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Editor-in-Chief A journal can hold the most secret information about ourselves. We pour our hopes, dreams, fears, and even our love affairs into these little notebooks. They can appear as daily entries, poems, or even as drawings and sketches. Whether or not a person uses their journal every day or just once a month, their history is recorded and ready for others to flip through and explore. In this year’s issue of Sanskrit we invite you to explore the various experiences and histories of the many authors and artist from around the world who have submitted their work to be shared with all of you. I hope you all find each personal memory that every author and artist has embedded into their work as you read Sanskrit’s very own little black book. Yours truly,
Joshua Wood | Editor-In-Chief
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Contents
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Synesthesia by Carrie Overcash The Garden by Joanna Zamora Nobel Laureate Explains How He’s Saving the World on NPR by Michael Mark Life, Death, and Renewal by Kellie Funderburk Canvas by Gabriella M. Belfiglio
6 7 8
Hymenoptera by Richard M. Smith Redefining the Landscape, Texas by Kylie Niemand Redefining the Landscape, New Mexico by Kylie Niemand The Hen by David Sapp Refusal by Claire Scott Malapropism by Jan Ball Self by Dakota Rose Redefining the Landscape, Arizona by Kylie Niemand Interruption by Jonathan Doughty Blossoms by Mark Belair The Cooperate Ladder by Jemima Omalay Self Potrait by Rachel Fussell County Detox by Margaret Drummond Consuming Desires #3 by Kylie Niemand Consuming Desires #4 by Kylie Niemand Commissioners For Lost Love by John Grey Sober Bingo by Margaret Drummond Consuming Desires #7 by Kylie Niemand Inner Excavation by Analiz Laracuente-Espinal Consuming Desires #1 by Kylie Niemand Consuming Desires #2 by Kylie Niemand Duck Hunting Notes by James Proffitt Gone Fishing by Sarah Kinney Becoming a Novice by Johnathan Doughty Consuming Desires #5 by Kylie Niemand Consuming Desires #6 by Kylie Niemand Rummy by Jan Ball Robot Drawing by Kellie Funderburk Blues by Johnny Cook
12 14 14 15 16 18 19 19 20 28 29 30 31 32 32 33 34 35 36 37 37 38 39 40 52 52 53 54 55
SANSKRIT
10 11
prose
poetry
art
appendix
Shade by Alana Selby Sun and Moon by Sarah Kinney Darker Shades of Yawn by James Proffitt Bees by David Sapp Crazy T by James Proffitt Fête 1 by Elena Calebro Our Grandmothers by Sean Johnson The Fall by Joshua Beebe Aquarius by Marlene Ivy Burrell Power 1 by Dakota Rose Power 2 by Dakota Rose The Hurricane by David Sapp Animal Alphabets by E.P. Fisher The Frog God by Anthony Lopez Manipulate Inanimate by Matthew Stark Follow Me by Jessica Nowlin Hephaestus by Johnny Cook For My Ex-husband, On His Wedding Day by Margaret Drummond He Beast by Kaitlin McCluskey Friendship is Messy by Sarah Kinney Poem with Blue Fescue and Red Breasted Nuthatch by Claire Scott Granny by Sean Johnson People Around Me (Series) by Alana Selby Four Mile Fire by Matthew Stark An Aging Couple’s Evening Stroll in the Park by Scott Waller Elephant by Marlene Ivy Burrell When Distance Walks In by Sean Johnson The Surrender of Your Limbs by Scott Waller Swans in Chicago by Jan Ball Portrait by Carrie Overcash Communication by Spencer Smith Restless Night by Jan Ball Yeah, I remember Brandy by Alex Rodriguez Appendix
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Synesthesia
Carrie Overcash
Oil on Canvas
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The Garden
Joanna Zamora
ink on bristol
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Nobel Laureate explains how he’s saving the world on NPR Michael Mark
“In this box is wind. And in this one, air. In my laboratory we have separated all things. Every word ever spoken and written is boxed up next to the box with their intended meaning which is beside the box of their interpretations. Thoughts and perceptions are on either side of emotions. That’s time, that’s age, that’s years, all marked. My team has dismantled all directions including removing the center from the middle. This made it challenging to get around until we separated cause from effect: a huge milestone. Pain and pleasure – you’d be surprised how connected those were; as was subject and object. The most problematic has been nothing from everything. We can’t find nothing, yet. But without it how can we have everything? Ultimately we are going to take all the waters from the oceans, which we’ll put in bags, naturally. And collect all the continents, the countries—
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all the earth on the Earth, along with longitude and latitude. Same process with religions – all have been isolated for purposes of purity. Then we simply take history from memory, I from them. Lastly, we’ll strip off the labels, though it could be seen as firstly.”
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Life, Death, and Renewal Kellie Funderburk
watercolor and coffee
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Canvas
Gabriella M. Belfiglio
I paint my body with rich supple dyes. Burgundy easily covers my melting lips— as if fermented grapes are slipping through. I outline my eyes in jade, wrap them in oval stems.
Color bleeds into my pores.
I petal the round of my face in tickles of rose. Here are the two people I have recently kissed: a man over a decade older than me a woman almost a decade younger. The first is fast asleep subtly listening for the alarm of his eight-month baby boy. The second is flirting across the counter of a bar, while she hands another customer their drink. I yearn for the bold black and white stripes of a zebra, the golden spots of a cheetah, something soft and thick
to coat this steaming skin.
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Hymenoptera
Richard M. Smith
How can I tell the widow what I have found in the bedroom where her husband died? She calls me because they are coming in above her sink. Too many, she says, I don’t want them nesting. Pacing round her cottage, I see them floating out the upstairs window, one by one. She says I can go up but please, not the room where my husband passed. She bustles in the kitchen making tea. I linger as I tread her rooms, not wanting to disturb, until I watch a tiny flyer creep around the jamb. She must have braved the empty room alone once he was gone, the wasps seeking entrance even then, probing bricks and nudging outside walls. The strength it took when they carried his body away to shine light on the bed, the window swinging by its simple hinge, letting them in. The first queen made her canopy of mud, her eggs birthing the workers who built these burgeoning combs and never stopped. Five months, I guess, is what it took to cover the quilt entirely, the mattress of her husband now a labyrinth of crawling life. Immense – there must be seven hundred queens inside this strange cathedral to her grief, a seething mass of yellow jacket priests constructing quires and transepts.
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I veil my face with polyscreen and spray. The palace transforms into a crypt. And as they die, I wonder if they knew what they were building and how it is that I destroy such industry, such beauty.
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Redefining the Lanscape, Texas
Kylie Niemand inkjet print
Redefining the Lanscape,New Mexico
Kylie Niemand inkjet print
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The Hen
David Sapp
Soon after Hoover promised “a chicken in every pot,” the hen embarked upon a grand adventure, a ride into town in the farmer’s jalopy, rust, bailing twine, and fence wire strung together like the leather and laces of a loose-jointed shoe. The hen sat up front beside the farmer’s dog, a venerable geezer, an odd couple that got along in a curious unison cocking their heads at passing sights; she clucked as a fretting wife in low, wary comments and the occasional, excitable cackle, from him, a growling “humph.” Long before the farmer’s dentures rattled in his mouth, like a clacking tractor engine, he needed a tooth pulled and didn’t have a quarter; the hen became the barter. In the dentist’s waiting room, in her cushioned chair, she gracefully laid an exquisite egg, warm, smooth, spotted, and tanned like a girl’s freckled shoulder; she seemed to know – she seemed to ask: “will you pluck my feathers to the skin for a single meal or fry my lovely, yellow yolks forever in your skillet?”
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Refusal
Claire Scott
life turned aside stunned love’s hunger unseen
a soul shrinks
in its tarnished shell
as-if life drifts on
untethered sharp bones
checked each morning
to be sure
Hansel’s witch awry
testing thin
skeletal points corpse close solution to
desire’s
seduction starvation the antidote the sentence satisfying the siren song of death
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life lived outside life
rituals replayed replayed
denial engraved
on a fleshless body flawed and
unforgiven
star-far from love solidify
the safety of
despair’s
dark shroud
distract from
the call of hope
the lure of hunger’s knotted insistence
Gretel shift the story line
leave me the witch
of my undoing
no breadcrumbs back
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Malapropism
Jan Ball
Again, she substitutes enema for enigma while reading but not because she is a fan of enema of the state which appears to be a deliberate malapropism and a different meaning and she wouldn’t want any association with Janine Lindemulder in a nurse uniform on the punk rock album cover not that an anal douche is much better than a porn star but more medical especially when administered by an interventional gastroenterologist which is covered by PPO and medicare, by the way, but you can do it yourself as long as you have a comfortable spot like a bed with piles of faded towels spread out on it, a lubricant like KY jelly or astroglide, water and an enema bag but enemas can also be used for pleasure which is probably why the web warns: caution, sexual content has been blocked from this website. On the other hand, colonic irrigation as cleansing hydrotherapy can have a positive effect on the skin, lungs, and urinary tract creating a favorable environment for “good bacteria� and micro flora required for proper digestion as everyone learned in that movie with Steve Martin with that aerobic California girl bouncing around contrasted with intellectual Annie Hall in New York, but just thinking about that brown bag from childhood hanging like a tree-testacle on the hinge of the medicine cabinet when Mother calls you into the bathroom in that syrupy sweet voice she might use if a priest came to visit and sat in the living room with a cup of tea on his knee can cause anyone to substitute enema for enigma the rest of their lives.
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Self
Dakota Rose
acrylic on canvas
Redefining the Lanscape, Arizona
Kylie Niemand inkjet print
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Interruption
Jonathan Doughty
T
The naked young man walked over to the kitchenette between the bed and the bathroom. He opened a cabinet and took out a bottle of red wine along with a very large plastic cup. He poured into the cup an easy English pint in volume, and set the bottle back in the cabinet. Cup in hand, he walked over to the mirror/ medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink, and opened it. He looked at the impressively stocked mini-pharmacy inside. Sifting through the many bottles of prescription medication, he finally selected the alprazolam and the hydrocodone, emptied their contents into the plastic cup, and replaced the bottles back in the medicine cabinet. He closed the cabinet, looked at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, and then walked over to the large writing desk in the corner of the bedroom. He opened the left-side file drawer underneath the desk, retrieved a compact disc of Kind of Blue, and inserted it into the small but highperformance stereo system atop the desk. As the piano gave its quiet, desultory introduction, the young man slugged the contents of the cup back very quickly, without shuddering, in the manner that a boxer in training might ingest a tall glass of cold raw eggs. After the last swallow,
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he placed the cup on the floor and lay back upon a very crisply made twin bed. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. “Blip,” went his cellphone, signifying its reception of a text message. The young man looked over to his right, where the phone had been placed upon the dresser. Sighing, he got up from the bed, walked the small distance over to the dresser, and picked up the cellphone. The young man looked at the phone’s screen and exhaled heavily. He tapped the screen a few times with the middle finger of his right hand and lifted the phone to his right ear. The phone spoke. “Hey—comps did not go well. It was horrible, man. I fucking failed. They fucking failed me.” The young man lifted his head upward to look at the ceiling and let it slowly fall back to even level. “What happened? Tell me about it.” He opened the dresser’s second-from-top drawer and began rummaging through it. “Ah, fucking Kondracki-Sanchez just let me have it. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise the whole time. I couldn’t think straight. I’m just cringing now, having to think about it. Ah—I just wanna be dead.”
