Aremu Adams Adebisi: “We Forced Mother To Say The Name Of God Before She Died

We Forced Mother To Say The Name Of God Before She Died

by Aremu Adams Adebisi

Angels were on break that night where we all gathered in a room.

Fears were attributes of sorrows, our hearts beating in funerals,

awaiting her grave, and if unlucky that she should become grains in the wind.

Heaven watched on as a lone dugout, time was a young girl who never grew.

The clock chimed in barrels of gloom, descending on us like falling mist.

We asked for safety. We churched, shrined, and tekbir-ed, we combined

all the names of God, and hoped one would tickle him, and the angels

would come rushing like flowers in her mouth, and Noah would build

a new ark where the unfaithful do not have to perish in the flood.

My atheist mother died in her curse that night, and it became manifest

how Pharaoh's redemption was wrung from his tongue by an angel at the sea;

how God gets angry when he is made the last resort, or when it seems

the infidels want to steal from him.

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Cover the Mirrors

by Lynn White

All the mirrors were covered every night in my grandmother’s house draped with coloured cloths like the budgie’s cage. She was worried that a soul might wander and be sucked into the reflective glass and she thought the souls of dreamers were very vulnerable. I thought that the budgie must be covered because at night even with the door closed, his soul might fly the cage and disappear into the mirror. Sometimes she forgot to cover the cage, though never the mirrors and then I would examine the mirrors carefully to check that it was me in there and not his feathered soul. Then I would check his cage to make sure that he was still inside with his soul intact She told me not to worry that his cage was only covered to make it dark so he would sleep. But I didn’t believe her. It made no sense if it was dark anyway. So I always checked the mirrors.

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Marriage Is by Brooke Bergan

reverse redshift inside-out Doppler close distortion distance lending enchantment even from the self that seems always approaching / receding like the wrong train till you think you may never get back or be carried away

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What Next by Brooke Bergan

Surrounded by food he decides against rebellion in favor of counterrevolution, a tactic decidedly retrograde and yet surprisingly effective in the way that pickup basketball confers dignity on the merely accidental inclusion of what’s to hand or the feminization of certain concepts as if life were just one big Romance language, though turns out it’s not that simple/binary, none in Basque, numerous in Bantu for all that you may think only three possible, and yet nostalgia seems the purview of those who keep the memories, seeds, rituals & recipes however attenuated, diluted, debatable.

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Lena’s Garden

by Laura Lee Washburn

88 City Brink Lena can't keep hers from going yellow. It burns Lena up how her mother had whiter hair, too. Lena in her room that smells, where powder and the make-ups are mildew growing over the sill. Lena in her window. Nobody thinks she isn't a curtain. She wears her gown up against the glass. People walk past her. Lena keeps an eye on them.

She spends days in her garden where in a corner for luck Delmar always planted one sunflower. You can imagine that sunflowers hang down like extra breasts, the skin on her upper arms, or her without underpants. All her parts are the tomatoes on her kitchen table, still half-green and yellow.

She is a strange mix without rows. Lena plants peppers in the front flower beds of herself. She wears gowns at night, the gowns wherein the plants tangle stems. She’s a whole festival of red circles, beefsteak tomatoes all summer ripening—tomatoes on the table, for three months reddening fruit— Lena wrapped in her underclothes. Her nipples, you know, you could see them there, out on the line, only a little yellow, from the back alley. They’re a kind you've seen.

Saving Yourself in the Brush

A primer for certain self-righteously motivated attacks

by Laura Lee Washburn

Carry enough cash to appease but not enough to tempt. Let dimes jangle in your pocket when you walk.

Put the dog on his retractable leash. Let him range ahead but not out of sight. When he stops to scratch, lean down, pretend to tie your shoe.

Claws and teeth might glint from behind the fronds. Keep a vine handy. Beware the beehive hairdos and the overstout stomachs of the harridans. Keep Kleenex in the passenger seat. Look,

the attack is coming. You can live in the treetops, drop down only to pocket the quick nut, carry your child in the abdominal sling,

you can cover your cave entrance with bush and brush, camouflage even your teeth with an exaggerated grin,

but they’re coming for us, every one. Curl up, duck, possum, make yourself infant and shivering stone: inherit the earth or what’s left. There are times when in spite of the roar and the spear and the dangerous drum, believe me, you don’t fight back.

