Subdivision

Suburban Home

by Charles Clayton

Blue Meannie records was a windowless cave of a record store right around the corner from my house. Owned and run by aging hippies (hence the Yellow Submarine inspired moniker), it was the quintessential mom and pop store, and they had a nice fat PUNK section chock full of hundreds of records that promised countless hours of perusal and serious discussion. No job, at least not at first, rarely any money, at least not 8 to ten bucks at a time, so if there was enough cash in your pocket to purchase an album then it was done carefully and deliberately. 

It might take two hours to decide on an album, standing there comparing song titles, cover art, and photos of the band (long hair usually meant cheesy speed metal guitars—avoid)…debating between the Adolescents and The Dicks, the Germs and the Battalion of Saints, Discharge and Minor Threat (AND WHAT ABOUT this compilation album with 20 different bands on it?) bands that (at first) you had never heard but maybe you’d spotted a filthy SNFU t-shirt on the homeless gutter punk who (literally) just crawled out of the sewer, or noticed that the guitarist for a band you did know was wearing a GOVERNMENT ISSUE t-shirt on the back cover of one of your trusted albums, or maybe you had a 5^th generation hissy bass heavy recording of an unknown G.B.H. album dubbed over (scotch tape covering the protective slots on the cassette) an old Styx tape so you make your best guess and give it a try, plunking down your single ten dollar bill for 12 inches of vinyl record—but there was no way to be sure about your purchase until you got it home, ripped the shrink wrap off, and put the needle to the vinyl.

That was the moment of truth. The slight popping as the needle found the first groove, the hint of buzzing through the speakers, a few spins of the record, and then THE CHORDS OF ESCAPE, CHORDS OF REVOLUTION, CHORDS OF ANGER, CHORDS OF HOPE blast through your bedroom and change your life forever and ever.

There is no sound on earth as powerful as an electric guitar. 

The Heights of Subdivision

by Gary Feuerman

I’m from Subdivision. Levittown was 20 minutes away, the first symbol of suburban sprawl, and the first of the big developments. I lived in East Norwich, NY, on Long Island, in a little development. The house my family moved into in 1966 (built in 1960) when I was 2 1/2 was a brown, wood shingled, 4 bedroom colonial at the top of a rise looking due west to a high hill dense with tall oak trees. It was that hill and the massive cumulus clouds sailing the sky above it that first reminded me that I loved mountains. I’d never seen mountains, but I knew I needed them. 

When my parents bought the World Book Encyclopedia collection from a traveling salesman in 1970, I immediately hunted down and committed to memory the tallest peaks in the world and the highest points in each state of the union, which is how even today if you ask me for the highest elevation in New York State, I’d tell you Mt. Marcy in the Adirondack State Park at 5,344’. Yes, 5,344’. I’d never been close to Mt. Marcy – the closest we got in my childhood was the Catskill Mountains, which top out around 4,000’ but are mostly in the 2,000’ – 3,000’ range. And it didn’t matter that 5,344’ was unimpressive, even puny compared to Mt. Everest (29,028’ back then) and the other Himalayan peaks, the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes – hell even Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina was over 6,000’ (6,684’ comes to mind), as was Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smokies (6,643’) and Mt. Washington in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains (6,288’). 

I have to stop here. Is it me or do you notice that all of these peaks have a double number (other than Everest which had consecutive numbers 29/28)…Time to play the lottery? Am I giving away the fact that I have a gambling compulsion that runs in the family and that my dad taught my brother and I how to play craps by the ages of 6 and 8 on a mini crap table in the semi-finished basement (off white with a brick pattern and classic go-go era wood paneling) playing with chunky red die from Caesers Palace, Las Vegas and a giant glass pretzel jar filled with shiny pennies for betting loot.

So what about Mt. Marcy? Well, it was over a mile high, so that was cool, and it was a lot higher than the high points in New Jersey or Connecticut or even Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. We had Vermont beat, too. I’m all over the place like a dream, and I’m thinking that although the gut response to Levittown or even East Norwich and our ¼ acre lots lined with sapling maples and oaks and the beat up “station cars” our fathers drove to the trains that went to the City is one of disgust and despair over the monotony and homogeneity of this branch of human evolution, it is from this place that I knew I was for and from another place. And for that I am grateful – to the forested hill to my west above which I gazed many mornings after climbing on top of my wooden, nautical-style dresser and pressing my face against the window as if I were standing on the pitch of roof where I once saw Santa’s reindeer and prayed to God that Pamela Maloney would be my girlfriend, and later wished that I would find a place where I didn’t have to make believe the clouds were mountains.