The young man interrupted the voice. “No, you don’t. Don’t give me that, Ned. Tell me exactly what happened this morning.” The young man selected black boxer shorts and a pair of black socks, and closed the drawer. He sat down on the bed and slipped the items onto his body while still holding the phone against his ear. “Really, I just wanna be dead. I’d kill myself right here, right now if I knew there was nothing afterward.” “Ned, listen to your reasoning here--” “—Reason? If it’s done by the right person and in the right way, it can be a perfectly rational decision. If it’s done in dignity, and after a lot of serious thought, it’s a very brave thing—not the act of a coward at all. It takes cold, rational resolve to look life in the eye and then choose death. Reason, schmeason.” The young man cleared his throat. “I do understand what you’re saying. But tell me about what happened during your defense. In detail.” “Ah—it was like my mind went completely blank. Everything I’d done for the written exam was like nil— seventy-nine pages in one week. Zhang and Mattheson were fine, but fucking Kondracki-Sanchez didn’t ask me a single
fucking thing I’d written about. He was drowning me in stuff that wasn’t even on the reading list. And then when I’d try to respond, he’d deliberately ignore whatever it was I said and bring up something else.” “Like what?” The young man stood up and walked over to the closet door. He opened it and gazed among the stacks of clean, well-ironed shirts and dress slacks hanging therein. “Like...Foucault. Le Souci de Soi shit, I don’t know what else. I’m trying not to remember. And then every time I’d try to speak up, he’d just speak over me and shoot me down. The past three years, it’s like he’d been lying in wait for me, and finally got me where he wanted me.” The young man briefly held up a pair of gray slacks, but then replaced them on their hanger. “Well, it’s not the end of the world. You can re-take the exams. You get another chance—it’s departmental policy.” “The thing is, I don’t think I want another chance now. I’m sick of this. I thought the academic life was going to be about freedom and getting to enjoy your writing. Boy, was I wrong. It fucking blows.” “Well, freedom’s quite a heavily loaded concept,” the young man offered.
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Interruption
(continued)
“I mean what freedom really is. Just the possibility to be otherwise. I’m stuck.” Turning back to the dresser, the young man cleared his throat again. “Ned, I think you’re over-exaggerating here. Have you——have you been taking your medication? Consistently?” “Have I? Of course I have, not a day goes by that I don’t. Shit, I popped two right after I got home.” “Ned, you shouldn’t be doubledosing like that. That is definitely not good,” the young man said, stopping his search for just a moment. “They haven’t been working at all. Not for weeks, actually.” “Well, that tells me you need to go back to your doctor, and see about—” “—Compound surnames! Do you know how fucking stupid the whole concept—” “—switching from Zoloft to something else—” “—Let’s say Kondracki-Sanchez ends up marrying some chick with the last name ‘Wang-Littlejohn.’ Then they have a kid and they name him, I dunno, some yuppie name like ‘Aiden.’ That gives the poor little guy the full name Aiden Kondracki-Sanchez-Wang-Littlejohn—” “—Ned—” “—Imagine an entire country of multi-compound-surnamed kids like that
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growing up and marrying each other and having super-multi-compound-surnamed kids! We’re a nation of narcissists, and we’ve got the octuple last names to prove it. Nominal equality, yeah!” The young man switched the phone from his right side to his left and continued examining the closet. “Ned, seriously. In a situation like this, the one thing you absolutely have to do is not make any snap decision. You’re worked up—I was too when I took mine. The whole purpose of the comprehensive exam is to override your mental bandwidth, while your exam committee sits there and observes you to see if you can withstand the pressure of being a professional academic.” “I know, I know. Keely told me the same thing. Not as eloquently, though.” “Oh, really? How are the two of you—” “—We’re not.” “Ran its course, eh?” The young man finally selected a pair of black slacks, sat down on the bed, and slipped them on. Then he stood back up and returned to the closet. “She just...annoys me. Always did, to be fully honest. You of all people know I’m not one to get into romantic relationships, and to her credit, she’s been a decent person and a reliable fuck-buddy.
But so annoying. Ah—I finally just pulled with it, or grow a huge hairy monster! I the plug on it. Told her no more, not to just—I just can’t respect the mentality of be unfriendly, but I just want to decouple the landing strip.” for good. If the annoyance finally gets “But it’s just a small, insignificant worse than the sex is good, it’s time to go.” strip of hair—” “Did she take it well?” “—If it’s that insignificant, then why “She’d just do shit that would annoy wouldn’t she ever just shave its little the fuck out of me! Like her pubes. insignificance off?” Drove me nuts how—” The young man exhaled “—Huh?” through his mouth. “Fair “She wouldn’t ever point. Look...” He paused “If it’s that shave her pubes fully as he pushed aside a few off. She’d always keep insignificant, then starchy dress shirts, one of those pompous finally selecting a why wouldn’t she little landing strip long-sleeved black design thingies. It one. ever just shave its just looked so stupid, “I really do wish and whenever I’d I was dead—I wish little insignificance mention it to her, she’d I were dead, man. off?” get all pissy.” There’s just jack-shit for “But surely you don’t me now. No family, so it’s have a problem with her doing not like I’m killing someone’s what she chooses to do with her body?” son or brother or whoever. Whomever. “Hey now, I don’t have a problem if a No woman—not that I want one anyway. chick chooses to grow a bush. I certainly And now no future career. I directed won’t find it attractive, not one bit, in fact the whole of my life since the end of high I think it looks horrible, but I can at least school to this exact moment. And the respect it. Resistance against society’s moment failed me.” standards of beauty, yeah yeah, I’m all for The young man slid his right arm that. I’m an ugly motherfucker myself. into its shirt sleeve. He switched the But don’t give me any of this halfway-to- phone back to his right side, and repeated lukewarm stuff. Either do it, or don’t. the same action for his left arm. With his Either shave it all off and just be done head turned, his gaze
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Interruption
(continued)
briefly rested on the marquetry mezuzah adhered to the apartment’s doorframe. He cleared his throat again. “Well, I for one wouldn’t want you to kill yourself, he said. “It would certainly make me feel—regretful—knowing you were dead. The world would be a slightly worse place without your presence in it.” The young man stood up and walked over to the bathroom proper, to the right of the sink-and-mirror. He turned on its light, dropped his pants, and sat on the toilet, where he began to work on emptying his bowels. “It’s a mitzvah to not kill yourself.” “Ah—it’s better to have never been born in the first place. If you’re going to start talking like that, re-read Ecclesiastes. Koheleth, re-read it. Even Solomon said it’s better to have never been born.” “Perhaps, Ned, but that isn’t the same as killing yourself.” “Hey—remember how nice and peaceful things were way back when Hitler was gassing all of kikedom? Remember that?” The young man pinched his nasal bones with the index finger and thumb of his left hand. “No. I—” “—And that’s why it’s so nice and peaceful! Life’s just getting in the way of that peace.” “Ned—take a deep breath and be quiet for a moment. Are you sitting
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down?” The young man wiped twice, stood up, and placed the phone between his right shoulder and ear, craning his head over uncomfortably to steady the device. He pulled up his pants, zipped and buttoned them, and flushed the toilet. He switched the phone to his left ear and closed the bathroom door halfway behind him. Then he walked back to the bed and sat down on it. After this short silence, the phone continued to speak. “Mitzvot, shitzvot. That reminds me. I ran into that fucker from Isaac’s kid’s bris on campus today, the one waving that sign and doing all the yelling.” “Oh?” “I didn’t say anything to him, but man did I want to. I still can’t believe how that group even managed to sneak into the JCC in the first place. Shit, I’m not even Jewish, and I wanted to slap the shit out of all of them. I was ready to grab the scalpel straight from the old moyl himself and—” “—Ned, it’s done and over with. There’s no reason to—” “—Tactless activists, that’s what I call ‘em. No-tactivists. You wanna complain about choice, then complain about being born never asked. Nobody consents to life, right at the start. Anything that comes afterward is just a tiny flap of skin
by comparison. Complain about never getting to choose your parents. Complain about always getting a bottle and never the titty. Complain about getting your tonsils hacked out when you were too young to object to their supposed glandular worth. Complain about your parents sending you to public school instead of private. Shit. If the entirety of your self-worth is found in a missing foreskin, you’ve got an issue that a foreskin won’t cure.” “Ned,” the young man said, the tone of his voice displaying just the right measure of patience without dipping into condescension, “I’m just curious. Have you been to church—recently?” “Church? Holy shit. Why?” “Well—far be it from me to tell you where you should be, spiritually speaking, but—I think having a sit down with your priest would be healthy for you. I don’t even mean going to confession. Just going and talking and getting some insight from one of the priests you trust—” “—That’s why I’m talking to you—” “—Yes, but I’m not qualified to offer you deep counsel, really, which is what I think you need. And while you’re at it, maybe you could also find a decent girl at your church—” “—Oh, hell no. Looking for girls at church is a very wrong—it’s an incestuous feeling. No way. You should know me
better now than to say something like that. And getting a girl to fill that lack only widens the hole.” “All right. But I still think you should at least go to see your priest. That’s what they’re there for.” The young man looked up at the ceiling and ran his right hand through his thick brown hair. “Well. I’d definitely take confession over a couch. Shrinks can only work when they’re smarter than you. I understand all too well how all the schools of psychoanalysis operate, what they look for in ‘the subject’ and all that. I mean, look at what I’m doing for my fucking doctorate. And that’s why therapy never did jack shit for me, it probably only made me worse—” “—Which is why I think you should talk with a priest, just for some counsel. It is good for the soul.” “I just—I just want my edges rounded off. I’m thinking that maybe I should just withdraw from the program and be done with it.” “Maybe, but get some decent godly advice for yourself first. Let multiple heads think through it with you.” “Ah—confession would feel good. Yeah. It’s been years. I don’t know how sorry I could be right now though, but... maybe. But then there’s other stuff that has nothing to do with my lack of grace.”
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Interruption
(continued)
“Such as? Tell me.” “Ah—I can’t get CFI off my case, all my student loans. Every time I turn around. I’ve been changing my phone number every couple months now just to get some peace.” “I noticed that. I’ve noticed you have.” “Loans. I can’t pay them off until I get a decent teaching job. But then I can’t get any sort of teaching job until I pass my comps, and so...the bitch just returns to his own vomit.” The young man said nothing. Instead, he stood up from the bed and walked over to the writing desk. He pulled out the file drawer on the right side of the desk and retrieved a single manila envelope, opened the envelope’s slot to peer inside, and moistened the envelope’s adhesive strip with his tongue while continuing to hold the phone in his left hand, despite the relative awkwardness of the multitask. He pressed the flap over the moistened adhesive strip, and left the sealed envelope on top of the desk, in front of the stereo. Then he spoke back into the phone. “Aren’t there reasonable payment plans or some sort of deferral you can get?” The young man looked down and pushed shut the open file drawer using the instep of his right foot. “I’ve been through them all. It’s
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different for us American students. You guys up here are lucky. If I’d known it’d be like this, ah, I don’t even know if I’d have ever even started graduate school in the first place. I just wanna...I don’t even know what it is I lack. And even if I did— you try to control one single variable in an otherwise natural system, then all hell’s eventually gonna break loose.” The young man grinned suddenly at the unadorned white wall before him. “You know very well, Ned, that the very idea of a ‘natural system’ is just another construct in itself. You being in it and trying to make sense of it is precisely what makes it an unnatural system.” “Ha! That’s what I should have told that dumbass fucker at the bris. Show me any state of nature less our statements. Yeah, you’re right. I wish I were as bright as you.” The young man let out a slight exhale through his nostrils. “Ned—you do know you can take a leave of absence through the graduate school, right? Your doctor would need to sign off on it. But I strongly think you should do that before you make a decision about anything.” “Maybe this just isn’t my calling. I had no idea it would end up being zerosum office job where your budding-PhD peers are just a pack of bloodthirsty wolves fighting among themselves for
whatever scraps they can get tossed to them. Ah—I’m not going to kill myself. At least, not immediately. But—I do need help.” “Well, that’s certainly good to know, Ned. Really, it is. I personally think you should take a medical leave of absence. I do.” The young man suddenly sniffed at the air, then walked over to the bathroom. He opened the halfwayclosed bathroom door, picked up a can of aerosol deodorizing spray atop the toilet tank, and sprayed for a few seconds in the bathroom. “You’re about the only person I trust up here. Fucking Canadian smugness under each and every smiling face. No offense.” The young man smiled, just barely. “None taken.” “But you’ve always been a solid person. You’re the type——you’re thetype of person whose blood I’d want if I ever had to get a transfusion.” The young man again smiled fractionally, and placed the aerosol can back on top of the toilet tank. He closed the bathroom door and stood in front of the mirror, looking at himself as he spoke into the phone. “Thanks, Ned. I think I know exactly what you mean by that. And I can’t really agree with you, but—thanks. But, do promise me that you’ll go see your
doctor tomorrow morning about your meds—” “—I will, I will. Ah—I’ll probably stop by Holy Trinity and talk to one of the priests. Maybe Saturday. I doubt they’ll even remember me, but—” “—You do that.” “You know how to cuittle, you do. I feel a little better. Thanks.” “All right, Ned.” The young man paused to let escape a cavernous but nearly silent yawn. “All right. Take care of yourself.” The young man listened for a few more seconds, then put the phone down upon the dresser. He walked back to the bed and sat down on it, leaning over at the waist. His head hung limply, chin against chest. He sat there for a few minutes, not moving except for his increasingly coarse breathing. Finally, he turned off the stereo—“So What” had been on repeat—and lay back upon the bed. A little over half an hour later, ten rings sounded from the cellphone. This time, the young man did not stir.
