October 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Nuwara Eliya
We almost ask each other questions. Is there a curfew? At what time? Do we need to run? Do we want to? How many dogs make up a pack? How many smoking men make up a crowd? Is the pack dangerous? Sinister? Broken? Sad? What about the crowd? Why do the smoking men smell like fish? Why do they wear sarongs even when it’s cold? Why are they awake when everyone is asleep? Why is the cool air so tender upon my neck? When they yell out do we cross the street? Do we still look back over our shoulders and gently wave? Do we say hello? Do we bow? How do we say hello in Sinhala? Ayubowan. What do we say then?
Dinner
Dinner is braised rabbit with fennel and mustard. The rabbit meat, Dad says, reminds him of Iowa in the winter. He removes his glasses and asks me to help him tell a story about a rabbit in Iowa snow. Is the rabbit pretty? I ask. Is his hair hapless? Stiff? Is there snow caught in his tiny eye? Do we cut off his feet to carry in our pockets? Like he is all ours? The rabbit looks like death, Dad says. The rabbit is just a metaphor, I say. No, Dad says, you’re wrong. The rabbit is just a rabbit.
by Dylan Fisher
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
His memory
was a mortuary
for the time capsuled
thoughts that
recessed – to erase
the condescension
that presided
over the torment,
that buried beneath
the sulfured
insubordination.
Their sardonic
disposition
grinned
as they froze
like winters
remorse,
while their
malevolence
anointed
fiction and
constructed
the masquerade
of fabrics built
within his presence.
Their thoughts
were pistols,
but they
shot their trite
under their
muscles,
where
they pinched
like needles,
and sedated their
fallacies with
laughters
beyond the
steel curtains,
where grinders
decimated
his heart.
When he
pleaded
for help,
they vanished
like spirits,
but when
they called,
he stood
there like a
stubborn weed,
refusing to
be torn from
the graveled soil,
as animosity
vanquished
their sanctioned
apparitions.
In his presence,
he may not
feel the taint,
even when
it surrounds him,
but when they
depart they
grab their
scissors
and cut
through
their honesty
and saw
their truths
as if authenticity
had dissipated,
and resentment
reigned
until he felt the rain
of suspicion
linger like
a lobotomized
incision.
Images
project their
sardonic
smiles
and they
resurface
like debt,
with deception
smeared on
the lies
they closeted.
They departed
after their shifts,
but their
bodies rifled
stronger signals
than the cell phones
they possessed.
by Christopher Ozog
Christopher Ozog is a 22 year old poet residing in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He Has previously been published in Burningword Literary Journal and The Commonline. To learn more, visit his twitter at “@expressiveozog.”
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Bad reviews and criticism at every turn
But it catches on, and it’s repeated
Because it’s good, and it creates desire.
And we never noticed our congeniality
Answering what we looked up to
Along with any semblance of uniqueness.
Nurturing our urges, inspiring our dreams,
No, it’s not original, should it matter
Now that we have embraced it?
Making us love it, and imitate it
Masking our truest intentions
Milking the creativity we used to have as kids.
Asking us to believe what ever
Average people love and sing and read
Accepting without questioning motives.
Not realizing that we have power though
Nothing allows us to become self-aware
Never understanding that we write the books.
by Saul Blair
Saul Blair is a student that recently graduated (2014) from Lee College in Baytown, Texas, with four A.A.’s in Literature, Humanities, Social Science, and Liberal Arts. He is an aspiring poet who has written academic papers that have been accepted and presented in Utah, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. as well as outside the U.S.A. in Wales, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka, and China. He will be enrolling at the University of Houston in the fall of 2014.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Gurgling, squinty-eyed
life form trying to make sense
of the alien sights and sounds
of a double date. My still-together parents,
weary from nightly feedings,
out of the house for once.
Another young couple in seats beside,
a good three months removed—as the stork flies—
from their own life-altering arrival.
The loud noises, a tub of new smells
being passed back and forth,
the incomprehensibly large screen,
whereon another scared, puzzled life form
comforts himself with Reese’s Pieces,
tries desperately to
phone home.
The darkened atmosphere
is my only reassurance. The dark,
I recognize. The dark, I know and love.
Which is why I’ll scream and shout
and cry and wail
until I’m taken to a place
free from strange noises and smells
and bright moving pictures. Back
to the familiar cotton embrace,
the faithful shimmer and twirl
of mobile constellations in the over-crib sky,
the sleep-inducing scent
of powder and safety.
Back to my home planet.
by Ryan Frisinger
Ryan Frisinger is a professor of English, holding an M.F.A. in Writing from Lindenwood University. He is also an accomplished songwriter, whose work has been featured in numerous television shows, such as America’s Next Top Model and The Real World. His non-musical writing has appeared in publications like Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and The MacGuffin. He resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his more-talented wife and couldn’t-care-less cat.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
This city is full of the dead
(I’m told by the living).
The Irish know their dead well,
6000 years of skeletons and coffins
and unmarked graves,
according to the living.
Here I am, alive in Dublin
drinking tea and listening to church bells
resounding like drunken teenagers
from a Cathedral older than my family name
sitting amongst the dead.
What good is life if we avoid
familiarizing ourselves
with the ninety-nine names of death?
She walks hurriedly around here, I think.
Death scurries from convent to church to pub
in order to meet her demands.
I’ve often considered inviting her in,
the poor thing,
for a cup of tea, or a pint,
or whatever it is death enjoys.
It’s not that I’m insane or anything.
There’s just something about this hallowed city
where the living manage to keep track of the dead
the way stockbrokers keep track of markets
and musicians keep track of the beat
that makes me pity death. She seems lonely
but far from idle. I sit here drinking tea
wondering if death would accept my admonitions
and take a nap in my bed,
curled up like a snail in a shell,
as the church bells howl
and construction workers laugh
above a slab of concrete where a man was shot,
whispering in her sleep about her many tormented lovers.
by Keene Short
Keene Short is a life-long resident of Flagstaff, Arizona. He currently studies English and History at Northern Arizona University, and when he is not writing or reading, he hangs out with folk singers and wayward preachers at local coffee shops.
