Unshod Quills

Study of a Shanghai Street Sweeper in the Rain on the Way to Morning Coffee - Shanghai, China, 12/11 - Dena Rash Guzman - on the theme of Coffee

Dear Readers,

DAVID BOWIE DAVID BOWIE DAVID BOWIE!

Unshod Quills is a theme based publication, centered around themes chosen by the editor or other participants in the Unshod Quills Writing Collective. DAVID BOWIE! One of my dream themes, and this issue is very much about him. With just the beerlight to guide us, we also feature works based on the themes of love, coffee, Joan of Arc, dancing about architecture, and enough rope.

Speaking of coffee, David Bowie and enough rope, this is how I spent my pre-Christmas unvacation:

My publisher,  HAL Publishing, flew me to its hometown of Shanghai earlier this month. I was there to stage, for an audience of over 300, a group performance of my smutty little short story, “A Brief History of Dan Orange of Shanghai.” This was a multimedia presentation featuring myself and a truly international cast of artists including Estel Vilar, UQ Contributor Ginger wRong Chen, UQ contributor Katrina Hamlin, the enigmatic Barbara A., and Mr. Brian Keane. Video backdrop was provided by Colorado’s own Jerimiah Whitlock. The occasion? The River South Arts Festival, a four day celebration of independent Shanghai art and literature, featuring Slamhai3 and the release of HAL’s second collection of short stories,

Middle Kingdom Underground: short stories from the people’s republic of 

The US edition should be ready for sale around February 15 and I’ll have two stories in the book, one co-written with HAL founder and regular UQ contributor, Mr. Bjorn Wahlstrom. The book’s theme of vice in modern China is heavy and dark, and the stories by fifteen authors, both local and non-native to China, are accordingly complex and delightful.

In the meanwhile, a click to the title above will take you to the stunning and beautiful and bizarre Middle Kingdom Underground book trailer, produced and directed by September Unshod Quills contributor, Portlander Posie Currin. In addition, the HAL book release was filmed and will soon be broadcast internationally on the new fine arts internet TV network Bravoflix.

Where do coffee, David Bowie and enough rope come into the above recap? Let me write you a prose poem, that will make no sense, in order to explain myself.

Coffee – I drank a lot while I was in China. Not so much tea. Coffee. I  learned that I make a terrible pot of French press. David Bowie – that’s Bjorn, but minus any glitter and plus a freighter of stardust. Bjorn wears all black all the time, unless it’s raining, and then he wears white leather tennis shoes. Enough rope – after nearly setting his neighbor’s kitchen on fire with my suitcase, I learned that Bjorn keeps enough rope on hand to escape out a window just in case of some such event as a clumsy American starting fires with suitcase and a hotplate in a stairwell. There are no fire escapes in those old buildings. Rope is good. He’s four stories up and to get in or out one must pass through two neighbor’s kitchens and  twisty flights of narrow, steep stairs. It’s a gorgeous place, though, and Bjorn has a cat that is in the process of self-actualization. Perhaps soon big fat Blackie cat will get his own rope. 

I’m grateful to HAL for having me as a guest performer at their book release party, and for all the support they’ve shown to Unshod Quills over the past year.

Meanwhile, back in America, managing Editor Wendy Ellis and I struggled to confine our selections of art and literature for December to a reasonable number.  That is why we chose not one, but two featured poets for this issue.

Having worked with James H. Duncan a number of times over the past four years, I am already acquainted with his eloquent ornate minimalist style, and have long been a fan. James was an easy choice to feature, and we hope you enjoy his work as we do.

Our second feature is an amazing writer who sent a suite of submissions on the theme of childhood alone, and our skirts were blown nearly clean off by the gale force of their brilliance. Be sure to look at the poetry of Catherine Woodard.

Both of our featured poets are based in New York City. We get it, New York: we want to be a part of it, too.

December’s featured artist is from another part of the universe: Greece. Sugahtank John Roubanis is a talented graphic design artist and illustrator; his King Kong poster take this month’s front page. We love his work, from the scratchy, ropy sketches of near-human figures to the sublime political graphics to his logo work. Sugahtank’s vision told us it needed a good sharing with the Unshod Quills readership. It actually spoke to us.

We are also happy to see the return of Kevin Sampsell. His Bowie piece is hilarious and I for one will never be able to look at him the same way, fiction or not. Rusty Barnes is in this issue with some uniquely elegant and rough country flavored fiction, while Timothy Gager tells you you’re gonna need a bigger sandwich. Order up. Also look for the work of Portlander Jenny Forrester and the best middle school Bowie obsession fiction we’ve ever read – Jenny Hayes is in the house. HAL Publishing’s W.M. Butler shares a treacherous story about bullies and rabbits and the beauty and brutality of childhood, and it’s an editorial favorite. We have the work of Frank Reardon, Matty Byloos and Nancy Flynn… Ryan Werner kills it with his minute by minute rundown of Bowie and Jagger’s video for “Dancing in the Street.” I love Bowie, yes, but everyone makes mistakes. Look for UQ’s own X. Joloronde and Robert Myer on Joan of Arc, too.

I could go on but just look to the right and click away. Thanks for visiting, and we’ll be releasing our next call for submissions on New Year’s Day – I’ll let you know now that one of our themes will be David Lynch.

