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Les Wicks Fred Johnston B. R. Dionysius Rochelle Mass Duane Locke Janet I. Buck Stephanie Scarborough Rochelle Hope Mehr Michael Ladanyi Aaron LaFlora John Sweet    Opened by Les Wicks The street lights were that funny yellow like they'd captured bits of sunset & wanted everyone to never forget. The guy alongside me was waiting for the bus remarked that the old bum in the shop alcove hadn't moved at all. He started noticing details, nudged me at each point of his fascinated commentary on that shapeless, filthy library of rags. I had nothing to say, but this guy was entranced.... approached the body, some nervous child clutching teacher's note. Buses came, their doors opening like empty sense, patrons swallowed or spat according to their place. I wasn't moving - the guy turned the old man with the tip of his toe. Nothing (from across the road wild smells of curry caromed past our noses, flicked winter lapels). He touched the neck - shook his head towards me as if we were two consultant specialists discussing the malady of death. Ran his fingers through the corpse's hair. Neither sensual, nor impersonal it was like an inevitable confirmation of "oily", maybe "lice". A couple of strokes to smooth it out... finicky parental clerical. The eyes - I craned to see what had snatched him when he peeled the lids open but saw only butcher block the shell of last summer's cicada. His fingers ran down over the smudged face reaching deep to roots of stubble. Into the clothes removing paper, comb, a pension card. Two silver coins like ideas in the hands of a sailor. My accomplice placed these items around the corpse, his display to this night collapsed into stained antimatter. To finish he gently moved the clothes back to a wrapped corn cob travesty of order. The darkness left to three & the bum starring in this breathless show, teaching us the fragility of the being alive in Winter. "There's nothing left" he says astonished & enriched by seized illumination. To be honest, partly envious, I leave this magic untouched. My hands can never play such a loose gypsy/ bad childplay song. The 378 bus has come then there is nothing of us either. Return to Top of  Page       Katie's Dancing by Fred Johnston Katie's dancing this one, too,  All that energy, where does she put it? A beautiful engine of a girl, The unmarried men in for the evening Watch the way every limb of her Is enough to make them fidget - You could be happily married And still want her, a night, the heat She'd carry out of her from here, In every nook and cranny Of her, she'd be the pure animal In the woman; you'd forget yourself. And when she stops between steps She looks, with her breasts up and down, In and out, like a young mare pulled At a fence, she flicking an eye at you As much as to say: Look at all I am. Katie's dancing this one, too, And if I was someone else, if I was Unborn and born out of this skin And into some other, I'd get up with her.   New Brooms (i.m. The Incredible String Band) by Fred Johnston Let's not go out today,  The afternoon city's a bore - Rain is all it knows, and  Very odd people crawling on its skin - Let's sit by the fire today, Build it up, unhook the 'phone - Burn the newspapers, and Shout down the hall: We're not in! Let's not listen to the radio, Nor the TV, nor any kind of sound - Let's be silent and bring silence Around us and shut out the world. I'll write my memoirs, You will play backgammon - We'll order a cold Chinese take-away, You'll drink a tinned cheap beer, chilled. Let's not go out today,  There is nothing to do - No one will miss us, the cafés Have the same crowd sipping cold latte. Let's sit by the window today, The old fat rain spits and wallops - When summer comes we'll be new Brooms sweeping the old us away.   The One by Fred Johnston He's taken for a novelty now,  But he wasn't always - Back in the bad days He ran the place. His word Was our law. And no harm, either: The soft welter of him now, you'd Think he'd never Been a clever Man, but he was. He can't sing Now, but he could, back then.  Only the young can mock like that,  Urging him on And his voice gone He's a fool to himself, feeling The young girls' slim backs And thinking what was naughty  Forty years ago is naughty now - I am his son,  I am the one Who waits while he pisses himself: I am the one who carries this old Christ Up the hill to his bed of skulls - I am the one who rolls the stone over his grave.   John Tavener at Carn Ard for Mary by Fred Johnston Last night's frost spikes white grass Under a tree still in blue salt air Rooted in the belly of a scrapyard where Shaped planks cross like calvaries Or stones fall in multiforms, worked Or thrown away; a nail brown as old Blood posed as a dead flower's stem.          A year's growth goes underground,          Sunlight without warmth          Dries the filthy brick wall -          You hear the singing sound          Leaves make when they fall. Return to Top of  Page       Almost Sixteen Months by B. R. Dionysius My daughter Almost sixteen months Drowns her plastic dolly In a tub of lukewarm water. A flotilla of ducks Surround her like the Seventh Fleet. She has risen out of the depths Of our subconscious, This Godzilla girl-child Smashing lives in her wake. At almost sixteen months My daughter has already Learnt the basics of her race. That her hands can crush Butterflies into a cloud of fairy dust And that her brain is the best Weapon of all when it comes To laying whole cities to waste.   Pink Crocus Flowers by  B. R. Dionysius When you were not here the crocus flowers erupted  in the backyard (again);  a metamorphosis of pink, streaming  into the blue heart of our December.  It was not their fault. I did it. It was Tuesday.  I was emptying Rhiannon's pool  & opened the plugholes at either end.  I stood, watching the water  drain out rhythmically when I thought: This is not how we are at all. In a fit of gusto I upended it  sending a tidal wave of butts  & twist-tops (from the Xmas party)  over the blue couch lawn, cratered  where I had begun to dig out nut-grass (construction halted by your order) swamping the dormant flower beds still confused by the coldest  November on record. The next morning they were there. Petals, soft as neck feathers. Their shade tender as new sunburn. Their stance, elegant as a heron's. And what did I think when I saw them? Of how, when you got home I would  resume my life's work mapping  the new constellations of freckles  across your face; & how I would take you down  to look at our crocus flowers;  heavy with the pink heat of love.    Fatherlands for Raymond Carver by B. R. Dionysius What was it about him? Was it the way he scraped his boots, home from work guts full of horse-fly bites, fingernails blunt as butter knives? Or slivers of dried mud curled  into a fist on the wash-house floor,  his leather belt singing the same  old hymn? Dry lips drawn apart;  blood atoms stealing  into a blue-grey dusk? Was it solar flares that leapt  from his eyes & burnt holes  in your heart's cheap furniture? Or his creosote hands sealing your mother's softwood throat  as he fell down the front steps?  A metal colander arcing through  the space where his head had been;  a motherland sputnik seized by  its small window of opportunity. What was it about him? The way the rabbit felt hat  cast a rain-shadow over his eyes as he belted his brother-in-law;  his shoulders heavy as a plough? Or the way he held his daughter  on Suzy the mare until she screamed? Or the way he raised a flagon  of white sherry to his lips: a conch shell heralding the future? Was it the way his famous strength  capitulated against the chrome  rails of the mechanical cot-bed? Or the way his children looked out  the window, unaware of the hospital's  slow decay into infinite sepia? What was it about him? Was it the way the polaroids only ever captured  half the picture? Return to Top of  Page       Paying Attention by Rochelle Mass My father's memory of more than this morning has faded.  He used to carry big scenes, images of anger he'd lug  through long corridors. He'd go back to a time when all that was clear  was disappointment. Sometimes when we were young, there was no noise  at home except our breathing that turned to gasps  as he piled on detail after detail. The worst was always soon to come.  We'd see it on our mother's face.  She'd say - Daddy's sick again.  We'd choke with sadness.  It doesn't sound real to talk about this now, to sit beside  this man who can't remember past a day ago, yet sometimes  a story bursts through, till it pours slime over everything.  This morning it was about an uncle who interrupted him. I stiffened  like the girl I used to be, got heavy as lead when he talked  about that afternoon, that uncle. He repeats - he paid no attention to what I was saying. I'd been there, warned the uncle:  Daddy's talking, listen to him! - but it had already happened couldn't be moved. Back it was, my father's rage. All I can see  are the shapes in the floor tiles, where the carpet starts, where  the blue meets the green. That's all I can see as he dramatizes  that scene - pulls back his hair, wipes his mouth, fighting with the air.  What I hear is that he had no life, uses this story to shape his own.  I want to flatten my father's voice into the wall.  That story takes up extravagant space,  leaves just enough room for loneliness, regret.  The next time he talks this way, I'll stop him wave my arms if I have to, signal it can't go on.    The mind of winter by Rochelle Mass Winter arrived quickly where I was born; I was drawn to the intensity how it grew to be the biggest thing that happened, stretching  over most of the year.  I listened to the snow, believed that the wind was the sound of the land.  Now I live in a place where lemons yellow up in those months remember Wallace Stevens: one must have a mind of winter.  