taxicabmagazineissue 1, june 2015

Taxi-dermist for hire. Must inquire within. Come alone. Blondes preferred.

183 Bundy Lane, Bea-ver City, Nebraska

taxicab magazineissue 1, june 2015© troubadours & smiths press, a division of troubadours & smithsBethesda, MDfacebook.com/taxicabmag & instagram.com/taxicabmagazine

The Golden Rose Theatre

1&2 Theatres674-0469

4509 Blemford Plaza, New York, NY

Theatre 1, “The Hive”

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

MONDAY-FRIDAY 7pm

SAT. AND SUN. 6pm

WEDNESDAY 1P.M. MATINEE

($15)

Mississippi Brynne CiscoTheatre 2, “The Mango Tree”

AUGUST 27, 6:30-MIDNIGHT

TICKETS $45 AT DOOR,

$30 BEFORE AUGUST 5

The Golden Rose Theatre Proudly Presents

With opening acts...

“for you, my dear”

“this is all yours“

“miss you, From

forever ago“

PA and musical production cour-

tesy Johanssen & Co. House of Spou-

sal Estrangements. Backstage tech

and crew courtesy of Gural & Gurnal

Letter from the EditorI came up with the idea for taxicab at some point during the summer of 2014. That summer, I spent most of my days in the coffeeshops, bookstores, and libraries of my town. I felt an incredible and new sort of inspiration, an onslaught of emotion and thought unlike any I had previously experienced. That wonderful, vernal period and the interests, emotions, and ideas to which it led would eventually manifest in all aspects of my work, and would eventually lead me to start taxicab.

I brought Ms. Orion Hyson, who had mentored me in wordsmithery before, onto the project in early September. At some point in October, I brought Gabe Kahan on as our managing editor.

Taxicab will never cost money to obtain. It’s distributed for free, and printed in black-&-white on 60#, uncoated white paper and cut to a final size of 7”x10” by local Maryland printers.

We’re interested in the strange, the terrifying, the unexpectedly dark and the stunningly bright, the scarily old and the beautifully new. We’re interested in the things, fleeting but omnipresent, that make you feel potent, eerie things and the things that put you in a spot from which you have no choice but to improvise. We’re interested in the things like taxicabs—the things that ferry your dumb, drunk body home the darkest and most frightful of nights, the things that are beacons of wanderlust floating nonstopingly through the cityscape that’s before you and within you, the things that could take us in and go anywhere.

The best of wishes,

Jesse CaoEditor-in-Chief

we

dean blehert

Imagine personality (a label we assign you)as a resting place for the fugitive self, a kind of bed.It is uncomfortable to be lost in a bed so hugeyou can’t reach either side. It is agonyto be cramped into a bed too small for you,forced into fetal contortions. Since we knowpersonality is unchangeable, we Procrustiatristsstretch you or trim you to fit your assigned bed.Where you extend yourself beyond social bounds,we prune you. Where you shrink into unmannerlywithdrawal from social discourse, we drag youout of hiding and teach you that it is painful(shockingly so) to fail to respond appropriatelyto “Is it hot enough for you today?” or“How’s it going?” We will make you TRULY responsible,for you will always know the correct response.We will make you an appropriate person,an even person.

areherefor you

People can be badly injured from falling out of bed,so we will strap you in. People suffer needlesslyfrom painful memories. We will give youoblivion. People are traumatized by guilt.We absolve you of all responsibility.We will help you sleep. We will help you eat.We will free you from any ideas that might troubleyou or others.Really we just even you out.

You are beside yourself.Pull yourself together.Especially do not fall asleep in this state,lest you awaken to find that you have been replacedby yourself.You are a danger to yourself and others:You have teeth, which could bite.You might bite off your own fingersor those of others. But meanwhile,you still have fingers and fingernailswith which you could gouge outyour own eyes or other’s. You have ideasthat could besot or madden you or others.For your safety and that of others,we will calm you, just calm you down a bit.We know what’s best for you.

mama’s cocktail partyjacqueline jules

The little boy in baseball pj’swho begged each nightfor one more story, one more kissis married now.The smart city couple,dressed in matching pinstripe suits,visit once or twice a year.I hobble after them in stiletto heelsholding out silver plattersof bite-sized conversation.They nibble politely without requesting more.I plead for one more story, one more kiss.

probably thought I was a bit odd, wrapped in a flannel shirt, alone on a bench outside a Japaneserestaurant.

T ON I

G HT !

THIS IS PAGE 8

The gardener—a shy man-off-the-street— holds a varnished paper umbrella.He ripple-rakes the white sand, despite rainfall,into a pattern effortlessly neat,meant to suggest, only abstractly, the sea,as eight weathered stones are meant to depictBuddha and the seven starving tiger cubs heknows he must sacrifice himself to feed.

