8/19/2017 The Dope Runner by Mark ThorsonTHE DOPE RUNNER Jack knew he had made a mistake. But didn't know where. He had been very careful about the whole thing -- he had done everything right. From the pick-up in Arizona to the drop-off in St. Paul - - he had carried out everything flawlessly. That's why he had taken the job. Because he was good at things like this. He was smart. He was also in great shape -- and not bad with guns either. The money was good too. Six grand a trip. But the money wasn't the reason he had originally gotten involved -- he had always had cash; he had gotten involved out of depression -- after his longtime girlfriend had dumped him for a thirty-five-year-old GQ stockbroker downtown. The dumping had put Jack into a serious a funk -- a painfully ugly doldrum -- where nothing seemed to make sense anymore, where nothing seemed to matter -- including his own life -- which left him somewhat defiant, and somewhat open for a little adventure. But after his first run now, all of that was beginning to change. He had been suddenly feeling good about himself again -- feeling confident and optimistic. In fact, for the first time in his life he felt like he was accomplishing something on his very own -- something out of his own merit and skill -- rather than just accepting something he'd been given -- like a trust fund, or his college tuition, or a summer job at one of his dad's Twin Cities car dealerships. Just the way he had run the package out of the southwest desert -- out of the San Simon wash -- had been a significant accomplishment. He had shoulder-strapped and belt-cinched the pack firmly to himself, then had run, trotted and climbed for seven hours straight, moving through darkness and over rugged terrain, then had jogged on, in treacherous heat -- through snakes and cactus and over uneven footing. When he finally reached his Trans Am, he had motored up highway 82 into Phoenix -- doing so perfectly, without drawing a spec of attention -- then up to Flagstaff, where he cleaned up at an old hotel in the downtown area -- picking out a room on the corner of the top floor -- which was a perfect lookout, and a great site for a shootout, had the situation come up. The room had reminded Jack of the one Steve McQueen had in The Getaway, except the one Jack had was even better. Yeah, Jack had certainly been careful alright -- and ready for anything. He had thought it all out beforehand -- and had equipped himself accordingly. In his Trans Am he carried a 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson with a fifteen shot staggered clip -- carried it in a quick-release holster just ahead of him, underneath the dash. It was a stainless steel model -- just like the ones the guys in that movie Pulp Fiction used -- except Jack knew how to handle one, and the guys in the movies didn't. Jack had been handling guns since his early boyhood -- firearms of all varieties -- shotguns, rifles, pistols -- the works. He knew everything there was to know about them too -- he knew loads, projectiles, actions, riflings -- and he could hit a target too -- moving. On his person, he carried a fourteen shot .380 Berretta, which he kept in a modulated holster attached to the inside of his jean jacket -- which was another thing you never saw in the movies. Those guys -- movie guys, like Mel Gibson or Stallone or Schwarzenegger -- they were always carrying some big oversized hand-cannon -- like a .45 or .44, or some big bulked-up .357 pig, which, the second you fired it, would box your ears in so damn bad, it would just about knock you silly. In reality, while the movie guy would be trying to get his bearings back, anybody with half a wit and a smaller, quicker .380, could easily let fly with another three or four rounds -- and accurately too. But these sorts of things were just common sense, and they were also the reason why the movies pissed Jack off. You had retreads writing the goddamn things and you had morons watching them. Which, generally, all boiled down to one thing: People were stupid. From Flagstaff Jack had headed east on I-40 towards Albuquerque, and then north up to Santa Fe. He drove the speed limit and used his turn signals and thought about that shootout back at the hotel. He thought about the shootout in The Getaway some more too -- and also about the one at the OK Corral. He thought about assault rifles and politicians and movie people, and about the public in general -- how goddamn dumb they were. Take assault rifles for an example -- which Jack contemplated as he cruised up I-25 towards Santa Fe. Everybody was so damn afraid of the things. ‘Scary," everyone liked to say. But not many of the scary, crowd were concerned about shotguns -- which were a hell of a lot more accessible, and far more deadly. A plugless short-barreled .12 gauge had a hell of a lot more firepower -- at least at close range -- than any AR-15 or AK-47 did. It was just common sense. Simple ballistics. An old hacked- off 870 Remington would clean out a room full of Hollywood movie guys with assault guns any day. Assault rifles, as they called them, were for Army guys. In other words, dumb ghetto kids and ignorant farm boys who thought that the guns looked "neat," and would easily pick one up and go off to die in some war that they knew nothing about. Or take the OK Corral as a case in point. A classic shootout with .12 gauge shotguns. If a person could go back in time, back to the old West, and take away the Clanton's shotguns and give them assault rifles instead, they would've gotten their asses kicked even worse. Again, it all came down to the same thing: Public stupidity. Alongside Jack, in the seatliner on the passenger side of the Trans Am -- built into the rear of the backrest -- Jack kept a sawed off pumpgun, loaded up with number two buck. Yeah, he had certainly been ready alright. Armed to the teeth. He had enough firepower to launch a small scale war, and he had been prepared to do it too -- if necessary. Well, not really -- but if he had to, he could've. From Santa Fe, Jack continued north towards Denver -- checking his rearview for approaching cars and watching the open country for anything that wasn't right. He glanced up through the tinted sky panels, checking for airplanes and choppers, and did all of his gassing up in rural areas -- at Exxons and Stucky's out on the interstates -- out in the middle of nowhere -- where he could see who was coming, see what was approaching. He never let the Trans Am out of his sight, and he never wandered off into wayside rests. He never entered any restaurants, and he was ready at all times to pull down on anybody that got too close -- too close to his load. As Jack passed through Colorado Springs, he had felt an urge to stop for a couple of beers, but had quickly thrown the idea out. He had decided to play it straight. Play it smart, be professional. Drink mineral water, take vitamins and eat health food. Vegetarian. But he had really wanted to stop, and it was a terrible shame that he couldn't have, because he was at his peak -- really looking prime. He probably could've picked up any chick he had wanted to. His hair was cut short, specifically for the job, trying to pass as an all-American jock -- which wasn't too tough to do, because that's exactly what he had been just a few years before. He had a good tan to go with it too -- and he was in great shape, like never before. He had a twenty-nine-inch waist and a forty-two-inch chest -- sixteen inch biceps, and good quads and calves too. Yeah he was looking good alright -- and most chicks -- if they could've seen him -- and seen what he was actually doing -- would've been absolutely knocked right out. The only exceptions would've been a few of the Buick Regal types whose lifelong goal was to marry their way into the suburbs, where they could park their asses in front of a television set, wear the latest hair, and shovel their faces full of a bunch of high fat, fiberless garbage. But any real chick, any babe . . . would've been absolutely blown right over. Somewhere north of Denver, Jack hit the wall and had to pull off the interstate to get some rest. He pulled into an approach off a gravel road and nosed the Trans Am back outwards again for a quick getaway. He shut the engine off and sat in darkness for awhile, and then just looked and listened. That had been an exceptionally peaceful part of the trip. When he finally felt confident that he was alone and not being tailed, he laid his seat rest back, gripped his 9-millimeter Smith under his jean jacket, and went to sleep. But by the time dawn arrived, Jack was already back on the interstate, headed out across Nebraska on I-80 where he started to dream about having a shootout with Federal Marshals and ATF guys -- which, by the time he hit Omaha, was a hell of a scene. He had dead SWAT guys laying out in the corn, wearing those silly black ninja outfits, and FBI agents wearing those foolish cop-show windbreakers laying strewn out along the highway -- several of them women who had wanted so badly to be a cop, had wanted so badly to be a man. After Omaha, Jack entered Iowa, and after Des Moines he headed north on I-35, and it was about that time that he started to think about the drop-off up in the Twin Cities. He had checked out the address before he had left, finding a nondescript cinderblock building in the industrial district, located near the river in South St. Paul. Jack had been given a key, and had been instructed to enter the side door at exactly two o'clock P.M. on the date of his arrival, and then to sit down in the black chair at the center of the room. And then to just wait. Which is exactly what he did. The chair sat out in the middle of a large open area on a cement floor -- facing two other chairs with a small table in between -- which was where Jack had been instructed to set the package. . . . Which he did. The place had natural sunlight glowing in through overhead panels and clear-cubed blocks on the upper wails. Jack sat in the chair and listened to the sounds of a construction yard somewhere down the street. He examined the rows of pallets and pails stacked along the walls and looked at the package on the table in front of him, which he had kept exactly the way he had received it -- in a tightly bundled gortex back pack. It was somewhere around this time that Jack began to feel uneasy . . . uneasy for a reason he didn't quite understand. He was nervous. Even scared. He couldn't rationalize it, so he decided that it was just instinct -- which in turn, bothered him even more. Maybe it was just the idea of getting busted, he thought. He began to think about the moral and ethical aspects of what he was doing -- which led him to thinking about the Kennedys -- about old Joe making all that money running liquor during prohibition, which, to Jack, damn near justified his own actions. No, better yet, it gave the whole thing a very American dynamic. Even made it somewhat respectable. But none of this seemed to help Jack's nerves. Jack decided that this would be his last run. He would go for a couple of beers afterwards, then go home and get some rest. Maybe in the morning he would even go see his dad, and take his old job back. His dad would be thoroughly impressed with Jack's new appearance. The shoulder length hair that had so severely disgusted him was now gone -- and he was clean shaven too. He looked like a young Republican, which was exactly what his dad had wanted -- had wanted so badly, had wanted for so long. Suddenly a sound -- the abrupt jarring of a door, which turned Jack around in his chair. Two men had entered the warehouse from the rear, and were walking towards him. One looked like an all-star wrestler with a tight orange t-shirt; the other looked like a convict -- a seasoned, weathered convict -- older and smaller, but meaner. Jack turned forward again. Did so on instinct. Don't look, don't stare. And don't make any eye contact. Just stay calm, stay cool and get t through this thing. Jack suddenly wanted out. His heart had started to pound. Two more people were sitting down in the chairs across from Jack -- and Jack hadn't even seen where they had come from. It was a man and a woman -- the woman Asian, elegantly dressed -- but it was the man that gave Jack the creeps. He was about forty-five, with tight oily skin and black eyes that didn't blink. He wore yellow slacks and a red golf shirt -- gold bracelets and big rings. He looked like a shark in country club attire. The man was dark, but he wasn't black. He wasn't Cuban or Mexican either. Jack didn't know what the hell he was, he just knew that the guy wasn't from the suburbs, and that he, Jack, wanted out. Jack suddenly felt like he was in a cave with a pack of wolves. The Asian woman sat at an angle on the chair next to the shark, her legs crossed, facing the shark but looking past him to the wall off to the side. She wore an expensive evening dress with golden earrings and flashy bracelets. She looked like she was on her way to a formal affair somewhere, her hair tied perfectly back in a stylish bun. She pulled out a cigarette from a golden case with a green dragon or seahorse on the side, and lit it. She never looked at Jack. She looked only at the pallets and pails along the wall, smoked her cigarette, and spoke to the shark -- speaking towards his ear, in a tone that Jack could not hear. The shark looked directly at Jack and asked him questions. Short, direct questions. Did he talk to anyone? Anybody touch the package? Did he touch the package? Jack nodded and shook his head and answered, “no” and “no” and “no,” in a voice that was higher than his own. The shark’s eyes made repeated contact with the two thugs behind Jack -- which kept Jack's heart pounding wildly in his chest. Then the convict stepped forward and took the pack off the table. He opened it up and checked the contents -- and as he did this, stepped back behind Jack again. The shark did not speak anymore. He just stared at Jack. The place was quiet. Exceptionally quiet. The only sound was the light business of the convict inspecting the back pack, and Jack's own heart thumping uncontrollably in his chest, which was now climbing up into his throat, taking the breath out of him -- which, when he opened his mouth to get air, made an audible clucking sound. Jack was sure of it. At this point, Jack told the shark that he could keep the money -- that he really didn't want it -- which, next, Jack thought was probably a mistake, as it could possibly be interpreted by the shark as an admission of guilt. The shark just held his eyes on Jack. The woman smoked her cigarette and stared at the pails. Jack knew at this point that the predicament was not good. He