Issue Two July 2009
Contents
1. Poetry
Donal Mahoney, Ivan Brkaric, Charles C Brooks III and KJ Hannah Greenberg.
2. Flash Fiction
Joanna Valente, Autumn B. Humphrey, Brian Barnett, Jonas Knutsson, Jack Swenson, D Jason Cooper.
3. About the contributors.
*
Five Poems by Donal Mahoney
Raspberry Hives
The ancient man with raspberry hives
on his cheeks since childhood
will live alone no longer.
He will marry, he says,
the first woman who’ll have him.
Till now he has wanted to die
as he’s lived, alone in his room
with the radio playing,
the water in the bathtub
dripping. The drone of hours,
however, has become
the drone of years
and the ancient man with raspberry hives
on his cheeks since childhood
fears death will convert
his hives into pocks, take his body
but reject his soul.
Now he believes if he weds
the first woman who’ll have him
death will have reason,
for the first time,
to do the job right.
*
This Mick on the Next Stool
(in a pub in Ireland)
So this Mick on the next stool,
who's as serious as Yeats
but looks like Wilde,
stares at me, with eyes crossed,
sips Guiness through the foam,
burps and says, "I'll bet that growth is cystic."
If it were my nose, I'd light this match,
hold a straight pin over it
and prick it. Poof! There'd be
a belch of goat cheese, sure.
What of it? You'd need a Q-Tip,
maybe a drop of p'roxide.
But in two weeks new skin would bloom
smoother than a baby's bum.
With your luck, Yank, it would freckle."
*
Leaving the Station
Each morning
I step from the train
and march with the others
leaving the station.
The weatherman's warned of rain
so we're armed
with umbrellas,
our briefcases swinging.
Across from the station
there's an old hotel
high in the sky. King Kong,
everyone calls it.
In tall windows
old men appear,
disappear, reappear.
It is August in Chicago
and the old men wear
overcoats and homburgs
so no one can steal them.
They light cigarettes,
mumble and curse
at the daily parade
leaving the station.
Traffic is thick
but even in winter
no one looks up
since no one can hear them.
*
Charming Bill
When she sees him in the morning
he’s all foamed up
and in the mirror shaving so
she stands behind him, saying,
“Charming Bill, your father was a ladies’ man--
that’s why you have this knack with women.
Deirdre, you kissed once, light on the lips.
Bridget, ah, the melon of her hips
you kept inviolate, whole, entire.
But since your father was a ladies’ man,
you will be a priest instead.
You will never fill a woman,
never watch her swell,
and she will be the better for it,
won’t she, Charming Bill.”
*
Soldier Boy
The rain is very thorough.
Going where I have to go
this summer afternoon
I march west beneath this big umbrella
while you beneath the biggest
floppy hat I’ve ever seen
dash marvelously east.
In my uniform I must ignore
the ribbons dancing in your hair,
the perfume traipsing in your wake.
I’m a Soldier Boy, you see,
and when I’m sent to quell the noise
I really have no choice.
I keep on marching west.
*
Two Poems by Ivan Brkaric
The Old Shoes
In his shoes I wish I was,
to stand next to you and smile.
Our family together
we’d pose for a portrait.
And a million copies we’d make,
to send to everyone we know.
Our friends and family,
together we’d all share our happiness.
But the man in the picture isn’t me,
nor is that my family in Sunday dress.
With his hand,
gentile caressed on the small of your back.
His grin forever tattooed in my brain.
Our portrait fades away.
Leaving me with the remains,
of the shoes I once wore.
*
Tomorrow
With a fine touch of her finger
she gently traces her name
into the center of my back.
At first it tickles,
but then it feels so good.
She whispers in my ear
as I lie next to her.
“I wish I could be her.”
I am so surprised
that I am lost for words.
I act dumbfounded
and try to clarify.
“Wish you could be who?”
And so she tells me….
“The woman that you hold
so dear to your heart!”
And a fool I've been!
Thinking that I hid it so.
But she tells me
that my touch is always cold and
that my eyes are lost in a moment so faraway.
I don’t dare move.
Paralyzed, as if I have seen a ghost.
I pretend to sleep,
my back turned to her.
