SPECTRALICA (ONE)

Capt. Buckmaster is in charge. It is, after all, his house. It says so right outside on the wall and on a plaque across the street. Some people come to town just to read these plaques and explore the different layers of architecture in the city; the way the town developed, not so much in a natural way, or at least in any way that could be associated with things in nature, other than the strange whims of humans attempting to make a life out of nothing in a new world, New England of the 18th century.

He maintained his distance from the others, rarely spoke and even then only to have the final word on one of the rare disagreements among the group. He never had any conversations. There were those who remembered a time when he discussed things and took a more active role in the life of the house, but they refrained from gossiping about him, how he was, or speculating on why he was now so quiet now, such was the degree to which he was respected and thus, "in charge."

The house itself was respected almost as a person itself. At this stage of existence you came to understand that souls were not exclusive to humans; that everything had one, in one way or another and a house as old as this one surely was 'alive' as much as anything else was, including the human souls stuck here for the whole range of reasons that might happen. But while the house never 'voted' in any dispute, never complained or got moody when one of the temporally 'living' humans did something stupid or just annoying the way the others did, it made its presence and its feelings known when it wanted to. And at those times, only Capt. Buckmaster could calm it down, although that calming 'process,' for lack of a better word, always happened in private.

CONSPIRACY

I'm alone again, walking down 86th Street, alone again, not sure where I'm going, alone. Again, the block is residential almost, stately and serene buildings, large but warm, although not really inviting to me. I keep catching my reflection in the windows I pass and I can't get comfortable with what I see. When did I get so think (I mean THICK) in the middle? My head is pounding and there's a whistling. They closeted...they CLOSED the bagel place on the corner. The only one I ever wanted to go to because of the wheat flour they use from Lebanon. No really. I can't tell you the name. It's not that I can't remember it's only because I'm limited contractually. Well, maybe not contractually but it's not something I'm comfortable discussing for let's say ethical reasons. Let's just SAY that. I passed by a window - street level - and it must have been a dentists office. Well, first there was a reception area with a blond at the desk but she didn't look like the kind of woman that would you know actually work for a dentist. Don't get me wrong, the uniform was excellent. And not just because it fit her...perfectly. I almost forgot my pounding FUCKING HEADACHE. In the next window there was a man actually in the dental chair, reclined--I'm staring at the bottoms of his shoes. I can see something has collected there near his right heel. It's maddening. The man is gigantic. His shirt is not well-fitted. It would be more appropriate for the doctor, you know the dentist. They probably dressed too quickly--in the assassin dressing room-HAH. And he's like IN the guy's mouth. There's no reason to be that far down his throat and believe me I know; I have some experience with teeth. I duck into the ATM, at the bank where the Lebanese bagel store used to be, bastards. There's another blond there. She's not part of the deal though. I saw her look at me reflected in the steel above her machine and it wasn't a look of someone watching, you know? Just looking like anyone else would look--not that anyone ever 'looks' at me. She dips her card and then so do I now that I know it's safe. We're entering our pins at the same time. Mine's from Winston Churchill's wife's birthday because no one would ever guess that. And Churchill's been dead for like 50 years and so he doesn't know anything about ATM's. And then I realize that they pitched the beeps of the two ATM's keypads like a half a tone apart from one another. It's an old Nazi trick. They used to play recordings of Mozart violin concertos on two separate turntables connected to the speakers in the camps. But the second recording turned just a little bit faster. The effect is maddening. How long is this blond's pin? She keeps entering. My head's going to explode.

We create a temporal place without lines or borders, future curling into

past Stay here you will never ask this of me Want me to ask I wouldn’t

dare to be drawn like smoke, held deeply sfumato you bring light

to azure yetdark held deeply

1920's

short hair

leather jacket

and oh those boots

her high school yearbook quote:

"A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone."

expressed her unhappiness.

How strange, years later

the same quote can be used to

express her success.

-DP Rothschild

The Gabblergoo is Coming to Get You

A slick, a slime?

A ghost, goblin or ghoul?

Is it witch, warlock, Orc?

Devil, demon dragoon?

In a dream her name remembered

"Don't forget you fool!"

Then disappeared in a fizz,

a black, foaming whirlpool.

It was the end of the day and you both knew that opportunities had been missed. Sometimes you have to cling on to those brief moments in time as hard as you can, but holding on to them don’t make them last. You both had to let go. She did, you could not. And there was such beauty too, don’t forget that. You gave her a moment that she will never ever forget, although she admits to tryin’. And didn’t she give you yours? Didn’t she try to give you what you wanted towards the end and that’s what ruined everything? She will never forgive herself for that—that last minute involuntary decision to give up the fight, relent, and succumb to the dreams you were selling. If she could only take that split second back. You were standing next to her on that rock looking all hangdog and she was sad but too high on everything—too much happiness after such a long time without it. The taste of it must have loosened something in her—all of her sensibilities unraveled and she was unfettered. She tugged down the straps of her wet bathing suit and gingerly stepped out of it, tossed it into the dirt and stood on that rock in front of you naked as anyone could be and let you see her. Just stood there looking at you out in the middle of the river on a rock, the overpass buzzing and vibrating right over your shoulder, both of you fools in plain sight.

And then she jumped.

LOSS

by Bella Belsova

"my father moved through dooms of love

through sames of am through haves of give,

singing each morning out of each night

my father moved through depths of height"

The school I went to, the one my father insisted I go to, despite mounting household expenses and lay-offs and, what was it, "easy credit rip offs," they made me, that glorious (now) school, memorize e.e. cummings. And Shakespeare of course, and Kipling and Donne (famous vaudeville comedy team, my Dad used to say. I never knew what vaudeville was until much later but I laughed anyway), and Frost of course, and Emily D. and on and on. Words and words. Dad making jokes. Teachers, some of them, lording it over me, forcing it down some of the time, but most of the time though, I got it. I heard the rhythm although I didn't have the words, or the vocabulary of experience, yet to explain to him that I knew. But still, he knew I knew and so he knew he was right to send me to that school that made me memorize life before I knew really what it was to live it. And he knew that in any way that he wasn't right, I would make up for it by being me, his daughter.

