Wo c i r t c e l uld-Be E
Hidden Animals
Special Edition
March 2013
Hidden Animals Literary Magazine Issue 0.5 March 2013
www.HiddenAnimalsLit.com
Š 2013 Hidden Animals
Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 4 Howie Good ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Away From Here................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 5 My Superbowl Party .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Annunciation ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Ron Yazinski .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Sub Rosa ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 Prints ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9 Death as a Survival Tactic .............................................................................................................................................................................................10 Butterflies and Spiders ....................................................................................................................................................................................................11 Appendix...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................12 P.A. Levy .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... we should have been X rated .......................................................................................................................................................................................13 J.J. Campbell .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. sex dream ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................14 reluctant ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................15 hanging from a tree .......................................................................................................................................................................................................16 ten years later.................................................................................................................................................................................................................17 devilish innocence............................................................................................................................................................................................................18 Ines Franco Fatzinger ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... Little Bit Left ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................19 Michael Dwayne Smith .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. End of the World Parade ..............................................................................................................................................................................................20 Something Like ................................................................................................................................................................................................................20 Steve Klepetar............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Your Blessings ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................21 Scott C. Kaestner....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... evolutionary scenes & philosophies................................................................................................................................................................................22 protagonist .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................25 stardust & a soul ............................................................................................................................................................................................................26
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Afzal Moolla ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Hanna Kahle, Anene Booyson (1996-2013) ..................................................................................................................................................................27 M.V. Montgomery....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Summer Blackouts ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................29 Three and Out .................................................................................................................................................................................................................31 Felino A. Soriano....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... from Quintet Dialogues: translating introspection ........................................................................................................................................................32 Brian Michael Barbeito ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. The Science Fiction Writer .............................................................................................................................................................................................34 Bios ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................36
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Introduction: If you’re a writer, as I imagine that many of you reading this are, then you know the perils of letting go of your work and putting out in to the world of magazines and faceless literary editors. You spend your time stressing, perspiring, and losing sleep, trying to find the perfect combination of words, turn phrases around, pounding on keys, reading, revising, reading, revising, and on and on. Eventually, you decide it’s time to try to get published, select a few magazines to submit to, and then you play the waiting game. That’s where the peril comes in. It may not be life threatening peril, but waiting for that response from editors can be just as nerve racking as any near-death experience. What we all hope for is that letter saying the editors “thoroughly enjoyed your work and would like to include in our publication.” Of course, unless your name is Stephen King or Alice Munro or one of the other literary elite, these letters of acceptance are few and far between. More often, the letter received is some form document pronouncing that “this piece is not right for us.” At first, it stings, biting at your nerves like a Lilliputian cannibal. But, in quick order, you steel yourself, maybe think about writing a vitriolic reply to the editors, say to yourself, “Their loss,” and move on to find a more deserving market for your work. Rejection is a well-traveled rocky path, but there is one harsher experience for writers in the publication world. That’s the experience that all of the writers in this magazine, including myself, have paced through in the last year. Around June of 2012, we, among others, received the ever elusive acceptance letter for work that had been submitted to a fledgling online magazine, not unlike this one, called The Electric Poet. Certainly we were all elated; someone wanted to put our words in print (can we still call online publishing ‘print’?). We accepted the offer and started a new waiting game that plays out in the interim between the acceptance letter and the day of publication. This is a much easier waiting game by a great measure. So, we gladly sat back and waited for the first issue of The Electric Poet to appear on our computer screens. And we waited. Continued to wait. And waited some more. Each month, we received emails from the editor of TEP letting us know that the first issue was coming . . . sometime . . . soon . . . probably. Some of the writers placed their work with other magazines. Some continued to wait. But in December, when the publication’s website went dark, it was obvious that our work had simply rested in limbo to end up back where it started. For myself, this was actually the second time in 2012 that a publication that had accepted my work shutdown before publishing, so I was pretty sore on the whole thing; extremely disappointed that I had to start this viscous cycle over. So, when I decided to start Hidden Animals in January (a project long in gestation), I decided to reach out to my fellow would-be Electric Poets in order to right a what I perceived as a sort of literary injustice. The response I’ve gotten from those involved with this project has been extremely positive and I think that we have put together a wonderful magazine that I hope all readers will enjoy. I am extremely proud to present issue 0.5 of Hidden
Animals: Would-Be Electric. Eric K. Editor, Hidden Animals
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Howie Good
AWAY FROM HOME The history of this country tends toward collapse – amnesia, anemia, aphasia, and so on. Strangers rarely linger. Quarantined, the elderly are allowed at least to keep a fire. You can taste the smoke on the breeze. I wash the greasy taste away with a glass of the local beer. According to one story I’ve heard, the shadow is fourteen feet long; the breeze, only thirteen and a half. Another beer? the waitress asks, a hint of irritation, or even hostility, in her voice. There’s an empty speech bubble hovering just above my head. It would be different, perhaps, if my brain weren’t considered my best feature. The shadow clumps off over the cobblestones on silver crutches.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
MY SUPERBOWL PARTY Like everyone, I watched it on TV, drinking wine from a plastic cup. A girl group sang. I didn’t ooh like you. At some point, gray doves may have been released into the night like the stunned souls of twenty murdered children. I will be relieved, as I always am when it occurs, by the involuntary return of late spring tulips.
