April 2016 | nonfiction
An April morning, or maybe March, my children and I were enjoying the medium-low sunlight, when my son, Jacob, found a roly-poly. We congregated and proclaimed it a fine representation of its species, clumsy in its armor, as if playing dress up in its grandfather’s old army coat, and concluded that it was most likely on its way home from a sleepover, whereupon I returned to my writing, they to their explorations. A few seconds later I turned my head to a quick succession of three strikes: the first soft, the second and third with a consecutively sharper snap. Jacob crushing the roly-poly with a golf ball to a gray paste.
A stunned second and then I was yelling, “What are you doing? No No!” and sent him on a big timeout. This from my gentle boy, my movie-time snuggler – this unprovoked devastation, exercise in the superiority of breadth, unfortunate example that even the sweetest boy will instinctually destroy what differs from himself.
Crying not just from my admonishing but because he really didn’t know why he had done it, head in his killer’s hands, smear of the murdered insect and the crushing ball at his feet
My daughter, Olivia, sauntered over and inspected the pulpy remains of the roly-poly. “Oh,” she said, her voice skipping over a pool of sadness, and then standing before the penitent boy on his timeout, began berating him, “No Jacob, No!” Her tone transcended her usual bossiness, and was not a mere mimicry of my tone, but rang of something deeper, something issuing from her that was innately feminine, of unprotected life and the mourning of common tragedy; she who insisted upon vanquishing every spider from the house was whipping my son with words, her body jerking with spite.
Chilled now in the warm yard a sister waits for her brother’s apology.
Josh Karaczewski
Josh’s stories have been published in several literary journals, a couple receiving Pushcart Prize nominations. His books include the seriocomic novel Alexander Murphy’s Home for Wayward Celebrities and the collection My Governor’s House and other stories.
April 2016 | poetry
On the way to see lavender flames and bloody cow tails,
a bunny runs from beneath my car, tears in his eyes as if he had heard me
screaming inside my room minutes before
Some mornings I weep instead
Ashlie Allen
Ashlie Allen writes fiction and poetry. Her favorite book is “The Vampire Lestat” by Anne Rice. She is friends with the Green man and some other weird creatures.
April 2016 | poetry
Song
When we were together, we were not.
I was alone with you and with all the animals,
all the cherry blossoms, Chrysanthemums and
the rising sun. Is this Japan? But I’ve never been there.
Daylight is just the messenger of the secrets of
the night’s hidden and utter darkness.
Moonlight is just the reflection of the ashamed sun
and nothing else.
Twilight – the hermitage of the unholy things
squatting in the mud, waiting for dark and godly hours.
Love is a turkey when every day is Thanksgiving.
Love is cow in the slaughterhouse, bending down its
head to the ax.
The mountains stand tall and proud, talking in dead
language with the birds in the sky, resembling unknown
hieroglyphs.
Rivers flow with no time left, to the edge of
the horizon.
Logs split back into logs in the deep and still virgin
forests.
And then silence descends.
When we were together, we were not.
We tried to be something else,
but that was impossible,
because we were already completed,
and silence that descended was the end of everything.
Or it was the new beginning,
just like that moment when the orchestra conductor
stands still, before the first note of the symphony,
with its baton in the air, above his head,
and then he swings.
What is This
This is not the thing I want,
this is not the thing I don’t need,
this is not the thing that it thinks it is.
I sit on the writing table and think
about it. But at the same time I can not
think, therefore what?
The wine is decanting, my Gitanes sits unlit
in the ashtray and I watch trough the window
how the misty sadness is clearing over the grove.
I tend to take everything as it is, to make some
sense out of it, some shapeless meaning.
And I remember now how when we were with
together, everything around us would cease
existing. Maybe this is it. This everything.
The Cosmos, the Universe, the stars and nothing
else, just pure pleasure, when everything comes
to light. And it, of course, was standing between us.
And then, in fact, there was nothing but pure silence.
Peycho Kanev
Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in USA and Bulgaria. He has won several European awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.
April 2016 | poetry
The perpendicular marks on the carpet,
Below my blistered boots, mark my path to this
Place of auditory affirmation.
The noise from the tv tells me to stop
The silence and listen to
Talking mocking teething media personalities:
I feel the hereness of hearing and for this reason,
All is perfect.
The questions my mind beckons to
Consciousness are neither new nor old but
Persistent: this steadfastness feels normal—
A salutation of life and auditory awareness.
The fortunate falls we face and fear
Hear no cries of regret but rather,
Cries of confidence that propel new-
ness and resilience.
Like the spindly carpet from the waiting room floor,
I stand still and sally my silent awakening.
Joey Kim
Joey Kim is a Ph.D. student in English at Ohio State. Her research interests include British Romantic poetry, Romantic Orientalism, gender and sexuality, and postcolonial studies. She is particularly interested in the intersections of theories of sexuality and Orientalist literatures. She earned her MA in English literature at Ohio State as well, and is currently reading for her PhD candidacy exams.
April 2016 | poetry
In dusty houses
with sallow shades
floating ghostly
past books, pictures,
broken furniture
unconnected
disengaged
Functional rubble
of teeth, knees, hips,
skipping the charters to Branson,
afternoon performances
of Hamlet
writing in their journals
how the view from the end of the road
mirrors the view from the beginning:
a thoughtless line
vining to mind,
a heart of treetops,
vanishing unsurprised
through the floorboards.
Craig Evenson
Craig Evenson is a school teacher. His poems have appeared in such magazines as Lalitamba, Midwest Quarterly, and Common Ground Review. He lives in Minnesota.
