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A Catalog Of Small Machines
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A joint publication of the Driftless Writing Center and the Arts + Literature Laboratory
Volume IV: Summer 2024
Editor: Mark MacAllister, Driftless Writing Center
Covers: Katrin Talbot
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A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.
William Carlos Williams
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Artistic Act
by Maureen Adams
Maureen Adams - Artistic Act the edge to paint hovers long before the brush is loaded ahead of securing the medium it precedes even the image
a handful of blood-orange poppies yesterday’s slate and purple storm cloud that bank of dappled deciduous behind a golden cornfield the precipice lies in the arrogance needed to imagine that a scene could be even vaguely captured the magic of a moment extracted and distilled without losing the essence in the conversion and all by one who counts herself unworthy and undaunted
how can I observe this natural point of utter complexity incomparable beauty and deign to convey even a drop
impostering resides right there when I reach dissonance between the grandeur witnessed and my creative limits
humbled only then can I proceed A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 3]
Dear Abby Gone Wrong (A Newspaper Column)
by Jane Barnard
Jane Barnard - Dear Abby Gone Wrong (A Newspaper Column)
Dear Wanda,
My husband of 24 years won’t talk, I mean not at all, except when he says “Bernice shut up.” He just nods his bald head toward the kitchen when he wants a baloney sandwich or a Bud Lite. What should I do?
Sincerely, Bernice
Dear Bernice,
Tell him Bud Lite is disgusting beer and to switch to something decent like Old Milwaukee or Leinies which is is my personal favorite because-- [Editor: Cut the rest!]
Helpfully, Wanda
Dear Wanda,
Bernice again. I’m awfully sorry to bother you I hope it’s OK, my daughter says I’m too much of a mouse but the ladies at the Altar Society say I’m getting assertive-- I had to go and check my Merriam Webster’s for that word-- because when Lillian and them turned to me at the meeting and said I should bring Marshmallow Jello Salad for the Bake Sale, I stood up, and my voice was pretty loud Wanda! I said, “N-N-NO. I mean, uh, I’m sorry but N-NO, sorry but I’m bringing my Lemon bars and that’s the end of it.” When I sat down my face was all hot and everyone looked at me funny. I felt guilty Wanda but I did it anyway. Then Lillian said “OK OK then, suit yourself Bernice.” But what about my husband Wanda? He’s not only silent most every day but when he does talk he calls me a useless b-bb… I can’t say that word Wanda. Please help me!
Hopelessly yours,
Bernice
Dear Bernice,
I love lemon bars but can you make them gluten free? As I told my sister Ernestine, that gluten stuff makes my belly all flabby and then I’m bloated and my bowel movements are--[Editor: Spare me! Cut the rest]
Healthfully, Wanda
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Dear Wanda,
I’m real sorry, I know you must be busy, but please help. Now my husband is hiding the remote. He knows my only enjoyment is watching Dr Phil who says even a pancake has 2 sides. So, am I wrong because--well, because sometimes I wonder if his fishing line is strong enough if I wrapped it around his neck while he’s sleeping. Wanda do I need to confess this? Father Aloysius is not open for Confessions till Saturday so what if--is it a mortal sin if I only think about the fishing line around his neck? Like Jimmy Carter committing adultery in his head? Except I always wondered how you do that in your head. Will I go to hell if I get hit by a front loader or something before Saturday?
Desperately yours,
Bernice
Dear Bernice,
HELL no. Listen up and listen good. What I did with Earl was, just get your iron, turn it off first, careful of the steam setting, I burnt my thumb the first time, take the iron in one hand and a nice fat pillow in the other hand—I used the living room throw pillow that says "A Fisherman Lives Here with the Catch of His Life" that his mother gave me for our last anniversary and I never liked her bossy ways anyway. Wait did I ask you about those lemon bars? So I get the pillow when he’s lying there on the couch snoring like a big stinky hog and I press down hard with the iron on the pillow over his prickly whiskers and his ugly mug and then I-- [Editor: Cut the whole damn column! And find me who was supposed to do a background check on Wanda. In my office, now.]
Happily ever after,
Wanda
Dear Wanda,
This is Officer Schultz from the Sheriff’s Department. Stay right where you are please.
Dear Sheriff,
Do you like lemon bars?
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Haiku 5.19.2024
by Deb Bushy
Deb Bushy - Haiku 5.19.2024
Spring.
I sense the changes. Springtime creates hope and growth. My flower now blooms! Peace. We join together. Our separateness melts in love. Unity bonds hearts. Reverence. My silence opens… My solitude creates joy. My stillness brings hope.
