Archive
New Poem Breathing
Curry a new poem
with a wire brush
toss vanity aside
when you dare to
hit it two or more swipes
with the same scrub brush
your mother kept the kitchen
clean with, drag with a fine tooth comb
the kind she sought out nits
with when school was overrun
the way ant hordes might come
yet, fire ants from Brazil’s interior
the Amazon bone-dry
old wells besieged
silence the final
architect
by Tom Sheehan
An Economy of Language
They wouldn’t even pay him off in pennies,
said his poems wandered far too long:
too many synthesaurus additives,
too many old growth words chopped down.
Strapped him to an ankle monitor
that somehow read his thoughts,
buzzed all night when he tried to sleep
and garnished away his dreams.
Hollow-eyed and somber silent, now,
he hoards his words in a coffee can
buried out back beneath the pine, planted
in days when all the things had many names.
Sometimes he spreads his words out,
arranging them in patterns on the grass,
building shapes of presidents and snakes
before burying them in the earth again,
hidden from the hungry mouths of singers,
linguists and bright-eyed myna birds.
by James Brush
An Economical Fairytale
Princess Eileen once lived.[1] She sat in a room of neutral hues.[2] Unlike her counterparts, who twiddled their thumbs in giant towers, grew their hair out, or experienced great hardships, Princess Eileen went to school. She buried her nose in books and ambition.[3] She studied free trade, and the stock market. She also studied art, deciding all concepts were the same level of abstraction. It was all a bit of a slog, the testing, the memorization, but Princess Eileen didn’t have a choice. In truth, she too was a lady in waiting. A Prince[4] was supposed to be part of her story.
Prince dreamt of saving, but spent most of his time looking at clouds.[5]
“I hate my job,” said Prince one day.
Princess Eileen said, “Well, why not find a new one?”[6]
The prince gasped, “Have you seen the economy lately?”
The princess hadn’t.[7] “What’s it like? The Economy?”
“Like a dragon, only it can be prettier.”
“Do you like pretty things?”
“Only if they stay that way.”[8]
He was supposed to save her. In fact, he was supposed to have saved her three years prior, but, at the time, he’d been too busy with his profits. Then, he’d been rather swept up in his new-found love of squash. Six months ago, it was simply impossible to help ease Princess Eileen’s need for new colour coordination because he was trying to focus more on fixing his bad habits.[9]
She tilted her head to the side, “Are you ever going to save me?”
“Of course!” said Prince, standing up full force, getting a head rush, and quickly sitting back down.
Princess Eileen titled her head further to the side, getting up slowly and taking a walk of the castle.[10]
In the forest, Princess Eileen ran into a wise person.[11]
This person spoke eloquently on many subjects. “I, too, used to be royal.”[12]
“How did you end up here?”[13]
In listening, the princess learned a lesson.[14]
She returned to the castle and went rummaging through the garage.
Days turned to weeks, which turned to months. Princess Eileen went back into the castle, a dash of red along her forearm. While skipping through the hallway, she ran into Prince.
“I am going to save you,” he said bravely.
Princess Eileen tilted her head at him again.
“Eventually,” he mumbled, “have you been out there lately? Things are crashing. Numbers falling from the sky. Executives too.”
“I have been out there. The sky wasn’t falling,” she responded simply, “Oh, and I no longer need saving.”
“What?”
“If it’s not the economy, it’ll be an evil witch.”
“Witches are difficult to deal with. They possess all sorts of powers. Dark powers. Is that blood on your arm?”
“No, it’s paint. I’ve been redecorating. My tower was quite drab. I’ve decided to become a designer.”
“You’re supposed to be the decoration”.
“No, I’m supposed to be saved, but you aren’t coming.”
“Well, I mean the economy.”
“Yes, the economy, the witches, the dragons. Regardless… I don’t need saving. I do however need more paint.”
So ends the story.[15]
by Kelsey Blair
NOTES
1. For the sake of space, time and context are irrelevant. Safe to say she lived, or is living; verb tense is of no matter. [BACK]
2. Setting. It should be inferred her life was dull, boring, and in need of help. No one who paints a room “cream” is filled with passion. [BACK]
3. Character traits which demonstrate Princess Eileen’s desperate state: education is, as we all know, exceptionally dangerous for the rich. It is also dangerous for the poor, but far less accessible. [BACK]
4. Despite his generic title, the Prince is very important; hence, capitalization. Also, Prince and Princess Eileen are not related. It’s very difficult to root for incest. [BACK]
5. Conflict: Prince vs. Princess. Unlike Princess vs. Evil Stepmother, all creatures, including excessively small persons, horses with horns, and inanimate objects with the power of speech will be useless to advancing the plot. There is no room for comic relief here. Even very witty relief. [BACK]
6. She raised her eyes from the large book she was reading and tried to flip her hair. It was an action she didn’t practice often. Needless to say, it went badly, and Prince furrowed his brow in a confused way. As has been noted, Prince wasn’t very bright. [BACK]
7. Princesses are consistently badly acquainted with their enemies. Some sort of genetic flaw? [BACK]
8. This answer is unfitting. Clearly, the Prince had things to learn. There isn’t time for that here, but the record notes: maturation needed. [BACK]
9. A pattern has formed. Lengthy, but necessary, like a long journey. [BACK]
10. Clearly, no room for descriptors. However, safe to say, the grounds were large and lush. The forest, located near the back gate was rarely attended to. Past the gate, which was made of a kind of steel so strong it was luminous, were trees. “Trees” is a bad descriptor, suggesting something mundane, found on street corners and window sills. These plants manage to create space while also seeming to hug anyone who enters them. It is a place children dream of getting lost in, full of bright coloured insects and crickets that seem to sing instead of chirp. Not that any of this is relevant. [BACK]
11. For the sake of equality, the person will not be gendered. For the sake of discrimination, the person will not be a peasant or old. Class and age are not factors here. [BACK]
12. Princess Eileen had met one other being who claimed to be royal. She’d never since like the taste of frog legs. [BACK]
13. The story, was, of course, long, winding, and only moderately exciting to listeners. [BACK]
14. This is ever so important. You are supposed to learn this lesson too. Did you? [BACK]
15. Normally, there would be a review of the moral, but space is not permitting. For reassurance sake, Princess Eileen did live, even relatively happily. She made a business for herself, painting castles, saving others from unsatisfactory colours. She waited for no one. [BACK]
Avoid
(If you can’t see the video, you need to download Flash.)
