Writing

Mary Faces Reality by Steven Stam

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

At sixteen, Mary’s butcher knife sought to spew a potential assailant’s blood, her cellphone to announce and capture her sexuality one photo at a time. When she turned eighteen, her twelve year old silver Accord served as an escape pod from parental torment, plowing through imaginary municipal barriers, over hills, and down red clay roads. No matter how far Mary drove, no matter how often, she failed to evade the ear worms of her father’s voice, his grating commands. At twenty and drunk, she wanted to trim roadside wild flowers with a stolen nine iron. Each swing slow and lopping, like her dad hitting a drive after his tenth Saturday morning beer while uttering misogynistic blabber, Happier than a two dicked dog, he’d say, and so did she as she tried to smack the petals into cars. Now, at twenty-six and pregnant, she only wanted to seem sane enough to nurture her child.

 

Steven Stam is English Teacher, Writer, and Track/Cross Country coach from Jacksonville, Florida. Steven has a MA in English Literature from the University of North Florida and a BA in English from the University of Florida. He writes primarily flash fiction, believing the model fits modern society’s desire for instant gratification. His work can be found in Fiction Southeast, Gravel Magazine, the East Jasmine Review, and the Rappahannock Review, among others. You can Follow Steven on Twitter HERE.

October Spotlight: NaNoWriMo

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, takes place every November. Participants from around the world bash away at their keyboards, scratch their pens across paper and drink more coffee than is medically advised in order to write 50’000 words of a novel in thirty days. And yes, I know how crazy that sounds. It’s something that garners mixed reactions from the writing world, with supporters arguing that it’s a powerful tool for getting them in gear to put words on the page without being stopped along the way by their inner editor, and detractors voicing the thought that if any of the 50k words written turn into anything good it’ll be a miracle. Having taken part in NaNoWriMo many times, some more successful than others, I can sympathise with the detractors as much as with the supporters but that’s not what I want to talk about here, though.

NaNoWriMo isn’t just a writing challenge, it’s an opportunity. I participated in NaNoWriMo several times before I finally crossed the 50k finish line in 2010 and I wouldn’t be being at all dramatic in saying it was a turning point in my life. I’d always felt like a writer on the inside, but winning NaNoWriMo that year gave me a confidence to put my writing self on the outside. Within a month I had joined my first writing group. Within a year I had joined a second writing group and started attending open mic poetry nights. When 2011 rolled around I put my name forward to be a NaNoWriMo ML for my local area. The role of an ML is essentially that of a regional organiser. In previous years our area hadn’t had any proper meet-ups so I organised one. It was terrifying and exciting and a complete surprise to me when people actually turned up. And these people were all like me – writers looking for community with other writers. We met weekly through that November and most of that original group have continued to meet on a monthly basis ever since. I’ve taken more of a back role in the group now, with another girl stepping up to the main ML role but this in itself is amazing. This is a girl who suffers major social anxiety. During that first month of meetings it took everything out of her just to come along and talk to a small group of people about a shared love of literature but we’ve all had the great honour of watching her flourish in herself to the point where she now has the confidence to run this group, meet with strangers to organise room hire and she has even started her own writing-related business. And I haven’t even mentioned the growth of her own writing.

What I’m trying to say is that NaNoWriMo isn’t about the writing. It’s not about managing to write 50k words. It’s not about pumping out a bestseller in a month, or penning the greatest bit of literature man has ever dared to dream of. NaNoWriMo is about giving people the courage to put their hand in the air and say they are a writer. It’s about shy people finding a type of confidence they never thought they had. It’s about showing writers that writing doesn’t have to be a solitary sport. NaNoWriMo is about writers and that is why I would recommend it to anyone.

Another Mall Shooting by Angela Maracle

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

It had been five minutes since the last round of gun fire. Tambra breathed shallowly, concentrating to slow her heartbeat. Any noise she made might incite detection, any movement – death. She opened her eyes, lashes brushing against the carpet. From her position behind the counter, she had a partial view of the shoe store. Beyond, the stretch of visible mall appeared empty, but she wouldn’t risk getting up yet; it was safer to wait until police came.