thought about offering the guy his car too -- which, before thinking any further, he did. Then Jack noticed the black eyes shift to the two men behind him again, and the next thing Jack knew, the two thugs had hold of his arms and were pressing them forcefully downwards onto the armrests of his chair -- one on each forearm, pinning them down with enormous force. It was at this point that Jack knew he had made a mistake. But Jack did not struggle. Again, it was instinct. Maybe it was the embarrassment of struggling and losing in front of a woman. Maybe it was the thought that if he didn't resist, that then maybe -- just maybe -- he would be treated with more mercy. Which, perhaps, was another mistake. By the time Jack noticed the syringe in his arm, the contents had been mostly dispensed. The convict had stuck it into Jacks lower forearm, just above his wrist -- which was another thing Jack had never seen before -- had never seen in the movies -- which again, for a fleeting moment, kind of pissed him off. In the movies they were always sticking needles into the upper forearm. But this was the wrist. And this stuff was real! -- and again, the goddamn movies had gotten it wrong! The syringe dropped to the cement floor and the two thugs continued to hold Jack's arms. Then the dark man and the Asian woman stood up and started away. Jack thought about a short story he had read a long time ago -- back in Junior High school -- about a man being hung on a bridge during the Civil War, who, when the trap door opened beneath him, imagined the rope snapping loose -- and himself then falling to the river below, where he swam ashore amidst heavy gunfire and then escaped into the woods -- after which, when he was finally in the clear, found that his fantasy had ended, and that the rope above his head was just cinching taunt and snapping his neck. Jack thought about his own fate. He thought about being burned in his car. He thought about being dropped off out in the middle of Lake Superior -- of being sunken into the depths, never to be found, to be forever preserved in the frigid darkness with the missing crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He thought about all the life he had wasted. Just goddamn wasted. Watching bad television, showing off, trying to impress people he didn't even like. He wanted nothing more now than to just walk – than to just breathe, than to just think. He thought about his ex-girlfriend and the stockbroker downtown. He thought about a girl he had known in school -- Sheryl Kruehns -- and wondered where she was, what she was doing. She was deaf -- and spoke in a funny monotone voice -- but she was very beautiful, and Jack had always liked her. Jack had often thought about Sheryl Kruehns, but had never let anyone know about that -- including her. But right now, for some crazy reason, Jack wanted to be with her. He wanted to be with Sheryl Kruehns like nothing more in the whole world -- and he wished that he could at least let her know about that. Jack tried to concentrate, tried to focus. He tried to stay straight -- tried to fight the drug -- just as he had done so many times in the past -- trying to sober up after getting drunk, after getting the spins. . . . He saw a fleeting image of his dog -- his best friend from his boyhood -- his dog Kipper. Jack had held Kipper while the vet slipped a needle into her fur and put her to sleep. It was the day before Jack had left for college -- left for Arizona State. Jack thought about his mother and wished that he could go home to see her, and maybe bring Sheryl Kruehns. . . . Jack was sorry for everything he’d ever done. He thought about God, and asked him for mercy. Not for help, but for mercy -- to clear his name, to make right for all the wrongs that he may have committed. He had never wanted to hurt anyone. He had never intended to hurt anybody -- and now he hoped that he never had. He also hoped that his mother would not find out. . . . He hoped she would never know about the places he had been . . . or about the things he had done. . . . He hoped he hadn’t disappointed her. . . . He hoped that. . . . He hoped . . . tha . . . * * * * * * * * * Victor Bull picked up the empty syringe and slipped it into his pocket. He took hold of the boy's body and lowered it from the black chair down to the cement floor, then carefully stretched him out onto his back. From his rear pocket, Victor pulled out a thick flap of bills held together by a single rubber band. He counted quickly through them with his tattooed thumb. Sixty of them. Then he reached down into the boy's inner jean jacket and felt around for an inside pocket, finding a holstered weapon -- which he left undisturbed. He thought for a moment, then folded the bills over and stuffed them into the boy's front jeans pocket, where they would be easily noticed upon waking, easily found. Victor Bull then stood upright again and glanced about for anything left undone. When satisfied, he walked away from the boy, crossing the warehouse floor to the door at the rear of the building, which he then stepped through, and pulled firmly closed behind him. ![]() Bio: Mark Thorson is the author of several screenplays including the award winning American Passage, and most recently, of the forthcoming collection of short stories Final Delivery, from which “Final Delivery” was published in the Prize edition of “The Mississippi Review,” and “The Poetry Bitch” published in Alaska. The full collection will be published sometime in 2018. His first play "To Cheat A Clown" was produced in Los Angeles where it received critical acclaim including a review from critic Eric Lerner, of the Los Angeles Herald who wrote, "This play is strong, funny, deeply emotional, and a remarkable work for a young playwright." Lerner also referred to the play as, "The debut of an important new American playwright.“ An Alumni of the prestigious American Film Institute, as a Screenwriting Fellow, Mark left the theatre to study script writing under Leonardo Bercovici, and was disciplined in dramatic structure by AFI's iconic headmaster, Antonio Valani. Mark’s education also includes higher institutions in both arts and commerce including Concordia College in Minnesota as well as the Harvard Business School in Boston. “It was a health scare about a year ago that prompted me to pick up the pen again. After several years of retirement from the theatre, I dug out my box of unseen, unproduced scripts and began to get back to work. Since then I have completed the play, “A Flower for Death in the Wild Wild West,” which was put into production this past summer in Minnesota. 