#17 - the Bicycle Review

The Bicycle Review

Issue # 17
15 August, 2012

Poetry and Prose by Keiko Amano, John Bennett, Alan Britt, Nathan Thomas D'Annibale, John Dorsey, John Oliver Hodges, Tyler Malone, Mitch Moody, Marc Olmsted, Jason Ryberg, Jay Sizemore, Brett Lars Underwood, and Edward C. Wells II.

Original artworks by Vhilo.

All rights retained by the individual artists and authors

Bicycle Review 17

Greetings, Cyclists. For once there are no thinly veiled cries for help. Or...at least not on my part. B.R. is now three years old as of our last issue. Considering the hardships we've had to endure financially and personally in that time, it's quite an accomplishment. When I started this thing, I had no idea we were going to get the kind of attention which we've been lucky enough to receive.

I say lucky because, as much as we might think (as people tend to do) that our taste is the "true taste", it really wouldn't amount to much if people didn't keep sending us quality work. All I knew was that people were going to be reading on the internet more; as I saw established print publications that I admired and contributed to dropping like flies, and/or downsizing their content and becoming shadows of their selves in the process. (Often the latter followed by the former.) The wonderful thing about internet publishing is that you don't need advertisers, and you can print what you want, and as much of it as you want. If we were print, we wouldn't be able to bring you those 5,000 or so word stories as often, or any of the Stories Archive features, methinks.

This issue features the art of Vhilo, a renowned Swedish artist whose fanatically detailed, yet cartoony work we're happy to be able to share with you. Returning riders include John Bennett, Alan Britt, Nathan Thomas D'Annibale, and Brett Underwood, as well as the conclusion of Edward C. Wells "the Rider". We're also happy to welcome Marc Olmsted to these pages for the first time; a well-known poet whose prose selection "Atomic Submarine" we're excited to feature. And...a story by Keiko Amano about more than just "feeling" trapped in the supermarket. And...yet more new, inventive poetry and prose by newcomers to BR both celebrated and obscure. Thanks for reading.

Share the Road,

J de Salvo

PHYSICS

If I told you what to imagine:
the tomato soup falling face first
croutons splattered from the gun
shot and the benevolent artist
coulda saved him if he would’ve just
pulled his wick out.
Dropped check. Smashed nose.
Mussolini’s bastard child crying through the night
and the matadors telling
Rape jokes
Rape jokes
Rape jokes
about that artist who moved his feet wrong,
bought his Aunt lunch but couldn’t save the soup.
They don’t make salve for clutzy cunts like that,
they say in eclipsed moon speak…
and then they drop six more mice
in the fryer and call it
cuisine.

If I could tell you to imagine that waste of sperm
you’d buy a tommy gun and mount it atop your minivan.
You’d tear HELL to the next box store, sure.
But you’d be screaming.
Oh, you’d be screaming.
Face first.
Your Cindi Lauper CD skipping the mud.
You’d be ranting.
You’d be spreading those ivory thighs
for even four inches of dolemite
so you could keep the love in the honey.
Why wouldn’t you?

Copyright 2012 by Brett Lars Underwood

Untitled

often when watching television at the gym while running on a treadmill I get the feeling that I am somehow confined to an aisle in a massive department store where I have no real sense of the objects being sold; like quilting or lawn care; and all of the items have been intricately pieced together and packaged and labeled and hung in horizontal stacks of more or less exactly identical offerings on corrugated plyboard shelves, perceptually infinite and dangling, medal-like, as the most current end result of limitlessly incentivized metabolism, fossil fuel and minutiae; having been unearthed, tooled, configured, manufactured at scale and transported as efficiently as possible according to mystically algorithmic logistical schemes requiring previously intense negotiations between really rather strong personalities over mediums of communication and technologies of varying human and technical complexity and through forcibly inescapable legal and political machinationary, while being eroded- through some negentropic stew of hand wringing, pavement pounding and bluff calling- into an essentially inexhaustible stream of black market strength bullshit; then having been unloaded, unpacked, counted, checked, balanced, inventoried, sorted, tagged and assigned to clerks to clumsily hang onto the corrugated plyboard shelves in best-attempt-efforts to adhere to full color and bulleted presentation slides that spell out small ideas in sweeping language and are distributed quarterly from Corporate to all retail outlets in predetermined and agreed upon schedules by severely educated and traditionally focused Experts in fields as diverse as business marketing, statistical marketing and marketing fundamentals with business statistics; and in coordination with a variety of promotional materials intended for customer displays of myriad demographics and modes of delivery and...it's just too much is all, when watching television at the gym while running on a treadmill.

Copyright 2012 by Nathan Thomas D' Annibale

DEAD OR ALIVE

Skin raison like a bullet, suspicious mole
hunkered for the last 10-15 years, surviving,
coastal property on the receiving end of
genocidal hurricanes, goat look of trust
just before the spit's ignited, Auld Lang Syne
& all that, just before the HMO dermatologist
pays her utilities, just before the stalk the raison
fell from vanished, vaporized into thin mythology.
You can hear mothers & daughters & effeminate,
albeit state-of-the-art young men, cheering
but DNA is stronger than 10 trillion new spider
threads dispersed to booby-trap your late
afternoon power nap, so you do not answer .

Copyright 2012 by Alan Britt

Stuck

I didn’t want to, but I was willing to change the title of this story and send it to a nonfiction magazine. The deadline was January 31st, and the title was “The Night.” This story would be a perfect match. But my writer friends protested the usage of the word, “Xmas.” My original title was “Stuck on Xmas.”