Of course, all this I know now, after he's gone. He died when I was 12. One night after dinner with the family, my uncle and aunt, my cousins. Eating and drinking (them, the adults, and especially him) and everyone talking too loud over the music. I don't mean to say, back there, that he 'drank'. Not like that. Not the way you're thinking. But he drank and ate and talked and was loud and...he was LIFE that man. All that life in that giant of a man; I never knew how big he was until he was gone.

"his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:

no hungry man but wished him food;

no cripple wouldn't creep one mile

uphill to only see him smile."

Here today gone tomorrow. He was gone after that night. And I have no regrets. I was with him, entirely, that last night. I rode with him home, the windows open. I remember him looking back at me enjoying the breeze and nothing else and I saw the pride in his eyes. I know I'm not imagining that even. It was a fact that pride and that love for me; his daughter in full--what he wanted from his girl. If he had asked for something from his God the night of my birth I know it was me. But, see, he made me this way. How could I be anything but this? And so there I was, with him. He had exceeded even his own expectations and so what was left for him but to die? What more could be asked of him?

i have no regrets. i wish i did almost. Maybe it would help me deal with that little loose end--the surprise i felt, utter and pure, when he was gone. Almost nothing else but surprise. The loss creeps in though. The sinking suspicion that maybe all i was, all i had in me, was back there, in the back seat to my Dad, making his night complete. Sometimes i think that. Maybe that's not as bad as it could be. Maybe it could be worse. Maybes am i.

"scorning the pomp of must and shall

my father moved through dooms of feel;

his anger was a right as rain

his pity was as green as grain"

CLEVELAND

by Cormac Foster Morrison

I'm sitting in the hotel lobby trying to decide whether to go in the bar or not. I'm supposed to meet her in the lobby. She was very specific about that. "There's a couch," she said, "at the back, near the stand with all the tourism brochures." So I'm sitting here looking at pictures of Jacob's Field. I've been in the city four days now and I still haven't seen the ball field. Well, it is winter. And it's cold cold cold outside, especially tonight.

She said to wait but she was supposed to be here almost 45 minutes ago. And I haven't moved from the bench other than to look at all these ads for the local attractions since I got here 10 minutes early to meet her. There's a brewery right here in town, and a working dairy farm just an hour and 15 minutes away, down out on 480. She knew the hotel when I mentioned the name even though it's a little off the beaten track, as they say. The job's downgrading their policy regarding executive travel and me being only a junior executive at best I suppose I'm lucky to even rate a hotel with a bar in the lobby.

The Brown's are playing on the TV in there and they must be winning for a change judging by the noise. The girl at the front desk keeps glancing my way. I like to think she's just taking a shine to the cut of my suit but I'm pretty sure it's more that I'm something of a loose end in her shift. Not a lot of traffic in the lobby at this hour, at least not people checking in. Sure, there's the occasional question about where there's a steakhouse in the neighborhood or a "where can I find a pharmacy nearby," and so the guy sitting in the same spot for close to an hour must be wearing on her. "What's he doing over there?" she's thinking.

I look again at my shoes; scuffed still from the flight and having to jam them under the seat in front of me, the fat guy from Charlotte wouldn't get off the cell phone at take-off. Had to be told, specifically. A special trip had to be made, down the aisle of the 707, and even then he held his ground. It was like he didn't even hear her. I wish I had that set of balls. It's not even a question of authority or anything like that. More like a consideration. She made the trip specific to tell him to shut down. I would've turned it right off. Me--I had my phone off already and my seat belt buckled soon as I sat down. That's me.

What's she see in me anyway? She's got everything going for her, that's why I'm waiting here. Yeah, maybe she's had it tough but who hasn't? My life's sure hasn't been a picnic. Still though, someone beautiful like that? Coming to meet a guy with what, scuffed shoes? Says it all doesn't it? I take another look at the clock, not bothering with my own watch. Ah, I'm gonna go watch the game in the bar. She'll find me. I'll stop at the front desk and ask about the pay-per-view, let on subtle that at least I'm a guest in the hotel. A guest that likes to hang out alone in the lobby.

"Hello," says the voice, sweet as honey.

Looking out at me over that same old scarf. Cheeks rose red from the wind off the lake. Man, I could get lost in those eyes.

MIGHT AS WELL...(3rd and Final)

by: Dottie Pond Rothschild

He extended his hand to her as if he'd known her since kindergarten and she trusted him for no reason, they were strangers after all. Her hand was delicate in his but she was dead weight, like a stone sinking to the bottom of the river already.

"You need to use the phone? I mean THIS phone- they put them here for that reason."

She waved her hand in front of her face, " I can't talk to people who can't see me - I walk through everyday, slowly dissolving from view, it's the strangest thing, to be there and not there."

Joey shifted his weight, hands in pockets, making small piles of gravel with the side of his Converse. Jenna stood still, dress and hair plastered than flung around her. Joey moved to kick the telephone post with one foot than the other, eventually adding a little hop.

"I've talked to them you know, not on the phone, the shrinks I mean, the ones who have it all figured out." He peeked up at her, "All that sitting in school and they get to hang their sanity in fancy writing on their wall. If the trick is to leave you running and screaming back to yourself, it works."

Joey picked up a rock and hurled it toward Tarrytown, Jenna twisted to look.

"Some guy lives in that lighthouse, you know, eats, sleeps, goes out and buys groceries." He throws another rock.

Jenna twists back, "they fired me from my unimportant job, well laid me off really, but I work till the end of the year. They plan how things will function when I'm gone and I smile and nod, I go in each day and help tap the nails into my own coffin."

