Canine Noir

Let’s call you a bullet that healed what it hit.
And this dog knew some tricks, like how to play dead.
Used to sleeping on a torn up, lonely dog bed.
But the shot fired medicine that helped this dog sit.

From laying to upright, because it was bit.
This dog heard the truth of what the gun said.
A dog knows the hardest color to see is blood red.
And this dog’s heart grew so large, it no longer fit.

It goes without saying this dog released a howl.
You’ve replayed in your mind how this dog licked the gun.
You remember the way you and this dog snuggled close.
And though pained and oft crying, this dog just can’t scowl.
So you’re waiting to hear how this dog’s dog day is done.
And you’ll be waiting, she’ll be waiting, til this dog’s final dose.

Author Biography

Jillian Brall is a writer, musician and visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She co-edits the journal Lyre Lyre.

Superman Down - Photography - Jillian Brall of Unshod Quills

In June 2011, UQ’s sister site, HALiterature, an English language independent press and journal based in Shanghai, China, conducted an exchange program of sorts with members of the Unshod Quills Writer’s Collective.

Challenge: Panda. Write on the theme of pandas? The Shodomites went nuts, and the HALites went even nuttier, and the results were mad, bad and dangerous to know, like if Byron had been a panda, especially in some of the HAL stories.

Unshod Quills asked WM Butler, director of HAL’s own writer’s group, Groupthink, to ask his people to participate in yet another sister-lit spit swap; this time on the theme of America. Lovely, if only slightly troubled, America.

In response, a few members of Unshod Quills Writers Collective threw some letters, and a little art, on the topic, as well.

Simply follow the links next to each author or artist’s name to see his or her contribution.

Now, where the in the holy hell is Woody Guthrie when we need him?

MADE IN CHINA – Haliterature’s Groupthinkers on America

“America is a feudalistic dynasty…” Populated by bunnies!

Lucinda Holmes of Groupthink – “Bunny America: An Alternative Wiki Entry”

Katrina Hamlin of Groupthink – “The Beautiful Country” 

Jason Lasky of Groupthink – “America”

LITTLE PINK HOUSES – Unshod Quills Writers Collective on America

Images from Eva Steil, of Unshod Quills

Wendy Ellis of Unshod Quills – “America”

Viv G of Unshod Quills – “American Mythology”

Jillian Brall of Unshod Quills – Out of This World

Jason Mashak of Unshod Quills – “American History – Excerpt”

Mark Brunke of Unshod Quills –  Transubstantiation in America

“Stoic, I populate.”

Dena Rash Guzman of Unshod Quills – Salt Box

America the Beautiful - original painting, Jillian Brall

Out Of This World

Stop whatever you’re doing and come inside.
Skeletal structure has no use in a weightless environment.
There are some writers who don’t seem to have any necessity to travel at all.
It’s all inside.

Postcards saying Greetings from the U.S. of A! never feature photographs of winkled faces.
I pointed this out to you and then said something about plastic surgery.
Then a couple minutes later inside a bookstore
a girl walked in and said something about plastic surgery.
I pointed this out to you and you sang Synnchronicccityyyy.

Over someone’s shoulder I read, “Should have been the happiest”.
A couple minutes later over the same shoulder I read, “Democracy”.
But I knew the real ending to the sentence was “girl”.

Someone added a Hitler mustache to the graffiti monster on my block.
The character in the violent game said, “I’ve never seen it so quiet”.
The kid said, “Yo yo yo turn it up.
This is the best part.”
This is the part you recognized from a world away.

Author Biography:

Jillian Brall is a writer, musician and visual artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She co-edits the journal Lyre Lyre. 