Spread these writers around like the pandemic they are.

Ever yours,

Dena Rash Guzman
Editor
Unshod Quills
in the woods near Portland, Oregon, USA

Dena Rash Guzman, seated, listening to Ginger wRong Chen in Shanghai - 12/11

on the theme of Love

(two friends, both racked by insomnia over different issues (health and money), write one another. The elder and wealthier consoles the younger and less financially secure. Like a late night cheeseburger and five dollar shake without the Tarantino detour, but with extra special friendship sauce, American Recession Style.)

D,

I feel for you, and all young people. I’m becoming more liberal every day. My friends are very wealthy, right wing, hard core born againners and I’m honestly getting so I can’t stand to be around them. Why do people with more money than God feel the need to hammer on poor people? If I hear, “50% of the people pay no taxes” one more time I’m going to puke. I tell him it’s because fucking Wal-Mart doesn’t pay enough to live on, let alone pay taxes. This comes from a guy who brags to me that he pays no taxes. He’s so  rich he donated land he bought in San Diego in the sixties to the Latter Day Saints. Why? They pay him so much a month, tax free until he dies, and then the land is theirs. He has ranches, cotton farms, you name it, and had the balls to tell me, when I bitched about the lack of jobs for blue collar workers, “What do you mean? Wal-Mart is always hiring.”

Yes, I too worry about your son, and the sons and daughters of millions of people.

Blame the politicians. What would you do if you owned a major business and they were taxing you to death, but also giving you access to virtual slave labor in China? I blame politicians for selling us out.

When I got out of the navy in the sixties I got five jobs in one day and had to then pick what I wanted. My choices were steel mills, the rubber factories in Akron, Ohio. Union truck driving jobs etc, etc. A kid could get out of high school and make as much as his dad in the factory, with good wages and benefits. There are no more steel mills in Pittsburg, not one single tire is made in Akron and the union truck driving jobs are gone. Why? Don’t blame the greedy corporations. They are greedy, but they didn’t give other countries the lopsided trade agreements, the politicians did. And yes, of course the politicians were getting rich from lobbyist representing big business, but honest politicians would have never sold us out like we’ve been sold out.

I like Ron Paul too. However, as much as I hate abortion, I know in my heart it is a woman’s choice, not some religious right politician and his past menopause voters. I’m dead against any politician who hammers gays. I don’t give a rats ass what your sex life consists of. You can fuck the ducks on your farm for all I care. Why is our sexual preference a political issue in a free country?

Will you die poor? Maybe, but I personally think you are too much a go-getter to let that happen. As fucked up as our country is, I still think there is hope. And then I tell myself, “You are full of shit, M.  There ain’t no fucking jobs.” I go back to my little town in Ohio and am embarrassed I came from there, until I think about it. They aren’t a bunch of shabby trailer park rednecks because they want to be.

My older sister is poor as a church mouse, and so is my oldest brother. She’s 65 and still working. B is 70 and has to work. I tried to give both of them money and they got so mad I didn’t think they’d speak to me again. I now listen to my sister’s stories about how they all pull together. They share everything. She doesn’t want my condescending charity, she has real friends to share food and everything else with. The people on my street aren’t like that. I asked my rich neighbor lady if I could borrow her utility trailer. Not that I couldn’t afford to rent one, but because I needed it for an hour. She turned me down. Can you borrow a goddamn little trailer? I bet you can.

And I know it’s easy for me to talk this shit when I’m wealthy, but you really do have something that I don’t have and it’s precious.
As easy as it is for me to spew this bullshit out, I do have an idea what you think when you look at your son. What future does he have? I think that when I look at my grandkids. Somehow we have to pull our heads out of our asses and vote in some good people. More than anything we need term limits in the House and Senate. Think about that.
D, I’m sorry you are up in the middle fo the night worrying. But you do have something that outshines most people. You have a good head on your shoulders. I think you’ll be OK.
One more little story. When I divorced my wife I lost everything. I honestly believed I’d never own a house again. I had  I had a friend whose dad was a self made man. Very wealthy, very aloof. He came to me and said, “I know you think it’s the end of the world, but I know what you are made of. You will be OK, I know it.

I’m telling you the same thing.

M

Author Biography

M. Kline is a writer and a fighter living  in Texas.  He is retired and enjoys spending time with his grandchildren.

On the theme of Enough Rope

THE FREED PRISONER VERSUS HIS HOROSCOPE

The prisoner back in society, just like that. One day he’s in, and the next day, he’s reading the newspaper like none of it ever happened, only it did.

He’s never not still surprised by the light. He gets swallowed up a lot now, in his new life. Just like when he reads the newspaper and has to contemplate certain things like freedom. And what it means.

Most of the time, it doesn’t mean that much to him.

The first time he went for a walk, he wasn’t sure where exactly he was going. Just headed off in a direction, and that was hard to stomach because he found himself looking for how he was confined. What walls were out there waiting for him? What was this thing they told him about being free? He kept walking.

And then he found them. It hadn’t taken more than a few hours, when he came upon a bank of chain-link fences, stretching in both directions to either side, into the darkness somewhere small. To places that he could now see were equally hopeless, places he wouldn’t ever bother traveling to. What would be the point?