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ANNUNCIATION I pass half the day wondering what day today is, which world I’m in, a whiney voice in my head calling indistinctly for something – forceps? – and as I fumble in the drawer, the baby develops spidery cracks and then the perturbing laughter of light spreads.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Ron Yazinski
SUB ROSA “(Poetry is the … link between white butterfly-wings and the scraps of torn-up love letters.” Sandburg Because of a line by Sandburg I am out this morning Considering my roses. He said a rose begins as a baby’s fist And then opens into a man’s palm, With which I cup a red rose. Its scent reminds me of a bouquet Once sent by a desperate man To an unfaithful wife.
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PRINTS More poems come from walking than writing, Like now, when the leaves are magazine deep Across the path my dog and I routinely follow; And I am lost in thought amid the black cherries and maples, And for a moment unsure which way to take. And all because of a photo I saw yesterday Of a woman I once thought was beautiful: Didn’t I ever notice how her smile sags, And how pale she is, As if smoke flowed through her veins? Perhaps I only found her attractive Because she said she loved me, So much so, she wanted me to take pictures of her naked body. Which I didn’t. Perhaps, if I had, I’d have said that a camera can’t catch her soul, Or else admit that it had, and that I hadn’t. Which is no reason for me to get lost in the woods. Luckily, my dog has sniffed the base of a tree, and leads the way.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
DEATH AS A SURVIVAL TACTIC Eat your oatmeal and limit your drinking To one large whiskey a day. In the afternoon, if you must smoke a cigar, Do it while playing Frisbee with the dog. In these ways you’ll brace your flagging body In its fight with cancer, The rot, which, doctors say, is always with us, Like a guilty conscience. Left unchecked, it would sponge your already soft body. But, if you’re one of the lucky ones, Your cells have evolved a ruse To keep that curse from running rampant: They do so by aging. If the strategy is successful, You’ll smile at the humor Webbed into the universe, When the aneurysm In your ninety-year old chest Bursts into a kind of celebration Over the original sin of cancer.
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BUTTERFLIES AND SPIDERS Mobiles of butterflies quiver and twist in the early light, From the firecracker bushes to the plumbago And then back again. Mostly the wings are yellow and black, or blue and black, But there is one a bright orange, Known to collectors as the passion butterfly, That flashes, then pauses, and then flashes again. Above them, between the magnolia and the jasmine covered arbor, Glisten circles of dew-prismed webs Sparkling like compact disks, Perfect traps of Fibonacci precision, Awaiting a careless flutter. Any coloring pattern will do: To a spider one butterfly is as good as another. Like the ugly man with the cheap wig who once seriously joked That we swap wives for the night, As if they were butterflies in our web, Which made my skin crawl as if I were covered in spiders, Making me want to step on something.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
APPENDIX When I was four, I doubled over from a pain in my stomach Like a jamming of gears in my gut. When my father brushed the tips of his fingers against my skin I screamed as if he had stuck me with a screw driver. At the hospital, I remember having a hard time Stretching out on the operating table, then the smell of ether, And a masked green man ordering me to count backwards from a hundred. I got to ninety-two, and awoke in bed. All of this should be too prosaic to recount, Except that I now believe that the human body Is constructed around the appendix, Like a house is built around its interior staircase. And since my center was bad and had to be removed It explains the rest of my life. The medical debate over whether the appendix ever had a purpose, Either in digesting green leaves, Or in storing good bacteria that the body might eventually need, Doesn’t interest me. Not as much as the idea that it was the seat of the soul, The center of that gut feeling that determines right and wrong, Which I’ve had to do without.