“The word is too offensive,” one writer said.

“Yes,” a few chorused. The others nodded.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Just spell it out. Avoid using it!”

“Well, I don’t want to offend anyone. All right, I’ll change it.”

So I did and read the first paragraph:

On Christmas day, most shops are closed in my small town of San Dimas. Most people probably have been busy making a dinner since morning. I used to do that. But, growing up in Japan, my family didn’t celebrate Christmas. I would cook a whole turkey after my son was born. I thought I didn’t want my children to envy other families, so, later I began baking chocolate and peanut butter cookies and left a few pieces of them on a plate and a glass of milk for Santa. After they slept, I drank the milk and ate the cookies. Imagine their faces in the morning! I enjoyed that. But after my daughter grew old enough, I downsized Christmas shopping and cooking little by little. I dread gift exchanges and especially returning products.

“I have one problem though,” I said to the writer friends, “I wrote ‘X’ as a metaphor.”

They said nothing.

“Taking out X kills the story,” I said.

Nobody responded to my metaphor problem. Their thoughts must have been stuck with the way they feel about Xmas.

All the people meant well, and I was glad to know how some people really felt. But I also heard from the people who accepted Xmas. One writer told me the argument about “X” came from people’s ignorance about the history. X came from Greek, and it’s been accepted for more than 1000 years, she said.

After a thought, I decided I would still write with freedom having known all these facts. Otherwise, my stories would never be as good as I want to make them, and there would be no point for me to write. In this story, I connected X with other x, and x also meant to me crossing or connection.

No writers ever needed to explain their metaphors, but I could be the first. With that in mind, I would resume reading the story.

It is the Xmas morning. My daughter and her boyfriend are making mashed potatoes. In the sink, hollow lemon halves pile up on top of each other.

“Wow! How much lemonade did you make?” I say.

“A gallon,” she says holding a large pan of mashed potatoes. “This doesn’t taste good.”

I taste the potatoes and add a little more butter.

“We are trying to cut down on calories,” she says.

I look for my beater.

“I didn’t know you used the hand mixer.”

“I always did. It tastes better this way.”

My daughter grabs some lemon halves from the sink and dumps them into a plastic bag. She repeats the motion.

“Keep a few, please, for the garbage disposal, to make smell good.”

In the pan of mashed potatoes, I add a cup more sour cream and a little bit of salt. brrrrr The hand mixer makes a buzzing noise.

“I like it chunky,” she says.

“Me, too.” Brrrrr “But yours is too chunky.” BRRRRRR “You know, I bought this hand mixer when I was a student. This was my first major purchase in the U.S. It was 34 dollars. 1972. Fedco on La Cienega.” I extend a spoonful of potato to her boyfriend.

“Mmm, good,” he says.

They leave for my son’s condo for the family dinner. I stopped going there last year. I want to say, “Nothing personal,” but it is personal. I return to the kitchen and throw a few lemon halves into my garbage disposal, turn on the faucet and a switch. GrRRRrrrr

At 3:30 pm, I go out for a short walk. The traffic is light. The air is crisp. Green is greener. Instead of a short walk, I go farther toward the downtown. Earlier, one of my neighbors had asked me to drop by later. I told him thank you, yes. I used to work with his brother long ago. His family will be there. I will just show up and greet them after my walk. I head to the palm-tree-lined main street.

Cars are going in and out of the shopping center. Not many, but there are cars in the parking lot. I walk to my supermarket and find the weekend edition of The Los Angeles Times. The day before, I couldn’t find any. I go to the Starbucks in the market and pay for a coffee and the newspapers. Before heading back, I want to throw away as many sections as possible. The Sunday paper is way too heavy. I put away all the ads, coupons, and the Sports section on a chair next to me, look at the headline of the California section, and drop it on top of the pile.

I start to read the Arts and Books section, then switch to the front page. The photo of more than fifteen Rhodesian puppies shows up. Above their eyes, they all have a few wrinkles. They look serious. They stare me in the eye. I go on reading the article on a non-profit, online university in Salt Lake City. I search for a Japanese Literature Department. They don’t have one. I’m not planning to attend, but I’m disappointed.

The market is clean. The workers are friendly. Although there is another Starbucks across the parking lot with more tables and a sofa, I prefer this place. This is the spot where I sometimes promise to meet my friends.

For the past three months, I haven’t read the LA Times. In Japan, I read Japanese newspapers. I stand up and throw my trash away, tuck the rest of the newspapers under my arm, and walk over to the produce section. I pick up a bunch of cilantro and head on to the Asian section. No customers are around. Not even an employee. Maybe, a few people are hiding from my view. That’s possible.

I check the shelves. No sesame oil. Maybe, someone at last realized that it was just a bottle of oil after all. In Japan, the bottles of Italian olive oil or American corn oil sit together on the shelf with the rest of Japanese cooking oil. I walk through the cashiers’ area and try to get to the oil section.

“Isn’t it weird? No one is around the cash registers,” I say if I were with a friend.

The manager must be on his or her way to me. Maybe, I’m the last customer, and the manager is waiting for me like in Japan. “Customers are gods,” Japanese merchants would say. We have the habit of saying, “Please take your time,” even though we are in hurry. Before the 70s, we didn’t smile much when saying it, but nowadays, we smile and say, “Please take your time.” Japanese employers have westernized their training methods, but our basic customs remain the same.

“I can come back some other day,” I tell myself.

I would rather meet a store clerk than a bottle of sesame oil. I place the plastic bag of cilantro on the customer service counter and pick up a phone receiver. I stare at the numbers and other buttons.

