What To Do or A Hideously Complex Complex(ity) Narrative by Foolius Jerrardo; “Held Her Smelled Her,” a Farce in Short Horridies; nor How Tragedy Isn’t Tragic Anymore, in light, in light of our knowledge of the repeated Failures of Life


          “It’s a slow process into hot water toes/anklesveryhot/ass+genitalia/back/
            legs/st””””””””omach/neck/hair/forehead/ey-----winkwink------es/nose/chin/
            mouth/bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbreathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh/standupquickly.”


                                                                                                               Unformatted
                                                                                                               Handwritten
​                                                                                                               Throwntogether


            Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep!
           Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep! Breep!


                  Frank wakes lathered in sweat, beneath his eyelids a nightmare of floors monocular
          and motive, nocturnal cupidity burning off in the predatory light of day, two suns swirling
          round each other in the big sky today, dichromatic, a light blinking on the immortal-
          horrific alarm clock.
                 ----------------
                 Frank couldn’t decide on walking fast or walking slow so he walked medium. 
         Obviously the problem was diverted imagination; pushing and holding at the same time.
         His imagination was of the old type, and it posed him problems.
                 The world around us was in a state of freezeframe.  Plenty happened in it but
        nothing happened to it.  Something was waiting to occur, some great storm; the air was
        wet with it.  And Frank feared the storm, knowing he had been dry for too long, like the
        wicked witch.  Until then he’d stumble onward in a forgetful haze, looking back every
        once in a while in fear and anticipation, slowing, quickening.
                 The crime was murder like all of the others.  A murder precipitated by a
                 Well it was all in his notebook
                 Why look into this one and no other the world is full of happenings
                 Well it was in his notebook
                 He passed under the tree line and was glad of it.  Sheltered under the lazy boughs he
         found fresh air.  The city anymore had come to smell of must, and old dinosaur bones. 
         The smell of trees reminded him of the day he struck a tree while speeding to the birth of
         his first-born.  He came to a stop at the place.  Mad spoke softly, at times hissing and at
         times growling.  “I got you no leads.  But let’s walk, have a talk, Jer to Frank.  I’ll tell
         you it’s a hell-hole out there.  It’s no wonder I hang out in here.  Makes my fur go white
         watching you anymore.  You’re no longer social, Frank.  No longer social.  Cigar?  No? 
         I’ll tell you, Man, your problem is your general structure doesn’t match its base.  You’ve
         got all sorts of frames and pilings and shit and nothing inside it anymore; you’ve updated
         the heating systems but left the surface structure the same.  Now, everybody’s standing
         outside the building watching the empty glass elevator glide up and down, big
         abominable eye blinking dumbly like some inbred invention, and everybody’s too
         claustrophobic to even dare push through the rotating doors.  I used to see people pass
         through each other’s proximities but you watch really close now, there’s nothing of the
         sort.  And if it does happen somebody’s hackles are up.  Cigar?  No?  Who the fuck
         do you think you are?”
                   “You’ll condemn me for being anti-social Jeremy Mad, but you live out here in the
         woods.”  Frank sighed out all of the air in his lungs.
                   “Well I’m Jeremy Mad.” And he winked mad, as empty-lunged Frank examine the
         air around his lips for imaginary contagions.

                    ----~~---~-
     
                    His cousin Luke was a compulsive masturbator.  He sits crouchd in a public
          bathroon pumping, furiously pumping.  Milking the one-eyed. He makes the worst noises
          doing it.  He couldn’t in his own bedroom because the location has gotten redundant and
          invasive.
                    He has dry hands and the webbing between his fingers is the worst dryness.  He
          does things like this (masterbate) even when he’s sick, when he’s cold, whn he’s drunk,
          all times in which it is selfdestructive.  And Also when it isn’t, but just saying.  So he’s
          thinking of swelling things, like tits and fat pussy lps  And he’s thinking about a wet,
          warm, sweet, decadent, luxurious, comfortable, sweet, slick, swampy place for his prick. 
          And after his prick cums all over the floor and the bathroom wall he notices that the spac
          between his forefinger and middle has crackd and hes shed a little bit off blood which has
          already dried.  He does’nt take much note of it and went immediately to clean up the
          mess.

                     ~~~s-pl.---

                     Marijuana stalked the land.
                     Carrying clubs and rakes and burning torches, cannabis and alcohol and lysergic
          acid diethylamide combed the high grasses and the crumbled buildings, killing man
          where he stood.  A stalwart few of us, rallied around the colors, carried our rifles and
          shotguns and hand grenades and fought back.  Most ran.  Some tried to defect and were
          shot dead for it.
                    The fact was, the drug contingent was not taking any prisoners.  It would come into
          a town, spread itself out.  Cocaine and Heroin and Ecstasy and Booze would spread out
          like a cancer and take the children out first, cropping us at our roots.  Then the
          businessmen and officers, destroying all order.  Finally the remaining middle class and
          the poor folk would run around, abandoning their houses, mindlessly fearing the alien
          killers, trying to find lodging or asylum, but even the church officials were long gone by
          then.
                   We locked ourselves up in a bomb shelter, but like the living dead, marijuana found
           its way in.  Snuck in through air ducts.  Burned us alive, pricking the youngest of us on
           pitchforks and carrying them off to be eaten.  We, the rest of us, were burned alive.  I was
           burned alive.  I was burned till dead.  End of paragraph.