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Red Light, Green Light
by Cindy Crofton Cindy Crofton - Red Light, Green Light
When I moved to this town, it had exactly zero stoplights. After Walmart arrived, a traffic light was deemed a necessity. I kid you not, for a week straight if you turned on the news you would hear the owner of the local radio station instructing drivers how to obey a “stop and go light.” Decades later, we have three traffic lights. No one gives them any thought, unless they get a ticket for failure to stop.
As kids, we loved to play Red Light, Green Light. You stood, bouncing on your tiptoes, waiting for the traffic cop to yell a command. Green Light meant run forward as fast as you could. Red Light meant freeze! If you moved, you risked being sent back to the start. If you were brave, you would try to sneak forward, hoping you didn't get caught. The first to cross the finish line was the winner.
The adult forms of Red Light, Green Light bear little resemblance to the fun game of our youth.
On the farm, we have a bright light that signals our pasture fence is working correctly. I look out the window nightly for the reassuring green light that lets me know to go to sleep, the cattle are where they should be. When the light blinks red, or red and green, the electric fence is down somewhere. Did the deer kick a wire loose? Did a tree fall and let the cows go on a field trip? All I know is something is wrong and needs fixing. In the morning, after little sleep, we will go on an excursion. Our hope is that we’ll find the herd hunkered around the bale feeder. If we’re lucky, it's an easy fix, and we have the parts in our fencing bucket. The fence stops clicking, the lamp goes back to a blinking green light, and we go home for breakfast.
The rules for the latest version of Red Light, Green Light are posted on our refrigerator. Just looking at the traffic light magnet scares me. What Heart Failure Zone Are You In Today? Green light means go. Yellow light means caution. Did he gain weight overnight? Does he feel light headed, dizzy, or tightness in his chest? Is his pulse or blood pressure too low? Red light means calling the doctor, and more than likely another trip to the Emergency Room.
Endless traffic lights find their way into my restless dreams. In my nightmare, I don’t see the signal, and a wailing ambulance smashes into us. Shaken and confused, I wake up and lay my head onto my husband’s chest listening for his heartbeat. The dawn’s light washes over us as I remember the childhood joy of crossing the finish line and winning Red Light, Green Light.
Her Sleek Silver Streak
by Cynthia Dorfman
Cynthia Dorfman - Her Sleek Silver Streak
My mother stunned with the sleek silver streak in her seal-black hair when other mothers were dying theirs. Even when she was young. Each morning she donned my father’s red and black buffalo check jacket to wear when hanging clothes on the communal line, at the sliver of dawn to be the first one.
Disciplined. No nonsense on that military compound.
Tommy and Eddie and the boy who boarded at the farm of his uncle with 10 children, though most of them girls, my mother’s friends, became her knights in armor, stiff collared with hair parted at the parties before the war, where their signatures bought dances on her card. Corsages browned were found in the attic, pressed in albums. They spoke secrets that wove the sleek silver streak into her seal-black hair. A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 8]
The Red Oak Tree in Mike and Jessica’s Backyard
by Matthew Duffy
Matthew Duffy - The Red Oak Tree In Mike And Jessica's Backyard I am the Oak of the Isthmus I am the Oak of Dunning
Long before this topography was laid in grids and wedges my mother was a mature red oak in a proper savanna fertilized by the bison nourished by the fire of the Ho-Chunk graced by the fur of a non-human apex predator
I am the product of her acorn germinated by the decaying feathers and flesh of the passenger pigeon
My roots stretched, grew, and dug They grasped the piece of granite left by the last receding glacier I hold tightly, as the quartz in that rock still sparkles in the dark
My roots pushed up a skipping stone for the young child in the Great Depression He spun it across the Yahara River
I’ve sucked in plenty of carbon dioxide between the pieces of ash that flies from the coal furnace I’ve caught wind of enough hatred I’ve tasted enough volatiles and have touched too many polymers for a lifetime
When I cannot bear leaves anymore, you will see me weep in the summer rain My decaying bones will saturate tannin-rich at the frost line, quench the thirst of the mycelium come spring and lie around a few more decades clutching whatever I can to belong
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The Baby Boomer Girls
by Sharon Jessee
Sharon Jessee - The Baby Boomer Girls
This is what paper dolls were for us in the mid-1950's: we could have Snow White kiss Dopey on the head. Aurora would sit up in her bed of long sleep to kiss her live-happily-ever-after handsome prince. And sleepy little Janet Lennon would receive kisses on the head and cheeks from her 3 older sisters, Diane, Peggy, and Kathy. Notice the recurring motif of the kiss. The same went for Barbie (1959, Blonde Ponytail) and Ken (1960, Brown Hair with Letter Sweater), and their ugly plastic orange and turquoise convertible. Kisskiss.