“Whom am I calling?” I say without making a sound.

I can hit 9 and call outside. But I left my address book and my Japanese cell phone home. I return the receiver. A phone starts ringing in the back where the old video section used to be. When I go shopping, sometimes, I feel the urge to pick up their phone if workers are busy. But, I don’t because I’m not a worker there. But this is different. I don’t think anyone minds. I rush over.

“Are you open?” the caller says.

“I don’t know. I’m the only one here. I’m afraid maybe I’m locked in.”

The caller says nothing. He or she hangs up. A few more calls and similar phone exchanges follow. The callers must be confused, but the same person doesn’t call back. I feel stupid to pick up every call without asking for help. I wish the phone would stop ringing. I want to go and check the doors.

“I don’t work here after all,” I tell myself.

I walk to one of the exits and stand close to it. The door remains quiet. I’m probably locked in. I go to the other exit to make sure. The door doesn’t say brrr or rrrr. I feel better. Now I can ask for help with confidence. The workers did leave without me. Earlier, I should have asked one of them what time they close.

I return to the customer service station and call 911. “Restricted Call” shows on the small screen. I’ll wait for another call from the old video section. This time, for sure, I’ll muster my courage and shout “Help!”

Silence.

What happened? It was ringing one after another a minute ago. I don’t know why, but when I wait for anything, it always takes longer. The store is quieter than quiet. I go back to the nearest exit. Along the wall, a chair stands in front of a computer screen. I pull away the chair and sit down facing the door and hold the Calendar section in my hands. I like the store very much, but I want to get out.

The phone rings. I run.

“Hello!”

“Are you open?” a male voice says.

“I’m glad you called. My name is Keiko Amano. I need your help! I’m trapped in the store. They closed the store while I was reading newspapers. They didn’t see me. Please call the Sheriff Department and have them send someone to open the door.”

“Yes,” a male voice says.

I return to the chair and try to read the Calendar section, but my mind is floating somewhere else. The phone rings. I fly.

“This is the Sheriff’s office,” a female voice says, “Tell me what happened.”

“I was reading newspapers when they locked the store and left. Music is on. There were no closing announcements at all. I didn’t hear anything. Would you please send someone over right away?”

“Yes, we’ll get in touch with them. Stay near the phone. I’ll call back.”

Maybe five or ten minutes go by. I receive a call.

“Hi,” a male voice says.

He must be someone to help me.

“I’m stuck here, my name is…, I was reading newspapers, they closed the door… no announcements…no covers on vegetables…nice music…quiet… smells good. I needed cilantro and sesame oil. And…So…But. Nobody said anything to me. So?”

“Okay, I’ll send someone over,” he says.

He sounds like my father. My father was a man of few words, but the trustworthy type. Maybe he was annoyed that I kept talking and didn’t let him talk. My son complained to me about that before. The phone rings.

“This is the Sheriff’s office. I contacted the corporate office. They’ll send a manager over. Look for a chair and go sit down near the door so they can see you.”

“Yes, I found a chair. How long does it take for the person to arrive, do you know?”

“Probably 20 minutes.”

“That’s great. Thank you very much. I’m sorry for causing this trouble.”

I’m glad about the last call. But I’m unsure if someone will come over in 20 minutes. After all, it is Xmas. People are all busy having fun. Who wants to hurry and help an absent-minded woman when I should have been cooking like crazy and being with my family? Anyhow, I was very grateful to come to this point.

I step over to the customer service station, pick up the cilantro, walk to the produce section, and put it back. I return to my seat and gaze out to the parking lot. It’s dark and wet. It looks like midnight. I cross my arms and close my eyes. ring ring ring. Maybe, it’s the Sheriff’s office again. I walk over.

“Are you open?” a young male voice says.

He must be a customer.

“Nope. I’m sorry, but the store is closed.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, we are,” I say with an upward inflection. Wait. I can use extra help.

“You know what happened?” I change my tone, “I got stuck here. The store is closed, and they left me. I’m alone in the store. But someone already contacted the Sheriff Department, so the manager should be here. I was reading newspapers, and they didn’t see me.”

“Where were you? At the Starbucks?”

Maybe, he is not a customer.

“Yes, at the table, behind a display box, at the corner.”

“So they didn’t see you.”

“Right.”

“Amazing.”

“If I were sitting at the center table, they would have seen me.”

“Wow! They didn’t see you.”

“Yep, they forgot me. Are you an employee here?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Someone is on his or her way, but can you call your manager, and if you have a key, can you come and get me out? I don’t know when they will show up.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

Two things. First, the market has a friendly atmosphere. The workers talk to each other as though they are family members. Second, my mother had trained me to serve others even if the job is not mine. But I recognize some problems associated with her past training. Years ago in this market, I tried to free a troubled child from a toy car. He couldn’t get out. His leg was tangled inside, and he was screaming. Parents didn’t come. I tried to lift him, but he screamed louder. I stood beside him and hoped his parents would arrive soon. People looked my way, and an employee winced as she passed by. I said to the employee,

“Where did his parents go?”

“I thought you’re the mother!” she said and went to make an announcement.

My approach probably needs improvement, but people misunderstand me quite often.

Back at the door, a clean-shaven, slender man appears. He wears a red parka with a black-cursive-letter design on white background and blue jeans. He wiggles his ten fingers as though he tries to open the glass panel door without real intention. I wonder why. He must be a customer, not the manager. The manager must have the keys and would have identified himself as manager right away. He holds a cell phone to his ear and moves away. Maybe, he is talking with his wife saying the store is closed, you just have to make your mashed potatoes with less butter and sour cream, after all, less is better for our health, my darling, he might be saying that since he is a slim man, but not on holidays, she would reply, I’m sure.

