January 2017 | fiction
I’m fifty years ago, at a party, drinking a martini and smoking a cigarette. I’m wearing my suit and tie and idly listening to little pieces of three different conversations. Wasn’t West Side Story a wonderful movie? How about the new president and his promise to have a man on the moon by decade’s end? Is there going to be a problem with this place suddenly appearing in the newspapers, this Vietnam wherever it is? People are dancing and the room is thick and warm. My martini is wonderfully cold and bitter. Someone puts a different record on the phonograph. They turn the music up loud.
I’m there and also here with you half a century later at the edge of a vast and darkened field. Rain has come and gone and we smell wet grass and a hint of autumn. If the clouds clear we’ll see the first of the evening stars. The wind blows itself out and the night grows still. A few minutes ago something unpleasant happened between us and we came out to the field because a little fresh air might wash the anger from our souls. I can’t tell if anything has gotten better. Maybe I’ve calmed down, but the truth is I am confused.
You’re here with me and the field stretches out ahead and those clouds aren’t getting any thinner and a drop of rain just hit my cheek and everything about us is vague and uncertain. The field is a continuation of the argument started back at the house. You hate how my mind forever wanders to somewhere far away. You want to know why I can’t change that about myself and the answer is there on my lips and at the same time is not.
Joel Best
Joel Best has published in venues such as Atticus Online, decomP, Crack the Spine and Blaze Vox. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and son.
October 2016 | fiction
My alcoholism was never once suspected. I had made it a strict habit not to get completely bombed under twenty-four hours before flight. Much of the time outside of flying and the twenty-four hours prior to flight time, is obliterated. I have a home in Los Angeles, and I have a home Pittsburgh. I have had two marriages, and remember very little of either one. The one time I felt in complete control of my life was behind the instrument panel of a jet airliner with the hundreds of souls behind me having entrusted me to their care and survival. This act, this solid performance, I was able to keep up for close to twenty-five years. I will neither declare nor confess that in the air I ever felt any particular sense of power. Rather, I felt a peculiar place of belonging, as when, as a young boy, I had watched a Scout Master surveying the white tufts of a river from the shore before taking our small fleet of six canoes through the whitewater. He was reading the line. He did so with his human eye and one paddle held up to it like a rifle, tracing the flow of the river. Even with all the computerized instrumentation that will chart a course in the air throughout a flight’s journey, when flying I felt this brief sense of being alive as I had once felt canoeing. While human participation in the flying of such airborne crafts is nearly superfluous, as flying a jet is nearly automated, I must also believe that this respite of being able to live a life outside of my time spent on the ground had saved me from one of criminal madness, an accidental suicide, or some passionate murder.
Duff Allen
Duff Allen is a writer who lives in upstate New York. He has an MFA from Bard College where he teaches writing in the Clemente Course for the Humanities. His work may be found in “Prima Materia” and other publications.
October 2016 | poetry
Burial
When Uncle was buried,
it was on top of Great-Grandfather
for the cemetery had long been full on the ground floor.
Uncle was able to meet Great-Grandfather
for the first time since he was seven.
Uncle was surprised by Great-Grandfather’s gingham dress,
which, Great-Grandfather explained, was Great-Aunt’s.
Being buried next to each other, they had
mixed together during their melting period.
They were looking forward to what Uncle would bring.
Would he ante up a new toe for the ones that were lost?
(Such is the absent-mindedness of the dead.)
Great-Grandfather/Great-Aunt also needed a belt
and memories of a colorful bird in a green, green tree.
They wanted again to see what the eyes see as they rot away,
the beautiful distortions of the earth.
Answer
Your hair is an answer to the light.
It is “no.” It is “scat!” It is “don’t
come sniffin’ round here no more.”
And so the light
must find another place to scavenge,
to curl into a ball and sleep restlessly.
The light sinks into your eyes,
nests in your mind,
casts shadows as words and nipples,
flickers and twinkles and sighs.
God, An Autobiography
I arrived in the town when it was dark.
