The eternal flaw
By Sasidharan Cheruvattath
I slyly sneaked into His unoccupied work area where the redundant poles rested (and the sun imprisoned or barred entry) jammed,rigid and unused, disguised as purpose or a grand desire or as a tool for the implementation of a ‘particular scheme’.
Yes, a particular scheme.
His sphere of perfection was as nearer to flawlessness as possible with the inevitable and unrelenting loopholes, even He couldn’t plug; yet the glaring manufacturing defects were shrewdly manipulated, as reason, for me to interpret. The imperfection of a definite conception is heightened by the thought “why this way”, the alternative being His choice. For example the poles bear all the brunt of the great oceans and the sailors and the magnet hang about breathless and stagnant, never able to look at the sun.
Caught in the act I ran behind my shadow pursued hotly by the night’s vested interest limited now again with purpose but without reason.
Standards are hard to keep, even for Him because the rationale behind restricted him.
Then who fashioned all this? The limited, option-less, well defined, makeshift- Idea.
May be "I"
* * *
Sunset in Panajachel
By David Kowalczyk
Approaching night, the plaza
dances with flickering lights,
with the death of day.
On a bench of crumbling stone,
I savor every morsel of my roast goat
and rice. I relish my liter of Cabro beer
as though it were Dom Perignon.
I scribble notes in my journal,
ancient and stained. I vow to read ten pages
every day from The Magic Mountain, Naked Lunch,
and Gravity’s Rainbow. And to write.
Every day. To write.
Returning to The Inn of the Five Graces,
I have a sudden and sad realization.
I imagine things
I really don’t believe.
Would that I could
believe in things
I can’t even imagine.
*
The Shadow Tree
By David Kowalczyk
Hush. The twilight hour,
the fall of day.
Watch. The garden fills
with dark veils.
Listen. Silence is standing
in the onyx light.
Wait. The earth now
masked, the moon awakens.
* * *
Filaments
By Robert Demaree
I told my wife
I did not feel so hot.
That was what my friend had said
At the play, the night
They took him to the ER,
Just a precaution,
A one-way ride,
As it turned out.
Along our paths at Golden Pines
They’ve put in nurse calls.
Middle schoolers, come to visit shut-ins,
Think of pulling one in jest,
Filaments by which things hang.
*
At the Yard Sale
By Robert Demaree
At the Independent Living yard sale
Arm chairs, ottomans everywhere,
Sagging sofas in forgotten styles.
There’s also a memorial service today.
The choir walks by single file,
Past maple chests and bureaus
That once held babies’ clothes.
I start to ask
Where they get all this stuff
But figure I know.
*
In Praise of the Past
By Robert Demaree
Here's something to be said for the 1950’s,
The strictures of conformity so tight
That even outsiders thought themselves close enough,
Which was sufficient to weather that time
When the all-consuming business
Of being fourteen
Was being fourteen.
Here’s something else, things they didn’t have:
Facebook, cable news
Brazilian waxing.
* * *
An Unconfirmed, Shattered Ego
By Daniel Gallik
One cool summer day Joe was walking
to the lake. No one was with him.
He wanted to go fishing. But he carried
no pole. A rain was falling.
Joe was seized by an urge to fish and
fish. He got to the lake, but the lake
was not there. When he looked
at his hands, he had a rod in them.
The sky was so gray. He wanted
to take photographs but had
no camera. A fishing rod sat
by a tree. Then, the sun
began to shine. Joe saw the horror.
Joe did not cry, but tears were in
his eyes. Joe was not confused,
but he was worried about something.
* * *
My Chemistry Class
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
My chemistry class, high on gender pH equivalents of red
Cabbage, found that familiar solutions enchant avenues for combustion.
Noble patience, fursuits, fruity candy, extra piercings,
Even wayward deposits of chapattis, otherwise meant to spoon with Petri
Dishes, begged better wisdom.
Love’s fonts, as colored by redox reactions, like lapidaries’ stones,
Tumble big and bright, bring fug-filled beakers, wide vials
Overflowing with viscous emulsions, plus occasional, solidified,
Hope. Such substances, far sexier than simples, greet or cheat
Adolescents; historically, kids will work the bench until lunchtime.