                     --~~---~-

                    The building crumbled on the outsides, though the insides looked jüst fine.
                    Apparently this was not true everywhere.  Our office looked jüst fine, but
            downstairs in Accounting they claimed they were losing drawers by the desk full, and
            those in Finance claimed their notepaper and their pencils were ripping or breaking far
            too easily.  At these complaints the managers had a meeting and we finally decreed that
            A) those offices should be locked down, and B) anyone trying to leave would be shot till
           dead with staple guns.  In addition, their flow of refreshments, drinks and sandwiches,
           was cut off.  Their misfortune was being susceptible to the infarction; their crime was
           hosting it.
                     Conclusion: as a result of decreased profits incurred by these cutbacks, we may be
           forced to execute layoffs.

                      -------

                      The man who had been wrongfully accused sat at his trial.  The timing of the crime
            was unfortunate, since its punishment had been recently increased to interminable solitary
            confinement within the home.  The state’s lawyer questioned him brutally as we watched
            with mixed emotions.  Finally, halfway through the trial, the accused broke down,
            screaming out with some remorse, “I was in the room when it happened.” This was very
            strange because all present had assumed he was innocent

                                                       ~-----------~----------~~------------------------------~----~


                                                                     The town was my town now.  No one came in or out but me.

                                                                           I had collected all of the sanity I could in armloads full of guns.  I kept
                                                         them hidden in various places, the safeties snapped off to keep from a misfire. 
                                                                       They were hidden in deep, dark places which only I with my malformed
                                                               child’s body could reach; only a twelve year old missing a left shoulder and
                                                            some ribs could reach.  I would hide out of the way of the nighttime at night,
                                                              sleeping or not sleeping, I never could tell, and during the day I would stalk. 
                                                                  Shotgun and bandolier (slung over the extant shoulder), knives and hand
                                                             grenades, all left by the human militia, by dead relatives and tribe members. 
                                                                       All of the weapons I collected in my combing of the town.  I was always
                                                          finding more and hiding them away.  Food was scarce but I had trained away
                                                             my appetite, eating only the cockroaches, which had survived, and drinking
                                                               only their juices, making sure to hair-test them in the local lab for edibility
                                                                                                                                                                                                                     first.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                                            I killed anybody who came near me.  Single shot to the bridge of the
                                                         nose.  They could be drugs or they could be drug fiends.  These days Cocaine
                                                               looks like just anybody.  I killed a woman who looked like my father, single
                                                              shot.  Bridge of the nose.  Could have been him.  I killed a child who looked
                                                     exactly like me, and I thought he was me at first but then I realized that he had
                                                       his right shoulder missing and not the left.  Shot the left one right off, shot off
                                                           his feet, shot off his genitals, and shot out his eyes before I finally killed him
                                                      dead by stepping on his heart through his shirt.  Killed every bit of him before
                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                         I killed him.  Single shot, bridge of nose.
                                                                                                                                                   You have to be careful, these days.
                                                                                                                                        -boom--

                   Freddy sped down the long pass on his bike, hopping the front tire over rubble or
         exposed roots and forearms as he came to them, relishing the deep feel of the seat lunging
         into his backside as his rear tire humped thickly over the impediments.  His biking skills
         were improving.  Before the town blew up he never had the guts to ride, being afraid of
         the people on the sidewalks and the cars in the streets, and the sharp turns; he could never
         turn well.  But now that nothing huffed breath in this world besides him and the Korean
         grocer down the street and his sister Phil there wasn’t much left to be afraid of.  So he
         took advantage of the opportunity too improve his biking skills on this very nice, stolen
         bike.
                    There was a forehead poking out of the dirt ahead of him.  It was already cracked
         and difficult to see since the dried blood blended in with the red soil.  He sped up.  He
         was going to take this one full on.  He had a stiffy the size of his thigh and this was his
         favorite bump in town.  It certainly wasn’t the biggest, but there was a long runup to it it
         so was his favrite.  He picked up speed, standing up to get the optimum power and
         momentum behind his dive, and closed on it going faster than he ever had towards a
         bump before.  Exileration sped through th eveins in his eyes.  His fingers are burning
         holes into the bike handles.  Just before he struck it he slam his ass down on the seat and
         thrust the front tire into the air.  Before thet tire even landed the back tire smashed against
         the forhead.  He heard a horrible noise, somewhere between a squish and a crunch,
         coming from under the tire.  Simultaniosly a sharp, stabbing ake echod thoughh is
         prostate and his balls all th eway down to the tip of his dock.  Struggling to keep ontop
         the waverng bike he griped tightly with hi sfingers as he howl at the awfull pain.  His
         stiffy shotting away.  The bike topple and struck his head on something softish.  He lie in
         the dirt a long time, hands clamped over his acing ass-hole, holding back teaers and
         hating hi sfucke dup masturbatun ass i stod bye + laghf, because the forehead was not a
         forehead but a swollen eyeball jutting out of the dirt. 
     