A dog saunters up from somewhere behind him, smells his hand as if he’s looking for a pat on the head. The prisoner kicks him instead, has to take this out on someone or something. As soon as it’s done he feels guilty, figures it’s just the institution still in him somewhere. He always assumed the guilt would just be his to carry, but it surprised him every time just the same. Now was another one of those times.

So he kneels down to call the dog over from wherever he went, maybe just a few feet away. It takes a minute but eventually he does. No collar. What would be the point? They’re both in a cage. In fact, once his eyes adjusted to the oncoming darkness around them, he realized it was several rows of cages, hedging them in like some kind of concentric maze – more than enough of them to convince anyone in their right mind that trying to escape was futile. What had he been looking for when he went on this walk anyway? The prison psych doctor would have told him he was looking for exactly what he had found.

But that was a bunch of bullshit, and he knew it. Who the hell would be looking for captivity again after what he’d just been in?

Maybe everything of consequence had been washed down the single drain in the center of that cell back there in his past. Maybe it had all disappeared, and him with it.

Right down the drain.

And then everything around him was quiet again, back in the present. This was one of those moments his prison counselor had told him about. More like a warning, actually, now that he was in it, alone.

The dog had trotted off in the direction he came, and the prisoner looked around him for something, for a light or a house or someone who could tell him where the hell he’d been put once they let him out of prison.

About a mile east of where he ended up finding the fence, and another quarter-mile inside of it, he comes upon a house with a soft blue light on, the kind that a television would make. At least he had found some kind of civilization. He wondered if someone else in his position would be scared of what he was about to do. He wondered where his fear had gone to, because he couldn’t feel any of it anymore, and maybe this made him less than human. Maybe this is why they had put him right back in a cage.

A man answers the door. “Watchin’ t.v., what the fuck you want, mister? Me an’ my buddy here are watchin’ some t.v. and then there’s a knock at the fuckin’ door, and guess who it is?” he says, hardly realizing what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s another one without any fear.

None of this registers on the prisoner’s face. He can see something familiar off behind the man on top of a table in what looks like a kitchen. “Gimme’ the newspaper,” he says to the man. “I want it,” he says, not blinking at all.

“Get this, Earl. This fuckin’ guy here wants the newspaper,” he says, leaning over to grab the papers with his left hand while keeping his right one on the door knob the whole time. “Can you believe it?”

“Thanks. I need to read my horoscope. That’s all. G’nite,” the prisoner says to him, turning to walk farther down the street. He hears the door close somewhere behind him, and opens the paper underneath a street lamp about a block away. Flipping to the back, he finds it. The horoscope. His horoscope

Author Biography

Matty Byloos’s first collection of short stories, Don’t Smell the Floss, was published in 2009 by Write Bloody Books. His work has appeared in Everyday Genius, Matchbook, Bomb, Dark Sky Magazine, among others. With Carrie Seitzinger, he runs Smalldoggies Magazine & Press. He is currently working on his first novel.

Learn more about him at his personal blog: www.mattybyloos.com

Or at the Smalldoggies Magazine site: www.smalldoggiesmagazine.com

VISIONS OF JOAN
(on Joan of Arc)

As a child, I saw your birthplace;
a small cottage, barely four walls and a roof.
Nothing inside but a faint smell of urine,
like an empty barn; appropriate enough,
whether for a Prince of Peace,
or a Princess of War.

Your cathedral on a grassy hill
blessed you as you played your games
outside on the gnarled monstrosity
called “The Fairy Tree” –
while angels and saints talked to you.

Rheims, the cathedral of coronation,
spoke differently, of duty,
of kings and queens.
Which voice was loudest, Joan?
Shakespeare showed you aloof
to the shepherd from Domremy,
“Thou art no father nor friend of mine.”
Is that a clue, Maid?

Finally Chateau Jaulny whispered,
“Come to me. My walls will protect,
be it from armies or inquisitors.”
The dining hall had a portrait of a Lady,
looking weary.
Is that you, la Pucelle?
Did you hear of Margaret d’Anjou
and long to feel
the honesty of steel?

Author Biography

Robert Meyer received a BS in Math from UNLV in 1977, enrolling in their Master’s program in the fall. In May of 1978, during the last week of the school year, he had a brain hemorrhage (left side, affecting speech & right side of body) while lecturing in complex analysis. He completed work for his MS in Math in 1981. He began working for the US Air Force at Nellis AFB in various computer related jobs (database management, programming, and system administration) in 1982 and retired after 22 years.

Walter Edgewater Talks to God on the Train
(on the theme of David Bowie)

The trees outside are slow today.
God, are you there? It’s me, Walter.
You again? Yes, me again. Whaddaya want?

I’ve got a brand new song to show you,
though it probably won’t blow your mind.
So sing it already. Jesus. I’m on the home

stretch. Only a few more months of pills
& this brain fog. You’re welcome.
What did you do? I never asked for your help.

You’re stuck with me now. Well, unstick me.
I’m not playing your game. I give back
my ticket. I’m done. You entered

into a contract, Walter. That was the old me.
I doubt that’s valid anymore. Until the end
of time. You don’t run the atomic clock.

You swam against the tide but you drowned
in the sky. That makes sense to me now.