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P.A. Levy we should have been X rated dad once told me don’t finger street girls after scoffing a bag of chips vinegar and salt will make ‘em whince georgie porgie puddin’ and pie kissed the girls and made ‘em cry eventhough these girls don’t do kissing would you really wanna kiss a mouth that’s been sucking dick after dick after dick dear dad love yer to bits but your advice was shit he also told us to always share like hippies passing round spliff or loved up ravers handing out pills the ones that keep yer dancing head first into bliss ring-a-ring a-roses a pocket full of posies atishoo atishoo we all fall down but he forgot to mention the junkies he should have told us always carry yer own works and spoon then you won’t get terminal diseases so much to learn but let’s face it there’s no adult themed warning once you leave school
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
J.J. Campbell sex dream a friend called me the other day and told me she had a sex dream about me the night before i laughed and asked if i was any good and she said not bad or how my ego took it i’ve had better she later admitted that she wasn’t sure if she reached climax or not but she said that was probably due to her husband sleeping next to her i told her not to worry i was pretty sure she wasn’t the first woman i couldn’t make cum in their dreams we both laughed mine a tad bit more uncomfortable than hers
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reluctant people think i’m crazy when i tell them i’ve been thinking about my death since i was eight years old i tell them i’m not interested in their thoughts some help would be more what i’m looking for that never seems to be anything anyone who thinks i’m crazy is willing to offer and my mother wonders why i’m reluctant to share my true feelings with others
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
hanging from a tree there are days when i picture myself hanging from a tree down in my front wood lot deep within the woods where no one would find the body until long after the animals had picked me apart it’s the three a.m. phone calls where the woman you love tells you you’re a piece of shit and she can never trust you that has me searching for a long enough rope a long enough ladder and the will to not chicken out that last one is the hardest to find but i am getting there slowly but surely
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ten years later today marks ten years since my stepfather died and i’d like to think the only man ever to treat me like a son would be proud of who i am ten years later but then i realize that’s simply the alcohol talking
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
devilish innocence she said i write better poems when she makes me depressed i laughed uneasily at the devilish innocence in which she said these words and then we shared a moment of silence plotting our next moves all the while i secretly acknowledged that she was correct
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Ines Franco Fatzinger
Little Bit Left Your words, your presence Are like vultures Waiting for death, Taking pieces of my soul What little bit is left. What happened? I don’t recognize Whom I see In the mirror or In front of me. What once was special Now is poison in my life. Your charm is ever deceiving, Beautiful like a flower Sharp like a knife. I don’t want this. Your presence is a chokehold. I can’t breathe. I must go because My heart has turn cold.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Michael Dwayne Smith
End of the World Parade —disc slips in the neck, advancing cancer, & the dream recurring, like the fat moths of regret flung by dumb memory at a fizzing bare bulb, back & back again, slowly letting air from the tires, grinding down the engines of motivation & enthusiasm, blind faith too tired to tap the sidewalk, scuffling into the comic noise of intersections, taxis scurling by, hoisting fashionable crackhead blowjobs in the backseat, drivers oblivious to scenes or pedestrians or deep rhythms of breath being choked off in the pumice air tumbling around city blocks, circling thick heads plugged into satellite dishes & KFC & decay in the signal, insects spinning out of the whirl to die, little souls slipped from dry shells, spirits dissipated, their spent husks floating to the streets, a bright wartime confetti—
Something Like “Black sparrow wings / snagged on barbed wire,” or maybe “Young girls in yellow summer dresses / on the street smoking cigarettes / sneaking sips of vodka / from a lime green leather purse.” Sparrows wriggle free. Find themselves at café tables plucking rotten green fries beneath twirling yellow plumes of city girl. The blonde spies a broken, liceriddled bird and thinks instantly of flight, of every green spring not where she is, and nothing of what city girls are. She’ll take another drink, slip the pint under the table to a faux redhead. When pressed by lovers or friends to explain, she’ll say something like, “Nicotine stained cotton / torn on metal bed frames / injured sparrow flapping / bloody feather circles / one yellow wasp lighting / on a cold vodka lake.”