by Nico Vassilakis
We Never Talk Anymore
Let’s prepare a list of topics, we make
our living listening and talking—
turn the dinner table into Chautauqua.
We don’t do jokes, dreams always
fall flat in retelling, we think we know
all about us. I’m not allowed
to criticize your kids and I’m sure
you’ve nothing to say about mine. Truth,
beauty, how about those Yankees,
land on politics and we’re preaching
to the choir, work went well, a good day,
nice piece of fish, please pass me
some olives. Wine? There is much to be said
for long-coupled companionate silence.
by Meredith Trede
The Bookmark
The small square letter addressed to Aunt Bev and Uncle Steve — Don uses it as a bookmark. The house is 28 years old and looks new inside. Don, Lori and their girls live there now.
*
When Steve decided to rip up the carpet, upstairs and down, he didn’t ask Bev. He just did it. An engineer by trade, Steve was precise and it took him nine months of weekends to lay 2,100 square feet of hard maple flooring. Bev spent a lot of time outdoors, weary of the mess.
When Don and Lori and the girls came over with their real estate agent to meet the Stovers, Steve worshiped his gorgeous hardwood floors and bragged endlessly on the wood-slat shades in the study. Here, let me show you, he said to Don. You just pull ‘em down by the bottom and it stays. They don’t make ‘em anymore. You can’t buy these anymore. The girls raced through the house.
The central vacuum was less than five years old, same as the hardwood floors. Steve loved the central vacuum. He showed Lori how to insert the hose in the wall and a quiet but massive suction followed. Bev slipped in and out of the house. The girls argued over the bedroom with the pink carpet.
Steve made sure that Don noticed the new roof, just about five years old he said. They were composite shingles, applied according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The roofers take shortcuts, he said. The composite shingles, he pointed to the roof, see how they lay, how they kind of look like they’re slightly lifted, that’s texture he said, shows they were nailed down right. Bev carried picture frames to a Volvo station wagon.
You guys have any kids? asked Don. Steve laughed and said, Nope.
Sara, the oldest, convinced Patty to take the room with the blue carpet. It had a better view and a bigger closet. Bev frowned. She’d thought that herself for years.
The sun was bright that day, but a cold wind made standing outside looking at the roof less fun than it should have been. And then Steve launched into a rapture about the vinyl siding. Don didn’t care for vinyl siding and wondered what was hiding underneath. But it looked good — probably the tightest, nicest looking siding job he had ever seen. Steve assured them the siding was top grade, overkill he said, and like the relatively new garage doors, hurricane proof.
Bev put a black clock radio in the backseat of the Volvo and walked up behind Steve. He ignored her, talking up the brass doorknobs in the house, how they were solid brass, how he hated to leave them because they were so nice.
Back inside to see the custom lights in the living room, Sara pushed Patty across the bare floor on a wooden barstool. Steve and Bev went blank.
We’re sorry, said Lori.
by Russell Helms
Doing My Part
Today it’s a long way to the river
dragging two large boxes
I don’t remember buying
but addressed to me, all right.
I drop them over the railing knowing
a splash will billow sure as night
closes the mall, sure as lambs
follow tails through the gate
the way hope limped into this century
from the last, the one I learned by,
now flown like a gull’s cry over two boxes
moving down river who knows where. Maybe
halfway across the world they’ll find castaways
grateful for toasters, cell phones,
tall skim lattes, a case of the blues;
something they can really use.
Kate Irving
Missing
She spent her childhood surrounded
by the missing.
Kidnapped children peered out from milk
cartons, heiresses vanished, then reappeared
in shaky surveillance tapes. Shadowy
foreign governments seized civilians
and held them for years, and terrorists
of all stripes did the same.
She thinks of those Iranian hostages,
held in their workplace, walled
up for over a year. Some evenings,
she feels like a captive
herself, although no scruffy terrorist
holds her at gunpoint, just the shapeless
terrors of bankruptcy and a job hunt at midlife.
She spent half her life expecting to be seized,
but she did not expect so many selves
to be sacrificed. She used to greet
the dawn by logging long runs.
Now she watches the sun rise over jammed cars
on the morning commute.
She used to plant a garden large enough to feed
her family for a season.
Now she picks up a quick meal where she can
or settles for microwaved popcorn.
She used to paint sprawling canvases
that dreamt visions of a new world,
but now she tends to files and forms.
She used to hike through strange parts of the globe.
Now her vacation days, unused, evaporate
at the end of the fiscal year.
A Different Planet
A sudden descent of mist
obscures a view of the sea;
there’s a small rise in the price of cream.
Tonight the train was late:
frustration turned to rage.
The final over-ran, delayed the news:
all much the same old stuff.
by Ray Templeton
A Rainy Day
Click on images to view larger versions
by Claire Quigley
qarrtsiluni 