Donna Sue, my neighborhood girlfriend, and sometimes my older sister Sandra would join me in clearing my bedroom floor of all stuffed animals and toys so that we could stand up our paper dolls’scenic folders, building three-sided rooms. There was the Lennon Sisters’ Dressing Room before they went on the Lawrence Welk Show, or a combined Castle, Princess’s Bedroom, Evil Forest & Horse and Soldier Parades Set for Snow White and the 7 Dwarves plus Sleeping Beauty.
Playing paper dolls was a common, safe activity for young girls. We diligently engaged in the feminine indoctrinations of the day as we fingered the popular costumes—ball gowns, lawn dresses, shorty pajama sets, and of course, swimsuits. We'd put the girls through their paces: Fall asleep. Get woken up by the prince’s or a frog's kiss. Be humble yet cheerful, and above all, be pure. “Pretty” was a given in Paper Doll World, except when it was its opposite—evil hags, jealous queens. And always--we know now-- there was the male gaze, that evaluating social reality behind our backs, run by supposedly kind, fair--and always white--men. However, like a lot of girls, we couldn't stay on script. We were babyboomer girls and would revise the dolls' stories continuously.
But something else was going on in the late 50's as we played with those papery, idyllic worlds that almost spoiled all the fun. Somewhere around 1955, we girls knew about the Cold War vividly, from TV and radio: The Red Scare (communism!), Kruschev's we will bury you), and the short span from Sputnik to Kaputnik. Nuclear developments? Those atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were peanuts to the thermonuclear bombs being tested from the South Pacific to Nevada. Polaris Missiles, ICBM's, the B-52's: you name it, we--Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy--made it.
I was certain that powerful Russian bombs would one day be launched at strategic Air Force Bases across the country (never mind Cuba!), which included the one that was 13 miles from my house. Tinker AFB near Oklahoma City had received B-52’s Bombers in 1955 and was a juicy target. We had Civil Defense bomb drills in school; we saw exploding mushroom clouds on films. Booklets were arriving in our mailboxes from the Department of Defense explaining the need for fallout shelters and Kearney fallout-meters: we would need them to monitor the roentgens of poisonous gasses each day after the bomb dropped.
I could no longer come home after the Civil Defense bomb drill at Buchannan grade school and put the pink, fluffy ball gown on Aurora. I put her in the prince's armor costume and had her ride the horse out and away from the Castle. The prince would get lost looking for her, until he was captured by the dwarves and put on a ship to sail to the ends of the earth.
Actually, as any baby boomer child from that time would confess, the burgeoning of consumerist culture won the day. We still played paper dolls, though not with the same optimistic zeal we once had. We kept going to the cartoon matinees in the movie theatre. And we grooved on music with some interesting messages. We might “Catch a Falling Star” or run into “Rockin’ Robin” on our way “At the
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Hop.” And yet we also still had firm footing in Childworld, thrilling at “The Chipmunk Song", wishing we could go “North to Alaska" or begin “Walking to New Orleans.” We might get "Smoke in our Eyes" and need to go on a “Sea Cruise" until “Misty” overtook us and we wandered through the wonderland alone.
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The Landscape Surrounding the William Hemmelberg Stonehouse
by Chuck Kernler
Chuck Kernler - The Landscape Surrounding The William Hemmelberg Stonehouse
The Stonehouse was once part of a productive farm. Two fields remain in use on the floodplain under state ownership. Across the highway to the north, there are two fields, of several acres each, which have reverted to prairie, including one on top of the hill. Access was via a field road which was abandoned long ago. When the survey crew came to mark the property lines for the land exchange,1 we suggested that it made perfect sense to use the edges of the tillable land for the boundary. Under private ownership that left the Stonehouse parcel surrounded by state land and two highways.
The 7.57 acres included the house and a concrete block garage. The farmstead is located on a sandy plateau left behind by receding glaciers. There is a gentle slope from the northeast to the southwest, which provided an excellent sledding hill from the abandoned sandpit. Sumac was encroaching, but it was nearly treeless. That provided the challenge of avoiding the few box elder trees. We had metal flying saucers and plastic sleds. The most unique one was the shell of a metal refrigerator door. We often added a jump, built simply out of packed snow.