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Steve Klepetar
Your Blessings Too cold in your blessings, I lean into wind and find a flower blooming there, dew-soaked, lustrous as pearl. Suddenly an angel speaks, voice trumpeting out across the dessert of our hands. They touch nothing, only air fluttering in the gaps between our fingers. We’ve been strung on a necklace of straw, we dangle like teardrops of glass. Heavy and clear, we fall through chilly air, we are rain and rivers and mud, we grow roots in the fibrous bodies of our hollow bones. Who could predict this flying and these visions nailed to our starlit eyes? Nowhere to hide, we open ourselves to the raucous companions of night.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Scott C. Kaestner evolutionary scenes & philosophies (1) roaming in a wonder wilderness, a little bit bewildered but in a good way (2) life happens whether we choose to or not (3) people at the pizza parlor eating slices of pie drinking soda pop reminds me in spite of our differences we are the same, want the same things (4) you cannot, under any circumstance, shine shit (5) never under appreciate the concept and importance of space, actual physical space, when flying coach (6) conquering reality real homies keep it real (7) basketball like poetry
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all ebb n’ flow go man go gritty underneath beauty above a sacred circle (8) easier to listen and understand when you shut up zip it shush shhh quiet silent ((om)) (9) true love never lies, neither does the mirror (10) it all makes so much sense walking the city streets at sunset, moon aglow in hazy sky people inside automobiles traffic flowing with the fleeing that’s when freedom really is in America (even if only temporarily) (11) in the womb of reflection the essence of time is introduced in a new light (12) without coffee steady employment would be impossible
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
(13) zen is the manifestation of spirit through channels of keen awareness knowing that change is constant and interconnectivity undeniable brothers & sisters, it does take a village – lots of them in fact – one planet one love revolving round & round, we go‌
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protagonist to be a poet is to stand up, stand out a state of mind an altered being stranger than fiction yet forever demanding truth for even in the face of ignorance, thought cannot be stopped the pen a sword, let verse set us free and our flow capture beauty inherent wherever we may roam
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
stardust & a soul tonight, as light glows in a crystal clear los angeles sky, i sit alone in darkness listening to santa ana winds howl thinking of god the strength, the beauty here to realize i am just stardust & a soul beholden to the power in awe of the majestic mystery of it all...
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Afzal Moolla Hamba Kahle*, Anene Booysen (1996 - 2013). Dead at 17, brutally raped and left to die, in the dirt, at a construction site in Bredasdorp**. 'horrific', 'repulsed', 'brutally raped', 'shocked', do these words mean anything, to anyone, anymore. Not to Anene Booysen, murdered at 17, brutally raped and left to die, in the dirt, at a construction site in Bredasdorp. Anene was raped, savagely mutilated, Her 17 year old body tossed aside, by the hands of men. Men, always men, cowardly, beastly, perverted, twisted men. 'Beastly', 'perverted', 'twisted', do these words mean anything, to anyone, anymore.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Not to Anene Booysen, who now lies cold and dead. How many Anene Booysens will it take, for us, society, families, people, human-beings, and, men, especially men, to excise the ghastly menace, of the heinous capacity that resides, within men, always men, to brutalise, rape, mutilate, and murder.
'Brutalise', 'murder', 'rape', do these words mean anything, to anyone, anymore. Not to Anene Booysen, murdered at 17, brutally raped and left, to die, in the dirt, at a construction site, in Bredasdorp. * - 'Hamba Kahle' is a Zulu expression that means 'Go well' or 'Farewell'.
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** - Bredasdorp is a small town near Cape Town, South Africa.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
M.V. Montgomery Summer Blackouts buzz of conversation I must have been looking ahead to the summer family vacation, because as I luxuriated in my bed a bit longer, I believed I heard the buzz of relatives in the next room. And I thought, Ah, I’ll bet someone’s up making coffee. Then I blinked open my eyes. I was still at home, where a paper wasp had gotten trapped behind my window screen and struggled awkwardly to get out.
family logbook On our trip, my siblings and I have decided to keep a log. But it seems that each time I make an entry, my sisters start a new thread, and then others join in until the page is filled. Are they “flooding” me? I wonder.
midnight snack I was trying to decide if my daughter was old enough to be left home alone. I had to leave for work the next morning at 5:00. I thought yes, she should be good to sleep in. Her sitter would arrive a couple of hours later. But then she came out of her room for a midnight snack—a whole apple, tortilla chips, and an unwrapped brick of cheese she intended to microwave all at the same time—and I wasn’t so sure.