Ticky Tacky

by Johanna DeBiase

Each driveway, each yard, repeats itself over and over like the turning spokes on my bicycle. I know Nellie's house from memory. Unlike people who don't live here, I can identify it by minute details – the rose bush entwined around the fence post, the American flag just slightly askew, a welcome sign with banjo playing frogs hanging next to the door.

I drop my bike on the curb. I know no one will disturb it. No one around here needs an old bike. Most kids get a shiny new one each year. I ring her bell as a formality, but then I walk right in. Their entryway is identical to my own, the split ranch stairway – up to the living room, only used when guests are over; down to the den, used the rest of the time.

Nellie's room is downstairs off the den because she is the oldest child and earned her privacy and own bathroom. I head down there and find her in front of her computer listening to Adele again. She's on Facebook. She looks up at me. “Come check this out,” she says. She is looking at an aerial photo of a slum in India. Children below, kicking around a ball. It is a punchline to a joke and she thinks its hilarious.

I laugh awkwardly. I can't help noticing how, from this perspective up above, the roof of the shacks lined up in such a way, so close together, so similar, they remind me of this neighborhood. I imagine if I built our giant houses from cardboard boxes, stuffed our mattresses with plastic bags, and landscaped our yards with bottles and old clothes. Candy wrappers, banana peels and tin cans line our sidewalks where cows graze and defecate. It would only take a strong breeze, one big gust of wind, to shake this delusion of security.

Taylors Mill, Devonshire, Laurel Glen

by Ned Dougherty

each house looked the same

and averaged that quirky number of children

we read about in parenting magazines

the fathers all left in their sedans

right near eight

and returned to dinner on the table

the neighborhood could field entire teams

for street hockey or football

or lawn manicurists 

quasi friend-neighbors 

who wave from opposite 

sides of the street

one yard had a rock like an island for GI Joes

the other a hill larger in memory than true rise and run

and the last that iconic picket fence

what do they create

these collectives 

aside from adolescent dreams of great distances

these places we run so far from

returning to kiss our mothers

and tackle the list of chores waiting for us since we left

making connections

by Robin Powlesland

stunning the geographic distance 

between myself and what is acceptable 

in structures of light and glass

filtered species of thought

giving way through cloud and sky and flight

it stretches as far as my finger outlines

the scratched surface of thick plastic

and diamond shaped soil

stunning how odd I am in the stepping off

of curb and pretending that street is mine

that space is mine and thought is mine

remixing the replication is a new form

of education and it's all surprised by shopping

the activity of hunting and gathering

and then of course eating with strangers

and loved ones and then sleeping

it's a fought for reality between the haves

and have nots - the right to talk about education

to relinquish small tools for larger ones

to access other countries through soap stars

quickly layered one after another

sitting in rows - silently typing our speaking

questions to shout out to each other

sitting next to one another - strangers

and loved ones and then sleeping

mica in short spurts on sidewalks 

bringing what was out here distantly

to what is now through conversation

remaking of dialogue and connected learning

I can no longer live inside those walls

that still contain us now

foraging meals and conversation

picking through best practices and strangers

losing loved ones and then sleeping

Electric ManDragon

Elihu Mondragon
by Ned Dougherty

he had a st- st- st- stupid hard time saying words and tripped over them like he had tight cords across his mouth. from his teeth to tongue the way king kong was tied down. his tongue just never co- co- co- cooperated when he spoke in gargantuan str-st-str-uggle.

nobody really appreciated his art work. he was a man at home with clay. his hands were agile and delicate. op- op- opposite of his language. he communicated with the world through his creations. but no one every saw them unless th- th- th- they stumbled around his yard looking for signs of life.

inevitably he was always alive and well tinkering in the silent sepia lit foyer forging beings out mud and water. he wa- wa- wa- wanted to be alone because was so f- f- f- fortunate to have the time to make people and s- sh- st- stuff from nothing. he had all the friends he needed three-d around his wool socken feet.

on his last day his house which had been forsaken and crumbled slowly from the outside in came to swallow him up. he avoided the collapsing eastern wall and the mold spores and dust kicked up but his wiring became finicky and loose ends were everywhere. oddly enough that day he played with play dough. his last creation before electrocution.

forevermore he would not be known but something more. immortal. something exciting. something electric. f- f- f- f- fuck yeah.

