat-promised
Horizon. I’m glad I’m not out
There, at sea, among their stings.
Palm Trees

Gray as aged concrete, riddled by insects,

And beaten by typhoons—they still wave.
Skirts of dead leaves flop against flawed skin
Under a climate that grows and sustains them.

Leaves green, though of no gracious anchorite,

Cast stunning hues upon overcast tropical skies.
Whispish white clouds fuse with waving color,
Electrify—lights on a midnight Christmas tree.
7
On the Different Sides of This Island

This is the windward side of the island,

Where reefs do not form. Jagged black
Rock, black sand, and open ocean fury
Are its only joys. Waves, having nothing
To fight them, crashcrashcrash upon stone.

This is the leeward side of the island,

Apart from the winds of the windward,
Perfectly-shaped crescent beaches have
White sand with blue-channeled reefs—
Invite colorful fish—Please swim and feed.

Both could not exist without the other,

As the windward side holds off the strength
Of the trade winds and the punishing ocean,
As the leeward contains and invites life—,
Between reef and rock is held the imagination.

The Brown Tree Snake

Said to be introduced to Guam at the port of Apra Harbor,

They were found under the engine hoods of military jeeps
Sitting at the docks, brought over from Hawaii near the end
Of World War II. With time they decimated the entire bird
Population of the island, being arboreal and having a fine taste
For their eggs. The skies of Guam often only see the flight

Of Sealths, B-52s, Hornets, Warthogs, and other lesser

Fighter bombers. The snake appears to be Guam’s greatest
Claim to fame, other than the Mariana Fruit Bat and the
Term “The Rock,” used to describe the geographic isolation
Here. It’s a bit unfair, though myths of its population persevere,
How the snake is found everywhere, crawling up phone lines,

Causing power outages—GPA* must be thankful for its existence,

As good excuses are hard to come by; the Department of the
Interior and the University of Guam have worked on ridding
The island of the snake, and every so often, you may actually see
A bittern resting peacefully, or a thresher racing through palm tree
Lines along Tumon Beach. Some things are getting better

8
Linda Rose Parkes Her debut collection, the usher's torch, was published by Hearing Eye in
2005. Her second collection, Costumes and Camouflage is due out in Spring, 2010, with the
same publisher. Her work has been compared with 1001 Nights - Scharazade spinning tales to
save her own life.

the U-Boat Kapitän summoned by Pegasus

Every night I was looking for a sign

that I could sleep without dreams
of broken men – I watched the enemy

captain stroll on the bridge, a streak

of bubbles tracking the torpedo. Stokers,
grooms storming the hatchways,

wedged stall upon stall,

the rearing, slipping horses
bound for the Front.

I crammed my eyes with stars

in the hope of a day worth the trouble
of my ablutions, the wearing of a good tie.

But stranded nightly in my backyard,

I was summoned by ghosts:
the bay mare quivering

in the horse star constellation,

the lunging deeps of her eyes
as she attempted to swim,

the white stallion leaping

over the berthing rail –
when I saw him land oh mein gott

in a full-laden boat, I quickly lowered

the periscope,
shouted orders to dive.

Finally run aground, in slippers and bathrobe,

I kneel to Pegasus, under the weight
of what I’ve done. Tonight,

inside the whinnying dark,

gashing hooves, veering flanks,
sweeping necks of arched muscle

come to perfect rest. And lifting

from the blood and smoke,
the mangled souls rise.

9
 J.H. Martin was born in London, England. In search of joy and experience he hitched
and wandered across Europe, then made his way to the Far East and traveled extensively in the wilds
of China where he now resides, and has done for 8 years, as a recluse in the Sichuan countryside. In
April 2009, his first short collection of poetry, entitled Spring Wanderings was published in
China by Rivers & Lakes Press (riversandlakespress@gmail.com)

WHITE CRANE CLOUDS

What holds me here

Is a good question, my friend,
One to which I have no reply.
So I’ll see you soon,
Under white crane clouds,
Walking in fragrant grasses.
I hope you’ll find
A peak for me,
Where I can sit alone.

10
Constance Stadler has published over 300 poems and three chapbooks in her ‘first
manifestation’ as a poet twenty years ago, and has released two chaps Tinted Steam (Shadow
Archer Press) Sublunary Curse (Erbacce) and an eBook, Paper Cuts (Calliope Nerve). A new
book Responsorials (with Rich Follett) was just released in fall 2009 (Neopoeisis Press).

prayer

my Lady of blinding optimism

have mercy on me
for I now seek rainbows
in all the hues of this bloodied,
burned out
life
I look at the sashay of the
last leaves
as mottled canopies of hope
the night sky is aglow, again,
in billions of dead
glimmerings

my Lady, my Lady
I ask but this
if dreams do not resound
on this behemoth mount
tuck me in a snowdrift Vale
and let me linger.

11
Kirpal Gordon once rode a tricycle to a biker bar. His writing has been published
posthumously by the bar tender.

Doors & Rain, Dinner & Men

There’s a man standing in the rain by your back door calling out your name. You
don’t have to go to the window. His voice, so sweet and strong, already tells you what is
possible with him. And what is not.
Consider instead the man who has just stepped out of his sports car and now stands
at your front door ringing your buzzer. That’s dinner right there and who knows what else?
Smartly dressed under a big black umbrella, he’s not soaked to the bone singing your name
out at the top of his lungs against a summer downpour. On the contrary! He’s met you under
proper circumstances, sought out your phone number, suggested a date, respected your
wishes and seemed so glad when you returned his call.
Don’t go to the back window. What do you expect to see: a drenched man hat in
hand, probably dancing, refuting your claim that he’s about to catch a cold by telling you how
much you challenge and reveal him. That’s why he’s calling your name: to challenge and
reveal you. Meanwhile, the man wondering why you’re not answering your buzzer does not
wish to test your limits or live for only what the moment suggests. He’s right on time and he’s
holding a dozen roses, yet he waits while you sneak a look at the crazy man around back.
Forget him. Go out. You’re dressed anyway. Why not get taken to a great new place
by a stylish and attractive man, a knower of wines and lover of good food? The other man
may still be there when you get back, perhaps a little more tamed by time. More to the point,
the sound of your own name sung aloud may not pull the rip chords of your solar plexus so
hard that you yearn to land in his outstretched arms.
In other words after eating many things could change. It’s really a question of
evening the score by showing up with all you’ve got. Why not advertise your legs to the man
who escorts you into a car made to go faster than you want? He’s driving. Relax, have a
drink, eat well. Let him lead you past your thoughts of the other man, but don’t tip the
balance against the one paying for dinner. You already know it’s not his lack of humor, just
his quest to possess you that keeps him looking stupid. Don’t twist the knife.
After the rich dessert and the double brandy, after his appeals inviting you to see his
etchings, avoid making mutual the embarrassment of pretending. You needn’t tell him you
are not who he wants, that his devotion has nothing to do with you. Oh, his clutchy goodbye
in the car with the foreign initials---yes, you’ll call him; yes, you’ll remember him; yes, you’ll
think about everything he told you to think about with whatever promises pave the fastest
exit.
After the handshake, after you’ve triple-locked the door behind you and checked that
the other one is not sleeping on your back porch, get into bed and listen to the rain on the
roof. When you pass beyond what memory can re-claim, just before sleep, then you can admit
how tragic the pursuit of love, how every gentleman caller cancels the other until you learn
what really matters to who you really are.

12
Courtney Elmlinger had always considered herself an Emily Dickinson of sorts, until now.
Crawling out of her shell and joining the world of submissions has been one of her most
liberating experiences. Daily life with her husband and son keep her muse sharpened. Her
work has only recently begun its journey of circulation and has appeared in Up The Staircase
and Mademoiselle'sFingertips. She hopes to find her poetry trailing a long train of brightly
colored acceptances.

Painting Thalia’s Pine Trees

Thalia reaches for the paint brush–

yellow warblers catch the snag
of song dangling from her parted lips
as her knuckle-white
fingers extend from grave.

Before cancer dug its ugly roots

into the nerve-endings of her brain,
she felt the world through her fingertips–
grasping paintbrush, filtering canvas.

Even in death, she wants to keep painting, puncturing–

but the oil fragments smudge, chalking
as she drags herself down
into the purple-green silk of her dress.

In her sewing room, I begin

dressing the bodies, still naked–
dressing pine trees like somebody’s grandchildren
who have sat waiting, undone–

Spirits here, watch

as I turn to wash the brushes,
their shadows are cast
as the pinecone hits the floor.

13
The Light By The Bakery Is Red

My son’s fingers were fanning cool November air

as I packed him into his car seat. Tiny fingers
poked heaps of heavens between the car and Jupiter.
His two-year-old eyes reflected instead, a star.
I felt the Great Red Spot feasting its storming eye upon us
as his pint-sized voice pinpointed two R’s from the backseat.
Biting rubber hugged the railroad tracks as the curves
of my mouth lifted into tenderness. Autumn leaf-fall
pooled in the street lamps, yellow, most recited off his color wheel.
Dusk slipped through the cracked window, our breath, baring owls.
My son’s consonants catching in my hair, his fervor
planting the nucleus of my grandchild’s first breath.

14
 Kelley D.
is 22 and was born and raised in Kentucky, educated in lazy public
schools, and raised by werewolves. She is currently pursuing an elusive English degree at
Eastern Kentucky University with double minors in Appalachian and women's' studies.
Previously, her work has been published by Manic D Press. Her long term plans include
receding into the woods, growing a massive garden, and only venturing into town to buy sugar
and yeast.

honey,

if you were to unwrap my skin

and look inside in between the brown liver
and the sponge of lung
taped up in there would be polaroids
of what you ate last week,
a shadow that fell on your neck

a tape recording of your laugh

is playing to my stomach
your fingers on a seldom guitar
little symphonies
8/6 time, same as my heart

dear,

teach me to play guitar

and kiss me with a paragraph in your mouth
blow it into my stomach,
minimum of five sentences
(and remind me not to leave the oven on,
and when you leave it on i wont say anything, ill just turn it off)
show me more chords
teach me about windowblinds
turn me into a guitar, or
something else useful
a hammer or a pacemaker
turn me into a song, a birds nest
a bed for you to sleep in, ill hold your head in my hands
make me into a little something-something
something without an expiration date

15
 Justin Hyde
is made out of cotton candy and ginger snaps. He doesn't have fingertips.

for the matriarch

ivan#16
my grandmother
yesterday is half an hour late
your mother and i to everything.
met for lunch
at the drake dinner. my mother
is half an hour early
she gave me to everything.
a tear stained letter.
it said i split the difference
the failure of our marriage and show up
is the greatest tragedy ten minutes early.
of her life.
but great grandma
someday
you will despise me she had it right.
for breaking her heart.
she didn't
but this afternoon go to THINGS
we chased geese
at greys lake or bother with
whooping like madmen the intransigent calumny
until our voices of people.
went hoarse.
she tended garden
when i
dropped you off read encyclopedias
at your mother's
national geographic
you perched
at the living room window and drew pictures
like an owl of spiders.

and blew me kept her gallstones

a kiss. in a pickle jar
on her coffee table

and the little

homemade sign
nailed to her front door
said:

absent neighbors
make good
fences.
16
pi-thagleans theory

the chattering of cons

is such a steady sandblast
of crackhead slang
and tape-worm vitriol
you've got to turn your brain off
and duct-tape it
up under your nut-sack
just to keep from
putting a bullet in it.

get so numb
takes you
a few tries
jump starting the tongue
when this new fed
with the countenance of a quaker
and aryan nation tattoos
all up his arms and face
says: hey CO
you ever heard of
pi-thagleans theory?

you mean the

pythagorean theorem?

yea fuck
that's it.
pythagorean theorem
i heard it somewhere
but couldn't strap it
to my mind.
what's it mean
you know?

i tell him
it's got
something to do with
figuring lengths
of a triangle.
he asks
if i'll
write it down
for him.

says:
thanks boss
i don't mean to

17
be a bother
but words just kind of
stick in my mind
you know?

yea

i know.

here in the ashes at the end of history

when my son's class

moved to the next rung
of preschool
all the parents
were human tripods
behind digital
video recorders
and cameras
as the kids
put on
a little ceremony.

none of us
spoke to
or acknowledged
each other.

i stood in back
hands in my pockets
thinking how
nothing sinks
to the bottom
of the heart
anymore.

we run around
in two inches
of dishwater

taking pictures

cataloging

instead of
living lives.

out in the parking lot

18
my ex wife
came up to me.
all the time
i can't believe
you didn't
the big redhead
bring a camera.
with a crooked nose
don’t expect me
in work release
to give you
after a nickle
any of my pictures,
for stealing copper pipe
she said.
came up yesterday
and asked what i knew
i bent down
about telemarketing.
and kissed my son
told him
told him i'd sold aol
i loved him. for a couple days
ten years ago
that i'd but that was it.
see him
saturday. man
i've done a-lot of bad things
but today was something else
i felt horrible,
he said
and told me
he'd dialed up this woman
but the man who answered said:

my wife's been dead

for six years
please don't call again.

i turned to my boss
and said man
what do i do
when that happens?

move on,
he said
pointing at his watch.
it happens all the time.

