Tobi Alfier

October 2018 | poetry

Abe:

 

Lives in the shadow of the Diner sign,

his bed a shadowy blue neon 24/7.

Ain’t nothin’ much in Ludlow—Abe

sells gas and gives directions to tourists

travelling the infamous Route 66.

 

Just over the tracks, the house where he was raised.

Main house and staff house, nary a window between

them both. He parks there sometimes,

watches the train through the ruined doors,

front and back frames open to the odd fox

creeping through.

 

Abe had his first proper kiss in that staff house.

It was spring, the dry ground blossom-rich

with yellow flowers, cholla standing straight

and proud as always. And Mary, a compass

of thought and feeling across her sunlit face,

knew Abe’s loneliness; she was a friend first,

lover second.

 

A sweet string of years, here and gone,

never forgotten. The streets go about their rhythms,

wind and weather mark the calendar, and every spring

the full moon bears the aching beauty of Mary,

her hand on his face as she kissed him one last time,

then boarded the train, the silhouette of her burning

through her thin flowered dress, lodging in his heart.

 

 

Running Uphill

 

She runs miles each day.

Even when the clouds are fraught

with snow. Even when the sun

shoots arrows through eyes.

She runs as if escaping,

and in truth, she is.

 

Demons from old struggles

follow from her days

to her nightmares.

A couple shots of Cuervo Gold

buys a couple hours

of dreamless sleep,

before it starts again.

 

Her choice of road rises

into foothills while dust devils

rake the desert floor below.

She climbs the distance

ravens climb. Cactus gives way

to fir, fir gives way to rock,

and still she runs.

 

A quick wind creases the air,

warns her to turn around.

Look at the horses already

reined in and protected,

the cottonwoods darkening

with oncoming weather,

not oncoming night.

 

Go home the voice in her says,

before the storm comes.

Runoff hustling over river stones

makes a good run a trackless

pick-your-path and don’t stop run.

Daytime fright with no tequila,

go home. So she turns back.

She is driven but not unwise.

She hits her door. The alarm clock

of the desert’s slow and seamless hours

explodes.

 

 

by Tobi Alfier

Tobi Alfier (Cogswell) is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee.  Her chapbook “Down Anstruther Way” (Scotland poems) was published by FutureCycle Press. Her full-length collection “Somewhere, Anywhere, Doesn’t Matter Where” was published by Aldrich Press. “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” was just published by Cholla Needles Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

 

 

During the Last Town Meetings

October 2018 | poetry

Instead of asking the young

why they leave, the town votes

for mannequins in cafe windows.

 

Just imagine, the mayor boasts,

if this works we can expand

to schools and church pews!

 

Some say they should polish

them like postcards. Others want

to be sure they don’t show skin.

 

Everyone agrees they’ll hum

all the old songs, never ask about

trans-fats or almond milk.

 

They won’t mine for better jobs,

jam distant cities into search engines,

jar dreams, wager change drawers

 

on highways and stuff potential

into overburdened hatchbacks. Never

will the sap of their ambition

 

fill the potholes of distant streets,

melt into the hearty ridges of

a thicker slice, or wake up full.

 

by Alison Terjek

Alison Terjek is an aspiring writer living in Northwest Connecticut. She has recently published poems in The Adirondack Review. She is a graduate of Western Connecticut State University and Park Nature Interpreter.  She volunteers in her community, writes, travels and hikes whenever possible.

Funk’s Grove Church

October 2018 | visual art

Funk’s Grove Church

 

by Stephen Curtis Wilson

Steve is a graduate of the fine arts program at Illinois Central College, East Peoria, Illinois. He received his B. A. at the University of Illinois and is a juried Illinois Artisan through the Illinois State Museum Society. During his 35-year professional working career, he was a photographer, writer, graphic designer, and media relations specialist. Thirty-two of his 35 years were spent in the healthcare field where he was an on-call medical/surgical photographer, generalist photographer, researcher, and executive ghostwriter. He has received numerous awards for photography and publications. “I am a regionalist. I photograph the everyday – the familiar in unfamiliar places -traveling back roads across rural landscapes visiting towns and meeting folks along the way,” said Wilson. “This is where my heart lives. I am attracted to the simplest elements of color and design, the ironic, sometimes nostalgic, documenting structures and places, and often given to futile attempts to capture purely emotional visual inclinations. Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” That has held true. With each image, I discover a little more about me. I feel myself moving toward something; an understanding, a refinement.”

Barcode

October 2018 | fiction

She said I’d be better off going with their ‘Premier Publication’ package – leave the decisions to the experts. For instance, had I taken into account: edge determination, modulation, minimum reflectance? Had I considered DataGlyphs, weighed up the advantages of continuous over discrete, closed system over interleaved? And what was my checksum determinant?

I thought you were just sent the barcode automatically. I didn’t realise there were so many… factors, so many choices to be considered.

That’s where a lot of people stumble, she added. Even before you’ve turned the first page you can see they’ve f***ed things up, down in the bottom left or bottom right corner, back cover. And though your average person won’t consciously notice it, they’ll know something doesn’t feel right. And so they’ll put the book down, move on. You don’t want that? I didn’t.

And the great thing about the ‘Premier’: it covers everything, even has barcode insurance bundled in as standard. That comes with £200,000 legal cover, a writ of inviolability, and you get to choose the first three numbers. It sounded very attractive.

It is! She’d published twelve novels herself, plus four ‘how to’ books – and so she now knew  – not just thought, or believed – that if you get the barcode right all the rest falls into place. And don’t your stories deserve the best?

I knew one or two of them didn’t, but I said yes. And, on reflection, it’s comforting to know that the chances of me being successfully sued over my barcode are now very, very slim.

 

by Paul Tarragó

Paul Tarragó is an experimental filmmaker and writer living in London. Recent writings appear in The Wrong Quarterly, 2HB, decomP magazinE, Leopardskin and Limes, and Ink, sweat and tears. His most recent short story collection is ‘The Water Rabbits’ (2018). Before that came ‘The Mascot Moth and several other pieces’ (2013). Both are available from both good and bad booksellers.

 

Duane L Herrmann

October 2018 | poetry

Truncated Lives

 

Those millions who,

because of

color,

belief,

origin,

differentness,

hated

by imagination,

were chosen,

among all people,

to be example

forever,

of inhumanity

to fellowman,

castigated,

isolated,

in separation,

to die.

 

 

Me and Melanin

 

I’m known

for the slight amount

of melanin

in my skin.

In fact

I’m proud

to have so little!

SO pale!

YOU

are the opposite

of me

and have abundance.

I hate you.

I will enslave you,

hate you,

and kill you

for the melanin

in your skin.

 

 

by Duane L Herrmann

Duane L. Herrmann, is a survivor who lived to tell, and loves the pure light of the moon – and trees. He creates from his knowledge and experience. His collections of poetry include: Ichnographical:173, Prairies of Possibilities, and Praise the King of Glory. Individual work is published in Midwest Quarterly, Little Balkans Review, Flint Hills Quarterly, Orison, Inscape and others in print and online in the US and elsewhere, in English and other languages. He received the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship, the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award and nominated to be Poet Laureate of Kansas.