burningword literary journal, issue 65

issue 65 / winter 2013 / $12us

Burningword literary journal focusses on

emerging writers of poetry and short fiction

Burningword is published by

Burrdowning press

Publishing Editor & Creative Director

Erik Austin Deerly

Editor In Chief

Anita M. Garza

www.burningword.com

Submissions & guidelines:

www.burningword.com/submissions

po Box 217

carmel in 46062 usa

ISSN 2161-8992 (print)

ISSN 2157-7366 (online)

© 2013 Burningword & the authors

Cover art, “Mask of the

Colonialized” (2012) by

Erik Austin Deerly

winter 2013

aj huffman

scott laudati

roBert strickland

pearl ketover prilik

stefanie lyons

alison carB sussman

alan donnelly

loukia janavaras

angelina oBerdan

anna moore

katrina madarang

karina Billini

laura rodriguez

jamez chang

Brad rose

christopher Brennan

matt hemmerich

richard king perkins ii

sarah marchant

david lewitzky

thomas pescatore

karen costa

william haynes

sara Bickley

steve klepetar

angela penaredondo

Burningword literary journal: sixty-five

4 | issue sixty-five

In Places Bed

Sleep,a place for magic tricks and dreamsand romance after yes stands a chance hearing. Sounds in Shuffled Minor, a Three-girl-Monte,we dance to b -flat cries, keep the us pressed together/awake,in places bed.

The marriage of our AM bodies parallel now,two bullets awake, our shared spotlight softens us to packing, hugs and snacks for daughters, sliding a curved heart across tables, past our eyes,we press send. To separate buses, go Daughters, gogrooming for distance, hearing no in subjects Magic, they learn to pull missiles out of a hat.

We hang onto hoops and rings still-worn,vanished,our open circus stilts carry us in years,we romance in hallway plaque. Transcripts in places bed silent,kept pond-safe as our Forward Daughters march the us tosleep.

—Jamez Chang ([email protected])

Jamez Chang’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in FRiGG, Prime Number, Lines + Stars, Boston Literary Magazine, Poydras Review, Marco Polo, and Yes, Poetry. After graduating from Bard College, Jamez went on to become the first Korean-American to release a hip-hop album, Z-Bonics (1998), in the United States. He lives in Englewood Cliffs, NJ with his wife and 3 daughters. Visit www.jamezchang.com

Dark

Most mornings alight on my bones this way—The shadows of the leaves of a tree risingAnd falling like a ship on a sea, upon my windowpaneThat glowed with the golden light of Saturday.

But today, the window was a silent nothing—When I woke, the shadows had gone awayTo stretch big and heavy, to trespass rooms And hearts and dull their landscapes.

I lay on my bed, still, with a blanket to my chin—Nursing a loneliness a dream had awakened.Out the other window, the stone wall glistened darkWith water from the distant, distant heavens.

—Katrina A. Madarang ([email protected])

Looking for a Key

The Dungeon, Midwest Books, Stoughton, Wisconsin

Confine me closer, little room of shelves,And hold me in your mouth whose teeth are spines.Your concave paper and your convex clothCollapse upon me. Drug me with the smellOf mummied wood. The book I want is allWays hidden well: accept my captured handInto your close forgotten crevicesTo touch the flesh the angle leaves unseen.

—Sara Bickley ([email protected])

Burningword literary journal | 5

Yellowed

sunlight streamed through cobwebsto illuminate decaying memories

there was a time when love meantback massages when I was tiredand making fun of all the hair on his armsjust to apologize in fluttered lashes

my hand reached through yearsjust to find his

but sepia crawls overall of the colors

now when our eyes meethe mutes the connection,draining me wordlessly

my smiles are forcedas I hide my teethand try not to blinkour history in code

—Sarah Lucille Marchant ([email protected])

Lifeless

moonlight sits behind window glassas if waiting for permission to come in

all sounds fold & flatten—creased into static

and my tongue feelstoo heavy to lift when ittries to say that youmean nothing to me

—Sarah Lucille Marchant ([email protected])


A Retrospective

At 4 years old I levitatedLocked my eyes and lifted from my bedFloated through the houseSoared over mountains of crushed and flattened carsI knew the golden flashes of the starsThe electric chanting of the airThe darkness of the universeI knew invisibilityAnd on the stairs outside the kitchen door, I tasted endlessness

At 9 I pissed on my big sister who wouldn’t get off the potI squirted a gusher on that hapless, acne’d wretchSoaked her chest, her lap. her thighsThat same day epiphany raged through me like an avalancheThe magnitude of death, end of consciousness, everlasting solitudeI shuddered, and shudder yet