I’ve got a song for you too: Because my love
for you would break my heart in two,
if you should fall
into my arms
& tremble
like a flower.

What happened to originality? It was lost
when I became man. Not so easy, is it?
I don’t know how you people do it.

It’s a matter of resolve—a feeling
that everything will get better. The body,
this fleshy mess, repairs itself & houses
whatever it is that writes my songs.

You know I’m the ghost writer, don’t you?
No, you’re not. It is mankind
that sings. It’s why we gave ourselves
vocal chords, chatterbox. You wouldn’t

understand. Hey, I put this thing in motion
in a matter of days. Do you realize how quickly
I could take it all away? You should read

my latest pamphlet. That’s okay, old
friend. Things have changed. We built this
up & we’ll be the ones to tear it down.

But what about me? We’ll give you
a front row seat & then, once it’s gone,
it’s back to the infinite nothing for you.

Maybe I’ll see what Beelzebub’s up to.
Whatever you do, get ready.
You’ll wish that you had somebody
to sing your songs for you.

________________________

Walter Edgewater & The Tiny Cup 

(on the theme of coffee)

Frankly, gentlemen, I don’t care
about what business was like
when you were street vendors.
All I want is a place to sit, but not
atop rogue coats left by a ghost

or a robot. Everything belongs
to someone. No apparitions, only
partitions between the real

& the right, plate glass window
connected by sunlight—showing
insides, smudges, & tape stains.

Two girls sit next to me:
1. The one I love, wrote her
love poems on Valentine’s, & now,
President’s Day. 2. One wearing the same
green & black flannel shirt as me.

Hunched over the same way.
Hair tossed & messed the same way.
Chomping fingernails the same way.

Funny how these minute details
& modicum appearances are missed
by one & celebrated by another persona.

1. She’s got polka-dotted sneakers,
gray & white flannel. Before we were
seated, she raised her voice & needed to
leave immediately—people crashed
& bumped her like she wasn’t there.

Now seated in the sun, she’s kissed—
now, again. Still wearing sneakers.
3. Girl across table: please stop
picking your nose. By now, you should

know that I see everything, all
is filtered through me. To understand,
I throw myself into the depths.
Someday I’ll get out & we’ll see.
Until then I’m here & we’ll see.

_________

Walter Edgewater Sees a Nosaj Thing
(on the theme of coffee)

Is this what the kids are listening to
today—zombie music? Two guys
in overcoats, eyes like silver dollars,
(sand dollars, Papier Gamâché says), skulk
& swing arms, shoulders brandished, ready
to strike anyone willing to look. I’m sore
to the spine, back cracking & knees rigid.
In a shifty room I’m not moving,
not even the softest toe tap or head nod.
In between acts, tripping patrons flock
to doors, need to leave. They reach the back,
run into the rope blocking the path
from the pit, gaze around, befuddled.
This is the strangest thing they’ve ever seen.

Nosaj Thing finally takes the stage,
the shakers rush forward & nod knowingly
to the music of the skinny kid,
barely twenty, so busy, knob-twisting,
head-neck-shoulder dipping & ducking,
so busy up there, an art so intricate,
tempo controlled by twists of the wrists,
effortless, he only stops midair
to casually wipe sweat from his brow,
a movement figured into the equation,
all so mathematical, precise, every single
sound placed in its proper container.
He plays for ninety minutes straight
without even the slightest silence. I pay
attention as best I can with some guy
swaying in front of me, inching closer
& closer with every loop, no regard
for my space, until I’m purposely mouth-
breathing down his neck so he knows
I’m the strangest thing he’s ever seen.
He asks me to back up. I do not change.
I leave early, joints too tired to stand.

Today is a Sunday. I drink coffee
in my leopard print robe. Tomorrow,
I’ll listen to last night’s songs
through headphones at my desk
as I answer work emails.

_______________

Walter Edgewater Never Gives all the Heart
(on the theme of love)

I never give all the heart, for love
is bullshit, mostly. I leave
work early to find your sheets
left at last night’s laundromat, children
threatening as I enter. They’re right
where you left them—cold
in the dryer. You return home
again, but only to complain
about the heat—we can’t control it,
or our hearts. I hope you’re happy
when you’re not here, where others
appreciate you more, as you remind me.
I was happy, years ago, & I was
last night. A thin young woman
danced next to me—I leaned
against the stage—her hairy arm
brushed mine bare. She stared
at me, I thought, but really
she looked through to the stack
of empty beer cups left
by the night’s opening
act. She split them apart
& swung the little swill
& screamed, I’m just really thirsty!

All night I heard airborne signals
of love from another (You know
I love you, right?). I tried giving
everything once before—I failed.
Tonight I sloppily tuck you in
after you chastise me for stealing
the blankets last night, as I do
each night, while I sleep & you lie
awake. Everything is sometimes
lovely & a brief, dreamy, kind
delight (the latter a word used
so often to describe me)—sometimes.
I have lost before
& I will lose again.
You have lost me before
& you will lose me again.

_________________________

Walter Edgewater’s Reasons to Fall in Love with Walter Edgewater
(on the theme of love)

I have a job.

I am a locomotive.

My name is an anagram for “Wet, Wet, Large Dear.”

As a boy, the tip of my finger
was ground in the gears
of a mechanical chicken.