A woman’s hefty legs sprawled a few feet away. One foot modeled a glittery red sandal….the other was bare. A sneaker display hid her upper body. Tambra had been handing her the second shoe when chaos erupted outside the store…running, screaming, a hail of bullets. She’d thrown the sandal and dove behind the counter. The customer hadn’t been as lucky.

Her phone vibrated with a text alert and she gingerly pulled it from her pocket. Slowly, slowly, she brought it to her face. It was her boss, Pauline, who had gone to the food court for coffees just before the incident. She was alive!

Are you okay Tam?

She texted back with trembling fingers. Yes. You? Is it bad out there?

Pretty bad. Any dead people in the store?

Tambra flinched at Pauline’s word choice. One customer, I think.

Shit. Blood on the rug?

Tambra didn’t reply. It sounded like Pauline was in shock. Footsteps echoed in the mall, coming closer, and she curled up tight, hiding her face. If she never saw her husband again she hoped he knew how much she loved him.

“Is anyone here?” a woman’s voice called.

The shooter had definitely been male, so Tambra raised her head and waved. She didn’t dare speak.

The woman hurried in, joining her behind the counter. “You’ve got a dead fat woman in your store.”

“What?”

“A customer down, like a beached porpoise.”

“Uh….that’s…”

“Haven’t heard any shots for a while, not sure what’s going on. I work at the hair salon three stores down. It’s a mess in there, so looks like we’ll have the weekend off. Thank God, I need a break.”

Tambra inched away until her feet touched the wall. “There are victims in the salon?”

“Yeah, staff and customers. All dead, or on their way. Hell of a way to get a mini vacation, but I’ll take it.”

“Are….are you all right?”

“Yeah, I dropped the hair dryer and ran like a rat shot in the ass…completely around the mall and back here. Can’t believe how many people got ripped up…it’s crazy. Feel sorry for the custodians.”

She wanted to tell the woman to go away. Her stomach knotted uncomfortably. Maybe shock was a common reaction after witnessing excessive violence. “Is there anyone injured out there that needs help?”

“Probably. Saw a few squirming. Not my problem though, right?”

Tambra sat up and squeezed back against the wall, putting as much distance between her and the woman as possible. She dialed 911 on her phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Police.”

“I’m sure someone else has already done that. Damn, it’s quiet. Wonder where the shooter is? Hope he gets someone else instead of us.”

The phone slipped from her fingers and she fought back nausea. “What’s wrong with you?”

The woman stood up. “Nothing, why? I’m going back to the salon, get my car keys and get out of here.”

“What about the police? They’ll want to ask you questions. And the shooter…he could be out there….”

“We’d hear him.” She skirted around the counter and Tambra waited to hear her heels clicking on the mall floor. A loud popping sound erupted, followed by a triumphant shout.

“Who else wants a piece of this?” a man yelled.

The phone vibrated and she reached for it, shaking. It was Pauline again.

Crap. How am I supposed to get a coffee when the cashier’s dead? Lol. Hiding in the washroom now. Got someone’s blood on my new skirt.

It couldn’t be Pauline. It had to be someone else with her phone.

Are you there Tam? I should’ve stolen some donuts before I took off. Lol Check my Tweets.

Silence, dense and tactile, weighed down on her. Twenty minutes passed and her muscles protested their immobility.

More gunfire exploded, far off, like fireworks in a neighboring city. How many people would die in this act of violence? Cautious footsteps sounded outside the store and then softened as someone stepped in on the carpet. She strained, listening, and a man stepped around the counter, gun drawn.

“Police.”

She screamed, covering her face with her hands.

“Ma’am, it’s all right. It’s law enforcement. Get up, and put your hands on your head please.”

She stood, legs quivering, and the officer patted her down.

“Did you catch the guy?” Her voice wavered.

“We took the shooter down, and believe he was acting alone. We’re looking for witnesses.

“There must be a lot of people wounded.”

“Yeah, we’ll get to them. First things first. Come with me please.”