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Blossoms
Mark Belair
White blossoms flurry up from a pear tree and twirl into the night sky like seeds of stars, the heavens an earthly field gone brilliantly to wild.
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Cooperate Ladder Jemima Omalay ink wash
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Self Portrait
Rachel Fussell charcoal
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County Detox
Margaret Drummond
“Was it a bright afternoon? Bright with seeing?” –Jack Kerouac 109th Chorus tuesday american hate day/it’s just business vibrating waiting grinding teeth sterilized draw liquids emaciated body dust crackling bones fluidly parted once brought life into the world. writhing spirit dumping delta blues into dehydrated skull addicted scrawled on carbon paper. a kindness for my kind a sedative to quiet the body but not the mind its oncoming torment a locked door closes. my higher power is shackled fluorescent bulbs but tuesday afternoon drools jaundice through slats of graying blinds. drift into sleep peace like industrial bleach a dream of monstrous maggots breeding till the walls throb with sliming white rices a silent scream opens the throat only for them to spill in, smacking, digesting my secrets i count down my dangling spine into slender legs, buckets full of parasites. impotence. i see. breathe. reaching into my knees I scoop them flinging munching worms to the sink, the saline bag, the locked door. i dig to the toes, hollowing, infestation, vomiting filth, ridding my broken body of that which has consumed me. paper pillow crunches under my neck lights out, day has become night. stillness. my heart still beats.
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Consuming Desires #3
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
Consuming Desires #4
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
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Commissioners For Lost Love John Grey
If you want to see the commissioners for lost love, better have her photo handy, before and after if you have them. Grievances, details, don’t mean a damn thing. It’s all in the voice, in the face. We commissioners are expert gleaners. If you’ve written poetry, so much the better. Bring that too. Your lies say so much. Your wounds, your scars, are tattletales from way back. Now, keep in mind, we’re not gravediggers, or forensic scientists, or witches, wizards, casting spells. We just make pronouncements, some silly, other profound, usually unrelated to your problems. We’re merely a sounding board that’s deaf to most of what you tell us, pontificators with theories untested and untried. We were like you once, heartbroken, came to see the commissioners. We stayed on. You should too. We’re always hiring. The pay? Remember, if you’ve got this far, you’ve paid already.
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Sober Bingo
Margaret Drummond
The glittering Chicago skyline meteor-showers Friday night into street bars, stops dead at the black velvet of Lake Michigan, spills like Jim Beam down the creaking wooden 12 steps to the basement of this tiny, neighborhood church. Warm against the wind, the only hymns are chairs squealing backwards against the concrete floor. We hover over a pot that’s right at eleven dollars, alike only in our bingo-ink stained fingers and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Have we arrived here by accident or are we what wriggles under the band-aid, the blood agar cultured, studied, contained. There is safety in numbers. Tonight it’s N-33 for the win, on earth as it is in heaven. The balls churn, it’s N-34. Beside me the tattoo on a shaved skull is an eyeless shifting figure between prison bars FEAR in script at the nape of the neck. It’s going to happen this time I can feel it, the paperthin hope that somehow we’re chosen. We yell out bastard when it’s 0-73, and again, at least this time, all hope is lost.
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Consuming Desires #7
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
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Inner Excavation
Analiz Laracuente-Espinal
On my doorstep, his calloused thumb hikes over the ridged hills of my knuckles, nails shoveling between the dips
an end to emptiness
He smiles, throat filling with the dirt of my body, Hammering through my skin chiseling away layers of fossil along my sternum, he sieves the rough spots where I’ve preserved the dried up mouths and bones of other lovers. He has followed the map of my oil-green marble eyes. When he reaches my center he sees my womb: a ball of magma destroyed by the constant shift between crystallization and liquefaction: half hardened other half unusable. He packs his tools and leaves, unwilling to ripple for the smallest pebble of words. I feel the rot inside freeze completely.
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Consuming Desires #1
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
Consuming Desires #2
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
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Duck Hunting Notes
James Proffitt
I see lights flickering their tender pink glow across long shadows on this shallow bay. Though wider then you salacious hips, it too has given the world shares of joy and misery. This much: it hangs on thirsty west winds sucking harbors and bays dry, leaving old, swollen hulls -- as our hearts have often been -- softly grounded in a sweet muck rarely visible yet always present. A muck we swear at, but need. Surface beneath surface, layer to unpeeled onion. The world’s plot against us is our own, how we bang our heads and shake our fists at mussel-crusted planks, purple loosestrife & phragmites storming dikes; how we nod sleepily at pre-dawn lights in the distance shimmering and ethereal as the déjà vu that hit us when we saw a homeless man hitchhiking. He was dirty and stunk and as soon as he climbed in we knew we’d already seen, driven, smelled him. He was the black sheep, the vagabond in us. Afterwards, we wept on another shelf, another time. Lights stumble on at dusk, melt to dawn then quaaacks screees and honkuhs and thook-thook-thooks, chi-chi-chis—a divers’ and dabblers’ chorus altogether. We like to think we escort them from one half of this world to the other, but it’s just the opposite. I see a bay rising, water returning from two states away, a seiche of long, steady makings. I see lights on water and fog now, too. I see a bridge and a long peninsula constructed perfectly, softly-mouthed words and the ducks, geese, they are exploding into bitter-cold air everywhere feathery and strong and beautiful and loud, so damned loud it hurts my ears, shudders a heaving chest, spinning gut.
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Gone Fishing
Sarah Kinney digital painting
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Becoming a Novice
Johnathan Doughty
M
Most things considered, Joshua Apolonik’s good-byes hadn’t been that difficult a task. For one, his mother was fairly confident that his “visit” to the monastery would last only a few months, if that long. The grounds were only a few hours’ drive away, which meant she could pop in for visits on weekdays but still be home in time to make sure dinner awaited her husband. Joshua’s father, meanwhile, had treated him to a dad-and-son bar crawl the previous night, and before the first drop of alcohol had passed their lips, he made a point to tell his son that he was “truly proud” of him. And earlier in the week, on Joshua’s final day at work, the other lifeguards at the waterpark had presented him with a well-written “Best Wishes” card containing five crisp twenty dollar bills. Joshua was thankful for this ease of exit, but not filled exclusively with thanks. At quarter to seven on this evening, there still remained the final good-bye to Denise—who most certainly remained. “Surprise!” shouted a female voice. It was Denise. She stood facing Joshua in the doorway, holding a nearly full bottle of ultra-premium Tennessee whiskey and wearing a pink conical 40
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party hat. Joshua smiled at her without any attempt to show surprise. Denise always had such a sisterly look to her——one that, he eventually came to suspect, resolutely maintained relation to whatever man happened to be looking at her. Her eyes stayed wide and dull, like paper plates, and generally did an effective job of concealing her alternating defense mechanisms of cynicism and naiveté. She and Joshua lived together, as they had since finishing college three years ago. She was a schoolteacher— kindergarten. A bang issued from the ceiling, scolding Denise for the loudness of her voice. Joshua stepped into the living room and gave Denise a small hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Whoa, smells like somebody’s cracked open a seal ahead of time,” he said. He backpedaled and closed the door. When he turned back around, Denise was holding a glass shot of whiskey squarely in his face. He recoiled. “I had to sample it to make sure it’s high-quality,” she giggled. “It is!” “No, please,” he said, shaking his head and raising his hand in protest. “I drank a lifetime’s worth last night. I don’t
ever want another drink again. Just the smell is upturning my stomach.” Denise smiled. “I made pasta and a lovely Greek salad for dinner,” she said. “Lots of olives.” She placed the bottle of whiskey on the wooden coffee table in the center of their small living room and looked expectantly at Joshua. “Thank you, but I don’t want anything. I haven’t been able to stomach anything all day except fluids,” he said, and filed past her down the hallway to his bedroom. ----Twenty minutes later, Denise had just finished her third shot—so she stated—and Joshua was contentedly packing a small glass pipe with the remnant of his marijuana supply. They sat on their couch, separated by the center cushion. “Funny,” Joshua said. “I’m really never gonna have any more of this.” Denise leaned her head back against the couch and looked up at the ceiling as she spoke. “Jack. Jim. Johnnie. George. Uh...” Her eyes rolled over to Joshua. “... Glen. Do you think a women’s whiskey would sell well?” She took off her party hat and dropped it behind the couch. Joshua either hadn’t heard her, or else
had assumed the question was rhetorical. “Really, it’s not going to be that big a deal, not seeing my parents much anymore. I was never that close to them in the first place.” “You don’t love them?” Joshua set his pipe on the coffee table and re-tied his short brown ponytail as he spoke. “Of course I do. It’s just that— it’s hard to explain. Growing up, it was just—I think it’s because Mom, Dad, and I all happened to be firstborns. We were always flexing our older sibling musclery. Against people not our siblings.” He picked his pipe back up. Denise raised her eyebrows at him, as if in address to a small child. “Your parents took good care of you growing up, young man, and you know it.” “They were forced to do it by law. Paying your taxes isn’t a charitable act.” Denise stood up and walked into the kitchen. “How about your brother? Hear anything?” Joshua shook his head solemnly. “Nobody has. It’s driving my mom sick. She’s afraid he’s gonna be the next young man beheaded on television. I’m not really worried over it, myself. But I’m certainly concerned.” Joshua lit the pipe LITERARY-ARTS MAGAZINE
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continued and took a small inhale. “This whole “Oh, it’s something I’ve grappled war should have never occurred. Just with for a long while. And still do.” banjax. Disasters always start with a bad “You believe in demons, right?” She personal decision.” tucked a few loose strands of her dark hair “Joshua.” Denise re-entered the behind a jug ear and flexed her ankles. living room and sat down on floor, The tendons made a very noticeable then lay back and elevated her bare, crunching sound. unmanicured feet onto the couch cushion “Of course.” where she’d previously been sitting. “I’m not being facetious here. How She had brought back with do you know one hasn’t hijacked her a huge slab of vegan your mind and implanted “There’s always a chocolate cake wrapped this idea?” in a paper towel, Joshua smiled. trace of doubt. Without which she couched “I ultimately don’t.” securely within He thought silently at least a glimmer of the cleavage of her for a moment. “It’s extremely large chest. doubt, it’s just common always been a matter “Do you have doubts of faith to think my knowledge.” about this whole thing? mind has any touch Seriously?” with reality.” He re-lit and “I do and I don’t. That’s drug deeply on his pipe, holding what doubt is. Faith requires it.” He the smoke in his lungs for easily fifteen rubbed his thinly bearded chin with the seconds or longer, then exhaled slowly, stem of his pipe. displaying the preciseness of breath “Explain that please, my love. There’s control befitting a competitive swimmer. plenty of cake still left if you want some.” “I find it an honor, really. It gives us so“There’s always a trace of doubt. called deviants a respectable thing to Without at least a glimmer of doubt, it’s do. Not just respectable, but necessary. just common knowledge.” Somebody has to be monks. Thank God “But then how do you know you our priests can be married, though— haven’t all of a sudden gone crazy? No makes things safer for everyone.” offense. I’m just trying to understand.”