I have no will to live.

I live to serve my maker, wherever he is.

I see stars.

I drink shit coffee.

I skinned my foreskin
in a bicycle accident
as a child & didn’t
know if I should show
my friend because I didn’t know
if he or she was a he or a she.

I’m pretty okay at math.

I contemplate the philosophies
of everything in the universe.

I can do as many sit-ups
as Herschel Walker,
the former Dallas Cowboys star less famous
for his multiple personality disorder.

I’m a language poet.

I’ve never been to a dogfight.

…

Okay, I’ve been to one dogfight.

I lost my virginity on a kitchen floor

next to bowls of dog food.

Horses ride me.

I’m a champion
luchador.

I make my own cardboard.

Everything I buy is on sale.

I’m lonely.

I see the best minds of my generation
at the titty bar.

I’m really good at pissing
money away at the greyhound track.

I’m a member of a world-
wide poetry collective
based on chicken sandwiches.

I once stepped on a beehive
& when they swarmed on me,
I stung them.

Do I contradict myself?

I fall in love but never
out of it.

I’m a sailboat skipper.

I’m a coxcomb
but I just found out.

I planted America’s seed
in the sun.

I am the godhead
on fire.

I was born at a very early age.

I intend to live forever,
or die trying.

I can seal an envelope.

I am an actor
& this page is my stage.

I am a Renaissance man
on weekends in April & May
at the Oklahoma Renaissance
Festival in Muskogee, OK
at the Castle of Muskogee.

I get jokes.

I’ve been to the center
of the earth to search for the black sun
but found only rotten dinosaurs
(also known as oil, according to someone
who claims to have loved me once).

I objectify the human form.

I make a mean grilled cheese.

I make a gentle grilled cheese.

I make cheese.

Please, please, please—I’m in love
with the world, so help me
make it love me back.

I’m in love with you.

________________________

I Give Walter Edgewater a Haircut
(on the theme of childhood)

Walter has been here since childhood,
numbed & sleeping & threaded with cloth
to a three-post bed—the fourth yanked off

for whenever he thrashes or tries to
sail off. He’s fitted with a permanent sleep
mask, smeared with coal & threaded

with green & white electrical wires. I speak
into his ears while I cover my mouth
with the mesh of a window screen. First

I state the true meaning (here, “paper”)
& then what I will really say (here, “piper”).
Piper, Walter. Piper. He doesn’t know

anything but the boxy outlines of letters
projected onto the back of his sticky eyelids,
& the white text forging lines on black

expanse. I really mean “source” but say
“sauce.” Sauce, Walter. I’m feeding him
sleep intravenously & I stick patches

on his forehead & chest. All is hooked
with a nest of messy wires to the plasma
TV hanging rigid on the wall. I suppose you can say

he can only see what I tell him to imagine, indirectly.
Tonight, it’s time for a haircut in our old home-
town: the barbershop run by the local ex-con (Mike

the Butcher, as our grandmother called him).
He’s known for slicing little boys’ ears. Walter, gracious,
shows me the list of rules on the brown wall: “1. If your hair is long

we’re going to buzz it.” But wait—who’s that outside
in the darkened lot, next to the wooden wagon?
It’s her, last’s night final procession,

the woman with silken locks & no face. Why can’t you
give her a goddamned face, Walter? I’m saying face
& I MEAN IT. Face. Face. Fine.

Author Biography

on Joan of Arc

joan

i learned about joan of arc later than i should have
she of remarkable youth and tenacity
guided by faith and madness

joan’s would make such a great autobiography
to tattoo upon my dominant hand
if i still shaved my head
and fucked with the world
if i were still 24

what was she like
before the fire
the girl on the horse
i wonder if i would think her insane
or just another human trying to make it through

i wonder what my father knows about joan
i wonder what kinds of things go through his head
as his life, measured in calendar days and timed doses
falls through the narrow net
filling the bottom until there’s nothing left on top

he raised three daughters
i feel like he should have been the one to tell me about joan
it would have helped

to empower my girlhood
and lend shape to a shifting life
instead, i always waited for the other boot to drop
waited for the coast to clear
and then searched for the straps in the rubble

my father will die soon
diagnosis means i don’t need a vision
i wonder if joan had to be told or if she already knew?

and i wonder how she felt
when the fire was lit
did that tenacity stay with her?
and when the last of the coals were raked
did she know she was gone?

Author Biography

x. joloronde is a west coast girl living and writing in boston.

on the theme of Dancing About Architecture

NO RUNNING

I went to the bank
I stood in line and looked at myself
in the security camera
a man ran into the bank
everyone turned to look at him
he ran to the little table that holds deposit slips
he got a deposit slip
he ran to the drinking fountain across the room
he got a drink of water
he ran over to the information table
he got a lollipop out of the bowl
he ran a circle around the line of people staring at him
he ran outside

I went to the library
a woman ran in the door
she ran through the lobby
past the computers
the librarians were aghast
she ran around in the magazine room
she knocked down a few books in the fiction section
a few people looked up from their reading
she ran out the door

I went to Jiffy Lube
I checked in with the guys outside
I went into the waiting room that smells like
oil and coffee
I got a cup of coffee with powdered creamer
a man ran in the door
he picked up a magazine
he sat on a chair across from me
he turned upside down and had his feet
sticking up and his head on the floor
they called my name to get my car
I went home