She followed him out of the store, sparing a quick glance at the customer she’d been selling red sandals to. “Are ambulances coming?”

“Probably. Had to happen at lunch time, right? Should’ve at least brought my sandwich with me, I’m starving.”

‘I must be dead,’ Tambra thought. ‘Or seriously injured and in a coma. No one would really act like this.’ She pinched the back of her wrist, and it stung. A curious smell of smoke and copper filled her nostrils and she wrinkled her nose in protest.

The woman from the hair salon hung face first over a bench, her feet dangling a few inches from the floor. A small, scarlet puddle darkened the tile beneath her head.

“Oh my God.”

The officer laughed. “Get used to it, there’s lots more.”

And there was. She started straight ahead, but horrors lurked in her peripheral vision…families, elderly couples, employees, all strewn on the floor in frightening montages. A man crawled out of a clothing store dragging his legs behind him, seemingly unaware that one side of his face flapped against his shoulder.

“Help me.”

The cop kept walking. “Ambulance is on its way buddy.”

Tambra rushed toward the man, but the officer grabbed her arm. “Sorry, all survivors are being taken to the restaurant. “

“But that man needs help…”

“He’ll get it.”

She swiped at tears and followed him to the restaurant where a waitress unlocked the sliding door to let them in. Cheers erupted from a small group of people at the bar.

“You made it,” a girl shouted. “Good job.”

“My…..my boss Pauline is out there, in the washroom by the food court.”

“She’ll be fine,” a guy behind the bar said. “Gunman’s dead now. What’ll it be? Drinks are on the house today.”

“Selfie!” the waitress announced, holding up her camera. “Hey, I should make a Facebook group for us. We can call it ‘Living Legends’ or something.”

Tambra studied the animated faces. Didn’t they realize what was going on? “There are dead kids out there. Are you all crazy?”

The cop touched her shoulder. “Calm down. Have a drink. Everyone needs to chill here for a while until we get a chance to ask questions.”

The waitress let him out, and Tambra turned back to face the survivors. Sirens escalated in the distance and she hoped to God it was ambulances.

The bartender set a glass of ice water on the bar and indicated she should take it. “It’s a good day to be alive,” he said. “The guy behind me in the bank got shot square in head and pinned me under him when he fell. Not cool. Yeah, I don’t actually work here, but what the heck right? I’ll give it a go. Now we just need a volunteer to fry up some burgers in the kitchen.”

‘Don’t go back there,” the waitress said. “Blood everywhere. I slipped in it. It took me five minutes to get it off my hands.”

Tambra found a table in the corner farthest from the bar. Everyone ignored her and proceeded to behave as though they were celebrating someone’s birthday.

She texted Pauline. Police are here. Gunman is down. Survivors are at the restaurant.

Thanks. Will head up there. Can’t believe all the people asking for help. Wow. Help yourself, right?

The waitress let Pauline in when she knocked, and Tambra scrunched down in her seat, trying to be invisible. A few minutes later several policemen arrived.

“Okay, people, we need to take statements quickly. I think I can speak for all my men when I say we just want to wrap this up and go home.”

She slipped over to the bar, and Pauline turned, drink in hand. “There you are girl! Sorry I couldn’t bring you back a coffee.” She laughed, and ran a crimson hand through her hair.

“Are…are the paramedics here?” Tambra asked.

“Yeah,” one of the cops said. “Poor bastards. Would’ve been easier if people had just died, but now they gotta deal with all these screaming, torn up victims. Not fun.”

“What is wrong with you? With everybody? There has just been a massive mall shooting. Are you on drugs or something? Do you even care? You are the most selfish, heartless people I have ever met in my life.”

They stared at her, eyes dull, and she realized she would say no more. She was afraid. After giving her statement an officer escorted her from the restaurant, and then outside. Reporters pushed their mics over police barriers. A hoard of people milled behind them, snapping photos on their phones.

“Did you see anyone actually get shot?” a reporter asked. “What’s the aftermath like? Can you detail the scene inside?”

“How soon do you think the public will be allowed in to shop?”

