Brushfire would like to thank ASUN, Amy Koeckes, our editorial board, and our fellow publications for all of their help, advice, and support. Editorial Board: Angela Spires, Estefania Cervantes, Amy Koeckes, Ryan DeLaureal, Lauren Hober, Dannae Ryman, Rebecca Fox, Kendra Flemming, Nicholas Rattigan, Caitlin Thomas Published by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno Copywright 2011 Brushfire and the individual contributors. All rights reserved by the respective authors and artists. Original work is used with expressed permission of the artists. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Edition 64 Vol. 1 Corrections: Silver & Cold by Reena Spansail (Mis-spelling) Dreading Life by Amelia Flack (Attribution error)
The opinions expressed in this publication and its associated website and social medias are not necessarily those of the University of Nevada, Reno or the student body. Front cover design by Kelly Peyton, “Blossomed Impossibly� Book Layout by Hannah Behmaram Printed by Allegra Print & Imaging Editor: Hannah Behmaram Assistant Editor: Ryan DeLaureal P.R. Manager: Lauren Hober Webmaster: Rebecca Fox Volunteer: Dannae Ryman
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Table of Contents Literature 9-10 16-17 49 54-56 64-68 76 86 89
You Shall Know Them by Their Fruits.....Ryan DeLaureal Burial Hill.......................................................Stephanie Kutner Berdil..............................................................Andrew Palmer No Matter Where You Go..........................Dana Simpson Persons and Machinery................................Megan Richter Gone...............................................................Lora Massey A Dog’s Promise...........................................Kelsey Mammen Bird.................................................................Stewart Matzek
Poetry 9 15 18 20 24 27 29 31 32 34 35 37 39 40-41 42 46 50 59 60 70-72 73 75 80 83 84-85 87 91 92 94-95
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Untitled..........................................................Michael Blane Duck Soup.....................................................Nic Lee-High Bela & Boris..................................................Michael Williams My Life as an Ape in an Apiary..................Brandon Fischmann Untitled..........................................................Sean Bassney Little White Gangsta Cutting Lawn...........Edward Manzi Relics from a Desert Outing.......................Megan Padilla You’re Definitely Not Lazarus, and I’m Tired of Play.........................................Thomas Buqo Johnny’s Dead...............................................Jeff Opfer The Tape Mrs. Curtis Found......................Troy Casa Of Butterflies and Bricks............................A. Sadowski Sun, Rise.........................................................Nikki Zander Masquerade....................................................Melanie Castillo Now and Then..............................................Ileah Kirchoff After the Buddy Wakefield Show...............Becca Ewart Kennel #101.................................................Brandon Fischmann Is Every Center Temporary?......................Michael Blane Powerline Road.............................................Becca Ewart El Sueno.........................................................Hector Hernandez Placenta Moon..............................................Greg Hoetker Spoken Motion.............................................Renelle Pinero Once...............................................................Christian Bertolaccinni Intense............................................................Andrew James Rusanoff Remind Me of the Fall................................Brendan Aguiar #121...............................................................Sean Bassney Fuzzy Green Mold.......................................Edward Manzi A Cathedral of Pines....................................Troy Casa Liquid Wax.....................................................Dominique Price Dusk on a Buena Vista................................Brandon Fischmann
Photography 4-5 6 8 12-13 14 19 21 22 23 31 33 36 43 47 48 51 52-53 57 61 62-63 69 77 80-81 82 90-91 93
Cotton Sky.................................................Estefania Cervantes Aviles The Biggest Little City.............................Krystal Baker Line.............................................................Estefania Cervantes Aviles Middlegate.................................................Blythe Griffin Big Bay Boom...........................................Blythe Griffin Burning Man.............................................Carly Andrus USA Student.............................................Brent Coulter Tickle the Ivories......................................Ashley Speaks Piano Keys.................................................Becca Ewart Untitled......................................................Caitlin Cosens Male Nudity...............................................Carly Andrus Meditate.....................................................Austin Rudd Michelle Lee..............................................Brent Coulter The Night Life is For You......................Benjamin Poynter Ponder........................................................Crystal Willis Pogonip on Barbed Wire........................Blythe Griffin Water Droplet...........................................Carly Andrus No Longer Forbidden.............................Krystal Baker Alien Eye...................................................Estefania Cervantes Aviles Pogonip......................................................Blythe Griffin Calling........................................................Eleanor Leonne Bennett By Gas........................................................Eleanor Leonne Bennett Sphere........................................................Austin Rudd Golden Dragonfly....................................Blythe Griffin Simple Reverie..........................................Caitlin Cosens Bathroom..................................................Carly Andrus
Visual Art 26 28 38 44-45 74 78-79 88
Leight Little Ladies...................................Lucas Peterson Eerily Prophetic........................................Kelly Peyton Kracken......................................................Reena Spansail Other and Worldly....................................Kelly Peyton Inhaleexhale...............................................Kelly Peyton This Elysian End Time Televised..........Benjamin Poynter Twilight Years Prototype.........................Benjamin Poynter
Cotton Sky by Estefania Cervantes Aviles
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TheBiggestLittleCitybyKrystalBaker
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Editor’s Note
As the third volume of Brushfire that I’ve been involved in, this book inevitably has claimed various parts of me (my soul, a couple fingernails, a few degrees of sanity). However, this book is not for me; it’s for all of the artists that are passionate enough about their work to want to share it with their community. It’s for the people who pick up a pen or paintbrush when they can’t sleep, who take endless amounts of critical judgment on a piece of work that they spent weeks on, who know love their medium of art and all its miseries more than they love any individual they know. That’s the beauty of Brushfire: it brings all of these people and works together in 100 vivid, imaginative, inspiring pages. And where else could you find such unconventional beauty but in Reno? So, this is for you too, Reno, and all of the talent you hide in your tarnished alleys.
- Hannah Behmaram
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LinebyEstefaniaCervantesAviles
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Untitled
by Michael Blane Hours spent picking at the old prayers stuck in my teeth, thinking about the shapes my scars will take, I hope that they’re crescents and spirals. A lifetime spent criticizing static and rereading Calvin and Hobbes. There are words and the seedlings are sprouting. When gravity finally buckles, and I arc upwards will I see the others fall-floating as I am? Will we swim through the air towards each other? When we hit the clouds will it hurt? The umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. They put the needle in the wrong vein and my mother could feel the incision. Seconds spent attempting forgiveness. Thinking about the new skin cells and the antibodies, which leads me to think about the dust in my lungs. If I survive breaching the atmosphere, and take deep enough of a breath, I might make it out of this galaxy once and for all. I will look around at what is in front of me: space, having forgotten about mirrors. “I couldn’t feel any pain, I was too worried about you.”