At 13, my Bar Mitzvah yearI eavesdropped on my parents thrashings of desireAshamed, appalled, and beating offAnd bragged about it to my friends

In my teens, (the young manhood of a Jew)I bullied the weak, ridiculed the strange, shunned the lonelyand toadied to the crew I most admired.I thirsted to become whatever it was I would becomeI was a courtier in the courtyard of my life

At 21, the year I came of age,In the spirit of equality I slapped a woman who loved meLike Rimbaud, I turned away from rectitude, shunned all things familiarCheated my parents, they who seeded me, in the name of educationI enlisted in the Marine Corps in a dream of chivalryWashed out quickly, my apathy intactWhen no one was lookingI made babies cry and dogs whimper in painI was searching for an ethic of creativity, looking for a rose

“Energy is eternal delight.” – William Blake


At 31, appearing fully formed and fortunateI was a husband, father, businessman in high regardI walked upon the world intent on leaving footprints of achievementI hankered after a baroque richness and a classical orderDoing what I had to doI fleeced whoever trusted me, and bribed officials, and pimped my secretaryAlong the way I cheated on my wife and gave her crabsKicked around my sons to ease my caresTerrified my daughter to nurture her imaginationI paid no attention to the pageantry of timeNo longer troubled to recall my dreams

At 40, aware of my impermanenceI’d learned that defeat and loss are the hyenas that feed upon usAnd resilience is a lifelong obligationI turned my lust to matters altruisticSetting out to heal the sick at heartI became the train that carried broken birds of passageI listened to their cries at night and wailed into the nightIn my envy I seduced the sad and lonelyAgain and again my resolve to do some good unraveled into lassitudeMy indifference sped desperate people to their ruin

Now, at 63, I bring you these bitter fruits, this litany of memoriesThe song of my self-loathingI’m dedicated to a self-absorbed ideal of partial truthI make no apologiesThis is a cleaner work then what has gone before It redeems me by virtue of a half-assed honesty and graceful phrasing

I tell you I am joyful and unrepentantI tell you these are the badges of my sainthood and mortalityI tell you I’m expanding as my world contractsI tell you I’m a falcon risingI tell you that I’m laughing as I gaze into my grave.

—David Lewitzky ([email protected])

David Lewitzky is a retired social worker/family therapist living out his sedentary life in Buffalo, New York. Recent work has appeared in Nimrod, Roanoke Review, and Third Wednesday among others and forthcoming work in Passages North, Clarion, Sam Smith’s Journal and Poetry Bus.


While You Were Gone

While you were goneWe talkedWe touchedWe slid meltingIce cubes overSweat slick thighsWhile you were goneWe danced barefootTo the little radioIn the kitchenNakedAte chocolate chipCookies and lickedCrumbs off our facesTogetherWhile you were goneWe laughedSoftly and hardAs the light fellWe sat face toFace and fingeredEyelashesUntilWith an unwarning whirYou returnedIn blaze of light andBlaring voiceAnd caught usIn reimpoweredSixty inch eyeShamed separatewe covered ourselvesAnd resumedOur silent watchPower restored

—Pearl Ketover Prilik ([email protected])

Pearl Ketover Prilik, freelance writer/psychoanalyst, is a believer in the spark that flickers within each and connects all. She has three nonfiction books published, was editor of a post-doc psychoanalytic newsletter and lately, editor/contributor of two collaborative international poetry anthologies.

Dionysiou Areopagitou Street

ancient marble frameswide cobblestone,hills and treesas ifa paintingenters life—pink parasols twirlin the breezeand passers-by stroll onpast ice cream vendors peach parfait,a gypsy violinist playson, as ifthe song cannot end,as ifthis promenade exists beyondSeptember Sunday’s mid-day sun.

—Loukia Janavaras ([email protected])

Loukia M. Janavaras is from Minneapolis, MN but has been living in Athens, Greece for the past 10 years. Although she enjoys writing, it is never a choice.


You Told Him

You gaze at the clothes flipping in the washer, because you don’t know what else to do. They’re not even yours.

You told Brad you needed something more, something he couldn’t offer, something you couldn’t explain. You rubbed your damp palms over the lime green material of your dress and told him you wouldn’t forget. You didn’t mention the inoperable tumor.

You changed jobs and moved to the other side of the city, so there would be less chance of you running into each other. You didn’t tell your new employer you’d be there for less than a year.

You changed your cell phone number and closed your Facebook page. You knew Brad would try to find you.

***

You spin the diamond to match the cycle of the clothes. You don’t think about the future.