Another twist and Jenna gracefully extends her arms along the cold smoothness of the rail, looking out over the water.

"My boyfriend cheats on me, but he doesn't leave- so I go on believing this is part of our journey, but when he looks at me, he looks through me, not at me. I noticed lately, when I walk off the path, into the dirt, I look to see if I leave footprints."

Joey didn't like where this was going, he felt in his jacket pocket for the individually wrapped rectangles of Dentine gum, spearmint. He shed the loose paper in his pocket and quickly shoved the gum into his mouth. He always carried gum with him, Mrs. O'Leary had started that in the fourth grade. She was a hard ass to most of the kids, she used to be corporate, very important, and then was somehow elementary school. At some point she was put in charge of kids like Joey, the ones who perched not sat, called out not raised their hand, left class for a drink of water and ended up helping Mr. Stickle, the janitor, sweep the floors because the stuff you found in the garbage was just so great. He said that his teacher had suggested he help, boy did he get in trouble for that one.

When state tests came around and Mrs. O'Leary sat the six of them down in a separate classroom for kids who got extra time, before reading the exasperatingly tedious directions she asked "Who wants a piece of gum?"

The first time she did it they all just smiled and looked at each other, thinking she was kidding. But she walked around very business like to each desk in her high, clip-clip heels and offered them a stick of Dentine spearmint from her pack "Chewing gum helps you focus and I want you all to do well."

Joey wanted to offer this girl a piece, but then thought better of it.

" I wore this dress because I wanted to look like a flower floating on the water, you know, something beautiful" She leaned over the rail and studied the water, "but I would sink wouldn't I? I would just sink."

She turned to face him. "I didn't expect to meet anyone up here, I was going to disappear completely, but you saw me here tonight, you saw me."

Then, just like that, she started to walk back toward Jersey, she waved her hand as she descended but didn't turn her head to see Joey standing there, hands in pockets, foraging for another piece of gum.

A light dust coats her worn black shoes and Jenna can feel the dampness through her soles, but she'll wear these shoes till a patch of cardboard, some duct tape and an extra length of lace could hold them no more.

Joey watched her disappear, then lifted the cold receiver on the metal box phone, "I did your job for you, you fuckers!"

The light from the lighthouse blared in his eyes, and his endless questions scurried back into the walls of his brain.

"I'm calling it a night, I'm going home, might as well..."

And he turned and started back toward New York

CRAZY HOT

by Bella Belsova

Crossing the street, I hear "Ching, chow, ding-ching chan," and my head swivels, shocked. I couldn't believe someone was so loudly and cartoonishly mocking spoken Chinese. But then I see that it was actually a couple of Asian businessmen arguing. Or maybe they weren't arguing but they themselves were mocking some other Asian ethnicity; like making fun of the Japanese. Or maybe they were talking about some white person that mocked them and were imitating his cartoonish and belittling Chinese accent as part of the story. They caught me staring and I just nodded and pretended I understood what they were saying.

Nod nod "white people suck, don't they?" nod smile nod.

My cell phone rings. It's my sister.

"What's this about Karl Rove," she says.

"What?"

"Mom says you told Karl Rove to go fuck himself?"

"Oh yeah. I told her that I saw Karl Rove talking to Mario Cuomo on the street the other day and I just walked up to them and I said 'Excuse me Governor, fuck you Karl Rove!' Mom loved it. She laughed and laughed."

"Wow, so what did he say?"

"I just walked away."

"He didn't say anything?"

"Well, it didn't really happen, OK? I just told Mom that because it made her happy. Dad's cancer's got her down...and she fucking hates Karl Rove"

"What?"

"I'll call you later OK? Don't tell Mom," and I hang up.

Then on 48th street there was this FedEx guy talking on the phone. And one of the packages is just lying in the gutter, right near this dirty puddle, and he's just talking and talking. And then he starts giving the person he's talking to his phone number but in a TOTALLY weird way.

"It's five forty-one, fifty, twenty-seven."

Who does this guy think he is anyway? What is that some James Bond shit? All 'niner' instead of 'nine?' I didn't like it. I'm calling him later and I'm just gonna start yelling "FUCK YOU KARL ROVE, FUCK YOU KARL ROVE!!!!" until he hangs up.

Goin' Out West

Well I know karate, voodoo too

I'm gonna make myself available to you

I don't need no make up

I got real scars

I got hair on my chest

I look good without a shirt

Well I don't lose my composure

In a high speed chase

Well my friends think I'm ugly

I got a masculine face

I got some dragstrip courage

I can really drive a bed

I'm gonna change my name

To Hannibal or maybe just Rex

Change my name to Hannibal or maybe just Rex

I'm gonna drive all night

Take some speed

I'm gonna wait for the sun

To shine down on me

I cut a hole in my roof

In the shape of a heart

And I'm goin' out west

Where they'll appreciate me

Goin' out west

Goin' out west

—Tom Waits

Untitled.

Untitled.

Fathme

All the shoals and deep within

I relate to you, always; you move me and define

Fathomless fathering I am born of your deposition

why so shallow?

My outstretched arms trace the contour of your floor, because I can

As long as you work me with your waves

Untitled

by the Genius

THE DEEP END

by Cormac Foster Morrison

"We're suburban too; we're just swimming at the deep end of the pool."

"Well shit, honey, I know that."

And so she looks at me then like the peeling paint shouldn't matter so much; or the fucking dandelions popping up like Charlie in 'Nam. Why do I even KNOW what a dandelion looks like? I'm the city kid. Who is this person staring back at me from the mirror--with speckles of white in his hair from painting the kitchen ceiling after yet another tub debacle upstairs (for future reference, you wanna go with ROTO-Rooter, not MR. Rooter--Roto-Rooter cleans your pipes, Mr. Rooter is...what, the high school shop teacher who's missing a couple of fingers from the band saw, and with an unhealthy interest in the Captain of the Cheerleading Team's birdhouse, and the type of guy that twists the ancient pipes in this old house a little too much and then bolts out the backdoor when the brown tub water bursts through the kitchen ceiling on Memorial Day weekend. Note to self...)

