Wayne Scheer

Celebrating Memorial Day

Jack Spalding, a Vietnam veteran, knew Memorial Day was supposed to be a time of remembrance. But for him, it was a time he tried to forget.

Every Memorial Day, he'd sit with a bottle of scotch and drink until he passed out.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" Lois asked, but after thirty-eight years of marriage she understood.

"Just leave me alone."

She knew better than to fight him. "I'm going to my sister's. I'll be back this evening."

"Go." He squeezed her hand. Avoiding her eyes, he whispered, "I'll be all right."

She knew he'd drink in silence, play an old Country Joe and the Fish album over and over, maybe a Crosby, Stills and Nash, and pass out.

She'd come home and help him into bed.

He'd apologize.

Lois knew his apologies weren't meant for her.

CP

Wayne Scheer has received four Pushcart nominations and a Best of the Web. His collection of twenty-four flash stories, Revealing Moments, can be downloaded at http://pearnoir.com/thumbscrews.htm.

Ian Chung

Les Maudits

Somehow our eyes will meet
over the bobbing heads,
under the strobe lights,
and we will step across
to begin our jointly
transient destiny
with a flute of champagne
for each of us. 'Alone?'
One question: I will be
rhetorically yours,
content to be wanted,
intoxicated by
the power that it brings;
the club will be too big
for this, our pas de deux.
I will be all alone
in this dank meat market,
where the flawless faces
never break down and cry,
where the musclebound gods
never display to you
their atrophied remains
of the only muscle
that matters. Blood will sing
and I will obey it,
feeling your steady pulse
as I kiss your bare neck.
Sex is commodified,
sold as discounted love,
and yet we will be but
two of many willing
buyers gathered tonight
to celebrate the ends
of all such beginnings;
the same old story, made
new each night by its cast.
Then you will take my hand,
leading me out the back
to a cheap apartment
and even cheaper beer,
but I will wait until
you are in the shower
to clutch your tattered shirt
and inhale the scent of
alcohol and regret.

CP

Ian Chung reads English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, but was born in Singapore, where the name of his course typically earns him skepticism that it is actually a degree.

Lx

the teeth of the machine grind you up slowly

fuck it let's all smoke cigarettes she says
(she's exhausted)
what good is it anyway all this all this static
all this being proper and virtuous and careful
banging your head against a steel wall
let's all smoke fuck it
and she collapses on the bed softly
i pull the covers over her
she moans something but it doesn't matter
it will be there for her tomorrow
i shut off the lights close the door
pour three fingers of cold gin
and sit down in the dark

CP

Lx writes fiction on (S)wine: ShortLeanCuts, and has been published in The Legendary, Trick With a Knife, Amphibi.us, and Girls With Insurance. He is usually rejected by all the others.

Diana Salier

you came home late one day

and we sat in two vinyl chairs
facing each other
across the kitchen table
like inmate and visitor.

you told me that next summer
you would flee this country
to build houses
practice your spanish,
maybe play football with the local boys,
maybe move back here
in a year
or two, or three,
or ten–

you’re really not sure. but
i know it doesn’t matter
because by then we’ll be
twenty-three
or twenty-four
or thirty-one, and time will just

pile up
like dishes
in the
sink

on hollywood boulevard

an old lady stopped me tonight
outside the american cinematheque

she offered to read my palm.
i said no thanks

i don't want to know
when i'm gonna croak
if i'm gonna choke
or how many hours
are left in the day

i don't even want to know
what i'm having for lunch
tomorrow

so i pulled my jacket in closer
as though it was a former,
yet faithful
lover
and kept walking down hollywood boulevard
heading west,
stepping on all the stars

i think i still carry a torch for you

but it's not really a torch
so much as something to hide behind.

isn't that a romantic notion?

it’s hiding in the bushes so you don't
get shot, but never leaving, anyway
even when you know for certain
that the coast is clear

i guess it’s just more comfortable
wearing camouflage pants
in the middle of summer
pretending to defend against the enemy.

it's not the iraqis we're afraid of.

it's a pretty girl who will
eat your yogurts
compliment your sweaters
share burritos in the east village
and visit you in central park
if you're in town on a warm day,
like woody and mia must have done.

i'm in the west
and you're in the east
and maybe somewhere
in the middle we'll meet

CP

Diana Salier collects sad songs with a happy beat and would like to meet the ghost of J.D. Salinger. She is currently at work on her first full-length poetry collection, A Pretty Girl to Sleep Beside and the Occasional Chocolate Chip Cookie. She lives and writes in Los Angeles.