Untitled
by Robin Powlesland

there is a hidden

compartment

traversing

and the skin seems

multi-faceted, non-organic

I have different voices

different forms

and he grows frightened

as the glass steams empty

Germ Putty

by Charles Clayton

I used to be a hippy. Kinda dirty. Not as many showers as I should have had. I figured we evolved from dirt and bacteria so why bother scrubbing away all the dirt and bacteria? But now that I'm a schoolteacher and a parent, I've changed my ways. I shower daily, wear clean underwear, and keep my hands clean.

Why the shift? Because I now spend my days watching little kids sneeze and cough on an institutional scale, and it puts the invisible microbial thing into perspective. A hundred fingers in noses and wiped on walls and doorknobs. A hundred poorly wiped asses followed by a couple hundred poorly washed hands trying to shower you with hugs.Throw in some good old fashioned New Mexico poverty and neglect and you've got yourself a germ factory.

They walk down the hallways and run their hands along the walls, and swear I can track their path by the trail of streptococcus they smeared along the way. They borrow a pencil and I let them keep it. They use my computer and I wish I had some Lysol. I just keep washing my hands, every chance I get, with plenty of commercial grade school supply soap and lukewarm water. This is especially true when they use my clay to sculpt some letters, or the week's spelling words, followed by some free time. Germ fingers kneading that clay, mixing in the air and the oils and the boogers and bacteria, creating a microbial garden deep within the purple and green dragon.

Haiku
by Eric Mack

Obscene they call it,
God's plan has no Dragon-men
This clay is all sin.

Bob’s Long Strange Trip

by Gary Feuerman

Gumby and Pokey. Mr. Bill and his magic dragon. Squeezable. Crushable. There was this man who rode in on a horse, right into the living room of the fiddler in green. He’d been following her north for two years, relentlessly north. His name was Bob and he stole sheep from the ranches dotting the high deserts and foothills. He ate heartily in the dark, under the moon, feeling warm in the hard snow. The fiddler was never far away, but she danced faster than he could run, an optical delusion that made it all seem like a dream. Bob didn’t care, he could smell her, and that was enough to keep him going, that and the mutton (which also smelled pretty damn good on the skewer). In the summers, he clambered up into the pinnacles above treeline, and wished he had an alpenhorn to accompany her plaintive fiddle, although, on second thought, probably not a good combination. And her fiddle playing was far from plaintive although he always wanted to use that word to describe it, apropos or no. He caught glimpses of her shooting into the trees, and knew her to be round in all the right ways. Seriously, you know, round. He thought his pupils would dilate more than ever if he could just get within say 20 feet of her, but, as always, she skip-danced and twirled like a Deadhead, somehow passing through dimensions, and trailing the scent of vanilla (which always threw Bob off, Deadhead and vanilla not making sense, but it wasn’t bad…not bad at all). Mostly he caught shoulders and back, and thought he could see tattoos, of a squishy, electric colored clay dragon and a man who had a remote control pointed at the dragon. And, strangely, they were in a clay raft of the same colors all of this sitting on a wooden table, the grain of which, Bob thought, must be really hard to get on a person’s skin. Like how do you depict wood on a person’s skin? Bob’s mind rebelled against the tattoos, but he did think of them often. He thought maybe just a dragon tattoo, like the ones everyone thinks about would have been sexier, although suddenly, sadly cliché because of that other girl with the dragon tattoo that everybody now talks about. Then again, an electric man dragon in a raft on a wood table – who would have thought about that? So, with this in his mind, Bob, after two years heading north, rode into the fiddler’s living room and found her wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a magenta butterfly pavilion t-shirt, eating a bowl of pasta and watching American Idol. She didn’t notice him and, strangely, his next thought was that he should just leave her like this, and beat it south before disappointment set in.

Birth of the Electric ManDragon

by Johanna DeBiase

Before words, time, or bodies,

a burning birth canal pushes him

into this light. There is only glare

and glimmer before first sight washes in –

the horizon line meeting earth and sky, sky

like spirit- untouchable, necessary breath.

A heavy pulling force, fastens him

tightly to earth. He digs in his heels and

discovers the rise of pulse, the stretch

of fiber, the release of numbness,

the pain of – click, tick, twist –

toward the bending of cooperative joints.

Sounds echo in the caverns of his head –

vibrations humming, the pitch of moving

back and forth, the song of heartstrings.

Scents of salt and feces, mud and ash,

go unnamed as a wild history grows in his body,

memories that fill the empty spaces between

particles of form.

All of this creating

an encompassing bliss

overshadowed by a precarious void.

Prayer

Inside Child

by Johanna DeBiase

The girl hugged her knees in closer and lowered her forehead to rest on them. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. She could make out the vertical lines of wood paneling along the walls that brushed up against her shoulders in the narrow nook. The girl had been there so long that mother had forgotten about her. She resorted to eating insects and dust.