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“You’re not a deviant. You’re a regular person.” “You know what I mean. And yeah, I mildly agree with you here. You know I can’t stand any words that reduce the whole of one’s person to a convenient sexual function. Or an inconvenient one.” “So...are you suggesting we’re all different measures of bi by nature, but most people just refuse to recognize it? Innaresting.” She raised a Nicholsonian eyebrow. “For the record, based upon my observations in college, I’m convinced all straight women are actually bisexual. Add adequate alcohol to an all-girl party and eventually it turns into an all-girl prison.” “Hmmm.” Joshua’s own eyebrows rose as he lifted his pipe to his nose to enjoy the aroma of burnt cannabis. With sudden invigoration, he said, “What you just said actually reminds me of the Christological controversy at Chalcedon. If what you just said is true, is our sexual identity monophysite? Or are people a hypostatic union that exists in two natures, fully hetero and fully homo, united without confusion, without separation, and—” “—You’re babbling now and I don’t understand a thing about theology.”
“Ah, fuck it. Here’s what I say. I say we’re people—first, middle, and last. And people certainly have...inclinations. But we’re not just bundles of urges and charges. We’re not orientations without a center. We’re goddamned people.” Denise gave him a subdued smile. “Sort of like how there are no rapists, just people who rape?” Joshua frowned. “More like there are no illegal immigrants, just persons who choose to immigrate without their documents,” he said, on a much diminished conviction. “Still, it’s just not natural to be celibate. People are animals. Solitary, yes. Celibate, no.” “We’re not animals. And if people do something, that makes it natural. It may not be desirable to you personally, but you can’t say it’s not natural.” “What’s a real difference between us and animals?” Joshua thought for a few moments. “Porn. Art. Gender. Any form of representation, really. Celibacy—or at least, refusing the evolutionary imperative to procreate.” Then, as a compulsory afterthought, “And suicide, of course.” “All right, Brother Joshua. So if we’re not animals, what? We’re carbon
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continued computers instead? I am so going to miss up producing a most vonderful, beautiful being your little devil’s advocate.” human being. Firmly in ze image of Joshua rubbed his pipe against his God.” cheek. “Computers might have fully “Like all rape babies are,” Joshua said developed consciousness, but even then, dryly. they still have no subconscious.” “Ouch. But seriously—our gay kids “Which means...?” could be monks.” “Means they might be able to “I’ve never wanted children. reproduce, but they still won’t ever Especially not children like me.” masturbate.” “I wish I had a child like you. I wish I Denise took a big bite of her had several like you. No—many like you. chocolate cake without the aid of any That would be so much fun.” cutlery. “I’m going to be thinking of this “Think about what you’re saying, tomorrow when I teach my children how Denise.” Joshua’s voice expanded a little. to use a mouse,” she said. She giggled, “You know you would never accept any of and a few dark crumbs fell unnoticed those imaginary children leaving you to off her lips and onto her oversized white become a monastic.” t-shirt. Denise yawned and puffed out her -----now flushed cheeks. “Yeah, you’re right. By 7:30, their conversation had taken God, you know me so well.” an even more decidedly biological bent. Joshua smiled at her, and his glance “A lot of the reason why I exist as a gay happened to rest on her chest. “You man is because my gay ancestors were know...your boobs really are huge. I’ve pressured to marry and bear children,” never told you this, but—sometimes I Joshua was saying. can’t help but stare at how big they are.” Denise got up from her supine “I know. I’ve caught you doing it.” position and sat on the floor, her legs “Certain movements they make do extended under the coffee table, facing seem to violate certain laws of physics.” Joshua. She spoke in a very bad ‘Dr. Ruth’ “Pshaw.” accent, “Und I am glad zey did. You are “What are they? D-cups?” ze acme of homosexual reproduction. She got up from the floor and sat Zose repressed ancestors of yours ended back down on the couch, her body close
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to Joshua’s. “They’re F’s,” she said, and thrust out her chest, shoulders back, with much pride evident. “I’ve never told you this...but I’m genuinely curious what a huge breast feels like.” “Really?” Her eyes were wider than usual. He nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” Denise immediately gave Joshua her best Mardi Gras enactment. “Feel both or the other one will get jealous,” she instructed him. Joshua gawked at the sudden flesh before him. “Damn, girl. You nearly took my eye out.” He raised his hands to grab straight-on, but then hesitated just before making skin contact. After a few seconds’ reconsideration, he carefully slid his palms underneath the breasts, lifting them with deliberate slowness. “What do you think?” “Holy shit, I can’t even see my hands!” He laughed. Denise laughed, and her bare bosom heaved in Joshua’s hands. “Be honest, now. What are your impressions?” “I’d call them...” Joshua paused in clinical seriousness, alternating his hands up and down as if they were balancing scales. “...Soft and heavy. Soft like I thought they would be. But a lot heavier
than I thought they would be.” “Do you want to touch my nipples too?” “No.” Joshua abruptly withdrew his hands from under her breasts, and her frame fell forward a trifle under the sudden drop. He turned his head while Denise took a few moments to arrange her chest back into her bra. Joshua turned back to her. “Denise— this is tough for me, too. You know how much I love you. Deeply and truly and emotionally.” “Just not physically.” “No. I couldn’t easily get an erection off you. Nothing personal.” “Just marry me anyway!” Denise’s voice, without whining, had become high-pitched. She wiped a few strands of hair out of her sight. “It’s a holy mystery, it’s sacramental—it’s just like taking holy orders, but you can live a normal life. Why can’t we just get married?” Joshua leaned over, elbows on his knees, and stared down at the dark gray carpeted floor. “Because you deserve a husband who masturbates to your memory when he can’t be with you.” He turned to look at Denise, who was now holding another shot of whiskey. “The kiddies tomorrow are going to wonder why Miss Pappas all of a sudden smells
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continued
like daddy’s breath after work.” She blew a rather salivated raspberry at Joshua. “I hardly ever drink, so there, you big meanie.” She lifted her shotglass to eye level. Then, affecting great solemnity, she said, “Can the children of the marriage bed fast while the bridegroom is still around? While the bridegroom is still present, the winebibbers know it’s impossible to fast.” “That quote’s a little off.” “Jesus had been drinking when he said it.” She slammed the shot and exhaled its warmth. ----Joshua returned from the refrigerator with a handful of Kalamata olives and sat down on the couch. “The place you’re coming from is a very slippery one,” he said to Denise. “You’re assuming you can quantitatively rectify what’s ultimately a qualitative issue, or focus on material statistics to fix what’s actually a problem of the human heart. Like affirmative action.” Denise stared at the center of the coffee table. “Joshey—what are you really hoping to get out of this? If you do decide to keep this up, long-term?” Joshua gently bit into an olive. “How would I specifically like to learn selfless compassion and thereby work
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out my own salvation, you mean?” He outstretched his legs on the coffee table. “I’d actually be interested in going back to China. I can still speak the language halfway decently, and the Church is slowly defrosting up in Manchuria. These olives rock.” “Huh?” “Harbin. Up in the northeast, they used to have a pretty vibrant Orthodox community there prior to ‘49, being so close to Russia. Actually, my buddy Ned just sent me a link to an article he wrote for some history journal about it. Right now there are some would-be Chinese priests going to Russia for their theological studies and ordinations, in the hope of being able to eventually re-open some of the old churches. It’s just starting out, really.” He popped the remainder of the olive in his mouth and furtively pocketed the other two. Denise was too busy staring at the coffee table to notice. “Who names their kid something like ‘Ned’ these days?” she wondered aloud. “It’s as bad as having some twenty-first century hipster name like...‘Skylar.’ Or ‘Ex-Ander.’ Or ‘Brie.’” Her bearing intensified. “Seriously. What kind of parent names their kid after a fucking dairy product?” Joshua smiled fondly at a memory in
his mind. “Ned...Ned was a funny guy. “You never even tried to hold hands He told me he was attracted to women, with this cute guy while you were out but only in the physical sense. Mentally, walking with him alone at night?” Denise he much preferred the company of men.” pursed her lips at Joshua and blew him a “Sounds like your mirror image, hands-free kiss. then.” Joshua’s eyes dropped. “It was the “Everyone called him ‘Spergish’ most fun I had that whole study abroad. behind his back.” Joshua chuckled. “I had We had some really good talks, and he was the biggest crush on him. And I’m certain very curious about me being Orthodox. he knew it. But I never tried to He’d never even talked to an flirt with him or anything, actual Orthodox Christian so he was totally cool.” before, he said. The He sniffed the air South—go figure.” He sniffed the air suspiciously. “Did Joshua picked up you just fart?” suspiciously. “Did his pipe from the Denise giggled. coffee table. He “Yes. Sorry. Teebrought the pipe to you just fart?” hee.” his mouth, holding it Joshua squinted his there briefly, but then let eyes and held his breath his holding hand fall down while the odor dissipated. He to his lap. “Ned. He had a very gave the air a test sniff before continuing. unique conception of morality, and how “Anyway, as I was saying—we couldn’t honesty related to morality. It was about leave the campus after dark, and we were a man’s last actions in a plane that’s going both insomniacs, so on weekends we’d down.” escape right after dinner and then hike “What was it?” around Beijing until morning. We ended “It was like this.” He retraced his up going on these really intense night thoughts for a moment, then spoke. hikes up in the hills west of Beida. It was “Assume there is absolutely no existence shocking how the area would go from beyond death, and no god, and no hyper-urban and crowded to rural and coming judgement. There is nothing. desolate within just a few kilometers.” And everybody in the plane knows this as
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continued a tested, falsifiable fact.” raped, they’re thinking about whether “Okay, I assume.” they should fight against it, or just go with “Your plane’s going down, and it. Either way, it’s a welcomed distraction there’s no way anyone’ll survive the crash. from having to dwell on imminent death... So—do you, or do you not, try to rape so to speak. Even though it’s obviously that smokingly hot stewardess right not a pleasant one in itself.” before the plane crashes and everyone Denise shifted uncomfortably in her dies?” seat. “Then what about for the women on Denise hesitated. “Well, what would the plane who aren’t getting raped?” you do?” Joshua didn’t say anything. “Me?” Joshua pointed to his chest “Come on, what did the guy say?” with an index finger. “Well, I suppose I’d “He said that in their last thoughts, do the same thing every other guy would they’re cursing the skinny bitches on the do. If there was a male flight attendant, plane.” I mean.” Denise sat silently, blank-faced, for a “No, I mean, what would the few seconds. Then she blurted out all at hypothetical guy on the plane do?” once, “What a reprehensible little jackoff “Oh, well—that’s not the point. asshole son of a bitch-magnet pig.” The point is that every guy who says he “Well yeah, but if you sift through wouldn’t force himself on that hot chick, what he’s saying, there’s—” or that hot guy, is lying. So the choice you “—Pffft. If it means anything, all it have is to either be brutally honest about means is that even in the most extreme the extent of your depravity, or else to be of situations, even without any ultimate a damn liar on top of everything else. metaphysical...reassurance, a woman is Denise snorted. “So what are the last always going to be at least marginally less thoughts of the women in that plane?” evil than a man.” She shook her head in “I asked him that, actually.” vigorous dissatisfaction. “Well, what did he say?” “That is an excellent point, love. And “Do you really want to know?” then he told me this weird joke right after “If I didn’t, Joshua, I wouldn’t have he told me the thing about the airplane.” asked.” “What joke? Go ahead and tell me it. “Well, for the ones about to get I’m all tits and ears. Really, I am.”