forest fare With my daughter, hungry. We come to a building that looks more like a parking garage than a mall, but we follow an arrow pointing down and a sign that reads, “Rainforest Restaurant.” In the restaurant are communal tables. We sit across from two men just finishing their meal. The waiter brings out two dishes to start, one containing something like hominy and the other, orange berries. One of the men has ordered a dish referred to as “forest eggs”—spheres molded of nuts, vegetables, mushrooms, etc. I ask about the eggs and he offers me the whole plate, saying he is giving it to us. Next the waiter brings out a plate featuring two pine cones. They are bitter-nutty yet sweet at the base, a little like pecans, but to be peeled and eaten like artichokes.
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clean sound A struggling rock band, for lack of technical equipment, has made a recording on a folded face towel. It is being played back on an old turntable and the fidelity is surprisingly good. Music producers gather around in an executive washroom to listen.
souvenirs Coming back from a family trip to Italy, I realize my purchases have been uninspired. I have bought more paintings I don’t have room for, and my daughter Rina has chosen books she could just as well have ordered in the States. My travelling companions all have much more interesting items to declare: wine, dresses, suits, boots, etc. But my sister’s toddler Ryan is in distress because he has lost his “Dry Ri”—a kind of doll for kids that helps them toilet-train. He is about to melt down, running through Customs calling for his doll, when he sees a loose bag full of junk my daughter and I have collected. He picks out a chew-toy Rina has brought back for her dog Rosie, a plastic red pepper, and says, I like this. Do you like it better than Dry-Ri? Yes! So she tosses the pepper up into the air for him and he catches it.
campground My sister kept tossing into a lake some containers I was trying to pack, always close enough for me to retrieve. Then just before the family was going to abandon the campsite for good, she threw one far across the choppy water. It floated just out of reach. Finally, it was time to get the van from the parking area. I was going to drive home with my no-longer alert uncle in front with me. We were still loading and I was needed to carry more bags, so I asked him to pull the van around. He did, but then kept going, driving off before any of us could get in.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Three and Out margaritaville meds I had just navigated downtown traffic and a nearly full parking deck, so the look on my face as I walked into the physician’s office could not have been cheerful. The doctor was standing by the front counter, and apparently my expression registered with him, because during the physical, he kept asking me questions about my problem. No matter what I replied, he would invariably “reflect” it back—I hear you saying that you don’t really know of any specific problem, but I know that we all have issues, and everything affects us physiologically and psychologically! It sounded as if he were disposed to write all his patients a prescription for medicinal marijuana. Reluctantly, I agreed to meet him at his beachfront “wet lab” the next day to “pour over test results,” though I began to suspect everything was a pun with this guy. Sure enough, the venue turned out to be a cantina, where I was greeted by a young nurse who administered to me a frozen drink with a half-cocked miniature umbrella. From a nearby booth, the doctor waved. He was wearing a bright shirt covered with palm trees and parrots.
slideshow teddy Teddy is leaning over my shoulder, breathing rather uncomfortably close to my neck. I am holding up his iPhone to review a series of travel pictures he shot while on the beach in Mexico. He had taken along his girlfriend, who recently had implant surgery, and his repertoire as a photographer—well, let’s just say that it did not encompass much more than the human subject. Well? he asks me a few minutes later, after this monotonous presentation is over. Very nice, I say politely. Nice work.
speaker’s corner While strolling through the park, I saw an elderly man near the gate waving his arms and expostulating wildly to no one in particular. He seemed oblivious to passers-by as he hammered home point after point to his imaginary audience. Two skateboarders coasted by. Dude, that guy is high tech! I heard one of them remark. His headset was like, invisible!