19
Chris G. Vaillancourthas been involved in the art of writing as long as he can remember. Chris
is a Canadian poet who has enjoyed publication in numerous small poetry magazines and
newsletters, such as Pagan Lady Poetry Journal, The Inkling; The Lance; Opussum Review;
Red Dragon; Poesia International; Plum Ruby Review; and a host of other print and ezine
publications. He has enjoyed the publication of several chapbooks of his poetry, such titles as
Slow Burn (4 Winds Press) and teardrop of Coloured Soul (PublishAmerica.) He has a BA in
Psychology from the University of Windsor and a Diploma in Sacerdotal Ministry from the
Saint Andrew Theological Institute.

Voice

All I need is a voice.

To scream.
To whisper.
To communicate.

I can close my mind

or
block my ears,
but still
I can discern
the voice.

It gravels in the brain.

Forcing me to communicate.
With you.
With me.
With anyone slipping by.

I'm in a vacuum.
It follows me.
Insistent.
Demanding.
Forcing me to confront myself.

My breath escapes me
across the spaces of distance.
Razor sharp mind
dulled by
inactivity.

My mind is raw.
I must stop using my voice,
my whispers,
as arrows

20
 Taste Of Cold

Winter with the taste of cold

In our thoughts
Shadowed our walk
On the city streets
Like schemes of children prancing
Looking over our shoulders
Afraid of the dreams pursuing us.
Trashing slowly towards the centre
Of the core of our beliefs
We carried on, in dense foliage
The bleeding starting as we talked
From the faces we saw on the road
We gathered a sense of the loneliness
Like circles and places of empty houses
Lights on but no one living in the world
So long ago
We laughed in incredible adventures
That ceased to matter as we aged
Shattered like pain in dropping heat
The fresh happy eyes of other places
I could never be twisted
With just one garden to grow
Maybe even a million
Would not bring the satisfaction
That any sidewalk would know
Cold with a taste of bitter in the air
The casual glances of empty eyes
Gently invited
Our hopes to manifest themselves
The sad laughter of the animals
Lost amidst the paces of life
I cannot remember
The first time I noticed the walls
With a tap on my heart
I flow and words are pondered
But they do not come to conclusion
Endlessly departing from the station
They catch not a drift of the cigarette
That is burning in my fingers
As we walk
City streets inclined to hostility
Match the mood in the mind
Winter with the taste of nothing
I yawn
That is the most expression
I can manage

21
 John Grochalski is the author of the Noose Doesn't Get Any Looser After You Punch Out.
He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, in the area where you can still buy a pint for under
$3.

rome walking anachronism

he’s sore hip

asleep sore groin
facedown sore foot
on the table
and sore chin
and she keeps
complaining paralyzed standing here
about nothing but
the girls meat
crowding blood
around the and bones
computers out of place
dancing behind out of mind
the computers sore shoulder
with headphones and shins
on a walking anachronism
and it’s eighty degrees in the land
in here where high schools
i’ve got a rash
look like prisons
on both of my arms
on my legs the prisons are packed
across with the forgotten
my chest and the damned
i’m hungover and every whore
on wine walks down the street
and scotch wearing sunglasses
and haven’t slept in the rain
decently thinking they’re going
in a week to be
it is raining the next
outside big
for the fourth day
thing.
straight
a driving cold rain
my clothes
are damp
my throat still
hurts
and i think
i could be in rome
right now
but what in the hell
would i do
in rome?

22
 Michael Cohensays, “Originally from Atlanta, GA, my formal education includes studying
Fine Art at the University of Florida, and I continue to refine my senses of tone, design and
composition. Presently residing in Riverdale, NY, I am employed by a Madison Ave.
advertising agency handling print production.

See more at http://www.michaelchoenimages.com

Sale Window

23
Commuter #1

24
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His new poetry
chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo
version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at:
http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. Michael has been published in over 22 countries.
He is also editor/publisher of four poetry sites, all open for submission, which can be found at
his Web site: http://poetryman.mysite.com. All of his books are now available on
Amazon.com. E-mail: promomanusa@gmail.com.

Untitled I Walk
(Psychiatric Assessment)

Untitled I walk
through life
with a shrink
from Yugoslavia,
whose as large as big foot.
With a novel in one hand,
and shaking his fingers at me
with the other,
he wants to control me with a shovel,
tie me in knot balls, emotional twisters,
and squeeze the emotional pages
out of my life like a twisted sponge.
I retaliate, control him back,
wage war in a vicarious cycle
squeeze his testicles like electrical wires
inside my mind’s eye,
cut his tongue with razors,
dull his clinical words.
Play his game, only better.
He picks up the play phone,
threatens to call the police,
leashing me in my corner
like a trapped dog
forces me to bark
into submission
like a beagle basset bitch.
He treats me with word babble.
I tell him he is a damn Ukrainian idiot.
Peeved off I race
to the parking lot, head to the bushes,
like a blue racer snake threatened,
hop bunny rabbit into my S-10
Chevy pick-up truck,
memo pad in hand,
scribbling ruminating notes
I surrender naked till my next prescription,
untitled I walk.

-2007-

25
 N. God Savage
is a writer and philosopher from Belfast in Northern Ireland. He is
endlessly amused by stray cats.

Nightscape, Autumn

Across black tracks,

splat-leaved and slick
with oily shimmering pools that ooze
electric fish (which are in fact)
hovering streetlamp birds, reflect.

Across velvet grass

– the long draped tail
of sky that is purple matte –
float your eyes (which are in fact)
dark-ringed almonds – wide, bleached, emerald-flecked.

Across yellow wood,

vacuum-fixed,
with thought and fact.
If I could catch
your gaze
I’d crack.

This and That

This muscle
that drives
this shoulder
that holds
this arm
that powers
this hand
that moulds
this dissipated air you call your art,

is your brain and not your heart.

26
 Eric J. Brinovec is a 28 year old man from Grants, NM. He's enjoyed writing Surrealist
poetry for about 3 years. He's got two small poetry books for which he is seeking publication
consideration: "Wednesday Squared (To the Fifth Power), Free-Form and Melodized
Verbalizations...", and "Disenfranchised Screams Floating on Clouds of Severed Monkey
Hands in the Parallel Spheres (Bathing in a Tub of Glass Shards)"... He does some collage
art, loves the The meat puppets, and he just wants to finally do something with his life and
maybe succeed enough to get away from this intellectually dead, western town of zombies...

"Blood, Milk, and Slivers in my Icecream..."

You should've considered the unanticipted horrifications during your introspective

ramificational searches..., A pair of giant, severed hands juggled three suns in the nighttime
sky, while a huge dismembered forearm hammered a nail into the moon..., nightmares in the
night sky..., chattering teeth shattered and smashed the tiny particles in between them..., faces
folded inward, and skulls expanded outward all while the transparent mushrooms hopped
and dance towards the skeletal forest of forgotten pain...

"The Rotten, Pickled, Fish-Eyes and the Women Who Loved Them... A Screaming
Jerry Springer Love-Fest..."

"Don't show 'em yer hootenanny!!!" screamed a highly ed-u-cafied, hillbilly lady..., a
compromisational creative medium met me medium way to the shape of a block on the merry,
march towards death, we the creative hop and skip towards perception minus less than
abstract creative contractions..., the death of creative inquiry is all around..., ego-encouraged
movements should not be permitted to use artificial transportations..., I need a holster for my
notebooks, for I write wild smoke and light-beams...

27
 iDrew
has been in love many times and has danced on many dancefloors. She is
one of the original Clueless Collective members and has even appeared in print in The
Delinquent and Skin Deep Anthology as well as online at Flash Fire, Battered Suitcase and
All Things Girl amongst other places. When not scribbling poetry she can be found at:
www.cluelesscollective.co.uk.

iMessy

my floor
is my wardrobe
i can’t lock up dresses
it’s not in my nature
it’s just seems so cruel

they’re happiest free range

hanging loose over chairs
draped on the bed
lounging about
where they choose

bless

do not disturb
just leave them be
they’re having a rest
chillin’ with my shoes

iSpunked

you say it’s kinda sexy

to watch your stuff
slowly slither
down my thigh or breast
but it feels icky

instead of trying to
smear it on my face
and use my hair as a towel
you should take some responsibility
for your bodily fluids

boy lick it off

that might be kinda sexy
and if you really really
with all your heart love me
you’ll swallow

28
 Douglas Pugh
lives in Northern Ontario with a logical wife and an insane menagerie. He
likes to believe that he fills the gap in the middle. Bleeding words onto a page help with his
delusion. When he's not writing, he's probably painting or out riding his bike. And thinking
about writing more. He writes poetry, short stories and has two thriller novels for which he's
looking for an agent. During 2009 he has been published in The Smoking Poet, Leaf Garden
Press, Every Day Poetry, Mnemosyne Journal and Short Story Library. He hopes to one day
publish at least one book of his words.

Requiem in silvered dust

It sits atop its curls of links and chain

Gathering dust from decades
Uncaring as they slide
Past, over, beyond

Hidden in a box, an heirloom whose heirs

Have lost any sense
Of looming into its future
Not even to peer

Fettered, yet not, its chain unchained except to itself

It waits yet knows not what
It waits for, a silvered husk
Of yesterdays dream

A breath held in the cup of its shell, an oxide snap

Of a love, long lost
Spared from tarnish of time
And wrapped in a captured sigh

A tress, ribboned, scented, brushes that stark outline

A glimpse of a woman that was
A face that travelled with her heart
To bring comfort where there was none

A face that never recovered from the wounds of war

Poppy fields not seen in those eyes
Yet felt with the scythe
Of a black telegram

And a locket with its bullet scarred hide

Clasp welded shut
By lead on its way
To her heart

DP July 08

29
Watchman Sharp dressed man

Watch the little guy unbowed he stands, that lofty pine

quiet in the corner
eyes darting
carefully measuring, weighing
the moment
Not for him the bellicose roar
machismo with gusto
testosterone served steaming
flambe conflagration on public display
despite Decembers ermine coat
cool aplomb, winter suits him fine
unbowed he stands, that lofty pine
shivering, he'll show not a sign
spiky dressed - he's a rake of note
unbowed he stands, that lofty pine
despite Decembers ermine coat

He is the watch
the tick, tick, tick
the breath in the shadows
a faint crunch in the dark
the footstep that follows
but cannot be seen

Not for him the face poking in face

the snarl, teeth bared
fangs for the memories
and a muscle knotted neck tie

He is the watch
the tock, tock, tock
the silent sweep of a hand
a strike of a hammer
muffled repercussions
as alarm is stilled

Watch the little guy

quiet in the corner

He has too much time

in his hands

DP Feb 09

30
 Mikko Harvey
was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He now studies at
Vassar College, where he enjoys playing ping pong, climbing trees, and having staring contests
with cats.