That's where I am now, remembering how snow made uneveness even, violating, hiding every surface now see it as a funeral cloth - the earth drying below, shrouded. These images pull me into frost burns, the smell of chill the sound of frozen. I hear the wind  pressing into my mouth.  Winter where I was born made the earth a deeper place filled it with loneliness as tough as the coal piled  in my father's basement.  I believe the wind ruled -  not a careless power rather the one constant giving me no choice but to bend,  invent new posture.    Invasion by Rochelle Mass I almost drowned when I was six. I remember going down while I press my face up to the mirror, see  lines that weren't there yesterday. My toes deal with the pool  that yawns below. Since yesterday water has poured from the wall  near the shower. Where it rises, a seam scrolls my foot like a rain marker. The room is spawning.  Every hour I push the puddle that shimmies up at me to the drain  with a rubber broom, try to return it to the source  but the floor shines back with fresh resolve.  Another day and another.  Sometimes nothing moves but for the water. I wait like at Kitsilano Beach, watching waves prowl over rocks pound barnacles, enclose the sand -  stay a time, then retreat.  I stand in the doorway and wait. Water continues  twisting a path through the wall. I stare at this new power  wedging a place in my home.  Like a womb invaded, wetness works in.  Return to Top of  Page       A Night of Music by Duane Locke A Chinese poet awakens After falling asleep in a worn, wicker chair. His flapping, long white-silk sleeves, Wine-stained. In the stains he sees cherry trees, Coral caves, pomegranates, opened lips. He throws away his bedding.   A Chinese Poet at Two O'Clock by Duane Locke Wild garden, Its former owner left to live in a palace. Blue birds' and blue frogs' songs, Flying bees glitter as if sunlit, rapidly flowing rivers. Thick foliage, entangled shadows,  No one else is here. It is sad to be alone without her In this sacred and unsought place.   A Chinese Poet in a Ruined Garden by Duane Locke Alone on blue gravel, A pathway carefully constructed To twist and wind, To keep the future Hid behind foliage Suddenly, reeds, green, Brown, lilt in a pond, A Teal, its bizarre blue, Comes into view, Bobs its head. Path twists, duck disappears Behind two varieties of bamboo. Sparkling from slender bamboo arms, Rain drops, like diamonds Return to Top of  Page       No Paint Remains by Janet I. Buck This is the seat of black eclipse; the body warriors are tired. Blankets seem like bandages that aren't enough to heal the wound. A dining room of people fixtures hanging by the fraying wire. Walls are gray imperatives of a dawn-less world so near  the tomb they taste the sand. I push your wheelchair down the hall, dream of nicer exit cones, tunnels  saving windows of your sagging eyes from bullets of the coldest rain. A warehouse for the almost dead is not where blossoms ought to drop. My visit seems a paltry gesture much the same  as coating broken fingernails. Still devotion claws the screen. No paint remains on picket fences of your bones. At 92, a grave is close. So close each second shovels you -- cell by cell, smile by smile, touch by touch, pain by pain -- toward moors I wish were pillow lace. A moment stretches to an hour. I want to lift the shutting lid, fill your socks with Christmas gifts you might not live to tear the fragile ribbons from. I put my chin in cradles of your open palms, wish I were the flower you need, not some plastic toy of hope that squeaks when teeth of sadness bite. My hands, my love, their wringing, fisting overtures -- feckless, shaking signatures minus the ink to change the book. First published in Recursive Angel     The River's Scowl by Janet I. Buck "Just get me home" is all you say,  dodging the leather ears of a bitchy nurse,  callous yet acquainted with  this plea to leave a graveyard's spell. I hate this place that sucks the color from your cheeks. Cardboard food is brown and green, a summary to match the bile -- this blackened stage around a rose where thorns insist and blossoms don't. "Two more weeks of therapy, we'll blow this joint" -- I quip and hear the echo of perhapsing lie. This is where those feckless palms put the going out of sight. My fisting overtures at walls  neglect to change the river's scowl. Rabid rapids win, of course. Denial's muzzle doesn't fit when teeth are bared this close to flesh. I'll lose you to awaiting earth;  I know that much. But please, not here. Where faces are asbestos masks --  frozen to their drooling pools.  I pat your hand, roll you down these haunted aisles  like chambers in a 45 my fingers hesitate to twirl. Blankets are thin. Pillows are hard. Soldiers of your bones effete. The bed, a shovel poised on dirt too ready for the heel tap.  "Let's sit," I say, "Don't fall asleep." My knuckles cramp. And I refuse to tuck you in. First published in Tapestry   Return to Top of  Page       Doughnut Sonnet No. 53 by Stephanie Scarborough You. I glazed your jelly doughnut once, You worthless lump of doughnut-eating lard. Just look at you, you pastry-loving dunce, Digging for your frequent-buyer card. What'll it be, you pudgy jelly roll? A crème-filled doughnut, extra chocolate glaze? An unpretentious powdered doughnut hole? I wish that I could get someone to gaze At me the way you eye those jelly-filled Eclairs, so flaky, oozing chocolate crème. How many men have often dropped or spilled Their coffee, staring, as if in a dream While I stand back here in a negligee And not a single stare is tossed my way.   A Lovely Evening (Parody of "At Queensferry" by Ernest Henley)  by Stephanie Scarborough A fat man sang, inside your ears were clean, We bowled for hours, then we wined and dined Superbly at the sushi place behind The toxic waste dump-- my fried rice was green. But then we had to leave-- some feud between The owner and some critic guy who whined About an eyeball in his soup. I find Of beans and sushi, I prefer the bean-- Sushi and kombu aren't my cup of Tang. The chickens clucked and lobotomists' picks Ripped frontal lobes from unsuspecting brains: We poisoned squirrels, all while the fat man sang About some city way out in the sticks Where eyeball soup clogs up the sewage drains. Return to Top of  Page       Below Ground Zero by Rochelle Hope Mehr What's apparent from the surface is a cavernous hole agape and ghastly as a jack-o'-lantern grin illuminated by the fires within It japes at us, it gets to us when we least expect it this absence this space where the Twin Towers stood Below the seared off hubcap of a car the pulverization of flesh absence within the absence The ATM in its eternal expectant moment waiting for the next customer to log on In the bookstore, books still on shelves self-contained unperturbed Return to Top of  Page       Congruent Ghosts by Michael Ladanyi I visited the museum Saturday, the one we used to walk to on cool, grey, drizzled days. I remember telling you the  last weekend I saw you, that it resembled my grandmother's long paneled hall, with the hundred  or so pictures of people I never knew, congruent ghosts I called them. I made my way from painting to painting, the brass shrouded display lights  above them and myself, the only hints of life among the stale, whispering shadows, the swirls of aged oil colors standing staunch in their outpost of remembrance. I stopped in front of one of those picture doors that depicted an epic medieval battle. The horses snarled, eyes wide, their riders frozen in mortal combat's determination. Alabaster angels hung high above, hands outstretched, pleading mercy, praying that those men's commitments would not become eternally binding. On surrounding green-grey hillsides, ghosts danced their requiem dances, in shadows dead  and dying, as dry yellow leaves caught in still winds, scratched across twisted dead roots below writhing snakes hanging from thick boughs, hissing riddles of future fates and ruined metaphors from a thousand enameled wombs of birthed memory. I wondered if everything we had ever forgotten about us, would fit into that crowded picture, hoping it would not, though sadly, I believed it would. Return to Top of  Page       The Prayer Man by Aaron LaFlora Every Saturday Nearby the busiest of intersections He sits there quietly isolated within the black-tarred parking lot- Not in a very comfortable chair, mind you- Nor with bible perched adjacent his contemplations or postulations. A simple man,  I surmised a long time ago Because of the home-made card boarded sign,  Perched alongside the hobble-legged metal table, Which simply reads "NEED A PRAYER"? A pad of paper and pencil beneath the generally emptied jelly jar Must keep him somewhat perplexed or wondering  Where do all the lonely people go? Sometimes I think I could fill his jelly jar With all of the post-its I write my pondering viewpoints upon, But I think he would keep me there beside his Not so comfortable chair for a much longer  Time than I would wish to be Or perhaps I am much too busy- Being one of those lonely people. Return to Top of  Page       brief history of the human cathedral by John Sweet quietly in the growing shadows of late afternoon while my son sleeps while whatever can't be nailed to the face of the sky falls to the ground instead and my life is filled with clutter and the windows all thick with dust and none of us are prophets none of us want to be responsible for the fates of children who will never be named but it happens the details of my first fifteen years when held up to the light of any sun are wanting but they are my own sunday mornings spent with my father in the bar at the end of the street all of the suicides i would ever meet still alive and my wife only forty miles away my future heavy with possibility but already beginning to take shape Return to Poetry Return to Top of  Page

