January 2016 | fiction
We were dug in beside the intersection of two roads under the stars when we saw three guys running up to the intersection with packs on their backs. They started planting roadside bombs. We killed two and took the other prisoner. The prisoner screamed all the way into base in Arabic, “fuck you” the only thing clear in all that yelling. The Major says: ‘You killed fifteen and captured five.’ I say: “Sir, it was two and one.’ He says: ‘Private, you fight; we do the arithmetic.’ Every day I look at the medal they gave me for this arithmetic and I think: Turn into a pass to get me the fuck out of here.
by Kim Farleigh
Kim has worked for aid agencies in three conflicts: Kosovo, Iraq and Palestine. He takes risks to get the experience required for writing. 131 of his stories have been accepted by 82 different magazines.
January 2016 | fiction
Tonight, I read like John Coltrane played, unfurl my jazz voice, make scotch-and-soda eyes to the crowd, syncopate my way into the snap-finger backroom, into the dark corner where the slick-haired man with the paint brush mustache, thick-lensed eyeglasses, and loose lower lip presses his nose into the pages of La Nación, and when I open fire from my throat, he looks up, his face says mujer atrevida, brazen woman, and he laughs, so I belt out we remember everything, and the crowd nods, they’re behind me squarely here in the Recoleta district, and I give them what they want, continue with the new Gestapo, so arresting in their certitude, move to hidden sphere of infinity and the beast roars through the blood on his teeth, and the man sneers, raises his newspaper and displays the headline—that commotion over in Villa Crespo, perhaps the start of an uprising—and maybe that’s going on here too, as I continue with when the lizard brain commands and the tiger is coming for you, then an epitaph, the chocolate fingers of the dead, and my constant image of this last month flashes into the room—a cadre of men and women, dressed in rumpled white cotton, in the middle, my brother Aurelio, who blew jazz sax like an angry god, collapsed into ropes that tied him round his pole (because there are such venues for that sort of thing), his fingers smeared from his last meal—a final taste of chocolate, of life, slipped into his cell by a pitying guard, and we heard that Aurelio thrust his chest and stomach out just as the order to fire was given and his loosened buttons popped, spilling the manifesto from his shirt as he shouted muerte a los traidores, and the man in the back makes a sour face as I scream: you can cut all the flowers but you can’t keep spring from coming and from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out where your heart lies, and there I end my work, with the good general slumped lifeless over the armrest of his chair and La Nación dangling between his fingers and the floor as the troopers herd in.
by Ronald Jackson
Ron Jackson writes stories, poems, and non-fiction. His work has appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Firewords Quarterly, Iodine Poetry Journal, Kentucky Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Prime Number Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and in anthologies and online venues. Recognitions include honorable mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition in 2012, third prize in Prime Number Magazine’s 2014 flash fiction competition, and honorable mention in the 2014 New Millennium Writings short-short fiction competition.
January 2016 | poetry
Photo printed with Funding Appeal, 1965
That behemoth Bel-Air,
its tail stopped by a tree,
lurches outside the photo frame
hiding its eyes, but most of all
stilling its mouth –
metal teeth in a tight grill
tensed to spill the truth.
It knows too much of the four
posed along its flank,
its silver trim and steel doors
a backdrop of comic relief
for the rescued souls
about to disappear into the bowels
of the rear-facing third seat
for a ride to Sunday School.
Innocence lost
in the House of Orphans
festers in greasy rivers
of soiled minds.
Just ask the coiffed one
staring intently
into the Brownie,
a little Red Riding Hood,
her headband taming tresses
loved by the wild boar of the night,
or the boy in black and white,
his skinned head and summer smile
claiming joy—
joy down deep in his heart,
one less waif on the streets
thanks to the largesse of donors.
That taller boy, arm behind his back
looks fit for service, if only
his new clothes weren’t hiding
cigarette burns —
scars that turned his heart to ash
and tossed it in a twilight zone.
The youngest,
a girl with a bob and a bag
looks like a proper wife in training
standing on the promises of a full belly
bound for glory in that Bel-Air –
such wishful thinking, these crafted fruits.
The children look pretty as their picture.
If only we could hear that car
spewing the old siren songs:
the Lord loves a cheerful giver,
and suffer the little children,
and public prayer has its reward.
by Janet Reed
Janet Reed teaches writing, literature, and theater for Crowder College, a small community college in the midwest. She lives large among her books, pets, and friends. Writing since childhood, she started submitting work for others to read this fall and is pleased that several pieces have been published.