She stops with her finger
and I know I should turn around
to comfort her.
But I don’t!
I just lie there,
hoping that tomorrow never comes.
*
Two Poems by Charles C Brooks III
Orchid Incident
Evidence of a wicked man
is in this woman’s bath.
The lover’s been long kicked out.
She can be seen through one window.
Condensation obscures her. A leg crests
then stretches forward.
A bottle of rum and an orchid
sit on a silver tray, shot glass
emptied three times already.
Beneath a bare bulb
Strauss conducts Metamorphosen
from small speakers.
Wound around her ankle is a green dragon tattoo.
*
Two Old Men
Two old men fix
my washing machine.
They tell me this model falls short
of the more reliable brands.
The bill makes my head hurt.
I expect
some Great Depression
philosophy
for such a brutal sum.
Perhaps a rough
pearl of wisdom.
No luck.
The condescending fucks
take my cash
and rumble off
in a battered Chevrolet.
*
Ode to Aerosols
By KJ Hannah Greenberg
Perched upon a windowsill,
Small fly that I was,
Buzzing, scouting, then swiftly still,
Just because
Swatters, kid scouts, brawny hands,
Hurt us bugs each day.
We’re doomed by looming aerosols,
And automatic spray.
My best friends have been reduced
To smithereens ‘fore lunch.
Others have entered cheap “motels,”
‘nere to leave’s my hunch.
We wee critters got to choose
Wise ways to flee the mash,
To steel ourselves ‘gainst fecund fumes,
Or references to trash.
While springtime's pink-golden sun shines,
Bringing frolickers to breed,
We pests must watch our wings all times,
If we’re to sow our seed.
*
Flash Fiction
Bringing Home the Bacon
By Joanna Valente
Sometimes when the birds are asleep, he forgets he is asleep and gets out of bed, waking us up. We lay in our bed, the sounds are all the same to us in the morning: the faucet running, him spitting out toothpaste into the sink, heavy footsteps down the hall, the hum of the microwave. He comes in, sometimes, to check on us; we're not exactly sure why.
We close our eyes right as he opens the door and we know he stands there smiling for a minute or two. He'll leave, to go to work where the bacon is made (this is what we have been told) and he'll come home with it for Mom. She ends up using it for our breakfast each morning, but never eats any of it herself.
When he closes the door, we look up, and laugh a little, mouths closed tight. We put our hands over each other's mouths, just to make sure our sound won't slip out. Why do you look up for? I ask, watching the ebony eyes roll a little, and the shrug of her shoulders. They are small, slightly pointed at the edges, unlike mine. I eat more bacon than she does, I guess.
*
There Goes the Neighborhood
By Autumn B. Humphrey
It started innocently enough, that first flamingo. It was so cute, sitting there on the shelf at the store, a pink plastic bird, nothing ominous about it, no underlying motive, a simple little lawn ornament. I thought it looked just lovely peeking out through the bushes in our front yard.
When George came home that night he had his briefcase in one hand and the flamingo in the other, dirt trailing from its pretty pink feet.
Tell me you didn't put this in our yard.
Well, actually yes, I did, George.
Dropping his briefcase, he headed straight for the trash bin, shaking his head and muttering something about spending $750,000 for a house in a nice neighborhood.
I thought it would be funny. You don't think its funny?
I just hope to God none of the neighbors saw it.
Apparently George didn't get it, and after seven years of marriage, I wanted him to get it, so not only did I rescue that pink flamingo from the trash, I got him some friends and put them all in our $750,000 yard.
When George came home the next night he wasn't carrying his briefcase. He needed both hands to carry the flamingos inside, through the house and out to the trash.
Poor George, he still wasn't getting it. After he'd gone to bed, I found some fabulous web sites that specialized in: Pink Flamingos. Pink flamingo clothes, pink flamingo bath accessories, pink flamingo windsocks, pink flamingo patio lights, pink flamingo everything! They also had overnight shipping.
I suppose George was relieved when he got home the next night to a flamingo-less yard. I just grinned as he pecked me on the cheek. And I waited. It didn't take long.