 

• The Sleeper:  A Memoir in Three Installments  Peter Van Oort Keers

• One Room One Night  Karl Beesley

• Still in Hollywood  Elizabeth Stamford

• Drugs and Symphony  Wayne H.W. Wolfson

• The LIE  Caitlin Leffel

• Last Trip to the Batter's Box  Jim Bumgarner
  

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The Sleeper:  A Memoir in Three Installments                     

by Peter Van Oort Keers

y name is Morningstar.  Andrew Morningstar.  I am fifty-seven years of age.  I worked for thirty years as an account executive for the engineering consulting firm of Brewer, Veale, Capons, and Bacon.  I was then fortunate enough to have been offered an early retirement package, which I gladly accepted.  That was two years ago.  Since that time, when people ask me what I do for a living, my answer, without apology, is that I sleep.

Yes, I am quite serious.  Sleep has become a sanctuary and a safe harbor into which I retreat whenever possible.  It is a place where I cannot be reached by unwelcome intruders.  It has become more than a time for rest and restoration.  It has become a way of life for me.  It has become a renunciation of my previous incarnation.

As a young man, not so very many years ago, I would be up and about early, even on weekends.  I was actually vigorous.  Then the process of stultification began to take hold of me.  My lifestyle changed inexorably as I became increasingly sluggish, and after years of hoping for it, I was offered what is known in professional parlance as a "package."

Now I can sleep whenever I wish to do so, without interruption or disturbance.  It is a means of harnessing my energies and infinitely varying my experiences.  My dreams are always vivid, and they are never predictable.  When I was working for Brewer, Veale, Capons, and Bacon, I dreamt, if that is the appropriate word, only of engineering projects and blueprints.  I am now, in contrast, the singular beneficiary of an abundance of riches when my subconscious is unleashed.

Whenever I do venture outside of my apartment, I often seek a good place to sleep.  Dark, quiet spaces are particularly attractive.  In fact, the range of options is so immense that I become rather drowsy just thinking about it.  Life has become a colorful bazaar for me.  Every day is full of wonderful possibilities.