Behind the red parka man and away from the sidewalk, another man is standing beside an SUV. I wonder what he is doing. The red parka man comes back and smiles at me. I tell him my name and situation and say,

“The Sheriff’s office is contacted, and they are sending a manager down here.”

“I’m the manager.”

“Oh.”

“You know the emergency exit? It’s near the pet foods. Go there and get out.” He repeats.

I look at his face as if I don’t understand what he has just said. For one thing, an emergency exit hasn’t entered my mind until this moment. Using it sounds extreme. I have to think about this. I don’t want to be more embarrassed than I already am. But he probably forgot his keys. I don’t want to hear a siren, but this is not the time for argument. The longer I wait, the higher the possibility of seeing myself in a local newspaper. The headline, “Woman Stuck in Supermarket on Christmas” pops into my head.

I want to go home as soon as I can. I make a big stride toward the nearest door. bong bong bong bong A banging noise echoes farther down. I guess this isn’t the door. BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG Nobody needs to make such hysterical banging noise. I straighten my spine and walk into a narrow corridor one step at a time. At the end of it, an emergency exit sign hangs above the door. I open it.

“Thank you. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

We exchange a few words. I wonder why he doesn’t ask my ID or address, but I smile back and ask only his name and say goodbye. I rush back home. More cars are parked in my neighborhood than usual. Right at this moment, I don’t want to talk about what just happened to me in front of some strangers. There is an empty spot in the neighbor’s driveway. His white truck is gone. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. He’ll understand. I go straight home.

After I change my clothes, I prepare my dinner of mashed potatoes and chicken. I’m eating when my son calls. He says he has sent a dinner for me with my daughter. I say thank you and start to tell him everything. He listens like my dead father. Dead people have no choice. I stop.

“Are you okay,” he says.

“I’m okay.”

That’s it. I hang up and try to finish the rest of my meal although I like his prime rib. A few more bites to finish, my daughter and her boyfriend return.

“Mom, where were you? What happened?” she says as soon as she comes in.

She is holding a white Styrofoam container.

“Hi,” I say to both. We hug each other. “Did you call? I wasn’t here.”

“I know you weren’t here. Sol sent you this,” she says and raises the container. “What happened to you in the store?”

“How do you know I went to a store?” I put the container into the refrigerator.

Everyone knows all the stores are close during Christmas. My daughter must be talking about something different from what I am about to say.

“Sol told me.” Sol is her older brother, my son.

“When?”

“Before I got here.”

Her boyfriend sits down on the driver side of the loveseat. He drives when they travel by car. Her hand motions toward the driveway. I look at him and look at her. A picture of them in the car pops up in my head. She is sitting in the passenger seat and pressing her ear to her iPhone.

“Gee, how fast!”

I’ve just finished talking with my son. It was just a minute ago.   When I tell my children something important, and I want them to share my concern, my words often do not travel.

I look at the boyfriend. He adjusts his glasses. I worry for him. He is the first boyfriend she has introduced to me since she became an adult. He has both loving parents, and his family is close.

“I’m sorry to make you feel uncomfortable,” I say to him. “It’s Xmas. I probably should have gone to the party. But I didn’t want to see x and his wife.”

“X” meant connection, and by “x,” I meant ex because I hate to spell it out. I have a distinct feeling about the possessive in front of “ex.” I prefer not to write it or pronounce it. People might say grammar is just a mechanical matter. I disagree. Thoughts and feelings are embedded in grammar. In Japanese, we hardly use possessives unless we really own something which needs to be emphasized for some particular reason. Some English speakers say “my ex” often. I understand the meaning, but “my wife or husband” and “my ex” have a similar quality in my ear. It sounds as though they are still married in spirit.

Getting back to my daughter’s boyfriend, he stands up and takes his glasses off and puts them back.

“Oh, no,” he says. “I don’t think anything’s wrong with that. I don’t want to see my ex-girlfriends either.”

Although my situation is different—I have a grandson, I appreciate his words.

Next day, I go to the same market in the afternoon. An aroma of coffee lures me to the Starbucks counter.

“So, you were the one,” the clerk in the counter says.

“Yes, I was the one.”

A petite manager with a pony tail comes over and sits at one of the tables. Her hair matches with her black slacks. She offers me a cookie and says she was the one who closed the store the day before, and the manager I met at the emergency exit was the director. I’ve spoken with her several times before, and also I’m familiar with all the clerks in the Starbucks. We chat about the incident and laugh.

“We closed at five yesterday,” she says. “I announced it at 10 minutes before and 5 minutes before.”

“I must have been so into the article I was reading. When I’m writing or reading something good, nothing penetrates my brain. I have to watch out.”

“I asked my assistant if he was done checking. He said, ‘Nobody,’” she says. She shakes her head.

“I asked my assistant if he was done checking. He said, ‘Nobody,’” she says. She shakes her head.

“I walk to the store.”

We look at each other. We both raise our hands with palms up as if to say that this was beyond our control.

“You know,” I say, “In Japan, we hear the closing announcement again and again and again. Clerks are very persistent. They won’t leave us alone until we leave.”

“We don’t do that here.”

“I know. Japanese usually turn on goodbye music. And someone comes around and say, ‘Please don’t forget your umbrella, and please be careful on the way home.’ They can be really pushy. There is no chance to be alone and remain in the store.”