The foundations of outbuildings are located around the house. Some of them were just concrete slabs; some had stone walls or portions of walls. The barn was significant in size and we were told that the water from that well was the best. The silo foundation left one course of stone above ground. We added compost to the sandy soil to convert it into a vegetable garden and fenced it to protect it from intruders. The hog house foundation furnished a cracked concrete floor with barely enough integrity to host a basketball hoop. If you could dribble on that floor, you would have no problem on a flat one. There are foundations of a corn crib, near the hog house, in two parts, which was typical so that a piece of machinery could be stored under the roof between them. There was a machine shed, on the edge of the barnyard, connected to a lower shed of some unknown use. The machine shed was located on the site of the original log home, which had been replaced by the Stonehouse.2 We built a dog kennel there, which we later used for firewood storage after we added a doghouse to the concrete block garage. The chicken coop foundation was not far from the house. There were large enough gaps in the foundation to allow us to plant vegetables and flowers and later build a water garden there.
We built several water gardens. The site of the Stonehouse is sandy and depressions would not contain standing water if unlined. The first was a small rigid plastic pond installed where the chicken coop used to be. The second was much larger and dug in a garden area behind the house. Water was retained by a flexible membrane. We filled it one early July and green frogs spawned in it that year. We heard green frogs, nicknamed “banjo frog”; their call sounds like a loosely strung banjo. The identity of their spawn was also identified by the fact that the green frog does not metamorphosize into a frog, from a tadpole, in one growing season. We spent the money on an electric pond de-icer to provide safe space for the tadpoles and our tropical water lilies. Eventually we had eight water gardens, including stock tanks, a laundry tub and a tin bathtub, and green frogs spawned in every one of them.
County Road 26 was straightened in the early 1970’s, shortly before we moved in. Prior to that roadwork the highway headed straight towards the house. I imagine car headlights shining into the kitchen and living room for fifty years or so. Bits of blacktop remain where that road used to be. Today
1 We traded forty-six acres of woodland for the Stonehouse parcel. This process is described in another essay.
2 Wilhelm Hemmelberg’s wife, Catherine, had returned to New York to await the construction of a “proper house.”
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the road is straight east from Elba until it passes the intersection with County Road 37, just east of the Stonehouse, and in the floodplain until it rises to the sandy plateau on which the house was built.
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Movement 1: Homage to Dad
by Lamia Kosovic
Lamia Kosovic - Movement 1: Homage To Dad
We stood imperfectly in front of that tree
Imperceptibly assembled. In space that was only ours
For a minute, for an eternity
Pulled by the force of duration, the movement of difference.
Intruders in the always already postapocalyptic zone. Sarajevo.
We held hands. It was April 1993. They came to cut the tree, our tree. We said farewell.
An avalanche of scattered memories rolled down our faces. Bodies covered in blood.
My childhood
Your adulthood
Our playground in between At the end of fall, we were becoming winter.
I do not remember her name
Just another X hiding under leaves In the spring of crystalline memories.
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Train Of Thought With Piano And Road Atlas
by Mark MacAllister
Mark MacAllister - Train Of Thought With Piano And Road Atlas
How miraculous it is that this record
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #22 the 1971 pressing clicks and pops for the first minute but is flawless the rest of the way through that an album side now seems so brief
and how miraculous it is that this morning I again swung my legs off the bed and stood with whatever damage inflicted on myself the day before having been repaired while I slept
that my family’s farm where I napped through hundreds of thunderstorms is now a reserve where the night sky is offered protection like some rare and endangered species
how as a child I desired only what was offered how without thinking twice I crossed Montana entirely on unpaved roads drank a 9:00AM beer with an 18 year-old flagman (he had one child a second on the way) while we waited for the pilot truck to return
in Illinois the bachelor horse that stepped across a sun-blasted pasture to let me rub his muzzle
the blizzard night drive Bryce Canyon Utah my wife half-out the passenger window to watch for the white stripe the edge of the road and where it dropped away
orange siren towers in the Mojave black bear in Beaver Basin and the Rainbow Alligator River where juvenile red wolves tossed mice in the air to catch them again
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West Virginia tire-wide path past abandoned trailers above-ground pools brim-filled with garbage
summer school skinny-dip with the usually studious Bonnie St. Mary’s Lake University of Notre Dame our classmates at evening mass
at the end of the record the grooves widen and become fewer
the needle accelerates to the center then lifts itself up remains waiting that way for the choice of what should be played next
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Zero Reverence
by Roman Montemorano
Roman Montemorano - Zero Reverence
The opposite of reverence is irrelevant; a credo can go to zero without becoming a hate.
