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.

What Grows In Its Place - David Tomaloff - Dancing About Architecture

DAVID BOWIE

hey kid,
look up at the stars;

do you think
one
of them
is david bowie?

go ahead
, make a wish:

dear david bowie,
I wish I had more
facebook friends

Author Biography

David Tomaloff is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence. His work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, >kill author, Connotation Press, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more. He is the author of the chapbooks A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF (NAP), Olifaunt (Red Ceilings Press), EXIT STRATEGIES (Gold Wake Press), and MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press). He resides in the form of ones and zeros at: davidtomaloff.com

Simple Arsenic

It was something right there in the cold air of the small dank rooms.

The salt coast air, humidity, green, loyalty?

It ate him slowly from the inside out,

Science gave us these things of his last days.

The salt coast air, humidity, green loyalty,

A lock handed down, generation by generation,

Science gave us these things of his last days:

The cracked tea service & frayed rug, the flowered wallpaper and grinding surf.

A lock handed down, generation by generation:

Plotting in his ruined atmosphere for another run at a god’s kingdom

The cracked tea service & frayed rug, the flowered wallpaper and grinding surf

How he smashed the windows out of the cathedral

Plotting in his ruined atmosphere for another run at a god’s kingdom

It ate him slowly from the inside out

How he smashed the windows out of the cathedral

It was something right there in the cold air of the small dank rooms.

Author Biography

Brian Tibbetts is a writer, musician, print-maker and painter currently living and working in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in the journals Gobshite Quarterly, Abuse and Bread and Roses.He is currently constructing a website encompassing his various pursuits: briantibbetts.com

Vuluture - Holly Hinkle on Dancing About Architecture

Spiked Fence
(enough rope)

Survival. We talked of little else.

In a book, you read how to jump a spiked fence

so you could camp in a church corridor.

You told me how you scaled it twice a day,

sometimes more, having spent the last

of your money on good rope.

I would give up everything to walk beside you.

Traffic’s taillights cast red in our hair,

our packs rising off the down of our jackets.

I wouldn’t last. I know.

I listen to the black and neon rush

of street noise through the phone.

__________

Topanga Canyon Road
(love)

In the cold pressed, gray light of the basement,

where you discovered the photo album from 1910, the green hurricane lamp,

the great iron-banded trunk you wanted to drag up for me,

I find you packed to leave the boardwalk.

Wet tarmac smell. Black as the night is long.

The road is folded down inside the trunk,

we can open the heavy lid together.

I will help clothe you in that hard, moonlit coat.

__________

Venice Beach
(love)

My sister was at work and I was away that early spring,

when our brother packed one bag for the streets.

The first night: steady rain and his drawing paper wrinkled.

It was cold. I don’t think he ate. My stomach empty that week.

I dreamt my sister and I were a part of the day he left,

of saying goodbye to him on the outskirts of Venice Beach.

From there we could see the boardwalk, smell its salt

and perfumed oils, dyed cotton and clove cigarettes.

We were not there the day he left. It is a loneliness,

knowing that he always walked on after we stopped

at the front steps of home. No memory of when he followed us inside.

He walked down a road we could not follow,

that tore like a frail map. The pieces turned into leaves.

Author and Artist Biography

Holly Hinkle has been creating collage and mixed-media artwork since 2008. With found objects and small antiques as a backdrop, she is always thinking about ways she might create exceptional beauty from unrefined objects that once had a very simple purpose. Her poetry has appeared in Poems and Plays and The Arsenic Lobster. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Beginning this month, she is Arts Editor for Unshod Quills.