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Jim is a Good Guy by Steve Bogdaniec

90 City Brink Jim is a good guy. And even suggesting otherwise proves that you are not. You are a dirtbag. Jim is a saint compared to you. You know what, Jim is a saint compared to other saints, with their bullshit miracles like talking to God and turning things into other things. Jim is a guy who can actually get things done.

You think you are so smart. Don’t make me laugh. Jim is an incredibly smart man, but he isn’t a genius and doesn’t claim to be. And that’s what makes him a genius.

Also, Jim gives up his seat on the bus to old ladies. He doesn’t even need to ride the bus because he's got a car, but hello: carbon footprint. Ever hear of it? Once in a while, Jim is glad to do his part for environment. And old ladies. What have you ever done for the environment or old ladies? Do you go over to your Grandma’s house every Sunday to take out her recycling? Of course not.

I ought to break your jaw for tarnishing Jim’s good name like that. You deserve to choke to death, you filth. That’s something you would never hear coming out of Jim’s mouth because he is such a decent, peace-loving man. But me? I don’t mind wishing you a lengthy and painful and ultimately unsuccessful fight against bowel cancer.

Unlike you, Jim isn’t a sexist neanderthal who thinks of all women as “girls.” Do you know that many of them don’t like being called that? I sure didn’t, but I do now, thanks to Jim. Feminists have come up to him and asked to shake his hand out of respect and a love of humanity. I’ve seen it.

Plus, Jim gives money to charities on a regular basis. He’s so humble that he doesn’t tell anyone else, but I wormed it out of him one night. Jim doesn’t even report it on his tax return. You think Jim is trying to help the less-fortunate so he can chisel off a few bucks out of Uncle Sam each year? No sir.

You are a loser. I once saw Jim win over 900 straight games of Connect Four. The only reason he stopped was out of respect for 9/11. I bet you would never do anything as noble as that, you un-American piece of crap.

You said what you said about Jim because of your own insecurities. Jim says we can’t

let our self-worth be wrapped up in the toxic thinking of others. Jimmy tells me lots of stuff. He is honest and communicative about his feelings without getting weird about it. I’m sure you wouldn’t know about this, but thr feelings of two straight men can be discussed without giving in to the prevailing heteronormative paradigms of modern society. And you know what else? Jim doesn’t make people feel bad for drinking domestic light beers. You don’t have to be some frontrunning hipster who only drinks craft beers with cutesy Mad Libs names around ol’ Jimbo. We make fun of those people. Not mean fun, because Jim would say, “Cool it, dude. Those people may be wearing flannel and ridiculously large glasses, but they’re still people, you know?” Just light fun.

And he doesn’t play favorites between chunky and creamy peanut butter. Jim understands that it’s only a preference in texture, and he’ll take whatever you’ve got. I bet you're the kind of guy who makes someone run out to the store when they offer up PB and Js. What a creep.

You know what, you better not say anything like that ever again. In fact, I want you to go out of your way to praise Jim in the future. Really lay it on: his clothes, his hair style, his stance on being pro-Oxford comma but completely against acting like a total dick about people who still use it because they probably grew up doing it the old way and changing something as ingrained as language can be really jarring to people, and really, what does it hurt—can you really not figure out that it’s a list sentence and the thing after the “and” is the last thing in the list and not a weird addition to the next-to-last thing in the list? Do you really think we’re saying we should go eat Grandma?

The next time I see you, you better have on a custom navy blue t-shirt with white letters saying, “Jim is the Best Guy in the History of Guys,” or so help me, I will cut off your hand, fry it up with tempura batter and eat it in front of you, your mother, and Jim.

Jim is such a decent human being that he’d be frowning the whole time. I know Jim would be disappointed in me. I’m sure he’ll give me a good lecture after eating your hand in front of your mom, but I’d risk it just to shut you up.

Now get out of here before I start Googling places to buy chloroform.

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Sarah Goodwelles by Steve Denehan

92 City Brink A friend request popped up Sarah Goodwelles, a chef from Paris living in Texas supposedly she didn’t look like the others wasn’t posing coquettishly seductively as-good-as-naked-ly

Sarah Goodwelles was pleasant faced wore a dark grey, slightly formal raincoat and stood awkwardly before a field of tulips blue as her young eyes she sent me a message in sweetly broken English

Hi, how are you? Do we know each other? Not soon, but I note you are a writer. I like to reading. Me too. I am from France but live to Texas two years. Someday I hope to visit Texas. Do you like sex?

she didn’t look like the others but she was she was probably a middle-aged man like me sitting somewhere far away with other middle-aged men or women trying to get people on the hook I didn’t mind money is tight all over

Who are you? Who are you really? Does it matter? Maybe not.

