Dance For A Sun

You’ve been skidding around me

for a few months.

Not enough for me to pull you

like a curtain, towards me,

but plenty to feel you are

tied to the piece of string around my neck

a noose of pirated thoughts,

just for you.

I’ve watched you in a clumsy

shamanic trance,

but it is not going to bring you closer.

Not if you keep slipping,

each stumble locking you

deeper and deeper into the ice.

Where I cannot go.

 

 

 

Valentina Cano

Commodities Day

“I’m back!” Vern shouted and dropped the brown cardboard box of government surplus food onto the kitchen table. Karl strolled in from the living room. “I need to kill Buttons.” Karl looked in the box, found the peanut butter, and opened it. “There’s never bread. What good is peanut butter and no bread?”
“Bread gets moldy,” Vern said. “This stuff stays in warehouses forever. They give us flour to bake our own. They give us all this stuff for free. It’s great. There’s no reason to complain. Why do you need to kill Buttons?”
“He got into a fight with June.”
“How are you planning to do it?”
“I don’t know. Toss him out the window?”
“What stopped you?”
“I can’t find my gloves. You can’t toss a cat without gloves.”
“Sorry. I borrowed them. They’re in my coat pocket.”

….

Downstairs in her studio apartment June was playing Skittle Bowl. There was a knock on the door.
“It’s open!”    

Karl stood in the doorway wearing his gloves and holding the cardboard box. June was sometimes his girlfriend and sometimes not. Right now he wasn’t sure. The top of the box was taped shut.
“June, I have good news.”
“If it’s that cat it better be dead.” June’s arms and face were scratched.
“It’s commodities day, June. Vern just got back. You’re invited for dinner.”
“Thanks, but I have cancer.” 

June set up the pins and swung the ball. Nine. She swung it again, made the spare, and marked it on the score sheet.
“Why do you think?”
“Why do I think what?”
“Why do you think you have cancer, June?”
“Oh, that,” June said. “My private area is green.” She started to cry and made only six.  Next swing left one. An open frame. Her game was ruined. She said, “Fuck!”
“Let me see,” Karl said.

June unzipped her jeans and pushed her panties to the side. “See?”
Karl knelt for a closer look. “You smell like Christmas.”
“That’s just some stuff I bought,” June said.

Karl went into the bathroom and opened the medicine chest. He found the Pine Scented Feminine Deodorant Powder. He poured some into the sink and turned on the tap. The water turned green. Karl and June took a shower together. Buttons clawed his way out of the box and climbed onto the kitchen table looking for food. Instead, he found the Skittle Bowl game and batted the ball with his paw. Pins fell over. Startled, Buttons leapt out the window. Luckily, June’s apartment was on the ground floor. Buttons had never been outside. He liked it a lot.

….

The oven timer bell went off. Vern put on his hot pad mitts and removed the casserole dish. Vern and Karl and June scooped macaroni with cheese and tomatoes onto their plates.

 

Dan Nielsen   

Robots

by Kyle Hemmings

Small Treasures of Stability

Getting off the school bus he inhaled deeply at the sight of her car in the driveway. It was a blue Cadillac, a real piece of junk. The metal was rusted on the edges, making it look like the underbelly of an idle boat in a harbor collecting barnacles. The heater didn’t work, the windows were busted making winter driving an adventure and the brakes squealed like a dying pig. The back bumper was full of dents and various colors from other cars. She always got into accidents; usually after leveling off. She hadn’t used the car in a while because she had her license taken away.

 

The front door was unlocked, as it always was, and the first thing that he noticed was the lack of noise throughout the house. She was probably passed out. She claimed her doctors said she needed to nap daily. He always found it weird that despite being unemployed she was always tired. For a while he thought that she was mad at him but he later found out that it was the alcohol. He’s still not sure what’s worse.

 

She was snoring on the couch. An empty bottle of liquor was on the ground in front of her and the television was tuned into a soap opera. The show was one of the only things that brought a smile to her face.

 

He tiptoed his way past her to the kitchen and started making something to eat. If he didn’t no one else would.