I sit in a little red pagoda and think— as the Zen monks do—about what love means,conscious of knowing it as somethingtricky and elusive from watching the suppleexotic dancers in the dives on Tanao Roadwhere I go looking for enlightenment.

That evening I’m sitting in the Dragon Palace.Even in costume the girls look fragile,despite lithe physiques and frozen glancesperfected for the ugly, floodlit stage,where they are stranded like fish. What enhancestheir act is that we grunts are a compliant crowd,bleary with liquor; our stinginess is relaxed.

When one slings her leg proudly

across the bar rail where I sit, I kiss

a ten dollar bill goodbye and tuck it in her garter.

She’s a Siamese swan straining her elastic

neck to eat cake crumbs and nourish her-self.

Overcome with loneliness and isolation,

my heart is not alert; I am transfixed,

yearning as tiger cubs yearn for their

mother who has abandoned them forever.

EnlightEnmEntAlex McRae

from the skydonald illich

The people began falling from the sky.

They landed softly like dandruff on the floor.

When they hit the ground, the orphans scurried

to the pants and jackets to pilfer their wallets.

The people started to melt back into the earth,

their ears and hair turning into ice blue water,

legs and arms vanishing into creeks and rivers.

When they completely disappeared from the surface,

the weather forecasters were forced to apologize

to their TV audiences – they’d sworn that humans

would cover the tristate area, bodies would pile up

on roofs. The skies were clear. Clouds promised

they never saw anyone pass through their crystals.

Only the sun declared she’d seen them. That

the breath had left them, they were cold as hail.

I didn’t mention I was singing to my-

self, did I. I barely noticed, honestly, un-

til I got a strange look. Well, fuck that.

The man probably didn’t even notice the

swallows. They were everywhere,darting off electrical lines, flapping

their wings like moths or bats, catching

insects, almostdefinitely.

I wanted to tell the man about the swal-

lows. Ask if he knew what they ate. But

when I looked upthere were none in the sky. After that

moment the feeding frenzy slowed con-

sistently, and by the

Thank You for joining us tonight--

And now, The hive is proud to pres-ent...

The continuation of “Swallows”

By Mikaela Fishman

JESSE AND GABE SHARE A DRINK, A FEW WORDS &

SOMETHING COSMIC

A PLAYGROUND PRAYER©2015

We are twitchywe are not holy andwe may not be alrightYou’re living in the same dark theatre as Jim Morrison c.1972 andsome girl named Katieand can’t identify the smell com-ing from the kitchen.At night sometimes we think we see our mothers, our mothers dusted and broiling with some strange despair.We are here against our askingThe Englishman in the corner watches us and laughsat our dreadful karaoke.

LEGENDCourier New = Jesse Cao

Goudy Old Style = Gabe Kahan

Confide in his mother?He’d sooner invite meto brush my teethwhile he’s sitting on the can.That door slammed years ago,when he found beer and friendswho didn’t believe in seatbelts.Since then,I’ve been staring at the doorknobnot knowingif he’s spitting blood in the sink,writhing on the tile,or sneering at his mother, standingwith her hands pressed against the wood,listening for signs of life.

doorknob jaqueline jules

PAGE 14

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RAINBOWSRAIN OWS: Raindrops splatter in little owsall over the sidewalks, roads, lawns:ow! ow! ow! owow O Wow! o woe is me!RA N OWS: ARRAY of NOWS—that’s TIME!Hooray for Nows! They hurry past, the owsthat ran tararaboomtiyay!ra ra ra rara avis ran,leapt upstairs to Ara, a star astir,and how nice that nowsare sown as snow.R N OWS sworn worn won ON! O!we R NOWS, each of us a now anon, seeall the little nows, little like hairson the baby toes of giantsall the little nows in rows:R OWS: and so rainbows lose or loosetheir arrows: TWANG! arrows is r....ows isour O!s is a rose is eros is arose is arisen a raisin in the sun.RA is a ray! I AM, we BE, let us BeAm!See the zillion arrows of the sun:Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow! Barefooton the sizzling summer cement and carefulof that fresh tar, baby! Look! My noseand fore(head) skins have burned off,and there’s NEW skin just beneath! (Who knew?)Oh, nubbly with old and new skin,my nose is erose is a red red rose!But why all these downward arrowsof rain, snow and sun? The rainbowis aimed up and away. What shall wesend up at the sky? Something sharpand piercing, like our cries, but why notlaughter too (it tends to rise). Are you too sadto laugh? I’ll tickle you, a thousand, a millionlittle rib jabs, NOW I’ve got you! Here, hearthe hiccuppy hahas and hohos of R I BOWS,RIB OWS: ow ow ow ow owO WOW!