Now she's taking my head in her hands, not minding the two-day stubble, and looking up at me with those eyes, squinting and pursing her lips, knowing what I'm thinking, knowing about how guilty I feel that it was all my idea, this house, knowing I know how much she loved New York, and in ways that I, the city kid, could never appreciate for having grown up too close to it, and how I made her come here, to this milquetoast paradise; this chlorinated wilderness of preconceived notions, extra-value meals and simmering unfulfilled lusts for life lying decomposing in the sunshine.

"If you kiss me enough maybe we won't have to worry about the turds in the pool--especially in the deep end."

And so she did, and down we went. This water is warm, but it sure is deep.

THEN WE ARE REGARDED

by Anony

"Give my regards to Broadway." I knew the song before I knew what it meant. Jimmy Cagney singing it in Yankee Doodle Dandy; something sad about it. Was he a sad clown? I don't think that's what the movie was going for but it might be what the song means, I think. But I'm not sure how the word morphed into what it means in the song: "tell 'em I said hello" or something like that.

"Regarder" is "to see" in French. "Peekaboo, I see you." It's a primal childhood activity. "Daddy, look, look at me." Look at what I'm doing. See me. Express interest, concern; tear yourself away for a moment, shift your focus to ME.

"I see you" is the way the Na'vi say basically "I love you" in Avatar. Then there's Dennis Hopper: "Don't you fucking LOOK at me! Baby wants blue velvet." Love and all its subversions. See me, don't see me. Watch me, don't fucking look at me. Stop, stop...don't stop.

I hate being regarded. I like being seen, I wanna be noticed. But I don't like being watched; or observed, assessed, or evaluated. That's a tough one I know. Pay attention but not too closely.

"Oh, you're eating salad today!" It's not even a question but it requires a response. What are you supposed to say? "Yup, that's a salad." Makes me want to buy a bonesaw.

"Yup, that's a human ear alright."

Disavowed

The bar sign in phosphorescence exposed her and shrouded her conversely in bittersweet light and dark ocular reverberations; Open. Shut. Open. Closed.

She had been misled. Feeling the fool now, anger wiped her out and left her tossed and discarded like a dishrag. Sliding from the barstool, she used her sleeve to wipe the blood from her lip. Pains were taken to appear straight, walk right. Her mouth is too wet. She feels several crows shy of a murder.

LOOK AT MY BRANCHES

By: Dottie PR

He was Drawn to her

Years of knowing each other, nothing special- now

a sudden Draw

He became obsessed with this unearthed thing, this new/old relationship

So exciting to be Drawn in like this

He didn't realize she was gravity

Grounding him

Pulling him back down to earth

She watched him fly for too long

Now she needed to grab his string

But it was too late for her to soar

So she tied him to the tree of her inaction

And artfully admired her branches

So you say you are Drawn to each other?

Quick, run, fly

Refuse

to be

Drawn in.

MIGHT AS WELL... (PART 2)

by: Dottie Pond Rothchild

That morning , around 1 a.m. Joey was parking his cousin Frank's '82 Charger on the shoulder of 287, NY side, about a quarter of a mile shy of the bridge. It was a warm breezy night and Joey didn't mind the walk because, frequently these days, the conversations he had with himself were among the best. He was witty, charming, understanding and when arguing, ultimately always right. So far, he hadn't run into anyone. Traffic was pretty light, it was only wednesday, glancing to his right he saw the lights of Tarrytown, the boats in their slips, the puny lighthouse he went to with his first grade class. Mrs. Marcy told them some guy actually lived there, you know running things. He happened to be out getting groceries when the class came, even back then, Joey figured this was by choice.

He was getting pretty high up now, he was feeling like the king of Tarrytown, master of the Hudson, Henry Hudson himself come back from the dead- it was exhilarating, liberating, all this vast twinkling and black expanse, maybe he should feel small and humbled, but instead he felt empowered, ready to deliver his address to the masses when he finally reached the center.

Walking with determination, really hitting his stride, Joey flew right past the first phone, well fuck, it was obscured in a grey metal box. I t seemed like choosing to be cryptic in moments of desperation isn't the best plan, but there it is. Yet, what really made him take a second look was the girl, squatting down in the puddle of her sundress, with her head folded to her lap , her arms gathering cloth at her sides to keep the wind from peeking under her skirt, her black leather shoes displayed in the swirl, brushed worn at the toes.

" Hey, what are you doing down there? are you hurt or something?" Joey circled back and then spotted the phone.

"There it is! just one though, I bet you came to see this too." Joey headed toward the metal box, then abruptly stopped and asked "are you okay? need a hand? "

Jenna raised her head, she was plain but smart looking, no make-up to speak of, no style either, not in a complete sense, but she wasn't typical, the clothes she picked were quirky, old, but chosen with care. But her shoes spoke her secrets, the heels worn away on one side, probably a hole in the sole at the big toe, exposing the layers of deteriorating cardboard in concentric circles like the cross-section of an old tree, she would wear these shoes into the ground.

Joey saw the moment in her eyes, felt it freeze like a snapshot, a breezy night on the bridge, her head tilted up, her skirt battling with the wind around her, he knew why she was here.

Propel

Certain rounds have their own reputations

Do not blame me, I did not choose you. I am impulsive.

The physics are absolute behind my transference

I am ejection, I have been impelled

Tumbling inside of you is devastating. I can only react.