 

“Who’s there?” her voice bellowed from the other room.

 

“It’s just me. I’m making a snack.”

 

He was hoping that she would go back to sleep. She didn’t and struggled to get to her feet.

 

“Well why do you have to be so fucking loud about it? You know that I have to get my sleep.”

 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

 

“That’s your problem, you never mean to. Wait a minute, what are you doing here, don’t you have school?”

 

“It’s four o’clock, school is over.”

 

She stumbled towards the kitchen. He tried his best to remain calm. Already he could see the thick vein in the middle of her forehead beginning to bulge.

 

“Get the hell out my sight! It’s bad enough you woke me up, now you’re giving me a headache.”

 

He silently nodded and began to make his way to his room. He stepped lightly, staying on the tips of his feet, not wanting to make any noise.

 

The screaming began before he finished his math homework.

 

Barely audible at first, it grew louder with each word. She had a way of becoming angrier, and louder, as she spoke, like when she would turn up the volume to some old song in the car.

 

“You little prick, what did you do with my alcohol?”

 

He knew better than to answer. When her anger turned to blind rage, her questions became rhetorical. Besides, nothing he could say would satiate her.

 

It was like a cat and mouse game when she was like this. He had to cower away to some corner of the house and wait out her outburst and then, when it was quiet he could show his face again. He’d gotten good at playing hide and seek when he went to his friends’ houses or on the playground. So good in fact, that no one wanted to play if he was doing the hiding.

 

He double checked to make sure his bedroom door was locked. He fell to the floor slowly, keeping his back against the grainy wood of the door. The feeling, as he slid down to the ground, pricked his back. The pain felt good, relief.

 

He began to sob. He let the warm tears fall down his face until they reached his quivering lips. They tasted salty and bitter; a reminder of his lost childhood, an explanation for why his father had left a long time ago. He wanted to leave with his dad, but he was too young to have a say in it. He wondered if he had started a new family by now, if by creating a replacement one he could finally erase them from his memory.

 

He wanted to make a run for it himself. He knew he could reach the front door before she got to him. He even knew where she hid a spare set of car keys. He’d driven it plenty of times in the past. His mom had made him drive her to the liquor store. He could barely see over the steering wheel. Propped up by a phone book, hands shaky, more nervous of his mom sitting next to him than the other cars on the road.

The yelling stopped. It was followed by a low, subtle, sobbing, echoing throughout the decrepit house, pinning off of each paint peeled wall. They rang through the house long past sundown. It was safe to sleep now. She’d worn herself out; her temper tantrum was about finished. He got under his sheets and pulled his blankets up to his chin as if it were some kind of protective shield. He forced his eyes shut and willed himself to sleep.

 

The alarm clock buzzed, acting as a cattle prod, and he sprang to attention. His sheets were soaked in cold sweat from the night before. He still couldn’t shake the initial intensity of the nightmares that had begun just before dad left. The radio was playing a Billy Joel song. He was singing of a drunk, painting a happy portrait of the hell he was living through. He’d gotten used to sleeping with the radio on, volume low enough to keep his mom from hearing but loud enough to quiet his internal fears, for a moment, and give him a chance at a decent night of sleep.

 

He crept up the carpeted stairs towards the kitchen. He could hear humming coming from above. She was standing at the oven, her back facing him. She turned as he took a seat at the table.

 

“Good morning sweetie. How did you sleep?”

 

She was happy, a completely different look in her eye. She brought over a plate of soggy scrambled eggs and burnt bacon to him. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on his forehead. He could smell fresh liquor on her breath. She had started today’s bottle a little early. Still freshly drunk where she was in a nice mood. He soaked in this mood for as long as he could knowing it was only temporary. Later she would revert to her irritable drunken alter ego.

Living with her made him realize, a long time ago, that he had to treasure the small, daily, treasures of stability.

 

 

Patrick Trotti

FOOD 4 THOUGHT

1. breakfast menu

 

bomblette: miscellaneous refrigerator leftovers folded indelicately into an egg outer-layer.

 

crepes boozette: thin, absorbent pancake creations reputed to be a hangover cure.