That's the trick of light: when it goes out all that's made is not bright.
Having once been stated belief can be crated shipped, third class, post-paid and fated.
Or faith can be guided along stream seams freed toward the sea by water or land or care.
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I Came To See You
by KT Mullen
KT Mullen - I Came To See You
St. Joseph Section L 1923-1997 Leona K. Mullen 1946-1965 Donald J. Mullen
St. Mary Section A 1911-1997 Sylvester C. Simon 1917-1982 Gladys E. Simon
I came to see you
I brought two smooth stones from the beach at the gorge
a photo of you at 19 looking sharp in black and white pink zinnias grown from seed in my yard
a pockmarked rock found near the stream by the farmhouse
gifts for my gifts that can be traced with straight lines like the ones crisscrossing the map on my dashboard back to each of you
I also brought my confusion my dread my desperation
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my hope my plan my request
things too big to say to or ask of the living
and I saw you leaning in to listen and I felt you reaching out with great tenderness and I heard you telling me it’d come soon
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Web by Elle Newman
Elle Newman - Web
One leg each, father and daughter share a wheelbarrow.
My office needs vacuuming
I watch for news of a friend’s tumor, hopefully benign, but still my whole body’s
in grief. Fascia littered with bright lanterns on graves. Dad, Mom,
a dog named Rubus my first cat, last love, lost years.
Will you eat me when I’m dead?
A child asks their cat, stroking its head, the video translates.
Healthy cat,
Richard strolls in with his suri-silk hand-knit pillow, I stuffed with wool. He love-drool-cries as he carries it.
Just eat me, I tell him. Promise, if we were bombed and my body was broken
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Unexpected
by Lynda Schaller
Lynda
Schaller - Unexpected
The hearth in Grandma’s kitchen was an ungainly wood-fired cookstove, a companion tote of splits alongside. Amid miles of counter, I stood on a stool as we measured, sifted, kneaded, whipped.
Next to the dining room’s 1950s pastel pink and the living room’s forgettable tint, there bloomed: A Red Kitchen Ceiling. Yup, my pale subdued grandmother had slipped the latch and let loose a thing fresh and off-beat.
Every morning spent there, I rose from my pallet on the couch smelling fired-up coffee and morning fare, stumbled into ruddy warmth,
where Grandma shuffled and leaned, poking wood into the stove while I was stoked with oatmeal, raisins, brown sugar.
Then she sat sipping coffee, I my milk, eyeing each other across red-checked tabletop. She’d reach over to pat my hand. The fire snapped. The red ceiling looked down.
Around us, light settled from three windows framed by white curtains with cherry-colored hearts— my first sewing effort—sweet and predictable. But the heat of that overhead hue remained renegade always a shade feral.
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What Is Art?
by Cosima Sinclair
Cosima Sinclair - What Is Art?
Some art I love at first sight. My connection is immediate. It is wonderful! Some art takes time to warm up to. Yet, I may end up loving it passionately. Some art is very well done and quietly pleasant. Some art I dislike or even despise. Some art I think is … not art, but a product for sale. Why do I have such a broad spectrum of responses to art? Because I'm a human being with my own universe revolving inside me, and it is changing moment by moment.
As I stop and really look at favorite pieces of art, I find myself feeling curious. As I focus in on a piece with my eyes, mind, and feelings, my imagination is activated. It is like a mini vacation and time stands still.
My experience with art classes is that I feel like a wild horse that demands a lot of space and freedom. I seem to want my intuition to be the main creator and I must “sense” what to do next. There is a continual looking-feeling-doing loop. I have noticed that framing the process as “just playing” can be a wonderful lead-up to some very artful creating. By that, I mean you allow yourself to make a mess, make an awful something. But, is it awful? Who knows? Sometimes it leads to making something you really love, and that is a very nice surprise. Is it “art”? That is irrelevant.
Sometimes my art is a piece of writing, like a poem or a short fiction piece. Usually there is something going on in my world or the world at large that I want to put down in words. For most of my adult life I have put these words down in a journal. Now, I am interested in creating “art” with these words. What does that mean to me? I am mulling this over and, at the same time, experimenting with poetry, short stories, and exploring ideas for longer stories. I am coming to understand that characters are at the heart of stories, so I am spending more time thinking about and developing characters and relationships between characters. As the characters become more and more alive and real, I find this very fascinating, so it helps to get me to write.