Playyard bullies, brainiac, football brawn equally admitted that radio
Waves hence directed remained unable to fuse intellectual panache/teenage initiative.
Until doxies, formaldehyde-based, otherwise centrifuged, forced eyelash waste
Off of maps of fractured elements, forgetting would take too long to merit
Further spectrophotoic segregations of men from boys.
*
While the Dew Coughed
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
While the dew coughed
Up many promises
Exhaling, until evaporation
Desires, droplet-sized,
His tractor tore swatches
Ripped neat rows of moisture,
Mowed, and otherwise raked,
Hope into piles,
In some boudoirs,
Lavender’s a weed
Thistle conjures no medicinal richness,
Boxwood’s unknown.
Those sites find marigold grace,
In municipal dividers, and
Welfare in yellowed wallpaper,
Whose printed roses affix even tiles.
* * *
house dust
By David Whitehouse
the dust on my bookshelves lies patient in the darker months; in carnal spring it mates with pollen and my nose explodes
the wetness paws at my frontal lobes, and seals together my toes. in the jacuzzi, the sleeping pill oozes through my nose
and a dozen white-toweled maidens come to bathe me. they carry pre-war phones on steamed-up silver trays. there's an old guy there in the water right next to me, tennyson, or prufrock, one of those. our balls drift like ailing tidal shrimps
-you choose, i tell him, pointing at the girls. you first.
i must wait, you see, for the uncurling of my toes
the phone rings and a steam-dream baby brings it to me. i answer with a splash. the old guy laughs and says he's been trying to write that poem for 139 years
* * *
Embroidering Roses on the Threadbare Mind
By E. Alexander
Demetrius unpeeled his face from the vinyl table cover. The world around him came into focus by degrees. Orange seats lined the wall. The thick smell of burnt grease and coffee permeated everything from the fake ivy to the aged waitresses. "What did you say?" That was his voice, right?
A woman in a crisp lab coat sat across from him, smiling. "I said neither I nor my partner have, in any way, erased any of your memory."
"I didn't ask."
"I just wanted to rectify any misunderstandings." She wore an ID card stating her name as Monica M. Her hands rested on the keyboard of a silver laptop. Demetrius tried to lean over the table to get a peek at the screen, but Monica shut the computer. "Thirsty? Want some coffee?" She pushed the lone cup on the table toward him.
"I prefer tea. Did we order food yet?"
Monica flipped open the computer and punched a few letters in. "Yes."
"Actually coffee isn't that bad," Demetrius said. "Takes me back to when..."
Monica's fingers rattled out a few more sentences.
Demetrius nodded. "To when I lived in Jamsoca."
Monica hit the backspace key several times and retyped a line.
"I mean Jamaica," Demetrius said. "I wonder where it is." Demetrius took a sip of the coffee. By the time he set the mug down, he remembered every detail of his childhood home, right down to the mailbox with a squeaky flag. He looked up at the scientist. She was maybe ten years older than him, but that never mattered to a man like him. She looked just like a woman from a centerfold. Maybe one he read when growing up. In Jamaica.
"You're gorgeous," he found himself saying. His cheeks grew hot. "I'm sorry." Demetrius turned away. "I shouldn't be talking to you like this, but even if this is our first meeting, I feel like I've known you for my whole life."
Demetrius reached across the table and grabbed her hands; they were smooth as the wings of angels. "Your freckles bring out your eye color. Your hair flows like the mane of wild mare. Your lips like...like..." The sentence balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't find the words to finish it.
Monica yanked her hands free from his and began to work furiously at the keyboard. His memories rushed back into him. "...like the roses that adorned the original garden of sin."
Demetrius looked down at his lap, his whole face turning three shades of crimson. "I'm sorry. I'm saying too much."
"No," Monica whispered, her voice nasal and squeaky. But that tone was exactly what drove Demetrius wild with passion.
