January 2016 | fiction
Tonight, I read like John Coltrane played, unfurl my jazz voice, make scotch-and-soda eyes to the crowd, syncopate my way into the snap-finger backroom, into the dark corner where the slick-haired man with the paint brush mustache, thick-lensed eyeglasses, and loose lower lip presses his nose into the pages of La Nación, and when I open fire from my throat, he looks up, his face says mujer atrevida, brazen woman, and he laughs, so I belt out we remember everything, and the crowd nods, they’re behind me squarely here in the Recoleta district, and I give them what they want, continue with the new Gestapo, so arresting in their certitude, move to hidden sphere of infinity and the beast roars through the blood on his teeth, and the man sneers, raises his newspaper and displays the headline—that commotion over in Villa Crespo, perhaps the start of an uprising—and maybe that’s going on here too, as I continue with when the lizard brain commands and the tiger is coming for you, then an epitaph, the chocolate fingers of the dead, and my constant image of this last month flashes into the room—a cadre of men and women, dressed in rumpled white cotton, in the middle, my brother Aurelio, who blew jazz sax like an angry god, collapsed into ropes that tied him round his pole (because there are such venues for that sort of thing), his fingers smeared from his last meal—a final taste of chocolate, of life, slipped into his cell by a pitying guard, and we heard that Aurelio thrust his chest and stomach out just as the order to fire was given and his loosened buttons popped, spilling the manifesto from his shirt as he shouted muerte a los traidores, and the man in the back makes a sour face as I scream: you can cut all the flowers but you can’t keep spring from coming and from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out where your heart lies, and there I end my work, with the good general slumped lifeless over the armrest of his chair and La Nación dangling between his fingers and the floor as the troopers herd in.
by Ronald Jackson
Ron Jackson writes stories, poems, and non-fiction. His work has appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Firewords Quarterly, Iodine Poetry Journal, Kentucky Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Prime Number Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and in anthologies and online venues. Recognitions include honorable mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition in 2012, third prize in Prime Number Magazine’s 2014 flash fiction competition, and honorable mention in the 2014 New Millennium Writings short-short fiction competition.
January 2016 | poetry
Photo printed with Funding Appeal, 1965
That behemoth Bel-Air,
its tail stopped by a tree,
lurches outside the photo frame
hiding its eyes, but most of all
stilling its mouth –
metal teeth in a tight grill
tensed to spill the truth.
It knows too much of the four
posed along its flank,
its silver trim and steel doors
a backdrop of comic relief
for the rescued souls
about to disappear into the bowels
of the rear-facing third seat
for a ride to Sunday School.
Innocence lost
in the House of Orphans
festers in greasy rivers
of soiled minds.
Just ask the coiffed one
staring intently
into the Brownie,
a little Red Riding Hood,
her headband taming tresses
loved by the wild boar of the night,
or the boy in black and white,
his skinned head and summer smile
claiming joy—
joy down deep in his heart,
one less waif on the streets
thanks to the largesse of donors.
That taller boy, arm behind his back
looks fit for service, if only
his new clothes weren’t hiding
cigarette burns —
scars that turned his heart to ash
and tossed it in a twilight zone.
The youngest,
a girl with a bob and a bag
looks like a proper wife in training
standing on the promises of a full belly
bound for glory in that Bel-Air –
such wishful thinking, these crafted fruits.
The children look pretty as their picture.
If only we could hear that car
spewing the old siren songs:
the Lord loves a cheerful giver,
and suffer the little children,
and public prayer has its reward.
by Janet Reed
Janet Reed teaches writing, literature, and theater for Crowder College, a small community college in the midwest. She lives large among her books, pets, and friends. Writing since childhood, she started submitting work for others to read this fall and is pleased that several pieces have been published.
January 2016 | poetry
June 27 Deadwood, SD
God has more surprises. The sun is not hot. Stars are
not light. Grass appears to bend, is rigid. I send away
grief. I want change. Want it good; the back forth of
seesawing guilt, the black-white of yearning. The earth
is mud-scarred red and green. This is what desire feels
like, it’s our slow-wicked last chance. From here we can
touch the end of the world, jagged and dull; God is not
finished with us
June 30 Pierre, SD
This is where the blue begins, where the sun clang clangs
against the sky. This is where the storm begins, raw heat
of lightning, the thick brogue of thunder. This is the flat-
black of motion, the blinking of eyes. We are a wayward
thread in a worn sweater, an almost closed door. When it’s
over we’ll be flax-winged and overflowing, we’ll be pock
-marked with stars before we crash to earth.
by Alex Stolis
January 2016 | poetry
put to light
what you like
you need let
out of the deep
gnawing in you
go all the way
down then a little
more each time down
and you will eventually
take Holden and Phoebe
Caulfield by the hand
bringing them up
out of the basement
into the great room
where the three of you
play naked bingo
with the truth
laughing like loons
it is rock solid joy
that feeling of being
everywhere connected
to everything always
in your soul able to
come back to this place
when you lose your way
don’t believe it doesn’t
exist this wending to
the moment again and
again maybe glimpses
are all we get and
they will have to be
enough that and a good
memory for all those
times in between when
the descent of time
is made real by our
faltering dance with
eternity
by King Grossman
King Grossman is a poet and novelist, currently working on his fourth novel in a lovely studio at Carmel-by-the-Sea, and has participated in the Texas Writers’ Guild (2005), Aspen Summer Words (2009, 2010, 2015), Christian Writers’ Guild (2007), Algonkian Writer Conference (2010) and CUNY Hunter College Writers’ Conference (2011). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crack the Spine, Forge, Qwerty, and Tiger’s Eye. He is a social justice activist regularly participating in nonviolent public actions to address climate change, economic injustice, inhumane immigration policy, etc., and also serves with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank Palestinian territory. He has been called a poetic-Christian-anarchist-golfer. You will most likely find him writing at his studio in Carmel or at his other hideout in the eclectic, far West Texas town of Marfa.
January 2016 | fiction
It rained all day that Saturday. In the evening Dad saw frogs in the garden and wondered where they had come from. Mom said that she had heard tell of frogs that fell from the sky. I said that frogs were the second plague of Egypt and that they invaded the bedrooms of the Egyptians. That worried Dad.
I went out with Stacey that night. It rained the whole night as we went from bar to bar giggling and laughing in the rain.
When I got home the next morning the rain had stopped. Dad was in the garden wearing his Sunday suit. He was hitting frogs with the yard broom. The frogs sat quite still as though awaiting their fate. When Dad saw me watching him through the window he threw the broom down and rushed into the house.
“You shouldn’t look at me as though I’m some kind of a fool,” he shouted and stormed out of the house to go to Mass. That’s when I saw Mum standing in the hall in her shabby old dressing gown.
I checked what food there was and went to the supermarket. I cooked a traditional Sunday dinner with apple pie for pudding. Mum tried to help but just got in the way so I made her sit and watch.
Dad patted his stomach and said what a fine dinner I had cooked and that I was a good girl. Mum pushed her food around the plate and left most of it. When I emptied her plate into the trash it had started raining again. I looked for the bodies of dead frogs but there were none and I wondered if the rain had washed them away into the soft receptive earth.
by James Coffey
James Coffey lives and works in Coventry, England.