“We are not rude.”

“I know. Americans leave people alone. That’s why I like it here. But I just came back from Japan, and I’m used to the noises and people’s attention. I still have jet lag, too.”

A few customers come and stand at the counter. Inside, the clerk moves back and forth. Unlike the evening before, the store is filled with noises. I tell the manager about all the calls I picked up while in the store including the last caller’s.

A young man appears behind two customers. The manager has a grin on her face. His face looks like the Statue of David by Michelangelo. She looks at me and smiles,

“He is the one you talked to.”

“Oh, were you the employee?” I say. “I was the one on the phone last night.”

His light brown head turns a little. He tries to pull out his wallet from his pant’s back pocket.

“He wrote about it on Fa------,” the manager says.

He says nothing.

“What did you say?” I say to the manager.

People pass by. A few customers with children stop at the ice cream window. They are chatting.

“You told me you wrote about it on Facebook, didn’t you?” she says louder. She stretches her legs forward. Her round eyes become more round and her dimple deepens.

I’m thinking of Facebook while looking at the back of his neck. I’ve joined the Facebook about a month before to see the photos of my grandson. My son was his age not long ago.

“No,” he says in a small voice. He didn’t turn back.

“Facebook! Now, I’m really stuck. It’s GLOBAL.”

Copyright 2012 by Keiko Amano

some people went off to war

while fred and i drank
away our college years
in the pubs on market street
on the corner of pine
and anywhere
that would have us

i once shared a pint
with a guy who claimed
to have played skins for george clinton
when he wasn’t
out of his mind on blow

we found him dead
on the toilet
& went right back
to finishing our beers

i wondered what he must
have dreamt about
at the very end

i guess it doesn’t matter
we all pick our battles
with heavy hearts

i remember it took four
firemen to carry him out of there
but i can’t remember his name

Copyright 2012 by John Dorsey

Last Birthday

1.

She wanted me to eat with her & another couple
at a fancy place then afterwards go for drinks
at a bar. Sure, easy. She ordered the macaroni
lobster plate. For me it was wild salmon. She drank
Jack Daniel’s with dinner. I drank beer. For desert,
crème brulee she ate, how delicious—& especially
she liked holding the spoon, the diamonds in her rings

sparkling. Around her neck, on the end of a chain,
was a family heirloom, the 1887 gold pocket watch
my mother gave her. It ticks to the rhythm of my heart,
she liked to say. & said, As long as I’m on this earth
I’m going to eat & drink. She drank another Jack
Daniel’s on the rocks. Once outside she wobbled only
a little. We walked very slowly to Funky’s, a new

bar on the square where I drank another beer to be
polite. For her it was Jack on the rocks. She drank
it from a plastic Coors Light cup, & the music was too
loud, & massive tevees flashed ball games. Alas we
finished our drinks. Onward we marched to Jubilee,
the next bar. The place smelled of urine & smoke. We
played pool, but a lusty young woman in a tubetop

moved her body with admirable charisma. How long
could I avoid feeling as if I was gawking? I needed
air, so cut through the crowd & exited the side door.
Not wanting my friends to feel I was ditching them,
I scooted over to where they were, so that all to
separate us was a plate glass window—Hey! But the
young girl was there still, so I walked down to a wet

bench, sat on it a bit then went back in the bar & Jesus,
what was the appeal? I don’t like being served in fancy
restaurants. I don’t like standing around in crowded bars.
I will do what makes her happy, though, especially if it’s
her birthday. But she drank more whiskey. I drank more
beer to be polite, then finally we were all at our place,
talking, & I was proud for doing so well on her birthday.

2.

“You motherfucking piece of shit!” she screams, & pulls
my hair. This is not the first time, it’s an ongoing thing,
but I wish that when she screamed she would direct her
voice so that it did not whip down my ear & hurt. I have
really sensitive ears. I can’t even ride my bike when it’s
sixty degrees out because the cold will hurt them. “You
ruined my birthday! That’s all you ever do is ruin things

for me because you’re a sadistic asshole!” she screams
onward into the night that commemorates the day she
was born up north in Boston. Her dad was an army guy,
& when I asked him what he remembered about that day,
he couldn’t remember anything. But anyway, onward
she screams: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You
make me sick!” & I feel so sick & feel myself falling into

one of those awful depressions that I fall into after her
crazinesses. To get away from her I run out to the couch &
curl up. She follows. “You know what?” she says, & she
says, “You say I tricked you into marrying me, but guess
what, motherfucker? I’m through with your garbage. I’m
getting out of here, & you can call somebody else Bigger
Thomas. Don’t you even realize that I hate that name?”

“That’s my term of endearment for you,” I say. “It’s a form
of Booger, which is a name you love, right? I can’t help it.
I like to change things, I can’t say the same things over &
over.” At that she pulls off her wedding ring, opens the door,
& throws it into the yard. The next day I spend hours looking
for it. She looks for it too. I borrow a child’s metal detector
from my friend, but even with that, I can’t find it. I spend

days searching for this very special object, but alas give up.
When the summer arrives she picks a schmuck up off the
internet, & in the night throws her stuff into her car & drives
to Florida to be with him. Her next birthday comes & goes,
but alas I receive a package from her. In it is the gold-plated
Elgin watch that ticks to the rhythm of her heart.

Copyright 2012 By John Oliver Hodges

Shirazzed

Box wine beat down on a party bus, all the way
to stand in a strip club where standing meant
leaning on the bar bouqueted with what
a stomach shook up to make an internal cocktail.
The smell sent me to a chair, where I shouldn’t have sat.