Cinema houses specializing in highly cerebral and esoteric films are veritable palaces of repose.  Theaters presenting arcane classical tragedies are equally attractive.  Those concert halls that minister to refined tastes have a great deal to recommend them; the audiences are always reverentially quiet.  The majority of academic lectures are ideal in subject matter, although the available seating is frequently uncomfortable.  Accounting, legal, and engineering seminars, as well as dull textbooks are, of course, unsurpassed as soporifics.  Insipid conversation is always welcome.  The merely boring can lull me to sleep anywhere.  I have become versatile.

II

Another two years have now passed, and as I continue to transcribe my thoughts to paper, I realize that my life has changed dramatically.  I have become known throughout the city as "The Sleeper."  A number of observers have suggested that my fame has become national, perhaps even global in scope.  Regardless, my services are now more in demand than ever before.

It is not unusual to find me sleeping in the display windows of department or specialty stores that feature sofas, convertibles, or bedroom sets.  I also model in print and television ads for the same products and for a good many more, such as sleeping pills and relaxant tonics.  My income has, in fact, multiplied by a factor of fifty since I took early retirement.  The ability to sleep through a job now generates a substantial premium for me.

Success, however, never comes without a price.  Competition is now surfacing throughout the local and national markets.  Whenever I am awake, I see people sleeping all around me--in buses and taxis, on park benches, in restaurants, even while they are standing on line and waiting to transact business.  Still, I remain the single outstanding figure in my field of expertise.  I am the pioneer.  It is my visage which graces a dozen magazine covers.  I am Mr. Andrew Morningstar, The Sleeper.

I awake at the end of a limousine ride that has brought me to the destination that all strivers after excellence now seek to enter.  The three towers of the Zentropa Corporation loom over the metropolis, casting its streets and avenues into the shade.  This very evening represents something of a zenith not only for myself but for the entire fraternity of sleepers whom I represent.  I have been designated as the featured live guest on the "Anthony Giles Show."

The studio into which I am ushered bears a remarkable resemblance to the living room sets with which I have become altogether too familiar during my tours of duty in storefront display windows.  The empty sofa looks particularly inviting, but I resist the urge to recline on it and, instead, accept Anthony Giles' outstretched hand as he bids me welcome to his show.  I am to be the first guest of the evening, and my segment is a tribute, the meteoric rise to global celebrity that I have come to achieve as The Sleeper.

My host is attired in a black jumpsuit, the very uniform that has in fact become his escutcheon to many millions of television viewers.  Above average in height, imperially slim, with luxuriant gray mustache, his very manner almost spectral, Mr. Anthony Giles has the inimitable grace of those for whom the attainment of worldly success has become effortless.  He directs me to the sofa that I had previously observed upon entering his studio.

Within moments of having been seated, I am fast asleep, a repose which is uninterrupted as the next four guests--a U.S. congressman, a young lady who has memorized the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a defrocked priest who has authored a best-selling book on gaming theory, and New York's most renowned pastry chef--amuse an international audience with tales of their accomplishments.

At the close of the hour, in concert with my four fellow guests, I rise, having been gently awakened from my slumbers, and am greeted with thunderous applause.  By the time I reach my waiting limousine, I have been, in rapid succession, offered a book contract and approached about serving as keynote speaker at a function honoring the American ambassador to the kingdom of Miranda.  I politely deflect these overtures and feel a great measure of relief as the limousine door closes behind me and I find myself being transported back uptown.

III

Eighteen months have now passed since my singular appearance on the "Anthony Giles Show."  It is now, with the passage of several years, even more evident that by the time of my retirement from the firm of Brewer, Veale, Capons, and Bacon, I had become nothing more than a burnt-out husk of a man.  Sleep had become a safe harbor for me.

We live in strange times, however, and the American obsession with celebrity clearly knows few limitations.  As older icons lose their luster, new ones must be created, and my odd penchant for repose somehow played into this insatiable mania.  Meaningless acclaim and honors became mine for the asking, but the demands which accompanied them inevitably made it impossible for me to sleep on my own terms.

Therefore, in the dead of an April night, not so very long after my triumph on national television, I slipped out of the great metropolis on a transoceanic freighter bound for the French port of Le Havre, on the English Channel.  Once safely on shore, I established residence in a boarding house at 7 Rue Gustave Flaubert, where I have managed to live quite happily on my pensioner's wages.  I still sleep most of the time, but once again I am able to do so on my own terms, for which I am deeply grateful.

Reprinted by permission of the author from Metropolitan Visitations, by Peter Van Oort Keers, Vantage Press, 1997

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One Room One Night   A  short story of pain and loss                       

by Karl Beesley
                                                                                  

SYNOPSIS:

  slice of a torn and twisted life
One room one night one chapter.

A grieving son spends the night
in each of the rooms of his late
mother's flat.

He describes the feelings and
the objects discovered in the
rooms and how they change his
life and the woman he thought
he knew.

EXAMPLE PASSAGE:

ROOM 1 - Kitchen

NIGHT - Saturday night

THEME - Country and western hell


The door is closed but not locked.
Like all the other rooms he can
leave at any time.
The rules are simple.
If you can find food, you eat.
If you can find a toilet, you can piss.
If you can find a bed, you sleep
(if you're lucky).
If you can stick it out in the same
room for the night you have won the
victory over the room and over death itself.
Her life becomes valid and your life
can go on.

If you back out before the time is up
you know it and you'll be dogged by it
for all time.

Country and western hell?
Yes.
A truck stop of a kitchen minus check
plastic tablecloths.
Bakelite radiowaves invade his eardrums.
He listens for the news that his mum's
death is a gigantic hoax and huffs a
bit more petrol to bring out the secret
messages.  He hears the replay of the
Eureka stockade massacre coming to life
from the plastic trumpeteer on the
Masonite kitchen bench.  Again he inhales.
The petrol is working its magic and
he has become an emblem on his mother's
casket.  His speech to her comes backward
in Arabic and he is trapped with her for
all time.  American airliners are grounded
by some distant emergency.  He's had to
identify his mother's body at the coroner's
office.  Her purple face comes back at him like
a housebrick in the face and he screams again, burying his face in his shirt
to hide the noise.
The boy/man wants to vomit out his pain
like bad fish.  To expel the grief from
his body as quickly as possible.

2 days after he put his mother's ashes in the ground someone stole his car.
The petrol huffing
has him convinced it is Satanists or the CIA.