Dana Verdino

Like Wanting Flowers

The trees in the yard were old and tall, and their branches were here and there, like a broken umbrella in the sky. It was March and the evening wasn’t yet black but rather a Carolina blue, and winds rocked the aging branches while buds fell free, never to become leaves. We sat at the kitchen table overlooking this backyard scene, and we ate cavatelli I rolled with my hands. John ate voraciously and this always pleased me, as I took it that he appreciated my food so much so that if I were to die, he’d talk about it forever to his future wife, about how he misses my pasta and my seasoned potatoes and my chicken cutlets. There were times of course, when he ate hesitantly, and these were times I hadn’t cooked well, or there were too many vegetables mingled in.

“So what are you going to do to help me? To help us?” I asked.

“We’ve been to three different fucking doctors. Nothing. All these specialists and no one knows.”

“I’m alone here,” I said. “You’re still painting and dipping. I’m doing everything—doctors, pills, tests.”

John picked up a chunk of tomato from the tomato sauce and threw it onto my plate. I thought I got them all. “I have to paint. That’s what I do,” he said. “You drink and smoke.”

“I have to,” I said.

“Right. Or else you’ll start hammering holes into the walls and break the vacuum, giving me more work to do around here.”

It was true but I would tell him all the time that I didn’t like to vacuum, or that it wasn’t made properly. And as for the walls, I’d tell him that it was just the way I do things, it was how I made my decisions. So what if it left holes and scratches and gashes? He was a painter. He could fix it. I had to do what I was good enough to do, which was colors and fabrics and the modern way things should go together.

“Just be patient,” he said, and this made me want to scratch myself. He said this too often, like when I said I wanted new couches, a beach vacation, and cartoon pictures for the nursery.

I poured a glass of wine and went upstairs to change my clothes. I undressed in front of the mirror over my dresser, then folded my hands on my naked belly, not intentionally. I guessed it was one of those things that happens automatically to a woman, like wanting flowers. Then I put on velour pants and a t-shirt, and went back downstairs for more discussion. Of course now John was fully engaged in a baseball game, and I sat next to him on the couch. I didn’t have patience for baseball, so I looked out the french doors to the backyard and the blackness of the sky coming down, and I asked John if he’d like some ice cream for dessert.

CP

Dana Verdino lives in South Carolina with her husband and animal friends. She has an M.A. in Education, and works as an ESL teacher but secretly hopes to win the lottery so she can do plenty of nothing but write. Her stories have appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Postcard Shorts, and others.

Russell Streur

ANNA DRINKING TENDERS AN OFFER

What's mine is yours
Anna Drinking tells Joseph's son one afternoon
In that practiced voice
A practiced woman learns along the way

And if she notices
He doesn't return the vow
The sentence can't be any worse
Than any other felony pending in Fulton County Georgia

So after smoking her peace

In a glass pipe
She sleeps that night beside him
Later in the dark to the sound of Dexter Gordon's saxophone

Innocent
Until proven guilty.

ESCAPE VELOCITY

What goes up they say
Must come down
But I'm not going to
Fall for that.

All I need to square the root
Of twice the gravitational contrast
Times the radius of a celestial object
Like for instance your anatomy tonight

Is one more second's worth of speed
25,000 miles per hour
Give or take on earth
One more foot of altitude enough to be

Permanently
High on you.

CP

Russell Streur is a born-again dissident residing in Atlanta, Georgia. His work has been published in the United States, Ireland and Switzerland and he has recently opened the doors of The Camel Saloon, a bar for dromedaries, malcontents and jewels of the world. The first drink is on the house.

James Lloyd Davis

Being Picasso

His full name? Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. No man with a name like that could ever do anything in a small way. Neither could he be anyone but an overpowering, vital, and inimitable force in whatever world he chooses as his own. Picasso chose art.

I will now attempt to become Picasso. Stepping into the persona of such an enormously powerful luminary may be too great a task for any mortal man, but for the sake of art and knowledge I will now apply the Stanislavski method in the more powerful literary sense and become Picasso. To my knowledge, this particular application of a process normally used on the stage has never been attempted previously and the possible effects are not really understood.

I will now try slipping into the essence of Picasso for whatever period of time my psyche will permit.