I am paid for, but my name is Maya—Glitter in her
bangs replaced ceiling lights as dark as tumors in X-rays.
Davi came down to my side, on my lap, as no celibate Shiva
but a celebrant miniature mountain in motion, high above
with a mucilage Bindi, a third eye more awake than others.

Septic and squinty: sleepy or sultry, I wasn’t sure.
I’d never seen stripper strings shimmer at two AM.
I’m a sleeper, clothed in sheets when her teeth sparkled
as insides of stones slanted under eyes as caliginous
as a coffee carafe’s—where fingertips were led

by clammy dish washed hands, grazing thighs, up to touch
paid for breasts with textured as re-washed Ziploc bags.
In a Franzia frenzy, I swallowed to reflect on bagged grapes
and bad decisions, when Devi shared a burp as sour
and as warm and weightless as werewolf dog hair.

Lots of distasted hops, a bounty of barley, noxious
from nostrils before a faux fellatio. Devi rolled
in an Olympic flip over my tumbling bar knees
to nose to nose to place another burp at my cheek.
And a squeal when her crotch scraped my belt buckle.

That must be the worst.
But Devi didn’t want attention or pity, just tips.
And to close up shop and sleep by a warm body
with no belt buckle. I realize what’s worse than ignoring
conscience, and curiously embracing Epicurus:

The smell of my shirt, smeared by moist skin.
It doesn’t wash. It stains, same as wishes.
“That was great, Maya”--
That’s not what I am. What Davi is now is a deity’s sweat,
machine dried off, but sweetly ground into my belt.

Copyright 2012 by Tyler Malone

ATOMIC SUBMARINE (a Wild Kingdom excerpt)

We kissed while ATOMIC SUBMARINE blazed in the TV midnight, old childhood spook thriller that was still rather disturbing, the submarine rams this flying saucer and weird sexual goo comes out, stark black-and-white, a gooey one-eyed tentacled alien (like a devil-god) lures the crew members, one who gets cooked by electricity, blinking in negative, another crew member has a space hatch close on him like a scythe. Saw that on L.A. "Chiller" TV as a disturbed 8 year old, it was still rather creepy in that 50's sleaze way, rattling the subconscious with perverse images, Eisenhower's id. But Nicki! Catgirl! Nymphet ex-teen junkie now just 21, baby-faced baby doll, conversant on all my literary heroes. Little cigarette smoker, hair jet black thatch with a splotch of purple, two braids hanging down (I had wanted to kiss those braids first sight), little kitten, a sort of teen Siouxie-Sioux, marvelous white tight little body "I think my butt's too big" ah, insane these women and their butts, when Nicki had the cutest heartshaped butt of time. "I have this thing for writers." O honey!

Nicki, scary, impossible to hold, anything could happen like Texas dynamite, I kissed her thigh in my mind, her ankle dainty on the sheet, her little toes, I thought of her earnest fascination with the world, she had made it from a pit with horrors even I hadn't seen, "slamming dope in Skid Row," poor little eyes fogged with dope, o heartbreak, o bleat, o lamb.

Too much! Too heavy! Stop the jukebox! Finish the horror movie! No black valentines! Surrender to the impossible world of doom and honey!

After digging my thumbs into my neck, I drove to an AA meeting weeping in the car, afraid, but the fear had found its sorrow of teary release, and my neck softened as I wept behind sunglasses in the L.A. sunblast of 1987 rush hour.

Then a call on the answering machine from Nicki when I got in, stepping from the foggy streets of Venice Beach where the yellow moon fulled its yellowy mouth in a blear. So I called her and she said "I wish I could see you now," and I glanced at the clock, I'D BE ASLEEP BY NOW ordinarily, workhorse, but I said, "Why don't you come over?" and she raced in the moonlight, and we pounded the sheets, o nipple biter, of muscular taut cunt and tiny bud clit, sex! sex! sex! such a hot little fuck as she whispered appreciations up at me after my ego had take such a beating in this town of hell. So I stumbled into work, neck loose, goon grin, planning to see her again next night, suck her lips of face and ass, hold her little breasts in the beat-up world.

But then I had a Nicki headache because I was afraid of Nicki - she might be a vampire - she might be a pony that would run away - a young mustang filly that would run and her hooves would sound in my aching head - she might be Bathsheba going to bed as she did with arms of bracelets clanging as we fucked - she might be poison - she might be a bottle with an X, with three X's! - she might be a needle of AIDS - I had a Nicki headache because she wouldn't call - now she called and I still had the headache -

She came over, started acting weird and finally said it was all too new, she was worried, she'd never been intimate before with anyone "even coherent", she was afraid of hurting me, she was afraid, and though she undressed and was in my bed with bra and panties, she got up, dressed and left like Garbo. "I'll call you Saturday or Sunday."

- the heroin girl - now appearing in your living room - now calling into your telephone - now vanishing with withdrawal symptoms - the heroin girl gives a party and you're invited - you're the guest of honor - you are the only guest - and the heroin girl whispers - she says - "you're the one" -

Copyright 2012 by Marc Olmsted

West Harlem is Burning

“Jesus is just a Spanish boys name”
-Frightened Rabbit

Ball Culture, or the Ballroom Community, is a staple of the New York City
LGBT subculture where men, in drag, compete in a sort of runway walk off competition. Those involved belong to “houses” ran by a “mother”. This culture was famously documented in the film, “Paris is Burning”.

Jesús was born in West Harlem.