                   -squonchhahahahahahahahahahahahah---------haha--------ha------------hah
     
                   After the great kablooie we returned to our offices to find rubble and just the frame,
          we all proceeded to lie down in various parts of the rubble, one by one, those untouchable
          steel pillars vomiting up into the sky, and moan our exhaustion to one another, staring at
          one another, our libidos hung slack, like elastic underwear past its expiration, all of this
          not out of allegiance to the office but for the shelter of the sure, straight steel

                    ---        - -            -         ‘I                    -                                        -                                         

                   […] and then she felt herself solitary within a hollow cave, one which seemed to
           stand three feet around her.  She thought she was opening she eyes but she wasn’t. Her
           lids might just have been frozen and then been ripped off by Gods bitter hand’s.  As
           thoughts once more began to spawn on the void around she abandoned brain stem, little,
           one celled thoughts, she packed snow into her ears and recalled a bit of avalanche advise,
           spitting.  It told you what is up and what is down.  She spat, and it flew up to strike the
           roof of her snow cave, and with its heat burnt away a bit of the wall and died hissing. 
           Above her shrieked the desolation of the world she knew.  Panic-stricken monsters!! 
           Crying to leave the rock!!!  She tried to rain them down but they shimmered and shook
           from between her helpless fingers.  Pour downwards down in to the earth.  Down into the
           gray snow.  If I had a shovel, she thinks, I would dig a hole.  Just to get under it and face
           The what is under it instead off The what is above it.  Down, down, like a shovel, down. 
           Digger, down.  Hoe, down.  Digger, into dig.  Magnificent great grey metal tilling object,
           in to the snow.  Finding a hole and digging it out.  Scooping snow back behind her, filling
           the holes behind her to find new holes.  Her mittens wear away and she use her fingers. 
           Frozen, being crushed by the rock, his dirty little fingrs wear away and he use is wrists
           and teeth.  The knees of is pants ware away and is legs began to freeze, s flthy fkng lgs,let
           m go.  e kk s eind, e lms sself […]

           manuscript ends here.---~th--u---ckkk--thu---p------~~------~-----~~~~~~~~~~~

                    A woman told her daughter she was not allowed to go to the mother’s trial.  The
           daughter sat in the living room alone for the first time in her life, frozen solid and paying
           very close attention for a while to the crumbling sounds around her, coming in from the
           outside.  She sat on the couch creating fantasies in her head: Great green dragons,
           emeraldine smoke drifting from their cavernous nostrils, sky-blending helicopter blades
           jutting from their backs at angles, like airborne whales lumbering through the sky,
           soaring and sweeping, soaring and swooping, making the most delightful grunting wails. 
           They would scoop the frightful birds into their maws and chew them out, squeezing the
           bones painfully out their genitals like urine and letting them fall whistling to the crash. 
           The bigger ones flew low, snapping the more twisted, tortured treetops down and leveling
           the apartment blocks.  The smaller dragons flew high up, spouting their candied breaths
           at the people standing on balconies.  Certain dumber, inspired ones would collide with
           the earth, forming great craters and evaporating with their mass the basements and the
           lurking caves beneath.  They were martyr angels, re-carpeting the world with desturction.
                   But of course she was forced to let it go, eventually, knowing that the destruction
          outside was not from dragons; it was, impossibly, manmade, and made herself lunch for
          the first time ever: a grilled cheese, a beautiful grilled cheese, bread burnt to black-top
          perfection, beautiful and long and toasted like the black-sanded beaches of
          Mirrormeremeland, fantastic land of Obsidian and lobsters; between these beach-breads a
          paradise of cheese, gooey and warm as God’s good hands enclosed about a good girl,
          golden and hot as a mother’s eyes which burble and love with protective delight; it was a
          daylight sandwich, which, bitten into, provided all of the promised land’s promised
          purchase to her incipient incisors. In this moment of peak affection, she chewed the
          sandwich, the food made of her own hands, and turned off the burner safely, and made it
          back to the couch, still loving the sandwich, and the toasty world between her walls burst
          with home.

                 000000001

                 Craig was a deformed human being.  Hideous, hump-backed like a whale, web-
           fingered like a frog, wing-hipped like a woman, cow-eyed like a cow, rock-foreheaded
           like a monster, single-balled, he had no right to live in this world.  He ate soup out of
           cans and stayed in his room.  He enjoyed pigs’ feet as an occasional treat.  His lack of
           genitalia and isolation made anything disgusting-looking fascinating to him and
           wonderful to eat.  The more grossity he devoured the more grossity he possessed, and if
           he couldn’t be beautiful he would show others he didn’t want to be.  Animal eyeballs. 
           Animal foots.  Animal cock.  Animal fetus.  He would slaughter horses and throw away
           the rump and the ribs and the bellies and eat the meat around the knees, the neck, the
           groin, the gums.  He would eat the organs and the other things not meant to be seen.  One
           day he died of an infected sore on his finger from scratching his ass so much.  Weirdo,
           final son of man, dead to a finger.  The blast of a chopper’s blades stirred the dry leaves
           up around him:
     

                                       “whup whup whup whup whup whup whup whup”
                   
                                       looking down through the branches into the empty sky/vulva hanging
                                       limp over the sides/uncertain what to attract                to/chopper pilot gender uncertain/
                                       no want to be a gay girl/lookng down through th ebranches/and seeing th
                                       esky/earth gon/eys sttop brain/     /                  /                /              \              /\       
                                       |                                     /girl gone/penis drifting loosely toward the
                                       spinning blades/pulled by strange loud wind/uncertain (who is I? around not
                                       so much anymore. want to run but legs = earthless, and no rooms to stand up;
                                       looking down on chopper blades, they are an eye always blink- pupil hollow.
                                       run flirty squares around the nopilot - who goes there over there now?  He’s
                                       fl-ng endless lengths into the blending sky -)