***

I am Picasso.

Please. You will be seated.

I will not discuss art. Nor will I touch upon politics. Yes, I was a Communist. No, I was not a Communist. The relevance of either condition must remain the petty consideration of my biographers.

I am Picasso.

I will not discuss women. They love me. They hate me. They will always talk about Picasso. How could they not? The form of women is worthy of oils, but I must be kind and refrain from discussing them. I enjoy them. I despise them. Let the petty gossips of history debate the ecstasies of impertinent moments.

I am Picasso.

I will not discuss my fellow artists. Their opinions belong where they are valued. My opinions, however, will not save them. They copy, they borrow, they steal from Picasso, but they are not Picasso.

I am Picasso.

I will not debate the relevance of pacifism, nor defend or deny the accusations of those who have decried my lack of involvement in the cause of liberty when the fascists threatened the freedom of the entire world. I painted, I cast bronze, I survived so many wars. Let those who judge do what they will.

I am Picasso.

What more is there to say?

You may applaud now. After which...you will leave.

***

Being Picasso has left me entirely drained, so I must now lie down. It is also dangerous. Please don't try this at home.

CP

James Lloyd Davis, a veteran and former electrician, shipfitter, pipefitter, boilermaker, ironworker and engineer, lives in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He has returned to writing after a long absence and is currently working on a novel. He blogs occasionally and experiments with various forms and styles.

Cezarija Abartis

Starlight

Donna was past her best years, she knew that. At one time she believed she would be touched by magic, transformed perhaps into a star or genius or goddess. She had instead become more plump, and her brown hair was thinner. She remembered a time when she was seventeen and she believed the world would be hers.

She sniffed as she moved between the tables. She had a cold. When she walked past the mirror she saw her nose was red. While she wished she were taller, she did not wish it with the fierceness of her youth. She accepted the slump she had slid into: that was life, that was growing old, older, oldest.

“Hello, Judy.” Donna waved to her middle-aged colleague who taught algebra. Judy was undergoing a divorce and, worse than that, breast cancer. Donna didn’t really have any right to self-pity in this situation. Judy sat up straighter on the chair, smoothed her hair, made a wide smile on her face, and waved at Donna. One of their students, Tony, brought Judy a drink from the punchbowl, and she raised it in a toast. He became bashful and took a step back.

“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” Donna said. The principal sat on a folding chair against the wall and under the green and silver streamers. He looked tired. He had to go to every event, smile at every parent, argue for a bigger budget, and explain why the water coming out of the faucets was rust-colored in the spring. He said, “Good to see you, Donna.” He gestured around at the hall. “The kids have done a wonderful job decorating it.”

Tinfoil stars glittered on the ceiling; a banner above the door announced the April dance; a white cloth, still unspotted, covered the table holding the refreshments and a vase of chrysanthemums; on a smaller table was a glass jar with wands topped with stars. The juniors had decided on the theme of magic for the dance.

“Hello, Jim,” she said. He was the art teacher and helped the students with the stencils and cutouts. He sat next to his pregnant wife, Jennifer. Donna liked the promise of new life and was glad that Jennifer had come to the dance.

The electric lights were dimmed, and the votive candles flickered on the tables. The girls in their party dresses and the boys in crisp, long-sleeved shirts played at being grown-up. The music that wafted around them was an old tune, the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” Jim took Jennifer’s hand and led her to the center of the floor, and they embraced in a dance. Tony danced with Courtney, Steve with Rhonda. The kids danced around Jim and Jennifer, swirling, hanging on to each other, as if they could be saved forever.

CP

Cezarija Abartis teaches at St. Cloud State University. Her collection, Nice Girls and Other Stories, was published by New Rivers Press. Her work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Review, Ghoti, Everyday Genius, Word Riot, New York Tyrant, among others. Recently she also completed a novel, a thriller.

Tyler Bigney

Suppertime

Hiding under the oak table
with my two brothers
at suppertime
watching
as father threw mother
across the kitchen
into the sink
into the table
against the stove
and spilling
the boiling pots
of potatoes, carrots,
broccoli, and turnip
that were supposed to be
for supper.

To my brothers
it appeared
as if I wasn’t scared,
and that’s because I was the oldest
and was taught
and told that
it was my job
to be the bravest
and I was.