Domestic disputes ring out from the
back of the kitchen door.  Loud enough
to frighten him but just out of the
range of comprehension.
He was always afraid of the distant
menace of raised voices.
They had a way of rooting him to the
spot and leaving him pinned there for
hours, too scared to breathe in all
but little puppy breaths.
He couldn't remember most of his
childhood but he could remember that.
He knew his mother had picked some real
'characters' for boyfriends.  She'd always
claimed she was looking for a father for
him but she never seemed to ask him
which one he wanted.
If he'd had his choice it would have
been Doug.
Doug was boring but nice.
He was in the army and wore his uniform
with pride but he looked and acted like
an accountant.  No matter how menacing the
uniform was meant to look it didn't on him.
He'd bring the boy shells of different colours.
He'd race him up the steaming summer path of
the mutual driveway, shared by all the flats
in this block.
Troy should have had a father like this
instead of the one he had.
The one that screamed at him all the time
and frightened kids and parents alike.
Every morning the 'gang' would check to see
if he was still alive and they'd fully
expect to find him covered in bruises or worse.
Doug was a man of no mystery but the kind
of heart that you could see through a
cloud of winter fog.
Domestic Hell.

He turns on the radio.
It's NewsRadio on the ABC.
There's nothing in the rules
about what channel the radio had to be on.
Everything was September 11.
Opinions and reports on the latest news
from all around the world.

He cleans the stove buttons for something to
do.  They're covered in furry grease behind
the dials.  His mother had been starting down
the path of becoming old and sick.  She had a
fascination with the diseases of the world as
did many women of her generation but the day
to day bite of illness was starting to whittle
her away.  She never wanted to slowly decay in
a hospice, dependent on others and clinging to
another day hoping for it to be the last.
It was harder to clean things and she made up
excuses.  Her eyesight was going so she didn't
always notice anyway.
He felt the warm caress of satisfaction on his
troubled soul as he watched the grease submit
to the detergent and rag (his own combination).
He loved taking dirty things and making them
clean.  As long as they were someone else's.
For some reason he'd always had trouble with
his own dishes, bathroom, garden and so on.
His mother was the same.

The dials now shone like brown plastic jewels,
gleaming as if they had just been unveiled in
an appliance showroom.  For now he felt a little
better.  He knew it wouldn't last.
He tried to open the oven door only to find the
handle came off in his hand, leaving a stub and
some holes as mute testimony to their fragile
state.  Tears welled in his eyes as he realised
this was an old problem she never mentioned.
She used the oven all the time to cook tasty
roasted treats for her family.  This was not a
new problem.  She'd just kept quiet.  Don't make
a fuss.  Suffer quietly.
9 years in a Catholic Hell hole boarding school
had taught her that.  Her sentence - 9 years on
a freezing Geelong verandah.  Her crime - having
no father and mother.
The Japanese had a saying that stuck in his mind.
'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.'
She'd been hammered down before she stuck out.
In some areas she stuck out later and would never
be hammered down again.  Their hammer was jealousy.
Her nail was her blonde-haired innocent beauty.
In others she would remain quiet and small, scared
of yet another fall of the hammer.

He placed the amputated handle on the bench next to
the stove and caught on emotional fire.  Sobbing in
spasms, he felt he was burning up on the inside, his
energy draining from him with each convulsion.  The
crying fits would stop as suddenly as they started.
They would start for the stupidest reason and stop
for no reason at all, sometimes mid-sob.

It was going to be a long night and he was going to
stay for the whole thing.

The happy couple from next door had finished raising
their voices and he could now faintly hear the sound
of a woman groaning.  The sort of groan you have to
listen to.  You have to listen in order to sort out
whether she needs help or not.  He couldn't tell.
He turned down the radio.  As the voices from the
speakers faded away he realised that the groans were
of the type a woman makes when she 'doesn't want to
be disturbed at all, thank you very much.'
The sound of the bouncing bedsprings was an added clue.
He was strangely attracted and repelled by those sounds.
Any time he heard them (you hear them frequently in
dense living environments) he had to admit to a feeling
of a little excitement.  He also had to admit to a feeling
of moral revulsion.  He suffered the torture of Catholicism
as well.  His mother, like many abused children, had remained
faithful to her abuser for years and had sent him to a
catholic school.
The Josephite nuns had shown him fear and hate and the
guilt of sex before he even knew what it was.  They had
even given him a comprehensive education in the evils
of asking to go to the toilet during class time as one
afternoon he had to sit through an entire afternoon covered
in his own urine.
One didn't ask to go to the toilet.

He could hold his water like a good boy and it would stand
him in excellent stead in the kitchen this very night.

Another rule of the house absorption exercise is that you have to inhale
some petrol in every room so you can see the visions
and absorb the flavours of the room and the dearly departed.
Any messages that need to be passed on from the aether are
transmitted via this medium.
Inhaling petrol is a very dangerous practice.
Try finding out what is actually in the stuff and you'll usually find some
stonewalling and general fluff from the oil companies (remember benzine?).
So you should always use
unleaded.
Inhale and feel your lungs burn.
Inhale and see the visions start to happen again.
Inhale and fight the demons of your own mind.
Inhale and die a worthless death of a drug addict.
Inhale deeply.  If you're lucky you'll join her.
But you know you're not that lucky.
This is the first night and the first room.
You have 5 rooms and 5 nights to go (not including the garage).

He opens the lazy susan under the sink and finds 26 bottles of diet soft
drink.  She's a diabetic.

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Still in Hollywood                                                        

by Elizabeth Stamford

hat do Dennis Woodruff, Cindy, and the Weird Sisters have in common?  They are the stragglers, the strugglers, the coffee shop denizens, ever hopeful, ever sure.  I’ve been in Hollywood for just three days now, but these, I believe, are its truths…

Day 1, Cindy:  It’s around two in the afternoon, and I’m in a small, shabby strip mall deli on Franklin Avenue.  An old man in a stained undershirt sits at the corner table swigging from a bottle of tepid Clamato juice.  Another senior, clad in a housecoat and slippers, makes a fist and hammers viciously on a machine that dispenses lottery tickets.  The haggard Asian woman behind the counter springs to action screaming, “Stop it, Gladys!  I tell you yesterday, is broken!”