“Did you witness any looting? I would think that would be the first thing on everyone’s mind…what can we grab and get away with?”

One reporter shoved her mic directly under Tambra’s nose. “Were there dead children?”

She ran to her car, fumbled the key in the lock and fell in. More survivors emerged from the mall, and her pursuers scrambled back to the entrance. The phone vibrated….her husband. Finally, someone sane in the midst of insanity.

“Hello?”

“Honey, are you okay? I just heard the news.”

She exhaled, clinging to the safe familiarity of his voice. “Yes. In shock though. It was terrifying…”

He cut her off. “Okay, great. Hey, there’s nothing to eat here. Can you stop and pick something up for dinner on the way home?”

Angela Maracle is a dance studio owner and mother of two. She was placed second in the flash fiction Chest Writing Contest, sponsored by Mike C. Paulu and is currently one of six finalists shortlisted for the 2014 short story contest at defenestration.net. She has been published in Microfiction Monday and will be appearing in the September issue of The Rejected Writer. You can follow Angela on Twitter.

Vertical Traveler by Amanda Tumminaro

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

I will be looking over the horizon,
the sun dipping into the train tracks.
Something beyond what I know exists.
I will fall into a bed of dandelions
and that old smell will creep into my nose again.

I will eventually be a vertical traveler,
picked up by the carrying wind,
and we will meet again, ghost for ghost.
In dreams you come to me, for I couldn’t very well
come home and see you at a boiling pot.

Splitting cloud that is your magnified eye,
it’s also a map, a hand outreached, guiding and leading.

Amanda Tumminaro lives in Illinois with her family. She enjoys libraries and caffeinated drinks. Her poetry has appeared in Storm Cellar, Sassafras Literary Magazine, Hot Metal Bridge and Three and a half point 9, among others.

man with eyes like a robbed liquor store by Scherezade Siobhan

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

he will always try to touch you
like he is 8 and pawing
his busted toy soldiers
peeking from a silverfish-scuttle
inside a shoe-box sitting terrified
behind a stack of wrapping
paper and forgotten family albums
he will always dream of you
in shapes smaller than
the tiniest airplanes he crashed
under the tepee of his bedsheets
he will draw your face out from a crowd
– you are his bittersweet, flashlight sun,
when he pulls you close you bruise
your ears against his heartdrum
it sounds akin to a chorus of trashcans
played softly at the hands of early
morning homeless shoveling
dregs of false steps for a loaf
of bread that still crackles a little
his happiness is a piece of cinnamon
toast, a bicycle ride to a lake draped in a poncho of the last snow
he tells you how he thinks his
whole life has been two dogs
breathless in a barking spell
he tells you of the graves he dug
beneath the clay of his own wrists
he looks at you and remembers
a childhood he never had
this is why every night you lie
next to him and watch the phantoms
of those two dogs slowly disappear
inside an unstirred sleep
this is why when he puts his hand
on your chest, you learn that love
is a moment of inflection at which
the vastness of air turns
into smallness of breath
and how much you need to live
and how quickly you could die

and desire is more than a waiting room

between departures

Scherezade Siobhan is a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and her work has been published in over two dozen magazines including The Newer York, Danse Macabre, Whalesound, Looseleaf Tea, Mixedfruit, Bluestem Magazine and Gutter Eloquence etcetra.

Crow Commentary by John Grey

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

Crows sit atop gravestones and caw.
Busted angel above,
rotting one below.
An eye drips tears.
A hand drips cheap flowers.
Black cloud quells trees,
And men, women,
dressed in their own black clouds,
creep silently toward a fresh digging.
Caw says the crow,
its vintage mockery of the great beyond.
If time is the human wing, it asks,
then why are there none of them
high in the treetops.
The priest gives his usual speech.
The Lord taketh away,
he drolly intones.
Presumably, he giveth elsewhere.
More caw caw caw.
In a cemetery, every bird’s a critic.

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in Paterson Literary Review, Southern California Review and Natural Bridge with work upcoming in the Kerf, Leading Edge and Louisiana Literature.