                              growing slithering crumbling crawel;
                             
                              Moxie was a boy with a girls’ name.   One day shortly after
          his parents’ death he met Phil, a girl with a boys’ name.    He started
          talking and they became immediately close.     They didn’t take their 
          eyes off each other but occasionally they would take the clothes off
          each   other.           In   bed   they  were   maniacs,   constantly   shifting
          positions.     Moxie wanted bottom but would take top, Phil wanted
          top but would take bottom, often they would lie across from     each
          other and shriek.  Their sex was maniacal end shfitng.     Phil wanted
          to  rub  herself  against  his  face  but  found  it  disgusting.       Moxie
          wanted to head in her ass but she was very dark there.     Often they
          would sit in different rooms and watch  television.     They breathed
           hot water.  Moxie stopped taking  drugs.   But one day  they looked
          out of a window and saw  the desert, and he lay on his  back and she
          climbed on top and  finally  after  the  long  months  and  months  of
          furious fucking  they had an  orgasm that flattened his testicles and
          swelled her  uterus  to bursting, and the desert around  them  shook
          with it like  TV’s  first  ever sin, and celebrated  it, as its  atomic  blast
          splashed  outwards  and  incinerated  every dead cactus stump  and
          smoked every cockroach corpse and torched the unmarked amoeba
          graves, and slowly, cautiously,  the  world  opened  up  in  a  hideous
          grin                -       -    -  -

​

 Bio: Julius Ferraro is a journalist, performer, playwright, and administrator based in Philadelphia. He is co-founder of Curate This, has served as theater editor of Phindie, and writes for thINKingDANCE, Philly.com, The Smart Set, and the FringeArts blog. His recent performances include Micromania, The Death and Painful Dismemberment of Paul W. Auster, and The Mysteries of Jean the Birdcatcher with {HTP}, On the Road for 17,527 Miles with 14th Street, and his Phindie Fringe Bike Tours. With the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program’s Restored Spaces Initiative he coordinates community-led environmental arts projects.

Karma
 
I’m not angry, she tells me.
It’s karma.
Someone somewhere had to get sick
the universe demands it.
So why not me,
with healthcare
and stability
and all the tools I need to manage it.
 
I’m okay with it, she says.
I would rather it was me than a single mother
with no insurance and two kids.
Someone who can’t handle it.
I’m not angry she says.
 
Even though she is also in her thirties
with cancer.
 
And I realize then
she misunderstood
what I meant by anger.
I try to explain
I’m not angry for just me,
I think,
I’m angry for all of us.
Because this country has failed us
because pharmaceutical companies
make money
off of a cure that leaves us sick
and stripped
and wrung out like a dishrag,
wet and sloppy and useless on the kitchen counter.
 
Because doctors can add a wing
on their new house up in the country
when they lay out my treatment options.
 
Because religion has wormed it’s way into legislation
blocking research that could save lives
under the pretext of god’s will.
 
Because we have all settled for
Cut, Burn and Poison
as if that were enough,
falling to our knees each night,
thankful to live in this country
telling ourselves how lucky we are
calling this diagnosis
a fucking journey.




Surgery #1
 
Careful, you say,
stepping gingerly around me
as I shiver,
half in the tub 
half out
naked
my hair sopping wet
the soap running 
down my back 
as you wash my hair
because I cannot.
 
There you go,
you say like a mother,
and wrap the towel around me.
You seem content, caring
like you're doing a job that
maybe you were always meant to do
and upon seeing my face you offer,
Relax, you'll be able to wash your own hair soon enough.

Just another week, probably.




Don’t Live (On the Ground Floor)
 
Don’t live
on the ground floor
is what he tells me over his shoulder
because he can’t bother to turn around
and look at me,
 
me in this window,
late at night,
asking him
with his friends
and his bottle in its black bag
to please keep it down.
 
Not,
I’m sorry
or we’re leaving
or jesus are we inconsiderate
assholes who think we own the street
 
the neighborhood, the city, the world.
 
Just don’t live on the ground floor.
A sentence meant to remind me
that this is his world
and he will do what he pleases in his world
and if I don’t like it,
well I better not live
 
on the ground floor.
 
A sentence I’ve heard before
not the same words, per say,
but the same meaning
as
 
Why are you getting so emotional?
Stop being an attention whore.
Don’t be so bitchy.
Stop being dramatic.
I was just trying to give you a compliment.
You should smile more.
You’re going to wear that?
Don’t be a slut
No one wants a virgin
What war on women?
You’re too pushy. It’s a turn off.
Ugh, are you a feminist?
 
All words said to me by men
some I’ve known
many strangers
like this guy,
on the stoop
in front of my window
telling me again
 
Don’t live
 
on the ground floor
 
or
 
Don’t be
 
a woman
 
if you want any peace in this world.


​

 Bio: Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collections The Wanting Bone and How to Be An American (Six Gallery Press) as well as the YA novel This Is Sarah (Bookfish Books). Forthcoming from Low Ghost Books is a poetry collection entitled Better Luck Next Year. She's at @allymalinenko mostly talking about David Bowie, Doctor Who and stupid cancer.