His high-pitched scream emanated from the bowels of the bathroom, which I had remodeled into an explosion of Pepto-Bismol pink with hundreds of pieces of pink flamingo paraphernalia.
I was still laughing when George returned, a roll of pink flamingo toilet tissue streaming from his hand.
OK, Jessie, I get it, but enough is enough.
Whatever do you mean, George, darling? The neighbors thought it was lovely.
Georges face morphed into the same shade of pink as my beloved flamingos and I swear there was steam rising off that old bald head of his. He actually started to look a bit like a pink flamingo.
Its because of what Mother said, isn't it?
What, honey? What did Mother say? Oh, yes. She said I was, let me get this right, the epitome of poor white trash. And what did you say in response, George?
I don't remember.
Sure you do, dear, but let me remind you. You said, Well, Momma, you can take the girl out of the trash but you can't take the trash out of the girl. And then you both laughed.
The pink flamingo decor continued to multiply exponentially, both internally and externally, until George moved out. My lawyer said I'll be able to keep the house, which is great, even though I don't care for the neighborhood. Like George, I'm not sure they get it, either.
*
Dia de Los Muertos
By Brian Barnett
The church bell tolled in its monotonous rhythm. It signaled the man in the sombrero to strum his guitar. He strummed the song known only to one little town. He remained seated on the dusty sidewalk and never raised his head. A swirl of wind lifted piles of dirt and forced them to dance and twirl before they dissipated into oblivion.
There was a chill was in the air.. It was a chill known only to one little town. Sunset came and the evening had begun. It was the Day of the Dead in that little town in Mexico.
The disheveled graveyard stirred. The ground shifted and moved with the rhythm of the street-man’s guitar. Moments later, men and women who were dressed in their Sunday best stumbled out of their crypts and graves and paraded into the street.
People opened their windows and doors and cheered their relatives as they passed their former homes, shambling and moaning. The day was known as Dia de Los Muertos in that little town in Mexico. It was time to celebrate. The parade had begun.
The man in the sombrero tipped his cap to the onlookers and smiled, exposing his blackened teeth. He was adored in that little town. He was the man who played his strange song once a year. Just on that special day - The Day of the Dead.
*
John the Baptist
By Jonas Knutsson
As I pass by on my way to the grocery store, a young-old man sitting inside the transparent bus shelter waves amicably to me. He rises and beckons me to him as he approaches. I figure him for a panhandler, a cruising homosexual or a madman. Or perhaps one of my wife’s relatives from Borgarfjörður. “Can you spare a little something for a bite to eat?” His eyes are swimming in their sockets, as if liquefied. “I’m on the street.” The state of his clothes bears this out but his Old Testament beard seems out of place on such a young face, like a bad disguise. “I’m afraid I just have some change,” I lie and hand him a shamefully small sum.
He strolls along beside me although I had considered our transaction completed. He halts in front of the drug store. “Say, could you buy some nail polish remover for me?”
“Sorry, I can’t, on principle. ” I omit the fact that my contribution was supposed to feed him. To my further vexation he follows me into the grocery store and gazes at me, his eyes filled with that strange mixture of profound wisdom and utter bewilderment. This is how John the Baptist must have looked when he came out of the whiteness of the desert. “How can buying nail polish remover go against your principles? Are you some kind of alcoholic?”
“I’m nothing of the kind.” I sound like a fuddy-duddy, even to myself.
“Sorry, no offence.”
“None taken.” I make my escape and head off in search of my iceberg salad. The young-old man seems to have vanished, back into the desert, no doubt. As I line up in front of the cash register I worry he’ll pop up again the moment I draw out my bills and demand a more generous donation.
I come out of the supermarket and pass the Subway branch next door. Inside sits John the Baptist and waves his hero sandwich at me by way of greeting, happy as a clam, his brochette gliding above his head like the staff of a prophet.
*
Kitty Love
By Jack Swenson
Our next door neighbor is in love with his cat. His wife sits in our kitchen crying her eyes out. My wife comforts her. "There, there," she says, and pours the poor woman another glass of wine. "You should see them together," she says. The animal is shameless. She lies on her back and offers her belly to him to be scratched. She wiggles and purrs and looks up at him with her eyes half closed. "And what does he do?" my wife asks. Our neighbor bursts into tears anew. She refuses to say. Our imaginations run wild. Does he tickle her tummy? Does he scratch her ears? Does he pick her up with his bony hands and give her a kiss on her adorable little nose? His wife won't say. She sits there in her chair with her hands folded, her eyes downcast, and shakes her head, whipping her short red curls from side to side.
