Jack T. Marlowe

armed with pragmatism

old Jorge likes
the feel of the
.357 magnum
in his grip

a firm
handshake
with a stainless
steel angel

sent to
watch over
his tarnished
barrio.

the heft of the
piece gives
comfort, but
not as much
as his dreams'
homesick
recuerdos:

a simpler
world 
seeming
a mythic
lifetime
ago

the '67 chevy
impala, red
parked out
front, with no
alarm needed

a constellation
of fearless
but peaceful
neighbors

the pragmatic
revolver on
the nightstand
unimagined.

CP

Jack T. Marlowe is a working-class malcontent from Dallas, Texas. A writer of poetry and fiction, he is also a veteran of the open mic. His work has appeared in decomP, Red Fez, Word Riot, Agua, Beat the Dust, and elsewhere.  Jack is also the editor of Gutter Eloquence (www.guttereloquence.com).

Alexandra Isacson

 

Ashes on Paper

It was the morning I caught my best dress and pulled a red silk thread when I heard of your death. My dreams smelled of musty white roses the night before. Your last wife had you cremated, so she could keep you all to herself in her hourglass of sand. But I buried your ashes in the flickering dim DNA staircase I eternally descend, unwinding the sepia film of you.

Of course she killed you—with her cooking and her nagging. It was practical. Insurance policies and investments. Did she find the nude black and white photographs in the consciousness of your darkroom? Or did she find the carefully flung stocking with the serpentine run, snagged by the hasty brush of your thumb?

Even the stray cat outlived you. Weeds went wild and the grass never got watered or mowed. Pomegranates fell out of your trees, rotted with dried umbilicus flower cords. Then she had the old lady across the street, whom you hated, sell your house right out from under your dead man’s feet. All I can do is throw ashes on paper.

—First appeared in PANK, 2009

Black and White Photographs

There is a strange man outside parked in a car, and he's gazing at my house. On a whim, I go out alone in a bathrobe. I wave him over and talk. He used to live here. I remember his name from neighborhood stories: divorced twenty-some years ago.

After moving in, we found a cache of black and white photographs. I wanted to return them, but she left them in the attic. Wedding pictures from the sixties: her wearing pearls, smiling holding a cat; baby girls; a yellowed newspaper clipping of their wedding: him in an army uniform all somewhere lost in a box in our laundry room.

I invited him in to look for the photographs and didn’t know if I could find them. He was in a trance and looked out the French doors into our back pasture. He built the tree house in our Chinaberry. Outside,  he touched their family names he had poured together in concrete.

His wife’s funeral is tomorrow. I didn't recognize her name in the obituary earlier in the morning. I couldn’t find the pictures of her holding the cat. I couldn’t tell him that. He held the pictures in his shaking hands, shuffling through telling me about their mysteries. Tonight he will take them for her viewing to show his daughters.

—First appeared in Dogzplot, 2009


CP

Alexandra Isacson is a graduate of Arizona State University and lives in the Phoenix area. She loves gardens and art. Her work appears or is forthcoming in >kill author, Emprise Review, decomP, Medulla Review, among others. Visit her at alexandraisacson.com.

Frances Gapper

 

Looking out

Opening the kitchen door on her hands and knees in the dewy early morning, Lizzie noticed the scent of honeysuckle, then somewhat painfully adjusting her position to peer around the door frame, she saw a couple of pale yellow flowers perched on a tendril that had wound itself over the fence from next door, also she noticed how from this low place the garden looked  mysterious, winding into an unknown future beyond the purple clematis on the shed, and remembering her tiny walnut tree, grown from a nut, she thought she would go out later—the step would be the hardest bit—and turn the pot around, to help it grow straight.

CP

Frances Gapper's stories have been filmed in Barcelona, made into art in Manchester and displayed in a festival tent in Saskatoon. A couple can be seen at http://www.francesgapper.co.uk/

Martha Williams

 

Heading West

I love him.

He's sitting beside me, glued to the television. I'm at my PC. We stare past each other. I have my electronic friends, he has his televised beliefs.

We toy with the idea of going to bed but my body's in poor shape; I don't want him to see it. He's torn between his penis and his throat and the whisky wins. One more won't hurt.  We smile and call our inertia ‘relaxing'.

The air hangs heavy. My friends log off to bed. I can head west; my blog says Nevada's online.

He says, he's going away next week. I can't go; the kids are in school. It's just a few days. OK.

He says, I need to respect his needs; he needs to go. I say, OK. I respect him, he can go.

I'll look forward to him coming back.