L i t t a n y O f L i t t L e L O s t

L a m b s Dean Blehert

Day 1Peach fuzz head,big gray marbles eyes,a smile with missing teeth.You are lying on topof the white sheetsof your hospital bedas I enter your room,sprawled out and bony,you are lookingout your half-opened window.There is nowhere to sitI pull up a chairit is too high.I come and sit next to you

you tell me right away

“I have cancer,

my family had cancer,

it’s just what it isI don’t feel any pain.”

Day 2

“I am not afraiddying just happens.”

Day 3

“I made clothes, bridal gowns,

I have two sons,

one lives in Phoenix,they are in a band.”

Day 4

“My ‘boy friend’ was here,

you know, the Rabbi,he makes me laugh.”

Day 5

“I just love that tree

I have more fun just lookingat that tree.”

Day 6

“That tree, I really get a kickout of it.”

Day 7

(day after Hurricane Sandy)

“I went to New Jersey

to see my sister,

I didn’t want to go, but she insisted.

What a mess.”

Day 8

(day after election day)

“More of the status quo,

that’s what it is,just the status quo.”

Day 9

“The tree has gone away.”

Eleanor Robbins Nancy Allinson

Gross how

his hands

made metal

Brynne Rebele-Henry

In my lungs like hearth or bird

Seaside plants wither with him

His name burgundy skin, lilac-groved

Alpha minors and small constellations, unidentified shadow

His color pools alizarin, feather throats kissing indigo

A shade beyond bruise, insistent in color and floral

for the brothers who hide from the dawn

emma wolfe

nobody likes it when you sleep too latewith your sheets tangled like soft white gossamer ghosts around your legsskin flushed pink and gold in the dappled exhale of afternoonyour round lips parted, dark like a bruise;lashes fluttering in an apology unspokenas the sun whispers breathy promises into the pale hollow of your throat.we tidy your room out of politeness,knowing you will not wake until night comes to trickle temptation,into your slender snowdrop veins

you’re in love with angry red glow of the stoplightsthat flicker like a warning in your rearview mirrorhands, straddling the steering wheel in a rough embrace,stroking the gear shift with a deft, clever fingersbass drums, roll your thumbsover your eyelids until colors riot beneath the silky shadow of your noticeferry the car through the velvety dark,sleek as sin and soft as a gunshot wound to the head;the heart.we don’t ask about the skid marks you abandonin a breath of smoke on the road behind youbut they are as telling as the grey sheen of sweat on your forehead;

ii. thanatos

i. hypnos

How to DisappearBrynne Rebele-Henry

1. Learn solitude, hold it in your mouth, in your tongue, let it corrode your skin,

turning flesh into rust and his absence into sugar.

2. Forget him, Fernando. Let his lemon trees wither, fruit dropping onto the parched

ground of the home you once shared, the rooms curled like bones, maybe his

brain, the orange carpet an ocean of citrus.

3. Deny having loved. Remember, you are mechanical skin and teeth and a smile is

mandatory. His skin was cinnamon, and you, Fernando, are jungle grass.

4. Drown your time together in ocean water, his mange and muscle turning into

sinew. Regret none of this.

Thank you’s and love notes from little butterfliesThanks to Orion Hyson for the warm colors, the crib, the arms and the days, and the belief in something so nebulous for so long and for everything after.

Thanks to Louise Reynolds for the time, the mind, the hive.

Thanks to Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD for the facilities and the stuff of digitalization.

Thanks to Danielle Fus, Linda Leslie, and Prudence Crewdson for the marquee space.

Thanks to the Bethesda Urban Partnership for the thrill of a threatened $90,000 fine and the lack of jail time.

Masthead Jesse CaoEditor-in-Chief

Gabe KahanManaging Editor Grace Myers

Editor-at-LargePoetry Editors=Jonny SchneiderSelvi UlusanXavier Roberts-Gaal

Prose EditorsSophie PalimEmma Wolfe

ProductionOlivia Sun [Manager]

Abby Singer [Assistant]

Photo Creditserasure poem, “getting there,” by jesse caoDigital Art on pg. 12 by Jared Shapirophoto on pg. 14 by Gabe KahanPhoto on pg. 23 BY LOUISE REYNOLDSback cover photo by gabe kahanfront cover photo [Also on pg. 22] by Roland Pleter-ski*

*Roland Pleterski (1920-2000) was an austrian-born new york fashion photographer and painter. Pleter-ski is famous for his black & white, abstractly expres-sive images, which often feature nudity and citylife.

And we could live like this, days spent in the city— document the veins of each leaf as it executes its grand jete into our hands— this a nine, this a ten,and original meditations all the time, skin white, eyes big with coffee and aspirin and nicer things… This is our end, this is our prize.

—Jesse Cao

and for tonight, this is where we part.