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Joshua smiled lovingly at her. “Okay. Well, you know when you go to a grocery store to buy food items, there’s always a picture of what you’re going to buy on the label? For example, if you’re going to buy a bag of potato chips, you’ll see a bunch of potatoes on the bag.” “Yeah.” She poured about half a shot of whiskey into her glass, spilling a few drops onto the coffee table. Joshua brushed the filmy dribble away with the knife-edge of his hand. “Or if you’re buying a can of tuna, you’ll see ‘Charlie the Tuna’ on the label,” he said. “Sadly, yes.” She took this half-shot of whiskey into her mouth slowly, breathing through her nostrils, allowing the aroma full space to suffuse her respiratory cavities. “So, what the hell do you think you’re buying when you look at a box of Uncle Ben’s?” There was a pause, but then it was as if the force of his words had rendered Denise frictionless. Propelled backwards, she spewed out the whiskey she had yet to swallow and, with a flailing arm, accidentally knocked over the table lamp to her left. She squealed in clumsy, drunken delight. “Careful, sweetie,” Joshua said, smiling more at Denise’s reaction than at
the joke. He walked over to and picked up the lamp, inspected it carefully for chips or fractures in its glass base, and set it back on its table, all while Denise slowly recovered from her burst of levity. The ceiling gave two sharp raps. Denise coughed a few times and stared upward. “Goddamn Weatherill,” she said, her face now bright red. “I’m going to be intentionally loud now, just to piss him off,” she said. “You do it, love. As many times as we’ve had to sleep through all his damn big-band parties.” Joshua lit his pipe and inhaled deeply. “Let it go. Let it flow...” ----Three knocks sounded on the door. Suddenly alert, Joshua stood up from the couch and walked quietly over to the door. He peered through its peephole and smiled. “Hey,” he whispered to Denise, “I just realized I’m never going to see this fat fuck again.” Denise wasn’t appearing to process these words. She was slouched over in her seat, her head hanging down. “It’s Weatherill,” Joshua said again, paying closer attention to her. “What should I tell him this time?” Denise lifted her head a few inches and shuffled her breasts with her knees. “Tell the dirty old man to go fuck himself,”
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continued she mumbled. he said in a low, controlled modulation. Joshua smiled deviously. He opened “I’m sorry for all the times we’ve disturbed the door and stepped out through the you. And I realize it’s gotta be really narrow angle it left in the doorway. difficult working a third shift job.” A heavyset pajama-clad man of about Weatherill eyed Joshua warily, but sixty stood in the hallway, scowling. said nothing. Then he opened his mouth. “We—get— Joshua managed a smile at it,” he barked, staccato-style, at Joshua. Weatherill. “I think you should know— “Your skills at eating the pussy I’m leaving here in the morning. are just mind-blowing, son. I’m going to be joining an “We But not one single one Orthodox monastery, and get it,” he of us want to hear your Denise is going to be girl squealing and really, really sad after barked, staccatomoaning—” I leave. So I would Joshua flinched, appreciate it if you style, at Joshua. and his fists could make an effort “Your skills at eating to be at least a little instinctively tightened. Weatherill noticed the pussy are just kind to her. She’s got this and took a similarly a sharp tongue, I know, mind-blowing, reactive step back. The but trust me—she would glare on Weatherill’s face, greatly appreciate it. She has son...” however, remained undiminished. a big heart, but she’s also terribly There was a short, hateful silence sarcastic, and sometimes both just get the It was riven by Joshua’s own loud voice. best of her.” “You know, you are really—” he began, but Weatherill’s building suspicion had abruptly stopped. He closed his eyes and given way to sudden confusion. He was turned his head away and down, holding glancing all around, avoiding eye contact, this position for four or five seconds. and appeared to be debating within Then he cleared his throat softly and himself whether to ask some pressing, turned back to face Weatherill, staring personal questions of Joshua—or to directly into his eyes. “You and I haven’t hastily leave. had an ideal relationship as neighbors,” “Well, I wish you all the best,” Joshua
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said. “Good-bye.” Without waiting for a response, Joshua stepped back inside the apartment, shutting and locking the door. He let out a deep breath. When Joshua turned around, he found Denise face-down on the floor. A discolored, misshapen patch of carpet surrounded her head. He looked closer—she had vomited. He dropped to his knees and rolled her over to her side, checking to make sure she was breathing normally. Then he went into the kitchen and returned with a wet, soapy wash rag, which he used to mop up the bilious remnants of her evening’s gluttony from the floor. With little indication of strain, he hoisted Denise’s small frame up and onto his broad, muscular shoulder. Wordlessly, he carried her to her bedroom, stopping to toss the soiled wash rag into the hallway washing machine. He nudged open her bedroom door, and without clicking on a light, gently eased her off his shoulder and onto her bed. The light from the living room lent her room a dark orange hue. He again rolled her onto her side, and pulled the afghan on her bed up to her neck. Joshua looked at Denise lying there in the bed for a few long moments. Then he kneeled down beside her and leaned
over to her face. He closed his eyes and kissed her on her lips—prolonged but close-mouthed, breathing in the sourness she had just expelled. “I wish I could marry you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I wish I could.” Using his finger, he lightly made the sign of the cross on her forehead, then rose to his feet. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, and silently closed the door behind him. Denise’s eyes opened just as Joshua shut her door, but she remained motionless. Through the thin walls, she listened to him chanting his evening prayers before the many icons in his room. Before she could begin to properly cry, she had fallen asleep.
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Consuming Desires #5
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
Consuming Desires #6
Kylie Niemand chlorophyll print
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Rummy
Jan Ball
Last week, the urine corridors sting our nostrils, surround us like prisoners from an Alexandre Dumas novel; skeletal women bend over lifeless canes, never upright on magical moses staffs, the parting of the waters somewhere in the inaccessible past, Mother, the Lysol Queen of our youth, unable to smell the putrid stench she has probably contributed to. But yesterday, we visit en masse like Chosen People, Joanne, Geoff, Ron and I in Joseph coats, a melody shepherdly flutish in our footsteps even after heavy potato pancakes for brunch at Sally’s local diner, the halls sanitized presumably after my call or substantial Sunday staff. We amble down to the recreation room at Mother’s pace, Joanne greeting the ladies she sees on her regular visits. One woman says to Ron, “Hello, Jack,” and we laugh. Arranged around the table for cards, we pick up, discard, praise and complain as we always have, Mother surprisingly taking her turn although we realize she’s hoarding the cards we need to lay down our three-of-a-kinds, but now we play like Ya-Ya non-gendered siblings, exchange looks, smile, positioned between the old man in the reclining wheelchair on one side and the almost catatonic woman on the left, and call out “Rummy!” when Mother finally releases one of the cards we’ve needed for a while.
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Robot Drawing Kellie Funderburk
pen and ink
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Blues
Johnny Cook
I want to be Carlos Casegemas I want to be Picasso’s muse I want to have a Blue Period To kill myself in public Have a portrait drawn in a coffin Have hollowed eyes and an empty stomach I’m an illusion A cheap imitation of a person A pillowcase ghost I want my friends to draw me slowly dying in bars Stunted absinthe orbs borne into Skeletal features and corkscrew arms Put those listless deep-ocean blues on my skin Those deciduous greens in my hair Bury me Put me under the street so I can hear Everyone playing Syncopated rhythms on cobblestone I don’t want to see any more Paint me holding my unrequited love Hands frozen in a mudra Staring at Mother Mary Cover my face with the shroud of Turin I’ll blow my brains out in the café To be your blind guitarist I’ll be your zeitgeist
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Shade
Alana Selby
acrylic on board
Sun and Moon
Sarah Kinney digital painting
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Darker Shades of Yawn
James Proffitt
With a green scepter an arc of angels rising. Nothing at all broke open. My dog leaned forward, nose keen to air. A breath melted into shunning, sing-song light. This beagle arched her back, a tri-color package. She was fur and muscle, voice a long harrowing howl. Half the world begged her silence. The other urged her notes along frantically. Even at night, teeth and scrawny grumble. Four prancy legs, a nervous tick and quivering nose. Even at night: Heavy skunk hangs low, fertile. Crickets blare three-note songs, blare, blare. A death’s-grip mist is thick and cool as pneumonia. Coiled viper, smudged words on paragraphs. Death’s doormat: Welcome, come in, sit down. She bayed until dawn, a barn burned two roads over. It all came together mind you, in a good, long rain.
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Bees
David Sapp
We fought the bees every summer when we were a swarm of gangly kids; the bees were our mortal enemies, soldiers everywhere pillaging, drunk on the nectar of clover, wild rose, and apple blossom. Some say the honeysuckle asked for it, flaunting those slutty stamens, curvaceous, jutting sex. We skirmished in backyards, along the creek, at the brackish pond, in the tall meadow wildflowers. We were proud walking wounded, stingers pierced skinny arms and legs, our tears boiling fury searing our cheeks. No wonder the bees’ allies raged, waged a vicious war, the barbarian cousins, wasps, yellow jackets, and hornets; we hacked at their nests like papier-mâché piñatas. Then I worried over the bees. Were they sleeping? Did they forsake us, retreating to an exotic, African land, weary of fighting pesticides, microwaves, thoughtless children? I was happy when a swarm blocked my usual path; their buzzing hum a joyous chorus, I reminisced over ancient crusades. Now I know their barbs were meant to defend a scared corbicula chalice. What will we eat without
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the bees’ bellies round and fat? A veteran marauder, surrendered in my window, here to visit old battlefields, is the sad, remaining warrior, and all we have left to spar are stories.
Crazy T
James Profitt
Sometimes you just have to accept that people are crazy but not in a bad way just matter-of-factly as if saying Greg A. blew his brains out or Martha S. has large breasts or Barry N. went to prison for robbing a gas station it’s not a bad thing, it just is a real thing & all you’re doing is admitting it’s real like how T. is crazier than bat-shit thinks the trailer park manager is after him sabotaging water lines & how telemarketers gather information for the government on his activities & how coon dogs have hides thick as African loins’ & the trailer park owners are making millions --bunk, bull, baloney, crap-it’s crazy talk from a crazy mouth all strum & blow & frenzied thought, a mind racing from one dim planet to another a spaceship rocketing through a wide dark, dumb space filled with vacuum. T. once fell out of a hole played the crude futures market slyly with a 55-gallon drum & a trunk-load of five-gallon cans, made his 80-year-old mother drive a snow plow installed spy video cameras on neighbors & installed a secret cistern beneath landscaping & installed black roofing rubber instead of carpet & fell in love with a crack whore for 36 hours & filed theft charges against a crack whore the next long, rude-awakening day & T. once fell out of a whole and into a half, a quarter, a thinnest slice of reality. I was there & saw the whole thing wrapped it up tidy inside my head or struck by this sudden lightning coming on. I light another cigarette & crack open another beer just as I hear Old Man Fuck-Wad across the street bellowing in some sort of pain & I am thinking just how good life is. LITERARY-ARTS MAGAZINE
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FĂŞte 1
Elena Calebro
acrylic on canvas
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Our Grandmothers
Sean Johnson
We are not our grandmothers with their calloused hands and cracked heels. We are not our grandmothers balancing sharp tongues and silenced anger. We are not the young girls who knew war before they knew wonder. We are not their brown skin and anxious eyes, their fear of dying quietly. We are not their sit-ins and boycotts, their marches and colored sections. We are not the help wearing white while walking through dark back doors. We are not gatherers of scraps. We are not our grandmothers, but we are the outline of their shadows, and we hold together the darkness of their struggle.