Liberal Artist Everyday Asymptote

Long to contribute
to the great human pursuit
of finding the best way
to say: “There’s no point
but that’s okay.”
Do drugs and write poems
that lack all convention;
pretend there’s a connection.
Watch lyricism obscure intention.
Watch emotion get lost in translation.
Feel bad about it.
A narrator looks out of his peephole
and makes a wish
to exist: a real protagonist—
but the door is locked.
Sometimes he lets his mind drift
to an island so far away
where the light is soft, lazy
as sea green sand castles
hold him in happy exile
and nobody thinks to eat the animals…
The hardest task for people like you and me
is to let it be easy: to breathe intangibility,
be free from immediacy, swallow pride
and insecurity alongside green tea.
Let yourself fall into warm failure,
like your cousin who never grew up.
Light music plays in a coffee shop and you feel okay
about the rain. You don’t need an umbrella to stay dry
if you’re inside. Watch as the other rats run, wet
with sweat. Watch as they find fulfillment in their
endorphin
addictions.
Drop out of their race. Play with me—
the game that has no rules.
We can both be winners,
if only you’ll let yourself lose.

But always awake.

And in a caffeinated haze
try to interpret every day’s complexities,
try to believe in simplicity but don’t,
try to not look like a tourist.

Drown in secret insanity.

Urbanity, literary vanity
is bittersweet candy that leaves your tongue hurting
for more.

31
 J de Salvo
is the editor of the Bicycle Review, a bi-monthly electronic journal of
literature and art. His fiction, poetry, and articles have been published or are forthcoming in
numerous online and print publications, including Art/Life, Danse Macabre, Askew, New
Angeles Monthly, the Poetry Super Highway, and Leaf Garden Press. He lives in Los
Angeles.

Serial Poem(s)

Cap’n Crunch and I

Co- command the good ship “OK”
It was difficult at first
We had to battle it out
But soon decided
We could pour more rum
On our frosted flakes
Of corn
If we divided the duties

I sit on the deck

With Kellogg
And argue matters
Tell him just how far
Science has come
He interrupts me constantly
We agree about corn
But his recipe is lost
Cap’n Crunch wants him
To walk the plank
But I know in reality
He is doomed

Chocula has issues

He doesn’t drink blood
Only marshmallow milk
His therapist can’t
Figure it out
I tell him not to worry
Have him read PETA literature
Tell him to get to the part about
Marshmallows
And skip the rest

32
4

A woman I know
When we were younger
She used to call me
Apple Jacks
When she was happy with me
And Asshole Junkie
When she was not
People call me AJ
Which explains all that

Have you heard

The news about Cheerios?
Your heart needs Cheerios
Your heart craves Cheerios
Don’t let your heart down
Or it might do the same to you
A heart without Cheerios
Is a broken heart

I am told that Wheaties

Are still eaten
Remember when everyone
Knew who was on the box?
When it was a big deal?
Is it still like that?

Cap’n Crunch and I

Of course
We’ve had our eerie encounters
With Lucky the Leprechaun
Lucky, the Trix kids,
And the Cocoa Puffs kids
Man it’s a bad scene
They’re worse than
Drug dealers, maybe
Even sailors of fortune
Such as we heap scorn
Upon their foul deeds

But Lucky’s the worst of em’

33
You just want to smack
His smiling pink face
(he’s even pinker in real life)
He acts like he doesn’t
Want you to steal his charms
Which if you believe that
Shows how little you know
About Leprechauns

Somebody’s Counting

We started out with a simple task,

Then of course, possibilities began to occur

Paralysis followed just shortly

Afterward, so we started to drink stolen cognac

Drunkenness must have come after that

We got happy but threw it up on our way to work

Then we were working and forgot all

About being caught with red hands, holding the bottle

Then it was tomorrow, then today

And promises were made about where the money went

But these were packed off to the future

Since we had to buy ev’ryone drinks for the cognac

We bought the drinks, and paid what we could

The repercussions were nothing too much in the end

But we weren’t there yet, and it was

Serious business now, this thing we didn’t do

34
 Lyn Lifshin
recent books include The Licorice Daughter, My Year With Fuffian (Texas
Review Press), Another Woman Who Looks Like Me (Black Sparrow at Godine.) She has over
120 books & edited 4 anthologies. Her web site is www.lynlifshin.com.

I THINK OF MY GRANDFATHER

on a cramped ship
headed toward Ellis Island.
Fog, fog horns for a
lullaby. The black
pines, a frozen pear.
Straw roofs on fire.
If there were postcards
from the sea there might
have been a Dear
Hannah or Mama, hand
colored with salt.
I will come and get you.
If the branches are
green, pick the apples.
When I write next, I will
have a pack on my
back, string and tin.
I dream about the snow
in the mountains. I never
liked it but I dream of
you tying a scarf
around my hair, your
words that white dust

35
 Kit Kennedy
has published in Blood Orange Review, Bombay Gin, Flutter, Ginosko,
Merge, Runes, Saranac Review, Snow Monkey, and Up the Staircase. She hosts the reading
series at Gallery Café in San Francisco.

PERHAPS, ROSES

leap pirouette
scent & memory

every word embeds a chorus

each voice wants its 3 questions heard

relax
call yourself builder
woodworker
gardener
singer with crayon
sewer

what damage
loose button frayed cuff
surely sheets wrinkle
tea roses desiccate

much removed & what remains

unadorned
& beautiful
light-caresses

never time, you say, never finished

have you lost heart for season?

crow-like insistent present echoes

nothing more
nothing more

I have heard the brave keep company with silence

36
RETRACTABLE

Sky, a rectangle overhead,

roof’s underpinnings exposed
cluster of nails holds firm geometry
of each wooden triangle. It is known
wood weathers, subjected to elements
& sun remembers contribution
to photosynthesis, turns dark eye,
turns night, up-and-down commotion
increase/decrease light, pure & artificial.
Fall’s chill. Rattle unmarked bone.

So many questions: does wood

heave & sigh? Breathe? Long for
the open road? Are nails, complicit
by nature?

If we stay put, will the roof

like a poppy, like the morning glory
(swiftly, silently) close, forgoing
the sauciness of stars.

Can we steady ourselves

to count the options
on our dominant hand.
As matter of physics,
are we even here?

37
 David LaBounty work has appeared in several print and online journals including the New
Plains Review, Night Train, Underground Voices, the Apple Valley Review and others. His
third novel, Affluenza, was released in the summer of 2009. Affluenza is a story about debt,
sexual addicition, pyromania and consumerism told through the financial rise and fall of an
insurance executive who lives beyond his means.

after breakfast, with god

God came by
this morning. He

talked to me
over toothpaste and
Listerine. He

stood over
my shoulder
in the fog of the
bathroom mirror
as I plucked
nose hairs with
my fingertips
& winced in
triumphant
pain. He

said I should
stop loving work
and myself
so much, stop
pouring so
many hours
of my life into
my job as
the family
comes first,
as my family
is like the land
and my children
are really my
soil and
I really won’t
flourish if I
don’t maintain
the land. He

said I should
stop working
38
myself to
death because
the death will
come He said,
saying that
my fallibility
will see to that.

funeral prayer

Jesus is bronze,
nailed to a cross
hanging
above the altar,
above the coffin

the priest is wrapped

in mild obesity
& robes
as he leads
the mourners
in alleluias
& copyrighted hymns

my lips don't move

my eyes are dry

& I wonder why
I appear so cold

so I say a quick
prayer to God
a prayer for the
deceased who
is another vague
vague relative

but mostly I
prey for myself

God answers.

He tells me it's okay

He tells me
he knows what
it is to have
a heart like

39
a sponge
&
a face
like a stone.

shadows and light

Pensacola. 1987.
a city of sailors
&
churches.

you
&
another
shipmate
wandered
drunk
&
underage
out of
a downtown
bar in that
bleakness
between
adolescence
&
adulthood

down an alley
two young
girls, your
age maybe
but in college
w/ a life, were
taking pictures
for a
community
college class
using a
long lens
& a flash to
photograph
a floodlight
high above
a blank &
windowless
brick wall

40
they asked you
& your friend
to jump against
the wall so they
could take your
picture, so they
could capture
your shadows
reaching for that
high, high light

a light you’re
reaching for
still though
your shadow
has grown
darker
just as it
falls
so much
heavier
&
wider.

the well (for m.b.)

the forever
girl walks
into the
eternal
evening
barefoot
in a cotton
dress that
says there
will always
be summer
& memories
of summer. she

tiptoes across
the green
moist grass
towards
a long
latent
stonewalled

41
well, not
caring
that the
gentle
wind is
tossing
her dark
brown
hair that
shines like
a morning
garden
just wet
from a
constant &
forgiving
rain

she carries
a dream
tight in her
hand, a
hand so
pink
& soft
& clean

she carries
a dream
that has
the faces
of those
who have
come before

a dream
that has
the notions
of those
that will
come
tomorrow

she walks,
gently
she walks

across
the lawn

42
etched
in Byzantine
shadows cast
by a full
& serious
moon. she

stands by
the well,
leans over
the side
and opens
her hand
to drop
the dream
as if dropping
the dream
will make
it grow &
come alive

she waits
for the
dream to
hit bottom

she waits
for the
sound of
its gentle splash

the dream
answers in
a chorus

in a rising
of a thousand
placid voices.

43
Danny P. Barbare resides in Greenville SC. He has been published recently in Autumn
Leaves, Dew on the Kudzu, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, as well as others, locally and
nationally and internationally.

The Pecan Tree in the Front Yard

Falling like rain

Leaves of a pecan tree
Dirty brown and cold
Damp and crisp
Among the gray crooked limbs
And blackened husk
Dark as a billed crow after papershell
And sharp as the teeth of a gray squirrel after fruit.
Oh, but a thousand pecans,
For shelling by the fire,
Shells thin and sharp
But the nut so sweet
For buttering and toasting
Or Thanksgiving pie.
A tool and a bag
And neighbors come by.

A Cold

The winter night in the tree, stillness,

thick as sap. A leaf bed rustling. The tree
struggles for the light of day, medicine at
night red like a cherry sunrise, when the
cold seems to lift. The sap drips like ice
and snow as if to be unburdened for
awhile from winter’s cold.

44
 Justin Carmickle is a struggling writer living in Bloomington, Indiana. Currently he is
working on several stories, most of which are interlinked through setting and are placed in his
hometown of Loogootee, Indiana- a struggling, dusty town with just three stop lights. He also
works on the literary journal Canvas and in his spare time is making his way through the
fantastic works of Andre Dubus and Flannery O'Connor.