Author Biography

Khadija Anderson returned in 2008 to her native Los Angeles after 18 years exile in Seattle. Khadija’s poetry has been published in Pale House (forthcoming), The Ark Magazine, Unfettered Verse, CommonLine Project, Qarrtsiluni, Gutter Eloquence, Unlikely Stories, The Citron Review, Killpoet, Wheelhouse 9, and Phantom Seed among other wonderful publications. Her poem Islam for Americans was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize. Khadija holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University LA and her first book will be published through Writ Large Press in 2012.

two short stories on the theme of love

Test Pattern

Sarah’s white dressing gown is hanging on the nails driven into the window sash. She likes to hang it over the window by the TV at night, since there is no curtain. This way she can turn on the television and watch in peace without the intrusion of headlights or moonlight or any other light, no noise of anything moving or breathing, just her and the soft blinkering picture, the gentle hum of the various machines in her home. She mentally takes inventory, the things that hum and make noise in this room, all of them powered on for some reason, as if it’s the noise which comforts: Sharp 50 inch screen TV, which had taken three men to get it into place; Sony DVD player; Panasonic VHS player; Sony Playstation, Nintendo Gamecube; a Hewlett Packard stack with 160 gigs of memory, a gig of RAM, and a flat-screen monitor currently displaying moving pictures of fish, though the picture changes every time her mailer checks the mail, usually every two minutes; two digital clocks, one of them a clock radio that Corey uses when he doesn’t feel like coming in the room to sleep with her, so he can wake up to Howard Stern. He used to wake up to the feel of her against him. The remote feels warm in her hand from where it’s been lodged against her thigh. She’s gone through the channels and not found anything. She’s paged through the on-demand screens full of soft-core porn and other films and found nothing. Corey’s CDs are boxed in alphabetically ordered milk crates against the wall, but there’s nothing there to listen to. She remembers movies she seen that she liked, the one about the falling building with Steve McQueen, Towering Inferno, that’s it. She remembers how cute OJ was in that movie as some guy named Harry Jernigan, as if any black man has ever had that name. There was another one, a really freaky one, where the TV came alive, turned into a lurid pair of lips and talked someone into it, talked the man into getting naked, talked him into delivering himself naked into her cathode embrace, where he was promptly eaten or something. This reminds her of the cute little blonde girl from Poltergeist, which somehow brings her to Showgirls, row upon row of bare-boobed dancers being tweaked and ogled by some men who purportedly employed them, how Corey had come out with her afterward shaking his long head of hair, how they’d made love in the car after laughing at the silliness, all that bare flesh and awkward pool-fucking exciting the loins in spite of its awful putrid badness and gratuitous everything. She remembers watching some hard stuff with Corey, how his eyes had been following the actor performing the blowjob, how he’d asked her to get a boob job after. She knew it was wrong, but she liked the way these women looked, and she knew he did, so why not, as it wasn’t hurting anyone. She sits in her bra and panties, thinks of stripping down the rest of the way for Corey before he opens the door. The thought excites her, and she reaches behind her back and unclasps the hooks, and the TV goes out with a pop and the house is dark. Sarah curses, walks over to the wall and wiggles the cable connection. It seems slightly loose so she turns it a few times, her hard breasts pushed against the warm screen of the TV and that TV-eater-of-people movie comes to mind again and she moves back, fumbles for the remote on the sofa, raps it against her hands, presses first the TV button then the cable, but it simply won’t turn on. Time passes. She can’t tell how much, as she doesn’t own a watch and the sim-card in her cell-phone has gone hay-wire. Corey’s working late tonight, Sarah guesses. If she could just see a clock and know what time it is, she could guess if he was driving past the multiplex or down the street, past the video store and the KFC.  The wind stirs her dressing gown and for a moment it looks just like a person hanging there in the air, like a ghost maybe, from the Scooby-Doo movie. She moves the dressing gown aside and looks out at the completely dark, dead street. For once there are no oncoming cars. The Tom Cruise film War of the Worlds will be out soon. She wonders what’s happened. If she reaches heaven someday she wonders if she’ll realize she’s there.

_______

The Feel of My Heart

The way Misty looks is like a rumor. How they begin as one thing and end up as another. We’re all mixed up. Couples fucking each other and no one’s supposed to know. She is dealing cards three at a time, then two, for euchre. Rick and Sandy, my partner for this game, are chasing their whisky with each other’s spit. I see something dart across the kitchen floor and Rick sees it too. He grabs his .22 and shoots it and Misty drops the last set of cards, a bead of blood showing on her outer arm. She slaps at it like a fly bite.

“Fuckhead.” she says. “You shot me.” She dabs at the blood with a bar napkin. “A little.”The rat is twitching in the middle of the floor, leaving a smear as it crawls for a hole.

“But I got the rat,” Rick says, and blows across the pistol barrel like a gunslinger, and Sandy kisses the side of his neck and tells him what a nice shot he is.

“Asshole.” I say it low, so he can’t hear me. Misty shakes her head at me quick-like.

“Something you want to say, Daniel?” Rick levels the .22 at my face, a warm black eye swimming in front of me. I shake my head and feel my guts go loose.