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You Shall Know Them by Their Fruits
by Ryan DeLaureal
I was stuck in detention. It was the first, and only, time in my third grade life that I had ever been dealt the fatal blow of justice, and just as an inmate, I spent my time inside cursing the wretches who had placed me there. The clock’s ticking seemed to stretch to nothingness, until the space between sounds became an unbridgeable canyon - a rift where all motion fell flat. My head was resting on my crossed arms, as I lay in my little square world - those old desks with a large cubby space beneath for storing your books and pens. I would glance around the room every few seconds, to the stillness, the unmoving objects, as I discerned the faint rattle and hum of fun seeping in from the playground outside - I was the only one in detention. Everybody else was outside having their fun without me. Oh well. I cursed the teacher for being so stupid, seeing as I hadn’t done anything. I was caught red-handed with a yo-yo; a forbidden object. Forbidden, most likely, due to some oaf who couldn’t control himself using the thing as a weapon. As always, here I was, washed away with the system’s regulations. You must do it like this - it’s the rules. But I never wanted to do it like this - I always had my own ideas. I knew they were great, but everybody else seemed caught up in the idea that there were rules dictating how things should be done. “It’s the rules” always seemed to me like the complete lack of an excuse or an explanation. But, then again, what could I do? They were out there at recess, and I was in detention. Someday I would make an art out of breaking the rules. So I sat in detention, concocting plans for the future. Here is how things stood: Person A is a fat slobby oaf who spends his time picking on those weaker than him. He gets detention. Person B is a model student, who, out of pure chance, ends up breaking a rule. He also gets detention.
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My third grade self percieved this clear logical gap, and it made him incredibly angry. In time I have come to be cynical and I no longer care if I get sent to detention. I accept the rules without exceeding great effort to change them, though if such power were placed in my hands I suppose I would utilize it. I have found that if one is to accomplish anything, one must learn how to focus one’s energies on the most important things. For me, the most important thing is art. Art is like fruit - it can clothe the sick, feed the poor, etc. etc. Of course I am exaggerating. But, exaggeration is itself an artistic license - it draws our attention to one thing and gets us to contemplate that thing’s importance. If each person is a tree, then I think of his art as the fruit of that tree. Art is soul, in its purest physical form, and soul is a thing that actually can work miracles. “You shall know them by their fruits” - That was Jesus, it was. Now, I don’t know if I agree with him, but it is at least a good analogy. Analogy is also an artistic license.
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Middlegate by Blythe Griffin
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BigBayBoombyBlytheGriffin
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Duck Soup
by Nic Lee-High In a bar I was once told to join the navy, as no one shoots at you, and I had thought of Harpo, mortar shells, oak trees, and piece by piece, I was told, he snuck back an AK-47 which fires diplomas and houses, two kids and a yard with an oak tree dropping acorns over Pakistan, where the children hold tight to their mother’s Hijab, and eat with mouths like a blossom in spring.
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Burial Hill
by Stephanie Kutner
I went walking with, Tyler, my boyfriend on Burial Hill. After exiting the parthenon erected over Plymouth rock, having peered down at waves lapping at the cracked chunk, we made our way up the steep incline of the road leading into the cemetery. White houses with metal placards listing the years they were made lined the path. In my mind I tried to strip away the white paint, the tar, our clothes and shoes. The church that the pilgrims built is still in use, but a wedding barred us from entering. To the right of the church stood a sign listing that the cemetery was closed from dusk to dawn. Small red bricks made up the entrance way. I looked at Tyler. Porous bricks, looking almost ossified, lay over uneven ground. I thought, how fitting for him and me to be walking in lock step over their dull red. Splitting up as we reached the end of the steps, we both veered towards the gravestones that jumped out at us. A tombstone half sunken into the ground, tilting forward and chipped at the top gave the name of a nineteen year old woman and her age in years, months and days. Lost at sea, it read. Images rushed over me; of a shipwreck, of a black calm floating over dead water, of a storm at night overwhelming someone going out on deck for air and then of a woman, slipping seamlessly overboard. Despite the novel desire to keep this one for myself, I motioned to Tyler out of habit. I blurted out look at this one, look at the year, like some tourist, when I felt like anything but. I glanced over him as he read the inscription, wishing it would stir some response in him, as it had with me. Hmm, was all he said. Wecontinuedondivergentpaths,onoccasionawkwardlybumping into each other. I wished for it to be a different year, a different century. I wished for us to be bumping into each other as true strangers, drawn to the same place by the same quirks, not as the strangers we’d learned to become. I wished for the city and tourist hub below the gates to melt away into an ocean as dark and free of memory as the tombstone conjured up. I thought of skeletons underneath us cloaked in pantaloons and triangle hats, bonnets and a mille-feuille of fabrics spread over each woman. I read somewhere that people would etch skeletons with wings onto grave stones believing it would help the decedents reach heaven faster. A small patch marked off by a black fence held three or four markers with the pattern.
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I looked for Tyler again and saw him crouching twenty feet away, fixing the flags that marked veterans’graves. I have never felt a deep sense of patriotism and I envied his when I saw him. I envied that there was something in him linking back through the ranks of revolutionary soldiers; hands joined in a continuum by a surety I’m ashamed never to have felt. Though the Air force didn’t exist during most of our wars, I sometimes picture Tyler as an old soldier. There’s a grayed romance in him that it seems can only stem from being torn by a war from a lover. An old war, a chimeric idyll known only to that kind of distance, sustained through letters and hope and the patriotism of both people. I wish I could be that woman, but I’m cynical. I’m not a romantic and whatever notions of that concept I’ve learned to be true the one in Tyler had to go over with scouring pads to reach, stopping just before my bones. Tyler walked around an obelisk of sorts marking off some great general or pastor, I’m not sure. I walked around to the opposite side and was surprised to be met with Hebrew letters. I thought about my ancestors and their clouds of dust and ash trailing me through this cemetery. For some reason this remote thought, that they accepted Tyler, goy or not, floated over me. I grasped an edge of the stone and peaked out at him on the other side. He asked me if I was ready to leave, I said that I thought so. My feet again touched down on the red bricks, I glanced behind at a tree I hadn’t noticed when we entered. I thought I saw myself holding a quill underneath it. If I squinted through the shade I could just make out a faint rustling of heavy fabrics over bare feet. We descended the steps, cutting lithely through ghosts of funeral processions, I felt grateful to crawl out from under the veil of the march of our own I had been flirting with.
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Bela & Boris
by Michael Williams Buried in costume, this friend of Ed Wood Jr. Lived a life enhanced And yet crippled by his Legacy, his portrayal, of the Ultimate member of the undead whose Greatest problems became an addiction to Opiates, five ex-wives, and his Sciatica: though, perhaps, not In that order
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Behind the makeup Of The Monster a wellRead Englishman who Insisted on dressing up every year as Santa for disabled Kids in Baltimore And who remarried five times, who Remarked of his Last wife that she was of Of very great taste and that, For this reason, she’d never seen his Films
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us
Bu r
an by Carly A n dr
M ng i n
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My Life as an Ape in an Apiary
by Brandon Fischmann The glazed windows glittered like marbles held under flashlights and the chimney stretched its arms into the morning sun The hue combed over a yard that sometimes felt like a beach to our bare feet I could hear their breaths tickling my hairline, their poetry inserting chills that’d put the winter to shame I’m drunk again at Jacksons because we all end up like Bukowski one day. The windows didn’t glitter when the house burned its sparks lighting the eyes of the apes inside Even as dirt manned the floors and pans lost their shine by use and apathy, the bees sipped the Shai-Hulud in their reveling and shared the honey from their hive The planet froze on its axis when someone screamed “Prove that I am real!” just before being punched in the eye. And the chalked walls of freedom glowed like the TV’s final, choking breaths before we all decided to share lungs for the day: get off the roof, Little Fish, you’ll burn alive that high we’ll use these poems for the kindling. The honeyed doorknobs were testaments to the sweet taste of the word “home” on the tongueIt’s the sort of sweet that’ll make Earth fall in love like it’s high school in the galaxy again “Que será, será” chanted the hardwood floors, as we planted our soles in rhythm on their severed hands and once forgotten aspirations seemed to spawn and ooze like nectar from the hive walls.