"I need you. I want you," he said. He couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes. "Let's run from all of this, ride into the sunset on a white mare and ... and ... " Demetrius ran his hand through his hair, not wanting to say what words came next, but he had to, to tell Monica how he felt. "I want to ... I want to sit on the sofa all day and watch football," he said, the words tumbling out before he knew what they meant.
Demetrius looked up, eager to have Monica's eyes upon him once more, but he found instead a frowning man in a crisp lab coat finishing a sentence on the laptop. His name tag labeled him as Frank Mathews.
"Sorry about that. I was in the bathroom. Good to see..." Frank checked the screen. "...Demetrius. What the hell kind of name is that? Anyways, glad he's awake. Hey D, you hungry?"
Demetrius nodded. "Yeah."
"Did you order already, Monica?" Frank spat out her name like a declaration of hostilities. A waitress came by with three plates of food. "Well, speak of the devil." He unrolled his napkin and tucked it into his lap.
"Who had the lasagna?" the waitress asked.
"I did," Demetrius said, remembering his order.
"Club on rye?"
Monica raised her hand. The final plate was set before Frank, and the waitress hurried off to tend to a new customer.
"A Caesar salad?" Frank asked. "You got me just a Caesar salad?"
"You need to lose some weight, Frank," she answered tartly. "Isn't that right, Demetrius?"
Frank grunted in contempt as he pried the computer from Monica's hands and began to stab at the keys. Demetrius, who had until this time been looking forward to the lasagna, stopped with his fork halfway to his plate. "Come to think of it," Demetrius said, "I think it was me who got the salad. Sorry about that." He quickly offered Frank his lasagna.
"This technology isn't some sort of game," hissed Monica.
Frank shoved a forkful of lasagna into his mouth, not bothering to swallow before he said, "And who should know that better than you, miss hair-as-wild-as-a-horse's-mane. This guy," he said, pointing a dirty spoon at Demetrius, "would never have volunteered if he knew he'd end up as some insane woman's plaything."
"What, so you can program a new drinking buddy? And set his best memories to be about sports and fishing?"
"He was a convict. The guy would probably like to have known he'd be spending the rest of his life relaxing in front of the tube."
"'Brigand' is the more appropriate term. And I'll not have you programming him to hang out in bars and burp or fart on command. You'll not ruin this project, not when we're so close to unveiling our findings."
The argument heated up, the accusations gaining in viciousness and vulgarity, but Demetrius didn't bother to pay attention. He instead found himself staring out the window, getting lost in a daydream about 'some damn flapping ducks'.
At least, that was how he remembered it.
When his attention came back to the table, he found Monica sitting on the edge of the orange vinyl bench with her legs crossed, looking resolutely away from Frank. The lasagna was gone, but the club sandwich had not yet been touched.
Demetrius shrugged. Typically female. Like his aunt. Like his mom. Like every woman he had known his entire life. Women had two goals in life: trying to get between you and your grub and trying to get between you and your beer. "Women. What else could you expect," said Demetrius.
Monica grabbed a glass of ice water and flung it at Frank, but she wasn't fast enough. Frank's arm swung down, catching her on the wrist and sending the water onto the laptop.
Demetrius' world went blank.
*
"It's okay, you can open your eyes."
Demetrius pulled the satin sheets from his face. Candles scented with lavender and exotic musks lit the room. His head crushed the petals of a hundred roses as he turned over in the bed and pushed himself onto an elbow. "Monica."
She was there, laying on the bed in a violet silk nightgown that clung to her curves like a glove only wished it could do for a hand. "Call me Moni," she said, pronouncing her own name like a desperate plea in a moment's passion.
A pair of men's jeans sat in the corner of the room with a waist band too large to be his. "Who's are those?"
Monica blushed. "Just some old things. I'll throw them out in the morning. Don't pay them any attention."
"I'm not sure how to go from here. I'm so confused--so much swimming around in my head" Demetrius said.
"Just play from your mind, and go from there," she said, pulling herself alongside the younger man. Her auburn hair cascaded across the pillow like an untamed river.
"Just what does 'Copyright Hearts and Players Publishing 1987' mean?"
"A little background library to bring you up to speed on the modern woman's needs." The thin strap of her nightgown slid off her shoulder. "About 800,000 pages of it."