8/18/2017 Art & Text by j4 Poetrage “back at the no-fun party for non-people” Object said the copy ( ) of the copy ( ) to the softest gaze. It actioned it. To the object the gaze hurried or part-time. Tongue gauze to hurried gaze to copy object. So press. To object with the most hurried ( ) that is, partial or part-time arbitrarily scabbed. Too curve ( ) and gloves eye pressure. A situation. Any situation of lighting & curve. Any simulation ( )curve to be chewed. Like parts curve of lightning (and sourc( )e material). Like any situation parts. Lighting of a situation. Close the data port to cilia on the material. Lighting ancilla. And on little lightning to be close. And to curve of chew toys and deaths of exteriors & someone named Larry’s nemesis. Not all the toys were taken by ext( pert)erior(i)s. Sour Gapes, Or Second Chances “deduction of the boof-boof” Stinky hinged like an encyclopedia petting. Petting hinged on to fairying the fountain at the food court. Petting lipped on ( ) and ober, thoroughly though mostly & through what followed. Petting on settling on sides anyways. Sides take time to be in leap. Times take too. The brown water ( ) lists. Lists repeat, object. To pet the people so their sides of being even made little even veins. Punctile pet in the veins. Any waves that left their leap. Petting ( )ly too heavy. Steady letting. The waves that let themselves make little veins. The waives that tick and meat. Tics tile to micro stop. Ok, op misc taco. Top to make like and to sap. Ok warn me when the hits & generably the breeze gap. Warm on the sporadic trying in focus to doing me. Do ober. Warn that when the local prom hits the breeze. Petty ( ) please. Like a ride in my boof-boof no postponing to the advantage of others. Trouble Sleeping “some pathos of the hinge” (Objects.) Hinge as feeling has a reach ring. As mirror of opposites expands and signs as it sings in glass doors inside the complex. Of course. As feeding each ring. As the glass doors feed. Feeling has a each bring reach and mirror. Feeding mirror of opposites expands and sings as it signs in glass doors inside the complex. Of course. The ethyl chloride rag. Hinge as rationale shut the front door. Lease space ( ) reminding among eyes. Reminding among you object removed for the (rejected) controverse. Object ( ) removed eyes. The eyes are slitting. To deepen the eyes are slitting among eyes. To deepen objects slit eyes ( and that was good head, brood hard ). To depend among and re(peat )minding(a ling). To deepen impockening darkness in both directions to objects. A person reminding among you specifically to relax. Relax & remind. Simplify your giving Text taken from Folie Partielle, the opening of Hyperphysical/Metattractive. ![]() Bio: j4 is a collective of four persons, all given names beginning with j, who are compelled to explore transindividual composition. — j4work.wordpress.com — j4work.tumblr.com Identity Theft It's often said that creating has the capacity to heal one, but in the case of New York based artist Trina Hall this statement holds literally true. After a series of tiny strokes left her debilitated, Trina found that "No medicines were able to touch the pain but after I started painting for the first time, I noticed I wasn't thinking about the pain. I lost myself in the beauty of color and over time, I was healed." Painting cleared out a space where physical agony could not follow. Such is the kind of art for which traditional commentary must be found lacking. Beyond the veil of truisms and comparisons all one can really say is that the encounter with such an art leaves one humbled and shook, inspired from a place deeper North than the intellect, a felt and unspoken observation deck. Hall's canvas's hold a series of objects on its surface, string, dried flowers, computer wires, hand prints, photographs, buttons, needles, an inventory of daily and uncanny juxtaposition, the paint sometimes oozing and alive, seemingly edible, flaking, stained. It contains all of the experiences of beauty and the sublime and inevitably of pain and confusion. A kaleidoscopic sensorium of the human experience. Messy, transcendent, life saving, for the artist and, one must hope, for the viewer as well. AHC: What has your own personal evolution towards a life in art been like, are there a series of moments you can recall where this path, this calling, began to become the one clearly marked for you? Trina: After college, I developed double vision and my left eye was unable to move. There was a pointed pain between my eye brows that left me debilitated. I was constantly being taken to the ER for testing (spinal taps, CTs, MRIs) to find out what was going on and how to treat it. No medicines were able to touch the pain but after I started painting for the first time, I noticed I wasn't thinking about the pain. I lost myself in the beauty of color and over time, I was healed. I think the creative process healed me where modern medicine couldn't. The Shift AHC: Could you explore and expand on some of the motivating ideas at work in your art and the process behind the making of them? How does the idea for you begin and what does its evolution look like during the stages of its development? Trina: I paint a feeling or a philosophy. It begins with noticing that I'm feeling something specific and my intention is to transfer it onto the canvas. My goal is to turn off the mind and get into the flow of whatever is wanting to be expressed. A lot of my ideas are about some aspect of the human experience and what that means to me. I always try to create something I like or something I find beautiful or true. Cloud AHC: You've described your relationship with painting as one that has been healing, beyond all that that entails for you personally and the process of creating work that helps define and hold you together in some respects, do you hope it might also have a similar impact on viewers, whatever shape or form that might take on for them as it gets translated into their own lives and perceptions, that it might also be healing or cathartic or transformative for others? Trina: All art has the potential to transform us. I do believe that we feel the energy that the artist was experiencing during creation of a piece when we stand in front of it. I can only hope that some people will connect with what I'm doing. Layers of Anger AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on you and your work or who just generally inspire you on some level, writers, filmmakers, comedians, musicians etc? Trina: Monet was the first artist whose work I stood in front of and thought, "I want to be an artist," so I find a lot of my technique is influenced by his work. I painted a series while listening to Peter Gabriel, one while listening to Andrew Bird, and one while listening to Jim James. I enjoy sonic landscapes and I find that wearing headphones while I paint allows me to be more fully in the moment. I'm inspired by philosophy and read parts of the Tao and the Yoga Sutras often. I love biographies and poetry (Mary Oliver, David Whyte) as well. People who pursue a creative life in whatever realm inspire me. Louis CK, Lena Dunham, and Aziz Ansari are my favorite comedian/writer/directors because they are making work in many forms that resonate with and inspire me. Mend AHC: What do you consider, personally, to be the most sacred and enduring aspects of art? How does it enrich our world and our cultural memory? How has it enriched or altered your own life? In your opinion, what does art, at its finest moments, bring into the world that would otherwise leave us more impoverished without it? Trina: Art can bring us together to engage in conversation that moves a society forward. Art point us to ourselves and allows us to open our minds and beliefs. The latest experience I had when art altered my life was when I went to see Sunday in the Park with George on Broadway. I went to the show five times because it was holding up a mirror to me so I could examine my own life in a new way. I simply cannot imagine a world without art. Non Stop AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away, that lit a fire in you? Trina: Monet was my first love but when I worked at the Dallas Museum of Art, I was able to walk through the galleries when no one was there and I remember being moved to tears by an exhibit of Van Gogh's Sheaves of Wheat. Looking AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for young artists and other creatives who are experiencing self-doubt in their art, frustration or blocks? What are the types of things that have helped you to move past moments where you may have become stuck creatively? Trina: All of the things we experience as humans are part of the process - don't think of frustration or being stuck as bad things. Allow them to permeate what you create. Sometimes you need to step away from making things to allow yourself to experience things. Self-doubt is good... that can be a sign that you're on the right path. Aura
AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about? Trina: I'm looking for a gallery in NYC that wants to show my series called Won Woman where I use mediums such as menstrual blood, human hair, buttons, wax, needles, thread, and oil. I'm also writing my second play and would love to collaborate on a television series. For more information visit www.trinatheartist.com/ All images © Trina Hall (courtesy of the artist) 8/17/2017 It's Good to Be Alive by Justin KarcherIt's Good to Be Alive Nowadays I spend my nights Drinking Atlantics of French press coffee While playing checkers with lemon macarons Just so my sweet tooth can exclaim, "King me!" It's good to be king like Mel Brooks says in that movie about history I'm glad I'm not ancient history It's good to be alive Nowadays I spend my nights eating the laughs of all my friends While we're having dinner at a French restaurant across the street From the Hyatt in Downtown Buffalo Where Main Street still has a long way to go Where this one night in June A group of twenty-somethings walked by us dressed like Bavarian yodelers And they were acting like assholes So Rich called them Nazis and we all giggled I wish some things were ancient history That night a doctor opened fire in a Bronx hospital and one woman died But it's tough thinking about death When Melissa's building marionettes out of dirty silverware And talking about how beautiful the green hills of Scotland are Because sometimes the shine in your life gets a little dirty So you gotta clean it off, make sure it's sharp like a heroic sword So you can go and save the world Make sure the quest you're on is a good and honest one Make sure you're always plucking the strings of a guitar that nobody else can see Music makes marionettes outta all of us That night President Trump had a wet dream about killing Obamacare And his little sperm swam through the holes in his confederate pajamas And then through the holes in his gold bedsheets And then through White House windows Into the poorest neighborhoods of America Where they tried building plantations inside the empty purses Of strong, single mothers And inside the cluttered cribs of babies Who'll never grow up to be haunted by their mistakes But it's tough thinking about death When Carly's pouring me coffee And I'm staring at her tattoos Sometimes her ink pulls my strings like I'm a marionette And I'm okay with that Because it's all music That night we talked about chasing UFOs in Martin Luther King Jr. Park Being abducted by the power of language The language of belief The truth is out there Anyway it's tough thinking about death How living a lie will smog up your sweet tooth So you trip over your bitterness and break into a million little pieces Yea, it's tough thinking like that Especially when Melinda's talking about the circus How there's this acrobat living inside each and every one of us And when we believe that we're all in this shit together Those acrobats bust loose outta us And we flex our muscles in the moonlight And declare that we are unbreakable And beautiful And will always survive And then there's me And all my friends And a love so strong That it transforms rusty nails Into lemon macarons ![]() Bio: Justin Karcher is the author of Tailgating at the Gates of Hell from Ghost City Press, http://ghostcitypress.tumblr.com/gcp003, the chapbook When Severed Ears Sing You Songs from CWP Collective Press, https://www.cwp-press.com/#/when-severed-ears-sing-you-songs/ and the micro-chapbook Just Because You've Been Hospitalized for Depression Doesn't Mean You're Kanye West from Ghost City Press, https://gumroad.com/l/karcher2017, as part of their 2017 summer micro-chapbook series. His recent work has appeared in Foundlings, Cease,Cows, Thought Catalog, varsity goth, Occulum and more. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Ghost City Review. His one act play When Blizzard Babies Turn to Stone premiered in February at Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, NY. He tweets @Justin_Karcher. DON (HERO)JUAN Did I know why heroin was better than sex? Because it is not human. — Statement of the Obvious Converse in the dark, the abject dark, where only bodies lie and lies reveal; the adrenal narrowing of all scope, every compass and every possible act to yielded desperation. Time, meaningless, brims a tiny present there, a moment good as past before it has begun, one that thrives like a cobweb among corners without memory. It lives, inhabitant of this deodorized darkness, precisely not to be able to, to be dead: a wraith draped unrelated, proud above any but a world material, where need takes the place of want, painlessness desire. She hides. He waits: a branch stripped bare, dried needles discarded at her feet. UM At these moments I feel its erosion, a catastrophic occluding of deluge: some slate wiped clean ― no, annihilation seldom slight ever is. Rain, through my window, drowning the desk, lessive, unsoppable apocalypse, a decomposing mill would seem to ground only being ― replete, repetitive reduction, spit from sputum, guttural monosyllable, through the throat, on the tongue: defenestrate, shatter, break ― that, unbroken, once done unto you ― mimic the monster, mouth, lip-sync, those screams. Rage, transparent, re-broadens isolation, every inert atom left fend for itself; claim failure; accept abandon, should shame prove predetermined, inevitable, even deserved ― nonreferential, such punishment without context; privilege, deny; no character suitable mirror obscure the smoke that blurs gotten into the eye. Caught nor yet alone, discovered, this time around, will find you, the sentence still rise: words, imploded; smashed against recall, make earth crack, flood, lightning flash! kill ― how to say. CRACK It’s flowers all around me, The valley below And my legs open wide to the sea; How high the tide may reach, Gently pointilliste, aches on fingertips. Visited cloud, resounding: Marble-murmured steep, Proclaimed — echoed climb; ascend meets Descent, the final mount, Arrest in chains: peak let flight alone obtains. Bio: John Jack Jackie (Edward) Cooper is the creator of These Are Aphorithms (http://aphorithms.blogspot.com), author of Ten (Poets Wear Prada, 2012), and Ten … more (Poets Wear Prada, 2016). His American English translation of Wax Women, with French texts of the original poems by Jean-Pierre Lemesle and photographs by Henry Jacobs (International Art Office: Paris, 1985), drew acclaim and dedicated full-window display from the Gotham Book Mart in New York — legendary fishing hole to the “wise” — released in the United States the following year. His work has appeared in Brownstone Poets 2013; The Venetian Hour, Dinner with the Muse, Part II; CLWR 49,CLWR 50; online at exitstrata.com; in the Sweet Tree Review (Summer 2016); and Rat’s Ass Review (Love & Enduring Madness); forthcoming, in the Unbearables anthology “Somewhere to Nowhere.” He is co-publisher and co-editor of Poets Wear Prada, a small literary press based in Hoboken, New Jersey, the birthplace of baseball, Frank Sinatra, and Blimpie’s. His whereabouts have been numerous, like his names, but unlike them currently unknown. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. 8/16/2017 Poetry by Leah MuellerTHE TELL-TALE SCREEN Technology streamlines argument: constant drumbeat, strut halo, jockey ahead of the others. The last word important, or failing that, silence. Ghost upon ghost. Soon nothing corporeal. No springs. No arm holes. Just machine. No one tries to stop. Instead, we fill in forms, check and re-check boxes, turn everything over, searching for flaws. We stay inside, transfixed by megabytes. At the park, I check the cavity of my purse five times, remember I left my screen at home. The urge to argue and document is strong, beats in the wall like a dead heart. I remember a time when none of it mattered. Now my ears overflow with the chatter of electronic squirrels. The cedar tree branches, their elephant bark. I place hands against trunk, stare at heavy overhead arms. Muscular branches tolerate no interference, yet give willingly, even to me. Each day I grow more frightened. In my dream, the tree uproots, topples forward. Its tentacle roots wave uselessly at indifferent birds. At home, the screen still pulsates like it is the most alive thing in the room. The switch never off, the buzz of mosquitoes. I lock front and back doors tight: cover them with bricks, as wind rustles against the sill, trapped in useless motion. CIRQUE DU SOLEIL You were a failed experiment on my living room carpet two nights after the earthquake. We shot pool at an Irish bar around the corner from my house and you told me a story: you split your head open on stage while taking a bow at the end of your show, and that was the end of your clown career. Or perhaps I was the end of your clown career, later with my legs in the air. It was the same carpet I'd rolled on when the quake waves hit, and there I was again, in the same position, doing my best to dodge falling objects. Your aerial act was revenge for a crime committed in another state, and you made certain I knew it. At the airport, you told me to stop my “Buddhist life-is-suffering bullshit” and bought me a bagel when I cried. Years later, your screenplay bombed at the box office, and I smiled knowingly at the two-star rating. Some folks succeed, while some split their heads open as they bow, and others never make it onstage in the first place. You have to keep experimenting until you discover a formula that finally works. Meanwhile, you'd better hang on tight to your beaker, and be certain to line the floor with newspaper in case of spills. ![]() Bio: Leah Mueller is an indie writer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks, “Queen of Dorksville” (Crisis Chronicles Press) and “Political Apnea” (Locofo Chaps) and two books, “Allergic to Everything” (Writing Knights Press) and “The Underside of the Snake” (Red Ferret Press). Her work has been published in Blunderbuss, Memoryhouse, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Origins Journal, Silver Birch Press, Cultured Vultures, Remixt, and many anthologies. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest. With Going Gone, Foote's vocal and lyrical honesty collects its fallen objects along a darkening shore line, gems on the underside of that quiet hour of our experience, Silence, a song which stands out, in part due to how beautifully its instrumentality is constructed and in part; how the voice that sings it absolutely soars and sears, where we, listener and composer, are "tall like an oak tree, it comes crashing down, bend till it broke me, till we broke ourselves down" And "though we fear the start of night it always comes around," the things we try to keep at bay have their own methods of finding us. A soulful and poetic album, each song comes brimming over with its struggles and its strength, quiet hour or bustling daybreak, the liminal space that makes a song spark with life lingers in our hearts and minds ever after. There are no magic tricks to making all of this happen, just sitting with yourself and writing it all out until something sticks and wont go away. Going Gone, here for an instant, fleeting and spectacular, if ever an album deserved a place in your home and in your heart, it is this one. AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Lindsay: “Highs and lows” is a good way to describe it. My feelings on my progress vary so much day to day—some days I feel like I’ve come so far, and other I feel like I’m getting nowhere. I’m learning to view the entire experience as a process, but I definitely find it hard to be patient! On the other hand, I’ve never been more proud of the successes that I have had, because I know I’ve really worked for them. I’ve learned how much personal initiative I have to take to make things happen carreer-wise—that was a game-changer for me. I think for a long time I was just waiting for something to happen, for someone to come along and help me. It wasn’t until I realized that I had to do everything myself that I started to move forward. It’s empowering and overwhelming at the same time— you prove to yourself how much you can do, but also are constantly taking on new challenges that you feel unprepared for. Or at least that’s how I feel! So yeah, lots of highs and lows. The lows can be pretty hard, but the highs are extremely rewarding. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Lindsay: I grew up surrounded by music—both of my parents are musicians, and my two brothers and I have followed in their footsteps! I’m so thankful to have grown up listening to amazing music. My parents love singer-songwriters, so they were the soundtrack to my childhood— Shawn Colvin, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Jonatha Brooke, to name a few. I used to read through all the lyrics in the CD inserts, trying to figure out what every song meant. I remember learning “Blue” by Joni Mitchell— my Mom had a song book of the whole record. “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Rait was another I always loved, and “I Don’t Know Why” by Shawn Colvin. In middle school I listened to John Mayer’s “Room For Squares” every day while I did my homework— I think I still know it all by heart! AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Lindsay: Yes! The first song I wrote was in 9th grade, and I think it was a break up song (the first of many, haha)! I was playing piano and I remember that it just sort of came out, and it made me feel so much better! I was hooked from then on. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? Lindsay: Of course I’ve learned so much from the songwriters I grew up listening to that I already mentioned. Recently I’ve also been super inspired by local songwriters in the Toronto scene. Michelle Willis, Danielle Knibbe, and Jaimee Harris (from Austin) are a few up and coming singer-songwriters that I really admire. All are such smart and honest lyricists, plus engaging and genuine performers. I’m lucky to see them perform and learn from them! AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Lindsay: I think there’s always a moment when a song clicks, and you know for sure that it works. There are those rare, magical times when that happens almost immediately— when a song feels like it falls into your lap fully formed. Most of the time though, it’s much harder to get to that point. The songs that I like most usually are very honest and have a clear story or point. So I think as long as you know what you’re trying to say, and asking yourself the right questions along the way, the song will eventually work. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Lindsay: Definitely. Songwriting is very cathartic to me, as I’m sure any other art form is to other artists. I find the easiest songs to write are the ones that are very personal to me, and often those are the songs that people connect to the most. I think even the saddest songs can give people hope— they remind us that we aren’t alone in our feelings and experiences. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Lindsay: Our recent album release show was definitely a highlight— we had a super attentive and engaged audience, and it felt so special to share everything we’d been working on. Some of my favorite times with my band are when we rehearse— figuring out arrangements and harmonies, trying new things, seeing the songs develop. We also just finished our first tour, which was a blast! Playing music every night while exploring different cities during the day is definitely the dream come true! AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Lindsay: I think that this is something I could incorporate into my songwriting more often. I tend to write songs very specific to my own life/ my personal relationships and journeys. I’ve been working on writing more outside of myself, but sometimes I struggle to feel like the songs are honest. Hopefully with more practice, “where the world is” can be reflected more in my music. AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks? Lindsay: I recently read the “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, which gave me lots of strategies to help with creative blocks and self-doubt. The hardest thing for me is trying to write without constantly judging my writing. I can get into downward spirals where I don’t like anything I write, and that negative energy keeps me from breaking the cycle. What I’ve learned is to keep writing every day, no matter what. If I’m struggling with a creative block, I try to remind myself that writing should be about experimentation and play, not a test of whether I’m a good writer. My brother is also a songwriter, and he reminds me that there are no magic tricks to songwriting, just practicing it every day. AHC: You just released your EP Going Gone last month, could you talk some about this record, how long did it take to write and put together, what the binding themes of this work are for you personally? Do you have any new projects moving forward or ideas that are percolating for the future? Lindsay: I think this EP was a big stepping stone for me, and I’m happy to say that I’m so proud of how it turned out! I spent about a year writing the EP, and in the same year started playing with my band— Chris Blachford, Malcolm Connor, Eslin McKay, and Belinda Corpuz. We had 3 days in the studio to record Going Gone, and did a lot of it live off the floor. The band and I worked together to come up with arrangements and really bring it to life. I think the initial inspiration for the songs was the end of a transformative relationship, and really being on my own for the first time. A lot of the songs are about facing tough truths and moving forward. As far as what’s up next, I’m looking forward to having more time this month to write, and will be touring the East Coast of the States this September. Just hoping to keep writing, performing, meeting new people, and learning along the way! For more visit www.lindsayfoote.com/ Going Gone available now @ lindsayfootemusic.bandcamp.com/releases 8/15/2017 Poetry by Rich BoucherThe Future Is Served I can’t. I can’t handle all the mass shootings 4th-of-July-fireworking their way all up in the daytime schoolyard skies all over my country every day, and so I’m going to cope with the fact that there are 300 hundred mass shootings in which 300 hundred gun-rack-and-UFC Americans kill each other every 300 minutes in the only way I know how: I’m going to eat something weird. This will be how I get by until I can’t get by. I’m going to eat this light bulb, smothered in peanut butter and maggots until my lips and my face and every other part of the mouth of me looks like a pizza with screaming red Salvador Dali for the toppings; maybe I won’t survive, but continuing to live while the news on television and on the internet keeps on drop-kicking the crotch of my mind is not an option and cannot be an option. I can’t. I can’t handle that my country tis of thee now has a president that I can president better than, and so now I am going to eat this handful of aaa batteries, now I am going to suck down this shot glass full of fire ants now I am going to bite into this plastic bag full of donated blood I’m going to bite my way into this can of Libby’s Green Peas without the aid of a can opener just so I can hear and feel every single off-white tooth of mine (every sweet child of mine) crack and snap off until the silver top of the can looks like I had the kind of accident where a lot of blood got out of me I raise my knife and fork and prepare to dig into this trusting, live puppy strapped on his back to the fine china plate; he’s happy and wheezing and small and I’d rather endure my first bite and his screams never looking at his face staring at the ceiling fan for as long as I have to than live a moment longer with a sanity that’s been soiled from constant exposure to Uncle Sham and all my fellow unamericans oh sexy pee escorts of the Ukraine and the Russian Moscow take me home I’ve got tons of breath mints Safe Haven I am standing in the candy and snack aisle of a 7-Eleven, and trying to decide which gum will be better for my breath for this trip. An old man is paying for something at the register, and because of my mind, I wonder if he is real, or if he is just a metaphor for all the old men who have escaped their realness and become metaphors. 1. 2. This is a story about me, about you, about the moment a decision must be made no matter how heavy the homework feels, about how even the smallest of crises (2% milk fat or skim?) can cast shadows so large (Storage unit bill or Netflix bill?) and from so high up (top button buttoned? three buttons undone?) that they loom, these shadows; they LOOM 2. ORGANIZATION IS A METHOD OF THOUGHT CONTROL 2-and-a-half. NOT ALL THOUGHT CONTROL IS BAD. 2. Math is not my strong suit 7,009. What can be done to stop people from numbering the parts of their poems? 2. There are terrible, terrible secrets in this world, and they know that they have a safe haven in me because I can truly sympathize with their position. 6. 6. 6. 