You handed Brad a valise with his stuff from your apartment when you met at the cafe, everything except the ring, that is. You told him you lost it. He was too shocked to be angry.

He asked why. You couldn’t tell him the truth.

You walked out of the coffee shop, leaving him sitting with his mouth open. You told him not to follow you. You needed some space.

People stared. You wanted to tell them you didn’t want to be a burden, like your mother had been at the end.

—Jim Harrington ( [email protected])

Jim Harrington began writing fiction in 2007 and has agonized over the form ever since. His recent stories have appeared in Short, Fast and Deadly, Ink Sweat and Tears, Near to the Knuckle, Flashes in the Dark, and others. “Redlining” was chosen for inclusion in the Pulp Ink, a collection of crime stories. He serves as Flash Markets Editor for Flash Fiction Chronicles (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/). Jim’s Six Questions For . . . blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” You can read more of his stories at http://jpharrington.blogspot.com.

Story Ark

Lessons of love and lossrendered in song.

Soundtrack of nostalgia.Concert of memories.

A wistful reminder of the story so far.

Infinite possibilitieslived and unlived.

The Ark of one life’s taledigitally remastered.

—Christopher Brennan

([email protected])

Christopher Brennan is the founder and publisher of www.fireservicewarrior.com, author of The Combat Position: Achieving Firefighter Readiness (2011), and co-author and editor of Fire Service Warrior Foundations (2012).


Eviction, Upstate New York, 2009

Loose steps lead down to the dusty porchsurrounded by the graffitied stone wall I watch the sun rise from the lawn chair paces from the small bungalow where we livedsharing cinnamon rolls, spaghetti, lemonadeall of us stuffed in tightthe blue coat of paint on the house so wornwe see rough splintered wood underneaththe shutters squeak in the windthe roof leaks and my father curses, putsback the split shingles and reseals them the sun high and hot over the flagstone path the front door with the torn screenmy grandmother grows tomatoes along that walk near the boulder left sometime after the last ice ageI imagine its ancient world when dinosaurs and woolly mammoths roamed among the trees now the lawn is crushed by dandelionsand giant ragweed bushes stampede acrossred tailed hawks screech in wheezing oaksas my heart sinks with the sun on the planksand I slip into a place of buzzing voicesmy brothers plead and my mother bangs the car keys on the tableThe driveway up front by the big willow points away from the house onto the broken road with millions of hairline crackslike fault lines to other houses, other families.

—Alison Carb Sussman ([email protected])

Alison Carb Sussman’s chapbook, On the Edge, is scheduled for publication by Finishing Line Press in May, 2013. Her poetry has appeared in The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, The Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Eclipse, Slipstream, and elsewhere. She currently studies at The Writers Studio under the direction of Philip Schultz.

Electric Pictures

lend credibility to imaginary walls. The perfect frame for time-stopped moments of mind rain. They flair to life. Laugh, dance, twirlan eternity into the blink of an eye that only pretends to beblind.

—AJ Huffman ([email protected])

With Disdain

I hand over the twodimensional datum ephigicallaminated version of myselfto anonymous hands. Fingers flyover keys. Stroking, entering my parameters. I amessentially logged, filedaway for future reference.

—AJ Huffman ([email protected])


Lemon Ice

It was a sweltering summer day anddripping with sweat Ipopped over to Taylor Street,ordered a lemon ice.

Waiting in line, myphone buzzed it’s usual “hi,”

opening itwhile taking an icy sip,that’s how Ilearnedthat you’d died.

The sharp taste.The sour taste.The aftertasteof lemon ice.

—Stefanie Lyons ([email protected])

Stefanie Lyons received her MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a Chicago advertising copywriter by day, working on her great American novel by night. These poems come from a series of digital loneliness and anti-advertising pieces she’s currently working on. Oh, the irony.

The Fleeing Of The Corncrakes

You swing the scythe in washed out flaxen fields

You may hear the blade against the dried out stalk It is a sweet sound if the cutting edge is thin You will listen for that faultless cut, it is a veiled thing It will hide in the murmur of starlings and six-row barley

You will swing and scare the murderous crowsIn repetitions you swing with the turning of your hips They are never the same, form of swing or ting of blade

The light will fail and you will walk home under cast out corncrakes By turf lit doorway you will sit and spit then drag the whetstone

You will smother the wicks and set loose the hungry tomcat,Evicted field-mice are suing for recompense.

—Alan Donnelly ([email protected])


Under the Black Tent of Her Nagajuban

for Abe Sada

If anyone knows how to make dangerous love on knuckles and knees to the pluck of a shamisen, its chords quivering like skeletons—its you.