Fly-fishing

The fly line sliced the air. The mesh of bright neon green and mustard yellow hairs
snapped this way and that as the line flew several feet above the water and then landed
smoothly in the run of the river. Long and hair-like, the fibers of the Green Highlander
bloomed out from the lure as it sank below the uneven waters of the Hampton River. Once
submerged, the lure was beaten by the water. The current slapped it to the right. Then the
left. Yet, it remained in that area of the river by the firm plastic-coated fly line.
Vertis and his teenage grandson, Noel, stood knee deep in the current. Vertis was
decently tall and rail thin - his skin was gaunt and besieged by tiny brown age spots. A tan
fisherman’s hat atop his head complimented the plaid shirt and khaki pants. He believed he
too was as helpless as the trout he caught and filleted. Brown trout, the ones he enjoyed
catching, whether big or small, old or young, go about unknowing, then one day there are the
neon green and mustard yellow hairs. When spread out, Vertis realized they resembled the
fingers or talons of a cancer. His cancer. First just attacking one area like the hook spears the
lip of the trout, but then spreading and slicing at the body like the fillet knife on the moist
meat of the fish.
Beneath the snapping surface of the fresh water swam rust-brown trout with backs and
sides bejeweled in circles of red and deep olive. They sashayed toward the rainbow of bait -
their glossy eyes forever open and mouths agape as though always speculating. Bright colors
like those of the fly enticed the trout forward to poke it with their snouts and encircle it, their
tails wiggling and gills opening and closing drawing breaths as they consider whether or not
they are hungry; some will swim away with the rush of the river, while others will give in to
their piqued interest or hunger and swallow the neon and mustard and wait for it to fill their
creamy white bellies. Instead they will be snared, by their lip or jaw, and yanked from the cool
water into the sparkling sunlight. With each crank of Vertis’s and Noel’s reels the trout will
attempt to draw breath from their gills but there is none to draw. They are reeled in, stored in
the fisherman’s vat of ice, and deep fried for his supper.
Vertis’s eyes were wide and steady. He craned his head and took in not only the
massive river but also the trees, plants, and embankment that encompassed it. Then his heart
began to thump and his stomach churn. He did not think of the poison eating through him
and weakening his person. Instead, with eyes closed he listened to the flow. He knew
something greater moved the water from the mouth of the river to wherever it ended up. Just
as the disease in his stomach and colon would move him…He listened to the water flowing all
around him. Hiss, long and drawn-out, was the sound of the river and its flow; like the noise
from the split tongue of a slithering snake. Hiss with an occasional spsh of current smacking
wetness against rocks. Water and its language all around. Language that splashed onto the
embankment and reverted through him, filling him like the tap fills a glass or rain an old
wooden pail. Everything headed in the same path; everything from the long vowels of sounds
indescribable to the rotten carcass of a trout or beaver traveling downstream with the flow of
the river.

45
 Maybe the fish could fight if they chose. But they are aware they would be forced to
follow the passage, as it always seemed to end up this way. Water and everything in the river
must drift in the direction ordered. Downriver. Never upstream like salmon who go there to
spawn and create life. Upstream to spawn and down to die. Vertis was heading down…fast. A
spiraling of sorts. Always down. Vertis wished he was better with geography and the lay of
the land or river as he wondered where the water did come to an end. Perhaps it was birthed
someplace anew, he thought.
Noel attempted another forward cast. He whisked the fly into the air and over his
shoulder until the line seemed straight and then put his entire body into casting it into the
river. With a plop the line dropped about fifteen feet from where they stood.
“Well, aint you gonna say something? I wasn’t this bad last summer.” Noel said.
Vertis chuckled as he focused on reeling in a fish of his own. He furrowed his brow. He
cranked at the reel in his hands. Weighing less than three pounds the fish was light; it must
have been young.
When the fish was finally reeled in, Noel groaned at Vertis. At the end of the line it
flipped and flopped, its body dripping wet.
At almost sixteen Noel was tall and had a head of wavy mud-black hair. His skin was a
resonant Indian amber with just a tinge of crimson on his hollow cheeks and beaklike nose.
Noel was not wearing galoshes or traditional fisherman’s clothing like Vertis; he wore old
Converse shoes with faded and ripped Hollister jeans kids wear rolled up near his knees. The
threads of his periwinkle polo were strained as he was growing fast; the collar was always
popped.
“Maybe last summer you didn’t have as much on your mind. Sometimes we get lost
in our own heads.” Vertis watched as the water flowed before them - all in the same direction,
downriver to whatever its destination. He did not register that Noel was speaking again;
instead he continued to stare out at the water as though it held the answers to his life or
the prayers he had been repeating in his mind during recent weeks and months. Vertis
remembered the words of a familiar prayer. Lord, look upon me with eyes of mercy, may your
healing hand rest upon me, may your lifegiving powers flow into every cell of my body and
into the depths of my soul, cleansing, purifying, restoring me to wholeness and strength for
service in your Kingdom. Amen.

“Gramps, you all right? Something is off, like you could shit bricks or something.”
Vertis stared down at the pole in his hands. Everything seemed as though it was
spinning. He considered telling Noel everything. I’ll tell him about the illness, he thought.
The prognosis, and how I waited until the end of summer to reveal everything because I didn’t
wanted some dark cloud hanging over us. I’ll explain that if this is to be the last summer, as
the doctor insisted, then I want it to be no different than the others. No. Noel is too young to
understand how terrified I am. Or I’m just a goddamned coward. If I tell the boy then it’s
real. Set in stone. Can never be taken back, he reasoned. Vertis concentrated on steadying
himself. The doctor said vertigo would occur.
Vertis said he was fine and suggested they sit for a spell.
The stone pressed into his bones as he sat. Vertis leaned forward suddenly and
vomited. He sensed Noel staring at him. “Looks like I should have eaten this morning. I
always get nauseous when I aint eaten.”
Noel sat on a rock next to him and said nothing.
The entire river area seemed to speak and sing with its own music. Blue jays flapped
and squawked overhead or in the tops of nearby trees. Rabbits and white tail buck deer
scavenged the wooded area in search of food or shelter. More persistent than the sounds of

46
the wildlife was the fluidity of the river. The splashing offering a sort of chorus to more
obvious, striking noises of the surrounding woods.
Vertis took deep breaths and stared out at the water. Sunlight glistened off it and
reflected against his face. He watched as the river trickled downstream and thought of the
morning.
Vertis had first felt sick to his stomach when he entered the kitchen around eight a.m..
Aromas of maple syrup, butter, and coffee filled the large room. Puttering pop of the Bunn
coffee maker formed a rhythm with the record turning in the parlor. The crescendo of
trumpet and clarinet tumbled through the lower floor of the house into the kitchen. Pop of
the coffeepot. Whine from the clarinet. Roar of the trumpet.
Bay windows three feet wide with cream-colored cushioned seats lined one wall of the
kitchen, and a few feet from these windows was the round white table. One of the table’s four
chairs was occupied by pajama clad Noel who sat eating flapjacks and drinking skim milk.
Speckles of early morning pink sunlight shone through the windows as the sun peaked
between the blooming dogwoods and Red Haven peach trees encompassing the house on
three sides. Rays of light reflected against Noel’s glass of milk.
While Vertis and Noel sat at the table, his wife, Stella, stood at the oven with a large
bowl in one hand and wooden spoon in the other, beating at the pasty pancake mix. Wisps of
gray hairs had fallen from her always loose bun. It was an enormous spectacle that was so
thick and lush it was nearly the same size as her actual head. At night she freed the hair from
this contraption. When free, it flowed to the bottom of her back. It was like a blanket of gray
overwhelming the remnants of honey from her youth.
“For Heaven’s sake,” Stella said eying her husband and placing the batter mix on the
counter. “Vertis, you look like something the cat dragged in. Did you get even a wink of sleep
last night? You tossed and turned quite a bit.”
“Long night,” Vertis sat staring at the sunlight shinning off Noel’s glass of

milk. “And I’m not eating anything. I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach.”
“You’re not backing outa fishing, are you?” Noel asked with a mouthful of food.
“I’m not backing out. We just might not be able to stay out as long.”
“Gram is right, you look like heck. You’re all white.” Noel poured more syrup onto his
remaining bites of breakfast.
Vertis wrung his hands in his lap and responded he was feeling fine.
Breakfast concluded with Noel saying he was full and thanking Stella for the pancakes.
He then left to prepare for the morning fishing excursion.
Stella turned the knob on the stove and the pilot light went out. “How long can you
keep it a secret, Vertis?” She set a steaming cup of black coffee in front of him. “You can’t just
go forever without telling him.”
“We’ve been over this already.”
“And still you insist on staying tight lipped about how sick you are.”
“Me being sick is no concern of anyone but me.” He sipped from the mug of coffee,
closing his eyes as the bitterness washed down his throat. He listened to Billie Holiday
singing from the turntable. “If this is the last summer we have together, shouldn’t it be the
best possible?”
“He worships you and has a right to know that you’re going to-” Stella pressed her
fingers to her lips and trailed off. She slowly walked to one of the bay windows and sat with a
sigh. “The dogwoods are so pretty when they’re in full bloom.”
Vertis was voiceless for a moment as he stared down at his cup of steaming coffee. “As
though it‘s not enough I‘m sick, you’ve got to keep reminding me and harping…”

47
 “They bloom such vibrant colors. Like a painting.”
“I just don’t want to talk about it. With you or the boy.”
“I especially like the purple ones. I believe they are my-”
“Damn it, do you hear me?” He rose, his chair lurching back and smacking the wood
floor. “You keep babbling on about those damned trees! Who cares? They’re trees. I don‘t
want to talk about it again.” Vertis walked from the room with more steadiness than when he
entered. Billie Holiday’s baritone in “Summertime” was cut off mid-sentence and replaced by
a zip noise when Vertis yanked the needle from the spinning record. Silence fell on the grand
old Victorian summer house. Even the birds outside seemed to stop their tunes. The settling
of the floorboards came to a halt. He walked to the foot of the staircase.
“Noel!” He shouted. “About ready? It’s after eight and you know the fish don’t seem to
bite after noon!” He gripped the white banister and bit his lip as he contemplated the
staircase. How much longer until I won’t be able to make such a climb? A month? Three? A
year? he thought. He could fight the cancer like the fish could swim against the current.
Treatments and surgeries to prolong the inevitable like no matter how far upstream they
might make it, they’d always be pushed back down. All that suffering and inside him the
cancer would run its course and no amount of fight from him could change anything. Just like
the water in the river. It didn’t matter, however long it took, it all ended up the same way.
As Noel hurried down the stairs he popped the collar of his periwinkle polo. “All
ready.”
“What’s with you kids today? These bright shirts and ripped up pants. And terrible
grammar.” Vertis reached out and folded his grandson’s collar down. “There, that’s better.”
Vertis led him into the kitchen and said, “And this music you kids are listening too
these days. That Radio, something Head-”
“You mean Radiohead?” Noel doubled over and rested his hands on his knees as he
laughed. “Everyone knows they‘re chill. I mean, “Creep”? Nobody else can come up with
lyrics like that. I‘ve gotta get you one of their albums or something.” Noel picked up his pole,
which was leaned against the wall next to the door. “I’m goin ahead out.”
Vertis left the house, allowing the screen door to screech and smack shut behind him.
Stella stood at the door and shouted, “At least don’t forget that I want to can those
peaches tonight after dinner. And it’s too big of a job for one person.”
“I’m not bothering with that this year, Stella. It’s not as though I’ll be able to eat the
damned things next year.” He shook his head and kept walking.

