January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Like a Grasshopper in a May Meadow
So much life,
so much green,
so much dew on my feet,
so much eye-squinting sunshine
and hot wafty
late morning melancholy
that keeps me from sailing
the effervescent puffs of white.
So much wanting
to leap and never
come down. So
much lush. So much
thick. So much rain.
So much not knowing
how brief a spring can be
and how little there is to be
gained by bouncing
from here to there
and, in no time at all,
becoming a wingless,
dry, empty thing
lifted by a mockery
of wind and so much
insignificance.
by Danny Earl Simmons
Ghazal: Brimstone
Sometimes I wonder if hell is less fire than brimstone.
Maybe it’s like taking your phone into the shower with you.
Her perfume is right where she left it, infused into her pillow
where it insists on bringing up old worn-out conversations.
Is there air enough in hell for the moaning of dirges
or is it more like staying up late for a little peace and quiet?
She was at the grocery store the other day picking out avocados.
I smile at the memory of guacamole and that she wasn’t really there.
I hope hell has horses for carrying lost souls through the thick black
to the pretty yellow bonfires and the warming of hands with old friends.
I wish she would have just slapped me hard and told me to go to hell.
Instead, all I have is this ugly red stain and the moldering of day after day.
by Danny Earl Simmons
Drama Queen
for Mat
One hand goes directly to his chest,
clutching. The other hand is outstretched,
beseeching something unknowable. He wobbles,
staggers backwards, collapses in a heap.
He listens for shouts of 9-1-1 and sirens,
hears none, begins to moan and pant.
He winces, glances sideways hoping
for a rescue and a little mouth-to-mouth.
Still alone, he struggles loudly to one knee
before allowing gravity to grab him
by the collar and introduce his face
to the cold reality of the hard gray ground.
The red of his life begins to pool,
rutilant beneath the ache in his head,
as a dizzy contentment warms
his drifting away into sleep.
He awakens gagging, squinting
against a blurry brightness, confused
by the high-pitched din of urgency
and his being unable to swallow,
then smiles around the hard plastic tube.
by Danny Earl Simmons
Danny Earl Simmons is an Oregonian and a proud graduate of Corvallis High School. He is a friend of the Linn-Benton Community College Poetry Club and an active member of Albany Civic Theater. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals such as Naugatuck River Review, Off the Coast, Shadow Road Quarterly, Grey Sparrow, and Verse Wisconsin.
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
They scare me. Give me blizzards but not a blue day with a ground of ice and a T-Rex bite to the air. She enters the kitchen in a white tank and short shorts. The slink of corn flakes into her bowl stings. The stillness gets me most of all: inescapable frost that digs the face when shoveling out a pickup bed or packing tools to fix some old fart’s frozen pipes. She has her mother’s skin, clear with dapples around the crest of her nose and tops of her shoulders, and my yellow teeth. We talk to each other (I don’t want to make it sound like we live in silence) but we don’t say much. Except for the storms. Like the prom night. At 2 when I woke to a broken bathroom mirror and her with fists bloody and an eye black: fists from the mirror, I never found out about the eye. But she cried on me that night. Mascara staining shoulders of my shirt a deep violet black. Her tears were torrents and I was there. She told me she hated me and she hated that mother was gone and I was there. She told me she loved me anyway and I was there. At 4 I made Denver omelets and some strong coffee. She skipped volleyball practice and told me jokes.
—Jenna giving you a ride?
—No.
—Bus?
—Yeah.
—It’s cold out.
—I know it.
—Susie, I could take you. Lemme get the truck warming.
—No.
She stands at the bottom of the driveway, balling fists inside her gloves because the fingers are too thin.
by Aaron Bauer
Aaron Bauer lives in Colorado and received his MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His work has recently appeared in Prism Review, Spillway, Superstition Review, and many other journals. Also, he has served as Editor for Permafrost and is a Contributing-Editor for PoemoftheWeek.org.
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
He gets confused sometimes—
gets up, walks a few steps,
–pauses–
looks blankly ahead
then turns around,
sits back down
slowly.
The doctor says it’s dementia;
it’s just the beginning, really.
It’s in his eyes, though:
everything.
He’s not forgotten
anything;
I’ve not, either—
not the way he sat
with me quietly
through the years:
my parents’ divorce,
failures
in efforts that could’ve given me
a way out,
losing my grandmother,
missed opportunities
that might’ve mattered.
He’s been there for all of it—
the last eleven years that settled me
into adulthood.
He’s graying now;
the black hair he had once
has lightened around his chin
and above his eyes.
He’s handsome as ever, though,
when he grins,
and that’s what makes it
alright—
his aging.
We’ve been happy
along the way,
me and Dylan.
He’s been a good dog.
by Rachel Nix
Rachel Nix is from Northwest Alabama. Despite an irrational fear of frogs, she’s declared herself pretty content with living in the boonies. Her previously published/forthcoming work can be found at Spillway, The Summerset Review, and Bop Dead City.
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I thought we’d occupy the same space
indefinitely, through the eternities of everydays,
sometimes talking, sometimes merely breathing
in this Eden called Here, until
the sun set behind you and you talked of leaving.