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Felino A. Soriano from Quintet Dialogues: translating introspection |11| loaned light exaggerates its warmth attempting manipulation of perhaps the manmade aggregation of loan’s definitional possibility: kept keep
confirmed
alerting those in the waiting stance of hope to combine collaboration with waiting’s deliverance and mobile fixation on accepting gift as premised anticipation |12| evidence awakens with the arm of a rising figurine saluting salutation surgical in the softened movement, precise precocious among sedentary half-stepping hallucinations gaining theatre applause
boiling with music’s sidewalk style rectitude of morning’s inflamed emergent language |13| in my leaving returning alters perceived perceptual nuances: intuition examines radial motives
such or as in curtailing involves mistrusting aspirations
and dissolved components of time’s being
the moving of corporeal fictions
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
sifting what has shifted into designated alphabets of relayed inclinations |14| obviated clarity announcing dispositional clashes with mundane explanations of language’s mis(thus missed/misused/misinterpreted)trusting focal-analogies fixed-aggregations disallowing perception to engage with a future premised in the blur of acclimated hallucination |15| organized though fluctuating then though oscillating
then yes,
undulating of the self’s inventive
these mirrors often rotate examining focal-altered meaning
otherness blending sans smudge of recreating virtue myriad architecting hands
in the manner of retrofitting the I of destining
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Brian Michael Barbeito The Science Fiction Writer I was sitting in a little room staring out of a window that did not have a cage. Beside it was a door that did not have a buzzer. The door should have had a buzzer, and the windows should have had a cage. The powers that be though, are cheap... There should really be a cage in places like that, because that could buy you the few minutes you need in an emergency. I did my work without a cage. This woman came into the room and said, I know you are a writer, and I am a writer also. I would like you to start a writing group that has nothing to do with this place, that is on the outside, for... For writers, I guessed. She smiled and let me away with that one. I told her I would do it. She had a book coming out so it was a bit of a political move, but it is okay to be taken sometimes, just a little bit, as long as you know you are being taken. I set everything up and soon we began. Nobody showed up. Week after week we sat there, keeping the hours in a small bookstore. We never talked about writing. Sometimes I got up and browsed around like a good bourgeoisie type of person. I noticed that on almost all of the books there were two things. One would be a notice that told about the big award that a given book had won. The second thing was a declaration stating that this or that author was surely the ‘voice' of some new and great message in literature. I thought that was good enough, but I wondered how so many books could win so many prizes and also how so many persons could be ‘the' voice. Mostly I walked back to my chair and looked at the electric lights on the ceiling. One day this kid walked in and stood at our table. I had half-forgotten we were a writers group. After all, it had been weeks and weeks with no writers. I didn't even bring paper and pen any more, and the woman just sat and read her important novel on a laptop. I figured she was going to perhaps win a big prize and be an important new voice in contemporary literature. It was only a matter of time. Anyhow, the kid said, I am a writer and I have come to see you. Like, duh, I thought, but I didn't say anything. Then he sat down. He couldn't of been more than sixteen years old. He told us but I forget. I want to think that he said he was exactly sixteen, had just turned sixteen or something. Well, he had written two novels and they were science fiction books. When I read through them I almost forgot to breathe. This kid had written works that seemed practically unparalleled. This kid had scope, breathe, depth, and everything else. He had created characters, cities, planets, galaxies and more. Everything took place over thousands and thousands of years, with a myriad of subplots. It all made sense, went along seamlessly, and worked wonderfully. It reminded me of one of those large sand mandalas some Hindu or Buddhists sects make over months, full of colors and intricacies, and then destroy at the end to remind of the impermanence of life. I asked him how he did it. He said that he had for one, been working on them for a couple of years, and for two, gotten a lot of the material from dreams.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
One night, the last time I saw him, we went out afterwards to grab a bite to eat. It turned out that he had no money and just wasn't able to say anything about it for some reason. I thought that the woman and I would chip in and buy him his food. That that would be fair. But the woman said maybe next time. So I bought him his food. Afterwards, he asked me to drop him in his neighborhood. He lived in a real extra-shitty part of town with his grandmother. He had been an only child and both his parents were dead. He told me to let him off near the main streets and so that is what I did. There is where the science fiction writer went into the darkness with his manuscripts and his no money. He didn't show up again, and soon everything fizzled out anyway. I left the place that had no cage or buzzer that should have had a cage and buzzer. Never again did I see the bookstore, the woman, or the science fiction writer.