Bread Crumbs

Part of me wants to ask people whether or not they worry 
about dying but then I realize that if I do and they say 
“No I don’t” they might go home and start worrying 
​about dying. So today instead of asking about dying,  
I went around and asked people what kind of car 
they drove and other things: is it a nice car? 
Does it go really fast? Are you ever afraid 
you might have a terrible accident? It looks 
like it’s going to rain. Don’t you hate it? 
Don’t you hate what could happen? 
Don’t you hate what things mean?




Cameo

Sheila went to buy some Cameo cookies at the store, 
because they made her feel ritzy and they were delicious. 
The Cameo cookie looked like it should taste lemony but 
it tasted not-lemony. “If this cookie was a lemon, it would 
be the one hundredth lemon of my life” she said. She didn’t 
count the lemons she found, hidden away, as a tiny baby.


​

​Bio: Ricky Garni was born in Miami, Florida, in 1957. He works as a graphic designer by day and writes music by night. His work is widely available on the Web and in print. COO, a tiny collection of short prose printed on college lined paper with found materials such as coins, stamps, was recently released by Bitterzoet Press. 

Deep Puddles
 
A black pearl
rolls across
the room like everything is fine
with the bulldozer riots.
 
A void
can occasionally
be refilled
with good intentions
with hard work.
 
I had to stop
you
before you stepped
right onto
the trapdoor. I’ve
told so many people
[mostly mimes]
of just
how much of a circus
a sidewalk
can be.
 
We both
nibble
on the edge
 
of good intentions revived.
 
A rare thing
in this drought of knowledge.
 
Many bridges are burial sites.
I won’t name them
or this very Universe
you live in.
 
I know that would
only half upset you.




Magical Mud
 
Oh, how our clothes
are stained
in the luscious mud
of the Aftermath.
 
To forget this staining
would be tantamount
to an atrocity.
 
I clutch on and will attempt
to enjoy this ride
as much as possible
before the only
True and beautiful carnival
leaves this horseless town.




Sleep Deprivation In Autumn
 
There is a feeling
in the evening’s young darkness
that everything might just blink-out and disappear.
Things, sights, objects
tinted with a cold view
pressing into the night. A sense of danger
creeps beside. Harlots and honey
are nothing, are wilted.
A tastelessness slowly taking over.
The numbness is omnipresent,
stuck in a constant stage of rebirth,
standing at hand-side as humid bucketfulls
are lulled back to zero.


​

 Bio: Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. He has published two pamphlets with Green Panda Press and his first chapbook A Curmudgeon Is Born is forthcoming from Yellow Chair Press. His work has appeared or is due to appear in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Chiron Review, SLAB, Main Street Rag, Crack the Spine, Mobius, Epigraph, BlazeVOX, Foliate Oak, Stray Branch, Third Wednesday, eFiction India, and elsewhere.

                    In All That I Am

If I could draw a blade across my wrist
         to show you that my veins clog
with the sludge of ugliness, you would
                   never again ask me,
                “Why are you so tired?”
           If I could crack open my skull
              to free my mind, you would
               see that it is not splintered
          by madness but rather patched
         together with clarity, you would
                      never again ask me
                      to swallow poison.
                If I could rip this body open
          to show you the raw red wounds
      that have been lashed onto my soul
                by every inhumane atrocity
        this world has endured, you would
                       never again ask me,
                    “Why are you so sad?”
     Instead, your accusing eyes demand
    simple words to simpler questions that
         the simplest minds can process.
                        And in all that I am,
                            simple I am not.




                    The Feast of The Fools

                     I heard your siren call,
                  and I calmed my wolves.
           Their great paws unleashing claws
     on the earth, biding their time, scratching
           their vengeance. My pack is fierce,
                                 and hungry.
                         They feast on the lies
                         of the self-righteous.
                         They eat the dreams
                         of the sanctimonious.
                   And they swallow the pride
                              of the selfish.
                 Yes, we heard your siren call,
                 and we’re coming for dinner.






                              The Wanderers

                      If you happen to stumble 
             upon a wanderer, unlock the door 
                          and welcome them in; 
                             but do so knowing 
           that they’re only there to rest their feet. 
Don’t offer to unpack their bags, instead fill them 
                        to brimming and leave them 
       beside the back door, uncluttered and easy 
                                          to reach. 
                                     Stoke the fire, 
             put the kettle on, and guard your heart; 
                                 it’s passion and pain 
                            that nurture the unsettled. 
            Embrace them for the moment, delight in 
           their tales, and commit them to memory... 
                                   when the sun rises 
                   they’ll be gone, pack full of hearts,
                       soul bursting with restlessness, 
                          leaving you incredibly richer, 
                              and devastatingly poorer, 
                                    all at the same time.


​

Tying Avery's Shoes
           
            I'm waiting for Avery to get dressed. It's the first day of autumn, and we're taking a day trip to the mountains. He finally appears, calmly proclaims he can't tie his shoes, would I do it for him? He's had difficulty dressing himself lately. This morning he was able to pull on his socks and pants, button his shirt, and pull a sweater vest over his head, all by himself.
           