I closed the laptop and went to bed

Faramade Francesca Oladapo, Untitled

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Submission Guidelines

City Brink accepts fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, poetry, art, and photography.

City Brink does not accept work that has been previously published either in print or on the web.

All work—prose, poetry, and art—submitted to City Brink must include a cover letter, which introduces the work, includes a short third person author biography (including previous and forthcoming publications), and contact information: address, phone, and email.

Prose and Poetry

For prose, please submit no more than one short story, one creative non-fiction piece, or one short play. For poetry, submit no more than three - six poems. Work must be submitted as WORD documents and follow the standard professional submissions guidelines: double spaced (prose), one inch margins, 12 pt Times New Roman font, and page numbers. The author’s last name and title of work should be included in the digital file name.

Art

All art submissions must be high quality, high resolution JPEG files of at least 2000 pixels on the long end of the digital file. The artist’s last name and title of piece should be included in the digital file name.

Send all submissions via email to

Christine Aguila and Carlo Matos at citybrinkmagazine@gmail.com

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Contributor Notes

Adrian Slonaker works as a copywriter and copy editor. Adrian’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in Pangolin Review, Aerodrome, WINK: Writers in the Know and others.

Alexandre Ferrere is 28 and lives in France. After a Master’s degree in Library Sciences and a Master’s degree in English Literature, he is now working on a PhD in American poetry. His essays and poems appeared or are forthcoming in Beatdom, Empty Mirror, Rust+Moth, Lumin Journal, Riggwelter Press, Barren Magazine, Isacoustic, armarolla, Lucent Dreaming, Kissing Dynamite, Porridge Magazine and elsewhere.

Aremu Adams Adebisi is a boy among five older girls, who explores the themes of equality, liberation, womanism, boyhood and existentialism. He has works published on Mistymountain Review, Kalahari Review, Poetica Magazine, and elsewhere. He likes to call himself the Plateau Indigobird which is endemic to Nigeria and one of a kind.

Bob McNeil is the author of Verses of Realness. Hal Sirowitz, Queens Poet Laureate, described the book as “A fantastic trip through the mind of a poet who doesn’t flinch at the truth.” Bob was published in The Shout It Out Anthology, Brine Rights: Stanzas and Clauses for the Causes (Volume 1), San Francisco Peace and Hope, and The Self-Portrait Poetry Collection, etc. Furthermore, Bob’s work as a professional illustrator, spoken word artist, and writer is dedicated to one cause—justice.

Brooke Bergan has published three books of poetry, Windowpane and Distant Topologies (The Wine Press) and Storyville: A Hidden Mirror (Moyer Bell). Her other publications include essays, translations, reviews, and poems in journals, anthologies, and books. She has a PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where she was the director of Publications. Dr. Bergan has taught creative writing at UIC, Lake Forest College, Harold Washington College, the Newberry Library, and various other venues in the Chicago area. She was the literary editor for Private Arts Press and helped run its readings program. Currently, she is working on a new collection of poems as well as a word-and-image collaboration with three women photographers.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,400 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle, and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press), An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy (Cawing Crow Press) Like As If (Pski’s Porch), and Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

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Christian Mietus is an undergraduate at Lewis University studying English, Film Studies, and Russian Language and Culture. He is a lover of everything to do with literature, cinema, the arts, and diverse culture and opinion. Currently, he is the blog and fiction editor for Lewis University’s literary journal Jet Fuel Review and has been published in Lewis University’s fine arts magazine, WINDOWS. He is the recipient of the Dr. Stephany Schlachter Excellence in Undergraduate Scholarship Award for 2019. In the future, he hopes to become a writer and filmmaker.

Claire Telomere is a multimedia artist from Chicago. She creates poetry, songs, drawings, photography, videography, embarrassing diary entries, and occasionally puppets.

Connie Bacchus was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Currently she lives near Grand Coulee Dam in a small scenic community and often writes. Her work is in or forthcoming in Sobotka Literary Review, Euphony, Wire Harp, Black Bough Poetry and Them Dam Writers online. She blogs at www.constanceschultz. poetry.blog

David Tortuga is a furniture mover by day and prose writer by night. He has received an Illinois Arts Council Award for Poetry, had a play produced at Den Theatre, was a Ragdale resident, and a finalist in 2019 for the Masthead Residency in the Berkshires.