My wife gives me the signal to leave, and when I have exited the room, she slides the kitchen doors shut. I glue my ear to one of the doors, but I can't hear what they are saying. Some minutes later, they emerge, and my wife says she is going to walk home with Denise. She'll be back in a bit, she says.
"Well?" I say when she returns, but she isn't talking. The look on her face tells me, however, that she has a plan. I keep a straight face. I have learned that with women in crisis the best policy is to keep your mouth shut. I figure I'll find out what's up soon enough. I hope it isn't murder. Barney is well off; if he were to have a fatal mishap, his widow would do very well for herself.
My fears are ungrounded. What my wife has in mind is more like an intervention. We will have a little talk with Barney, she says. "You mean you and me?" I ask. My wife scowls. "Of course," she says. I smile brightly.
And so we have a talk with Barney. He denies everything, of course. But my wife keeps after him until he confesses. He weeps. Yes, yes, he says, he loves the animal. He's always had a thing for females with whiskers and pointed ears. He promises he will break off the affair. And, he swears, it will never happen again.
That night in bed my wife asks me if I think he'll keep his word. "Oh, sure," I say. "Barney's a stand up guy." "Mm," my wife says, and she rolls over and goes to sleep.
I do not tell her when later that week I peek through the curtains in our dining room one evening and through the window of the house next door I see Barney holding the cat in his arms. They are cheek to cheek, moving in a circle. They seem to be doing a slow waltz.
*
Father and Son
By D Jason Cooper
Mark and Jake, father and son, had traveled together for hours, though they couldn't remember the route they'd taken to get there. It didn't matter, they were together.
“Will we see her, Dad?”
“Maybe. She doesn't always appear, but when she does, it's on this night of the year and no other.”
“What will she look like?”
“I'm not entirely sure, son. Like all fleisks, she looks different from one time to another.”
“Cool.”
Mark smiled. At five a lot of things were cool, everything was exciting, and almost everything was important. Thankfully he wasn't going to change anytime soon: fleisks change, ghosts do not.
“If she comes, will she see us, Dad?”
“No, son. Fleisks can't see us. ”
“How long do they last, Dad?”
“Not long, son. Some are seen only once or twice. Most last just for seventy years or so. There was one at a monastery who lasted more than a hundred years. That's the longest, and even then, some people think it was two fleisks we mistook as one because they change so much. But all of them stop coming, sooner or later, and we are left to carry on.”
“I wish they lasted longer.”
“Nothing lasts forever, son, not even us.”
“Why can't we talk to them?”
“Because ghosts are made of spirit and fleisks are made of flesh, which is how they get their name. They are noisy and wet and if you stand too near them they make a low hum that can turn into a roar that destroys you. Some fleisks are terrifying creatures, though this one isn't too bad.”
Hadn't he explained all this last year? The year before? The year before that? The dozen years before that? No matter. He would have to explain it all again next year. That was what dads were for.
Jake floated about, trying to look like he was after the best view of the fleisk when, really, he was probably just trying to touch it. After a while he gave up and floated back to his father.
“Why does she appear?”
“No one knows.”
Mark hugged his son and kissed him on the head. He knew she was coming for him. He did not know why. When it would finally happen he could not guess. But he also knew there was no escape. He looked at the mountain around which the road wound. Gray mists entwined it, making both the road and the mountain indistinct.
There was the sound of an engine and suddenly a small patch of road became bright and colorful right where two small white crosses leaned against a telephone pole. Wilted flowers as gray as the fog that covered most of the mountain shifted themselves, rose in the air, then hurled themselves into a roadside ditch.
“Polterfleisk.”
“I think it's her, son.”
Jake seemed to know every type of fleisk in existence, though Mark had no idea where he got all that information. With some kids it was dinosaurs, for Jake it was anything that went bump, clatter, or clank in the night. Mark had lost count of the number of times Jake had said that fleisks are always in color when he saw them in a photograph.