            Avery and I have been married for three years. I'm 57 years old, and he' 65. He has Alzheimer's disease. He was diagnosed two years ago, nine months after we recited our wedding vows. It's the second marriage for both of us, but this bond between us is fierce. With wet eyes, envious friends have told us this kind of love is rare, that we live in a dreamy fairy tale. We think it's enchanting and perfect.
           
            This Alzheimer's disease, the thief, takes its time fracturing our union. No one and nothing but this wretched disorder pulls us asunder. Since the diagnosis, there's been a significant, progressive decline in Avery's cognitive functions, his balance, and motor skills. His thought processes, reasoning, memory, attention, language, and problem-solving capabilities come and go, mostly go. It wasn't long after his diagnosis that he needed frequent help and some supervision to do most of what he could do independently before.
           
            Today we'll drive to our favorite mountain town, and we'll promenade along the river walk, for this is the extent of Avery's dwindling capabilities. No more off-trail or dirt path hiking. We stick to boardwalks and paved pedestrian routes. We'll walk upriver holding hands the entire time, like we always do, staggering toward the future. We'll take in the crisp, dry air and watch the wind rustle through the pine and aspen trees. We'll visit the stationery store where we'll buy journals that have fancy leather covers and pages edged in gilt. We'll carry them close to our hearts while we amble downriver to our favorite coffee shop. Then we'll sit at a black wrought iron bistro table on the outdoor patio, listen to the moving water, watch passersby as we sip chai and munch hazelnut biscotti. We'll transfer the pain of losing each other onto the lined acid-free pages of our new books, trusting the journals and the rushing river to catch our words and emotions and assimilate them into our souls, somehow making sense of it.
           
            At dinnertime, we'll saunter upriver to our favorite Italian restaurant where we'll have a glass of Chianti and a bowl of bow-tie pasta with basil pesto. As dusk comes, we'll follow the river down to a wooden bench under a stand of aspen trees, the perfect vantage point to watch the deer who come down from the forested hills for an evening snack, unfazed by our presence on the other side of the water.
           
            Once more tonight we'll inhale the fresh pine scent in the air and let the wetness of the river permeate through to our bones. We'll eagerly succumb to the enchantment of this place as we watch the water negotiate the ancient granite rocks that have been part of the river for thousands of years, and we'll wonder how many more it'll take before the march of the river erodes them to dust. Then finally we'll drive home, snaking down the mountains and foothills, on the lookout for feeding elk and perhaps a herd of mountain goats. We'll smell the heady wood smoke rising from nearby chimneys. At home, we'll speak softly of life's mysteries and how lucky we are to have found each other. Then we'll fall asleep in each other's arms, dreaming the same dream of floating downriver, wishing it could always be this sweet for us, wishing the thief had knocked on someone else's door.
           
            Avery wakes me from my thoughts, plants a warm kiss on my cheek, adding a dash of playful feistiness he sometimes mixes into our private moments. He pulls the cherry wood Queen Anne dining chair from the table and plunks himself down, his arms resting on its arms. Two months ago, when it became apparent Avery would soon lose his ability to tie his shoes, I thought he'd be better off wearing shoes that don't need tying, perhaps a pair of loafers. He disagreed, saying he preferred I tie his shoes, but I wonder if it's really his way of protecting himself against the sorrow and anguish of his decline.
           
            Avery points to his unlaced, polished black Rockports, bringing me back into the present. I drop to my knees, touching his leg to steady myself. He wears dark gray corduroys and his favorite charcoal gray sweater vest over a light cobalt blue shirt. This is my favorite outfit on him, and the sight of him stirs my love. I bend over his feet, lift the ends of the laces on his left shoe and cross them to begin the tie. It's an ordinary, simple action. Or so I think.
           
            As I begin the tie, I'm dizzy and nearly lose consciousness as I slip into a different knowing. In an instant, a brilliant flash of white light penetrates my skin and moves smoothly into every cell of my body. It takes over, moving my hands and fingers. It's not me tying my sweetheart's shoelaces--it's this mysterious force, full of light and love and generosity. I'm merely its catalyst. I imagine I'll swell to accommodate it, but I don't. Rather, it seeks release.
            
            Such an honor to tie Avery's shoes.
            As I form each bow and finish off each tie, I perceive the sacredness in this ordinary act. Avery's shoelaces are the medium and I am the conductor. Love and its infinite nature streams through me, again and again, and I am in bliss. This is where the sacred resides, in performing an unpretentious task mindfully. Such an honor to tie Avery's shoes.
           
            The love in me expands as I move to my husband's right foot. This love is the love that moves the universe. It's the love at the heart of each one of us, and that love is simply all there is. When our fears and worries are stripped away, it's love and only love that remains. When Avery cannot tie his shoes, it's love that asks me to do it for him, and it's love that complies.
           
            As Avery and I peel back the layers of our angst about the future, our anxiety merges with the larger universal love of creation, and it multiples infinitely. Although it began meekly with an uninspiring task, it's the force that encourages us to live fully in the mundane. It's the force that loves and moves Avery and me and each of us, the force that loves shoelaces and the rhythm that marks our days.
           
            I finish tying my husband's shoes, rise from my place at his feet, and this experience of divine love sinks deeper yet within me. It will continue to live and breathe through me, as it does through each of us, as simply and intricately as my fingers tied my beloved's shoes.
           