Often, when I look at creative pieces done by others, I may find a piece that draws me in. Usually, I am taking in something that excites and interests me and I feel an energy exchange. Sometimes it is a pleasant feeling, sometimes it's like a jolt.
If it is a jolt, I will savor it for awhile. Eventually, I will look into the artist's life. I imagine myself a detective finding out about the puzzle pieces of this person's life and how the pieces may have contributed to what they created. So often, the artist had many, many challenges in their life to overcome. The variety of issues, such as sickness, deaths in family, disabilities, financial collapse, troubling relationships, addictions, lack of support is truly encouraging to anyone who has experienced such things in their own lives. Having said this, I do find that the most well know artists throughout history have had a family background of money, education, and support that was essential to their development and success. To a large degree, this is still the case. But, I have found that artists with less than ideal backgrounds can create some of the most powerful art.
Coming from a less than ideal background, I have noticed that a censor exists within me, that sometimes says I am not creative enough, that I have no right to paint or write, because I am not an artist, I do not have a degree, that I am too old, that if I were an artist, I would have been so all my adult life. That no one has ordained me as especially talented, a prodigy or the like. I know these voices well, because I battled them all my professional career. They want to stop me and keep me small and
under control. Yes, they are always there, deep inside, waiting to strike. One must be a warrior to move forward in spite of these voices.
Experiencing the creative expressions of others can be a great stimulus for one's own creating. The sheer inspiration of a visual piece can rev up one's own creative juices. And, reading a novel while writing a short story or novel allows one to keep in touch with how words can be used to create a separate world and move characters within it.
And, by the way, what is art anyway? Here is a definition I like: Art can be thought of as a symbol of what it means to be human, manifested in physical form for others to see and interpret. Through peaceful means, it can convey the full spectrum of the human experience.
This is a definition I can agree with.
Seems to me, like in so many things in life, you have to step up to the plate and name yourself. If you believe that you are an “artist”, speak it out loud and do your work. You'll know, in your heart of hearts if it is really true and that's all that really matters. A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 23]
A Question of Timing
by Katrin Talbot
Katrin Talbot - A Question Of Timing I had an appointment with Dusk
I couldn’t tell whether it was a date or not, so I dressed as A Late Afternoon— azure, peach and coral
I must admit, I looked really quite lovely for a time of day
Turns out, it was just a passing of baton, but that was fine because I ended up hanging out with the bats, having a blast in the flitting realm of no expectation except mosquito
Because He Grew Up In A Place Where Many People Spoke French
by Stephen Weiser
Stephen Weiser - Because He Grew Up In A Place Where Many People Spoke French Because Simon grew up in a place where many people spoke French, he could remember the French names of individuals to whom he was introduced even though generally he had difficulty remembering people’s names. French Canadians arrived in droves to Fall River in the early 1900s to work in the granite block textile mills that dotted the city’s landscape. As late as the 1950s, Fall River retained a decisively French character.
Simon’s family lived above his father's doctor’s office that was in the basement of an old nineteenth century three story house. Because one side of the house was built upon a steep hill, the basement office could be entered on street level. Often when he visited his father's office, he would come upon many French speaking patients including nuns from the nearby convents. Simon often overheard his father conversing in French to his patients.
His first friend in kindergarten was a little French-Canadian boy named Clifford. Simon and Clifford stuck together because they liked each other and as Clifford would say: “cause we was both ascared of the rough kids in the school yard and we was the littlest."
As the days got warmer, Clifford and Simon liked to play under the water sprinklers. One day, Clifford's shirt soon became drenched. He came up to Simon and in a small voice said “I tink I am cold.” Simon corrected Clifford by instructing him: “don’t say “tink” say “fink.” Wet and chilled from a drop in the temperature, they sought warmth in Simon’s home so that his mother could help dry them off. Afterwards, they waited under the blankets in Simon’s bed until their clothes were dry and Clifford could walk home without getting cold.
Clifford’s mother and grandmother always spoke in French. While only a block and half away from Simon, the inside of Clifford’s house was like another world. On the wall of the living room hung a man on a cross. The light switches were pale blue on which there was a praying lady with hands clasped together with a white kerchief on her head. In contrast to his house, Simon was aware that there were no Mezuzahs affixed to the doorposts or Stars of David to be seen.
In third grade, Simon’s family moved to another neighborhood where people did not speak French. He lost touch with Clifford. He regretted that he never knew what happened to him.