 

orange peek-hole tea: a beverage so weak one must check to see if the teabag “dropped.”

 

potatoes “o’greaty”: any particularly uninspired, starchy tuber accompaniment to a meal.

 

transblendered: a smoothie which is neither discernibly vegetable-based nor fruit-based.

 

 

2. the colonel’s frank confession, or war is hormel

 

“It was back when your grandpappy was devotin’ himself to the preservation of the Onion.  I had enlisted late, so had to pack’n’wrap quickly to ketchup to the resta them hotdoggin’ fellas.  Eventually, I mustard up the courage to link up on the firing range.  It was then I received this,” he said, not without some relish, pointing to the still-tender spot on one of his buns.

 

 

3. hill o’ beans

 

Taking a shortcut to a café with my Native American friend JW.  The setting was New Orleans.  We tried to take a shortcut through a square but were impeded by a giant mound of coffee beans. 

 

JW said, That looks like fun.  I agreed.  When else are you going to have a chance to climb up a mountain of coffee beans?

 

So we scampered right to the top—but alas.  The recent rain had left pools of black liquid everywhere.  I tried to make light of the situation, joked that at least no other storms were brewing.  But JW slipped and fell, staining her dress.  And I fell too, and then she did again.  Eventually, we both gave up and just started sliding and rolling until we finally reached the pavement.  

 

It didn’t amount to much, that hill of beans in New Orleans.

 

 

4. who wants pie?

 

At Thanksgiving, we were all painfully sitting around the living room after our feast when the doorbell rang. No one wanted to get up. Fi­nally, I crossed over to the door to greet our guest, saying, Come on in and meet my distended family.

 

 

M. V. Montgomery

the one with the horses.

so you’re traveling down the road, riding, yeah, you’re riding down the road on motorbikes, no horses, you’re riding down the road on big white horses (although yours is piebald, but no one seems to notice) and you can feel the stretch in your pelvis, the way it really opens you up and the horse underneath you is solid, like a block of concrete, only it’s flesh ‘cos it’s moving and you’re moving with it, dilated and panting. and although you’re still a learner you need to gallop, you need to gallop and hope like fuck that the horse comes with you. a scentient beast, he is known as a bit of a people whisperer among his own kind and he’d like to think that he planted the idea.so consensually you dig your heels into his ribs to break from the pack, and the horse knows what you want and how to give it to you because there’s no speed like this speed as you rise up, rise up from the saddle to stand on unsteady stirrups and your legs are the champions in this scenario as you go fast, fast enough to feel the wind in your hair (only you cant, because you’re bald, though no one seems to notice). so you’re galloping, galloping fast, crazy fast and you wonder if you’re gunna keep your balance with your arms outstretched and the increasing speed and the wind and you can and it’s fucken excellent.

it’s quiet now, calm as you crest the last dune to the beach. there’s the smell of the sea and the spray of the horse and the knowing how close you came… your bloodbeat slows and the horse shakes his mane and neighs as you’re walking down the beach and you get the sense that he’s strangely attracted to your reckless naivete, so you’re walking on the beach, well the piebald’s walking, you’re just sitting there, higher than normal, sitting there stretched and swollen, chaffed like you’ve just had sex but he forgot to bring his penis, and you wish you’d bought the dildo but decide instead to explore the horse in a more physical way now that you can loosen your grip on the reins. you find yourself rubbing, using your hands to brace yourself, and his hair is rough under your palms rough when it’s rubbed up the wrong way and the right way, and your legs, though aching, are moving to the rhythm, to the pace set by the horse because he’s the one whose really in charge here, he’s the one with all the control. if he chose to bolt and throw you onto the hard wet sand close to the water’s edge – he could. if he took it into his horsey brain to end your life right here on the beach then display over your rapidly cooling body – he could. so with fantasies of your own demise you find that the warm moistness that began in your belly is spilling down through channels that are familiar, and spreading to the cloth between your legs (only it doesn’t, it lands straight on the saddle, because you’re naked, though no one seems to notice).