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USA Student by Brent Coul
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TickletheIvoriesbyAshleySpeaks
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Piano Keys by Becca Ewart
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Untitled
by Sean Bassney It’s comforting that an electron microscope might stare down the edge of a surgical blade and find crevasses that match the grand canyon. That when astrophysicists map our universe, the topography is nearly identical to that of a neuron connection in the brain. The word atom comes from the Greek atomos meaning indivisible. It’s reassuring that try as we might we have yet to find an embodiment of the word. In 1995 the Hubble Deep Space Telescope stared for 10 days into black, but not empty space, and sent back an image that made every pocket protector spit take. “We are so far from alone,” they all thought. Though my life may be covered in cigarette butts and pistachio hulls, though I have neglected, once again, to wipe my feet
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before I cross the threshold of my door, though my anxiety might wrap a tight tourniquet about my intestines, I can still breathe lightly knowing that it makes no difference.
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Leight Little Ladies by Lucas Petersonrson
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Little White Gangsta Cutting Lawn
by Edward Manzi I’ll cut it straight, or at least I will try, but the squid in me are releasing their black liquid and it is traveling up to my brain, which is always trying to pick up where I left of. Memory lane is filled with the most peculiar things, like cutting grass while listening to Dr. Dre, with my pants sagging so low I had a hard time walking, but insisted on the struggle because it made me feel bad, so fucking bad, I could die and not care about it.
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EerilyPropheticbyKellyPeyton
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Relics from a Desert Outing by Megan Padilla Of course, I remember—how your Buick backfires between rumblings. I loosen the stacked cassettes in the unlatched glove compartment, while you warm the engine and the black leather seat, cracked in the folds, along edges. We speed through burnt flood plains. Dust greets the open windows, licks the yellow paint, and my body jerks under the lap belt. Joshua trees point us toward the mountains; they remember a river that floated skeleton remains of pick-up trucks and convertible-cars, like toy boats or driftwood. The desert is dry now and lizards flicker between hiding places. Wary of amber scorpions and rattle snakes, I stay near you, and pick at puzzle-piece earth. I lift sheets of dry mud intact and break them between my fingers. I crouch inside your shadow to draw circles, figure-eights. I write my name and dust collects in the groves of my fingerprints, under my nails. I shade my eyes when I feel the tremor, and look up in time to see a tin can leap. Even now—I hear the shots echo off of the mountain. The hollow shells clang empty, and I comb the dirt for brass, like gold treasure to fill my pockets, crown my fingertips. Sometimes they are still warm.
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You’re Definitely Not Lazarus, and I’m Tired of Play
by Thomas Buqo
I’ve grown tired of blue eyes and blue lips and pallid skin: Stares like an obituary – written in brief across a crowded room – all sclera and capillaries: Another dead stare from a dead soul, that looks to me for signs of life that I’ve already given away one too many times.
Untitled by Caitlin Cosens
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Johnny’s Dead
by Jeff Opfer Death he came a-callin’, he said, “My boy it’s time to go.” I looked up from my bong hit and said, “Wait a minute, bro.” “This weed I have is sticky green and stony as can be.” “How about you cop a squat and smoke a bowl with me?” Death he scratched his boney scalp and set aside his scythe. “I suppose I could take a couple rips before I take your life.” Now I was scared but played it cool and packed old Death a bowl. “So,” I asked, “where am I going when you cut loose my soul?” Death he grinned and flicked my Bic and took a deep breath in And pointed through the floorboards down at the place of sin. “Fuck it,” said I and we finished that bag, both stoned to the core Then Death pulled back his hood and asked, “What’d I come here for?” I patted my roommate on the head, passed out from drinking beer “I believe you said when you came in, you wanted Johnny here.”
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Male Nudity by Carly Andrus
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The Tape Mrs. Curtis Found
by Troy Casa Mrs. Curtis, you’re keeping something the world needs to hear. I sent my club dues and rang once while visiting his grave. But what you know of, while comforting I suspect, has us maddened sick, and jealous. We have not unearthed Assyrian stones that sing from pain as such. Not as he did. But we will have to take what he gave. I hope he left you his finest five minutes, and that you wore it right through.
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Of Butterflies and Bricks
by A. Sadowski Yellow butterflies with their wings torn apart. These are the bricks for a house, A house that doesn’t need building. Their paper clogs pipes, Clogs highways, and cans. A novel approach for no such thing. And yet some demand its construction, To justify moving out of caves. Dormant and dusty, The wings rustle in old shoeboxes And breathe in forgotten notebooks, Each becoming forlorn as the years leave, But the bricks remain fresh and strong as the day they were inspired. Could the darkness make their words stronger? For pieces not written: There is only potential unrealized And not talent squandered.
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Meditate by Austin Rudd
Sun, Rise
By Nikki Zander The night birds sing their lullaby. Those fools have no idea. Their ignorance is bliss to my ears. It means I’m in great company. Peach mist kisses the mountain tops, And the sun creeps away. A gust tickles the trees. Oh, how those dancing branches mock me. The earth slows, And innumerable stars replace blue skies. Goodnight if you dare, Or good morning to some. My only merriment is Tomorrow’s promised sunrise.
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Kracken by Reena Spansail
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Masquerade
by Melanie Castillo We live behind masks And twirl about to the mechanical sounds of a music box Skeletons in our closets We hide behind doors closed We deceive the world behind paper Mache masks And we dance like nothing is wrong We dance until we die We have the option to stop if we get tired But of course, we never do The lies are just too beautiful The deceit is a dream And reality is cruel So we dance behind masks Like puppets, Marionettes controlled by our own fear of being found out Fear that our charade will be discovered And once the lie is revealed, reality kicks in with bites that bleed So dance behind your perfect mask and act like you are pure perfection Dance like you are well and hide behind the leather, the clay, The ribbons and sequence Disguise yourself in lace in glitter Maybe no one will see the tears‌
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Now and Then
by Ileah Kirchoff Sometimes I think about you now. I try to rewrite your name into the script of my fantasies: Dream girl version 1, Before the supposed wisdom of age harshly told me to Be more realistic. When you were Esmeralda brought to life. Your hair is different now, but I always think of it the way I knew it, Like a dark, thick curtain cutting across the middle of the bed, Hiding my unspeakable thoughts from your closed eyes. I imagine your eyes are the same. They haven’t changed through the trauma of forgetting my face. They probably remember the slight obscurity of my features through a Laughing squint as they looked at me from across the room. From across the table. From across the couch. From across the bed. From mere centimeters away. Never quite in focus, As I’m focusing on trying not to move, Lying awake because my entire body is energized by your mere proximity, Muscles tensed, Sensing and cataloguing each move, Trying to gauge Are you asleep? Or do you feel the electricity pulling our bodies together? Trying to gauge Your future reaction If I were to draw that black curtain And simply set the stage. Sometimes I think about you now when you don’t know it and wonder what you used to think about me. And wonder how we could be so comfortable and still never feel safe enough to be silent.