           And suddenly I understand that the day I do not tie Avery's shoes is the day he will not need them. It's the day he'll leave his shoes behind, the day he'll leave this world. I wipe a tear from my eye, grateful that I am the one to tie Avery's shoes.
           
           We gather our things and load into the car, back out of the garage, and head toward the mountains. Today we have a river to cross.


​

 Bio: Karenna Wright holds a BA in Communications, Literary Journalism, from the University of Denver. Her writing has appeared in a number of literary journals and publications. She lives in an unincorporated seaside area of northernest California, where she can often be found dipping her toes in the Pacific Ocean while gazing upon the coastal redwoods. Stay tuned for her first book, Romeo and Juliet in Dementiaville. Connect with her at www.WrightingLife.com.

Motive

don't ever get the idea that I am a poet.
You can find me covered in acrylic paint,
buzzed off the repetitious drumming of
a house music beat; swaying my hips
and diving into a grin that says, 'yes'.
 
Let me tell you, I'll claim I am a dancer,
painter, and mother before I show you one of my poems.
I squish them between a large brown tote and my shoulder
clutching them close to my teal heart
that when exposed to the spotlight
will show up sizzling and red and hot.
 
A woman wrote me one time to tell me
she liked my blog and I wondered if
she was playing a sick joke on me.
I wondered what the motive was behind
such a compliment. Why a nice girl like that
would spend the greater part of the afternoon
glued to the internet investigating my words.
I hope that she at least had some lemonade
or whiskey to smooth her palette after she swallowed
my confabulations leaving them to digest with the other shit
that she might of ate before she found
My few poems
that I have let out of the bag.
 
They do seem to enjoy being snuggled up between
the kitten videos and snapped shots of people's faces
sitting in their cars. I wonder do people really feel
their vibrant beauty the most when sitting
stopped in between destinations? I wonder if this woman
found my blog while sitting at a stoplight.
Maybe ignoring her husband. More in tune with recognizing
the space between my heart and her heart.
 
I replied with a simple thank you because I couldn't really
destroy her and tell her that her praise left me
to want to punch a hole in the wall or tear up my couch
pillows like a bored puppy waiting home alone
for his master that abandoned him for money, desks,
and donuts.
 
I still don't believe her
that she likes my blog; but I can't pass up
appreciation that she called me a poet
and hey, maybe she will be right one day.
Maybe she will be right.




Regular

Anyone can dance.
We have all the equipment:
Muscle, bone, intestines, gas, phlegm.
 
I went to a parking garage in Washington DC
Somewhere in the belly of Adams Morgan
The streets wrapped around like our gastrointestinal tract.
We’re dancing
while we’re still
trying to digest
all the shit.
 
Graffiti is sprayed on the door to the entrance:
A blue black rose with chicken scratched lyrics
Rose, rose, rose, rose, rise
Next to it.
I think it’s some sort of subliminal message
on our political perspective
or maybe someone was drunk
took a sip of their wine
and forgot they were writing rose.
 
I brought my own bottle of wine.
I made it myself with my in-laws in Florida
My sister in law was there.
She wanted to name it after our children
because I guess we are all drunk on love.
 
Babies will do that to you:
They are a love drug.
And I’m addicted.
And I don’t care.
 
Beyonce’s song Love Drunk came out on the radio
Around the time my daughter hit the charts.
I wonder if Queen B knew I’d be standing here
in this dim lit warehouse
drinking wine
called cousins;
drunk;
and in love.
 
I’m wearing a shirt the color of watermelon
& my husband is wrapped up in his hoodie
Hiding his questions.
Hiding his thoughts
curled up in the music.
He’s digesting the shit,
but he’s always been better at pooping than me.
He’s regular everyday.

If Only for Today

    The shit I saw pulling that shopping cart around when they came out of nowhere, pushed it over and threw all of my trash around: when they knocked me down, my face hit the curb and my body hit the ground. When the time came for me to get up, the metallic taste of blood and the cannibalistic taste for blood were in my mouth and on my mind, disrespectively.

    I was too tired to think when I pulled the teeth from my tongue and wondered when the rain would come to wash away the song I sang that spilled straight down my face. I thought if I could smell anything I might cry myself back to the kindergarten classroom where I forgot how to read, and eyes, like my mouth, began to bleed there under the orange salty light on the Brooklyn Bridge at night. But there was no relief from the stickiness splashed over me or the rocks that I'd eaten that were paining my jaw as the cars drove by, while my yellow raincoat hid a rash that was driving me crazy when I was already insane, seeing those imaginary cars crash all the time in my brain with Lady Liberty's disdain looking on. 

    Was there something wrong with me the day I applied for the janitor job, to push a mop across an already wet floor, fucked up from that flask in my pocket? They didn't hire me, but I've had that flask in my pocket since the locks changed on the flop house after it burned down and I tried to stay in the ashes. After that the only thing that I had was a shopping cart full of shit that I dragged around like a farmer's broken wheelbarrow on parade through the borough trying to trade trash for treasure.

    At first I didn't feel it, but if the dented flask was glass, (and it had been before) the shards might have tried to stab my ass and scratch me, driving the infection on my shirt deeper beneath my skin. Thankfully, I only had a sore spot on my chest where my ribs were bruised on the corner. At the end of the bridge I saw Donny and George sippin' a forty, standing on the corner wanting to know what happened, cause all my shit blew away. But we all knew there was nothing to do now that could change the fact that all my shit blew away whether it was as smoke or over the bridge and into the water below.