It’s 1930 Japan and you must have spat like a yakuza, a little-razor-tongue misfit from the old bordellos of Tobita Shinchi and Edo’s Yoshiwara

You are more than a slash of lipstick.You are cult myth; the spider tattoo across a geisha’s shoulder blade like a claw. You need no pistol camouflaged in a silk boudoir to control men.

When I was seventeen a lover threatened to kill himself on the bathroom floor,held me down as I slashed the air with my hands.He stalked me like a hound for weeks.

I can still see his Volvo watching my bedroom window from across the street. The midnight telephone calls as I shivered in the corner.

I took him back like a thirsty dog and when he left again, without my hips fasten to his—hysteria, the kind that throbs and tears, leaving me lonelier than a shriveled root.

As I sit alone on the dark writing table, I stare at a painting of you in a book.You’re breasts aglow, taut as a mauve plum, naked body round and fattened,

lit up with a kind of shine as if you’ve eaten something so holy and satisfying. You have just killed your loverin a Shibuya love hotel. Tied his limbs,

told him to lie face down on a tatami matuntil tamed like a fish in a quiet pond then wrapped an obi around his throat,waited for droplets of sweat to simmer

above his lips, the gesture of his head that told you don’t stop.When his body went limp you held a knifein your salty palms and carved through neon veins.

I confess I have found love in torment, allowed it to wash over me and swell insidelike a drug. I still don’t know how to survive it,

and there are nights, in silence,where I fiend for its wreckage but I am nowarrior and this is why I write on the ruddy page.

—Angela Peñaredondo ([email protected])

Born in Iloilo City, Philippines, Angela Peñaredondo is a poet and artist from Los Angeles, California. Currently, she is completing an MFA program in Creative Writing from University of California Riverside, where she is a Gluck Fellow. Her work has appeared in 20x20 Magazine, Global Graffiti, The Poet’s Billow, Noyo River Review, upcoming in Solo Novo. Angela’s work was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was also awarded a University of Los Angeles California’s Community Access Scholarship in poetry, Fishtrap Fellowship and a Mendocino Coast Writers Conference Scholarship. She received first runner-up for the 2012 Atlantis Poetry Award.


New Jersey

The world has found New Jersey, thenew entertainment capital.like an ant farm on a glucose high, now,we crawl, we build, we eat eachother, we carry the dead, we swarm theliving, and we sit in your livingroom, while getting picked apart,and give joy to those viewing-that life can alwayshit a new low.they understand that when fate gives themthe dagger, at least it didn’t comesoakedin coconut oil.usually when the networkscome and the advertisers pay,those on the other end- providing thelaughs and memorable quotes, are the oneswith the last laugh, that the spectatorsand the tourists are the foolsfor tuning in.but like the bad end of a casino game, it seems the joke is on us.and even though our pizzais betterI’m pretty surethe masses are right.and for the first timein all historythe masses are right for the right reason,and i’m not invited to the victory party. —Scott Laudati ([email protected])

How the Movie Ends

In the sci-fi movie, plants drifted through space and took root in fields outside our city, blanketing them with a sinister green until they fattened on cow’s blood and rain. When they rippedfree from their roots and began to walk, strangely graceful, gliding more than hopping on those bending tendrils, we knew that firecouldn’t stop them, nor cyclonic winds nor prayer. Merciless in their calm, asexual waythey marched on Paris and Rome, we saw themwaving down Fifth Avenue, hideous parodyof Saint Patrick’s Day. We saw them clustered in Beijing exhaling carbon dioxide and fluttering like deadly daffodils until the factories shut down, and gradually earth grew calm and waters swelled clean and crystal blue and the aliens began to sicken because there was no acid in the cold rains to fuel those bodies raging for silence and the ancient breath of stars.

—Steve Klepetar ([email protected])

Steve Klepetar teaches literature and writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Flutter Press has recently published two of his chapbooks, “My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word” and “My Father Had Another Eye.”