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Our mouths were always dancing together, separately following the same choreography through stories and smiles and whispers and laughs and those little nervous gestures that you only start to notice after you’ve seen them a thousand times: a quick flick of the tongue across the lips before it disappears again. Words mushing and mumbling through half asleep mouths as we lose consciousness of what we are even saying, but still we cannot be silent until silence infects so deeply that we no longer speak at all. So though I think about you now, as a cutout figure I try to paste you into my new life, I know you’ll never fit. You don’t feel at home in my thoughts, where you once resided. Your company has become a memory. Your comfortability has become a monologue of the past, shown only in front of an audience. And I have not become you or yours, as I once wished I would. Still, now will not muddy my memories of then, and every time I see you again, I’ll think of what used to be real. Memories of you quiet the voices of what might have been as, sometimes, I think about you now, a longed-for lover made a true friend.
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After the Buddy Wakefield Show
by Becca Ewart I am paralyzed like the bricks in the wall listening to language like Mockingbars and Crowbirds. The room is getting cold, it’s starting to get dark outside. There is one light that I really wish would burn out. It’s making me see rectangles instead of faces. Its shape makes me think of reading by the light shining through a backyard fence. I start retracing ghosts in my skull because someone said picture someone sitting next to you who said they loved you and then turned out to be lying, and just let it go. There is a guy a few rows behind me wearing a shirt that reminds me of the quilt made out of my old band t-shirts that I still have to make, and I still just want to write something just because it sounds nice. Sometimes I feel like I am the person I am because I’m attracted to rooftops. I have no intention of jumping, I just want to find a new perspective, and be a little closer to the sun.
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Michelle Lee by Brent Coulter
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Other and Worldly by Kelly Peyton
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Kennel #101
by Brandon Fischmann I was in the garden with the splintered shovel when I last saw you, my palms brewing blisters like French press at 4am I was planting tomato seeds and hoping inspiration would creep out of the mulch the dirt plastering my hands was soaked in rotting produce, nutrients, leftover beer you were crawling through the break in the fence because you, like me now, knew exactly what you needed when the branches tried to match the sunset color for color You’re a cross-eyed canine queen a scavenging shaman and the slight deformity in your paw is a fire pit tale. Those nights, the fear of letting go and a rolled up dollar bill fucked up my sleeping patternmy bed smells like numb noses in winter -and now the sheets are the Dead Sea without the tidal rise of your ribcage as a reminder that friends do more for the soul than lovers I miss sun on my skin and the suspended swing of the hammock like sailing your sleep sounds were like a veteran on a flashback of life after the war: massage trains and dumpsters we figured you’d dabbled in pacifism too, humans invent the strangest stories Will I dream of your late-night moonlight shadow your wanderlust as I chain smoke beside your dinner bowl on the concrete steps? just in case you still get depressed when you’re hungry. I always knew we had something in common taking trips when we shouldn’t frightening people because we were frightened by consistency
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TheNightLifeisForYoubyBenjaminPoynter
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Ponder by Crystal Willis
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Berdil
by Andrew Palmer The last time I was in the forest of Berdil all I saw were dead bodies.Women, children, and soldiers stacked on planks of wood the Chaluthin Army intended to burn. Mud covered the leggings of soldiers, hearts and minds destroyed by the actions we committed. Each minute of the day was dragging more of the dead to the piles. Each body created a splash as it landed on the ones below. Rain had fallen for three days and showed no sign of stopping. Neither did the lines of soldiers bringing the lifeless sacks from nearby cities. What remained of the citizens of Berdil cowered in their homes, watching the Chaluthin soldiers cart away their loved ones. We were mindless drones acting out the will of nobles, who were to afraid to fight themselves. Mindless because that was the only way to deal with all the horrible things we had done. How else could we cope? A six-year-old girl with a red ribbon in her hair and wearing a blue dress, she was the first person I carried. My heart broke, shattered to bits, never to become whole again. I had a young daughter of my own; she is a woman now unlike that girl. But how could the war have been so cruel? Taking away the life of innocence and burning it over the flames of hatred, what purpose does that malice serve? They told us to carry the dead out of the towns. “Spare the Berdillians the burden. We need to look as if we are freeing the people from their evil lives,” my commanding officer told our squadron. “They need to see us as good people if they are to work for the Chaluthin government without resistance.” Good people. Do good people kill children? Do good people destroy the lives of others for land? Do good people massacre prosperous cities with the promise of making their own lives better? No, we weren’t good people. We were the scum of the earth, devouring the hopes and dreams of those who stood in our way, all in the name of Progress. The forests of Berdil turned me from a twenty-year-old carpenter into a monster, living on his own in a mountain cave, afraid to enter society again. Who we were before the war, standing in rank as our commanding officer looked us over, checking our insignia and armor for imperfections, was not who were after.We transformed into monsters. Monsters that killed the innocent, and hid within hollow bodies, continuing to do what was wrong. Nobles got rich, and we got screwed.
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Is Every Center Temporary?
by Michael Blane
We offered hummed lullabies to feed the ivy growing through our finger’s grooves until it started craving, it asked for opera. We learned to explore scales like minds explore spectra. Still, the quiver in our voice betrayed the anxious-unknown. Ours are careful hands on an untuned harp. The greatest comforts available are promises whispered into sleeping ears. Even if God’s gift is whiplash we’ll accept it. We will sew our thumbs back on with harp’s wires and scrub the ivy off of our voice boxes. Functioning as mirrors towards ourselves we learn to focus on which eyes we are using. One set moves in scientific straight lines; the other traces out mandalas. Anyone can read hieroglyphics out of spider’s webs. Either eye notices that beauty has a way of building on itself, anyone can look at it iterating like ivy’s branching only to learn that beauty is a manual for madness if it is looked at too long. Our effort and denial is reflected in that constantly fluctuating glimmer that we try so hard to imitate. But the binary breaks and we watch all that’s left: an eternal golden braid in the palms of our hands.