Twenty-five years later, Simon encountered a handsome man at the Baltimore Art Museum. This man appeared interested in Simon and introduced himself as Denis Lavesque. He firmly clasped Simon’s hand when he introduced himself. He had thick wavy black hair, hazel eyes and a handsome aquiline nose.
Simon had already begun fantasizing about being boyfriends with Denis within an hour of their meeting. He liked to think it was more than just lust but rather the fact that they had so much in common. They both loved photography and coincidentally both enjoyed inserting photographs into their paintings. Then later Simon learned that Denis grew up in New Bedford, the rival town just east of Fall River, where there were also many people who spoke French.
Simon realized that their high school football teams played each other every Thanksgiving. Perhaps, they had passed each other during half time going for refreshments. In Simon’s mind, he could see them as long-distance lovers traveling together, going for walks, photographing scenes; and reading the same books all because they both grew up in a town where many people spoke French.
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 25]
After they parted, Simon realized that he had lost the scrap of paper Denis gave to him with his phone number. Because Simon grew up in a place where many people spoke French, he could recall how Denis spelled his name to look it up in the telephone book.
When Simon called Denis, he learned that Denis already had a boyfriend who shared his apartment with him. Disappointed to hear this, Simon asked if he could still write to him. Denis enthusiastically responded in French: . "Oh oui, nous devrions nous retrouver sur la magnifique plage entre nos deux villes natales." Rusty in his French, Simon asked Denis to translate, and he complied: “Oh yes, we should meet at the beautiful beach between our two hometowns.” Returning home, Simon decided not to write to Denis. They never saw or talked to each other again. A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 26]
Author Notes
Author Notes
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 27]
Maureen Adams writes from a recently-painted basement corner in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin. She seeks beauty, meaning, and utility in small things around her, especially things that may be overlooked or on the very edge of ruin.
Her work has appeared in Trouvaille Review, Creative Wisconsin Magazine, Capsule Stories, A Catalog of Small Machines, Moss Piglet, and the WFOP 2024 Poetry Calendar. She was an award winner in the 2022 Muse Prize through Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.
Jane Barnard is a Madison, Wisconsin writer. This flash piece is excerpted from her memoir-in-progress. The memoir is her “spiritual punctuation” in this earthly sentence, an intimate summing up of a long creative life—with punchlines.
Jane has a Master’s Degree in English and is also a visual artist/teacher. She has published translations of French Surrealist poet Benjamin Peret.
She hopes to be reincarnated as a cross between Dorothy Parker and Betty White.
Deb Bushy relates to nature’s inspiration. When nature’s muse appears the result happening in her studio could be in the form of writing, photography or creating a bead menagerie!
Presently, Deb finds extraordinary pleasure in writing.
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 28]
Lucinda Guard Crofton lives with her husband of 35 years on a beef farm in Southwest Wisconsin. She has worked in film, as a teacher, and most recently as a radio news writer.
Her Zoom play, No Place Like Home, was performed as part of UW-Richland’s One Act Festival. For the last three years she has spent much of her time navigating the medical system.
Cynthia Dorfman's poetry has appeared in Red Ogre Review, Ekphrastic Review, and on The Viewless Wings podcast. She writes about people and places in her life and sometimes flashes forward into fantasy.
Formally educated at Skidmore College and the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College, she spent many years as a communications manager at the U. S. Department of Education. A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 29]
Matthew Duffy is a writer, poet, and environmentalist from Teejop, the four lakes region of Ho-Chunk ancestral land in McFarland, Wisconsin. His technical writing has appeared in IBPSA and DiscoverIES, and his poetry has appeared in Ink Waves and A Catalog of Small Machines. He is a member of the Driftless Writing Center and a board member of the Aldo Leopold Chapter of Wisconsin Trout Unlimited.
"In my first life, I (Sharon Jessee) was a great teacher of writing and literature courses at UW-L. Now, I'm writing. My first post-retirement project is a website I created on reading the works of Toni Morrison, "Voice Upon Voice: the Readers of Toni Morrison (voiceuponvoice.org).
"Currently I'm writing a memoir/essay hybrid work on growing up in the 50's and the impact of the Cold War on a child—the working title is Not My Eisenhower Years. My submission is from a chapter in the work: Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to the Bomb We Go
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 30]
Chuck Kernler is a retired Fisheries Specialist from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. A man of many talents, he is eager to point out that he retired, in 2010, as the only Fisheries Specialist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In his retirement, he enjoys writing, gardening, food preservation and toy-making, among other things.