***

Jesús’ father left the city in search
Of the god that lives only in the cracks
That persist through Mexican
Pavement. Where he spoke the language,
Or eased it through his fingertips.
Spent time chasing meals with the rats.
He would look up from within the sewers
Through the cracks at the children
That weren’t his. A soccer ball,
An eclipse over the last sliver of light
On the planet.

***

Jesús from West Harlem, as a twentysomething,
Would dress himself as Natalie Wood
The night before she drowned.
He would marvel in the mirror
At the way the back of his dress would lift.
He could twirl around so as to be unsure
He was ever really there, just catching
The end of the dress in his sights.
Like the time he swore that he saw a
Wild horse of inconceivable white
Leap into a bush in central park,
But really only saw something
Move out of the corner of his eye
And heard a rustle.

***

Jesús goes to Washington Square Park alone
To sip a mixture of vodka, water, and
Instant pink lemonade mix from his flask.
To pretend he was in Paris, amongst
The drunken choirs singing Gainsbourg.
He went to the balls to watch Paris burn.
A Citibank goes up in flames when he walks
Heel to toe, to heel to toe, past it.

***

Protest posters were non-toxic swirls
Of red lipstick messages, outlined in electric
Black eyeliner and skipping rocks
Of rhinestone that sent light from letter to letter.
He was the mother of his house now,
Fifteen boys with heads on shoulders.
Catatonic in silence. They do not sleep.
They look always, when in silence, as
If they have just been woken up by
Their parents to walk out to the car
For a trip, knowing they will be able
To sleep once they will their bodies
Into the van. Jesús hands them the
Posters he slaved over and pulls
Them up to their feet.
Watches their feet.
March at 6:30.

***

Jesús watches his disciples’ feet.

***

Jesús took a job at Penn Station.
He likes to watch people going
Somewhere. Brings back popcorn
That he accumulates from the kiosks
Over the day. Brings it back
In a big clear garbage bag and lets
One of the kids hand it out like
He’s a flower girl. It’s not about
The popcorn. He shines shoes
By the Amtrak gates and thinks
About buying a ticket somewhere,
But instead closes his eyes and
French inhales fumes of shoe-shine
Until he doesn’t mind the left
To right, to left, to right motion
Of his arms. Until it feels like a dance.
A waltz out on a balcony in Granada
In front of red curtains
And earth toned columns.

***

Sometimes, he’ll overhear whispers
Of a crumbling America, where
Everyone is a faggot or all of the
Mexicans have jobs and don’t speak
The star-spangled gospel. Even in
New York, these thoughts. They
Want someone in office that’ll fight for
Something. Mr. November. Someone
That’ll stick to their guns or whatever
Else is floating by their waist.
Jesús thought they were floating by
Their waste. He cleans their shoes.

***

Jesús washes his disciples feet.

Copyright 2012 by Mitch Moody

Florida Vacation

How many band-aids litter these waters,
sloughed off the skin like plastic scabs
in the slippery salt water sea,
where the waves meet the beach
in foamy violence, kicking up broken shells,
trying to keep the trash out?

In the marina, the pollution is a rainbow skim,
gasoline and cigarette butts, a putrid petroleum stench
that fish must feel instead of smell. The schools
come in at dusk, catching our spit off the water
like flies, swallowing two pennies I toss in
like death-soaked wishes.

The horizon is freckled with people
turning themselves into kites,
while on the edge of this continent,
we get sand in our shoes.

Tiny specks of this world
cling to our skin even as we lose ourselves,
swilling the beer out of cans
we leave behind like teeth,
staring into the starless night,
waiting for the fireworks.

Copyright 2012 by Jay Sizemore

Real Men Don't Cry

Listen, I don't want to harp on the obvious, but what's that green stuff oozing out of your ears? Don't you think you should maybe do something about it? Sponge it off before it runs down your neck? Stick plugs in your ears? Go see a doctor or hook up with a fortune teller? Move to Prague and take part in the uprising?

I know, these aren't helpful suggestions, but I can't just stand here and say nothing.

Maybe your liver is crapping out. Maybe you're being eaten alive by envy from the inside out. Maybe you're Irish. That's right, I'm not going to let up. This isn't the sort of thing a real man lets slide.

Go ahead, I know you want to. Say something cute about the orange tears running down my face. Dish out some payback,I can take it. A real man can take anything.

But what about when the bus gets here? Do you have tokens or are you one of those people who ride around the free-ride zone all day? Me, I'm loaded down with destinations and I've got a wallet stuffed with twenties.

So why don't I take a cab if I'm so flush? Get real. Can you see a cabby pulling over for a guy with orange tears running down his face? Worry about your own problems, like that green shit oozing out of your ears .Is this like a non-stop thing? How does it go down with the little lady?

I don't know when they turned orange. It's not like I cry all the time. Real men don't cry. They could have turned orange and been sloshing around in there since I was a kid. Yeah, it took me by surprise, not so much that they were orange but that they were tears. There I stood with a towel wrapped around me after a hot shower, gawking into the mirror at orange tears running down a face lathered with shaving cream.

"Are you alright in there, dear?" my wife called in to me and tapped lightly on the door.

"Of course I'm alright!" I barked in my best drill-sergeant voice. But the tears kept coming.

You're the first person to witness the orange tears. This could turn into a delicate situation. And no, it has nothing to do with that green crap coming out of your ears. You think I feel sorry for you? You need to get a grip. You need to get a handle on things. You need to buck up. Even if I could help you I wouldn't. You need to learn to help yourself, don't you know that much?