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PogoniponBarbedWirebyBlytheGriffin
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WaterDropletbyCarlyAndrus
No Matter Where You Go
by Dana Simpson
Leaning back in my seat I asked Sergio to pass the olives. The late Madrid afternoon sun warmed my neck, and with the Rioja wine lingering on my palate I thought of the words of Confucius when he said that “the strong are like wind, and weak like grass, and when the wind passes over the grass it cannot choose but bend.” Sergio sat close to his fiancée Susi, and gripped her with a seemingly equal confidence. “These two are the grass,” I told myself, tossing back another sip of tinto, not considering the possibility that I could actually be the one out in the field. I shrugged off their intimacy as a circumstance of the Spanish triste sentir sereno, the “serene sadness”some local writers attest to being the resigned condition of Spanish folk. They had each other, and that was it. “So, do you plan on getting married?”asked Sergio, leaning across the table to insure that I got my share of olives. He also passed me the chorizo frito and the tortilla española. I was always amazed at his sense of generosity and kindness. Whenever I went to Madrid I was welcome at his pad. If he wasn’t there he would leave me the key to his apartment in Argüelles. I still have a photo of us from that era: me with my early 90’s hair style so askew it made Einstein look coiffed, and my 160-pound frame sporting a Hard Rock Café Singapore tee-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off my slender build. And then there was Sergio, noble in the eternity of his convictions, something like that of an Oriental philosopher I used to read. “Probably,” I said, “I haven’t put much thought into it. I like sashaying from state to state, being in a constant condition of anticipation and recollection.”“So I guess the idea of having kids is not in the picture,” he said. “Not,” I quickly replied. Then I felt a cool breeze on the back of my neck. Five years later I finished my M.A. degree and went East on the four winds to try my luck at teaching English and Art History at a small college in South Korea. Being the only foreigner in the school it was impossible to keep a low-profile, so I reveled in the novelty of my circumstance. Everything was new. The simplest, most mundane events were exhilarating to me: a dog fight in a bank, eating flattened dried squid, reading from the window of the bus the four-syllabled Korean sign that said “He uh- su - tahl” at a local barber shop (imitating “hairstyle” in English). Cus-
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toms and otherness were just as unfamiliar to me as they were to the locals who giggled at myWestern countenance. Having passed my 26th birthday, it was puzzling to some why I wasn’t married with children, or at least married.They saw companionship an indispensable attribute of human nature at my stage in life, and at one point they actually had a faculty night out to take me to a night club to see if I could meet someone. I politely recanted. I was convinced that those with families were jealous of my freedom and had a conspiracy to lasso me into their despondency. No way. I had been around the world already and was planning to spend my winter vacation in the Philippines, via Hong Kong and Macao. Nobody was going to strap me down. There is an old Spanish expression that I lived by “El que está en el lodo querrá meter a otro.” (He who is in the mud wants to pull another in.). However, with time and my trial-and-error method of self-erudition, I learned that the Koreans felt sorry for me in my condition of bachelorhood. I also learned in my years there how the traditions of Korean society are based on the teaching of Confucius. Five more years later I was studying for my doctoral exams when news came around that my sister had a child. They asked me to be the godfather and I took to the honor with an oafish pride and a forecast of all-thumbs competency. I didn’t know quite what to do. My brother already had a son and I was the last one left on the lot. During an avant la lettre soirée of cigars and Guinness with my Irish brother-in-law, we got news that my sister was in labor, and I quickly escorted him out of the bar, off towards the hospital, and into fatherhood. I was sent to their house to retrieve their on-call “baby-packet” for the newborn, which didn’t happen to be in the trunk at the right time. I didn’t have a key to the house and had to take out the air conditioner to get in through the window. As I stepped into the house I felt a calmness, a silence that was at the same time disconcerting yet peaceful, and I thought that this would be the last time for some 20 years that this house would experience utter stillness. Not in a state to contemplate the effervescent spontaneity of the thought, I grabbed the bag and skirted off to the ward. In the five years that have transpired since then I have spent many an afternoon at both my brother’s and sister’s houses watching the
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kids grow. One hot summer day of barbecued steak tips, potato salad and Belgian beer, the kids came running up asking me to pull them around in the plastic sled. It was 92 degrees out, but they were excited. In my clumsy austerity I towed them a few laps around the yard and then, overheated, collapsed into my chair with my arms up like a Cormorant drying its wings. They then pranced off to chase another impulse. Looking at them I realized I didn’t want to flap those heavy wings of mine, and that perhaps they were to serve some other purpose. I turned up the music, and I heard the lyrics to a song that said, “Don’t you see?”. I sat back as a warm breeze came through the yard and shifted enigmatic patterns on the lawn. Yesterday I found out that my wife’s pregnant. A lot of things have changed. I’m big and slow and sometimes it takes me a while to stand up. They say it takes an albatross over a minute to get off the ground because of its size and the length of its wings, but once its up in the sky it can soar for hours with the slightest of efforts.
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NoLongerForbiddenbyKrystalBake
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MoonRocksbyCarlyAndrus
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Powerline Road
by Becca Ewart There’s a bucket of dead snakes on the sand hill, the one down by Powerline Road. There’s a man buried under those snakes, the one who promised to marry me. Too bad sand won’t burn, but the shack that holds those damn promises and empty bottles, the one by the dirt road, sure looks nice in flames.
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El Sueno
by Hector Hernandez Spick. Wetback. Immigrant. Llamame lo que queiras. Go ahead. Do it to my face. Make it personal. I don’t care. Porque te ensenare de meraises. I’ll show you the aged faces of my parents. The consequences of my mother’s actions. The calluses on my father’s hands. I’ll make you think of where your next meal will come from. I’ll paint a picture where the world isn’t un paraiso. I’ll play you a song sung by the laughter of the ninos y ninas, the gun shots fired down la calle, and the smooth melody of la lluvia y viento. I’ll make you feel the dirt and the rocks on all the bare feet. The same feet of my parents that were once buried in the land of the place they once called home Uprooted due to the desperation Para ir norte
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le s
er C a i Alien Eye by Estefan
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62 PogonipbyBlytheGriffin
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Persons and Machinery by Megan Richter
Wearebutpatterns,love.Andeverythingyouthinkisunpredictableisultimatelyjust part of something you don’t understand yet
0000: In Which We Discuss Failed Romeo and Juliets
This isn’t about romance, she tells herself. This isn’t about a young girl and a young boy staring at each other across the center console of a car at one in the morning, and the boy telling her softly, “You’re beautiful, and I love you.” This isn’t about what she feels when he reaches across the seat, covers her eyes with his hand and her lips with his. Most couples like to tell each other fondly of instant attraction (or at least curiosity) -- a gaze that held a second longer, the uptick of a thought that bordered on a brief and fleeting, “What if?” The appraisal of something physical, something the brain’s more basic interests sought satisfaction of. He was wearing a black jacket, and he was carrying a duffel bag. He had short-cropped brown hair and blue eyes that took and never gave. They crossed paths in the upstairs mezzanine of some unremarkable high school in an unremarkable small Western town. In this October – as every October -- kids carved pumpkins into faces and teenagers sought to piss off neighbors by dressing as themselves and philandering for candy. This is my costume, they said. He had blue eyes and brown hair. He wore a black jacket, and he carried a duffel bag, and when they crossed paths in the upstairs mezzanine of some unremarkable high school in an unremarkable Western town, her gut knotted and clenched and something instinctively screamed for her to run. How do you tell someone that? Attraction lies in the comparisons. She sees a wild dog in him, in the way he smiles (white white teeth, a broad grin, a wolf’s grin), the way his blue eyes will hold hers in moments when she’s nervous (vulnerable) and just pick her apart with calm, methodical order. There is something feral there. Something not yet grounded or tamed. But:
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In the moments when he blinks, hesitates, his knees drawn to his chest and his back bare, there is something else. She sees a boy. A fool. The specifics aren’t important. Or: perhaps they are. Observers and commentators will disagree on the (valid) points in her argument. They will agree that he is a douchebag, an immature son-of-a-bitch. That he is not worth her time. Here is what they will not know, and she will not mention: She gets his email. And in a sleepy, 100-something person village, she wakes up with the birds and sneaks out her open-shuttered window into narrow roads winding around cornfields and beaming stretches of sunflowers. She runs. Four miles later, she thinks about crying. When she gets back from a summer and immigrates to college, she’ll pretend she’s okay, because that makes her feel stronger, fiercer. She’ll run miles and write angry poetry into the narrow margins of Calc 200 notes, but she won’t break. Her roommate will regard her with narrowed eyes and a pause. “I’m worried about you,” she says. 0500: In Which We Address Back Story and All Those Things in Parentheses Back before this became this, she was young(er) and naïve and never had a boyfriend before. Now she tentatively kicks around publicly using in discussions, “My boyfriend,” and ponders with some concern what that exactly means. And on 1600 mile telephone lines he whispers low of a future with a wife, children and a house. A beautiful house, in the country, and children, and he falls asleep in a recliner to his wife returning from work, kissing him on the lips. It is a future, and without consent he makes it hers. Her toes curl, and she swallows, tightening her grip on the phone cradled next to her ear. She hasn’t told him she loves him, yet. Later, this is how it goes: A year passes. After she tells him she loves him, he will call her once.