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The Fall
Joshua Beebe
H
How many cliffs does a man have to
So how can this man have the nerve to
jump off before things finally start to fall
look so broken down by this fall? What
into place? You can stand here and watch
gives him the right to look so beaten
a man dive head first from these peaks
and bruised when his skin is as thick as
hoping to find something waiting for him
iron and twice as strong? And why the
at the bottom that’s worth the fall,
fuck would he ever look at me with eyes so bloodshot and
only to find himself battered and dazed because what he thought would be
away,
walk
never
once
concerned
with
slept in years because
desperately want to
tired of waiting and to
like the man hasn’t
is that I know I
waiting for him got decided
bagged, eyes that look
The worst part
he’s too busy having
jump off that cliff again, but I know that if I tried
how the man would
I’d make it to the edge
catch himself on the
and hesitate.
way down. It’s not like it matters, right? He’s a man,
he’ll just pick himself back up off the
nightmares about a fall he shouldn’t have the right to complain about anyway? The worst part is that I
know I desperately want to jump off that cliff again,
but I know that if I tried I’d make it to
ground like he has so many times before.
the edge and hesitate. I guess that’s my
What’s one more deadly plunge onto
mistake, because the moment I hesitate
bloodstained concrete? Besides, so many
we separate and solid concrete takes your
men have taken that same fall only to find
place. But what can I say? After so many
that the only embrace waiting for them
times I’ve tried to jump off this cliff, only
is the unyielding pavement, which, after
to find myself lying on the ground with a
so many men have fallen onto it, it must
new scar on my chest it’s hard for me to
have softened up a little by now, right?
jump for you, especially when my
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scar reminds me so much of you, because
to. Matter of fact, I’m sick of jumping.
it looks just like you. Look, you even
I’m through. Most of the people worth
signed it too, I guess that’s why I can
jumping for are standing here at the top
never forget you. Looks like I’ll just have
anyway, staring over the edge searching
to find another cliff to jump off, but after
for their own person to jump for. I think
so many falls it’s hard to remember what
I’ll just find someone up here, someone
I’m jumping for. Like every time I jump
who knows what’s it’s like to jump, only
my skin gets harder and harder until it
to find a headache and new scar waiting
starts to keep my reason for existence
for them at the bottom. Then maybe she
from seeping through. Like the last time
and I can walk down from these cliffs
I fell only to break my back on the jagged
together. I’ll just have to replace your scar
edges of the ring I bought you. My skin
with a heart shaped stick and her smile.
hardened so much after that I don’t even
That’s all I ever really wanted anyway.
think I could jump anymore if I wanted
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Aquarius
Marlen Ivy Burrell watercolor
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Power1
Dakota Rose
acrylic on paper
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Power2
Dakota Rose acrylic on paper
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The Hurricane At the back of the yard, along the fence row, raveled with wire, briar, rust and rabbit warrens, the wild cherry branch hung, a dislocated arm turned downward, twisted by the hurricane, the brute that punched fiercely along the Great Lakes all the way to Ohio. Many, more majestic trees were beaten, but in my path this limb lashed out, thwacking me across the brow, a stinging, open-handed wallop as if I were to blame for its predicament; indignantly, I wrenched at this unexpected rival, but the bough wouldn’t give.
David Sapp
For two summers we grappled like muscled wrestlers, stubborn wills thrashing about the arena; at the end of this long winter, after months of thwarted moves, on a whim I gave it another tug with no anticipation of victory, and the branch puled free; I am content with this small triumph, but oddly, I miss the battle.
Though crippled, it endured, obstinate, leafing out, sap flowing, flowering inconsequential blossoms and grudgingly, offering little, stemmed berries, the color of dark, red wine, more seed than fruit, appealing only to birds unlike its voluptuous cousins – fat cupids for women’s pies.
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Animal Alphabets
E.P. Fisher
The alphabet of the Alligator comes from an ancient aeon. The biography of the Bear is a book about blackberries. The chronicle of the Cicada is an underground classic. The diary of the Dog is a dissertation on daydreams. The encyclopedia of the Elephant is an epic of enormous eloquence. In the fairytale of the Frog, the princess becomes a polliwog. The grammar of the Grasshopper is a glossary of gamboling glyphs. The Hippopotamus is a sheer hyperbole; the Hummingbird, a hymn. The itinerary of the Impala is an instance of italics. The Jellyfish keeps its “Journal of the Medusa.” The Katydid gets its kicks quoting Keats off-key. The Ladybug’s lyrics are punctuated with polka-dots. The Monkey’s business is a metaphor for man. The Nightingale’s note is a numinous nocturne. The Owl’s “who” is the orphan’s ode. The parable of the Porcupine makes a poignant point. “Quickly or quietly?” are questions for the Quail. The Rhino is known for his ribaldry; the Raven, for raucous wrefrains. The Spider’s syntax is silkier than a sonnet by Shakespeare. The Termite’s terminology is the tree’s tragic tale. The Unicorn is an ungulate from an undiscovered universe. The Vulture is well-versed in the vocabulary of veins. The word-play of the Whale is written on the waves. X is a signature in the eyes of extinct species. The yap of the Yak is a yarn in Yakutsk. The Zebra’s zip-code is a zoo in Zimbabwe.
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The Frog God Anthony Lopez
watercolor
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Manipulate Inanimate
Matthew Stark
I. A small firefly like an ordinary movement in light or knit together common like each glowing unravels in green grass as it rolls or two red heels incessant in their tapping bright eyes to the sky its blue trappings wispy all lapsing those vestiges of clouds she forms like language, she says, the way the viewer in agency hears the way I want to hear her the rabbit bedded in sky its overgrown ears the way it listens great loping ears sprawled in the grass she tidies her skirt about her legs no longer visible to imagine the legs she buries in the grass so that when she appends you looking blurt out a word II. Not like this, she says, her eyes cast down bright eyes shrouded like some ruby floats over green grass and into a thicket some dark brush she opens her mouth perhaps to yawn the wings of an insect stop buzzing it falls like light plastic
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to the ground the cloud in its shifting is now between states the hot hum from the brush quiet when time resumes its pace is different it stalks a gait cannot be light when time moves like this she says listlessly says quiet night to hear her is to hear the raw hum of summer say grating say in the end the rabbit beds down in the sky wisps out to blue
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Follow Me
Jessica Nowlin
batik (fabric, wax, dye)
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Hephaestus
Johnny Cook
After the grabbing, twisting, ecstasy, Your hands around my throat – You go into the bathroom to clean off. I can see you through the crack in the door Posing in the mirror Being Aphrodite has its pitfalls You’re full to hate, but a reflection won’t show that. I’m your jockey Running you down into the ground – Those legs will be pillars of salt one day Crumbling to dust. I’m perched like a gargoyle watching, Holding that four dollar pocket knife with the broken switch Stroking the webbing between my fingers. You close the door to do something discreet Even though we just fucked each other. The ultimate expression of love, anger, depression, confusion, lust, fulfillment – And we’re no better for it. I’m sitting in the dark with this tiny knife You’re still in the bathroom talking And I’m real bad at feigning interest. I’m never going to be able to save you So I’ll just let you use me. There’s a palpable anger But I don’t know if it’s yours or mine.
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For My Ex-Husband, On His Wedding Day Maragaret Drummond
If I could have distilled you, boiled you down to the good place in your heart that only I know, and maybe your momma, blown on it gently, whispered to it Grow, would it have sprouted thin tendrils to circle the rubber muscle so cold in your chest? Could these shoots have pricked and prodded through the degenerate sinews once buffed only to lift the heavy load to self-destruction? It’s been forever already – in the way that diamonds fall out of their settings, and dresses sprout tiny moth-eaten holes. Remember how, hips to hips, we ground out a spark? Like haggard campers – wet and cold, we set up shelter just a little too late to make a fire in the dark. In secret I hold your transgressions like precious coins in my pocket. Days like today I reach deep and count them. I rub their faces. Hold them out, gleaming copper in the sun, to remind the heavens of their karmic promise. Seventy times seven may be just enough, if I only had the power to fling them from me, watch them scatter violently and settle heavy in a fountain.
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He Beast
Kaitlin McCluskey
embroidered photograph
Friendship is Messy Sarah Kinney digital painting
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Poem With Blue Fescue And Red Breasted Nuthatch Claire Scott
A listless clump of brown No foliage glinting silver blue In the sun’s sharp gaze I grab a trowel and dig in Loamy soil Beneath the surface A small bird Rests on one side Ants crawl over its blue wings Ants crawl over its rusted breast Ants in the hollow of its skull It’s pale eye glazed Opaque in the black line Striping its head I remove the withered plant And toss it in the compost How can it weigh so little How can it seem so nothing I take a new plant From its plastic pot Roots dangling, seeking soil It feels earthy and dense I tuck it in the ground Glaucous tufts glow In the fierce sun I want to cradle the bird In my muddy hands Murmur prayers to The avian goddess But I can’t get past the Ants the horror the disgust I scoop the bird up In the trowel Set it deep in the dirt and Cover it with chips of bark The garden looks serene No sign of death’s long fingers 76
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Granny
Sean Johnson
cotton house dresses no panties at night gotta let womanhood breathe sometimes homemade lye soap cracks but not Black skin splash with cool well water pond’s cold cream lathered with the meticulous hands of an almost slave coarse hair wrapped in scraps of silk stolen from houses cleaned and sewn together like time “don’t ever lay down. Kookalocka, without bending your knees.”
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People Around Me
Alana Selby
pastel on paper series
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Four Mile Fire
Matthew Stark
The first weeds on your belongings, poke a head around your future. The outline of a house, home starts with the entryway the metal welcome mat must be where the door was the head of a golf club. The body of a wheelbarrow. The arm of a gun. Lacquered flat with ash and the cloudless blue sky. Walk on your foundation a green onlooker. What of the watering jug melted flat. Where the kitchen must have been. The toaster the shingles the screws the dishwasher still full. Coffee mugs. When you return I am sitting in your scorched lawn furniture. I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry for your loss. Thank you for having me.
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An Aging Couple’s Evening Stroll in the Park Scott Waller
The sun looms large and old, Squatting like an egg yolk On the near-silhouette Of roofs and chimneys. It feigns death among the shadows getting longer By bleeding out its hue— As though it had once lived. It’s awe-éclat no longer dazzles The flinching eye. Its deepening orange barely swallows The darkening delta of braches in the park That pass before it; No longer a menace or overbearing. A warmth passes from my hand to yours Through our age-dried skin. We take the known path homewards; Precious few words between us. A passing child speaks of us impolitely: The mother reprimands, out of politeness. Love ferments slowly into friendship, A kind of refined, choice closeness. The gentle air transmits modest rays of warmness. You remark, The days are getting longer.
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Elephant Marlene Ivy Burrell watercolor
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When Distance Walks In
Sean Johnson
When distance walks in, the glint of his gold band siphons my breath. I forget that I’ve been over him for years. The glint of his gold band burns like embers in my lungs. I forget that I’ve been over him for years. I inhale his asbestos memory and it burns like embers in my lungs. He used to thread life for me. I inhale his asbestos memory and it unravels every stitch I’ve made in time. He used to thread life for me. Now each footstep he makes across this room unravels every stitch I’ve made in time. Babel is unearthed. Now each footstep he makes across this room siphons my breath. Babel is unearthed when distance walks in.
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The Surrender of Your Limbs
Scott Waller
(invitation to love inspired by reclining nude), the surrender of your limbs strips the dignity off generals defeated in deserts, dissolves power足machinations beneath sham, exposes the potent nudity of nothingness as nothing less the surrender of your limbs is the giving of the tissue carried over the curve of half the earth of soft, ready fruit to your lips alive setting your eyes asparkle above a hesitant, accordion足like, creeping light that invents wadis in skin for proximity unknown to the colours of the patient flowers on a vase with narrow rim, a little nauseous at the taste of infinity felt by the profane in the ripples of fabric swept by rough desert winds refusing lines with sand in the mouth of the desperate palatial opulence and the dull remembrance of a shrine the surrender of your limbs is the surrender of motion to soft inertia is the shutting down of the world,
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rejoice at the last miser’s wake, is light spilling out laughter on a white cloud’s silent crawling downward to rest in a whispering valley’s nearly empty village the surrender of your limbs forces the pyramid of fruit’s feigned indifference of the banal in that bowl to explode into joy for the surrender of your limbs to the stealthy, invisible, tingling fingers (that steal eyes like frightened tombthieves) and will take you away again from my hot cadaver to the beyond where, if you venture, I am awaiting you
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Swans in Chicago
Jan Ball
I know my swans, Mr. Yeats, and, bizarre as it may seem, I did see a white one below the erector set bridge on Goose Island, most improbably floating in green industrial slime, my eyes only able to dart right once or twice, trapped as I was in my Ford Focus behind the swaggering silver Mercedes almost attached to my front bumper, menacing as a male swan in mating season. The eerie possibility of an illusion was like, as a child, I would stare through the feathery summer curtains onto Irving Park Road and see the blue cars with no drivers, blinking my eyes in disbelief. But this swan was not just some hallucination from being stuck in traffic on a bridge or a childhood expression of impotence, I know now that naturalists have introduced swans into the area to check the overabundance of Canada geese, to scare them away from some landscaped suburban industrial sites where they overpopulate. Maybe we could introduce tanks to deal with the Mercedes?