“Good for you,” I say. But I hope you ache
the way I do, the way I have, the way I will.
Oh I’m over-dramatic, it was only a kiss
that one time
when we were drunk.
See I’m a fool
who would think of nothing else, crave nothing less.
Now every bottle I down is a halfway replay.
Always I’ll fall short of a kiss’ intoxication
but somehow float in the haze of a memory
gone stale with repeated remembering
and you’ll leave me dreaming of a kiss
that no more will be returned.
Goodbye
is not the end. It’s only the beginning of missing.
by Kat Madarang
Kat Madarang’s work has been published in the Electronic Monsoon Magazine and the Burningword Literary Journal. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines.
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
You brought our freedom as a mirage in their parallax vision. In that one brick wall shirt that you wore every day. That spring noontime, in gym class, that we stood at the far end of the parking lot ballfield—you with your middle finger masking-taped to two popsicle sticks, splinted—and you urged me, with each change of batter, to retreat ten feet more from the game.
We did it for the full 48 minutes, gliding backwards in our ballgame-facing position—behind the chain that marked the schoolyard boundary, onto and beyond the sidewalk, across the street, down the block—slack witnesses reverse-looming further and further away.
To have watched receding the whole civilization, that credence! Only the bell of the period startled us from it—and you laughed at the top of your lungs, yowled, as I scrambled—we’d never get back in time. You turned rightway around, that sly loping walk of yours, made of your hands a listing scale of comically foregone decision. To have watched it all receding, in those Lion’s Club glasses, without blinking. You were right: we were well out of that now.
by Nicole Matos
Nicole Matos is a Chicago-based writer, professor, and roller derby girl. Her credits include Salon, The Classical, The Rumpus, THE2NDHAND, Vine Leaves, Chicago Literati, berfrois, Oblong, neutrons protons, and others. You can catch her blogging for Medium, publishing tappable stories on Tapestry, and competing as Nicomatose #D0A with the Chicago Outfit Roller Derby, too.
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
A Response to Charles Bukowski: Yes I’m Drinking Today
booted-up, in the makeshift office/mudroom, my old laptop
out again.
I write from my drinking chair
as I’ve done for the past seventeen years.
will see my psychiatrist,
Monday.
“yes Doc, the Xanax helps my anxiety.
but it knocks me out,
I mean it really knocks me out.”
“you’re not getting rest,
are you?
I know what you need,
maybe some Ambien.”
more meds,
that’s what has defined my life
at age thirty-nine.
even at work,
it all seems so futile.
like a throwaway plastic knife,
it’s only sharp enough to cut so deep.
janitor often knocks on the door to my classroom,
“you still here boss” he asks?
while rubbing his persistently
arthritic left wrist,
too swollen to even wear
a watch.
I tell him,
“yeah, living the dream brother.”
he gives me a noncommittal nod,
knowing the well-told lie like the crease in his neck.
so here I am
just a middle-aged joker,
an amateur writer at best trying to emulate
trying to copy because I’m too tired to create,
with my cracked-screen laptop.
something is coming
across the floor
toward
me.
wait
oh, it’s just
my can of beer
this
time.
by Kurt C. Schuett
The Bohemian Waitress
Accent thick,
Traditional Czech dress,
Red and black,
Brown nylons tucked into
White gym shoes.
“Hello, can I take your order?”
We say,
“Becks, apricot stone sour, Becks, Chablis.”
She says, “Okay.”
Grandma says, “Oh, I’ll take an apricot stone sour, too.”
“Better make that two,” Father jokes.
Bread basket,
Rye bread.
But Cousin Becky eats the crackers,
Plain,
A thirty-two-year-old
Drinking kiddy cocktails because of the
Wellbutrin,
And eating crackers.
Butter,
Real butter,
Not margarine,
Sitting at room temperature,
Soft.
“Beef noodle, liver dumpling, or goulash?”
Soup,
Sitting in cups
Sitting on saucers
Sitting on the circular table,
Hot.
Uncle Bill says,
“No soup, prune juice please.”
Probably because of the
High blood pressure.
Main course,
Breaded pork tenderloin,
Capon,
Lamb shank,
Or duck.
Dumplings, mashed, or rice,
Sticky-starchy,
More brown gravy,
Please.
“I’ll take the cucumber salad.”
“That will be one dollar more.”
“No problem.”
Chitter-chatter,
Chitter-chatter.
Forks and knives scraping plates
Like forks and knives scraping plates.
Dessert,
Apple strudel,
Apricot kolacky, cheese kolacky, raspberry kolacky,
Pudding or ice cream.
To go boxes,
“Sure.”
Until the next birthday,
Or the next funeral.
But the Bohemian waitress,
She’s
Always
There.
by Kurt C. Schuett
Kurt Schuett is an ward-winning writer and educator. Insurgency is Kurt’s debut novel, a speculative work of fiction that encompasses elements of urban suspense, thriller, and horror, and it is set to release during the summer of 2014 through Assent Publishing. In addition, Kurt’s short work of fiction, a southern gothic ghost story titled “Calamity James,” will appear in the Belle Reve Literary Journal on Monday, October 28th, 2013.