The Albatross by Christina Murphy

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

The albatross that smokes cigars is learning to tap dance

Empty streets, buildings closed down,
the heart hurts with loneliness
and only midnight is honest with the darkness

The albatross longs for the whispers of the gulls,
the sea, a wave of white caps,
majestic for a moment and then gone

But now there is only the dim light
of the dance studio and an old CD
of imperfect jazz music

Perhaps the albatross can dance across the waves
if the moonlight makes promises
and the stars don’t object to compromises.

All journeys begin again; that much is certain

The albatross can hear the music, feel the rhythm
but his feet are not wings and his heart
knows that solitary mourning
is best for the tender arrangement
of yesterday’s selves in tomorrow’s broken vases

Christina Murphy lives and writes in a 100 year-old Arts and Crafts style house along the Ohio River in the USA. Her poetry appears in a range of journals and anthologies, including most recently, in PANK and Hermeneutic Chaos and in the anthologies Let the Sea Find Its Edges and Remaking Moby-Dick. Her work has been nominated multiple times for a Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net Anthology.

Featured Author: Jay Sizemore

~ Sophie Boyce ~ 1 Comment

real men, facebook poem #26

A butterfly with invisible wings
is a floating caterpillar’s cousin,
a memory woven into another’s life
like a tattoo on the scalp.

Infant wooly mammoths were found
drowned in mud
while cyclops sharks say bazinga
on the dark side of charcoal sketches.

Real men love Jesus fucking Christ—
a needle in an eye duct unstopping the drain,
underwater statues reincarnated as coral reefs,
the Titanic sank because of Obamacare.

Real men drop their iPhone in the urinal,
take advice from Evil Kenevil
on how to live with a head wound,
become fruit bats wishing for caves

instead of nets at the World Cup.
Caterpillars can’t wear fedoras like real men,
and global warming is ruining the wine—
no one knows how anesthesia works.

 

Jay Sizemore flunked out of college and has since sold his soul to corporate America. He still sings in the shower. Sometimes, he writes things down. His work has appeared online and in print with magazines such as Prick of the Spindle, DASH, Menacing Hedge, and Still: The Journal, and he is a Poetry Editor for Mojave River Press and Review. He’s never won any awards. Currently, he lives in Nashville, TN, home of the death of modern music. His chapbook Father Figures is currently available on Amazon.

You can follow Jay and his work on his website or facebook, and you can order his book >>here<<.

 

make it up, facebook poem #36

fruit flies can’t escape a funnel
this chilly summer where
the breasts remain covered
on a windblown eyelid prop.
get a jawbone for God
and the mercy of bed sores.
the mice give zero fucks.
blah blah blah,
burnt hotdogs taste the best,
baby elephants aren’t for sale.

zebra striped carpet
for the pool bottom,
exercise to be a limber old codger,
doing laps in a driverless car.
The Smiths are for hipsters
as The Cure is for suicidal queens.
hummingbirds can’t shave
Jung archetypes from the Bar Exam.
self promote, self promote, self promote
your face into a bundle of sticks,
into a lack of Twitter followers,
into a feminist rape fantasy.

we put the cat in the ground
and hung new curtains
for filtered light,
umbrellas and water colors,
the best people are insane
and having mastectomies
while Hitler was a Catholic.
electronic cigarettes with THC,
make puppy dog hearts
an optical illusion
with toothless red-toed geckos
running for sheriff
like a Greek tragedy.

 

Random connections: facebook poem #35

glamour shot horror pug dog reparations grin dollhouse lollipop visitation rights white privilege enlightenment blanket bank attorney services hunger strike talent Cthulhu pride ghostwriter fencing infant footprint haiku abortion rogues siamese pumpkin bloom apathy java Hamas chainsaw blood book launch crooked teeth rarity Sriracha cashew red river irony needlepoint moon homeless bathing suit bred boot pussy beta accomplishment fucking baroque toddler intimacy Msnieres breast ruinous offering cancer selfie sunglass mantra coca cola nativity

 

callous indifference, facebook poem #38

Peaches look like asses,
in a gas station where millionaires
leave their fortunes to statues.