Demetrius smiled his boyish grin. "So, Moni."
Monica purred gently while Demetrius slid down under the sheets, working himself lower and lower. "Yes, my prince?"
"How about another massage?" he asked as he grabbed hold of her bunioned and calloused feet.
* * *
About the contributors
David Kowalczyk
lives and writes in Oakfield, New York. He is fond of Canadian ales, foggy mornings, Thai food,and the geese passing over his house in the spring and fall. His poetry and fiction have been published in seven anthologies and over one hundred magazines and journals, including California Quarterly, St. Ann's Review, Istanbul Literary Journal, and Maryland Review. He has taught English in Mexico and South Korea, as well as at Arizona State University.
Robert Demaree
is the author of three collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, published April 2007 by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had approximately 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals. His second book-length collection, Mileposts, will be published in 2009. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com
Daniel Gallik
has had poetry and short stories published by Hawaii Review,
Parabola, Nimrod, Limestone (Univ. of Kentucky), The Hiram Poetry Review,
Aura (Unv of Alabama), and Whiskey Island (Cleveland State Univ). He has
placed writings in hundreds of online journals. His first novel, A Story of Dumb Fate
is available at publishamerica.com.
KJ Hannah Greenberg
gave up all manner of academic hoopla to chase a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs and to raise children. Blessed to be the parent of two girls and two boys, three of whom are presently raging through their teen years, and one of whom is threatening to spring from his preadolescence, Hannah discovered, (all things being unequal) that it is both more rewarding and more difficult to raise children than to instruct thousands of college students on the nuances of human interactions.
Check out her Web site here: http://kjhannahgreenberg.net/
Erik Alexander Hill says:
I hunt new experiences like a kid on an eternal quest for Christmas presents. That, above all else, has been the largest influence on my writing. I'm a former chef and a current English teacher in Tohoku, Japan. I speak French, Japanese, and Middle English to any and all obliging furniture.
David Whitehouse
is married with three children. He lives and works as a journalist in Paris and edits The Lesser Flamingo.
By Sasidharan Cheruvattath
I slyly sneaked into His unoccupied work area where the redundant poles rested (and the sun imprisoned or barred entry) jammed,rigid and unused, disguised as purpose or a grand desire or as a tool for the implementation of a ‘particular scheme’.
Yes, a particular scheme.
His sphere of perfection was as nearer to flawlessness as possible with the inevitable and unrelenting loopholes, even He couldn’t plug; yet the glaring manufacturing defects were shrewdly manipulated, as reason, for me to interpret. The imperfection of a definite conception is heightened by the thought “why this way”, the alternative being His choice. For example the poles bear all the brunt of the great oceans and the sailors and the magnet hang about breathless and stagnant, never able to look at the sun.
Caught in the act I ran behind my shadow pursued hotly by the night’s vested interest limited now again with purpose but without reason.
Standards are hard to keep, even for Him because the rationale behind restricted him.
Then who fashioned all this? The limited, option-less, well defined, makeshift- Idea.
May be "I"
* * *
Sunset in Panajachel
By David Kowalczyk
Approaching night, the plaza
dances with flickering lights,
with the death of day.
On a bench of crumbling stone,
I savor every morsel of my roast goat
and rice. I relish my liter of Cabro beer
as though it were Dom Perignon.
I scribble notes in my journal,
ancient and stained. I vow to read ten pages
every day from The Magic Mountain, Naked Lunch,
and Gravity’s Rainbow. And to write.
Every day. To write.
Returning to The Inn of the Five Graces,
I have a sudden and sad realization.
I imagine things
I really don’t believe.
Would that I could
believe in things
I can’t even imagine.
*
The Shadow Tree
By David Kowalczyk
Hush. The twilight hour,
the fall of day.
Watch. The garden fills
with dark veils.
Listen. Silence is standing
in the onyx light.
Wait. The earth now
masked, the moon awakens.
* * *
Filaments
By Robert Demaree
I told my wife
I did not feel so hot.
That was what my friend had said
At the play, the night
They took him to the ER,
Just a precaution,
A one-way ride,
As it turned out.