Dimitri Reyes is a Puerto-Vegan poet, educator, organizer, and YouTuber from Newark, New Jersey. He is the recipient of SLICE Magazine’s 2017 Bridging the Gap Award for Emerging Poets, and a finalist for the 2017 Arcturus Poetry Prize by the Chicago Review of Books. His work is published or forthcoming in Vinyl, Kweli, Entropy, Cosmonauts, Obsidian, Acentos, and About Place among others. You can find him documenting the poetry community at: http://www.youtube.com/c/dimitrireyespoet.

Drew Pisarra partners with Molly Gross as a conceptual art duo Saint Flashlight—finding playful ways to get poetry into public places via O, Miami Poetry Festival, Free Verse: Charleston Poetry Festival, and Capturing Fire’s International Poetry Summit & Slam in D.C. His first book of poetry Infinity Standing Up, a collection of sonnets, came out in early 2019.

Erin Elizabeth Smith is the Creative Director at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and the Managing Editor of Sundress Publications and The Wardrobe. She is the author of two full-length collections, The Naming of Strays (Gold Wake, 2011) and The Fear of Being Found (Three Candles, 2007). Her third collection, Down: The Alice Poems, will be released by Agape Editions in 2019.

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Contributor Notes

Faramade Francesca Oladapo is a full-time student at Harry S. Truman College with a passion for reading and exploring the world around her through photography. Currently, her favorite poets are Sylvia Plath, Rudyard Kipling, and Michelle Bitting. When she is not at school, she is either travelling or volunteering at various nature centers.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has two new chapbooks: Simpler Times and Staring Down Miracles. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.

Hsa Lar lives in Chicago, IL where she attends the City Colleges of Chicago. She is currently enrolled in a poetry class at Truman College in Chicago. She is majoring in Math. When not writing poetry, Hsa enjoys reading Japanese Manga and watching Anime.

Jasper Morrow is a Truman College student in the city of Chicago, who is enrolled in a poetry class. When not writing bizarre poetry, he enjoys watching people struggle to write good poetry, plays soccer and children’s card games.

Jerry Kirk is an Expressionist Painter who has won numerous awards, most notable being an Emerging Artist Grant from the Arts and Science Council of Charlotte/Mecklenburg. His work has been exhibited in dozens of galleries throughout the east coast, including Ward-Nasse Gallery in NYC, Waterworks Gallery in Salisbury, NC, R.J. Reynolds Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC, Center of the Earth in Charlotte, NC, and The Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, NC. His work is included in private collections around the world.

John Baum’s work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Blue Mesa Review, The Saint Anne’s Review, and elsewhere. He was recently awarded a two-week writing residency at The Hambidge Center in North Georgia. He teaches high school English in Atlanta where he lives with his wife, two sons, and three dogs.

Jordan Potter is an actor and amateur mathematician from Huntington Beach, California. He has recently quit writing poetry.

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Katherine Karls loves to write and appreciates the works of poets like Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath. In May of 2019, she completed a creative writing poetry class at Truman College in Chicago. Besides writing poetry, Katherine enjoys practicing yoga, learning about psychology, spending time with her family and friends, and being in nature. While some of her poetry speaks to the personal nature of addiction, Katherine has been sober since April 18, 2017.

Laura Lee Washburn is a University Professor, the Director of Creative Writing at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and the author of This Good Warm Place: 10th Anniversary Expanded Edition (March Street) and Watching the Contortionists (Palanquin Chapbook Prize). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as New Verse News, Carolina Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Sun, Harbor Review, and Valparaiso Review. Born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, she has also lived and worked in Arizona and in Missouri. She is married to the writer Roland Sodowsky and is one of the founders and the Co-President of the Board of SEK Women Helping Women. https://www.facebook.com/sekwhw.

Laurinda Lind lives in New York’s North Country. Her works has been published in Blue Earth Review, Comstock Review, New American Writing, Paterson Literary Review, and Radius; also anthologies Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (New Rivers Press) and AFTERMATH: Explorations of Loss and Grief (Radix Media). Last year, she won first place in both the New York State Fair poetry competition and the Keats-Shelley Prize for adult poetry.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has six published chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press), Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon), If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications), My Wings Were Made to Fly (Flutter Press), splintered with terror (Scars Publications), and More Than Bone Music (Clare Songbirds Publishing House), and one micro-chapbook Heaven Instead (Origami Poems Project). She is also the author of the novel Phoenix Tears (Czykmate Books).

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud “War Poetry for Today” competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal and So It Goes. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook. com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/.