The door opens, and a chick in a micro-mini skirt and lurid pink tank top enters, making a beeline for the haphazard display of stale pastries.  Her name is Cindy, and she is evidently a regular.  She’s got a sweet face, but she wears lots and lots of makeup.  Showing her underwear, she bends over to inspect the chocolate donuts, then she purchases a cup of coffee and sits down, twisting a strand of hair around her finger while gazing listlessly at the lotto machine.  She remains in this posture for an hour and a half, occasionally exchanging greetings with more of the local flavor, including a girl with a nose ring who shyly admits that she’s an actress, too.

Cindy is eventually joined by another woman who drives a pick-up truck and wears leather pants that have been duct-taped together at the crotch.  The two hunker down to a gossip.  Cindy, it seems, has been dating a man whom she describes (with a mixture of awe and disdain) as “a Crazy Person.”  Crazy also acts, but he gets paid for it, and is therefore considered to be “really successful.”  Crazy is credited for playing the third cop that got shot in some Robert DeNiro movie, and the guy holding the pizza in “Last Ambush.”  What makes Crazy so crazy are his drinking habits.  When they go out, Cindy complains, Crazy orders a Pabst, a Margarita, and a tequila shot with Tabasco and drinks them all at once.  When he gets really loaded, he bites her.  “Look,” Cindy says, mournfully showing her companion the bruise on her arm.  “See what I mean?”

“Shit girl,” her friend says.  “You put up with that?”

Cindy sighs.  “He’s really not that cute either, but he’s very well connected.  He keeps saying he’ll show my resume to Lynn Stalmaster..”

Day 2, The Weird Sisters:  I am in The Bourgeois Pig, a coffee shop on Franklin Avenue.  The place is a little dark, but there are comfy armchairs and disco balls twirling overhead.  The Pig appears to be a haven for screenwriters, all of whom are discussing their upcoming projects and scrawling on bits of paper.  The atmosphere is pleasant, workable--until the Weird Sisters come in.  They are both in their twenties, both slightly overweight, and both have dark hair that stands up on end.  After a minute or so, I realize that one of them is male.  They walk over to a large gilt-edged mirror and the female looks at herself and screeches:  “Omigod, omigod, omigod!”

“Baby,” the male says, seizing a peanut-butter brownie from the dessert display, “it’s time to get down to some serious business!”

“Omigod!” the girl screeches again, clutching at her ample bosom.  The boy goes outside with his brownie, and she orders a coffee.  It takes her an absurdly long time to treat it with the various milks and sweeteners available on the back table, and she talks to herself as she works, saying things like:  “Where is he?  How many eggs does he have?  What color socks am I wearing?  Omigod, omigod, oh…”  She walks over to a small table and plops herself down in an armchair.  The boy re-appears, and approaches the people at the table next to me, who have given up on their screenplay and are playing backgammon.  He stands over them, chewing on what is left of his brownie, and then he says:

“Hey, that’s a great fucking game.  It’s a total chick magnet too, dude.”

“No kidding,” one of the players says, without looking up.

“Yeah man, I swear!  It’s how my dad got my mom.”

“No shit.”

“Omigod!” the girl squeals from across the room, and the boy turns his attention to her, grinning and waving before approaching a bespectacled young man in a chair by the window.

“Have you ever read Illuminations?”

“No.”  The man cowers into the corner, clearly reluctant to talk.

“It’s an awesome book, dude.  It’s about this mechanic, and everyone thinks he’s God and stuff.  Shit, I’d lend you mine, but I left it in the psych ward…”

Day 3, Dennis Woodruff:  Outside The Bourgeois Pig at high noon.  A winged convertible with an amateur-looking Pepto-Bismol-pink paint job is parked on the corner.  The car is bedecked with flyers, and a name is emblazoned on the side.  I glance at it, enter the coffee shop, order an Americana and get to work.  Seconds later, a man with leathery skin, sunglasses and a cowboy hat is standing before me.  He has long straggling hair, which he wears in a ponytail, and appears to be a hardboiled Hollywood type--someone who has spent years trying (in vain) to sell himself.  Without a trace of a smile he slaps a video and a clipboard down on the table in front of me.

“Hi,” he barks.  “I’m Dennis Woodruff, and I’m a really nice, sincere guy.  This,” he says, stabbing the video with his middle finger, “is an Academy Award Winner!”

The cassette is covered with a fuzzy photocopy.  All I can make out is a mouth with three teeth, but then turned on its side it looks like a glistening beefsteak tomato.  What should I tell this guy?  That I’m an unemployed tax auditor from Iowa City?  That I don’t know anyone of any importance?  That I can’t possibly help him?

Fortunately, I am saved by the owner of The Pig who fairly vaults over the side of the coffee bar in his haste to remove Dennis from the premises.

“I’m not selling anything!” Dennis protests, then turning to me he says, “come outside!  You can buy my movie outside.”

Just then, a group of fair, firm-bodied young men enter, and walk by my table.  One of them looks at me then another one does, and…

“I’m in the Hollywood Who’s Who!”  Dennis snarls as he is being escorted out.  “And I’m a really nice, sincere guy!”

Okay, now I get it!  I realize what’s really going on here:  the boys are checking me out to see if I’ve bothered to check them out first!  But hell, it’s a beautiful day in Hollywood all the same.

Drugs and Symphony                                                                 

 by Wayne H. W. Wolfson


   want his name...”

“God.”

“to go to his land.”

“You can’t, it's lost, undiscovered country.”

“I want to hear music.”

“There’s a place down the street that used to be good.”

She smelled of earth, of the ginseng gum we would chew by the pack while walking through Chinatown.

She had secrets to tell, but the half-hearted way in which she told them always made me feel doubtful.

Just to win, I hadn’t thought about her at all in ages.  Even when I caught our symphony on the radio.

I had a dream once that she came by, but it was my old place, the one I never let her see.  Eggs and Rico were there too and for some reason I had to fix a window, feeling bad the whole time.

I woke up, as my eyes opened that earthy smell fleeing the room.

We just sort of drifted apart, both of us going after our own deals.

Although neither of us would say it out loud, it must have meant something.  She acknowledged this, much to Joanne’s annoyance, in the gift of a small vial containing one of her tears from the requiem.  And I in a private pledge to never again combine drugs and symphony with anyone else.

Someone whose name I should know told me she was dead.

The funeral was like a dream, everyone looking vaguely familiar.  She had wanted the second movement of Beethoven’s eighth to be played, possibly over and over, but someone had made a mistake and a scratchy version of the seventh was on.

I bowed my head before the faded doll that had been her.  She had always wanted to be buried barefoot, saying that she couldn’t sleep with shoes on.  I had no way of checking.

The seventh started up again.  I walked away.

The final frustration of death, total misunderstanding.

