April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
by Christopher Brown
When did the waves reach the cities?
I wasn’t aware the tides could topple our temples.
Is this the end of narcissism? Of pride?
It is a possibility, yet such a negative thought.
A nomadic lifestyle thrives upon the ego.
Weakness is simply a doorway to failure.
This is knowledge spoken by the lips of children.
Yet, as life decrees so often, I thrive on hesitation.
Costly, self-destructive, ignorant hesitation.
Chances gone as the winds of change scream through my existence.
This endless ocean of black and white thought,
These eternal fields of extremist figurative speech,
They entangle me in a past my future can’t explain today.
I have hope, and that makes everything surreal.
It’s a shame that life survives on the antithesis of dreams.
Hope has no place in a realists environment.
Dreams are homeless and abandoned.
Where did my arrogance go?
Where has my pride fled to?
Is this the struggle I am destined to inherit?
Questions are floods,
And I’m lost in a desert.
April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
by George Ovitt
The ‘F’ Word
Waiting in line with my children at the market,
A woman cradles a phone against her ear and
Pronounces alto voce the word that daily fills
The air like jagged hail or a plague of frogs.
In this age of loud voices only the buzz saw
Of vulgarity is audible—softer words are lost.
When my mother would burn herself on the range
She hissed “darn” or, in her black moods, “drat,”
And even then she apologized, warning us
Against cheap talk and reminding us that words
Are gifts that we give to one another.
My father said “damn” each Thanksgiving,
When he would burn the turkey,
Otherwise he was silent, knowing, I suppose
In the way that he knew that words are betrayals.
In my own dark moments, I too say nothing,
Pouring into the silence my hopes and curses alike.
To the woman on line I mouthed a quiet “please”
To which she says, unsmiling, that I should fuck myself.
Marriage
On the social page each Sunday I scan the faces of the long-married.
Men with thick hair and wide lapels, with, I imagine, cigarette packs
In the starched pockets of their shirts, their new brides holding lilies
Or roses, wearing crosses on their thin necks, smiling into the future.
Sailors, soldiers—sixty years ago was the War—brides wooed on liberty,
Hasty weddings before shipping out, a way, I suppose, of betting on living;
As they have, see, here they are now, thicker, with tired eyes, as if this
Ancient face were a mask placed over the young and hopeful one,
As if the years hadn’t passed, the nights spent arguing or making love,
Pacing outside hospital rooms or sitting bored in church, taking long
Walks on empty beaches, remembering or trying to forget, growing
Apart from one another, growing apart, finally, from one’s self.
This moment, just now, sitting in the studio, squinting into the lights,
Pressed together, afraid—but who isn’t—of who you would become.
George Ovitt lives in Albuqueque with his family. He is an Army veteran and has worked as a cook, beer truck driver, and guitarist in a rock band. He still plays blues guitar, teaches high school, and writes short stories and poems.
April 2011 | back-issues, fiction
by Paulina Shur
The ballet recital at the end of school year was as usual: little girls (and occasionally one or two boys) demonstrated their achievements before an audience of adoring relations.
Light-colored tutus, epitomizing the eternal beauty of classical ballet. Sweet-sounding melodies, including Tchaikovsky’s. Bouquets of flowers held by the dressed-up adults. Suspense: when will my baby come on stage? Sighs of relief: here she is, so adorable! Generous applause at the end of every number. All of these created the mood of festivity and excitement.
But when Julie Andrews’s beautiful, unmistakable voice started the tune of “My Favorite Things,” sighs of thrill and pleasure swept through the space like a wave, swallowing up all other sounds and emotions. Faces were lit by smiles; bodies slightly moved to the rhythm of music; hums and whispers were heard. Kittens . . . mittens . . . strudels . . . noodles. As if under a spell, the spectators gazed at the stage, but, it seemed, saw the screen, their children cuddling in bed, throwing pillows at one another, and dancing with Maria.
When the song ended, all got up, applauding and cheering —Bravo! Bravo! They didn’t realize that their one standing ovation of the night was not for the cute, but clumsy little children dancing in a dull and uninventive dance, but for one person only: Julie Andrews.
Her peerless voice, genuine acting, and that funny face, forever associated with Maria’s, brought to life the enchanting story, music, and songs of “The Sound of Music.” It has been seen by all, loved by all—as much today as fifty years ago, when the parents of the grandparents sitting in the audience saw it for the first time.