A long time ago, the girl was playing outside with the sun warming her skin. She was laughing in the long sway of the swing as she opened her legs and arms to lean back as far as she could so her toes touched the sky. Then, the girl was shut in the house, then her room, then the closet and then the cabinet beneath the stairs.

Mother preferred not to see the girl. It was better not to remember. The girl listened to mother's footsteps traverse the old moaning house, her weight on the floorboards and stairs. Mother moved about cleaning the house from top to bottom, straightening and dusting the nick-knacks, organizing and polishing her things. When the postman came, mother did not invite him in but he noted that her house was in order. He nodded and handed her the mail. Mother smiled but she was not happy.

One day, mother answered the phone instead of ignoring the incessant chiming and this change in behavior was rewarded. There was a voice on the other end of the line and the voice was inviting her out. Mother never went out. The house was warm and soft and dark and safe. The voice assured her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that she would be just fine outside, more than fine, she would be great. Mother agreed to go.

The girl fiddled with the doorknob to search for a simple release. It loosened in her palm.

Mother adjusted her skirt in the mirror. She did not notice the cabinet door was ajar as she zipped up her boots. She hesitated before opening the door with dramatic force and shielding her eyes. The outside light was bright and pushed its way into the house, stirring up dirt and residue. Mother took a step forward and the light swallowed her whole.

The girl pivoted her twitching legs and pulled herself up and out of the cabinet with great effort. Her body was small, pale and frail. The phone rang, but she did not answer it; she did not need to hear the voice. The front door was left open. She walked as fast as she could manage outside into the light.

Ghost of a Chance

by Ned Dougherty

here is love
head hung bowed to sky gray universe

the patron of gatherers and pilgrims
seducer of simpletons

a wing forsaken cherub
aimless like the rest

remember
thanks and humility for the caught

stone
in a mess of blue wool

passed between her hands
trying to figure and hold

true

2012

by Charles Clayton

The time was at hand. The Hebrews annexed Jerusalem in February, prompting invasion by surrounding Muslim nations. In July, North Korea joined the fray and launched nuclear weapons against the United States, prompting ground and air invasions by NATO nations. In late August, the permafrost hit a critical mass and melted, throwing uncountable tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere virtually overnight and disrupting weather patterns. Crops failed. Drought and floods hammered at the land. Starvation and mass, panicked migration unfolded across the globe as humans rushed towards rumors of food and clean water.

Then, in mid-December, our solar system completed a cycle around the Milky Way galaxy, and all hell broke lose. The trumpets atop the Mormon temples blasted in unison. Angels fluttered down from the heavens. Saints appeared and walked upon the Earth. Jesus arrived on a golden cloud, backed by presence of a Monotheistic God—a power that could be sensed if not seen. Believers and non-believers alike flocked to churches, synagogues, mosques and shrines, begging for forgiveness and mercy.

Four days later, on the winter solstice, a powerful earthquake struck in the Caucasus Mountains of Turkey, ripping great hole in the Earth and releasing countless ancient deities that swarmed the planet and wreaked havoc upon the heavenly host. Achilles slew David. Fairies and sprites wrestled cherubs to the death. Thor pummeled Allah/Jehovah with his hammer. Zeus zapped Jesus with a lightning bolt. The saints stepped out of their shrines for a final stand, but as they knelt to pray Medusa slithered into the fray and turned them all to stone.

Weight of the World

by Gary Feuerman

Not, everyone can carry the weight of the world. In prayer, when I go deep, I sometimes feel like that, heavy, slowly bending toward the ground, seeking the smell of moss, the flesh of a baby in my hands. Eventually, I rise, like a yogi, as the earth buoys me, sends food to my spine, spirit to my eyes. “Bow down”- I hear this in my eyes, “Bow down first.” Smell the ground again. Let your arms cradle your soft head, so much softer than you remember. Have you touched it lately, really let your fingertips and palms touch the warm flesh. It trembles. It needs swaddling. It’s been hit, and bounced, jarred into shapes it never meant to take. Let the head, my head, drop, so my eyes can remember what I look like, what my brother looks like, closer to my fast breathing heart, which also trembles, waiting for a warm hand, waiting for Neptune’s direction. I bend with her into my aching feet and knees that remember the last few years, that have absorbed rocks and concrete, wood and water. The lower I bend, the more I can smell the cold that has been housed in my bones, the vertebrae tight against the bottom of my neck. I realize I’m a cat about to jump off a counter, always, and I seek the ground, to lie by a creek, to crawl in the sage. She, in prayer, tells me I’m an old amphibian about to rise out of the water. You have to crawl first, she says. I can’t hear this when I’m standing coiled on the countertop. I can hear the sound, her voice, as I lower. She’s lowered for me, for us. She’s carrying the weight of the world. And I want to bear my share; I want to crawl like a turtle carrying a load. You have to crawl first, she says, her voice getting clearer. You have to crawl first before you can understand. I don’t want her to carry all the weight. I can smell the ground and will carry my own.