— Perpetua de Plume

TEMPUS FUGIT

by Anonymous

What of the heart set adrift on the open sea on a course charted as penance for errors of omission? What heading now that destiny is left to the ordinary and measurable whims of the tide's probability? Though when not even the world-wide ocean understands its own currents--its ancient maritime rhyme?

The whale fires back, propels from the deep, the arbiter of mediocrity, the subsumer of destiny, the decider, acting on a commitment forged in the barnacle scars there on his hide, and by the rusted shaft of the spike hurled by a more innocent intention, a purer one at least, hanging there, like a nail hammered into a tree will eventually be absorbed into the concentric expansion of time.

The heart is sent airborne, screaming skyward in a battle with gravity, making a play for a place among the stars.

Lasting and abiding

by Perpetua de Plume

The words are strung together, circular and precious—she will wear them around her neck when she needs to feel pretty. Placed in a box and nestled under cotton, they will keep.

Sentiments are written in chalk on an old slate. She wants nothing more than to keep them indefinitely, to archive and own, but her fingers smudge, unmake.

She longs to make sense of that which has been unstrung—of all that is unfolding. Refolding, inserting and aligning, she organizes her thoughts like putting away the laundry. Stacking, centering, ordering from small to large.

Provenance and permanence, knowing that there is none to be had, not truly. We mark lasting and abiding permanence through touch, handling.

Her hand goes to her neck intuitively, fingertips in search of pretty words. It is all so touching.

COCKSUCKER

by Al Swearengen

"Announcing your plans...that's a good way to hear God laugh."

ELEGIES, EULOGIES AND ODES

by Rory Friedersdorf

There's this line from a movie:

"He was my north, my south, my east and west;
my working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong."

It was from a funeral--the movie line that is. I think the person in the movie was quoting a poet. The only other bit that I remember is that "O Captain, my Captain" stuff from Dead Poet's Society. I found out that it was from a poem by Walt Whitman about Abraham Lincoln. I looked it up. I read once that when you give a eulogy that the thing to remember is concentric circles. You speak first and foremost to the people closest to the person that died. Be careful not to wave out too far because then what you say becomes less and less relevant and less meaningful overall.

My mother always said that when Tip O'Neill (who lived down the street from us) said that "all politics is local" that he was really talking about life. Her point was that the only real differences you can make are ones that make the world immediately around you better. I suppose the same applies in reverse. Just ask my Dad. Ask my Aunt Donna. Whatever you do, though, don't ask my sister Mickey. The only advice you'll get from her is something about bygones. That was some eulogy she gave--her circles went all the way to the back of the church, pressing against the stained glass, tickling the noses of the saints. Her version of Mom forced her in there among Peter and Paul, crowding out robes and beards in favor of a pant suit and a martini.

CRISIS OF PERSPECTIVE

by Michaelene Friedersdorf

I was staring, out the window of the train, at the river. I'm not sure how to say this in a way that doesn't sound stupid but my eyes were following the shore line as the train slid north. I was just sort of absentmindedly daydreaming--is that a redundancy? Suddenly there were a couple of men on a rock fishing about 200 feet away from me. Now that there was someone there to provide a sense of scale I realized that the rocks that formed the river's bank were actually much larger than I had thought, or larger at least than either my eyes had seen them or my brain had processed that vision.

It felt altogether disorienting to realize that I was much smaller than I had thought; that much more insignificant. It had happened to me again (but in reverse?) before that when I was crossing the bridge at a perpendicular to the rail line and seeing the train coming north at the same time. Something about being able to see the train all at once, this anemic little worm which from above looked to be silently flowing along side the river, a narrow trail behind a raindrop gliding down a pane of glass. The feeling of superiority is unavoidable looking down at the tiny cars with their sad commuter cargo being trundled home to a period of rest before being plugged back in going the other direction. Of course I'm more important--I'm coming home from the mall.

Sorrow (excerpt)

by The National

Sorrow found me when I was young,

Sorrow waited, sorrow won.

Sorrow that put me on the pills,

It's in my honey it's in my milk.

It's only about half a heart alone

On the water,

Cover me in rag and bones, sympathy.

Cause I don't wanna get over you.

I don't wanna get over you

Take Note

brought to you by Perpetua de Plume

Sometimes, in the middle of all of the cacophony that is life, something happens unexpectedly. You are given a gift. The gift could come in many forms. Perhaps it is a person, or a brief note scrawled on a torn piece of paper. If you are fortunate enough to be aware of it's presence and allow yourself the liberty of just slowing down enough to observe it, to make note of it and to genuinely be effected by it without questioning—you can claim that gift and be forever different. The trick is to know it when it happens.

You know what? It happened to me...

PORTRAIT

Mr. and Mrs Andrew Lyman Polish tobacco farmers near Windsor Locks, Conn.- 1940. Photographer: Jack Delano

What did he say to make her laugh so?

as he tugs up his pants and pretends he doesn't know

There she is,

Lumpy and uneven

Sausage fingers, Dirty apron

Head thrown back, eyes closed to the dangling work above her head

In that moment, laughing and beautiful

- Dottie P. R.-

PICKLES

by Luca Pierre

I found out today how much she likes pickles. Me too. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so hung up on that. I know that don't really make a difference. Not really. It's just nice to know we might like some of the same things. That seems like it's right, that's all. Four days ago I saw her outside and said I liked her boots. She said what boots and I told her the ones she wore to the comics store and she said oh. It's not like we don't know each other. We were in like every class together at school, we just never talked then, not like now. But then she asked how my Mama was and I didn't even know she knew anything about her. She told me her boyfriends mother was sick and then we were talking about him a little. And I was feeling a little funny about it all. Not then so much--I mean I didn't feel anything like that then. But after, riding home on the bus I was feeling a little sad or like stupid even because I felt a little like I was talking too much. You ever have that feeling where you listen back to yourself and you hear yourself and I just hate that because sometimes I don't know why I say the stuff that I do and...or maybe I'm like one of those people that people just like enough to let them be around even when being around them makes you not want to be around them anymore but you forget that for all the time you're not around them and only remember when you make the mistake of letting them be around you again. I can hear my stupid voice now like asking asking asking her too much stuff--too many questions and I feel like if she's not happy about her boyfriend that maybe I should just let her be that and not make her talk about it all the time. Why make her talk about what's making her not happy? Maybe talk about comics or other stuff she likes. I didn't even care they gave me shit in the parking lot or that the cars busted and I have to take the bus. That was four days ago and I saw her again and she didn't say anything. I said hi and I think she just said hi because I did.