Even if they had gotten the music right, no one would know what it meant.  Only me, who had been with her during intermission behind the church puffing away until it was time to rejoin the largo.

We are all in our own movies, most of them dull.  I knew it would be cinematic to now go to the ocean or a mountain top and howl, but it was raining.

Hands in pocket I stop under the umbrella of a hot dog cart and get something to eat.  Walking off, into the rain, head bowed, mouth full, humming Beethoven.

.

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The LIE                                                                                        

 by Caitlin Leffel

EVITTOWN, 3 MILES” announces the rectangular green sign that creeps up on Ambika’s right.  She’s already gotten used to the color, the size, and shape of road signs but Ambika notices this one does use a new text format.  All the other signs were exit markers (EXIT 15: SUNRISE HIGHWAY), speed recommendations (45 MPH) which were shorter, white and less striking overall than the others, or miscellaneous information (GAS, FOOD, LODGING), with the familiar chain restaurant and gas station logos displayed underneath.  Here, driver and passenger are given time to contemplate Levittown, prepare themselves for it, or introduce them to it.  Ambika wonders if it is to warn the passengers who are going to Levittown, or advertise to the ones who are not.

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Last Trip to the Batter's Box                                                        

by Jim Bumgarner

ohnny Cavelito knew.  There was no hiding it.  Everyone on the team knew, and he knew they did.  Even the parents in the stands knew.  Sometimes humiliation enveloped him like dark on a moonless night.  Right now he longed for the season to end.

The umpire looked over at Johnny, standing solemnly in the batter's box with the bat on his shoulder.  "Batter up," he shouted.

Johnny took a couple more practice swings and glanced sideways at his teammates, hoping to catch an encouraging wink, or a "thumb's-up," but every one was looking straight out toward the field, or down at scuffed and dirty shoes.  Fists pounded mitts, cleats scuffed the ground, and spit flew, but no one looked at him.

The coach clapped his hands enthusiastically, and shouted, "Let's go Johnny.  Let's get up there and take a cut, buddy.  You can do it.  Get a hit."  Johnny looked at him, hoping for the reassurance two sets of eyes can create in a glance, but Coach's eyes were distant too, gazing past the other team's third baseman like it was their outfielder he was shouting at, instead of Johnny.

Walking toward the plate, head down, dragging his bat like it was a sack full of rocks, dust swirled behind him.  He repeated those words in his head, "get a hit."  Everyone knew.  Stepping toward the batter's box, Johnny felt the sun's heat and momentarily his vision blurred, just a little.

John Cavelito frowned in response to the unpleasant childhood memory, knocked imaginary dirt off his cleats with his bat, and looked out at the thousands of fans in the stadium.  Stepping into depressions in the batter's box made by thousands of batters before him, he set his feet comfortably, bent his knees, pulled the bat over his right shoulder, and riveted his gaze on the pitcher.  From the shadow beneath his bill, pitcher Marcel Lopez returned the stare.  The battle was on.

"Let's go, John," someone shouted from the second tier.

Standing on the mound, right foot on the rubber, Lopez turned and locked his eyes on Denny Wilson, the runner on second who represented the winning run.  Satisfied Wilson wasn't going to attempt a steal, he rocked back on his right leg and fired the ball toward home plate. John watched the fastball streaking like a tomahawk missile straight toward the strike zone.  He didn't swing, he seldom swung at first pitches.  Fans in the outfield bleachers heard the "SMACK" as it slammed into the catcher's mitt.

"STEEEE-RIKE!"  Fans watching the game at home and in taverns across the country heard the call.

Stepping out of the batter's box, John checked the tightness of his wristbands and pulled on his jersey, loosening it around his left shoulder.  Looking above the pitcher's head, way out in center field on the Jumbo-Tron, he saw his picture with his name and batting average across the bottom:  "John Cavelito:  batting average:  .378."  It was a good batting average, one of the best in the majors this year.  Faintly aware of the crowd, he stepped back into the batter's box.

From the stands someone shouted, "C'mon, Cavelito.  Bring him in."  His concentration faltered for a second, and the memory slipped back into his mind.

Bill Hansfield, the catcher, was a couple years older; a big, burly kid from Johnny's school.  Nobody liked him, not even his own teammates.  Overweight and a bully, he snarled at all the batters.  Johnny Cavelito, much smaller and obvious fair game for a boor like Hansfield, was intimidated by him.  Still, Johnny loved baseball and wanted to play, so he sucked up his courage, like his Dad had told him, and stepped into the batter's box.

"Cavelito, you can't hit the ball.  Why don't you go back to the dugout?"  Then, "This guy's a wuss, no problem," he yelled back out at the pitcher.  Johnny knew.  Everyone knew, even Hansfield.

While the third base coach flashed signals, John shook the memory away, solidified his stance, and stared back deep into the pitcher's eyes.  Lopez checked the sign from the catcher, checked Wilson on second, straightened his back and stood tall on the rubber while hiding his grip on the ball inside his mitt.

For a moment, John thought he looked like a statue on a pedestal.  "Lopez has good stuff, but he won't throw two fastballs in row.  He'll throw a slider this time, low and outside.  He always does on his second pitch."  John looked at Wilson on second.  He caught the catcher's signal and was relaying it back to John, by dragging his left toe from right to left across the dirt, "slider."

Lopez rocked back and fired the ball toward the plate.  John saw a different rotation on it as soon as it left Lopez' fingers.  It shot straight toward the plate, then, as anticipated, it slid away, outside, and slammed into the reaching catcher's mitt.  "Right again," thought John, "a slider."  Glancing at Wilson, he touched the bill of his cap, acknowledging, and thanking him.

The umpire held up one finger on each hand signifying one ball and one strike.  "Low and outside," the radio commentator said to his listeners.  John sensed the enthusiasm in the stands growing.  In the time it takes to blink, his focus softened while he gazed down on his shoes, and thought again of that at-bat so many years ago.

Like Hansfield the catcher, the pitcher was a big kid too, with a big name, Steve Schauermann.  Schauermann wasn't fat like Hansfield; he was tall--at 11, he stood 5 feet 8, with "too-long" arms.  With that reach, a right-handed side-arm delivery looked like it was going to smack you, big time.  Most of the guys would flinch, or step outside the box, then the ball would end up flying straight over the plate.  Seldom did anyone get a chance to swing the bat, but Schauermann's strike-out record was the best in the city.