Lamia Kosovic is a writer living in Madison, WI. She holds a PhD in Arts and Philosophy and an MA in Digital Media Studies. She published Re-imag(in)ing of Posthuman (2003), Violence of Sensation (2017), and several articles and chapters in academic journals.
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 31]
Mark MacAllister grew up in northern Illinois, spent a great deal of formative time on his grandparents' dairy farm in southwest Wisconsin's Driftless region, and learned to write at Oberlin College. Mark now lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina but travels often to the Wisconsin Northwoods and to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to hike and bike the backcountry.
His poems appear in various journals, including Steam Ticket, Quiet Diamonds, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Deep Wild: Writing From the Backcountry, Moss Piglet and Passager Journal Mark’s chapbook, Quiet Men And Their Coyotes, won the 2022 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest and was published in January 2023.
Roman Montemorano recently moved to Reno, Nevada, from Madison, Wisconsin with his spouse, newborn child, and young-at-heart dog. His poetry digs philosophical ground with a tiny toy shovel.
Professionally, he cooks, cleans, changes diapers, and walks. More of Roman's work can be found in the journal Moss Piglet, on his maiden website romanjohnryan.com, and at weekpoetry.substack.com A Catalog Of
Katie “KT” Mullen is a writer and visual artist from Milwaukee. She’s the co-founder of the art advocacy studio, BlackPaint (2015-2022) and the founder of From Here to Her Artist Collective (2012-2016).
Currently, KT is finishing her first book of poetry and chronicling her attempts to live more humanely under the heel of late-stage capitalism in her newsletter, Dispatches from the Machine. Learn more at ktmullen.com
Elle Newman brings two decades of mindfulness practice to their writing. They first moved to Winona, MN in 1991 to study literature at WSU and their early work was included in the 2003 chapbook, From Blue Herons to White Cranes. Elle still teaches yoga and resides in Winona, halfway up a bluff with her partner, three cats, and a dog.
Lynda Schaller has lived in the rural Gays Mills community Dancing Waters since 1982, where she learns from the land, tends group process and writes essays and poetry.
Cosima Sinclair lives in Madison, WI and spends time each month caring for a 40 acre, diverse ecological place outside Ladysmith, WI. She is retired from computer consulting and has lived in many US cities, including San Francisco for 10 years and again for four years. She has sought out the unknown or lesser-known artists whose works fueled her journey. Now, she is writing.
Australian-born Katrin Talbot’s collection Falling Asleep at the Circus was just released from Turning Point Books and The Devil Orders A Latte is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. The Waiting Room for the Imperfect Alibis was her first full-length collection (Kelsay Books). She has seven chapbooks, two Pushcart Prize nominations and quite a few chickens.
"Stephen from Wonewoc" (aka Stephen Weiser) is an artist who lives in a state of radical amazement surrounded by woods on a ridge in the Driftless. He derives much joy and inspiration and at times some distraction from living with his husband, Andrew, and dog Yoffie. A longtime resident of the Midwest, his thoughts and heart are never far from southeastern New England and his hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts.
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 35]
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 36]
— Special Section — Special Section — Send Us A Postcard!
Send Us A Postcard!
What small pleasure exceeds that of the postcard? Receiving one, sending one—even the simple act of choosing one—provides the chance to search for the perfect card, the one that will signify something special, something understood to both sender and recipient. And what to write in the small, blank space on the left? The required brevity makes that space perhaps even more inviting, and more challenging, than the typical blank page.
For this edition of A Catalog Of Small Machines, we asked all contributors to send us a postcard along with their poetry or prose. We are happy to share the cards with all of our readers!
— Mark MacAllister Driftless Writing Center
A Catalog Of Small Machines [Page 37]
— [Special Section - 2] —
From: Cynthia Dorfman
— [Special Section - 3] —
— [Special Section - 4] —
From: Sue Blaustein
— [Special Section - 5] —
— [Special Section - 6] —
From: Chuck Kernler
— [Special Section - 7] —
— [Special Section - 8] —
From: Cosima Sinclair
— [Special Section - 9] —
— [Special Section - 10] —
From: Sharon Jessee
— [Special Section - 11] —
— [Special Section - 12] —
From: Cindy Crofton
— [Special Section - 13] —
— [Special Section - 14] —
From: Maureen Adams
— [Special Section - 15] —
Stephen Weiser — [Special Section - 16] —
From:
— [Special Section - 17] —
— [Special Section - 18] —