Along our paths at Golden Pines
They’ve put in nurse calls.
Middle schoolers, come to visit shut-ins,
Think of pulling one in jest,
Filaments by which things hang.
*
At the Yard Sale
By Robert Demaree
At the Independent Living yard sale
Arm chairs, ottomans everywhere,
Sagging sofas in forgotten styles.
There’s also a memorial service today.
The choir walks by single file,
Past maple chests and bureaus
That once held babies’ clothes.
I start to ask
Where they get all this stuff
But figure I know.
*
In Praise of the Past
By Robert Demaree
Here's something to be said for the 1950’s,
The strictures of conformity so tight
That even outsiders thought themselves close enough,
Which was sufficient to weather that time
When the all-consuming business
Of being fourteen
Was being fourteen.
Here’s something else, things they didn’t have:
Facebook, cable news
Brazilian waxing.
* * *
An Unconfirmed, Shattered Ego
By Daniel Gallik
One cool summer day Joe was walking
to the lake. No one was with him.
He wanted to go fishing. But he carried
no pole. A rain was falling.
Joe was seized by an urge to fish and
fish. He got to the lake, but the lake
was not there. When he looked
at his hands, he had a rod in them.
The sky was so gray. He wanted
to take photographs but had
no camera. A fishing rod sat
by a tree. Then, the sun
began to shine. Joe saw the horror.
Joe did not cry, but tears were in
his eyes. Joe was not confused,
but he was worried about something.
* * *
My Chemistry Class
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
My chemistry class, high on gender pH equivalents of red
Cabbage, found that familiar solutions enchant avenues for combustion.
Noble patience, fursuits, fruity candy, extra piercings,
Even wayward deposits of chapattis, otherwise meant to spoon with Petri
Dishes, begged better wisdom.
Love’s fonts, as colored by redox reactions, like lapidaries’ stones,
Tumble big and bright, bring fug-filled beakers, wide vials
Overflowing with viscous emulsions, plus occasional, solidified,
Hope. Such substances, far sexier than simples, greet or cheat
Adolescents; historically, kids will work the bench until lunchtime.
Playyard bullies, brainiac, football brawn equally admitted that radio
Waves hence directed remained unable to fuse intellectual panache/teenage initiative.
Until doxies, formaldehyde-based, otherwise centrifuged, forced eyelash waste
Off of maps of fractured elements, forgetting would take too long to merit
Further spectrophotoic segregations of men from boys.
*
While the Dew Coughed
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
While the dew coughed
Up many promises
Exhaling, until evaporation
Desires, droplet-sized,
His tractor tore swatches
Ripped neat rows of moisture,
Mowed, and otherwise raked,
Hope into piles,
In some boudoirs,
Lavender’s a weed
Thistle conjures no medicinal richness,
Boxwood’s unknown.
Those sites find marigold grace,
In municipal dividers, and
Welfare in yellowed wallpaper,
Whose printed roses affix even tiles.
* * *
house dust
By David Whitehouse
the dust on my bookshelves lies patient in the darker months; in carnal spring it mates with pollen and my nose explodes
the wetness paws at my frontal lobes, and seals together my toes. in the jacuzzi, the sleeping pill oozes through my nose
and a dozen white-toweled maidens come to bathe me. they carry pre-war phones on steamed-up silver trays. there's an old guy there in the water right next to me, tennyson, or prufrock, one of those. our balls drift like ailing tidal shrimps
-you choose, i tell him, pointing at the girls. you first.
i must wait, you see, for the uncurling of my toes
the phone rings and a steam-dream baby brings it to me. i answer with a splash. the old guy laughs and says he's been trying to write that poem for 139 years
* * *
Embroidering Roses on the Threadbare Mind
By E. Alexander
Demetrius unpeeled his face from the vinyl table cover. The world around him came into focus by degrees. Orange seats lined the wall. The thick smell of burnt grease and coffee permeated everything from the fake ivy to the aged waitresses. "What did you say?" That was his voice, right?
A woman in a crisp lab coat sat across from him, smiling. "I said neither I nor my partner have, in any way, erased any of your memory."