The place was quiet.
The people hid in closets, unable to sleep for days.
What’s come before has changed this place forever.
There were accidents and an epidemic.
The blood turned to dust in the veins, stopping the heart.
This didn’t affect everyone—there were survivors.
Dirt in a flowing stream can remain suspended for eternity.
The bodies, as always, flowed down the river,
Were buried by more fortunate towns downstream.
The survivors are no longer men,
Only the shepherds in the fields still really exist.
Things I Remembered After Getting Off the Phone With You
The name of the new woman at work who dries up pens with her touch.
What I need from the grocery store.
There’s a movie I should tape for Rachel.
There was a sad note in your voice.
Ryan said to tell you hello. He’s thinking of getting a cat.
I never finished copying the cake recipe. All is incomplete.
I need to vacuum behind the couch for the needles I dropped there last night.
Your voice was a bright light—startling, beautiful, oppressive.
The litter box needs changing. There are bones in there.
You never finished your sentence on your reason for calling,
The reason your voice was 1000 miles out and sinking.
Danielle Hanson
Danielle Hanson received her MFA from Arizona State University and now lives in Atlanta, GA. Her book Ambushing Water is forthcoming from Brick Road Poetry Press. Her work has appeared in over 45 journals and anthologies, including Hubbub, Iodine, Rosebud, Poet Lore, Asheville Poetry Review, and Blackbird. Currently, she is on the editorial staff for Loose Change Magazine. She has edited Hayden’s Ferry Review, worked for The Meacham Writers’ Conference, and been a resident at The Hambidge Center. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
October 2016 | poetry
Born in a Hindu society
Guided by the rites and norms,
He lived till the dusk
And the sands of time bided him farewell.
Now he lies here cold,
Overlaid by the white shawl,
He knows not, the decoration he has
The string that joins his toes,
Last bless of red mark, he owes.
Silent he rises,
With the green bamboo, he dwells.
Carried by his belongings,
Hurried for the voyage long
The holy river is ready for salvation.
Now he lies in the bed of pyre
His feet facing south,
There comes his eldest son
The authorized cremator
Bathed and holy
The farewell has started.
His son circumbulates him
Parroting the eulogy,
He knows not, the grains in his mouth,
He knows not, three lines drawn on him,
Dormant, he lies there ablaze.
“Time for goodbye, my mate
They knows not, you already have rebirth,
A different form of life by reincarnation,
They knows not, it’s your birth date,
Your wishers are mourning today
For the funeral of your birth date”
Arjun Dahal
Arjun Dahal is 20 years old student of physics and mathematics at Tribhuwan University. His interests include physics, mathematics, music, literature and philosophy. This is his first attempt of publishing work in international level.
October 2016 | fiction
He lay in bed quietly, not daring to move, holding his arms and legs and breathing as still as they could be held, waiting, not sure for what. The room had darkened, but was not too dark for him to see the outlines of the furniture, the central light fixture, the door slightly ajar, the slippers on the floor next to his desk. He could hear the slow ticking of the windup clock on his dresser but could no longer see the hands that marked the hour and minute. His heart beat along with the seconds, and the emptiness between beats stretched longer and longer even though he knew time could not be stretched.
Without realizing that he was drifting into sleep, the boy felt his body move, swinging back and forth on an axis through his navel. The movement dizzied him, but he enjoyed the speed, a whipping sensation as if he sat at the rear of a roaring roller coaster. He willed himself to spin entirely around, faster with each revolution. He was conscious that he still lay in his bed, but the part of his brain pursuing the thrill of movement cared not. Then, inevitably, his body slowed and he grew sad, sorry to be brought back to stillness. He opened his eyes to find the room pitch black, but could still hear the seconds.
Bruce Berger
Bruce J. Berger is an MFA candidate at American University in Washington, DC. His work appears in Wilderness House Literary Review, Prole, Jersey Devil Press Anthology, Black Magnolias, and a variety of other literary journals.