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Contributor Notes

Niles Reddick is author of the novel Drifting too far from the Shore, a collection Road Kill Art and Other Oddities, and a novella Lead Me Home. His work has been featured in eleven anthologies/collections and in over two hundred literary magazines all over the world including PIF, Forth Magazine, Spelk, Cheap Pop, Slice of Life, Faircloth Review, With Painted Words, among many others. His new collection Reading the Coffee Grounds was just released. Reddick works at The University of Memphis, Lambuth, in Jackson. Website: http://nilesreddick.com/. Twitter: @niles_reddick. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niles.reddick.9 Noam Jacobs is a fledgling writer and musician from Evanston, IL. In 2017, he released his debut album under the guidance of Chicago-based musician Matty Witney and singer/songwriter Ezra Furman. Noam currently lives in Portland, OR, where he goes to school and studies music.

Patricia Walsh was born and raised in the parish of Mourneabbey, Co Cork, Ireland. To date, she has published one novel, titled The Quest for Lost Eire, in 2014, and has published one collection of poetry, titled Continuity Errors, with Lapwing Publications in 2010. She has since been published in a variety of print and online journals. These include: The Lake, Seventh Quarry Press, Marble Journal, New Binary Press, Stanzas, Crossways, Ygdrasil, Seventh Quarry, The Fractured Nuance, Revival Magazine, Ink Sweat and Tears, Drunk Monkeys, Hesterglock Press, Linnet’s Wing, Narrator International, The Galway Review, Poethead and The Evening Echo.

Peter McDaniel (1980, Chicago) is an artist who works with photography and print media. By exploring the concept of landscape in a nostalgic way, McDaniel investigates the dynamics of landscape, including the manipulation of its effects and the limits of spectacle based on our assumptions of what landscape means to us. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to conjure the realms of our imagination.

Ruby Tortuga is an editor at City Brink. She is also a student in Carlo Matos’ poetry class at Truman College in Chicago. Ruby is working towards a degree in environmental science and in her spare time plays the violin in a community orchestra.

Seth J. Berens is currently enrolled at Harry S Truman College in Chicago, IL. When not writing poetry, he likes to read fantasy novels such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings and George Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice. He also likes to take care of animals, studies psychology, and works out.

Shawn Anto is from Delano, California. He’s originally from Kerala, India. He currently studies at Cal State Bakersfield looking to receive his B.A. in English & Theatre. He was last seen on stage in Dreamers: Aqui y Alla. Past theatre credits include The Profane, “Gasoline,” and SubUrbia. His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Reed Magazine, O:JA&L, Genre: Urban Arts, Mojave Heart Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Bakersfield with his mini-rex rabbit, Elio.

Steve Bogdaniec is a writer and teacher, currently teaching at Wright College, Chicago, IL, U.S. Steve has had poetry and short fiction published in numerous journals, most recently in Eclectica Magazine, Silver Birch Press, and Jellyfish Review. His work can also be found in the Nancy Drew Anthology: Writing & Art Inspired by Everyone’s Favorite Female Sleuth. Check out stevebogdaniec.com for links to published work and updates on new stuff!

Steve Denehan lives in Kildare, Ireland with his wife Eimear and daughter Robin. Recent publication credits include The Irish Times, The Phoenix, The Blue Nib, The Opiate, The Hungry Chimera, Evening Street Review, Ink in Thirds, Crack The Spine and The Cape Rock. He has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and his chapbook, Of Thunder, Pearls and Birdsong is available from Fowlpox Press.

Todd Mercer of Grand Rapids, Michigan was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. His pre-owned Italian ties, purchased for $2 each, are probably the most bad-ass pre-owned Italian tie collection outside of Italy. Recent work appears in A New Ulster, Blink Ink, Clementine Unbound, The Lake, Raconteur Literary Magazine, and Softblow.

In This Issue

Adrian Slonaker Alexandre Ferrere Aremu Adams Adebisi Bob McNeil Brooke Bergan Bruce McRae Christian Mietus Claire Telomere Connie Bacchus David Tortuga Dimitri Reyes Drew Pisarra Erin Elizabeth Smith Faramade Francesca Oladapo Glen Armstrong Hsa Lar Jasper Morrow Jerry Kirk John Baum Jordan Potter Katherine Karls Laura Lee Washburn Laurinda Lind Linda M. Crate Lynn White Niles Reddick Noam Jacobs Patricia Walsh Peter McDaniel Ruby Tortuga Seth J. Berens Shawn Anto Steve Bogdaniec Steve Denehan Todd Mercer