OK, look, here comes the bus. Let's get on side-by-side so there won't be any hard feelings. I'll ride around the free-ride zone with you for awhile, but then I'm going to transfer and head across town where my wife will have supper ready.

That's how it's been for as long as I can remember.

Copyright 2012 by John Bennett

The Rider , pt. 5

There was a bit of a promenade and the placing of the tip of Umbrella to the ground with each step. The sun continued a steady progress into the sky, but, as is so often the case, the library did not open for hours until after the day began. So, there was more walking and exploration of the park. There was a memorial from the civil war and finally another park bench. Here the head of the Writer lulled to the left, and Umbrella rested on the bench, as a man rolled around the park lawn, trimming back grass, decimating the landscape on a small and very uniform scale.

The clocks on the large buildings announced the time with hands, and as though following the direction of some officer in the middle of an intersection, Writer walked toward the library again, carrying Umbrella there at his side.

There was still little traffic on the streets, but upon reaching the library there was found a large traffic jam of bodies. Some milled around in the open space between the doors and the edge of the neighboring property. Some rested on the short wall that divided the properties and other on the raised places in the open area. Still others perched around the door. Writer settled gently beside a post that seemed suited to lean on if the need arose. Umbrella rested there too, sometimes weighted, on the handle, by the palm of Writer and held standing, sometimes reclined gently and liberated against the post. Umbrella, not having eyes, could not be drawn into the strange play that Writer began to partake in.

A group of workers were guiding a crane line and connecting it to pieces that were an upper floor of one of the nearby skyscrapers. The piece would then be lowered all the way to the ground, and the crane line would then be raised to the heights that the workers stood waiting at. Writer would look as the piece lowered, from the piece, up to the men, and then back down to the piece twice as fast, and then repeat the entire time the piece was lowered. He continued this for some time. If any of the people had given thought, they might have suspected that Writer was indulging in supercilious behavior. Those men were harnessed in ways that would have protected them if they had followed the pieces down.

Among the crowd that gathers at libraries before the doors open there is less certainty of safety in fact. This too was likely in the mind of Writer as he attempted to avoid thoughts and visions of unlikely peril while watching the work.

Finally the library opened, Writer calmly cupped Umbrella and they marched into the first of their many absurd and unlikely adventures.

Copyright 2012 by Edward C. Wells II

BAD NIGHT

The dork singled in the mango salad
or a seedless dressing announced by the waiter.
I served what must’ve been the best lush,
her hair luminescent in the pitch
shown the way to the porter’s closet.

It must’ve been the way she
shifted under my weight
flatulent, and hungry for a moon beam
and another shot..another stout.
But I swear I saw my father’s face
in her crotch.

Ugh.

I plowed ahead.
That’s why they call me “determined”.
That motherfucker won’t leave me alone.

…and you can’t put that in a Father’s Day card.
…or can you?

Copyright 2012 By Brett Lars Underwood

The Leaf Line

On another corner of water fountain civilization,
at the horizon of forest concrete, joggers strut on
clipped edges of everything maintained to be lovely.
Cardinals as colorful as morbid Easter eggs,
but only a few bathrooms’ unsanitary seats
every five miles. Some colons can’t last that distance.
City police stay sat and chat on long patrols, and 9-1-1
lines are as open as yawns: indecency’s for other counties.
Yards before she can flush filth in full faith, she stops
the jog, tugs at the leashed dog, clenches teeth and sphincter,
and rushes to brush, edged eyes above the leaf line--
There’s nothing sexy about her pants down, exploding
like a chocolate chip piñata, oozing roses, as the pup
curiously cocks her head, and becomes more human.

Copyright 2012 by Tyler Malone

FOR THE KING’S BIRTHDAY

1) Hemingway staring
At a blank sheet of paper;
JFK looks on.

2) A barrel of rain
mistaken for a small pond
somewhere in Kansas.

3) A carnival mask
teaming with skinks and poppies
and one death’s-head moth.

4) Miles Davis caught shop-
lifting Don Byrd away from
the Jazz Messengers.

5) The Duende dreaming
of wildflowers, butterflies
and a lone coyote.

6) The moon shining through
clouds like a cop’s flashlight through
ghosts of gutter-steam.

7) A heart, like a frog
being fattened with sadness
to feed Love’s big snake.

8) A dragonfly’s mind
magnified a hundred times
before my mind’s eye.

9) Joan Miro standing
on top of Machu Pichu
with Minnie Pearl’s hat.

10) W.C. Fields
meets Frank James, Fox Theater,
St. Louis, ’01.

11) F. Nietzsche, S. Freud,
R.M. Rilke caught in a
Mexican stand-off.

12) Kafka discussing
literary theory with
a giant bed bug.

13) “A glass of water,
a pint of the black stuff and
a John Powers, neat.”

Copyright 2012 by Jason Ryberg

Howlies

Before I was born, while I was
yet in some woman’s belly,
that woman and my father were
denied an apartment in Hawaii

on the basis that white people
delight in their own filth. In
response, that woman’s neck
grew another inch.

Copyright 2012 by John Oliver Hodges

Untitled

it's obvious to you;
because you're not an idiot.
but this is the way they talk to one another;
and they are in charge of most everything.

watch them-
on what is hopefully a large television hung aloft the wall of a reasonably well stocked bomb shelter.

Copyright 2012 by Nathan Thomas D' Annibale

http://www.vhilo-artist1.se/

That's all.

No really, this is the end...

You shouldn't be reading this.

You shouldn't be reading this.