I told my brothers
to count aloud
and wait for the sun
to sneak in
through the cracks in the blinds.
But when the sun
wouldn’t come
I pulled the tablecloth
down over the table
and whispered for my brothers
to plug their ears
close their eyes,
ignore the pangs of hunger
aching in their bellies
and dream of sun
instead.

Ghost

Sometimes
long after
I have smoked
my last cigarette
of the night,
I find a ghost
wearing your perfume
in my bed
and she doesn’t
answer my questions
or tell me anything
I didn’t know
but it’s nice to lay
there like that
and watch movies
and have someone
to talk to
until the sun
comes up.

CP

Tyler Bigney lives in Nova Scotia. He divides his time between working, writing, and traveling. His poetry, short stories, and prose have appeared in Poetry New Zealand, Underground Voices, Nerve Cowboy, among others.

Anthony Liccione

the coming

when the wolves
creep into town
a quarter past
a fifth of whiskey
from the bottle
is gone,

the hills
hide their faces,
sharp teeth dangling like
stars,
rabbits slip sleep away
in their beds of blood,

and I sit inna room
dimmed with light,
unable to sleep
chewing on the world
full of war, hypocrisy,
deceit and murder,
the tense of jobless
and a foreclosure
paper on my table

just knowing that
awful newspaper
will soon be coming,
shotgun from a car window
missing the porch steps
and landing on the dew lawn,
six in the morning.

CP

Anthony Liccione lives in Texas with his two children. His poems have appeared in several print and online journals, and he has four collections of poetry books.

Anthony Liccione

what tomorrow may bring

sometimes its like a time
bomb
waiting to explode,
two days ago
it was over
the lawn mower
needing a new
spark plug,
today it was
an argument
on why I didn't
put jackets on the
kids before school,

that's how
we are,
always have been,
with just
one slip of words,
crushed eggshells,
we're at war,
each other's throats
and loaded guns
in our tongues,
chrome in our
knuckles,

it always happens
like this
where glasses
will get broken
slaps exchanged
like handshakes
of friends turned
enemies, a judas
kiss to jesus;
then the screech
of tires to the
nearest bar,

where anxieties
will go down,
and butterflies
will come up,
and I'll return
home,
with wings
a new man,
lay next to
her light in sleep,
she will turn
to me with her hand
and no words
for what had
happened,
following down
between my legs
and bring me up,
and we will have
unremorseful sex,
and return to our
separate ends of
the cold bed,

and sleep in the
fierce of what
tomorrow will
bring.

CP

Anthony Liccione lives in Texas with his two children. His poems have appeared in several print and online journals, and he has four collections of poetry books.

Jann Everard

SAFEKEEPING

“Mom, where’s the leather portfolio with all the important papers? Did you move it from Dad’s desk to the bedroom? Could it be in the top drawer of your bureau?”

Or the drawer below? Or the drawer below that? This is today’s game of twenty questions.

Mom sits on her commode like a queen, wearing all her jewelry but not a stitch of clothing. I wrap a midnight blue pashmina around her bony shoulders and pool it in her lap. I wait for either a bowel movement or a mental connection. Either would be a small victory.

“Yes, that’s where the treasure is, dear.” She tilts her head as if I’m a ladies’ maid. “Lipstick?” She smiles, and I oblige with Devil May Care Red before I rush to the bureau.

Finally. For days I’ve been looking for the will, the insurance, the accounts—everything Dad so carefully prepared before he died.

The bureau drawer catches; its contents overflow.

Inside is milk bag upon plastic milk bag, neatly labeled and closed with a salvaged bread tie: Things Sam took out of the back of the TV. Seeds stolen from the Paris garden. Myrtle’s hair. Dried blood for the roses.

Who’s Myrtle? When were you in Paris, Mom? Whose blood?

Her treasures—secrets I can’t unlock anymore.

“Mom, where’s Dad’s portfolio?” Damn, I didn’t mean to be that loud.

She strains. “What’s that terrible smell, dear? Do take care of the kitty litter.”

And because the cat is long gone, I do. There, stashed in the litter box, is the portfolio.

I wait until my body stops shaking from exasperation or fear. I hug all that remains ordered of my parents’ lives.

CP

Jann Everard lives in Toronto and writes when she’s not feeding ravenous teens or unruly cats. Her work has appeared most recently in The Globe and Mail, Existere, Ascent Aspirations, The Los Angeles Review and is forthcoming in Room and The Nashwaak Review.