One Afternoon on First Avenue

– on Lipstick

You are leaning against nothing,
standing beneath the awning of a closed store,
its large metal door, rust and turquoise colored,
oceanic, sealed from top to bottom.
You don’t lean against it because “What if
someone opens it from inside?”
Well, what if? Will you fall?
Are you afraid they’ll be insulted
by your uninvited spine and shoulder blades
using their exterior as a vertical bed?
Several stories above your head
a woman’s old face hangs out her window.
It just began to rain.
She extends a potted plant with her wrinkled arms
and it drinks for free.
Every shower is ladies night and every plant is a lady.
Some people were prepared and others weren’t.
The drops sneak up like a real creep.
It’s going to smudge everyone’s looks into other looks.
Your red lipstick isn’t waterproof. It isn’t anything proof.
It’s proof that you’re broke (because it’s cheap).
It’s expensive to be broken without any health insurance.
From a block away you see a man wearing glasses,
walking down the street in your direction.
As he passes in front of your body you see
his glasses are missing their limbs,
no plastic or metal is wrapped around his ears.
This only became evident when you saw his profile.
They are balancing on the bridge of his nose
like the sun above the Brooklyn Bridge,
which you can’t see from where you’re standing,
but you know it’s there. At least,
news hasn’t reached you that it’s missing.
It was there in your dream, bending beneath the midnight sun.
If anything had changed you assume you’d hear screams.
It’s a safe assumption.
What idea keeps his glasses from falling to the pavement?
If you take your eyes off the two wet circles of glass
will you be the reason they plummet and crack?
A little girl sleeps on the shoulders of her father,
her head resting in the dripping hair of his crown.
She wakes up because the sky is falling,
like in the book he read her before bedtime.
You know now your rain boots have slices in their skin.
The rain water gets in, and your socks are getting soaked.
And despite cold feet, you know this is a great position you’re in.
You’re waiting beneath an awning for a call.
He wants you to be available and you said you would be.
You want to be available.

JB

The Beast is an Angle of Light

– on Beasts

You saturate the frame and therefore the frame is empty.
You wear the accessory because you want the real thing.
You wrap yourself in wires because you want to be connected to a motherboard.
You wear big glasses because it’s very sexy to need correction.
You pose with your arms in the air, but you don’t really want to be lifted.
How far back can you stretch? Can you apply lipstick with your tailbone?
Can you pump perfume with your eyelids? Are you that gifted?
Your toes cram into hoof shapes because somewhere someone likes licking pigs.
You don’t want to miss out on the affection. You don’t want to discriminate.
Don’t be old fashioned. Don’t antiquate.
Your real mother is bored because she remembers when kneecaps were private.
Someone always wanted to scar them with a lick.
She always worried she’d have to scream and kick.
Nothing is threatening when everything is a threat.
Don’t believe the father of lies? Wanna make a bet?
The bass is so loud and heavy it tricks my ventricles.
I don’t want my ventricles to be tricked.
I feel very weak and sick.
We say thank you to this holey gift:
a decision engine, so we don’t have to pick.
I don’t need results in under 3 seconds,
but they say the babies beckon.
Here’s a collar: hurry up and stick your neck in.
How young is too young to try the belt trick?
Don’t be judgmental now, he’s just experimental.
He’s very advanced. Very advanced.
White eyeliner helps give his girlfriend that animated look.
Her crotch is made of megapixels and smells like customizable candy.
She’s so hot. SO HOT.
She straightens every curl and thins whatever’s thick.
I know the tricks that make steam appear, the father of what’s slick,
right before all the skin blisters off,
thanks to special effects and the angle of light.

JB

Author Biography

Jillian Brall received both her BA in Creative Writing in 2004 and her MFA in Poetry in 2009 from The New School, in New York, NY. She is a NYC certified Teaching Artist, currently living in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. She is co-creator/co-editor of the online poetry journal, Lyre Lyre (lyrelyre.com). In 2009, she self-published a limited edition book of poems, Wet Information, under ZoeWo Press. She is a saxophonist, as well as a visual artist, focused on collage, drawing and painting. Poems have recently appeared in The Best American Poetry Blog, Praxilla Journal, Connotation Press, 6S: The Mysterious Dr. Ramsey, Esque, The Tower Journal and The Portable Boog Reader 5, and forthcoming in Ping Pong Magazine. Several of her collages can be seen in issue 12 of Pax Americana, as well as featured on The Best American Poetry Blog, and have been used as cover art for several electronic poetry books published by Scantily Clad Press.