9. When my parents were alive, they were only human, and therefore there were limits to what they could know about me. Now that they're both in the afterlife, they can see and know everything about me. 40. It's not selfish to want someone who is dead to be alive; it's arrogant. 41. Guilty as charged. 15. I am standing in the candy and snack aisle of a 7-Eleven and trying to decide which gum will make the least amount of noise at the funeral I'm headed to, drowning in the undertow vanity of imagining my own depth - 144 - see, God, you're not the only one who can multi-task. 7,009. What can be done to stop people from numbering the parts of their poems? 210. I am standing in the candy and snack aisle of a 7-Eleven, so full of privilege it hurts, trying to decide whichgumwhichgumwhichgum WHICH GUM will be better for my breath for this trip and there are wings inside of my ribcage, and I have no agency to set them free, so I'll keep counting until agency happens. 4. Agency will never happen if behavior never goes rogue. 65. We used to say that when a person was able to do something, it meant that that person was able to do that thing. 10. Now, we say that they have agency, because - SEVENTEEN - speaking in code makes us feel like much better spies. 54. Here I am in the candy and snack aisle of a 7-Eleven, trying to decide which gum reminds me of my aunt who used to babysit me when my mom had to work an extra long shift or two. I keep finding a better time (1) to have been born in; how about you? 7,009. What can be done? 3. Snarking on another person's expression of their pain is a rotten, misbegotten thing to do and (1968) I wish I was at a loss for words. Where was I? - EIGHT - Oh yes, 13, I mean 7, I mean 20 W. It's hard to assign numbers to the millions of thoughts that makes us bigger on the every inside than we are on the only one outside. Y. Because this is a story about me, about you 7,009. and WHAT CAN BE DONE to help those who are afraid to name the poems of all their hearts? ![]() Bio: Rich’s poems have appeared in Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Apeiron Review, The Mas Tequila Review, In Between Hangovers, Menacing Hedge, and Cultural Weekly, among others. From the summer of 2016 to the spring of 2017, he served as the Associate Editor and Weekly Poem Curator at Elbow Room Magazine. 8/14/2017 Timing by Ankita AnandTiming You were so brave that night, I'll never forget. Single-handedly you took on the driver of the 'shared' auto to assert that the correct fare was five, not ten rupees. An icy bead was frozen at the tip of your nose, your wrinkles subtly frowning at it not to act up in front of strangers, withholding it within their folds. 'This is what I always pay,' you said. I looked with awe at your mouseholed monkey-cap head that remained proudly erect while saying it, 'This is what I always pay.' You stood your ground, not moving away till you had made your point, though you could have moved away, now that you stood on your own ground. The rest of us sat quiet in the auto, breathing a bit easier in the vacant space you had left behind. It was soon going to descend on us that the cold would also bully us worse, finding us weaker by one. Till an hour ago, we had not known of your presence. Now we found it hard to make do with just the memory of you. We missed the easy intimacy our knees and shoulders had established with yours, discovered in the rhythm conducted by the auto. I had become related to you when I had inhaled the bonfire ash of your clothes and had make-believed warmth. And now that you were out there, the 'out there' we had all been saving ourselves from, we did not even dare to unshawl our faces lest they got slapped by the wind. We did not know whether we should commiserate with the plaintive driver in his losing battle, who was whining, 'If this is what you always pay, you should've said so in the beginning.' We did not know if you needed us to be with you, in an already won but long lost battle, at least sharing your triumph if not your struggle. By the time the frustrated auto restarted, I was glad of one thing. I was relieved that you said so in the end ('This is what I always pay') and not in the beginning (good for you). I am glad you did not say it any earlier, when you could've been left behind by the auto driver (though it would have been pure business, nothing personal), between a lonely village and an urgent town (Date: 13 January, Time: 8.26 pm) with hardly any other vehicle around to bail you out, neither for five rupees nor for ten. ![]() Bio: Ankita Anand is a writer-poet-performer based in Delhi, India. An archive of her publications can be found here: anandankita.blogspot.in 8/14/2017 Poetry by Mark YoungKey Largo I have a new favorite piece of Bach, the largo from the Piano Concerto #5 in F minor. It is what I call walking music. The pace of it, the expanse. French avenues or neo-Grecian porticos. Last Year at Marienbad. Once again I walk down those ornate baroque corridors… or however it goes. Somewhere I have heard it before, perhaps used in a film, perhaps a version by the Modern Jazz Quartet, one of those strange pieces that John Lewis would mix into their tuxedo-clad repertoire. Seemingly a serious ensemble, then suddenly Milt Jackson would take off all dazzling, & beneath his lines those Lewis blues notes on piano, curving away. & the accompanying small grunts, the smile as Jackson did something that delighted the pianist. A largo is a movement in slow time with a broad dignified treatment. This Bach largo is emotion in a landscape, a wide path that passes between & beneath old trees just after the encroachment of autumn. For once, I am elegant in an environment. It is a part of me I can never hope to otherwise be. gastric umbrage Run these experiments in a test-tube. The true mule aficionado will take alarm as they stand at their gate in their dressing-gown. Ex- pect also a strong reaction from vegetarians. There’s evidence of classical defense mechanisms in play here. Brahms' Lullaby A loosely structured substance or a low threshold requirement such as a grocer or newsagent is not enough to generate the derivation of extrinsic inter- pretations. In Japanese, "my" or "mine" can be expressed as watashi no. Such possessives are not strongly distinct in meaning from a cluster of properties or winter apparel like scarves. Elsewhere, the higher ranks wonder if a basic grasp of menial skills alone will be enough to carry them through. The answer to that is both yes & no. Indolent apertures I receive at least one call per day for the $1,000,000 Jamaican Lottery. The creature is immovable, exerts much influence, promotes humiliating racial pro- filing. Ever since the days of Galileo, most teachings of astronomy are false & pernicious. A line from Bernie Sanders The workshops were convened against a background of concepts relative to defining seismic source zones. Thermal & geodetic modeling of the movement to- ward oligarchy shows that under high induced stress & high levels of mine extraction it begins to find voice in violent discourses, to exhibit brittle behavior, to break into pieces when subjected to intense compressional stress. ![]() Bio: Mark Young's most recent books are Ley Lines & bricolage, both from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York. |
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