LEFT

Rail spikes left out by the railroad. Just left there to rust.

RED

by Anonymous

I pass by the same clock everyday, hanging on a wall in an office I can see from the street through a window. I check to see how close to nine it is. Not that it matters. It's just a habit. This morning the clock was gone.

The stranger on the street sneezes off in the distance, when I pass him five seconds later I say "bless you." He says "thanks." We've been waiting our whole lives to have this one short conversation and we'll never speak to each other again.

The extrospective voice from the backseat is speculating about probability and says "The world is so big that right now somewhere else on the planet there's two parents driving in a Jeep on their anniversary with two daughters and one is texting and one is talking."

"Wanna take the elevator?" Larry asks me and starts laughing at our little inside joke. I look over at him enjoying his face laughing, his white hair, his lovable eccentricity. Riding the escalator he starts telling me about a kid who once got a shoelace stuck. "There's an emergency button," he says just as the escalator responds by stopping cold. The commuters starting climbing instead of riding.

Ejecta

by Perpetua de Plume

You are drawn from memory; to keep you at arms length I must labor

with your weight, my grasp; how it measures gravity’s strong pull; you matter.

I want to be your object, driven forward; pellere

Do not prevent me, this speed that has no lift, only propulsion.

We are efficient; we require nothing

Like a ballistic pendulum I take measures to buffer

you in my small arms.

PAN, PETER PAN - PART DEUX

by Cormac Foster Morrison

They sat on his couch, quiet and unmoving, while they waited for him to return from the bedroom with a different outfit. He sat on the creaky wooden chair opposite them.

The one that had first spoken to him through the crack in the door identified 'itself' as 'Sisterbertrille' (just like that, spoken as one word, with an emphasis on the 'ter' in 'sister'.) Its voice was neither feminine nor masculine so he took the name as an alias. This suspicion was confirmed when 'her' partner introduced himself as 'Thatpoppinswoman' in a deep basso-profundo. He, on the other hand, was decidedly male, large and meaty, and quite hairy, having a rich mustache and beard, and curlicued neck whiskers, front and back. He wore a light suit jacket with a soft collar and wide tie and looked a little like an older, fatter version of Lord Byron without any of the dashing romanticism. 'Sisterbertrille' was altogether indescribable in the full-flower of her person. Having come out from behind the door, she looked like a wingless bug dressed in something out of the Martha Graham collection with various scarves and leotard stretched here and there over antennae and protrusions of exoskeleton. One 'leg' looked partially damaged and lay propped at an odd angle on Gunter's old brown-leather ottoman. They stared across at one another in silence until a voice again issued seemingly from nowhere.

"We try to appear to you in a manner consistent with the architecture of your understanding of space and time," 'Sisterbertrille' popped and clicked.

Gunter stared at them, disbelieving. "Um...nice job." He felt the sweat breaking out under his arms and on his forehead.

'Thatpoppinswoman' cut in. "I-if you only knew how hard it was to even maintain these forms you might appreciate the effort more."

Gunter noticed that he had a strange way of gesturing grandly, like he was on the stage of some magnificent playhouse of a different era; as if the assumption of this alternate form sitting across from him governed not only his appearance but also limited his behavior to a specific persona.

Gunter's evening had already taken a turn for the strange when the adult-sized Peter Pan costume that he bought in the Halloween costume store on 6th that afternoon apparently gave him the ability to fly as soon as he finished putting it on. Mind you, he had had no intention of wearing it to any Halloween party. He had been day-dreaming about it since the day he had seen it in the same itinerant Halloween costume shop the year before. He couldn't pin-point the exact source of his desire to be Peter Pan though he assumed it to be a fantasy based in some psycho-sexual childhood trauma. But he had desperately wanted to avoid any suspicion of irregularity on his part that might overtake the bullying and gossipy postman, say, as a result from even buying the costume from the internet out of season. His 'perfect' plan was to wait until Halloween and buy the costume while volunteering a certain squeamishness about 'dress-up' parties to the salesgirl and, in order to avoid any skepticism about his choice of costume, buy another costume (he had chosen what he thought was the most manly one - a pirate!) to throw her off the scent. She hadn't seemed to care one way or another.

The trip to the ceiling where he had knocked his head and the subsequent fall to the floor which had knocked the wind out of him brought about either some extended hallucination or a certain open-mindedness to what could only be thought of as the incredible circumstances that had brought these two creatures before him to his couch. He decided to go with it one way or another. What's the worst that could happen?

"Can I offer you some tea or something?"

'Thatpoppinswoman' gasped indignantly and after a beat 'Sisterbertrille' unceremoniously and without warning ejaculated several pints of yellow paste from 'her' mouth-hole onto the floor in front of Gunter splashing his bare feet and collecting almost immediately as a warm stickiness between his toes.

"YOU WOULD DO WELL NOT TO PATRONIZE US, WE HAVE BEEN SENT! SENT ON A MISSION TO TEST YOU. AND THIS TEST HAS ALREADY BEGUN."

"Where was that damned voice COMING from?"

Nested

by Mrs. Eaves

You wake me; unapologetic

facing forced; light, I get burned in the process

I fight to stay still, burrowed and blanketed

in the familiar; skin, hair

snarled, entangled and

nestlike; wrapped, rapt

my teeth are small and sharp. I bare them; curl tighter

in my nest of bones and dead leaves.