Western Sky Mesa Dawn

11/11/11

by Gary Feuerman

You get up early, and see the candy stripes of dawn in the windows. It is still dark, and muted in your bedroom, the light so delicate you need to wear slippers. Your exposed knees feel cold coming up from the concrete floor. There’s the sense that someone else can see you, or maybe you want that and it seems so. Your closet is neatly arranged and that’s pleasing, but your longjohns are not in there. You left them in the dryer. The kitchen holds the promise of a breakfast salad and hot tea, but you’re not ready. It’s dark near the floor but light is beginning to grace the undulating outline of the mountains. You grab the iPhone and turn it on, waiting interminably for that apple icon to turn to full operation mode. The background picture on your phone, a liquid light of indigo and charged lavender, is quivering in real time over Wheeler Peak. You throw on your thick navy sweatpants, the green base layer shirt, and the North Face slippers. You forego the hat. It’s 18 degrees but so calm that your warmth stays with you as you climb the adobe wall to stand on the soft surface of the vast sage plateau. Your slippers sink into the sandy clay. First, you look to the sacred mountain and see that peak outline so vividly that it brings a faint sadness. You take pictures of the mountain with its one shredded pennant of cloud ,which sticks to the peak as if from static. It looks like vapor from a cauldron. You walk on the desert above your house, in the dead quiet before dogs, before rabbits, and you feel levitated off the surface by the intimacy of walking in such an immense, unstirred scene. The sky to the west, against the feline spines of the old volcanoes, reflects an aquamarine ocean blushed indigo, plum and the beginnings of magenta. You put the phone up in front of your face and press the camera icon with your thumb. You then turn to the south and do it again. After that, you stop and listen to your heart beat feeling tall and unraveled.

Pink Moon

by Johanna DeBiase

Nothing was ever the same after the sky turned pink. It took months for scientists to even theorize the cause – talk of radiation, solar flares, atmospheric changes. Religious zealots claimed it was a message from God, but those were split. Half thought God was warning us to get it together before the pink phased to red and all went to hell. The other half thought God was showing us his rose tinted glasses, offering us a second chance. Philosophers insisted that the sky did not change but our way of seeing it did.

The pink sky sure did make everything look different; an extraordinary glow coated dull surfaces such that the world was warm and inviting. On the other hand, my brain was never quite able to adjust. After a while, all that pink made me nauseous and I could no longer bare the sight of it. I trashed tutus and wore blue lipstick. I closed myself inside with shades drawn until sunset when, just for a moment, the sky turned blue again and life seemed okay. At least, I had the night, the dark maroon of midnight.

La Dentuda
by Ned Dougherty

If only she wasn't so toothy

or angular

fishing for me in the chlorine.

Her father isn't much of a guy either

intimidating the suitors;

double dared me to kiss her.

She's one of those fiery receptionists

with technicolor nails

and fighter pilot red lipstick hands free technology.

Chews horse pill vitamins like candy

and takes a shot of hot water

to steep Earl Grey in her mouth.

She's that inviting kind of nasty

like a snuff film

at the front desk of Kit Carson Electric.

western sky
by Robin Powesland

it’s delicate

this idea we have of communication

the soft underbelly of the word lilac

somehow hardened and left

coquettishly complete

how we see

the eyes crinkle or grow wider

belies sometimes the choices

made long ago

we are new

in this softness

we are just plucked

laying out in the pooling light

shifting breeze

this idea of what we have to say

beyond our just being here

is beautiful and spotted

like queen’s lace

Not Another Day

by Charles Clayton

Lots of these in a lifetime. The sunrise I mean. Every single day whether you're paying attention or not. Spectacular each and every time, just like the other blessings unfolding in your life. Food on the table. Roof over the head. A body that works. The pitter patter of little feet. A cup of hot coffee. A good woman to share it all with. And every day the sun rises to shine a light on it all, like icing on the cake of goodness.