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He’ll call her when she’s in a dressing room, phone on silent, trying on heels to a dress she’ll never wear for a boy she never hopes to see again. A boy 6000 miles away, a Kevlar helmet sweaty on his head and a twentypound gun harnessed to his chest. He speaks to her message machine, and he says without prelude: “It’s me. Calling you from the, uh, shitty shitty country of Afghanistan.” And at the end of this, she imagines him pacing, sees him fidgeting with the antenna of the satellite phone and looking at one of the many unknown stains flecked onto a tent flap while he tries to find the words -- he says something. “I’m sorry.” He finally says, pauses, coughs. “Yeah.” Throughout this time, she will decide multiple things. About her. About him. But what she decides most strongly is that she hates his branch of military, hates what it makes broken young boys and how it carves them into broken young men who can kill and maim and survive but fall apart at a party, fall apart at the sound of a car backfiring or the sharp crack of something -- anything -- in the distance. They broke him and then -- after fracturing his legs and starving him and driving him with no sleep to do things he didn’t know he was capable of -- they rebuilt him. They rebuilt him to work efficiently and smoothly and without pause, hesitation or fear. He became a machine, and in this, they were proud. He comes back to the real world, then. He shatters. 1000: In Which We Examine the Boy His mother leaves him when he’s just a babe. His friend blows his own head off when he’s fourteen. When he’s twenty, he raises his gun to his shoulder and screams(pleads)withawide-eyedfourteenyearoldboyawkwardlyholding an AK-47 to Put the fucking gun down, NOW! And maybe the boy looks fierce back at him when he does this. Maybe the boy juts his chin forward and challenges him, lifts the AK-47 higher and furrows his brow, mimicking a gesture he’s seen from his fathers, his brothers and the big men that sweep into the village and cause women to shepherd their children into mud-carved huts and close the shutters, voices murmuring and still. Maybe the boy looks scared and confused, frozen and too far into
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the motion to pull back, to raise his hands and stutter in his native tongue that he is sorrysorrysorry and scared, so scared. Either way, a motion becomes a threat, and the threat becomes an inevitable danger and in that split-second decision, the twenty year old stares down his sight and he pulls the trigger. And there’s pressure in him. Pressure that’s building and building and building and building and he hears voices now (maybe) and doesn’t sleep. There are triggers now. Triggers that make civilians seem like combatants and triggers that make roads and people dangerous, shrapnel ready and tension heavy, gunning to kill him. The pressure is building and building and the water’s pushing on that levee in him. The water’s pushing on that levee in him and the headaches are getting worse and - “I’m lost,” he tells her. He is a twenty-year old boy who’s killed and now, now he says,“I like shooting people,” and there is fear in there. There is no society that tells you of the good virtue of killing. Off the wire, off the sands, off the C130 and the tarmac, there is no good virtue in killing. He calls the girl after months of not calling her and he just starts talking. Babbling. Voice trying to be nonchalant but a cricket there. A waver. “I zippered a guy,” he says. Here, high-velocity rounds powerfully punched holes from torso to breastbone to neck and to the head of a man/ combatant, at which point the he ceased to be and became a body, hanging for a moment in motion before collapsing in an undignified heap on some unnamed road in some godforsaken country. “I like shooting people,” he repeats, a frayed undercurrent in the statement. A girl 1600 miles away doesn’t know what to say.
1500: In Which the Angst Abated Momentarily
He wants to be a country star, and when he tells her this, she can’t help but smirk. This is the genre that lives on kicked dogs, runaway wives and lonely old cowboys nursing PBR in smoky and cigar-smoked bars where Johnny Cash growls in some roughshod old speakers from the ‘60s. It is the genre of male romanticism, of Romeos without their Juliets and of heartbreak from the male perspective, where the woman is a succubus and when she grins, she holds a knife behind her back.
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“When I get famous,” he informs her, “you’re going to buy one of my c.d.’s or so help me god, I will dump a thousand of them on your driveway.” She frowns. “What a waste of plastic.” He shoots her a look, and she giggles.
2000: Epilogue
In the Art of War, Sun Zhu directs military strategists to tire the enemy. To wear him down. To drag him across mountains and ridges, deserts and swamps. To tire your enemy, you force him across distances. You force him into the unknown, into the treacherous, into the unforgiving and the lonely. A desert will break any man’s resolve. A distance will break any romance’s. Two years it’s been. Maybe more, maybe less. And every day the sun rises and the sun sets, and on different sides of the world the stars shine in different ways and draw meaning from different people. There is no easy way to stop it, no easy way to begin it. The sun rises and sets. Their cycle continues.
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CallingbyEleanorLeonneBennett
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Placenta Moon
by Greg Hoetker The hour my daughter arrived I asked the doctor for the keepsake placenta To plant beneath a tree. I received a pale blue Tupperware Filled with the lifebloods Of our second-born. Two weeks later I drive a U-Haul From the North Coast to Idaho, Packed with the remnants Of my family’s five lives. Boxes, boxes, boxes Of Grandma’s china, baseball cards, crafting yarns, Baby toys, doggie chewies, The must-haves and detritus of life. Mia’s placenta is nestled in a plug-in-cooler Flush by my right hip, Its fridge humming a cooing tune Across the Coast Range, Central Valley, Past the shadows of the Sutter Buttes, Between the glittering skyscrapers of Reno As the waxing moon begins its glowing rise. At the hotel counter I ask the deskman If the hotel has a freezer for its guests. He says, Yes, And I try, Can you put this in for the night? Holding out the frozen package, Tucked, wrapped, and hidden in red BioHazard plastic. He pauses, then takes it, just barely, And at the exact moment his spectacles begin to cloud I butt in: It’s for my dog. Meat.