AN ISOLATED INCIDENT OF CULTURE SHOCK

by Anonymous

Yes, yes, I have worked with Korean filmmaker Young Man Kang but this was still early in his career. We ran into each other on the 4 train one afternoon and he asked me to look at a short script he was writing about language and multi-cultural relationships in NYC. He was much more serious about his subject matter back then. Anyway, I guess my notes were helpful enough and he asked me to DP another short he was actually shooting at the time--what would end up being his film "The Flame of Karma".

So after a long day of filming we were hanging out in the coffee shop with all our equipment and exhausted and he asks me if I have a picture of my daughter. She was just a baby at the time and I must've been talking about her all day. I remember that at the time it felt nice that he was reaching out, trying to get to know me. I felt we were connecting; we worked together really well and now our personal relationship was blossoming too. So I took out my wallet and found the picture and showed him.

"Very beautiful," he said. Next to that picture in my wallet was one of my childhood dog, Dusty. I felt a pang of embarrassment that I would still have a picture of my dog in my wallet though he had died at least 20 years earlier. And so I thought--"what the hell; show him that picture too. Let him get to know the real you." So I did.

"Ummmm," he said, "delicious."

MIGHT AS WELL.... (PART 1)

By: Dottie Pond Rothschild

He read it in the local paper, but Joey had to check it out for himself. Could be his manic leanings or simply his innate tendency toward inquiry, the really getting inside of a thing to see how it works, regardless whether it be a person or a machine.

The thing was, they installed four phones, not just one, on the sprawling span of the Tappen Zee Bridge and Joey had questions. The papers were always so fucking vague - who came up with these anemic questions? Yet they were the professionals, barely brushing up against the real material. He saw the importance of rolling up his sleeves and delving his hands into the guts of a story, sloshing around in the substance of the thing.

Joey's head was a piaya of perplexity, a stew of unanswered questions. For instance, did the phones only call the suicide hotline? Or say could you like stop your car on the way to Jersey and order a pizza? How bout this - did you need a quarter or a credit card number or did you merely pick up the phone and your personal savior was waiting on the other end?

And what about location? Was there a bank of four phones in the center, the highest, and lets face it, the choicest spot on the bridge OR were they equally dispersed across the entire span, so if one had second thoughts on the way to the prime spots, they could just give a ring. Maybe studies were done and it was determined that more people jumped from the Jersey side, so they put two on the Jersey side, and only one in the center and one on the New York side. And, being a New Yorker, was this a bone of contention or a point of pride?

How about if you were just kinda depressed but had no real intention of ending it- could you use the phone, you know, just to talk? A little low end, free therapy? Maybe say you were thinking about it- just to keep them on the line...

Indeed there were countless unaddressed questions. He would bet there would be others out there too, just like him, trying to find some real answers.

ALIVE IN THE WORLD

by Jackson Browne

I want to live in the world, not inside my head
I want to live in the world, I want to stand and be counted
With the hopeful and the willing
With the open and the strong
With the voices in the darkness
Fashioning daylight out of song
And the millions of lovers
Alive in the world

I want to live in the world, not behind some wall
I want to live in the world, where I will hear if another voice should call
To the prisoner inside me
To the captive of my doubt
Who among his fantasies harbors the dream of breaking out
And taking his chances
Alive in the world

To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world
To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world

With its beauty and its cruelty
With its heartbreak and its joy
With it constantly giving birth to life and to forces that destroy
And the infinite power of change
Alive in the world

To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world
To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world
To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world
To open my eyes and fully arrive in the world

SACK OF KITTENS

by: Dottie Pond Rothschild

Paige had been at it for two hours. Honestly, Olivia wasn't merely numbingly restless,

annoyed at the colossal waste of her time, but friggin hungry as well. What could possibly take

so long?She must curl each strand of her long, luxurious hair separately and then apply layer after layer of make-up to accumulated perfection, then clothes and shoes. Olivia marveled at the intricate decision process this took depending on who was most likely to be in the room they were about to walk into. At some point Olivia attempted to be indoctrinated into this female ritualistic process- but could only stretch out hair and make-up to twenty minutes, maybe a half hour with much effort. Eventually she just brought along her book, it seemed like a better use of her time. Approaching the three hour mark, they would finally make their way to breakfast, just under the wire of the 2p.m. cutoff on Sundays for hash browns on the grill.

They walked down Broadway, heads turned, conversation bubbled, Paige rivaled the sun in her brightness and Olivia got to stand in the castoff splendor. With no place to go and no time to be there, those wasted Sunday mornings were worth the wait.

Only now did Olivia realize that there was a wisdom of beauty that Paige tried to impart on her, and she, with the freshness of youth, had intellectually squandered. Paige had faded like a timeless watercolor, while Olivia tumbled into middle age like a sack of kittens falling out the back of a pickup. Why hadn't she lifted her nose out of the book to learn how to perfectly tweeze her eyebrows or choose the most flattering hairstyle for her face shape?

As it turns out, a concentration on beauty trumps intellect- and as Olivia looks in the mirror, glimpses her retiring youth, looks in the mirror, watches her husband leave her, looks in the mirror, and finds that after they ran out of things too say, she should have spent more time looking at herself, looks in the mirror, then shatters it with her fist.

Looking at it intellectually, Olivia has analyzed and concluded that she has lost, if you can lose at life. Paige looks in the mirror, almost three hours have passed, and she is still looking in the mirror.

HIVE (or why god doesn't care)

by Cormac Foster Morrison

"Accept, for the sake of argument," John thinks to himself, "that in any conversation about the true nature of God, human language is hopelessly inadequate for any job of definition--that even the most nuanced, layered intellect gets lost, inside of a few seconds, in the hive of God's being--though human language is all we have and therefore the only tool we can employ."

