April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
One of the beasts
Of my existence
Has been cowardice
A disease
I consider it as such
Though it can be cured
But the procedure
Can be too much
For the man inflicted
And the necessary
Moves to make
To rise atop
Higher than you have ever stood
And the changes
Needed being made
The mirror can appear
As a shallow grave
But burying yourself into it
May be the only way
And face the face
That has continually ran astray
From the moments
Where you were needed most
By the people who have given you
Silos of love
And vast fields of trust
So I am finished
With this curse I have set
Upon myself
This will all be undone
And I will stand taller
Then any mountain to ascend
I am the answer
To bringing this way of life
To a fatal end
Face to face
I stare into my eyes
And strive for forgiveness
To myself
And all the lies
The reasons I have justified
To get fast on my feet
And run and hide
The man I see
Knows just what he has done
And will do whatever is possible
To keep all of that
In my rearview
Having faith that the road ahead
Drives a man who stands
And never lets this coward
Act in the same way again
by Justin Peterson
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
The sleeping passenger feels cold—shivers to wake, at dawn—discovering light coming in through the window—cool light at dawn. Another sleeping passenger feels cold—jerks to wake at the same time, at dawn—discovering light coming in through the window—cool light at dawn.
Both passengers are awake now, and realize they are looking at each other sitting across from one another at dawn.
Two passengers wake up and realize they are looking at each other, sitting across from one another at dawn—February eighth, the day before a giant storm two passengers find themselves awake on a train, in the wee hours of the morning.
The passenger turns his head to the side facing the window, and discovering light coming in through the window, yawns. The other passenger turns his head to the side facing the window, and discovering light coming in through the window, hears the other passenger yawn. The passenger turns back to face forward. The other passenger turns back to face forward.
Both passengers are awake now, and realize they are looking at each other, sitting across from one another anxious to start a conversation, at dawn—as light is coming in through the window—cool light at dawn.
by Denise Kinsley
Denise Kinsley received her B.A. in Arts and Letters and is currently an MFA candidate at the Jack Kerouac School. She has written a book of poetry that was published in 2009 (under her nom de plume) and is working on a collection of short stories. Denise has written grants for several non-profit theatre companies and most recently won an award from The National Endowment for the Arts. She has been involved with theater companies in New York, Portland and San Diego. She currently lives along the coast of southern California.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Feel what rhymes between us without words:
a texture, a smell, a movement that acts,
infuses more than show and tell. Body language
the most basic, the most primal, the most real.
This is necessity. We must be able to go on
when everyone, everything, when the world, is
simply deaf and mute. Communication exists
beyond print, beyond the repetitive sounds of
ideas, beyond rhetorical music, beyond the audio
of complexly-crass civilized thought. We have
language and verbal expression to make us feel better,
feel like we are making our mark on time, the small
seconds left of it, the treacherous and monotonous
abundance of it; but when all is over one last
thing, and it only, should flash in our brains:
a smile, the expressive smile of life lived.
by Nathan Dey Johnston
Nathan Dey Johnston lives in Kokomo, Indiana. He has contributed poems to From the Well House and Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!
April 2013 | back-issues, fiction
The worst thing you can say about her is that she was once your friend.
Perceiving that you stood side-by-side, you courted battle fighting the giants, while she secretly cheered for them to win.
On the last night you invited her into your home, you welcomed her to sit at your table, to eat, to talk of life. Recounting your adventures together would make for a feast, but she would only taste bitterness.
On that last night as the conversation dwindled in the air until there was only the sound of forks and knives clinking on empty plates, she began to tell you the story of the frog and the scorpion. The Great Adventure of the Scorpion and the Frog, she called it. You felt something there, in between the words.
Her voice carried on as you cleared the empty plates. Stopping short of the ending, right as the two are about to reach the riverbank together, she paused with an air of great satisfaction. Placing the dishes in the sink, your back turned, “Well, what happened next?” you asked. But you knew what happened.
It was for only a moment that it stung; the knife piercing flesh, scraping bone, a finite point in the unraveling.
The worst of it would come as you lay on the floor. Consuming you, the inevitability of reality, the world for what it was swirling in emotions of shock and disbelief and giants that were nothing more than windmills, adventures that were charades, friendship and loyalty, and belief in things that could be and should have been breaking before actuality and frogs and scorpions. You always knew that scorpions existed.
by Michelle Hanlon
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
For My Daughter
How bad do you want to be Little Miss Fair? Tease your do out bigger, bigger than Big Nana’s hair. Only eat foods that you can drink. Better, start a blonde streak and forget to eat. It’s not me. It’s the men that care. And repeat after me, we care most of all for the men. Imagine: Your belly’s a bomb that ticks with each swallow. You’ll give birth if you eat another bite. Thin wins. Shout it to our devils: to the mustard pretzels on our sponsored flight. Shout it to the cushion crumbs, the gum on the floor. I’m no one unless I win. You can’t be ugly and poor. Your childhood’s a promise I refuse to make. You’ll thank me for throwing up your wedding cake. Even a glance at my jumbo dog’s a glut. It takes guts not to have a gut. Remember when you watched them pump mine like oil? I’m your warning, a bomb blown. But loyal.
Rehabilitation
Left alone, I ask very adult, mean questions to Rebecca, the occupational therapist, after it’s clear she thinks he’s not an improver. How long have you been doing this? I inquire after he gives up writing the A in his name, rolls over, and pretend-sleeps. The edge in my tone guts her taught smile. I sense the upperhand. It’s only the two of us beside his bed. Teach him again how to make a fist, to hold that pen, to squeeze my pinky, pound this table, punch the poise from your mouth. And do it again until he gets it. Until you make him get it. I mean, that’s your job. Isn’t it, Becky?
Heaven
Now, I picture heaven as Ed McMahon standing in a gym with an accordion folder bulging with index cards. He taps the mike, pulls out each card, and bellows: “Oswald didn’t do it. LBJ bought the bullet. The moon landing took place on the set of Bewitched. 666 is in every barcode. There’s a barcode under every baby. Tupac scats Strayhorn in Prague bars. Elvis died a decade before fat Hawaii. Every airplane you weren’t on wasn’t an airplane. I’m your announcer, Ed McMahon. And now, herrrre’s the rest of eternity, the conspiracy theories from your own head, straight from your own life. Let’s start,” he heyohs, “with sex.”
Not long ago, I pictured heaven as the Sunday School teacher projected it in slides — green field after green field, a rich man’s backyard. Throughout the show, she’d have us repeat, “God is like your eyebrows. You don’t have to see Him to know he’s there.” In the sixth grade, around the time I watched them dump the wafers in a Ziploc, I noticed her brows were plucked and pink, extinct, brown frowns drawn over raw skin. That night, I watched The Tonight Show for the first time and fought off the new fears from the sweet, infected Miss Kimberley.
by Anthony Warnke
Anthony Warnke has previous work published in The Prose Poem Project, Hoarse, and forthcoming in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. He teaches English at Green River Community College in Auburn, WA.