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In the morning I retrieve my icy treasure And hit highway 80 towards Winnemucca, Then 95 through northern Nevada, Eastern Oregon, the recent rains Of this long high new wide great desert Seeming to green the Blue Mountains The farther north I drive. The once creeks, now rivers, Are muddy, swollen, flooded, Angry, brimming with new possibilities That the Pacific must and will accept. Near Orovada With the backs of my knuckles I touch the stainless steel of the fridge: Still cold, but not biting. I reach inside and flip the package left-right, Its gentle slurp confirming my deepest suspicion. Through Burns Junction, Jordan Valley, Then a steep carved drop from the Owyhees Into this newly opened Treasure Valley. Driving, driving, driving. At our new home I park the U-Haul, Stop and contemplate this new direction. At midnight, After unpacking, I peek out the each of my new windows, Scanning the neighbors’ strange houses: Everyone’s asleep. I grab a watering can Shovel, flashlight, and the rest. Above everything the full moon Deepens each cloud’s heart An impossibly possible shade of gray.
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I cut, dig, water, shine, Repeat. Soon, it is time. I open the pale blue plastic And all the light shines inside: Reds, greens, blues, blacks, Veins of this and flesh of that, Liquid of the life of Life. I pour it all into the opened hole, The weighty plop wholly satisfying, Then wash what’s left out of the plastic bin, Off the skinny lid, Into this massive hole, Attempting to deliver to the earth Each drop of my daughter, Pieces I was somehow given, Pieces I plant, Now, here, you, Beneath this newly opened placenta moon.
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Spoken Motion by Renelle Pinero A leaf’s perfected reverberation, a fleeting moment of inspiration. I can tell you quickly before it fadesthe marvel I seek and the purpose it craves. The rhythm of time knows not of a griever, but the intoxicating ardor of a kindled receiver. One foot in the grave, the other in the showerunguarded by the minute but conquering the hour. Who can describe what the shutter embraces? Seen through the eyes of unshakable faces. We capture the canvas, not knowing reciprocity, but with unyielding affections and lawless curiosity.
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inhaleexhalebyKellyPeyton
Once
by Christian Bertolaccini I remember What you said To me by the river On the day when the sky opened up And began to fall On us You told me that you Had memories of this place With the fields beyond sight Before the trees were downed, And the river bridged You mentioned how Beautiful This place was On other days In other ways Before Names carved into trunks Of fallen trees The gleaming jade, the rocks, the banks The grey sky And the moving glass water The ground waking from under winter It’s remnants in the sky, the hills It was something pretty, Once Once it had magic Before they came and Made it Something else If only you could have seen The beauty of it Like when I was young Still the rushing current swept the water far away.
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Gone
by Lora Massey It tastes so bittersweet. It tastes of hatred, of malice, of disgust. It tastes of pain, of death, of terror. It tastes of freedom, of peace, of bliss. The wind is a funny thing. So innocent and pure are its intentions as it maneuvers its way through the crowd of people. Perhaps it means to comfort me with its gentle hum as it swirls around my head. Yet, pure as its intentions may be, it cannot help but bring me pain for the wind cannot choose what it carries with it. Today, it brings me suffering. Today, it brings me fear. Today, it brings me deliverance. Beautiful is Salem, yet it reeks of hell. The taunting melodies that sing in the air wrap around my neck like a thick, jagged rope. Call me evil, call me good, call me witch, or call me wicked. It makes no difference to me. I look up and see my fate. They call her Gallows, but it seems such a simple name for such an impressive woman. She is both savior and destroyer. She brings tears and joy, pain and pleasure, terror and excitement. For me, she will bring the former of each. For the eager men and women who have gathered here today, she will bring the latter. My parched lips smile. Mistress Gallows has a name that does not give her due credit for her incredible talents. The names they call me, however—spell caster, witch, devil—give me far too much credit. If I had a genuine claim to such names, do they think I would be here? My palms are sweaty and my heart is racing, but it’s alright. The wind is soft, the sun is bright, the smell is pleasant, and the floor is gone.
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By Gas by Eleanor Leonne Bennett
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This Elysian End Time Televised by Benjamin Poynter
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Intense
by Andrew James Rusanoff Bleeding my consciousness onto the floor I weep as if I knew nothing but tears. The mind that I know is mine seethes with want and fear and emptiness. How I lust after this dark, blind corner of a mind that I know is mine. Burning embers of memories rise into the night air as sparks from a Shamans fire. Nights which know nothing call to a mind that I know is mine. I scream back till I hear no more.
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SpherebyAustinRudd
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Golden Dragonfly by Blythe G
Remind Me of the Fall
by Brendan Aguiar Soft heart beats through the low crescent rain pounding to the snare of the woven leave plane her glare too had my heart beating tall for her eyes reminded me of the Fall. Cold wind like signals down through my spine from snowflake formed phantoms riddling time but no uttered words felt truer than hers for when she loved me she sounded like Winter. And forests soar higher with birds in the air as meadows spread blossoming scents everywhere but no blossoms compare to the flowers in her hair for sometimes she looks just like the Spring And when the sun finally shown its lustrous rays staring at our present and the end of our days I’ll know that no other had shined quite like her for her smile had me thinking of Summer.
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#121
by Sean Bassney I refuse to give up on you, my flesh and blood. I refuse to drop my knee in apathy thinking that this body, this mind that you cultivated was all for null for nothing; black as the void from whence we came. Every mind a master artist every body a flawlessly reworked masterpiece. Let me see those hands you carved. So capable your ten fingers, so powerful your grip. I can seeby the meticulous detail of your fingerprintsthis was your intention. You are an individual by the very act of breathing. Promise me, that you will not waste a single breath. The hearth you built in your chest has always been yours to stoke so fill your lungs with brimstone and breathe out smoke. Step firm. You built those legs to conquer, promise me that you will never forget every struggle that it took to attain what they are now: impervious to weakness. Do not be lazy with your course. Keep your toes pointed towards the good and do not neglect the impact of your footprintits impact will continue long after your gone, so make it sweet.
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You’ve been fighting for liberty ever since your five year old mouth uttered the phrase “that’s not fair!” Promise me that you will never give up on that ideal. I promise to never give up on you. Regardless the outcome. I did not build these legs to sit down. I will not ever tell this heart to stop beating. This heart is not mine. This heart beats for you. We all had our knees broken at birth. But somehow you stand with me today. I can feel the heat from your chest. There is something inside you burning and this heart is yearning, wanting wishing that that flame will spill out and set the whole world ablaze. All you gotta do is open the gates. So go ahead stardust, show us what your made of.
