January 2016 | poetry
A hooker with the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians tattooed on her side.
Four hundred thirty six Crown Royal bags.
How much I hate stuffed olives.
Not dating Jane Fonda.
Ted Bundy’s last meal.
Arguing from design using a cockroach.
God being ambidextrous.
The never ending generosity of drinkers trying to pick up women in a bar.
A billboard: “My gastric sleeve changed my life.”
George Sanders’ suicide note, beginning “Dear World” and ending “Good Luck!”
The girl I fucked in High School who became a mortician.
Hubie Houston USN (Ret.)–the first man to fire a rocket from a plane.
Contracting food poisoning from bad manna.
The serpent’s side of the story.
Using a fly swatter as a swizzle stick.
On the plus side:
never throwing gum in a urinal.
Visiting Hollywood Forever Cemetery: Peter Lorre in a sliding drawer.
A man at the Salvation Army swimming pool telling me this is the best day of his life.
Screwing my wife and having her say: “Just finish your business.”
Passing out in the Seat of Scoffers.
Memory being an identikit.
Remembering too much.
Not forgetting enough.
Getting off with a warning.
by G. Geis
D.G. Geis divides his time between Houston and the Hill Country of Central Texas. He has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Houston and a graduate degree in philosophy from California State University. His poetry has appeared in 491 Magazine, Lost Coast, Blue Bonnet Review and is forthcoming in the November/December issue of The Broadkill Review.
January 2016 | poetry
Fugue
I lived ambling through a dream
It was nice– the scenery was pleasant
And in my naïveté, I lay
Anesthetized
Sniffing poppies
As the clouds scrambled for the east
They warned me to follow them
I laughed; they were mad
Did they not know they were part
Of a story I composed
A poem that I had penned?
If when the storm approached
I’d easily rearrange my horizon for a summer day
With a balmy tale I had known so well
When the squall had finally passed over
It abandoned me forlorn
In a bed of splintered bones
And tormented limbs
Hemorrhaged in my own stupidity
The Augury
Sitting by the window sill
All was quiet, all was still
Watched a black widow kill
and ply her craft in the ceiling corner
Weave in, weave out, a bobbing shuttle
proof of death’s defamed rebuttal
administered a stitching subtle
A handkerchief without a mourner
The hand upon the spinning wheel
Feeds the thread a measured deal
No more, no less, no inch to steal
from that that knows no foreigner
Finished full of lace and frill
the handkerchief, an airborne will
moth of cloth, the spider’s fill
what Death had had for dinner
This poem was originally published in April 2013 in the Indian Review.
by Ansel Oommen
Ansel Oommen is a freelance science/garden writer, artist, and former student of the Institute of Children’s Literature. His work has appeared in Blueprint, Visual Verse, Intima, and Redivider, among others. Discover more at: https://www.behance.net/Ansel
January 2016 | poetry
My daughter looks at the sky
as if her real life might fall out of it.
Air pressure shifts
hope in her bones.
She sleeps long in the afternoon, confident
of her basic knowledge of gravity.
You have no faith, says my son, who claims to see
iguanas dance in Copán.
I saw too much to believe anything, I tell him.
I just watch a day
of no surprises.
You should see them fly, says my brother,
throwing grenades into the lake.
Fish spurt like fountains, a short day’s work.
His ambition overcast.
Explosions deep inside his hands.
You must stay strong, says my husband,
who marches his prosthetic leg
to the top of our hill each day.
I save my strength for death, I tell him.
My eyes closed, my breath too slow.
Today it rained fish,
cold flashes from the sky, caught in
silver agony. My son, my husband,
my daughter, my brother made a fire and
I savoured, in small bites,
the taste of grilled miracles.
by Catriona Cameron
Catriona Cameron is a Scottish writer who travels the world. She writes about the different countries where she has lived in ten years of travel. Her writing has been published in Guernica, Kweli, Magma and Tiferet, among others. Connect with her at www.luckydiplife.com.
October 2015 | back-issues, fiction
The feral boy sleeps at the foot of your bed. You only get him one weekend per month but he refuses to sleep in his bed.
You don’t get to have sex with your younger girlfriend because your feral boy curls at the end of your bed, waiting, like a stray to be taken somewhere.
You feign sleep, hoping that the feral boy too will close his eyes and drift but you don’t know if he does. You can’t tell.
This boy was an accident. He was an “oops” in the backseat. You had protection but it didn’t help. You didn’t plan on having this kid. You were just fucking around. You can admit that to yourself. Shit, you were young, you still are, but this feral boy nips at your heels like a fucking stray who smells meat in your pocket.
Your girlfriend, who called him feral boy in fun even though it bothered you, touches your naked body underneath the sheet and you look down to your boy who lies on the floor. You cannot see his eyes. You do not know if he is awake or not.
You still her hand and she pouts. She is disappointed. It is dangerous if she gets disappointed because she is younger than you, too much younger than you, and if she gets disappointed or bored, you won’t get that young beautiful body of hers.
But you tire of the pouting.
The feral boy laughs in his sleep, a dream he seems to be enjoying, happiness, and you push her over, rolling away, to try to find the same kind of dream.
by Ron Burch
Ron Burch’s fiction has been published in numerous literary journals including Mississippi Review, The Saint Ann’s Review, Eleven Eleven, Pank, and been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Bliss Inc., his debut novel, was published by BlazeVOX Books. He lives in Los Angeles. Please visit: www.ronburch.com.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
The Dining Room Table
is the universal receiver of all
letters that will be answered and filed soon
and bills to be paid next month and the sprawl
of folders on diets and the health effects of prunes.
It’s the holder of everyday intentions
to make some sort of conscientious order
of what we’d forget if put away. The tension
of undone work turns a table into a hoarder
that could say, “I know it’s in here somewhere.”
Yet, the presence of some trivial burdens
are motes defining light-rays shafting the air.
These small tasks we see remain blurred on
the outer edge of our visual periphery,
to be completed by the vagaries of industry.
The Quart-Size Strainer,
having given up its childhood ambition
to be a catcher’s mask, still sees itself thrown
off ceremonially as the catcher runs to position
himself to snare a pop foul. Standing alone,
the catcher puts on his mask and squats behind
home plate.
How spaghetti’s rinsed with cold water,
so their strands won’t stick together, reminds
him that he is made of mere mesh; that order
of wires and space, with a handle of wood.
Yet under the faucet he feels the Zen
of being in the flow. He guesses it’s good
holding rinsed string beans for string bean julienne;
but to be a hero, no one can replace—
ah! to be a catcher’s mask and save a catcher’s face!
by Marc Tretin
Marc Tretin’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, Crack The Spine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Griffin, Lullwater Review, The Massachusetts Review, The New York Quarterly, The Painted Bride, Paperstream, The Penmen Review, The Saint Ann’s Review, The Round, Whistling Shade, Ghost Town Literary Magazine, and Willow Review, and he was the second runner-up for the Solstice literary magazine poetry prize in 2013. Conferences Marc has attended include 92nd Street Y, Colrain, and the West Chester Poetry Conference. He has studied with David Yezzi, Molly Peacock, Rachel Zucker, William Packard, and Emily Fragos.