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Bios Brian Michael Barbeito I am a poet, essayist, and translator; I was born in Ontario, Canada and reside in the greater Toronto area. Published collections of my work include Vignettes: prose narratives, Postprandial: a prose poem novel, and Notes from November’s Noon: a chapbook in fictional letters. I am a Pushcart Prize nominee for the short story The One Single Note (Lunatics Folly, 2011), and for the short story Motel by the Stereo Sea (Mungbeing Magazine, 2012). Some of the publications my writings have appeared in include Glossolalia, Otis Nebula, and Whisperings Magazine. Currently I am working on a compilation of short stories called Electric Light, and the novel Autumnal, Light and Dark. J.J Campbell J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) lives, writes, and mostly dies a little each day on 80 acres in Ohio. He's been widely published over the years, most notably at Chiron Review, Thunder Sandwich, Nerve Cowboy, Zygote in my Coffee, and Underground Voices. His first full length collection of poetry, Sofisticated White Trash, is scheduled to be published in 2013 by Interior Noise Press. You can contact J.J. via email (jcampb4593@aol.com) or via his highly entertaining blog, evil delights (http://evildelights.blogspot.com). Ines Franco Fatzinger Ines Franco Fatzinger is an American citizen residing in the Netherlands just outside of Amsterdam. She is currently a student with The Writers Studio out of New York City. Ines has had several poems, short stories and one photo published online. She also enjoys photography. She holds a BBA and MBA in Business Management. Before becoming a writer, she worked for accounting and investment banking firms. She is married with two children and one very large Dutch dog. Howie Good Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has had numerous chapbooks, including A Special Gun for Elephant Hunting from Dog on a Chain Press, Strange Roads from Puddles of Sky Press, and Death of Me from Pig Ear Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. Scott C. Kaestner Scott C. Kaestner - a Los Angeles poet - has published three collections of poetry (Wasteland Press), appears in a myriad of literary journals both online and in print (google - scott kaestner poetry), hosts a monthly reading series at Home Room gallery, believes in the unbelievable, and awaits the dreamer's revolution patiently with a properly poured pint of Guinness in one hand and a pen in the other.
Hidden Animals: Would-Be Electric
Steve Klepetar Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. In 2012 Flutter Press published two of his chapbooks: "My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word" and "My Father Had Another Eye." P.A. Levy Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’ and stations in-between. He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at www.cluelesscollective.co.uk M.V. Montgomery M.V. Montgomery is a professor at Life University in Atlanta,Georgia. He will have two books published in 2013: Beyond the Pale (Winter Goose Publishing, short stories) and The Island of Charles Foster Kane (poetry and experimental fiction). His website is mvmontgomery.wordpress.com. Afzal Moola Afzal Moolla lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. He writes for pleasure.
Afzal included this note about his poem:
A 17 year old teenager was brutally raped and murdered recently in a small town near Cape Town, in South Africa. The horrific crime has shaken the whole country to its core. I wrote a poem to express my outrage. Michael Dwayne Smith Michael Dwayne Smith proudly owns and operates the English-speaking world’s most mysterious name. His apparitions haunt Word Riot, decomP, kill author, Heavy Feather Review, Monkeybicycle, BLIP, Blue Fifth Review, Orion headless, and other literary houses. A recipient of both the Hinderaker Prize for poetry and the Polonsky Prize for fiction, he lives in a desert town with his wife, son, and rescued animals—all of whom talk in their sleep. Conjure him on Twitter with the spell @michaelthebear or on the interwebs at michaeldwaynesmith.tumblr.com Felino A. Soriano Felino A. Soriano has authored nearly five dozen collections of poetry, including the collaborative volume with poet, Heller Levinson and visual artist, Linda Lynch, Hinge Trio (La Alameda Press, 2012) rhythm:s (Fowlpox Press, 2012), and Quartet Dialogues (white sky ebooks, 2012). He publishes the online endeavors Counterexample Poetics and Differentia Press. His work finds foundation in philosophical studies and connection to various idioms of jazz music. He lives in California with his wife and family and is the director of supported living and independent living programs
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providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities. For further information, please visit www.felinoasoriano.info.
Ron Yazinski I am a retired English teacher who, with my wife Jeanne, divide my time between Northeastern Pennsylvania and Winter Garden, Florida. My poems have appeared in Strong Verse, The Bijou Review, Amarillo Bay, The Edison Literary Review, The Cynic Review, The Wilderness House Review, Chantarelle’s Notebook, The Electric Poet, Centrifugal Eye, amphibi.us, The Write Room, Pulsar and Crash. I am also the author of the chapbook HOUSES: AN AMERICAN ZODIAC, which was published by The Poetry Library and a book of poems SOUTH OF SCRANTON.
Hidden Animals
Would-Be Electric
Issue 0.5