John felt good about a one and one count; he had hope.  Still, he worried.  Everyone knew.  John smiled at the memory while radio listeners heard, "We're in the bottom of the ninth here in Baltimore.  The score is tied at two.  Baltimore's Denny Wilson is on second, and he represents the winning run.  There's two out, and the count on Cavelito is one and one."

Lopez' right foot rested on the rubber, his right leg stiff.  Bent at the waist, his gloved hand hung low, almost touching his shoe-strings, while his pitching hand, curled and fingering the ball, rested on his lower back.  The catcher signaled, "runner at second."  Giving the catcher the "ok" nod, he rose into a standing position, brought the ball to his chest, glared at the batter, then quickly turned and fired the ball to the shortstop running behind the runner toward second base.  The action was rapid, like when you're standing deep in thought, but not thinking about the worm on your hook, and all of a sudden, "boom," some big ol' trout nearly jerks the rod out of your hand.  It was that fast.

The ball, too high for the shortstop to grab, bounded into center field.  Wilson broke for third, running as if a hungry mountain lion was on his heels.  The throw from center field bounced into the third baseman's mitt, just as Wilson's foot hit the base.  His momentum popped him into a standing position with both feet on the bag. The third baseman swiped his mitt at Wilson, but it found nothing but air.

"Safe!" motioned the third base umpire.

47,000 fans knew he was safe before the umpire made his signal.  The noise was deafening, the players in the Oriole dugout erupted in shouts of joy, while the Dodgers sat silent in their dugout, as if their tongues had been Novocained.  Lopez kicked the backside of the mound as if it was at fault and needed punishment.  Self-disgust wore on his face like a blood smear.

Fans in the Blue Goose Tavern in Seattle heard the TV commentator.  "Lopez is in deep trouble with a 1 and 1 count on Cavelito.  Cavelito leads the league in RBIs this season, and his on-base batting average is second only to Seattle Mariner Ichiro.  The series could be over in a hurry."

The Dodgers won the first three games of this best-of-seven series, then the Orioles won the next three in a row, so now they were tied.  The ugly smell of defeat and consequent loss of the World Series was ninety feet away, the distance between third base and home plate.  The probability and stench of instant death now permeated the LA dugout.

The Dodger manager glared at Lopez.  Lopez could feel the manager's eyes looking for his, but he didn’t look back.  Any high school pitcher would know better, in the same situation, than to try to throw out the runner at second with two out in the bottom of the ninth of a "do-or-die" game.

John, standing behind the batter's box and waiting for the emotion of the moment to fade, waited for the next pitch, knowing Lopez was rattled.  The pressure was on and his eyes drifted over to the Dodger dugout and the old memory returned.  "Johnny Cavelito, you're a wimp, man.  We like you though 'cause when you play, we always win."  Hansfield's bullying was relentless.  Johnny looked to find his mom and dad, maybe they would offer him reassurance, but he didn't see them.  The terror he felt at the plate was overwhelming and Schauermann was winding up with another side-arm delivery.  He hoped it wouldn't hit him.

"STEEEE-RIKE," shouted the umpire.

"Damn, Lopez, you snuck that one by me."  Stepping back out of the batter's box, and repeating his ritualistic checking of his wristbands and loosening the shoulder of his jersey, he thought, "Fastball, he's gonna throw another fastball."

Wilson, leading off from third, tried to spook the pitcher with false starts to the plate, baiting him, making him nervous.  The infielders moved in toward the plate, hoping to stop a ground ball quickly and throw Cavelito out at first.

This time John saw the ball leave Lopez' fingers perfectly, spinning, almost in slow motion.  Shifting his weight to his left foot and keeping his trained eye on the ball flying toward the plate, he swung just hard enough to make contact.

"Foul ball."  Sweat dripped off John's nose as the ball skied back into the stands.  The bully, Hansfield, reentered his thoughts.

"You know Cavelito, if I had shoes as ugly as those I wouldn't even play."  Johnny looked down at his shoes, shook off Hansfield's comments, stepped out of the box.

"One ball and two strikes on the batter.  The situation is getting tense.  If John Cavelito strikes out, the game will go into extra innings."

John slammed the bat barrel against his insteps, cleared his mind, and thought about how he had played his entire career with the Orioles.  The newspapers announced two weeks ago that this World Series would end his career.  He looked at the third base coach, the runner at third, the tightly-positioned infield, the crowd, the lights, his face on the Jumbo-Tron.  Then his eyes met Lopez'.  "Another fastball."  Looking down the third baseline, he made eye contact with Wilson.

Johnny knew.  There was no hiding it.  Everyone on the team knew.  And he knew they knew.  Even the moms and dads in the stands knew little Johnny Cavelito couldn't hit the ball.  He had struck out every time he had batted this first season in Little League.  Shaking his head, he focused hard.

Lopez threw his leg high and uncorked one the fastest balls he had ever thrown.  The radar guns clocked it at 102 miles per hour.  The ball came at him like it was shot from a cannon.  In less than a hundredth of a second John knew he had predicted correctly, but he didn't have time to think.  Shifting his weight to his forward foot, he swung the bat smoothly, intentionally, and hard.

"And here's the pitch.  It's a fastball and...  Cavelito line drives it past…" the announcer's voice imploded into the explosion of shouting fans.  Then, "...here comes Wilson!  The Orioles win the series!  The Orioles win the series!  The Orioles win the series!"  Fireworks shot high into the night sky alongside John's spirit.  Boyhood dreams do come true.  He'd just won the World Series on the final at bat of his career.

Somewhere in an Illinois prison a group of inmates sat around a television, watching this final game of the World Series.  Bill Hansfield, smoke drifting from his nose, fat, unshaven, tattoos on his oversized arms, looked out from behind droopy eyelids and watched little Johnny Cavelito win the World Series.

"Damn," Hansfield said to no one in particular.  "Snot-nosed kid.  Ya finally hit one," he muttered as he squirmed in discomfort, wondering where he'd get the dough to pay that idiotic bet he made with Kazowski.

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Stairway to Heaven

Robert L. Harrison

 

 

Winter Designs

Robert L. Harrison

 

 

Indian Trail

Robert L. Harrison

 

 

Dying Lily Pads

Robert L. Harrison

  

  

 

Lifedrawing

Fred Moore

 

amnesia

Andrew Penland

 

sixfaces

Andrew Penland

 

 

Stargazer

Sirrus Poe

 

 

After the Stockyards

Sirrus Poe

 

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"I'll split before the end..." Concert            Jean-Pierre Jacquet   Return to Contents Return to Top of Page