And just like that it's gone. Not the blessings, but the blissful ignorance and the belief that there will always be plenty of time. A fateful diagnosis, or a car crash, or maybe just slipping on the ice. Suddenly the lost moments really are lost, and you can't get them back. Sleeping through another sunrise. Maybe tomorrow. Staring at Facebook instead of into your child's eyes. Just one more minute, honey. Nursing a hangover instead of your marriage. I'll never do it again, my love. You'll never do it again.

Blood Sunset
by Eric Mack

They used to say the dirt was holy, but when people started turning, it became harder to believe. Several that we used to call friends and family had been buried in it. It didn't do the job. We resisted calling them zombies at first. The word was associated with an archetype of pure fiction, fiction that had long since been weaponized. Part of us wanted to preserve that past, simpler times when our nightmares couldn't so easily be realized with quantum genomics. The first real-world vampire had been created in a Singapore lab less than a month after the initial discovery was leaked and picked up by the network. The engineers held all the power now. Our legends and myths had become impotent the moment they became real. It was funny at first—the company that designed a line of bodyguards all identical to Pinhead from Hellraiser; then it became weird when the werewolf prostitute incidents started to be reported; and then the network took it to another level that pushed it all over the edge. I can't even imagine what's going on out there now. If I could, I wouldn't tell, lest the vision winds up in a lab somewhere.
An academic friend of mine got a wire through to me the other day. Wanted me to join the effort. Said they're working on bringing Jesus back to help set things right--the real one, not the Mormon fairy tale, he had assured me. I declined, of course. Can't see how a few tons of bread and fish is going to help our situation.

Untitled

Blackout
by Charles Clayton

I know, I know: there are people in the world living on less than a dollar a day, literally crapping out their life force due to a lack of clean water and various third world diseases, but that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to bitch about how backwards things sometimes are here in New Mexico.

Bad schools and drug addled parents, shady dealings and nepotism at all levels of local governance, the stoopid gang culture, and how the POWER ALWAYS GOES OUT around here during big events like the opening day of baseball season.

IT'S OPENING DAY FOR CHRISSAKES! Spring is in the air, beer is chilling in the fridge, the rabbit ears are getting some decent reception, the Sox are looking good this year...and then some obese stoned mother with a tattoo on her neck and a piercing in her eyebrow is driving too fast and yapping on her cell phone or slapping one of her seatbeltless brood in the back of the mini-van and fails to notice the curve in the road. Dry road. Fine weather. Middle of the goddamn day. Right into the power pole.