After his breathing had evened out, Vertis rose from the rock and let the conversation
with his wife drift from his mind. Slate-colored pearl mussels crunched and cracked beneath
his galoshes as he walked into the water. He asked Noel to stand with him and explained what
he had done wrong before when casting:
“You didn’t whisk it with your forearm like you’re supposed to.” He laughed. “See, you
put your whole body into the cast and it doesn’t work like that, as you know from doing this
summer after summer, Short Stack. Just use the forearm to cast it, not the whole body.”
Vertis picked up his own pole, whisked the fly back over his shoulder in a straight line
and then cast it forward using primarily his forearm. The rod tip bent just a bit with the
stored energy, resulting in the fly line and attached fly being cast into the run of the river
“I think you’re not concentrating on fishing because you’ve got a girl on your mind.
When I was a young boy you just went up to a girl and asked her to go out for a burger or for a
walk.”
“It aint that easy anymore. You don’t want the girl to think you’re a total douche.”
“Well if you don’t strike up a conversation with her it’ll never go anywhere.” Vertis

48
squished his feet in the mud.
“What? I go up and talk to her out of the blue and I’m gonna look like an idiot.”
“Look like an idiot because you’re brave enough to talk to her? If this girl is worth your
trouble, she’ll appreciate you being straightforward.”
“And if she does think I’m an idiot?”
“Then she’s not worth wasting your breath on. And certainly not worth taking your
attention from fishing.” They both laughed.
“No, I guess not.”
“Besides, you’re too young for more than hand holding.”
Noel put his hand on Vertis’s shoulder and continued to smile. “I‘ve gotta grow up
sometime.”
Vertis groaned and said, “Sometime, but not anytime soon.”
“Okay. Who was the first girl you ever dated?”
Vertis laughed and narrowed his eyes. “Tough question, it was so long ago. It might
have been Cindy Daniels, this feisty little ginger-” His stomach began to twist and grind. A
stinging rose up through his throat. Again his breath became ragged and shallow. He turned
and lowered himself to the embankment.
“Are you okay?” Noel stared at him. “Something’s wrong.”
“I’m just fine. Just got a little dizzy.”
Noel furrowed his brow and pushed his hair from his eyes. “I don’t believe it. Look at
you, it looks like you’re about to pass out. Are you sick?”
“No, nothing like that. Like I said, I just got dizzy.” Vertis stared out at the river. “Now
what was I saying? Oh yes, Cindy.”
Later someone could be heard approaching from the woods behind them. A straw hat
emerged from the woods first. A pink ribbon was tied to the top and fluttered in the breeze.
Once out of the woods, Stella raised her head, but still kept her hand on the hat to secure it to
the big bun. She smiled at them. In her right hand she raised a picnic basket.
“Chicken drumsticks and coleslaw!” She moved slow over the uneven ground.
Noel stared at Vertis for a moment longer. He then hurried toward Stella and took the
basket. He walked with her as she made the walk to the edge of the river where Vertis sat.
“Look at my boy, afraid I’m going to fall! What a gentleman he’s becoming.”
“Just drumsticks and coleslaw?” Vertis asked.
Stella did not reply. She set the basket on the grass and removed a white sheet. “I
didn’t forget the sheet this time!” The sheet billowed out and then fell onto the grass. Noel
helped remove the food and set it onto the cloth.
“It looks good. Gramps looks sick. You think he’s okay?”
“Those are leftovers. From two days ago.” Vertis pursed his lips together and
attempted to rise. He didn’t have the strength in his arms and legs. “Leftovers, Stella?”
She stared at him and said, “I thought we’d have an early supper. So I didn’t think a big
lunch was necessary. Vertis, are you okay?”
“We’ve been married for almost sixty years and everyday I’ve had a hot lunch. Whether
I came home from the office or I was retired, you always had lunch.” Vertis glanced away
from his wife. He reached down and picked up a pebble.
Vertis’s stomach churned and his head throbbed. He felt as though he would pass out.
Tears filled his eyes. He pulled his hat off and flung it toward the water. The current yanked
it away. “Am I really asking so much?” He reached a hand into the sand and grabbed at the
little pebbles. He flung those too at the river.
“This isn’t even about the food,” Stella said. Her eyes moved from Noel to Vertis. She
started to approach but Vertis motioned for her to stay back.

49
 “Just leave me be.” He wiped at his eyes. “Chicken is best served up cold anyway.”
Stella nodded at them and turned away. She silently made her way from the river.
A tug on the line drew Vertis’s attention back to the fishing. “Think there may be
something on the line.”
Noel joined Vertis and helped him to rise to his feet. “Finally, a bite. Been an hour
since the last.” He placed his arm around Vertis’s back.
“Wait patiently enough and they’ll come biting.” Vertis pinched the line with his index
finger against the rod handle and lifted the tip, setting the hook. Using tight swift motions he
began to reel in the catch. “Ah, here she comes!” He pulled from the water a sixteen inch trout
struggling on the line, quaking and pleading for breath. Hung from the bending tip of the rod,
the bejeweled body of the fish glistened and sparkled in the sun, causing Vertis to place his
hand above his eyes.
“Come on, aint we gonna put it on ice?”
Under the sun the vat of ice had collected a pool of water, but still remained mostly
frozen. Inside, close to a dozen brown trout lay, their eyes hollow, and jaws slack in death.
Even with the breeze, beads of sweat formed on Vertis’s forehead. He swiped the sweat with a
clean handkerchief.
Vertis squinted up at the sun, warm on his face, and held the hooked fish at his side. A
twitch billowed from the body of the trout. Big and round, the eyes stared up at him with
mouth ajar, as though the sleek fish wished to say something. Plead for its life perhaps, Vertis
thought. It was heavy. A mature trout - several years old.
“It’s an old one. Several years at least.” He licked his lips and felt the sweat tricking
down his temples. “Just look at how big he is.”
“Yeah, which is why you should put it on ice already.” He reached for the fish but
Vertis moved it out of his reach. “Catch of the day, that’s what this is. Come on.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what? What is there to know?” He fisted a hand and began to pop the
knuckles while looking around. “If you eat the fish, then you’re not doing anything wrong.”
“Maybe we should just throw it back to the water.” He turned and walked towards the
river. “Let it have a second chance, you could say.”
Noel hurried after him and said, “What? Come on. That trout is totally huge!”
“I know, but it just doesn’t feel right to eat something that has managed to survive so
long.” He removed the fly from the lip of the fish. He placed it in the water, allowing it to
swim away. Hands clasped between his legs, Vertis kneeled before the river for several long
seconds. He reached down and clutched the black dirt. He sifted it through his fingers.

After that night’s dinner smells of deep fried fish and steamed vegetables lingered in
the house. Shades of wine and cantaloupe smeared the sky, washing the airy kitchen in rays
of bittersweet. Outside it had begun to cool. Windows were open as was the main door, with
only the screen door keeping bugs from entering.
Stella began canning. Large, thick glassed Mason jars with flat lids made of brass lined
the counter. Some jars were filled, the peaches having already been submerged in the
pressure cooker. The cooker, black with an oval oversized lid, sat on one of the burners on the
oven. She cooked the peaches and water inside the cooker for less than ten minutes. Then
she removed the peaches and placed them in a Mason jar and sealed it shut.
“Don’t we have enough canned peaches in the pantry already?” Vertis asked from the
doorway leading to the hall.
“I suppose we do. But if they don’t get canned they fall from the trees and lay out there
in the yard, rotting to mush.”

50
 “True enough.” He reached up and made certain his sleeves were folded at his elbows.
“Need some help?”
“I could, but I’m not asking.” Wisps of gray hair tickled her forehead and she shoved at
them with a quick hand.
“Good, I’m not asking either.” Waiting at her side, he stared down at the fruit. “Earlier
when I got angry about the lunch…I was feeling sick to my stomach and dizzy.”
“Never you mind, let’s just put it behind us. No sense in thinking about what we’ve said
in the past, is there?” She handed him a large spoon to remove the peaches. “Here, get them
out of the pressure cooker before they boil down to nothing.” Humming, she moved all
around him, from one counter to another, sealing a jar and filling another.
The jar Vertis was sealing made a thud when he placed in on the counter. Brow
furrowed and arms crossed, he leaned against the counter. “Sometimes a wife is there for a
husband, never letting him down. And, sometimes a husband can‘t do the same.…”
“Not there for me? Vertis…”
“Well, not in a couple of months, anyway.”
“Enough of that talk, I don’t want to hear a word of it” She sniffed. Her hand ran along
his shoulder and down his arm. “You’re a good man. A fine husband.” She bit her lip. “That
poor boy. There is a closeness between a boy and his grandfather, one hardly anyone else
could comprehend.” Her back to him, she wiped at her eyes. She picked up several jars.
“Better get these to the pantry.”
Vertis nodded. “Does the boy like peaches?”
“I believe so. We’ll have plenty all winter and next summ-” She stopped and stared
down at the tightly filled jars in her hands.
“Stella-”
“We’ll just have to make sure we eat as much of them as we can. Eat so many we’ll be
plain sick of them.” She disappeared into the pantry area.
Feeling unsteady, Vertis sat at a window. He stared out and listened. Breeze had
turned to wind. Limbs from trees closest to the house stroked the window panes and shackle
board as though attempting to get someone’s attention.
Bright faced, Stella emerged from the pantry and said, “The boy is playing his game.
How about a few games of cards?”
Vertis stared into the parlor and said, “Actually, I think I’ve a better idea.”
Vertis took her outstretched hand and they walked to the parlor. Noel sat before the
television playing a Star Wars game. Vertis moved the matching green armchairs forward
until they were just a few feet from the television. He sat and patted Noel on his head.
“Got another controller with that…what’s it called again? X-Box?”
“Yeah,” Noel said with a grin. He reached to the right of the television and withdrew
another gray controller. He held it toward Stella. “Here. You wanna play?”
Stella laughed from beside Vertis. “Oh, I don’t know. Looks a little complex for an old
woman like myself.”
“Ah, it aint hard to catch on to. See this button, here? That controls the light saber.
And this one is how you move.”
Vertis laughed as his hands fumbled with the controller.

The next morning, pole over his shoulder, Vertis walked through the kitchen toward
the screen door.
“Vertis, this is the boy’s last Friday with us.” Stella placed her hand on his shoulder.
“He’ll be leaving next week. The summertime’s over.” The muscles tensed beneath her hand.
“Isn‘t it time?”

51
 “Goddamn it, Stella, no it isn’t time.”
The screen door slapped behind him as he walked from the kitchen onto the porch.
Shouts from birds overhead echoed in the air. It was a bit warmer than the day before. Vertis
smiled at his grandson, who kneeled at the far side of the yard putting a line on his pole.
Stella stepped from the house. Her teeth were clenched and her fists balled. “Enough
is enough! You’ve got cancer and he needs to know before you’re dead and gone and he
doesn’t get to know that when he holds you in his arms how special it is because it’s his last
chance.”
Vertis faced her and said, “Damn it, Stella, let me enjoy my last few days of fishing with
the boy.”
“I want you to enjoy them. Of course I do, but you can’t just send the boy on his way
and let his mother tell him that he won’t be fishing with you next summer.”
Vertis stared up at the sky. The sun washed over his face. “Is she right? Just tell me
already!” He clutched at his head with his hands. “You owe me that much.”
“Who are you talking to?” With a swipe of her hand she smoothed the hairs from her
forehead. “Vertis?”
“Not today?” He continued to stare up at the sky. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Then when? I feel like I’m being yanked away and unable to make my own decisions.”
Across the yard Noel took a step back. He nearly tripped over a tree root.
“No?” Vertis lowered his head and stared at Stella. “Guess today’s not the time.” He
lowered his voice and pointed his index finger up at the sky. “If or when I tell that boy, it’s
going to be because He told me to.” He wiped his eyes. “Give a man a burden and you’ve got
to help him bare it.” With heavy steps he walked away from his wife.
Stella hit her fists against her thighs and shouted, “Vertis, don’t you walk away from me
like that. You can‘t blame this on God.”
“I said we’re not discussing it anymore. Stay out of it.” His steps quickened as he
approached Noel, who still fidgeted with the line on his pole.
“Vertis, stop!” The bun on her head began to loosen as she hurried off the porch.
Unused to moving so swiftly one of her feet entangled with the other. For a second or so she
teetered in the air with outstretched arms. Unable to retain her balance, she fell forward.
A shriek stung Vertis’s ears and he turned to see Stella lying outstretched on her side.
Dropping the pole and running, he reached her and fell to his knees.
Noel stood across the yard, his mouth a small jagged hole.
“S-Stella” he stammered, “are you okay? What’s broken? What?”
Tears streaked her cheeks. Her head rested on the grass. The gray hair had unraveled
from the bun and lay beneath her and to the side. “I’m okay. I just lost my balance.” Her
chest heaved as she cried.
“Are you sure? God, I thought you were hurt.” He scooped her up and held her tight in
his arms. Her head rested against his shoulder. “You scared me.” Vertis heard Noel
approaching and turned his head to face him. “Just…stay over there, Noel. She’s fine. Just g-
give us a minute,” he stammered.
Noel retreated to where his pole leaned against a tree.
“I’m scared, Vertis.”
“You don’t need to be, you’re fine-”
“What am I going to do? A night hasn’t gone by for almost sixty years that I’ve been
alone. You’ve always been there, for supper, breakfast, Christmas. Our anniversary. In bed
next to me when it’s storming and I can’t sleep. Time will go on but every time I see the boy
all I’ll be thinking about is how the three of us aren’t together. How we’ve been cheated and
how alone I am.”