A hand formed, and behind it a young woman. She was in her twenties, blond, wearing a black dress with a silver metal belt. Her hair was pulled back, then released in a shower of curls at the back of her head.
She placed two small bouquets of flowers, wrapped in colored tissue paper, on the ground. She touched the flowers after she laid them. Mark noted how all of her was in color.
She opened her mouth and out came a fleiskly hum, a throbbing basso done with that impossibly alien face. Mark held his son tight.
The fleisk put one arm around Dad and patted her belly with the other. As she did the throbbing, fleiskly grumble grew louder. It was no longer a hum but a roar, no longer a roar but a beating. Mark could barely hear his son calling for him.
He was wracked by a headache unlike any he could remember. He looked down to see himself dissolving. Particles of himself were being sucked away and into the fleisk.
Mark screamed despite himself, despite his son. Then he was surrounded by the fleisk-womb, held by something warm that oozed and flowed around him and made him want to sleep. He tried to say his son's name but he had no voice, and then the boy's name was forgotten, along with his own. He was inside her, listening to the beat of her heart, awaiting rebirth.
The colors faded and dissolved as whatever had broken now repaired itself. The fleisk was gone and the world was again indistinct shapes and intervening grays. Jake stood alone, left only with the flowers, calling in vain for his Dad.
*
About the Contributors
Donal Mahoney
lives in St. Louis, MO. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. He has had poems published in or accepted by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, Commonweal, Revival (Ireland), U.S. Catholic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), Snakeskin (U.K.), Public Republic (Bulgaria) and other publications.
Ivan Brkaric
had never written a poem or even read any poetry up until about a year ago. Now he uses poetry as an outlet and does his best to edit an e-zine called Callused Hands. Ivan's poetry has appeared in Why Vandalism?, Blowback Magazine, Gloom Cupboard and Lit Up Magazine.
Callused Hands is located at http://callusedhands.blogspot.com/ and it is a place were ordinary people can share ordinary literature.
Charles Clifford Brooks III
is a poet and freelance writer living in Georgia USA. He was inducted as a Master Member in the National Creative Society his senior year at Shorter College. He also obtained a BS in History\Political Science with a minor in English Literature. Along with his creative endeavors, he also contributes articles to three magazines and a newspaper. He has been published in over 40 magazines, 3 anthologies, and printed in five foreign countries. Charles Clifford is currently Poetry Editor for Literary Magic Magazine. Ghost Shadow Press picked up his first book of poetry “Whirling Metaphysics”.
KJ Hannah Greenberg's
writing, which she describes as lightly pert and somewhat exuberant, has been published or accepted by upwards of 40 publications.
Joanna Valente
lives in New York, and is currently completing her bachelor's degree in Creative Writing and Literature. She has been published in various magazines and one upcoming anthology from Uphook Press. A few of her favorite things include the smell of library books, museums, and the ocean. She can be found at her blog: anoldconversation.tumblr.com
Brian Barnett
lives with his wife, Stephanie, and son, Michael in Frankfort, Kentucky. He writes macabre flash fiction and short stories. He has published over thirty stories since November 2008, thanks in large part to his wife who provides her constructive criticism and a keen editing prowess.
Autumn Humphrey
is a published writer currently focused on flash fiction and screenwriting. In her spare time she plays the horses.
Jonas Knutsson
is a filmmaker, translator and journalist. His short fiction has appeared in the United States, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, the Netherlands, Austria and India. He is currently at work on a book about the Catilinarian conspiracy in ancient Rome.
Jack Swenson's
scribbling has appeared or is pending in Weave, Full of Crow, Grey Sparrow, Fiction at Work, and Pindeldyboz. He likes to write about the Human Comedy. He writes short stories that are very short, i.e., flash and micro fiction.
D Jason Cooper
is a Comics fan, a wrestling fan, and the author of seven books including Slums of Paradise (Twilight Times Press). If you want your vampire's resurrection modified by the Pope, this is the book.
David Whitehouse
is married with three children. He lives and works as a journalist in Paris and edits The Lesser Flamingo.