Wreckoning

by Gary Feuerman

This could have been me. I’m writing because this could have been me. Many times. But not usually in the light, although who knows what can happen? The pole got knocked off its base and still stands. The car rests on its side. Both wrenched and beaten, bent and splintered. I can’t get too poetic here, not on purpose. It’s now. It’s pelting cold rain on my house in the early dark of late October. The road, dusty for weeks, is now a sloppy horse track. I’m sneezing virulently, all day, by myself. I don’t know if it’s a cold, allergies or if the house is sick from dust or silica, or something in the air. I’ve sneezed so hard that my head hurts, and a cough has developed, still dry, but wheezy and fluttery in the chest. I’ve sneezed so loud that the windows rattled. I had some good thoughts earlier, but now I feel achy, sick and alone. Now I remember the first smell of moisture in the morning, one that gave me an old sadness of Long Island in November. A sweetness in it, a loamy, earthy, mulchy sweetness that feels like funerals, or waiting out arguments on the porch at Thanksgiving. Some days it would remind me of falling face first in the grass after scoring a touchdown in a schoolyard or backyard football game, but not today. It spelled an ending. I fought it and worked at the desk here at my house – no office to go to anymore. And I did ok, got through deadlines, closed a substantial private loan for the brewery, banged out some emails, saw the Facebook news and messages. This made me feel far removed from whatever it is that is happening out there. I’m not grasping it, although I feel dangerous when I see and hear clips of violence; not “in danger” but dangerous. Dangerous to myself, and to others knowing there is a seed in me that can grow a violent protester, or a martyr which can be just as violent. I don’t know about this 1% and 99%. My gut says that’s too easy. But I don’t have the capacity to think of ways to “fight” the power, whatever that is. Maybe the idea is to turn back to where you are and live in community, tribally, feed and feed alike. Trips to the farmers markets this summer and fall have felt abundant. There’s always food left, tons of food. What is it we’re worried about? Why can’t we build our own schools and teach the way we want? Why can’t being in a beautiful place with endless playgrounds, and rich varieties of heart opened people with all the stories of the world be enough? We could take in travelers from other tribes, an oasis in the desert, and send them off with our art, our love, our food, and the spark that they brought us enlivened? And they can do for us the same. Why do we have to worry about Wall Street, or the far right, far left, far flung? We already have the under layer of a barter economy. We have the skills and resources to live sustainably. We have accessible riches of art and culture to keep our myths evolving, and our child’s eyes forever awake and dreaming. We can live on little money and be secure. We can ignore Wall St. I know we can. I’d need some guidance from others, and in a circle I can guide in some ways. I’m willing to work the fields and clean the dishes. I’m willing to break down my barriers and help. I’m lonely as fuck right now in my house, listening to the rain, checking Facebook in the hope that I’ll get a personal message from someone, the new form of looking in the mailbox for a letter, but much more cruel and need-soaked because you can look every 30 seconds (less!) like a tic and you might not get what you need “out there.” I’d be happy to crack this solo habit and commune (as long as there’s some private space ) . I believe it’s part of what I’m doing with the brewery. Wall Street certainly did not help us, hell, our own village leaders and “community” banks did not help us (that’s frigging euphemistic!). We’ve gone bankless, lo these 5 years, but I’ve become brothers with my partners and we scraped and scrounged for our initial investments (leveraging houses built by hand – thank you mortgage mania, frugality of saving pennies, and for me going to a fanatical believer for some – thanks Mom!) and with steady fervor convinced others to join the circus. Am I angry that we don’t have the burden of a $500,000 loan from US Bank and the tightrope walk that goes with that? You can answer that question. People have bought into the business. People have built with us for years for some equity and some beer. Yes, they think we’ll make some money. Yes, we think we’ll make some money. We’re not down on money, although if things go barter and fully communal, what a great place the Rock Garden will be! Who will care at that point as we quaff heavenly beer, play volleyball in the sun and listen to killer music? Alright, yes, I’ve been selling this place a lot lately, so maybe some of that has spilled over. You don’t have to buy a share, no worries. So, I don’t know. I was just in a play in Taos, the lead in a fucking play, an original play. Where else can some shmo from Long Island be the lead in an original, surreal romantic tragicomedy with wacked clowns, burlesque and a grandpa 5 years older than him? No, we’re not doing anymore shows, so I’m not promoting here. I’m just saying. You want to be in a play, just be in it. You want to grow food, grow it. You want to spit poetry, spit it. You want to share your skills and live heart, share them. You can wreck any time whether you deserve it or not, so I say, fuck worrying about Wall St., let’s have a coffee or a beer and dream a dream of here/and now.

Done Chrysalis

by Johanna DeBiase

She should have known to slow down when the tires slipped going under the overpass. She might have pulled over for the night, but she had an irrational need to get to the Corn Palace before putting the road to bed. The soft rain had just begun, winter dark just fallen. She must have been doing seventy when the tires slipped again. The Jeep spun a one-eighty and rolled onto the roof of the passenger side where her buddy Jim was shielding his head. The roll continued onto her side, tossing them around in a state of blank suspension. Glass shattered in her hair. Somehow, it landed on all fours, on the other side of the gully, perpendicular to on-coming traffic.

To her right, headlights stared her down. She could not open her door. Her left hand was fucked up. She felt for her left pinky, bent back from the top knuckle and grabbing it, snapped it back into place with painless adrenaline. Jim managed to get his door open and she crawled out his side. He was cradling his right arm to hold in the bone jutting out of his elbow.

The first responders found them there in the ditch, in the rain, broken and huddled close. She kept asking them to check her hair for glass as they covered them with blankets. When the paramedics finally arrived, they wrapped her neck in foam and strapped her into the gurney. Sirens preceded their arrival. She was half-way to the hospital in an ambulance swerving and sliding along the icy back roads when she was struck with a moment of clarity. Shit, she thought to herself, I'm really fucking high.

Untitled

by Robin Powlesland

maybe

the reason for each

one of these

loves

or someone once called

them

mistakes

this waking up

in the morning

or late at night

or just because this someone

said our name just right

just soft enough

we had to lean in

closer

and taste the mistake

before tasting the person

before feeling the metal

crash into our bodies

the glass break across our faces

and the time

each time it happens

we feel the end

just as the same as the

beginning

Summer Goodness

What'll It Be?

by Charles Clayton

Uncork the bottle. Inspiration flows.

Wine loosens the lips. Inhibitions vanish.

Poetry. Songs. Stories.

Throat chakra freed

muses pour forth

laughter

mirth

joy

Uncork the bottle. Let it all hang out.