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Portrait Carrie Overcash
guache on illustration board
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Communication
Spencer Smith
Her thin lips separate like gummed pages in a well-worn book I have read many times, echoes of her past words still flapping batlike in the groined vault of my mind as she prepares, predictably, to unleash herself again, wormy Adam’s apple flag-fluttering on that pole of a neck, reverse flush of voice coming up the pipe to spew on me again. I clench my extremities as if bracing for a salt wind over rotting kelp— and then there is nothing but a sweet breath of silence as if she is encased in a Lucite pyramid. I blink but she is still there, yammering in vacuum, blood speck of lipstick prominent on a front tooth, anger marking her face like a stylus, but I hear only my own music on a background of emptiness, as Beethoven in later years. My shoulders relax, and I smile and nod, ostensibly attentive, marveling at her shrunken stature as if she had been filled only with sound and now it is gone like wind from a parachute, leaving her deflated, luffing uselessly in still air.
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Restless Night
Jan Ball
I have not stepped into a chasm getting out of bed this morning. The vodka hasn’t turned to vinegar overnight, nor has the porcelain plate I left on the counter cracked, cascading radishes onto the kitchen floor. I’ll drive out to suburban Evanston to pick up ninety-eightyear-old Aunt Irene who is bent arthritically as a bridge over the Chicago River, wedge her into the front seat of my compact car and pull the seat belt across her ample Polish bosom and stomach then take her to see Mother in her downscale nursing home in the city helping her to keep her metal walker steady when she gets out of the car so she doesn’t trip on the frozen gravel path, roll her crunchily back to my mother’s facility in a wheelchair that I’ll borrow from the front desk, then, after Aunt’s certain frustrated communication trying to talk to Mother who can’t hear anything and doesn’t process anything, anyway, drive around the corner to Wojciechoiwski’s Funeral Home to pay our last respects to cousin Stanley laying in his satin-lined coffin, as they all do, a rosary intertwined between his milkman’s fingers. (With any luck, however, his son Michael’s fireman co-workers will be there with their emergency telephones strapped to the thin waists that they maintain doing pushups while they wait for urgent calls to back the gleaming fire truck out of the firehouse). I’ll drive Aunt back to her senior facility for her dinner by side streets via a route that I’ll plot on the map I haven’t used in years since Mapsearch will recommend the expressway but I must avoid that parking lot anytime after 3:15; however, the snowstorm that the annoying weather person with the baby voice predicted hasn’t eventuated (as my dad used to say) and now the sun is spreading thick kielbasa fingers across Lake Michigan already warming the day after a restless night of zero degrees Fahrenheit when I changed to that heavier floral Lanz nightgown from the Vermont Country Store catalogue to keep warm so slept better after that. LITERARY-ARTS MAGAZINE
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Yeah, I remember Brandy Alex Rodriguez
S
Sometime in the night, after the party was through, Brandy Carver, Potato’s girlfriend, threw up, and since she was on her back at the time she swallowed the puke, choked, and died. Earlier she’d come through to the house tweaking on triple C’s she said she’d stolen about a hundred of from a CVS, and whenever she made herself up a drink in a red cup it was like sixty vodka forty OJ, sometimes seventy thirty. Towards the last I saw her, when she’d started crying stumbling, saying, “I can’t see, I can’t see,” I’d say the mix probably got to be eighty twenty. Anyways, I wasn’t too shocked when the ambulance rolled up, Brandy was never very smart. I mean she failed AFM. How do you fail AFM? Advanced Functions and Modeling is literally the math class dummies take and ace so they don’t look bad next to kids in AP Calc. Not to trash the dead, but nobody fails AFM, nobody, and Brandy found a way. I guess that’s why Potato liked her so much. Brandy didn’t say a word about the pills he sold or all the other chicks, his harem, and I don’t know if that’s because Brandy actually thought she loved Potato or if she was just too stupid to identify poison. But she stuck with him. I never had a class with Brandy in elementary school but she was always on the playground when I was, so I saw her plenty. Brandy was dumpy then, fat, and she was shrill. She had this inch long Keloid scar like a stamp on her chest from some surgery she’d had when she was really little. Squawking, Brandy would
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sort of drift around the playground, through the other kids. She was just… there. Hands on her hips, squawking and squawking and never heard. In middle school she dyed her hair black, packed on weight, listened to My Chemical Romance, stole from her parents’ liquor cabinet, had next to no friends. Everyone had stopped talking about her till she slept with Chad at a school football game, which made Chad the very first of our pals to get laid. Fucking Chad worked out doubly for her, because then everybody knew Brandy Carver. She must’ve thought any press is good press, because people mostly called her whore, tramp, stuff like that, but they called her something. That’s what was important. Freshmen year Brandy started hanging with these gangbangers from downtown. She smoked skunk weed with them, and whenever she’d run out of cash she blew one or two of them for a roach or a Double Stack at Wendy’s. Least that’s what I’d heard. Sophomore year she met Potato and started screwing him for codeine, and Potato was cool with us since he always hooked us up, so so was Brandy. And by then Brandy had discovered vomiting to lose a little weight, so she was making some changes. I didn’t go to her funeral. I talked to people at school after she passed and apparently nobody from school showed. I think I was because we all felt guilty about that one time Brandy threw a party
at her house when her parents were gone but unintentionally fucking to the beat renewing their vows. We nearly exed the of. After two or three goes I felt spent place, left whippits and empty handles so I went outside and had a cigarette and condoms everywhere, burned yellow and Carissa came with me and I gave holes in the carpet with our cigarettes. her one too. We stood there on her front I don’t know how bad the looting was, porch in the humid nighttime, smoking but I know someone wanted to burn the and staying quiet. I was thinking about place down. I know, shit-housed, me and college. I don’t know what she had on her Joe snagged a Blu-ray player that Joe sold mind. to a pawn shop later. So yeah, along with I turned to her and I asked her, “Hey, everybody else, I didn’t have any pressing you remember Brandy?” and she giggled reason to go to the place her parents and said, “Boy, you got the drinks were guaranteed to be either. tonight. If you’d wanted to sip At school they had on more than just beer and “I don’t know this moment of silence me tonight you should on the morning have had Potato bring how bad the announcements to you something extra.” mark a month since “No,” I said, “not looting was, but I Brandy Carver died. brandy the drink, It lasted ten seconds, know someone wanted Brandy the girl.” and the whole time “Oh, I thought everybody was either you said did I to burn the place talking about finals remember the brandy. or more parties or they Wait, who?” down.” were coughing. After the “Brandy.” pause wrapped up, the kids on “Yeah, but Brandy who?” the TV playing news anchors thanked “You know, Brandy Carver.” us and moved on just like we all did. Carissa Stone said, “Oh, that girl that The summer after graduation, killed herself,” and then, after a really long I’d started dating one of Brandy’s drag, “Yeah, but only a little. Actually not rare friends from middle school, a girl much at all, really.” called Carissa Stone, a little too tall of a “Oh,” I said. brunette with big brown eyes and daddy We finished our cigarettes and she issues. We were at her house one night went inside and I hung back and watched in July drinking Bud Lights Potato had the orange lights of the streetlamps bought me. AMC was on the TV in come down on all the shadowy houses the background to block out our noises. on Carissa’s street for a bit before I went They were marathoning old war movies back inside of the house too. that me and Carissa weren’t watching
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Appendix
Contributor Biographies Literature
Jan Ball has been seriously submitting poetry for publication since 1998. Her two chapbooks were published by Finishing Line Press and are available on Amazon: Accompanying Spouse (2011) and Chapter of Faults (2014). The poems pretty much sum up Jan’s life: seven years in the convent after high school, marriage to an Australian then fourteen years in Australia where her two children were born, then back to the U.S., lots of travel, lots of gardening, lots of teaching ESL after her graduate work in Second Language Acquisition plus a dissertation, lots of joy but a little heartache, too. Jan and her husband Ray like to cook for friends when they are not traveling. When Joshua Beebe isn’t working, he spends most of his time reading, writing, and generally enjoying the endless possibilities of life. He is currently working on completing his first novel so he can share his passion for storytelling with the world. Gabriella M. Belfiglio lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner and three cats. She teaches self-defense, conflict resolution, karate, and tai chi to people of all ages throughout the five boroughs. One of her favorite places in New York is the beautiful Greenwood Cemetery. Gabriella’s work has been published in many anthologies and journals. Most recently, Gabriella won second place in the 2014 W.B. Yeats Poetry Contest. Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East and The South Carolina Review. His books include the collection While We’re Waiting (Aldrich Press, 2013) and two chapbook collections: Night Watch (Finishing Line Press, 2013), and Walk With Me (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). For more information, please visit www.markbelair.com. Johnny Cook has a cat and a dog, and enjoys eggs, coffee, and cigarettes. He studies philosophy and writes poems when things go poorly in his life. He is currently applying to graduate school to pursue an MFA in Poetry. Jonathan Doughty alternates between Toronto and the American South. His writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in Sierra Nevada Review, The Broken Plate, Poetica Magazine, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, and Asian Margaret Drummond is currently pursuing her B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing at UNC Charlotte. As a mother of twin teenagers, her life is ripe with poetic potential, and her goal is to continually harvest as many poems as she can. E.P. Fisher taught high school English in Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer, and worked for 30 years as a play therapist and adventure-based counselor with special needs children. He hold a bachelor’s degree in literature and a doctorate in psychology.
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John Grey is an Australian born poet, recently published in International Poetry Review, Vallum and the science fiction anthology The Kennedy Curse, with work upcoming in Bryant Literary Magazine, Pennsylvania English, and Nerve Cowboy. Sean Johnson graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston with a bachelor of science in I nterdisciplinary studies. Since then they have slammed and performed spoken word throughout the country and written as well as starred in several local plays. They currently star as Vanessa in the stage play Millicent Bradford’s Adoption Story. In addition to writing and acting, they teach kindergarten. They reside in Houston, Texas with their beloved dog, Chowder. Analiz Laracuente-Espinal is a 21-year-old poet with a passion for expressing emotions through language and written word. She is currently a student at UNC Charlotte attaining her Bachelors degree in English and French with a minor in women’s studies. Her goal is to obtain an MFA in Creative Writing. Michael Mark is a hospice volunteer and long distance walker. His poetry has appeared or is scheduled to appear in Angle Journal, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Empty Mirror, Forge Journal, Gravel, Lost Coast Review, New Verse News, OutsideIn Magazine, Petrichor Review, Ray’s Road Review, Red River Review, Red Booth Review, Scapegoat Journal, Spillway, Toe Good Poetry, Quail Belle Magazine and other nice places. James Proffitt is a 45-year-old freelance writer in Marblehead, Ohio. He has worked at various un-fulfilling occupations, most recently as a Gannett reporter. He specializes in fishing, hunting, outdoor sports, conservation and Lake Erie-related topics. Some of his poems, photographs and stories have appeared in Rattle, Tampa Review, Bluestem, Chautauqua, North American Review, New Letters, Old Red Kimono, Chariton Review, Briar Cliff Review and elsewhere. Alex Mitchell Rodriguez was born in Virginia Beach, 1993. His family moved up and down the east coast, settling in North Carolina when Alex was in the fourth grade. He fell in love with movies. He learned to play the guitar in high school. He’s been creating stories since he was a toddler, but only actively began practicing the craft of writing at twelve. Alex is a junior in college. David Sapp is a writer and artist living near Lake Erie in North America. He teaches at Firelands College in Huron, Ohio. His poems have appeared widely in a number of venues in the United States. Additional publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior; chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha; and his novel, Flying Over Erie.