52
 Okay, Vertis thought. Is this your way of letting me know? This how you tell me I’ve
got to stop being a coward and finally talk to him? Mighty sorry if you ask me. She could have
been hurt, you know. Sure, seeing her lying here like this makes me think. How we shouldn’t
be wasting a day, a minute, or a conversation arguing. Nonsense, that’s what it all is.
Pointless and a damned shame. I asked you to give me an answer, to tell me when to break
that boy’s heart. I got your answer. Loud and clear. But maybe I’m no coward. You’d like for
me to think I am, but that’s a lie. I’ll tell the boy because I’m not afraid anymore. Me, I’m no
coward, he finally realized. I won’t hide away from it anymore cowering like a child. Cold, he
wanted to shout. You’re cold as hell.
Vertis held her thick hair in his hands, running his fingers through the threads of silk.
“I will tell him, Stella. Today. I’ll do it. Right now.”
She stared at him and said, “Do it because of the boy, not because of me, some old fogie
lying here like trash that ought to be thrown out.” She shook in his arms. “We’re falling apart,
Vertis, we’re falling apart, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“Shh. How about I do it for myself?” He pressed his lips against hers and held them
there for a long moment.
“When did we go and get so old?” He helped her to sit up. She held his face in her
hands and kissed him. “It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. None of it is.”
Still kneeling on the ground next to Stella, who was working on rearranging her hair,
Vertis yelled for Noel. His legs wobbly and entire body trembling, Vertis struggled to rise.
Noel placed a strong hand on Vertis’s thin arm and lifted him up to his feet. Stella
remained sitting on the grass, staring off towards the array of dogwoods and peach trees.
“Gram is okay, aint she?”
“Yeah, she’s right fine, Short Stack, right fine.” He reached up and popped the collar of
Noel‘s yellow and blue stripped polo. “You’re a young man now, Noel.” He patted Noel on his
shoulders. “We’ve spent almost every summer here since you were, what? Six?”
Noel tried to step back but Vertis gripped him by the shoulders. “Gramps, can’t we just
go to the river?” He squeezed his eyes shut and refused to look at Vertis.
“Later, Noel, we’ll fish for as long as you want. We’ll catch as many as possible and fry
them up. But right now I’ve got to tell you something. You’re a smart young man, you know
something is wrong.” He cleared his throat and stammered, “I’m d-dying. I’ve got cancer and
it’s going to…well I don’t have long. I’m just so sorry I didn’t tell you or that we even have to
have a talk like this.”
Noel bowed his head and tears rolled from his eyes. “I knew something was wrong.
Why didn’t you tell me before? You’ve been lying to me.”
“Yes, you’re right. I have.”
“Why? Don’t you think I’m old enough to know?”
“I didn’t tell you because I was afraid. Because I’m scared of dying. Even at eighty it
scares the hell out of you.”
Noel sniffed and stared at Vertis for a long moment. His lips moved as though he were
going to say something but no words came out. He then buried his face in Vertis’s neck and
squeezed him tight. “Gramps?”
“Yes?”
“I want to go home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“What? Why?”
Noel reached up and wiped his nose. “I don’t wanna to see you get sick.” Noel pulled
back and they looked at each other. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t wanna see it.”
Vertis was silent for a long time. He squeezed at Noel’s shoulders. Suddenly his throat

53
seemed blocked. He stammered, “Let’s go c-call your mom.”

As Noel spoke to his mother, Vertis walked to the pantry. He grabbed a can of peaches.
After getting a spoon, he left the house. Trees swayed around him as he ate one slice of peach
after another. He ate and ate until he felt completely bloated. With the jar sitting at his feet,
Vertis stood unmoving. The screen door opened and closed. A second later arms wrapped
around his waist. Stella rested her head on his shoulder. The big bun on her head was silky-
smooth to his touch.
Vertis found himself thinking of the river. The trout and how they always swam
downriver. Like the fish in the river he knew where he was going and was sure of what he was
doing. He realized that the trout weren’t afraid as they swam downriver - it was something
natural not to be feared. The mesh of long hairs didn’t drudge up feelings of dread in him.
Neither did the river - not anymore. Now, Vertis could feel the calmness and peace he felt
when casting a line perfectly in the run of the river. He became submerged in the calmness
like a trout.

54
 Corina Pia
Is a German native, who over the past 20 years, has captured the public’s
interest with her energetic and life expanding art. In the new millennium Pia integrated
digital macro photography into her many creative outlets. Pia’s innovations in merging
traditional methods with technology, a passion for color and utilizing her transformative
creative energy have resulted in spectacular works that are instantly identifiable for their
vibrancy and fluidity of form. Since 1988 the artists’ primary country of residency is the USA.
Her studio "atelier Viva" is located in the North Perimeter area of Atlanta, GA. For more
information go to www.corinapia.com.

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Susan Poindexter had been shooting for many years before beginning formal training,
during that time she discovered her art of observation.

While training in a formal program of study she learned all aspects of photography from
documentary, architectural, studio, portraiture, too working extensively in the darkroom
learning printing techniques in black/white and color.

In her work Susan strives to convey observations, concepts and perceptions through form,
light and perspective. She works with a film camera, along with new technologies for printing,
which allowed an opportunity to expand the breadth of her photographic works of art.

At this time she works with various fabrics for printing textile images along with the typical
cotton rag paper prints. This method blends her fine art talent with her photographic craft
through typical and archetypical presentations of her archival quality work.

Poindexter’s pieces have been shown at various art houses and shows in the Atlanta area.
View images at http://susanpoindexter.com. Susan Poindexter can be reached by e-mail at:
susanpoindexter@earthlink.com

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 Lisa Zaran
is an American poet, essayist and the author of six collections including
The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter of which was the focus of a year
long translation course in Germany. Selections from her other books have been translated to
Hindi, Bangla, Chinese, German and Greek. She is the founder and editor of the online poetry
journal, Contemporary American Voices (http://www.contemporaryamericanvoices.com)
Besides writing, Lisa enjoys painting and semi-considers her work "outsider art" as most is
selectively funky and created on found objects. She adores Bob Dylan and considers
Fernando Pessoa either her father or husband in a past life, she can't decide which. She lives
and writes in Arizona.

Scrapes

She wears the happy face,

pink lips breaking apart,
junkyard teeth.

An entire city of who's

and when's floating like
birds from her mouth.

Circles, according
to scientists,
are simply closed
curves, expressing
no discontinuities,
which divide the whole
s-p-a-c-e
into two regions,

an interior
and an exterior.

Inside me
Outside me or you
or us or them.

Baby, if I could design

a plane with a point
and two vectors lying
on it, the point would
be love.

The vectors would be

our hearts.

57
Heather Napualani Hodges
received her BA in English with a focus in creative writing from Lewis &
Clark College, in Portland, Oregon. She is pursuing things like inertia.

In The Rivers

In the rivers of the village,

men rape the dolphins they catch,

not really a crime,
the physiognomy being so similar, and poignant,

the life of a farmer being so lonely, fraught.

**

The river hums, in the orchestral act of love,

well, the movement being the man’s, the dolphin quite still through it all, though this is not a
learned surrender, merely taut animal patience.

You wouldn’t know unless you happened to be swimming nearby,

and even then all you would hear would be

the birds in the trees dying of laughter. The trill.

You might think it was a pleasant day for a stroll. You might think you were thirsty, or that
you had turned into a prune so you’d better get out. You might towel yourself gently,
languidly, take small sips from something wet.

**

The fish: no, the mammal: without legs,

a torso of an animal, pink, small, it’s filled with worms, the forehead is very large, the snout is
thin, though pronounced.

At dusk they swim up to the boats, hoping for soft hands, kind sounds, dead fish,
this being the beauty of trust.

**

Of course, it must be killed after,

the clenching of its vaginal walls enough to capture several men and drown them whole;
and no dolphin could be taken twice, their brain capacity being 40 percent more,
their ability to learn would be devastating, they would burn entire villages to the ground, they
would eat their own offspring and call that permission.

58
But loneliness must be dealt with, every culture having its way,
and most balmy evenings in Spring
the wives watch
from the riverbanks,
tossing knives to their men so they can cut it away,

they chat to each other about dinner, their children, the weather,
moving their toes in the mud.

**

And though the scream of it is quiet at the surface, much like a mewing, really,

if you happened to be underwater,

your ears surrounded by it, your legs kicking,
if the conditions were right, humidity, viscosity, verbosity, etc,

you would hear the trill from miles away,

it would break you all the way open.

59
That Takes Days

I will make you a woman for each day,

to spare the foliage, God offered.

Adam reclined jauntily, scratching himself,

then reaching over to stoke the cactus.

Oh, but this is delicious,

why would we spare it?

Here, here, I will make you a child to love, it will be so pale and soft, you will grow fond,
you’ll see.

Rudely, Adam played with his lips, making the face of a fish.

I am not inclined towards small things, the fish said, then it ate a whole palm tree.

Well, then, how about an ocean, a large one, filled with whales!

Hmm, I find virility in other creatures poor form, Adam muttered, chewing on grass.

Though, if they were to die? The whales? That would be better for the drama of the scene,
Adam wisely noted, wrenching the blossoms off the Honeysuckle, tucking their bodies under
his tongue.

Of course, of course! An ocean full of dead whales! I should have thought of that. You are
very clever, God announced, your sense of timing is impeccable.

Timing? Why timing? Adam asked, setting the apple tree aside, flattered, but confused.

Because with the amount of time it will take for them to fall, it will create a palpable unease
in the audience, the price of popcorn will go up and up! Their bodies fill with gas, you see, so
the plunge is not so immediate. Mere physics is all. God was giddy with the promise of corn.
The increased demand for fields.

How long does it take, for them to fall, that is? Adam, asked, brushing the leaf aside, so he
could get a better grip, his hand now playing with himself, though half-heartedly. The leaf
turning brown next to him. The ants cutting it into pieces to better hoist it into their nest. The
Queen handing out accolades to the strongest among them. The colony developing envies
among the ranks.

The decline of all Romes.

Oh, that, God admitted quietly, running his fingers through the empty dirt, that
takes days.

60
 Gary Lark
lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife Dorothy and a cat named Fish. His
work has appeared in the North American Review, The Sun, Orion, StoryQuarterly,
Borderlands, and others. His book Getting By, won the Holland Prize from Logan House Press,
2009.

A Day at the Fair

The crowd quiets,

words funnel away in the wind,
as the Eggman settles himself tenderly
on the bed of white orbs.
They could be snails
alive in their juices.

He lies there a moment

at the bottom of silence
then magically lifts
off the nest of his occupation
to applause.

He has a child
select an egg from the bed
which he cracks
and spills
on the hot concrete
to more applause.

It is brief
and impossible.
The Eggman replaces
the missing egg
as we trail on
to the Mermaid.

II

There is a cave of men

drinking in the smooth
female form.

Children are rushed past

as if this half-fish, suckling
one minnow and then another,
were a threat.

Her sleek curves shimmer

on the artificial rocks;

61
she balances between water
and sky, between the dark
mystery of estuarial past
and a depleting dream.
Her eyes are a dare.

Shame and ardor rise.

We long to step
from this tawdry show
into the sea,
free of all,
moving with elegance
in who we exactly are.