Wine warms the loins. Inhibitions vanish.

Passion. Lust. Heat.

Sweet nothings whispered.

Release

orgasm

union

Uncork the bottle. Happy hour.

Wine blurs the vision. Judgment fails.

Stumble. Slur. Double vision.

The key turns

drive

swerve

crash

Uncork the bottle. Pain denied.

Wine masks feelings. Tears held back.

Regret. Sorrow. Guilt.

The gun cocked

trigger

bullet

brain

Uncork the bottle. Let her have it.

Wine blinds. Fists fly.

Anger. Hate. Self loathing.

The kid watches.

Mom’s black eye

trapped

patterns

Will the muse

make up for

the hangovers?

Will the orgasm

balance out

the jailtime?

Will the songs

console

the battered woman?

Will the reverie

make up for

the sorrow?

Toast Goodbye to Summer

by Johanna DeBiase

Goodbye shallow murky rivers where we float in tubes and bury our ankles in minnows.

Goodbye bare shoulders streaked with tan lines and feet cracking open.

Goodbye buttercress and favas off the vine.

Goodbye outdoor music with hipsters drinking beer on patio chairs.

Goodbye camping road trips to orange rock caverns and alpine meadows.

Goodbye grass between our toes, sun on our bellies, wind through uncapped hair.

Goodbye, summer, goodbye.

Fairy Dust

Fairy Dust

by Johanna DeBiase

In college, Beth took acid. It was not an optimal situation since she was alone and at a Phish concert. Still, Beth swore she saw fairies - points of gold light interspersed in the trees. Later, when similar lights off the water began to chase after her, she still believed she had seen fairies – a little window opened in her consciousness and let them in.

Even after swearing off acid forever, on occasion, she might still see those points of light, only one, only rarely.

Then she had a little girl she named Lily who for some time loved tiaras and wings. Beth confirmed for her the existence of fairies and they both made up songs to enchant them. Years later, after Lily outgrew fairies, tearing pictures from her wall, Beth was disappointed. However, she was pleased to discover, she could sometimes spot a golden point of light just beyond Lily's left ear.

Untitled

by Robin Powlesland

Soft.

Marketing of small letters

And words.

We stop to listen

But get crowded out by all

The people walking

Through.

I have found her voice

By chance

As if by chance.

It is soft

And just enough dance

For me to feel

The twilight

In us all.

Fiesta Princess

-E. Mack

The dancehall is nearly empty. The floorboards pre-date the dozen people scattered in chairs along the side wall, most of whom collect a pension by now. A section on the far side of dancefloor completely rotted away a few years ago, and a ten-foot square section of gleaming new laminate contrasts with the gray, aged pine planks that surround it.

Two guitarists on stage look tired. They're playing a Gospel version of "Sweet Home Alabama" with the chorus changed to "Sweet Heaven, Hallelujah." The fluorescent lighting, stained walls and smell of processed cheese wafting from the snack bar in back make the original version seem more appropriate.

My daughter is twirling alone while the old people look on, red hair flying, gossamer faux angel wings flapping and the unfamiliar plastic crown she must have stolen from one of her friends repeatedly falling to floor.

Soon the Fiesta princesses will be making their grand entrance.

A guitar string breaks in the middle of the second verse, the song stops, but the little girl keeps twirling.

A replacement guitar is found before the princesses arrive 90 minutes late. There are now three little girls twirling, sliding, luxuriating on the slick laminate floor section. Before I notice the royal procession preparing to enter from the back, a few of the old people are directing my daughter to a chair, gently and with a smile.

I sit next to her. Her mother appears with nachos. The jalapenos are pickled. We both direct our daughter's gaze to the line in the back of the room. The fiesta princesses are far from contemporary. No updating of the outfits to be more stylish or sexy, a little more Disney. Instead, there are intricate crowns and long, heavy flowing robes in royal blue.

Rather than be impressed or awestruck, the three-foot tall person sitting next to me is devastated by a case of princess envy.

"It's not fair they're more beautifuller than me!"

She crosses her arms across her chest so forcefully she creates a self-imposed straight jacket.

My pep talk about everyone being beautiful in their own way and waiting for her day to be princess doesn't help. It sounds like bullshit even to a three-year-old, and it is. There's never going to be a Jewish princess of this Catholic celebration.

After the procession and the nachos recede, we head to the other side of the village where electronic music blares from the old theater. A few dozen hipsters from Santa Fe are making jerky movements out-of-sync with the beat on the stage. My daughter finally releases her arms from their locked position and runs in their direction, tiny wings flapping behind.