Trees don’t drink whisky,
but if they did they’d be drunk
and leaning.

There’s a creek in Iceland
just like the one I imagined
skipping rocks across
when I was lonesome.

Describe me with one word.

Poetry exists in friendship,
in an insurance company
where scientists say, “chill out.”
Poetry exists in a spoonful of caramel,
an alleyway with white words
scribbled along the walls.

Shhhhhh.

Art has no mercy
for those who refuse to tiptoe the edge,
to catcall after the sunset
like an assassin blowing kisses.

Cantaloupe by Greg Letellier

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

Years after ol’ Georgie boy finally went through with it, you find yourself roaming around his house with a soft-footed step so as not to scare yourself by the wheezing floors as you penetrate the rooms with a kind of feline steadiness you never possessed when you and George were seven and you used to dash down the halls into the parlor because the bulb in your room gave out and your father left John Carpenter’s Halloween II playing in his bedroom while he left to check on the pastrami and sautéed onions in pans on the stove and all you saw, the image that stuck with you, was Michael Myers’ bone-white face taking over the whole screen like a close-up photo of the moon. That face stayed with you for a long time. When you first masturbated, tiny pearls of your own come nestled in the dark blue shower mat, you saw his pale, prosthetic skin staring up at you. When you graduated, and Grandma L came to see you, you saw his knife glinting in the May sun. You were once too drunk in the haze of a college Halloween party, and across the room, Michael Myers in a short dress tilted his beer bottle at you and said, “You’re in my Chem class, right?” Memories are assholes in the way that they haunt and give hope and scare and repair then scare again just as you think you have forgotten about how when your parents found ol’ Georgie dangling and bloated like fleshy chandelier your mother dropped the paper bag of groceries and cried and your father cried and scrambled into the kitchen to find a note, but only found the grocery list that they left behind, remembering that the one item they forgot (because he knew they forgot something) was the cantaloupe. Can’t: the inability to do. Ah: a sigh of breath after a gulp of lemonade. Lope: to run in long, bounding strides. Those three syllables are murderous in how they remind you of George: how he never liked to eat that glossy dusk-toned melon and how he never had a sudden marriage because he never really fell in love because he was always too paralyzed with anxiety while you left home for a life of roaming which didn’t stop even at the white door as you make your way through into his house and realize that it is you not him that haunts and the realtor follows you and makes a [click click click] sound with his pen and tells you about the house although you aren’t listening because you know it is a house heavy with absence and silence and dread and the only thing that makes it alive is the [thump thump thump] of your boots against the wooden stairs as you make your way back down through the house to the white door and out onto the lawn where the realtor like a shadow follows you to your car and smiles at you and asks you the final question he will ever ask you and you turn and look at his skull and whisper, “I’m not interested.”

Greg Letellier is the author of the short story collection Vacationland. His stories, essays, and poems are featured or forthcoming in DUM DUM ZINE, Bartleby Snopes, Extract(s), Poydras Review, Luna Luna, and elsewhere. 

Follow Greg on Twitter.

I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke by Joseph D. Riech

~ Sophie Boyce ~ Leave a comment

I think if i was one
of those dudes
who landed
on the face
of the moon
no way in the
world i would
have planted
an american flag
but planted my ass
and kiss the ground
like a proud and dramatic
charlton heston (planet of
the apes ten commandments
you choose…) then get up
and do a mad psychotic
vaudeville song & dance
in top hat & tails as it’s
got so much more to do
with that than having
anything to do with
some idiot schmuck
competitive and
commercial race
to the moon
all sponsored
by tang and
crazy glue

they’re always talking about
discovering some original
source of life like water
well how about just
some stray owl
sitting on top
some barren
broken branch
looking off to
the stars and
solar system
going who?
who? who?

Joseph Reich has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals and has been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize. Some of his recent books include, The Derivation Of Cowboys & Indians and The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end of the world (both Fomite Press). He has also been published with Skive Magazine Press, Flutter Press, Brick Road Poetry Press, Thunderclap Press and Broadstone Books.