III

We sleepwalk
toward the ageless falcons.
Ivy spreads from the walk,
out in a vast sea of tentacles
reaching and dividing.

It crawls from the suburbs

into park and forest
forming green halos around trees,
choking them, riding them
to the ground.

Will it cry and pound its green fists

like a spoiled child
when all is consumed,
when it lies dying
of it's own avarice
on a wasted plain?

IV

Greeted by the rusty voice

of an tattered falcon:
Be patient, be patient,
you'll have a turn.
Form lines left, center and right.
They don't squawk like parrots,
the voice more like an aged child.

Murmurs filter from canvas flaps

as we shuffle through an antechamber,
light diminishing.
Musty canvas and sweat cloud
our lines spindled for reception.

At last alone with the feathered oracle,

62
it peers at me, cocking its head.
It seems to motion me forward.
I stand close. The image blurs
in my bifocals. The whisper:

Stand in silence, walk in peace.

Then, Eat your own flesh.
And I am dismissed into the light.

I stumble blind in the glare

past a mime stumbling blind
to find a hand holding mine.
We form a circle
each telling our name
and occupation
in front of dusty trees
curling in thick burnt air.

The woman next to me

starts to weep.
A man and a woman
in brown uniforms
take her away.
She is laid out on a cot
at the First Aid Station
like a display.

The circle wheels,

everyone trotting to keep up.
Running. Then we fall away.
I catch my balance
at the edge of the alligator pit.

VI

There is a gray truck

with “City Pound” on the side
standing near a gate.
Now and then a dog
is cast to a waiting alligator.
A voice: Good afternoon
ladies and gentlemen.
Here you see a fine example
of the marriage of services
between public and private
interests. Be assured
that saving tax dollars
is our highest priority.
Working smarter for you.
Click. Some people
63
turn away in disgust,
others start cheering
as an alligator snatches
a spaniel and drags
it under.

VII

Get your insurance here.

I can save you hundreds of dollars
a year. Don't be a fool,
don't be a chump,
let Statewide set you free.
Leave your worries right here.
Don't leave your loved ones in a lurch.
Hey you. Yes you.
Come on in.
I've got a deal for you.

Behind the hamburger stands

a line of insurance hucksters
in front of flimsy booths
screech their hottest deals.
The smell of frying meat
turns rancid in their breath.
They throw pennies to the kids.

I am mesmerized for a moment

until I feel the ground shake
with great pounding thuds.

VIII

Challengers line up
to swing the mallet.
Beat Tyco The Great
and win one hundred dollars.
Step right up.
You strong guys, over here.
Hey wimps, chickens, mama's boys
where'd you get those biceps.
Tyco takes another swing
and dust ripples from the ground,
the scale rises to the sky.
A stout young man steps up
measures the heft and swings.
The scale barely rises.
You'd better eat your breakfast next time.
Whose next?
The young man is shoved
out of the way.
Hey you, yeah you, come here.
64
He means me
and I duck around the façade.

IX

Most people are veering right

I join the trickle left.
We move up a steady rise.
Click. Through a turnstile
shiny from use.
Welcome, she says.
I turn to a beautiful face
beaming inches from by face.
I'm so glad you can participate
today. She pins a number
on my shirt. Her sweet breath
tangles my thoughts.
My name and address on a clipboard.
She gives me a hug
and kisses my cheek.
Our thin line shuffles on.
I can hear a crowd roar.
Silence. Applause.
I'm next.
I move over the little rise
and the crowd cheers,
cheering me.
The platform I'm on
gracefully becomes a diving board
and below they are removing
the last participant
from the concrete slab.
I take another step.
The cheers are deafening.

65
 Daniel Wilcox
a former activist, teacher, and wanderer from Montana to the Middle
East, casts his lines out upon the world's turbulent waters and wide shores in Moria,
Lunarosity, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, The Recusant, Counterexample Poetics, Mad Swirl,
Word Riot, etc. Dark Energy, a book of his poetry, was published in 2009 by Diminuendo
Press. "The Faces of Stone", based on his time in the Middle East, came out in The Danforth
Review and Danse Macabre. Daniel lives with a speculative novel The Feeling of the Earth, a
second volume of poems Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and his mystery-loving wife on the
central coast of California. You can find out more online at http://seaquaker.com and
http://psalmsyawpshowls.weebly.com

On Visiting Hemingway’s Mansion*

Next to the mansion Pauline’s money bought

Where Hemingway wrote
Timeless stories
Of skill
And luck
And Nothing…

Next to this blocked hard beauty

Of coral rock,
Survivor of hurricanes
Their dissolute lives
Of lust and liquor
And divorce…

Next to the survivors, the 54 cats

Including the 6-toed ones
And a 150-year-old Banyan tree…

Stand the Key West lighthouse and the mortuary.

Light and death…

Suicide at 61
Hemingway spoke of writing one true sentence.
Why not live one true life?

*Previously published in The Rogue Review

66
 J. Bradley
is the author of the poetry collection, Dodging Traffic (Ampersand
Books). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK Magazine, decomP,
Dogzplot, Welter, kill author, TheNovember 3rd Club, and Suss among other journals. Some
of the places featuring his performance work include Pedestal Magazine, Indiefeed, and
Idiolexicon. In 1985, he dabbled in journalism when he interviewed Emmanuel Lewis with a
Spider-Man PEZ Dispenser. He lives at iheartfailure.net.

The Kama Sutra of Timothy Geithner

I will mount you like debt,

leave imaginary numbers
on your neck; we'll call this
job creation.

The Kama Sutra of The Other Woman

I will gag you like a secret,

abandon my phone number
in your stomach.

When you cough up skeletons,

I'll know that you are hung
like a closet.

67
 Subhankar Das writes in Bangla. Born in Kolkata, India where he presently resides. He
has translated Allen Ginsberg's poem in Bangla.

The Colourful Cockroach

Instead of this piece, I wish to paint a big cockroach -

Small thorns in its long legs create shivering.
Assume that this piece of writing is a colourful cockroach
just after a while it would fly away with a flapping sound.
Are you afraid of cockroaches?
When cockroach flies in your room helty-skelty-
You call your maid with a loud cry
and ask her to kill the cockroach
but if the cockroach too gets coloured!
If while getting coloured, it becomes a butterfly,
then you would have loved it.
You would not have thought of the drain,
the hole in the basin,
of the commode's backside,
or of the pan of the urinal,
the cockroach which has fallen into any of them
and trying to rise with out most effort
even while seeing this, you are pissing upon it
with devilish pleasure and a little bit fearfully,
you would not have remembered, that
if a little bit more colourful it would have become,
with its wings getting shaped like a plant,
then you would not have jumped up if it sat upon your body
rather you would have looked coyly
or thought about that girl
around whose head, not butterflies rather cockroaches
circle in hundreds.

68
 Corey Mesler
has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published
two novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002) and We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006), a
full length poetry collection, Some Identity Problems (2008), and a book of short stories,
Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009). He also has two novels set to be published in the
Spring of 2010, The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (Bronx River Press) and Following
Richard Brautigan (Livingston Press). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both
poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of
his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also claims to have
written, “In the Year 2525.” With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s
oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

Church

“When Bells stop ringing—Church—begins—“

--Emily Dickinson

It was a chapel
built around a labyrinth.
In its rafters,
so far away as to be limitless,
were cranes of paper,
wings of man.
It was a chapel
where inclusion was sincere,
like a bible
that falls to different pages
each day. It was
a chapel shaped like a farm,
a place where
life blossomed, multivariate
and precise, Book
open-ended and delirious
as the tumult of dream. What book is this
splayed like
a Christ crucified
waiting for my
hand to come
and pluck it from
underneath the lamp’s
calm umbrella?
It is a book of poems.
And in it I find this
line: I talk to God.
It is just a book
about talking to God.

69
In This Atmosphere

I want to read your book.

I want you to read mine.
It is in this atmosphere
that we must survive.
The things the television tell
me are not the things
that I want to talk about.
I have higher aspirations.
I will say, I love your similes.
You will smile and answer,
Your talk makes me listen.
I wish the world could be
like this. I wish we could
reach each other so easily.
I hold out my jacket. The
blurbs on it are a lie. You
hold out your spine.
It is in this atmosphere
that we may survive.
It is in this atmosphere
that love blooms, all along
the margins, all along the
fore-edge, all for us, the
adventurers, the easy riders.

More About Wendy Ward

She was dark brown

like a horse’s shadow,
and so lovely my heart
hurt. I approached her
with a courage that now
I cannot fathom. This
was many years ago
in the kingdom of youth.
She is even now beautiful.
Sometimes, now, she
will answer if I call. But
mostly she is still distant,
a smudge of memory,
something that tugs at you
but is, in a real sense,
invisible, irretrievable, mute.

70
I Didn’t Know it Was Going to be a Frank O’Hara Day

I didn’t know it was going to be

a Frank O’Hara day
until I walked outside and suddenly
it was New York
and the sidewalk was painted by
Jasper Johns and
the women all were beautiful in
their dying cigarette youth.
I didn’t know it was going to be
a Frank O’Hara day
until I found myself in a bar sur-
rounded by poets,
all asking me to go naked into the
screaming rhinestone fandango night.

71
 Gary Beck
has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art
dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch
digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook Remembrance was published by Origami Condom
Press, The Conquest of Somalia was published by Cervena Barva Press, The Dance of Hate
was published by Calliope Nerve Media and Mutilated Girls is being published by Bedouin
Press. A collection of his poetry Days of Destruction was published by Skive Press. Another
collection Expectations is being published by Rogue Scholars Press. His original plays and
translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and
toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of
literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.

Teenage Dating

Innovative violence
is rapidly becoming
a frequent commodity
in the electronic age.
Romantic male teens
express domineering love
with non-stop text messaging
and incessant telephone calls,
attempting total control
of their unwary girlfriends.
When the girl dares resist
she is ruthlessly punished
with beatings, stabbing, murder,
an inadvertent victim
who just wanted a boyfriend.

72
 Connor Stratman is a writer currently living in Chicago. His poetry, fiction, and essays have
appeared in various journals such as The Toronto Quarterly, ditch, The Journal of
Experimental Fiction, Oarystis, Outsider Writers and Diminuendo. He edits the online poetry
journal The Balloon. His first chapbook, Invisible Entrances, will be published by erbacce-
press in 2010.

II

In the end I don’t know what there is.

If there is a chart, with a beginning,
a middle and an end, I don’t know
where the dot that is me is, nor what
is in the words “beginning, middle, and
end.” The chart’s on fire and I’m burning
on it. My paper arms smoked away and
there’s me, a blank circle, made oxygen.

73
 Gary Lark
lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife Dorothy and a cat named Fish. His
work has appeared in the North American Review, The Sun, Orion, StoryQuarterly,
Borderlands, and others. His book Getting By, won the Holland Prize from Logan House Press,
2009.

A Day at the Fair

The crowd quiets,

words funnel away in the wind,
as the Eggman settles himself tenderly
on the bed of white orbs.
They could be snails
alive in their juices.

He lies there a moment

at the bottom of silence
then magically lifts
off the nest of his occupation
to applause.

He has a child
select an egg from the bed
which he cracks
and spills
on the hot concrete
to more applause.

It is brief
and impossible.
The Eggman replaces
the missing egg
as we trail on
to the Mermaid.

II

There is a cave of men

drinking in the smooth
female form.

Children are rushed past

as if this half-fish, suckling
one minnow and then another,
were a threat.

74
Her sleek curves shimmer
on the artificial rocks;
she balances between water
and sky, between the dark
mystery of estuarial past
and a depleting dream.
Her eyes are a dare.

Shame and ardor rise.

We long to step
from this tawdry show
into the sea,
free of all,
moving with elegance
in who we exactly are.

