April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Spilling Ink
caught in moments
we theorize new reflections
arithmetic in strange places
empty subway stations
and park benches
strangers collide in ever-
limbo spaces, for never
do you know the next
encountering that changes
faces
time un-thought will
likely reach you, each
echoed beat and pulse
vibration, rattling like
the rattled station
and thoughts un-certain
will probably break you
but passing lives will
make you stop and softly
laugh and cough and think
and who we were will in
that moment, mingle
as if spilling ink.
by K.C. Bryce Fitzgerald
Immortal Moth
a daring V
a twitching silhouette
draped like Halloween cobweb in
lines too invisible to comprehend
a minute, then cacophony of
hoping
valiant, triumphant this
naïveté
unfettered by the fears that chain
circumstance to mortality.
Brushed clouds, like clotted cream
unpasteurized, provide soliloquy to
this impressionist scene
somber joy framed by dusk and sky
and trees
the foreground: moth, finally learning how to die
no tears, just knowing that behind
are butterflies.
by K.C. Bryce Fitzgerald
Old Timber
clock ticks into day grown cold
old timber sings inside the lull
pulled by thoughts and things unseen
alone with aging memories.
the staircase circles candlelight
an iron pendulum clock keeps time
perpendicular parallels intertwine
like cords of shredded fishing line.
on balcony a girl in white,
drunk, darts her head like clock ticks time
and warm and comforted she seems
in feeling what the fireplace brings.
it darts and dares your eyes to weep
or scream but never both, you reaped
your choice like words reap written wrongs
your miles wail like country songs.
and in the corner a piano pings
its umber cadence harmonizing
with the wood and the warmth and
the girl who, like the clockwork, sings.
she echoes through the empty hall
a timing ticked inside us all
its passage calls in chains above
the room, the way old timber does.
by K.C. Bryce Fitzgerald
Unsatisfied
I have to screw my head back on
it’s grown unkempt tonight
it rushes like water from a
bleeding fountain and bristles
like crabgrass getting ready
for a fight.
the minutemen parade inside
a pessimistic blight
a painful deep thrombosis pulls
and pushes like a tug-of-war
and complicates what it means
to be right.
for sanity comes surgically
like diamond ember lines
a twisted belief that raps at
your window like a pregnant
mosquito drawn towards peeling
empty light.
but I have to screw my head back
on, and screw back on my sight
it falls like leaves so red and
crisp and rattles just like
skeletons whose heads are screwed
too tight.
by K.C. Bryce Fitzgerald
K.C. Bryce Fitzgerald has been writing stories since he learned to read. A native of Los Angeles, he is inspired by the daily truths of the world around him. Currently unpublished, he is hard at work on a debut novel, countless short stories, a book of poetry, and several screenplays.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
Annabelle constructed her dreams in a globe,
glass surrounding the dream-world like a cell’s membrane.
What do you make of this world?
Do you think it’s truly impermeable? Do you think anything
is truly impermeable?
Annabelle constructed her dreams deliberately, precisely
following the rules of uniformity with each daily addition.
Inside the globular world were fairies, and ambitions, and
the perfectly quantified fruits of her mind. In this dream world,
nothing was left to interpretation.
Annabelle constructed her dreams with her own hands
for the fear that someone else’s would corrupt them.
Addition by addition, part by part, she assembled the pieces,
the starry ambitions, the broken thoughts, the half-hearted wishes.
Soon, she had something to put on display.
Annabelle constructed her dreams with the purpose of putting
them on display. Contained in the globe, they would never break;
she was sure of it. Once her hands had finished constructing,
she exposed the globular dream-world to the human world.
Only her hands, grasping from the outside,
could make the fragile world
and only her hands
could break the fragile world
Shattered, broken, permeable–
permeable–this
world of dreams.
II. The relationship between an object’s mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force Fis F= ma. Acceleration and force are vectors; in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.
F=ma
How else would you put it?
The force vector and acceleration vector
progress in the same direction:
forward.
Annabelle grew sick and tired
of the word. Forward. As if direction
were something quantifiable;
as if forward were the only
means to success
What would happen
if in this law
the direction of the force vector and acceleration vector
moved in was backward?
Would anyone object? Who would
dare say it was not the direction
of a world moving at the speed of light (299792458 m/s)?
Who would object to the pausing of output,
to the ceasing of heartless production,
to the prevention of time’s relentless effects?
But time, according to the laws of motion, continues
to gain F as the mass of the world increases
and soon our hearts get a little heavier
and Annabelle’s thighs are creased with stretch marks,
and her skin fades into nothingness,
and her lips evaporate into thin air,
and her eyes metabolize into liquid
and she no longer knows how old she is, how old she was, how old she will be,
and time keeps on going,
keeps on accelerating, and a is the only variable we know.
III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Picture Annabelle:
She is seventy-two,
lying breathlessly on the ground.
Dissect her:
Tell me what you find.
Perhaps you find a broken globular dream-world, perhaps you find remnants of an accelerating life.
Rummage through her:
Veins, stories, cartridges
of dying ink.
Picture her birth:
Bright, calm, serene.
React
Picture her death:
Dark, quiet, passing.
Produce
Today
somewhere
Annabelle is being born,
fresh and new and alive,
and somewhere too
Annabelle is dying.
by Meghana Mysore
Meghana Mysore is a junior at Lake Oswego High School in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where she is Editor-in-Chief of the literary magazine and Opinions Editor of the newspaper. Her work has been published in Crashtest, Canvas Lit, Stepping Stones, VoiceCatcher, The Writers’ Slate and more and recognized by the Scholastic Writing Awards.