"I didn't ask."
"I just wanted to rectify any misunderstandings." She wore an ID card stating her name as Monica M. Her hands rested on the keyboard of a silver laptop. Demetrius tried to lean over the table to get a peek at the screen, but Monica shut the computer. "Thirsty? Want some coffee?" She pushed the lone cup on the table toward him.
"I prefer tea. Did we order food yet?"
Monica flipped open the computer and punched a few letters in. "Yes."
"Actually coffee isn't that bad," Demetrius said. "Takes me back to when..."
Monica's fingers rattled out a few more sentences.
Demetrius nodded. "To when I lived in Jamsoca."
Monica hit the backspace key several times and retyped a line.
"I mean Jamaica," Demetrius said. "I wonder where it is." Demetrius took a sip of the coffee. By the time he set the mug down, he remembered every detail of his childhood home, right down to the mailbox with a squeaky flag. He looked up at the scientist. She was maybe ten years older than him, but that never mattered to a man like him. She looked just like a woman from a centerfold. Maybe one he read when growing up. In Jamaica.
"You're gorgeous," he found himself saying. His cheeks grew hot. "I'm sorry." Demetrius turned away. "I shouldn't be talking to you like this, but even if this is our first meeting, I feel like I've known you for my whole life."
Demetrius reached across the table and grabbed her hands; they were smooth as the wings of angels. "Your freckles bring out your eye color. Your hair flows like the mane of wild mare. Your lips like...like..." The sentence balanced on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't find the words to finish it.
Monica yanked her hands free from his and began to work furiously at the keyboard. His memories rushed back into him. "...like the roses that adorned the original garden of sin."
Demetrius looked down at his lap, his whole face turning three shades of crimson. "I'm sorry. I'm saying too much."
"No," Monica whispered, her voice nasal and squeaky. But that tone was exactly what drove Demetrius wild with passion.
"I need you. I want you," he said. He couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes. "Let's run from all of this, ride into the sunset on a white mare and ... and ... " Demetrius ran his hand through his hair, not wanting to say what words came next, but he had to, to tell Monica how he felt. "I want to ... I want to sit on the sofa all day and watch football," he said, the words tumbling out before he knew what they meant.
Demetrius looked up, eager to have Monica's eyes upon him once more, but he found instead a frowning man in a crisp lab coat finishing a sentence on the laptop. His name tag labeled him as Frank Mathews.
"Sorry about that. I was in the bathroom. Good to see..." Frank checked the screen. "...Demetrius. What the hell kind of name is that? Anyways, glad he's awake. Hey D, you hungry?"
Demetrius nodded. "Yeah."
"Did you order already, Monica?" Frank spat out her name like a declaration of hostilities. A waitress came by with three plates of food. "Well, speak of the devil." He unrolled his napkin and tucked it into his lap.
"Who had the lasagna?" the waitress asked.
"I did," Demetrius said, remembering his order.
"Club on rye?"
Monica raised her hand. The final plate was set before Frank, and the waitress hurried off to tend to a new customer.
"A Caesar salad?" Frank asked. "You got me just a Caesar salad?"
"You need to lose some weight, Frank," she answered tartly. "Isn't that right, Demetrius?"
Frank grunted in contempt as he pried the computer from Monica's hands and began to stab at the keys. Demetrius, who had until this time been looking forward to the lasagna, stopped with his fork halfway to his plate. "Come to think of it," Demetrius said, "I think it was me who got the salad. Sorry about that." He quickly offered Frank his lasagna.
"This technology isn't some sort of game," hissed Monica.
Frank shoved a forkful of lasagna into his mouth, not bothering to swallow before he said, "And who should know that better than you, miss hair-as-wild-as-a-horse's-mane. This guy," he said, pointing a dirty spoon at Demetrius, "would never have volunteered if he knew he'd end up as some insane woman's plaything."
"What, so you can program a new drinking buddy? And set his best memories to be about sports and fishing?"
"He was a convict. The guy would probably like to have known he'd be spending the rest of his life relaxing in front of the tube."