Julie Andrews made it ageless. Bravo, Julie Andrews!
April 2011 | back-issues, fiction
by Justine Schofield
One of the few things that I remember about my first childhood home, which my family had lived in until I was eight, is the shower drain. The grate covering the drain wasn’t screwed in, so it simply rested in the indentation of the drain hole. Every now and then I would accidently kick it out of place while showering, exposing the softball-size drain below. The uncovered drain became a dark abyss in the middle of the shower and when I would look down into it a dull throb would kick in my stomach, a slow torturous feeling, like being jabbed maliciously and repeatedly with the nub of a broom handle. Every time the depth and darkness of the drain was exposed I would have the same overwhelming fear-a snake. I had intense, paralyzing images of a snake slithering up from the drain, slowly and broodingly coiling its never-ending body around my legs, caressing every inch of my skin with its pipe grime laden underbelly, wrapping itself tighter and tighter around me, until it was tickling my chin with its thin, lisping tongue. I would go down in history as the young girl who died in the shower by a snake attack, all while my mother was washing dishes in the next room. To think! The misery of it all! I would use my toes to grasp the drain grate and drag it back into place as quickly as possible, to block the dreaded snake from emerging from the darkness, to return all back to its proper place, to put life back in order. The unknown, the dark, it all seemed to converge into all the dismal possibilities of the world or rather, at that time, probably just the dismal possibilities of my young life.
April 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Blue Suns, Yellow Skies
At six, my sister claimed she remembered birth,
that moment the scalpel sliced across our mother’s abdomen
and pried open the flesh to expose
her miniature body held inside.
The first thing you know
is how cold the world feels,
she said, nestled inside a sleeping bag
covered with blankets, gripping
her stuffed lion,
You either have to find that warmth again
or try to forget it.
Maybe that’s why she curled into
her first boyfriend’s body
at fifteen, a question mark in darkness,
until she felt an oppressive heat,
kicked the covers off both their bodies,
and told him she needed to get out,
though when he threatened
to leave permanently, she only said, But I need,
I need, through tears.
Or perhaps it explains how her rage
started to match our mother’s
as they rolled on the kitchen floor,
clenching hair, slamming each other’s heads
against the wooden cupboards,
my sister crying out,
bitch, fuck-up, I hate you—
words my mother had slung
at her as long as she could remember—
red faced, scrunched and screaming
as each blow drove them farther from
that first trapped dependency.
I pick up one of the books she wrote
when she claimed her keen memory—
misspelled words scrawled in crayon
beneath suns colored blue and skies colored yellow,
and even the book itself, inverted,
so you had to turn it backwards to begin,
as if my sister always knew
that to understand anything,
you must distort your normal perceptions,
start at the end,
and painstakingly search for the beginning.
The Side Of The Road
A deer, writhing
by the side of the road,
neck arched up and twisting,
as if pinned by some invisible hand—
we stumble upon it
dumbfounded as we confront
its mashed organs,
a red juiced glaze
on the concrete.
The fur’s matted with blood,
torn apart like cloth ripped
open by a pair of urgent hands.
(Do all things have this dormant
force beneath surfaces,
waiting to explode?)
Grotesque,
hard to sustain even a glance,
which is why we look away,
avoid what’s inevitable,
though we can’t now,
can we?
The deer lifts
its head, mouth agape.
I didn’t expect silence,
thought it would scream
a cry akin to human grief.
What do we do?
You shrug. What is there to do
but leave it here to die?
I put my head on your shoulder.
(How many times have I sought
solace there?) I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I cry.
How can you turn away?
It’s not the deer anymore, is it?
Just look into the terror-stare of those
black eyes, the trembling
torso, immobile legs collapsed
like a puppet tossed aside—there will never
be a time when love is easy for us again.
I put my hand in yours, Please, Do I need to say it?
Do you need anymore proof
that we’re past the point of miracles?
There will be no resurrection today.
Please… You flinch, jerk
your hand from mine,
You can’t ask me to do that.
Perhaps you’re imagining
the grace of the deer in the woods
before all this, its body springing
from the slightest sound, its sprint
through the brush, leaves trampled
like petals scattered at a wedding march.
Perhaps you need to hold that image a moment
before you can reconcile
what must be done. But there’s no time,
we can’t let it linger. If you’ll just
hand me the gun, then I’ll do it.
I’ll shoot it for both of us.