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A Dog’s Promise
by Kelsey Mammen There’s a rare stillness in the summer morning. The sun that will later pelt the earth with its heat is now just touching its feeble rays to the worn dirt of the hiking trail. I smile as the white blur of fur passes me again, intent on his upward path. “Keno,” I call as he surges a little too far up the path. He turns, bounding towards me in lip flapping, golden retriever joy. As a puppy raiser of guide dogs for the blind, it is a privilege to spend time with your puppies after you have given them up. Keno, unable to become a guide dog due to allergies, is spending some precious time with me before he goes to live with his adoptive family. I’m not sure you’re supposed to pick favorites, but as I watch my fifth puppy, now a grown dog, bounding over logs and rocks, I can’t help feeling that our souls are distinctly alike. There are few hikers on the route today, so for the most part, it is Keno and I. He races ahead, me keeping a steady cadence behind him. Only once do I have to encourage him to keep going, when he feels something deceased needs to be inspected desperately and directly. We climb carefully, the dirt eventually turning to a loose rocky terrain. When Keno was a puppy, he was always on a leash in unfenced areas. In this moment, the uninhibited aura of freedom ripples through his body, throwing a smile on his doggy face. As we get further from the parking lot, there are no human noises. Nature has encroached upon us, and the subtle creep of loneliness edges into my mind. We are alone, which is good and bad. Good for thinking, bad for dealing with the unexpected dangers of wilderness. As if he is reading my thoughts, Keno keeps closer to me. As the trail starts downward, it becomes steeper and rockier than the ascent has been. Keno changes his unabated running ahead. He still trots in front of me, scaling the sloping path much quicker than I. At the bottom of each rocky stretch, he stops, he sits, and he looks. He watches me as I slowly edge my way down, tracking my steps with his eyes. When my feet touch the point of evenness on the path, he is off again. He continues this repetitive behavior until I realize, he is making sure I make it safely down every questionable spot. As we enter a small clearing, he looks back at me once more. Here he promises an innate partnership with his soft brown eyes, a knowing intelligence contained within their light.
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Fuzzy Green Mold
by Edward Manzi What got in the way the most were the slices of cantaloupe that had been delicately placed on the not-any-more-traveled five lane highway, by doctors dressed in scrubs clean enough for surgery; the grey pavement, the blue sky, sun blinding, my work boots stained with grease, a still-eyed red hawk perched in a leafless tree expecting the breeze of cars, tattered American flag black peace sign on the fence of the overpass next to a Jesus pi単ata hanging by the neck from a rusted chain missing his right foot.
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Bird
by Stewart Matzek To my brother and I, the walnut orchard behind our house was full of joy, memories, and dead animals. It was the unofficial cemetery for critters, and both he and I had seen more deceased creatures back there than probably any mortuary in our city. The first time was a shock. We stood there staring at the dead bird, trying to figure out what had happened to it, a small black lump of feathers amongst a sea of orange and yellow leaves. It was fall and the trees had loosed their clothes and unbuckled their belts, reaching their wooden fingers in an enormous yawn. I broke our long silence. “What do you think happened?” “Dunno. Maybe it hit a tree.” “Don’t be an idiot. Birds know what trees are.” “Well, it’s too late to ask him. Should we get dad to bury him?” I looked at my brother and then back to the bird. Surely we would need to invite his bird family and his bird children, they would want to see him before he went up to bird heaven or maybe down to bird who-knowswhere. I wondered if birds had religion. I almost giggled at the image of a bird sitting down in his best bird attire on Sunday at bird church. However, the laugh probably would have been ill-timed and I might have been hit by my brother on the arm. I stared at the bird and thought about death, the concept of death, for the very first time. Kids don’t often think about death, and when they do, it’s a playground sort of death. A finger-gun is shot from across the asphalt lot and the dead man falls down, moaning and groaning like he stubbed his toe or something. The bird didn’t moan or groan and there was no play gun that was shot. I became scared. I wanted to run and leave the bird alone. I didn’t want to see it ever again. I wouldn’t even attend its funeral. My brother looked at me vacantly, not pondering the concept as I was. “I think we have a shoebox we could put him in.” I stopped thinking about the bird. I picked up a walnut and threw it as far as I could, and then another, not even thinking, just chucking walnuts across the orchard. My brother picked up a few and halfheartedly tossed them.We walked back to the house without saying a word. We didn’t tell dad. I had decided it would be better if the bird lie there for a while. Who knows, maybe his family would find him. The next day he was gone.
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SimpleReveriebyCaitlinCosens
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A Cathedral of Pines
by Troy Casa There was a time when the wind that swept through these pines often confused him, as though its very nature put him in some presence. But he knew better. He knew it was simply the remnants of some Arctic gale that had buried three dozen head of Guernsey, pushed a mother and her newborn off the road into Gratiot Pond and rang chimes both here and in the Gobi disrupting the morning Koan. He knew it was not the sweet baby breath of Jesus that carried fire through the Cathedral of Pines or spun the world around like a lint brush just slow enough to grab a filthy piece of dead skin, blood from his neighbor’s needles and some daughter’s pubic hair. He knew there had been a murder. And he knew not where to start.
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Liquid Wax
Dominique Price There’s this moment when all that is unsaid is heard. It seeps through one’s pores and is revealed. A small cringe, meant to be private, an unwilling embrace, an extra long pause after a question, reveals the answer. I am unwanted. I am no longer new. I am no longer shiny. What once made me bright, is nothing but a flicker. A candle too long burned, suffocating in its own liquid wax.
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Bathroom by Carly Andrus
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Dusk on a Buena Vista
by Brandon Fischmann Our silence broke too easily and she said something about how the man in the moon crept in early to join the dusk light because he was bored and she had heard it’s pretty lonely in Earth’s orbit. I daydreamed with a little more ease that morning knowing she only made it a few steps from the wooden door with the termite etchings before she chased herself inside to roast the coffee and the craft store beads in her hair were still soaked in yellows trickling down in spirals from a million soft wires We were always nodding off in church anyway. She was lying on my bed like fresh snow across a cityscape near indistinguishable from the papers with the coffee stains or the petrified unwashed plates Every few minutes She would crane her head over the digital melodies and smile feebly through the nausea (she told me she was building a cabin on the beach) It’s that or my thick-rimmed glassed hiding bagged eyes that prove it was only beautiful the first time. And craving was never much more than good company polishing leather flats as we fancied afterlives and compared local cigarette prices. I should have noted this terror slipping into the polished crevices of my skull but the way my smoke trails curled
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in the wintered aspen branches was so holding my attention, I’d forget to breath for 30 seconds at a time. When desire slipped from my lips like a performer ditching center stage I was watching myself pull her out the front gate by the hand. The sun was on its way over for coffee and ramen and I wasn’t too upset she never said goodbye because we never had a formal introduction.
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Hannah Behmaram, Editor This is my third semester on staff and second semester as editor. In my free time, I enjoy writing, singing, origami, and shenanigans.
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Ryan DeLaureal, Assistant Art conquers imagination. Imagination conquers art.
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Rebecca Fox, Webmaster
This is my first year with the Brushfire, and I’m so excited to bring my own ideas and energy to the team. As an artist and information systems major, working for this publication as webmaster is the perfect blend of all my interests. You could describe me as a detail-oriented happy perfectionist dork whose life tends to revolve around color, lists, software, and appreciating great art. I try to see beauty in everything and can think of no reason why every single object in the world shouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing in some way. My other loves include painting ferociously, drinking tea with friends, and swearing at Mario Cart. You can easily find me wearing a hat and talking to myself like a nut.
I like sombreros. I have an insatiable love for reading. I like hedgehogs, a lot. I’m real into movies. My bio just became a list of things I like. My thirst for adventure may never be quenched. I like to think I live creatively. I’m the happiest Harriet when I’m with my friends. If possible, I laugh more than I should. Harry Potter ‘til I die.
Lauren Hober, P.R. Manager
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