“Clubs are trump,” Misty says. “Yours to make.” She’s holding the napkin to her arm again. Her cards are down. Sandy looks at Rick before she says no.

“Clubs it is. I’ll go alone,” Rick says, and it’s my lead. I think of the sawed-off baseball bat under the front seat of my Crown Vic. I toss out the ace of spades. Misty’s not even paying attention; she’s hitting the pipe. I look around the table, it’s all slow motion now. I can see Rick’s fingers moving slightly, tapping the table, and there’s Misty large in my vision, her head tossed back, the tendons in her neck working.

Later that night I’ll be biting her, just a little, when Rick will knock the door down and demand I leave. It will end badly. Misty will get shot at again. There will be a struggle, and I’ll wake up with her washing my face of brain and gore from Rick.

Right now, though, it’s just the sound of my own breathing and Rick in the doorway, that tiny pistol waving in our faces, and Misty’s giggle, a current broken, a connection missed, the feel of my heart hard in my throat.

Author Biography

Rusty Barnes lives and writes in Revere MA. He co-founded Night Train  and oversees Fried Chicken and Coffee, a blogazine of rural and Appalachian interests. His latest collection of fiction is called Mostly Redneck. A recent collection of his poetry, Broke, can be found  here. 

A Brief History of Cockroaches, Glitter Rock, and Inappropriate Love Objects
(on the theme of David Bowie)

Once upon a time, my nemesis was the cockroach,
that summer I worked at the Indian import shop in Brattle Square.
Their squadrons aligned for daily battle over the barricades:
drying dishes next to the apartment kitchen sink.
Whenever I got up in the night, turned on the light,
how they’d scatter, their claws a skin-skimming whisper
married to hiss. I tried every variation of the “Vegas roach trap”—
stale beer, coffee grounds, sticks up the sides of a Mason jar
and Vaseline around the lip to increase the slick.
All hail, the cockroach, apotheosis of tenacity!

It was the roaches in their 4th of July parade
across my futon, the final straw that finally
drove me into Ted’s bed (and arms)
even though we weren’t that kind
of roommates—one more who was gay not bi.
This was, after all, 1974: the U.S. still in Vietnam,
the Dead on their first tour without Pigpen,
and Bowie at the Music Hall in Boston where he donned
a Ziggy Stardust jumpsuit for half the evening’s songs.

My enemy should have been tanning
so to protect this Irish-mottled skin.
Or Camel straights because of my (future) asthma lungs.
Or bare feet on the hot tar, bottle-shard Massachusetts Avenue.
Or the guy who grabbed my crotch under my hippie skirt
that eve walking home from King of Hearts
at the cinema on Central Square.

Those days of rush and foolish trust,
any stranger might be christened “friend.”
A guy’d walk into a store, blond hair a waterfall
over his Pendleton plaid. Back-and-forth sallies
about what you’re reading (Anaïs Nin), the decline
of literacy (shameful), whether Mr. “Enemies List” Nixon
will really be impeached. Then, cosmic coincidence,
you’re both Tassajara Bread Book devotees!
The next night, you’re on the Red Line to Alewife,
a dinner of lentil loaf, alfalfa sprouts, and Something Missing
muffins. Followed by lips locked over a rickety
kitchen table then the (requisite) screwing on the linoleum floor.
After? Midnight’s T back to the Buddha
who, by the way, is not in favor of lust.

Who teaches to love, accept, live and let every enemy live,
cockroaches and all. I’m not sure I ever got to that,
that August when I watched the swans in the Public Garden
and walked walked walked those city streets, restless
to escape my awkward infestation-situation,
notebook in a messenger bag, my temporary
enemy an inkless fountain pen.

_________

Ligature
(on the theme Enough Rope)

Tie Me Down, Tie Me Up

Strips of rag, one nubby wool, one silk,
we re-arrange our cast-offs, braided, taut.
Down to what’s underneath we merge—
your strapless bustier, my Gucci jock.
Touch is our glove, our tether,
& our truss—the ties that lash,
that fret us to the bed. Oh,
lift your legs & let them wrap around
my clarinet,
my woody reed,
my head!

Licorice Stick

Jimmy Dorsey tootled “Green Eyes,”
with—oh, the power to send me ogling

your rings of amber, my cautionary hepcat.
Hell, even Ol’ Blue Eyes wanted to fly us

to the moon. Why didn’t we take him up on that?
Go go-go before Bechet blew jail, his clarinet

emptied of the gone-away blues while we two
dueled, all our wrong chords snorted out.

Likely, the reed was simply slipping,
needed a new ligature, thread or hemp.

Ampersand

Our typeset was a unit.
Two graphemes make a glyph
& letter shapes depend on circumstance.
The Latin et for “and” signs & in Trebuchet.
And per se and (ampersand):
& by itself is and.
And me myself?
I start, you stop,
I finish sentences. Fee! Fie!
Foe! Fum! Why won’t you let me
fl-fl-float, slurred ligature,
disfigured cuneiform?

And What About the Necktie?

He went crazy for the ties,
that winter of detox,
rehab, the county
psychiatric ward.

Every pattern,
every hue to match
the expensive suits
tailored to fit.

Blame it on the manic—
he must have draped
one hundred
by the end.