Blank/Space

the moon is some madness those curl in popping stars on the ceiling, I burst apart stray thoughts you keep the lights on and drink in bed praying the wolves will dissever for they await at the blank/space erasing histories from a page if you lose my ember in your heart, I cannot resuscitate its truth we’ll wake in the morning, perennial prey for the cruel

—Matt Hemmerich ([email protected])

Hedestad

the weight of sleep breaks snow a coat of paint your face veiled white in the thaw, a crown molds tattooed by light, your frozen river sweats the brim of a crescent, damned in fire, glows technicolor above vernal heights and broken bones as the weight of sleep breaks snow


Lapse

you ascend to a vortex in the fog a half mast flag towers the ashes spread through Sutro Baths the distant vocal of an engine spinning in the sky, spins in your direction in an azure haze, the clouds ruminate with diamonds and starsas you disappear in the foreground



Lift

the fog burns off shadows trapped in glass a house on stilts creaks like a crate six feet above shark teeth skimming the bay the bridge is a woman iron and red, bearing carriers into the Northwest snowy plovers skirt under a blue lunette as you and I slowly forget our crimes on the land’s end

the sun was a dying fire on the horizon


Hail

when wrath has bledthe feeling arrives I cannot displace you, frosted strife, you divide my loves with a jealous ire no soul escapes your spinning plates, bitter spades

(her dress is draggled and I coil like a wounded fist)

a victor with still hands, you carry me downwards away from her light


Matt Hemmerich is a writer living in San Francisco’s Sunset District. He is currently working on a poetry chapbook and recording an EP.


Writing the Complete Poem

I hear a red, circular noise, but I don’t know where it’s coming from. I could look for it, but I think I’ll just to go back to bed for a couple of weeks. Even if the night is a magnetic field, it’s still darkly repulsive. When you examine the historical record, you can learn about the lowest high temperature, and the highest low temperature. The speed limit however, is not posted. It’s a little like listening to the sizzle of pink electricity; carnal, yet pristine. I often wish I knew how to play poker, but I was raised very religiously. I wasn’t allowed to gamble anywhere near a television set. It’s much easier to love an other at a distance, although, over time, you may discover yourself growing apart. Love chooses its own gravity, just like a remora chooses its own shark. Symbiosis works best in tandem with loneliness. On the surface of the diamond planet, ‘55 Cancri e’, the temperature is 3900 degrees. Wherever you may be, the flame burns bluest near the source of combustion. On August evenings, Hollywood’s swimming pools glisten like intentionally set wildfires. They shimmer, wet rectangles of aquamarine, television light. Of course, you can’t change the channel. Fortunately, learning to write a complete poem is a lot easier than it looks, if you give it half a chance. Like a reincarnation story you’ve read twice, it’s over more than once, before you’ve begun.

—Brad Rose ([email protected])

Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. His poetry and fiction have appeared in , Boston Literary Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Off the Coast, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, Santa Fe Literary Review, Barely South Review, Imagination and Place, Monkeybicycle, Right Hand Pointing, Little (flash) Fiction, SleetMagagazine.com, and other publications.


Blood

The problem is my blood, they say.There’s too much of it. In other words, I have done this to myself.

With their signatures I am delivered tiny pills,hundreds of them, metoprolol, valsartan,hydrochlorothia—I don’t know, untilI am no longer a man but a sheathinto which pills can be pouredbut it makes no difference. Blood begets blood.

I can feel them, the cells copulating in my arteriestheir birth a newness forced on this old body.

I get dizzy. On Thursday I find myself on the floor at the grocery. It is a kind of death; no one seems to notice.

They say the pills are working, but I don’t believe them—they do not hear the factory whirr of my bones,my overfilling heart. I know my blood’s spoiled,

lost to me now, like the wifeyou can no longer stand touching. You knowshe means well, and isn’t her fault—she just isn’t whatyou thought she’d be. But neither of you is going anywhere—you’ve made your choice, there’s no time for anything else.

—Anna Moore ([email protected])

Anna Moore is an editor, poet, creator of small fictions, and inarticulate pursuer of the ineffable. Major interests include books and their futures, reading and the brain, literacy and psychology, the collection and dissemination of information, and the construction and structure of meaning. Anna is from Denver, Colorado, has lived in Mérida, Venezuela; Fayetteville, Arkansas; and Los Angeles, California. She currently resides in both Providence, Rhode Island, and Brooklyn, New York.

It’s All Gone to the Dogs

We stopped speaking to each other sometime in the day to day montage of going to work and coming home from work, of writing papers and grading papers, of aligning calendars and mis-scheduling whole days, of dirtying dishes and washing dishes,and of taking the dog to the park,of saying “I love you” and meaning it.

We do “mean it,” but our language has decayed, and verbs without nouns spin uselessly until they fall. Gaps and gasps have become our rhetorical structure, and the dog seems more articulate, but only because our tongues lull, hang sideways from our lips, thick with disuse.

—Angelina Oberdan ([email protected])

Angelina recently finished her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and is currently a lecturer at Clemson University. Her poems are forthcoming or have been published in various journals including Yemassee, Cold Mountain Review, Italian Americana, Louisiana Literature, and Southern Indiana Review.