"And by human language we of course mean the sum total of human existence--language, culture, gesture, thought..."

"Culture includes music, painting...?"

"Well of course, yes. Everything."

"So we're talking about everything. Anything a man can come up with to express himself, even a conscious act of NOT expressing himself..."

"...for a purpose, say..."

"Right, NOT expressing himself for a reason..."

"...And thus, in effect, expressing himself anyway..."

"ANYTHING. It's all inadequate and yet it doesn't stop us from thinking about it all, albeit in terms deficient to the task; dismally and wretchedly deficient."

"Got it."

"OK, so I'm there in God's presence. Again, for the sake of argument. How I got there and even where 'there' might actually be is..."

"Delusive?"

"What does that mean again?"

"Tending to delude, mislead..."

"I don't think it's delusive, no."

"Demeaning? Demented? Dematerializing?"

"OK, we're getting off the point here. You get what I mean. So I'm with God, right? And he knows why I'm there and that I want to say something. So God says, employing some name for me that he has that just, you know, speaks to me, the name that is. The NAME is the word that only God knows is the very essence of me, TO me. He knows that this name, whatever it is, let's call it X for the sake of argument, is the one name that, when used, will leave no ambiguity to ME about whom and to whom God is speaking in that moment, provided that I'm present. And, of course, if God is using that name, why wouldn't I then, almost by definition, be present."

"What does God say?"

"Right, God says: 'X, you may speak'"

"So you have his permission."

"Right. And in that very moment, I think 'Why does God even care to hear what I have to say?' Doesn't he already know what I'm going to say? Hasn't he heard it all already? So what's the point of saying it? And that's just it. There is no point. Not to God. He's not even interested in just hearing it for the amusement of watching me experience the saying of it on the plane of my own universe. You know, like you might be AMUSED by hearing a song you've heard a million times before, so many times that you can sing the lyrics in your sleep. You. You might find the experience of that song again to be an amusement. But God? Why would he?"

"It's an interesting question. A paradox, you might say."

"And, thus and so, as such, you have to unwind it."

"Unwind."

"God wouldn't say 'X, you may speak,' because God doesn't want to hear it. Because God's not even there. For the sake of argument, and human existence, GOD doesn't exist. Not as a practical matter. It's just us."

"You and me."

"Mental masturbation."

"Mental what?"

"Masturbation."

"Like, jerking off all crazy and shit?"

"No, your brain."

"You lost me."

"Forget it."

HERE'S THE STATE OF THINGS...

by Cormac Foster Morrison

It began when his cell phone died on the way to work just as he received a text message from his wife; she was going into labor.

"I thnk water broke. Where are u?" read the text.

I'm in the tunnel he thought. There were 4 missed calls before she must have gotten exasperated. Then, mid-dial, his cell died.

At the pay phone, he crouched to review the credit card call procedure and then punched "0" in frustration.

"Operator how can I help you?"

"I need to make a credit card call, um, a call on my credit card." He tried to get himself together. The operator took his information and put the call through.

He had missed the birth. It had lasted all of a half-hour. She was on the subway at 86th street when she felt the sudden dampening. One stop to Lennox Hill, one elevator to the 5th floor, gurney, stirrups, push, daughter.

Now, every time he passed that pay phone he got into the habit of placing whatever change he had in his pocket on top of it; an offering. Sometimes the change would be there the next day, but this was rare, and sometimes not. One day he noticed there was a dollar that he hadn't left and so he placed his change on top of it. Quickly after that it started to take on a life of its own. People started leaving notes like at the wailing wall, left on top with the money or jammed into corners. Then there were flowers, and a crucifix with a photo of a small girl attached to it with a ribbon. People left key chains and small packages of candy. Sometimes there would be other people there when he passed and depending on how they looked and his mood he would leave his change or not. It went on like that for several months.

Then, one Monday morning, the phone was gone. All the phones on that wall, all seven of them, were gone. And no sign of any of the totems or tributes that had accumulated there. All of it gone.

He called his wife. She wasn't there either.

The Weight of Future Departures

I’m missing her already but she has not left yet. The anticipation of feeling her absence casts a distinct shadow upon my outlook and I’m beginning to understand better what the true definition of dread is. It is unfocused sadness—something is almost missing so I mourn it—transitionally. I have one boot here and the other? Missing? I cannot describe it other than to observe, as I walk alone, the packed dirt and gravel pathway. And to the right of my boot is a divot—a hole where there was once a stone. Someone has obviously chosen to remove it from the dirt and pocket it—it was somehow special to them. Now all that is left is a perfectly shaped hole, one that echoes the shape of the stone it once cradled. Does that socket not miss that stone?

—Darjeeling

BOOTS

by Luca Pierre

My 'friends' have all been gone for the last few days. I'm not sure why but I'm trying to stay on my toes. You never know when they'll be back. Mrs. Rice stopped me in the hall to ask about Mama. She says she hasn't seen her in a while and she was worried. I got a weird feeling like she was saying something about me--like maybe just checking up in case I did something to her which I don't understand because I've never been anything but perfect to my mother. Everybody knows that. My cousin says I should get my own place and get away from her. That Aunt Sue drained him dry with her hairdresser appointments and cheesecakes. Aunt Sue's diabetes took care of any problem he ever had. Other than the extra-large coffin that cost an extra 750 more than the regular ones. Mama's too healthy for anything like that, except her knees. Maybe Mrs. Rice will call the cops on me.

I saw R. at the comics place. She was wearing red boots--rain boots. She didn't see me when I walked in but I thought she was looking at me when I was talking to Frank about the Star Wars sneakers from Adidas. I saw some I wanted at that mall in Atlanta but Mama said they were stupid. And now I can't find them on the website. Those boots were really great. All shiny from the rain.