III

We sleepwalk
toward the ageless falcons.
Ivy spreads from the walk,
out in a vast sea of tentacles
reaching and dividing.

It crawls from the suburbs

into park and forest
forming green halos around trees,
choking them, riding them
to the ground.

Will it cry and pound its green fists

like a spoiled child
when all is consumed,
when it lies dying
of it's own avarice
on a wasted plain?

IV

Greeted by the rusty voice

of an tattered falcon:
Be patient, be patient,
you'll have a turn.
Form lines left, center and right.
They don't squawk like parrots,
the voice more like an aged child.

Murmurs filter from canvas flaps

75
as we shuffle through an antechamber,
light diminishing.
Musty canvas and sweat cloud
our lines spindled for reception.

At last alone with the feathered oracle,

it peers at me, cocking its head.
It seems to motion me forward.
I stand close. The image blurs
in my bifocals. The whisper:

Stand in silence, walk in peace.

Then, Eat your own flesh.
And I am dismissed into the light.

I stumble blind in the glare

past a mime stumbling blind
to find a hand holding mine.
We form a circle
each telling our name
and occupation
in front of dusty trees
curling in thick burnt air.

The woman next to me

starts to weep.
A man and a woman
in brown uniforms
take her away.
She is laid out on a cot
at the First Aid Station
like a display.

The circle wheels,

everyone trotting to keep up.
Running. Then we fall away.
I catch my balance
at the edge of the alligator pit.

VI

There is a gray truck

with “City Pound” on the side
standing near a gate.
Now and then a dog
is cast to a waiting alligator.
A voice: Good afternoon

76
ladies and gentlemen.
Here you see a fine example
of the marriage of services
between public and private
interests. Be assured
that saving tax dollars
is our highest priority.
Working smarter for you.
Click. Some people
turn away in disgust,
others start cheering
as an alligator snatches
a spaniel and drags
it under.

VII

Get your insurance here.

I can save you hundreds of dollars
a year. Don't be a fool,
don't be a chump,
let Statewide set you free.
Leave your worries right here.
Don't leave your loved ones in a lurch.
Hey you. Yes you.
Come on in.
I've got a deal for you.

Behind the hamburger stands

a line of insurance hucksters
in front of flimsy booths
screech their hottest deals.
The smell of frying meat
turns rancid in their breath.
They throw pennies to the kids.

I am mesmerized for a moment

until I feel the ground shake
with great pounding thuds.

VIII

Challengers line up
to swing the mallet.
Beat Tyco The Great
and win one hundred dollars.
Step right up.
You strong guys, over here.
Hey wimps, chickens, mama's boys

77
where'd you get those biceps.
Tyco takes another swing
and dust ripples from the ground,
the scale rises to the sky.
A stout young man steps up
measures the heft and swings.
The scale barely rises.
You'd better eat your breakfast next time.
Whose next?
The young man is shoved
out of the way.
Hey you, yeah you, come here.
He means me
and I duck around the façade.

IX

Most people are veering right

I join the trickle left.
We move up a steady rise.
Click. Through a turnstile
shiny from use.
Welcome, she says.
I turn to a beautiful face
beaming inches from by face.
I'm so glad you can participate
today. She pins a number
on my shirt. Her sweet breath
tangles my thoughts.
My name and address on a clipboard.
She gives me a hug
and kisses my cheek.
Our thin line shuffles on.
I can hear a crowd roar.
Silence. Applause.
I'm next.
I move over the little rise
and the crowd cheers,
cheering me.
The platform I'm on
gracefully becomes a diving board
and below they are removing
the last participant
from the concrete slab.
I take another step.
The cheers are deafening.

78
 Karissa Mortonis an English/Writing student at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa,
where she is a writing tutor, literary journal editor, and president of her university’s chapter
of Sigma Tau Delta. She enjoys having these things to whittle away her time while anxiously
awaiting next winter, when she can start applying to MFA programs.

Xerophytism

if you happen to find yourself

somewhere in this endless cave
of pinecones and grenades
where soaring is a metaphor
for broken wheel and inverted wave,
then the raiment of the night will breathe
beneath my hair with a splash of perfect wind
and white noise
as marzipan kisses and acetylene eyes
pinch my skin, boring for diamonds
beneath daydream mythology
of plaid skirts and pigtails.

if you dare to flip the switch to

set alight my vast simplicity
and slowly dissolving bruises
the colors of dusk and battlefields,
be prepared
for me to anchor myself
to the foot of your bed,
to sail xerophytic upon your ocean.

and if i wither into peacock feather

and resounding knots of rhythm,
tie me up with crystal twine,
fashion me into a strand of light
and exhale smoke into me
so i can float away
with a breath of you.

79
 Derek Richards After performing both music and poetry around the Boston area for
twenty years, Derek Richards shed his fear of rejection and began submitting his work this
past August. So far his poetry has appeared or been accepted in over forty publications,
including; Lung, Word Riot, Cantaraville, Soundzine, The Centrifugal Eye, Opium 2.0,
MediaVirus, Calliope Nerve, Right Hand Pointing, Breadcrumb Scabs, Tinfoildresses, Poets
Ink, The Foundling Review, Red Fez and Underground Voices. He has also been told to keep
his day job by Quills and Parchment. His dog, cat and two ferrets admire his attempts to be
honest, direct, brilliant and lucrative. Also, he wants you to know that he has compiled over
50 fantasy sports championships. Happily engaged, he resides in Gloucester, MA, cleaning
windows for a living.

with apologies to the girl behind the counter

seven minutes after my car crash

with a lawyer and his attorney,
i arrive bruised and severely stoned
on shock. the idea of waiting in a line
transforms my best smile
into a grin with bite.

a man six people ahead of me talks

to his cell phone,
she's got about as much chance
as Indiana winning the Big Ten in football, ya know?
the rest of us squirm in front
of an array of such items of interest
as a 5 Hour Energy bar and walnut-raisin cookies.

no, you're right. maybe i'll tell her.

okay. we're still on for sunday, right?
he laughs. i got twenty on Dallas
and i don't lose, remember?

suddenly the woman in front of me

clears her throat,
are we examining each purchase today
or could we just ring the fucking things up?
i nod my head and look
at the girl behind the counter.
red hair, pale skin, a galaxy
of cinnamon freckles across her cheeks and arms.

she pretends not to hear the comments,

focusing instead on the debit card
currently in her hands.
that'll be twenty-two fifty-seven, she says.
slide-punch-sign.

80
now i'm four people away from escape.

and then it hits me,

sudden and disfiguring as a stroke:
i have no empathy. none.
all the muscles in my shoulders and back
tense because she is not perfect,
she is not blinding fast at her job,
and despite her nice features,
she’s not attractive
enough to distract me from my frustrations.

how are you today, sir?

nodding my head, i slide my purchase
across the counter and reach for my wallet.
i'm fine. just fine. how are you?
i'm fine. just fine. thank you.

seconds before i'm about to escape,

i hear a scratchy baritone clear his throat.
this girl on meds or something?
i stare into her eyes and see nothing.
here's your receipt.
thank you. have a nice day.
you too.

the exit doors buzz open

and the sunshine stings, instant and pure.
i've got to call my lawyer later
about the car crash with the lawyer,
but for now, i think about nothing
except cinnamon freckles,
cold eyes unblinking behind a counter.

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suburban pornography exposed

elijah slips into his bedroom, unnoticed,

mother and father busy attending to the ministry downstairs,
bottom down shirts, jesus and vodka punch.

after sneaking three dixie cups himself,

it's time to examine Sorority Girls Fuck Themselves Part 8.
when sweet young Tori comes to his room the next time,
he'll be prepared, not stumbling through his lines.

homework for elijah isn't math or social studies,

it's pick-up lines, innuendo, pornographic gestures and dialogue.
it's really so damn easy, he thinks,
with no effort these women just lay down and moan

it's not until chapter seven that his mother, rosemary,

knocks on his door. he can smell worry through the door.
elijah, some of our guests are leaving, don't you think it would
be polite to say goodbye? elijah? your mother is talking to you.

the mute button, then the pause button, then the sleepy-voice.
not feeling so good, mom, can't i just stay in bed tonight?
another pause button. he can hear commands mis-firing.
okay, honey, i'll let everyone know you're under the weather

with one small touch of the thumb, blonde-green eyes is

begging dumb-jock-pizza-guy to ruin me, baby, ruin me
elijah suspects she may already be ruined and that's what turns him on
if only Tori could be ruined so perfectly, so artistically

downstairs, the last guests to filter out offer their thanks

and acknowledgements for such a wonderful young son
the Delaney's nod and smile, impatient but gracious
the new toy has been loaded with fresh batteries and
thursday nights are handcuff night

and best of all, elijah is sick and already asleep

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 Adam Hughesis a writer and pastor from Lancaster, Ohio. He is a graduate of Ohio
Christian University and his poetry has appeared in several online and print journals,
including The Foliate Oak, TheHouston Literary Review, Flutter Poetry Journal, The Boston
Literary Magazine, Silenced Press and Gloom Cupboard. He also sits on the editorial board
for Triggerfish Critical Review. He enjoys being outside, reading, and spending time with his
wife and infant daughter. He can be reached at tatelestai@yahoo.com.

The Poet Identifies Beauty The Mist Beneath Eagle's Rock

I see beauty in the grass Ohio weather, indecisive

of my front yard, wind- clouds, hot soil watered
blown blades that break by September, vapor massing
in waves from the street forces on the border,
to my front porch. They bend granite and pine shrouded
and bow like ocean tides, in evaporated moisture.
like forest canopies swaying
before the breeze, like rock Old-timers say that mist
rippled pond waters. Or perhaps is always in these hills;
I should mow more often. my grandpa told me
the clouds were smoke
I see beauty in the tree from squirrel campfires.
that stands at the corner I told my friends that
of my house - its wicker
branches that reach into and they laughed. I
the cable line and its leaves laughed with them.
that hide nesting birds Now the storyteller's
who are killed by cats and left gone and the mist
in the backyard for me remains and the scent
to mow over. But that of burning acorns still
is not the tree's fault. Or perhaps mixes with the petrichor
I should have dug it up before of a Blue Valley autumn.
the roots corrupted
our sidewalk and cracked
our basement wall.

I see beauty in the rain

that drops from pencil-shaded
clouds upon our yard. From
water spotted windows I
watch the grass grow summer
green and admire the pattern
of falling drops. But then I pay
my flood insurance and mop
the water that comes through
the crack in the basement.

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Sitting on the Deck with Ranger Rick

This morning I attempted to connect

with nature – I threw a tomato
at a squirrel. Of course, I missed.
The little tree-rats were scurrying
and jumping off trunks like
so many capoeristas and nothing
short of an atlatl would suffice
to make my half-ripened fruit connect.

Out of ammunition, and unwilling

to pluck anymore of my cherry
tomatoes from their umbilical
vine, I sat and surveyed the squirrels.
Thirty or so cavort among the chestnuts,
barking like bushy-tailed dogs,
lithe and agile and aggressively cute.
It’s the cuteness that makes me
want to go and get

another tomato. But I don’t. I just

sit there and watch and wonder
why God made squirrels. Upon further
reflection, I’m glad He did. It helps
me improve my aim.

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 Josh Petty
comes from Murfreesboro, TN where he spends his days catering,
painting, writing poetry, and playing music with the budding population of youth that is the
Middle Tennessee State University student body.

The Flower

85
 Chandle Lee
was born and raises in Malaysia; he came to the US to attend
undergraduate and graduate studies and been trained as an architect. Mr. Lee practice first
practice architecture in San Francesco, then in New York city. Mr. Lee also demonstrated his
versatility in art, his mediums are oil, watercolor, drawings, and photography. Mr. Lee's
architecture work and art can be view online at http://www.chanlee.com &
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chandle.

Avenue of America (6th Avenue), New York

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