Out of Body

103 degrees, the city’s pavement cooks lovers like us sunny side up. But no one’s smiling. We sweat to forget the heat, sit down on a banged up bench at Van Cortland Park, devouring those dollar mango icies I love so much. We lazily reminisce about our foreclosed childhoods, watching a giddy girl and boy play in grass-stained overalls and clunky sneakers. They fantasize about being us, assigning each other scripted destinies through bossy fingers, yelling--You’re the man. You’re the woman. And we’ll play Love! Inspired, we clutch wet palms and pull each other to the direction of our own playhouse. We go home. Forget past-due Con Ed bills and put that gray, old fashioned air conditioner on high-- teasingly butt-bumping each other to get some one-on-one with its artificial breeze. No use, our bodies keep humming. So we improvise. If anyone’s looking for us, they can follow the trail of musty clothing we peeled off each other with great speed and ‘who-cares-right-now’ precision-- the soiled socks, the pit-stained t-shirts, the dingy undies. To my closet of a bathroom, where we let cold tap water hit our bare backs, watching escaped hairs, pollen, soap suds, and unfinished love poems trickle down to join the liquid chase. The sun’s kisses are still pressing down on us, kissing dry the little droplets of satisfaction. So we defy nature. We unzip and slip out of our sandpaper skins, throw them over my black ottomans, and play a sultry Sade track to help us catch the Holy Ghost, dancing tight and slow , whispering, Let’s play Love. A purple aura surrounds our souls and we levitate above the heavy heat. We play nude patti-cake in the lavender phenomenon; our limbs finally fuse into each other. We hope our game can continue to the moon. Before we know it, we’re flirting with the dusty ceiling, tapping our translucent toes to the last notes of the tune we left playing. The aura dims and we begin descend down, disoriented And zig- zagging back to the gas oven of a Bronx apartment. I cannot help to perspire you and you perspire me. We don‘t give each other destined locations. You can sleep in my body and I sleep in yours.

—Karina Billini ([email protected])

Karina is a Drama Specialist and Literature Arts instructor for Harlem Center for Education in New York City. She graduated from Marymount Manhattan College with a B.A. in playwriting. Her poetry has been published in the Marymount Manhattan Review, along with other literary magazines. Her poetry has won honorable recognition in the national Random House Creative Writing Competition and her theatrical works have received numerous honors from the Young Playwrights of New York City.


The Cat, On Snow

Have you ever tried to listen to the footsteps of a cat walking through snow? He takes gentle steps, as usual, but the top layer of snow - like the crust of crème brulee - betrays him. I watched the cat walk across the yard this morning, after five inches fell last night. The yard is a wide expanse, barren of anything but grass during the other months. This morning, it was a canvas of snow, and I watched the cat from down the street walk slowly across my yard. In another universe, one where you stayed, you hate it, sad to see the pristine snow get ruined by small footprints. You, with your morning coffee steaming your glasses, call me over to the window and ask if I think we should chase him off the yard. I say, “No,” and put my hand on your shoulder. I stand here in this universe, without you, and I let him walk undisturbed across the Siberian landscape standing in for a standard suburban yard. The cat makes slow and steady progress across the yard lifting one foot gently and then patting it down until he takes another step. I try to figure out the pattern of how his legs move but just watching him transfixes me, hypnotizes me. By now, you are outside with a broom yelling some kind of profanity and I am inside crying at your cruelty. But, without you, the cat is safe to cross the unknown spanse of winter desert, gingerly and silently stepping, feeling his way across what is at once familiar and completely new.

—Tim Fredrick ([email protected])

Tim’s writing has been published in Circa, TC Record, Changing English, and R&W Quarterly. He is the editor of Newtown Literary, a semi-annual journal dedicated to publishing and supporting writers living in Queens, NY.

Primary and Companion

Her love is binaryoff or on yes or nozero or one but if she could restin the untapped mantlebetween extremesor even possibility there is acceptanceand tranquilitylike liquid tangibilityno tears or lamentjust a trace of lightenough to seea love that is one more than oneand two more than nothingat all.

—Richard King Perkins II ([email protected])


Sylvia

Sylvia’s not dead-I saw her,Just the other day.

She was wearing Converse sneakersBut her eyes were made of clay.

I asked her to say “rubber crotch”.She laughed inside my head.How can I say words you ninny,When I’m good and dead?

But SylviaI pleaded,I’ve got that fever too,And I know it didn’t kill you,Cause that’s not what fevers do.

See my son once had a fever,His whole body burning hot,But the doctor said the fever kills,The virus that he’s got.