I'll start looking forward to that now, then.


CP

Martha Williams lives and writes in the UK. Her work has appeared in The Linnet's Wings, The Pygmy Giant, Metazen, 6S, and more. Her stories and links are available at www.marthawilliams.org

Susan Gibb

 

Tea Party

Merrilee twisted the tube of ruby red lipstick and drew her mouth into a heart. She powdered her face and swirled peachy rouge on her cheeks. She took one last look in the mirror and reached for the Muguet, her favorite, and sprayed it on each side of her neck just under the ears, on each wrist, and a poof on her throat.

She hopped down from the bench and clomped in shoes much too large for her across the bedroom and down the hall to her own room.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” she greeted the three who sat waiting for her at the small table. “How lovely of you to have come.” She poured out pretend tea with a gracious smile. She sat and took a sip of her tea, then held out a plate of make-believe cookies.

A woman came up and stood in the doorway. She shook her head at the sight in Merrilee’s room. “Have you been in my things again?” She sounded annoyed but not really angry.

Merrilee started to cry. The woman came over and knelt down by her chair.

“Oh, it’s all right, Mother, it’s all right. You look very pretty today.”

CP

Susan Gibb is a dedicated reader and writer of  fiction and poetry in traditional and hypertext form and is pursuing further study into narrative in new media formats and has taken part in combined arts projects and presentations. Her work has appeared in The Blue Print Review, elimae, metazen, Litsnack, and many others.

Rachel J. Fenton

Coasting

On shore in the dark—
not night—
two thousand miles
between us; ocean flicks
its tongue.

Pick a shell,
lift it to my ear; it sighs
into me.

And there is sand between my toes.

Tumbling

“Doing quiet somersaults
thinking of you”;

I have run away
with your circus.

Plumbing

He'd never managed to fix your tap
and his car set tongues wagging
but he saved your life

though all you can report is that you saved his.

You knew it was a heart attack
when his plumb line went flat

but your husband wasn't convinced
it was necessary to remove the plumber's
trousers to give him mouth to mouth.

CP

Rachel J. Fenton is a writer who paints and lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Her flash "Rogue Trading" was shortlisted for The Fish One Page Prize. More about her can be found at http://snowlikethought.blogspot.com/

Karissa Morton

 

The Cost of Requiem

tossing playing cards one at a time from the bridge,
bubbles rising with each spade,
i contemplate months gone by ­
back when she of aphrodite vined me with touch.

but now the smell of gingko has dissipated
and the rain refuses to fall warm enough to purify,
so i divorce her from myself, ribs like picket fences
lining the path toward the temple of forgiveness

as i thank god
anatomy prevented her from being a first.

I will obey the orders of those appointed over me:

arrange the flag in three layers,
stand erect and look at the horizon.
ten-inch folds cover the closed half of the casket,
little finger anchored under the chin,
captain of the ship at the helm.

CP

Karissa Morton lives in Des Moines, Iowa, where she is a writing tutor and a nanny to two lovely children. She is finishing her BA in English and considering various MFA programs.  Her recent poetry appears in PANK, Up the Staircase, Writers' Bloc, Fogged Clarity and others.

Noah Champoux

 

Inception

Burn the love-drenched sheets,
and piss on the fire to put it out:
if the flames have a face, avoid the gaze;
no bitter words will rise in the smoke.
I will not watch; my eyes will
be charred black, my lungs will
swallow what they can. I will
become the chokes and sizzles. Let me
suffocate. Give me the chance
to scar. I will wear our mistake
as my first smile. My melted tongue
won't have to say 'go away.'

CP

Noah Champoux has been published across the internet in literary journals such as Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Catalyst Magazine, Breathing Poetry, and more. A lot of said magazines have gone defunct. This might be a sign.

Rebecca L. Brown

Read Me A Story

I am peering over the edge of the table at the pile of books he has left there. Some of them are old, darkened by age. Their corners are battered, dropped by small hands onto hard, unknown floors. Others are brightly coloured, grinning creatures staring back at me from their covers. I stand on my tippy-toes, barefoot, eyes widening. I can smell the deep, waxy mustiness of the ageing pages. I reach out a small, sticky hand towards them. He lifts me onto his knee, takes  a book in his hands. Are we sitting comfortably? Then he will begin.

CP

Rebecca L. Brown lives in Cardiff, South Wales, with her partner and assorted menagerie. Updates and examples of Rebecca’s work can be found on her Twitter page @rlbrownwriter and at http://bewilderingcircumstances.blogspot.com/