When his landlord walked
the rooms with me
an empty rack,
all that was left.

Where Mandrakes Grow

Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?
Vladimir: Hmm. It’d give us an erection.
Estragon: (highly excited). An erection!
Vladimir: With all that follows. Where it falls mandrakes grow.
That’s why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?
Estragon: Let’s hang ourselves immediately!

—Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Pressure on the cerebullum from the noose.
Forensically, postmortem priapism is an indicator—
death was likely swift and violent.

Lynch me, hog-tie, jute my carotid,
cinch it closed. All I wanted was
to merge—the font, the fount, the godhead.

Angel lust.

Suicide Vaudeville

Way out on Sapsucker Road,
a sidewalk to shovel and snowdrift
steps to reach the song & dance.
Rifle behind the door,
a wineglass shattered on the stairs.
Daisy-chained neckties lassoed to beams
in the living room where the radio
belted the “Best of Broadway,”
Ethel Merman and Everything’s coming
up roses, her mezzo soprano clobbering
every tenor within reach.
Better Gypsy than Sweeney Todd,
the ambulance driver said. Meat pies
and a trail of blood would have been—
let’s face it, a little too burlesque.

The Final Inamorata

That tightening loop,
a failed
meridian.

Un-
blessed the bruising ties.

They bind.
They rend.

Author Biography

Born in the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania, Nancy Flynn’s writing has received a James Jones First Novel Fellowship and an Oregon Literary Fellowship; her second chapbook, Eternity a Coal’s Throw, will be published by Burning River in 2012. A former university administrator, she now lives in Portland, Oregon. In 2004, she happily reclaimed www.nancyflynn.com from the realtor in Massachusetts who had it first.

on the theme of Childhood

5 poems from For Coming Forth By Day

FOR BEING ANY SHAPE ONE MAY WISH

FOR NOT PERISHING AT SUNDAY LUNCH

Mother kills my joyride in the new red Opel.
Says his breath stinks. He roars off without me—

With my last stick of Juicy Fruit and a thin mint.
I drink more sweet tea, pout and wait

For my grandfather to finish banana pudding
And the story of Mother baptizing kittens.

Rescue lights race us on Raleigh Road, as red
As the car flipped in the fallow field.

Mother jumps the ditch in church heels,
Her daddy right behind.
We wait.

PSALM 43

I rustle the bulletin to make a fan;
Mother shoots me the eye, shushes.

Why cast down thine eyes?
Sweats the preacher. His chins jiggle.

Why so disturbed within,
Put hope in Him. I stare down.

Lace socks, white patent toes.
Where does hope hide?

I ask me, eye scuff marks.
I find lost keys with him.

MAKING A THIRD-GRADE SOUL
WORTHY TO MRS. MINNIE LEE LONG

Mrs. Long doesn’t like erasing.
Any mistake, I copy the page again.
Even if at the last sentence.
Even if my hand cramps.

If I erase, I need to know
That very second
The ghost of the pencil
Leaves without a tear.

Eraser shavings smell
Like forgotten socks,
Cling dingy to lined paper
Or scatter across my desk.

She holds up bad examples:
Messy math, crumpled spelling,
A hole in history.

THE PUMPKIN MAN

As I land for my father’s funeral,
My first plane ends in an orange orb:
Dawn lifts off the runway.

More poems by Ms. Woodard

MY STORY FOR THIRD GRADE
(After Mrs. Long Fixed the Spelling)

Slaying dragons requires lots of planning and practice. You must listen very carefully in dragon school. Dragons hide themselves. Sometimes they pretend to be kittens and just when you stroke their fur they snap back into dragons. But as long as you pretend they aren’t dragons they cannot eat you. That is the rule. You have to pretend hard even if your head hurts.

Other times they look like dragons, pretend to sleep outside your bedroom. I tiptoe to bed, guard against dragon thoughts. If I sleep before they creep in, I am safe until dawn.

MY DIARY, AGE SEVEN

My Diary, Age Seven

I am in a bad mood.
I get sweet. I help Daddy
fix supper. Daddy makes Mother
a pretty birthday dinner.

***

My nose bleeds at my cousin’s wedding.
I am the flower girl. The white dress is itchy
Hot. Mother pulls my head way back,
holds tight with a big wad of wet tissues.

***

My pillow has a problem.
The feathers lump up.
Mother says it’s been loved
Too much. Was her pillow too.

FAMILY ALBUM

My parents run
Through wedding rice.
She is 19. Hopes her linen suit
Makes her look mature.

***

My brother at three plugs a gap
Between holster and hips
With a bear plucked of fur.
He stuffed his nose and ears
Till Mother bribed him with guns.
His pistols drag the ground.

***

I am starched at four
In pinafore and smocking.
A hand cups my chin.
I stare where the photographer asks.

Author Biography

Catherine Woodard lives and plays basketball in New York City. She swerved to poetry in 2001 after an award-winning career in journalism. More poems about a Southern family miming Egyptian death rituals have appeared in Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review, RHINO and other journals. She co-published Still Against War/Poems for Marie Ponsot. Woodard has a MFA in poetry from The New School and is a 2011 fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a past president of Artists Space and a board member of the Poetry Society of America, working to return Poetry in Motion to NYC’s subways.  Her recently launched website can be found here.