I heard you speak on YouTube,And your voice was strong andFearDid not creep inside itBut then,You died within a year.

It had to be the virus Not your fever like they said.And now I know who you thought You’d made up inside your head.

They all thinkYou wrote about,A man that you once knew.A man who must have let you downAnd made your breath go blue.

But Sylvia just told me,Not a man But her instead,That she thought she might have made up,Inside that burning head.

—Karen Costa ([email protected])


Mommer’s House

Enter to the right toward a candy dish.Behind which there’s a small ladderThat reveals people,Coming and going from a donut shop on a sometimes busy street.

When I’m older the ladder becomes a novelty.How sad,A useless ladder.

The television plays the local news,Or Days of Our Lives, Only, Ever.And for lunchWe eat nothing good like at Grammy’s-Crabs, cookies, and the most moist cake, More moist than my own tongue.

Here we eat peas or crackersNext to the long, thin hallway, Like my Mommer’s fingers.And we don’t often go downstairsWhere the dead live.


Karen recently received an honorable mention for my short story “Charlie Shea” in the Glimmer Train Short Story Contest for New Writers. The Philadelphia Inquirer published her essay, “I Am an Island,” in their November 1st edition.

Paper Goods

Say one good thing,I’ll do it right.I’ll crack my throat And let my heart beat through.But it must travel first Down roads best left unspoken,Of lately freed And broken Out their shackles,To burstInto the light.

I can say one good thing If I just move past,And let it come, From the hide of my soul.

But good’s not good unless it’s bestOf bad I’m good at making worst.What’s gray turns black Most ’fore the white,When my heart’s left To speak through its veins.

These good things wait,Most patient.What’s good is paper,Plain and trueMade up of all the good we do.It’s paper made moreBy the pen,And never woken,Never sent.

But read aloud it catches fire,And makes evenThis damn wretchRise higher.

The paperWhite and smooth,Puts words to all my wishes.Of love and joy, eternal life,Of children, telephones,And Satan running-He’s scared of me.For good is great,When good can be.



Up

A crystal shaped tear fell and shattered on the floor, tiny pieces flying all around. She became dizzy with pain as she inhaled the sweetnessof the ninety-nine cents cinnamon candle.Because one footstep did not precede the other at the right momentand her walls fell apart.A coffee mug flew off the breakfast tableand out of the window,onto the streets. She closed her eyes although she could not see where it would fall,from where she stood.Amongst all the chaos, she forced her arms up,but their heaviness made her fall back. They had red marks all over them, and she could feel ropes cutting through her skin.But when she looked at them,she saw nothing.Nothing, as her skin dissolved into tiny particles of powdered soapand flew up and up, nonstop,up towards the ceiling.Her heart pounded rhythmically, like a tambourine, against her chest,and her breasts jiggled,and the jiggle made her laugh.And eventually she woke up,yawning in the laundry room.

—Laura Rodriguez ([email protected])

Palm Trees

The milky sunlight pours down from one of the clouds,and bathes the palm trees.The clouds sigh in slow motion, as they watch drops of sunlightcling to the leaves.As they watch my curtains dance,but no one sings.These drops of sunlight splattered on my face,and then became the freckles on my cheeks.And the clouds keep sighing,as the crayon-colored cars race through a highwaythat looks more like a bridge.As the people driving them scribble in their mindsthe grocery list;and change the radio station,looking for someplace better.Someplace where they can rest their faces on their hands,wrap themselves in clouds and slide off mountaintops,but feel no pain.Someplace where they can swim in sunlight, smell of kiwi,and throw faded songs away.Someplace where they can walk with their heads,and knit the missing pieces of their childhood together,to never forget.



Pieces of Dust

The room was two spoonfuls of shadows and one tablespoon of light.I could see pieces of dust floating in the air, shining under dim lights.The music, which infiltrated the room from every crack and every corner, began to sound distant.The pieces of dust floated and I followed their every movement. I saw their smiling faces hanging from each piece of dust, calling out my name in disharmony.But I snatched my name off their tongues and put it away in my pocket, so they could never call me again.The way they pronounced the ‘a’ and their sing-song tone of voice, tasted of relish on a vanilla ice cream cone; like an illegal lullaby sung to a newborn.I wondered if there were cowboys in China, and if they rode ponies instead of horses. But the blonde lady with the bulging ice blue eyes entered the room, hammering her heels into the ground.But my shift was already over and I ran to the back door, tripping on a girl who hadn’t been there a second ago. And as I fell on the floor, my cellphone slipped from my hand and I saw it land on the ceiling, like gravity was nothing but an old man’s joke.My heart raced and the world became a blur, and I choked on my pink tears and wished that the room wasn’t dusty anymore.