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Claire Scott has an MA in counseling Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Berkeley, CA. Claire is an award winning poet and a nominee for the 2014 Pushcart Prize. Her first book of poetry, Waiting To Be Called will be published by IFSF in the fall of 2014. Claire lives with her husband in Oakland, CA. Richard M. Smith graduated with Honors in Creative Writing from UNC-Chapel Hill, fortunate to have learned from Max Steele, Marianne Gingher and Jill McCorkle. Following more than 20 years in the publishing industry in New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Charlotte, he is currently working toward a Master in Liberal Studies at UNC-Charlotte, writing poetry and a YA fantasy novel. A native of London, UK, he now lives in Davidson, NC. Spencer Smith is a University of Utah graduate and works in the corporate world to pay the bills that poetry doesn’t pay (i.e. all of them). His poetry has appeared in over thirty literary journals. Besides writing, he enjoys reading a broad spectrum of literature, playing guitar, listening to an eclectic mix of music, and spending time with family. Matthew Stark wrote his first poem while shoveling snow in Monument, Colorado. He recently graduated with an MFA from the University of South Carolina as a James Dickey Fellow. His work appears or is forthcoming in Jasper, Spillway, Cider Press Review, Fall Lines, and JERRY Magazine. Scott Waller is a British-born, bibliophile literature-lover teacher of English language and literature at the Sorbonne Paris. He is the father of one boy and enjoys writing and attending/performing slam sessions in his free time.
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Art Marlene Ivy Burrell is a junior at UNCC majoring in Psychology and Africana Studies. Originally from Florida, Marlene is elated to now call Charlotte home where she finds much inspiration in the Queen City. Art has always been a significant part of Marlene’s life, and she desires to continue to create inspiring and sincere work. Elena Calebro is a senior at UNCC working towards her BFA in Art with a concentration in Painting and Art Education. Her paintings have evolved over the last few years. She began by painting plein-air landscapes in oil and has gradually moved into the realm of abstraction and figure. Elena has a strong passion for working with children and hopes to one day open her own art school. Kellie Funderburk is a graduate of UNC Charlotte. She earned her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Art degree with a concentration in Illustration along with a minor in Art History. Her work is influenced by comics, anime, manga, and robots. Her goal is to create illustrations that inspire children and adults to step outside the box. Rachel Fussell is a nineteen year old illustration student at UNC Charlotte. She has been self-taught up until 2013. She wants to extend her skills into costume fabrication while at the university. Most of the pieces submitted are from her high school AP Art class. Sarah Kinney is a wannabe illustrator working on her BFA at UNC Charlotte. She is an introvert, long-time artist, and self-proclaimed closet comedian. She spends most days drawing random character designs, reading, and talking about animated movies. Anthony Lopez is an artist and an adventurer extraordinaire. He studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for his degree in Illustration. Anthony hopes to make a carton show and bring joy to people all over the world. Kaitlin McCluskey is a Senior at UNCC, graduating in December 2015 with a BFA in Illustration. Over the past two years she has worked on creating fiber based illustrations and hopes to continue this exploration in a Masters program. Kylie Niemand is a photography major and member of both the University Honors Program and the Arts and Architecture Honors Program at UNC Charlotte. Her photographic work explores the relationship between man and nature, and the manner in which humans convert natural lands into that of built environments. Her work features contemporary landscapes that have been altered to represent the mindset of our nation: conquer, expand, and build.
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Jessica Nowlin is a recent transfer to UNCC from Iowa Western Community College with an Associate’s Degree in Art pursing a BFA in Illustration and a minor in Art History. She has been drawing since she was a child and has always been in love with cartoons although she works with any medium of art she can get her hands on. Disney, Pixar, and Tim Burton are some of her biggest inspirations and she hopes to work in animation as a concept artist one day. Jemima Omalay was born in Nigeria only to move to the US at age 8. She has always enjoyed art and is so pleased that it is now a career option. Carrie Overcash is a graduating senior at UNCC. With her art degree, she hopes to continue her work as a freelance artist using wet media materials. Dakota Rose is a figurative artist and illustrator working toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at UNC Charlotte. Alana Selby is a senior at UNCC, graduating this May with a BFA degree with a concentration in illustration. Over the course of her four years studying at UNCC, she has had several works displayed in ten exhibitions. She works in all different kinds of mediums and styles – to gestural sketches and figure drawings to tightly rendered portraits. Her goal for after graduation is to land a job at a production studio as a production artist/illustrator. Joanna Zamora is an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is currently working on getting her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Illustration and a minor in Art History.
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Jury Art Jurors Professor Jamie Franki received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Illustration from Syracuse University and has been teaching art full-time on the College and University level since 1988. He is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he coordinates the Illustration program and serves as Associate Chair of the Department of Art + Art History. Jamie maintains a studio practice focused upon developing concept illustrations and modeling basrelief sculptures for coins and medals. Professor Kristin Rothrock has taught Foundations, Book Arts and Papermaking at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte since 2003. She recieved her MFA in Graphics Arts from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1998. She revieced her BS in Studio Art fom Skidmore College in 1990. Professor J. Michael Simpson has an MFA from Illinois State University and has taught at Auburn University, Eastern Michigan University, Winthrop University, and UNC Charlotte. He has received grants from the State of Alabama, The Blumenthal Foundation, and the Arts Council of York County and accepted residencies at the Millay Colony of the Arts and the McColl Center for the Visual Arts. His work fuses drawing, painting, video, and installation.
Literature Jurors Dr. Christopher Davis is a professor of creative writing in the UNC Charlotte English Department. He is the author of three books of poetry: The Tyrant of the Past and the Slave of the Future, The Patriot, and A History of the Only War. His recently-completed fourth collection is titled Oath. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Denver Quarterly and many other journals. Dr. Jim McGavran was an active scholar, faculty president in the 1980s and Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1988-1993). Among Jim’s honors were the Bank of America Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 and the UNC Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award in 2007. Dr. Lara Vetter is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she teaches modernism, poetry, and American literature. She is the author of Modernist Writings and Religio-scientific Discourse, editor of H.D.’s By Avon River, and co-editor of Approaches to Teaching H.D.’s Poetry and Prose and Emily Dickinson’s Correspondences.
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Staff Biographies Joshua Wood - editor-in-chief Joshua Wood is a senior at UNC Charlotte obtaining his BFA in Illustration, he is also getting a double minor in Art History and Women and Gender Studies. He has devoted the last four years to working at Student Niner Media and that last two to Sanskrit. He hopes to continue his work in the arts by working in a museum or gallery. Besides drawing, he enjoys lying on his couch and watching Netflix all day.
Leah Chapman - associate editor Leah Chapman is a junior at UNCC working towards her BA in English with a concentration in creative writing and a minor in film studies. She is an aspiring screenwriter, and she hopes one day to become the showrunner of her own television show. Her love for film and tv comes from watching The Red Skelton Show and Mel Brooks’ films with her family. She is a firm believer that all movies should have at least one musical number. When Leah is not busy writing or watching tv, she enjoys hiking, playing the piano, and plotting ways to become the next Martha Stewart.
Savannah Jackson - lead designer Savannah Jackson is a sophomore at UNCC studying graphic design while interning for Hibiscus Brand Management in uptown Charlotte. Her goal is to own her own design firm after maintaining diverse work experience. She not only has a passion for digital art, but for studio art. such as painting, printmaking, and drawing. In her sparse free time she practices yoga, swims, travels, and tries to experience as much music as possible.
Sarah Kinney - designer Sarah Kinney is a transfer student at UNC Charlotte working towards her BFA in Illustration, while simultaneously juggling poor social skills, a passion for animated things, and bad bed head. She hopes to get a job in some sort of illustrative work, whether it will be concept art, magazine illustration, sequential art, or freelance.
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Tierra Holmes - content editor Tierra Holmes is a History and Art History double major at UNC Charlotte. Her majors ensure that she spends almost every waking moment of her life reading some sort of text, but in the free time she does have, she enjoys watching Netlfix, drawing, and trying to pretend that she is a functioning member of society. After she finishes with schooling, Tierra hopes to become a curator for a museum or gallery. Originally she wanted to use her degrees to become the next Indiana Jones. After further deliberation, she decided that probably would not work out for anyone involved.
Sarah Eberly - content editor Sarah Eberly is both an English and Geography major at UNCCharlotte. One day she aspires to be an urban planner and to inspire people to reconnect and interact with their communities. She was most accurately described by one of her friends as a person with “long legs and places to be.” She is thankful to the experience Sanskrit has given her this year, and cannot see where her journey will take her next year.
AudreyGretz - content editor Audrey Gretz is a freshman student at UNC Charlotte from Wilmington, NC. Although her major is still undeclared she has strong interests in language, art, and music. She is the PR manager for the UNCC’s radio station, Radio Free Charlotte. Music is a major part of her life since she has a passion for music and plays piano; this interest carries over into her art.. She wishes that she could one day study in Japan, get her graduate degree, and to make this happen she is currently learning Japanese.
Auburn Hicks - content editor Auburn Hicksis a senior studying mass media communications and theater. Hailing from Winston-Salem, NC in her final semester she finds herself far from the campus of UNCC at Kingston University in London. While abroad she is furthering her passions for the theater and play writing. Once Auburn has returned from across the pond she will have completed her undergrad and plans to venture north to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.
Miranda Lewis - intern Miranda Lewis is a senior at UNCC. She is majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing, and minoring in biology. After earning her undergraduate degree, she plans to earn an MFA in fiction writing, write novels, and someday teach at an institution of higher education. When she is not sacrificing her last scraps of sanity into a palm-sized notebook or a Word doc, she can usually be found spending time with friends and family, jogging, or swimming.
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Thank You Contributors: Thank you for choosing us to showcase your incredible work. Without you, none of this would be possible. Wayne Maikranz: We thank you for all of the work you put in to support and guide us, and the helpful advice you give us along the way. Mark Haire: Thank you for your patience in answering question after question after question...and of course, always being there with a friendly hello. Pete Hurdle: Thank you for always keeping your door open and putting up with our constant stream of questions. Kelly Merges: Thank you for your help with circulation and for encouraging us to showcase Sanskrit to the world. Laurie Cuddy: Thank you for being such an excellent Business Manager and an important part of Student Niner Media. Art and Literature Jury: Thank you for dedicating your time to helping us pick the best work for Sanskrit. Your excellent taste is key for our success!. Graphic Impressions: Thank you for taking our vision and turning it into reality. Jeff Allio: Thank you for being patient with us while we worked out all the kinks for this year’s issue, your dedication to Sanskrit is much appreciated. Student Union Art Gallery: Thank you for coordinating with us to display this year’s content and to create an amazing exhibit. Michael Teague and Angel Cox: For helping us out whenever the technology just did not want to cooperate (or maybe we just didn’t know how to use it). Janitors of the Student Union: Thank you for keeping the office clean, even when we fail to keep it tidy. Students of UNC Charlotte, SAFC, and Readers: Thank you for all your support and the interest in our work. We hope you enjoy it! Family, Friends, and Loved Ones: For being there to support our hard work and passions, thank you. To all of our incredible and dedicated staff members and volunteers, thank you! We have all worked very hard to put forth another beautifully made publication of Sanskrit. We have come a long way from our initial literature read-throughs and our calls for submissions. We should all be proud. Congratulations on an awesome job well done!
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Colophon Copyright 2015 Sanskrit Litarary-Arts Magazine and the Student Media Board of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form electronic, mechanic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission of the copy holder.
Graphic Impressions, Charlotte, NC 3500 copies for Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine were printed on 80# Roland Offset Natural with 100# Accent Opaque Cover. This magazine contains 104 pages, with a trim size of 6�x9�.
Typography
Tangerine, Raleway Bold, Raleway Semibold, Raleway Regular, Raleway Italic, Raleway Light, Big Caslon.
Appropriated iMac computers Adobe Creative Suite 6.0 lostandtaken.com textures india ink on cardstock Font Agent Pro
Credits Cover Design: Savannah Jackson Type Setting: Savannah Jackson, Sarah Kinney Page Illustraition: Savannah Jackson, Sarah Kinney Layout: Savannah Jackson, Sarah Kinney Copy Edit: Joshua Wood, Leah Chapman, Audrey Gretz, Sarah Eberly, Tierra Holmes, Auburn Hicks. Miranda Lewis.
Submission Guidlines Please visit sanskritmagazine.com to view past issues, access submission forms, or view general requirements. LITERARY-ARTS MAGAZINE
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In memory of: Dr. Jim McGavran Professor, UNC Charlotte (Sept. 12, 1941 - Dec. 20, 2014)
VOLUME 46
University of North Carolina at Charlotte