"'Brigand' is the more appropriate term. And I'll not have you programming him to hang out in bars and burp or fart on command. You'll not ruin this project, not when we're so close to unveiling our findings."
The argument heated up, the accusations gaining in viciousness and vulgarity, but Demetrius didn't bother to pay attention. He instead found himself staring out the window, getting lost in a daydream about 'some damn flapping ducks'.
At least, that was how he remembered it.
When his attention came back to the table, he found Monica sitting on the edge of the orange vinyl bench with her legs crossed, looking resolutely away from Frank. The lasagna was gone, but the club sandwich had not yet been touched.
Demetrius shrugged. Typically female. Like his aunt. Like his mom. Like every woman he had known his entire life. Women had two goals in life: trying to get between you and your grub and trying to get between you and your beer. "Women. What else could you expect," said Demetrius.
Monica grabbed a glass of ice water and flung it at Frank, but she wasn't fast enough. Frank's arm swung down, catching her on the wrist and sending the water onto the laptop.
Demetrius' world went blank.
*
"It's okay, you can open your eyes."
Demetrius pulled the satin sheets from his face. Candles scented with lavender and exotic musks lit the room. His head crushed the petals of a hundred roses as he turned over in the bed and pushed himself onto an elbow. "Monica."
She was there, laying on the bed in a violet silk nightgown that clung to her curves like a glove only wished it could do for a hand. "Call me Moni," she said, pronouncing her own name like a desperate plea in a moment's passion.
A pair of men's jeans sat in the corner of the room with a waist band too large to be his. "Who's are those?"
Monica blushed. "Just some old things. I'll throw them out in the morning. Don't pay them any attention."
"I'm not sure how to go from here. I'm so confused--so much swimming around in my head" Demetrius said.
"Just play from your mind, and go from there," she said, pulling herself alongside the younger man. Her auburn hair cascaded across the pillow like an untamed river.
"Just what does 'Copyright Hearts and Players Publishing 1987' mean?"
"A little background library to bring you up to speed on the modern woman's needs." The thin strap of her nightgown slid off her shoulder. "About 800,000 pages of it."
Demetrius smiled his boyish grin. "So, Moni."
Monica purred gently while Demetrius slid down under the sheets, working himself lower and lower. "Yes, my prince?"
"How about another massage?" he asked as he grabbed hold of her bunioned and calloused feet.
* * *
About the contributors
David Kowalczyk
lives and writes in Oakfield, New York. He is fond of Canadian ales, foggy mornings, Thai food,and the geese passing over his house in the spring and fall. His poetry and fiction have been published in seven anthologies and over one hundred magazines and journals, including California Quarterly, St. Ann's Review, Istanbul Literary Journal, and Maryland Review. He has taught English in Mexico and South Korea, as well as at Arizona State University.
Robert Demaree
is the author of three collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, published April 2007 by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. He has had approximately 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals. His second book-length collection, Mileposts, will be published in 2009. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com
Daniel Gallik
has had poetry and short stories published by Hawaii Review,
Parabola, Nimrod, Limestone (Univ. of Kentucky), The Hiram Poetry Review,
Aura (Unv of Alabama), and Whiskey Island (Cleveland State Univ). He has
placed writings in hundreds of online journals. His first novel, A Story of Dumb Fate
is available at publishamerica.com.
KJ Hannah Greenberg
gave up all manner of academic hoopla to chase a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs and to raise children. Blessed to be the parent of two girls and two boys, three of whom are presently raging through their teen years, and one of whom is threatening to spring from his preadolescence, Hannah discovered, (all things being unequal) that it is both more rewarding and more difficult to raise children than to instruct thousands of college students on the nuances of human interactions.
Check out her Web site here: http://kjhannahgreenberg.net/
Erik Alexander Hill says:
I hunt new experiences like a kid on an eternal quest for Christmas presents. That, above all else, has been the largest influence on my writing. I'm a former chef and a current English teacher in Tohoku, Japan. I speak French, Japanese, and Middle English to any and all obliging furniture.
David Whitehouse
is married with three children. He lives and works as a journalist in Paris and edits The Lesser Flamingo.