Comfort Food

It began as easilyas the opening of a flower.A parfait of feelings,sticky confectionsenjoyed together;an ache in the marrowwhen they were apart.They went to dinner and films.They danced at clubs and ballsdressed up in the costumesof fairy tales.

Then came the camping trips, and visits to theme parks.And they got an apartment,dividing rent, utilities,groceries and chores.Soon, they met the parentswith mock chastity, sleeping in separate bedrooms.It was a predictable dance.Tacit understandings.Compromises.Accommodations.Expectations.A diamond ringto close the deal.

They sat together on the couchin their bathrobes by the flatscreen TV.Between them was a bowl of buttered popcornto share on movie night.As he listens to Andy Dufresne and Redtalk about escaping fromShawshank State Prison,all he can think aboutis how to say goodbye.

—William Ogden Haynes ([email protected])

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan and grew up a military brat. His book of poetry entitled Points of Interest appeared in 2012 and is available on Amazon. He has published nearly forty poems and short stories in literary journals and his work has been anthologized multiple times. In a prior life he taught speech-language pathology at Auburn University and authored six major professional textbooks.


Waiting For The Sun

There’s a chill in the air so wet that it drips downthe window pane.I sit and wait on nightto blacken the steel grey sky,wondering how in hellthings ever got this way,combing through and througheach conversation, each blank stare,each empty dawn bed.

I go down to the sloping banksto dream of drifting downstreampast the confluenceinto the stronger flowtoward the full and teeming oceanwhere lie other beaches, the sandredeeming the crushed shells,leaving this house and this cold, cold war.

—Robert Strickland ([email protected])

Robert Strickland is a bassist, composer, and singer who reads books and writes poems, among other things. He splits his time between Colorado and Florida. His poetry has appeared, or is scheduled to appear, in Pale Horse Review, A Handful Of Stones, and Houseboat, where he was recently the featured poet.

Can’t Understand

when in the drowsy hoursyou speak to me in tonguesI can’t understand,is when I realize we mustbe doing this for a reason,to get to some end, orto prove something lost,and you wait patiently for me to answerin huffy silence until you recall that I can’tspeak a bit of mandarinand you laugh, a sweet,funny kinda laugh beforeyou fall asleep and forget.

—Thomas Pescatore ([email protected])

Fly

All this world out thereand you can’t reachany of it, and neithercan I right now, OnlyI know about ityou can’t even realize it,even in the end,

this glass is uglypeople cough, piss & dieit’s reflected on me,windows divide the cosmos,the very black hole of reality,

you stick to it,falling sideways,crawling about my books.

—Thomas Pescatore ([email protected])

Tom Pescatore grew up outside Philadelphia, he is an active member of the growing underground poetry scene within the city and hopes to spread the word on Philadelphia’s new poets. He maintains a poetry blog: amagicalmistake.blogspot.com. His work has been published in literary magazines both nationally and internationally but he’d rather have them carved on the Walt Whitman bridge or on the sidewalks of Philadelphia’s old Skid Row.


She Does Laundry

She scrapes the charred crumbs from her morning toast, then she does laundry. She does ironing, then she strums a chord on her guitar, commiserating with herself, as the taut metal strings slice pain into her tender fingertips. She does more laundry, then she spatter-paints with Pollockesque abandon. Which inevitably generates more dirty clothes. She has a shower, luxuriating in the incalescence of the near-scalding water, as it flows along the crevices of her fatigue. She dries her tangled hair, then dries the laundered clothes, then nourishes the machine with another load. She eats ambiguous leftovers with a plastic fork, then watches the kaleidoscope of colors intertwine, as purple shirt mixes with scarlet robe mixes with periwinkle underwear mixes with turquoise socks. She wiggles open the encrusted lint filter and wonders why the vibrant hues always converge into a sluggish gray. She does more laundry, writes a restrained haiku, then erases it. She sips decaffeinated coffee, while she edits her fragmented novel, seeking flawless metaphors for unrequited love and grim despair and soul-sucking regret. She classifies the laundered clothes and places them benignly onto hangers, slides them with innate compassion into drawers. At ten o’ clock she slams the lid onto the overflowing wicker basket, as she crawls, debilitated, into bed.

—Gillian McQuade ([email protected])


BOUND & AVAILABLE33authors

burningword.com/ninety-nine

Ninety-NineA SELECTED ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY

2001-2011

burningword literary journal, issue 65

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