    That beer tasted awful and I could hardly sip it without letting it dribble down my dirty shirt, down to the docks on the row where we could start a fire in the trash can cause it was cold outside at night and down by the water Ben's got a bent coke can with holes poked in the side.  

    And he's doing the electric slide with his bag of powder sprinkled on the aluminum foil; for what it's worth a burnt spoon's in the dirt and he's got a white rash bubbling up across his skin and none of us have had a hot shower in at least ten years. But that beer keeps us from crying a genuine tear and that trash can is warmer than the cold foggy air up there where all my shit blew away  and that ledge above the mud means I might have somewhere to stay, stuck in the rain, if only for today when the rain ain't even falling on me.


​

 Bio: Kevin Abate is an autistic writer from Texas who's struggled with mutism his entire life.

Beautiful 

I see her.

She sees me.

The hem of the skirt.

The crease of the trouser.

One is not the other, but both are the same.

​Frustrated eyes and confused emotions permeate.

Self-doubt.

Yearning.

Fear.

Longing.

I am not me: My inner demon declaration.

Shame.

I call out to her, the woman who waits. No voice answers. I call louder. There is just one word, one simple word. “Please.”

The eyes. They stare and they see.

Black trousers. Vest. White shirt. Cufflinks. Socks. Jacket. Tie.

A closing of the eyes and a dream.

Black tights. Black skirt. White bra. White blouse. Black jacket.

I call her name.

Silence.


I shout her name.

Silence.

​Despair.

Dread.

I am not me. Who is me?

She sleeps within me. Lost and lonely.

In the dream she wakes.

In the living nightmare world she is he. I am he.

Dreaming my life away. Living the lie away.

Happiness. A dress and a blonde wig away.

​Sadness. Every breath of the here and now.

Live or die. Sink or swim. Fight or fly.

Quiet deliberation.

Shaking fear.     

Assertion.

Trembling suffocating fear.         

Out with the old and in with the new.

You’re beautiful. No, I’m beautiful. Me. The answer lies there in the I.

Fear and revelation both alive in the I.     

I is me. I am her. She is me.

The unanswered call is to her and not me.

Me.

I.

I am me. I call out to me.

Red lipstick.

Me.

Stockings and suspenders.

I.

Blonde wig. False eyelashes.

I know my name.

Black velvet dress.

I am me. She is me.

I speak my name.

​And my name is beautiful.


​

 Bio: Jane Hunter is a lost soul, dancing through the challenges of life, looking for something that seems impossible to define. When she finds that illusive 'something' she'll scream, and shout, from the rooftops of the world. Until then you can usually find her somewhere, occasionally elsewhere, but never nowhere.

It Is Raining Grey Mondays

​They fall like tin soldiers on a child's bedroom floor. Cadence, the rhythm of solitude in your darkened room. Draw bedclothes as you silently drift on peculiar dreams.


​

Rise, smoke, pray

A shit of a day brings my mind to contemplative places that only God and marijuana can take me. I know going to bed with my head full of thoughts is a recipe for insomnia, but a mere fluffing of my pillow won't help steer my restless mind from traveling.
I sit here on my sun-bleached couch and listen to the trains in the valley that cross the highway between 1 to 3 am. I call them 'the drunk trains' as its closing time at the bars and before long, an inebriated driver will make his last call smack-dab into the side of a boxcar. It makes me think this is the city's way of discouraging intoxicated driving.
It doesn't help that the trains are full of chemicals that can kill us while we sleep (Take another puff, pray for something unattainable).

While deep in thought, my husband heads to the bathroom and has THE longest pee that I can recall in our 29 years of matrimony. I feel as though I should have recorded it. He returned to bed completely drained of urine; left me thinking about absolutely everything and positively nothing.

​In the small, lonely hours, I pray for a sleep that is elusive, think of how fucked up the Earth has become by scrolling through my 'friends' Facebook posts (the only way to learn about world affairs), and know I'll be right back "here" tomorrow, and the next night, and the next night, and the next night...


​

Spoon

(bullets as candy / acid as water)

She awakes in her car from a mid-day stupor.  I speak to the suffering woman behind the addict:  Before the acrid smell of heroin smothers us both.  Before the prostitution claimed her immortal soul.  Before she lost it all to “the life” and him. 

Our love is like a water drop eking despair into hardened concrete.  We slow the years with each needle stick.  Eyes roll, time crawls, nothing matters.  We dodge bullets for cheap drinks and one night stands with anyone who will lie with us. 

The last rays squeeze through clouds like the sauce from my taco packet.  Flashing neon bathe the interior of her ride with our complacency.  We eat tacos a Russian girl gave us at the Mexican restaurant, and make smacking noises like perverts; licking fingertips ‘til clean.  We didn’t speak of our demise as we watch the city lights dim into the graying skyline.


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 Bio: Korliss Sewer looks at the world through skewed eyes, and enjoys taking apart the puzzle of life piece by piece to reconstruct it with her version of the truth. She has been published in The Poetry Bus, Orange Room Review, BlazeVOX, SubtleTea, Gutter Eloquence, etc., etc., etc.!