Roxy Contin

no drunken upside.

unsympathetic to death even when he’s shivering in my bed i now suffer the complex web of guilt and longing that drape like glue through my chest cavity, not in a good way. then telling the coroner she was dealing with a charismatic corpse seems to relax the situation and build a rapport. but it’s too early to remember you fondly. i view your shell still as a person because that’s the way i have to deal with it until the tattoo on your chest confirms the worst with his stillness. i have a series of flashbacks that don’t so much remind me of you as take me away to a desolate neverland, a dark cave of dank maybes. and if i have to write another shitty love pome to tell you how i really feel, don’t expect a happy ending when the best sex we had was the night heath ledger died. so no matter how much i drink there is no drunken upside and i want to remember you fondly because you had so much potential, but that was yesterday, that was before the longest night, before you delivered the final sucker punch.

 

 

 

Roxy Contin

I Am the Most Prized of the Bridegrooms

Hell you call for me and

Hell I will follow you to

You and back

And I’ll befriend the demons and

Greet the popes and

Kiss Satan my betrothed

When he comes to me as a

Hunter returns with the

Horn of plenty

 

I am glad and alive with the bloat of love

 

Luke Weldon

Phosphorescent French Fry

A french fry rests in the ashtray, nestled in a pile of butts.
 She smiles and says something in Hebrew.

       Leaning toward her, I can see the tiny bugs on her lips and in her
hair.  I reach to pick them out but she’s too far away.  Standing up
is not an option.

       Outside, the waves retract into the lake.  I wonder what doppler
sounds like in reverse.

       She’s speaking again, this time in whispers.  Her head is shrinking
in on itself.  If there is a way to save her I’m not aware of it.

       She rifles through the ashtray quickly, snatching the french fry and
holding it up for me to see.  It appears to be phosphorescent.  When
she tries to eat it her mouth has already disappeared.

       Her eyes quiver in frustration as she bangs the fry against her chin.
 I want to help, but there’s nothing to do.

 

Shawn Misener

pelicula. a pussycat splendor. 3 chapters

1.

a soft skin for
a soft silence for
a bitter calm
between between
diced radioactive music tones
accentuating
the atonal squeals on video
in reality it was a diary

mist soaks a baggy black suit
hazy hazy
closing doors
revenge revenge
it walks away
leaving leaving
and they go away

a child kneeling in shadows they
go away
the morbid discharge
the deceitful demon
their happiness was just a python constructed of nails
glowing in the backdrop at the end of the street
gently slithering forward

her eyes locked on the target of
her love. no gaze returned. a monster
smiled at the irony and at the soft tingle freeze in her spine
crawling crawling
a pleasure from a bomb,
scare streets scream

tactics were none
her plans left to fester
no silence she
grabbed atonal music, just energy medicine
a monster is clad in steel
she’s in latex
she’s in leather
her eyes burned and
flexed as her missals smoldered wet
fetishes with sweat

she talked about traveling.
a beast called her home again
now to rest
to “be in peace” inside.
she couldn’t.

left to write
to create a sight
a monster hidden from
a memory recalled.

the floor squeaked.
her fur burned as her fingernails itched
a woman was reflected in the cracked glass
and she touched it deeply for a connection

a face underneath the
wood a mildew
a rotten
a touch for
a tomb
a barter for the infernal

 2.

don’t forget to
say your prayers
black eyeshadow
black mascara
3 times before you sleep.
on your knees as the nuns spake
before you sleep ask
to be forgiven
let us now praise
illicit dreams

a monster doesn’t want it if she can’t
have it
blackness crescendo as she (her back to the
wall) licks her lips
chapped with

craving languidly
fingering an image
not responding.

toys couldn’t quite accept
a satisfying feeling of punishment
from a magick lantern.

(the syringe prevented him from
being susceptible to physical experiments)
The clinical authors ordered to reduce her
he died in another glass shattering scream.
and was hidden about his life
under two more quick bursts,
under two more assertions.

 3.

she wants it to be cloudy today
and to rest and to rest some more
they could not help both of her
“this summer it will be different:
surf-city/ nathan’s hot dogs/ and bicycles”

 

Peter Marra