Irena Pasvinter

I Remember This Book

I remember this book,
It stood with Nostromo and Typhoon,
Lord Jim in white letters
On its grayish spine.
I remember it in my father's hands,
He is lying on a couch,
Slowly turning the pages,
Entranced by Joseph Conrad.
How come I'm forty and
I still have not read it?


I'm reading it now, better later than never,
Pull it out from my dusty bookshelf,
From a cluster of Conrad's titles.
That's all that is left from my father—
My brother, I and a bunch of soft covers,
All still in a good condition.

I'm reading Lord Jim,
It captivates me by its exquisite sound,
Talks to me from its solemn pages,
Mixing grief with ironic sparkles.
All the time I see my father
With the same book on a couch.
If only I could ask him...tell him...
Perhaps he's reading over my shoulder
Smiling with satisfaction.
Sure, I don't believe it,
I know he quit reading forever,
Still he is here with me
Between the Lord Jim lines.

CP

Irena Pasvinter earns a living by software engineering and happiness by writing. Several of her poems have been published in different corners of the Internet.

Donal Mahoney

The Honey Room

Brother Al, in his hood,
is out in his field
making love to his bees.
From my room I can see him
move through his hives
the way people should move
among people.
The bees give him gold and the gold
turns orange in the jars
that he sells in a room
near the door of the abbey.
The Honey Room, everyone calls it.
Besides Brother Al, only I
go into that room full of honey.
I go in there and bend
and look through the jars
on the shelves and the sills
till there in the orange I see Sue
standing straight
in a field of her own
with a smile
for our garland of children.

—first appeared in Commonweal Magazine, 1969

Those Good Tomatoes

Chicago, South Side

Late July and I am waiting
for those good tomatoes
brought to the city from farms
on trucks with a swinging scale,
brought to the city
and into the alleys
by Greeks and sons
in late July
and early August,
tomatoes so red they reign
on the sills of my mind all winter
too perfect to eat.

—first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, 2008

CP

Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His work has appeared in The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other national and international publications.

Sean Lovelace

This is Literally all the Info I have at the Moment

We came across a sign on which DRUGGED had been painted in crude brushstrokes. There were two of us left, and L opened the sign with some form of lubricated saw. Out fell a blue key. We walked for miles. (I won’t say how far. Impossible now to revisit those footsteps—their odd, alluring rhythm. It took me so long to…well. I know those foot-rises/footfalls were everything. Or let me quote L: “This type of walking worries. I have moments I prefer it to the light, to the water or the very air we breathe.”) L would leave the path, to stagger off into shafts of shadow. Would complain of irritability. Would demand we stop. Why? To install a window in a nearby tree. To vacuum up the snow. (L insisted we were suffocating in snow; simply not true.) To set up a field kitchen or dig a slate-lined vat. I said no. We instead stopped by a tumbling stream for a light meal of yogurt cups. Then discovered the cavern.

Lady Day falls from a door in the ceiling.

Lady Day wipes off her knees, clears her throat, rearranges a wilted gardenia pinned to her hair.

Lady Day sighs. We inhale, and finally sleep.

(You didn’t even use the key!

Oh you. Still not listening.)

[blue]

CP

Sean Lovelace teaches creative writing at Ball State University. HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS is his award-winning flash fiction collection by Rose Metal Press. His works have appeared in Crazyhorse, Diagram, Quick Fiction, Sonora Review, Willow Springs, and so on. He blogs at seanlovelace.com. He likes to run, far.

Thinkingtoohard

Reasons

Because something spilled on the hardwood floors and I knew your back was already sore, so I offered to mop it up. And you replied, “We don’t need you in here.”

Because when you come home after a long day and shuffle past me without a hello or a smile, you still have the energy for a welcome hug for the kids.

Because when I call you for supper, you will sit at the table with a sigh of disapproval. It’s 5:45 pm. Dinner is 15 minutes late.

Because that quarter of an hour will be harped upon for at least a week.

Because when I am crying you will pretend you don’t see or hear me.

Because when I reach for you in bed, you will pull away as though electrocuted, mumbling at the early hour you must get up.

Because when I am sick, you will be angry.

Because that kind of control gets you off.

Because that’s what you’re made of.

That’s why I cheat.

CP

Thinkingtoohard is super-sassy, a smart girl who walks with a hint of a swagger. She is the original Storm Goddess and also the girl next door. She has killer intuition—and way too many dogs. Once upon a time, she was actually paid to write.