Painting
| 1 | Clifton Road, Maida Vale
Prose
| 2 | Japan
Photography
| 3 | Dock Building
Poetry
| 4 | Murky Reflection
| 5 | Tastes Like Burning
| 6 | More Than I Can Ask
| 7 | Bar Hopping
Fiction
| 8 | Revision
about the authors
Tadeusz Deregowski is an artist who has studied in Edinburgh and Warsaw. After working in London for 10 years, Tadeusz has recently relocated to Brazil, where he has been working and exhibiting his paintings. He can be contacted at [tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk].
----------
Nicole Villarreal Stivers is a writer currently residing in Seattle. She spends her spare time trying to start a small absurdist revolution through quiet means: [groups.myspace.com/riotthroughconfusion]
----------
Bobby Cashman is artist/photographer from Lismore/Cork.
----------
Steven Hammond is a Chicago poet and author of the book P, Anyone?
----------
Valerie Deus is a poet from New York who has recently moved to the Midwest.
----------
Dan Donche is a writer who can't get enough weirdness in his life, so he makes it up. He can be reached via his website, www.dandonche.com.
Clifton Road, Maida Vale by Tadeusz Deregowski, painted plein air
This is an area of London notable for its still atmosphere, perhaps because it doesn't have much of a shopping street, and can't be used as a "through route."
The area used to be quite seedy and noted for prostitution (Sigmund Freud as a refugee from Vienna stayed in a hotel a few years from where the picture depicts, and was astonished by the amount of prostitutes hangind around the hotel then), and Christine Keeler, the prostitute at the centre of the Profumo scandal worked here.
Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder " was set here too (M is the old dialing code letter for Maida Vale).
Since the eighties, however, the area has gone very much upmarket.
This picture is currently part of an exhibition at Brazil Telecom, Florianopolis.
[tadeusz598@yahoo.co.uk]
2
Japan
by Nicole Villarreal Stivers
she walks, picturing a line running out from the toes of her shoes straight ahead into the horizon. she keeps her thoughts on these steps---that slight collision of body and earth that gives the sense of the words 'being grounded.' she feels her limbs and torso, head and shoulders. they are part of her, yet there is a disconnection, a slight almost unconscious inclination of the mind to think that it could do without the body. that all its urges and sensations are distractions from something greater: a riddle that the brain could solve if only the body would leave it alone, one that would explain the meaning of god, the cosmos, of physics and cells and all the works of art and literature---something that would elevate the mind that could see clearly the answer to the 'why?' echoing behind this human life.
If buddha is right, perhaps all we want is freedom from suffering, freedom caused by desire, but the body is only half of what desires---is not the yearning for peace or nirvana, an elaborate desire of the mind?
her walk takes her from cement to gravel, to sand to rock. she stops at this point, the horizon line stretching out north to south and onward into a seemingly limitless west. how immense the space between water and sky, even while boundaries have been drawn by men of all sorts of vocations and types wanting to know how far the human race had to expand itself on order to become the supreme master of all. but their knowledge only concerns those who make it their concern, and now, looking at it, she feels that despite the calculations made by some geographer or cartographer, Japan does not lie some hundred thousand miles or so ahead, but off in some otherworldly place called Japanland, a universe of its own that goes on indefinitely: earth, sky, water, placid and tempestuous---the closest to 'forever' that her mind can grasp. in this way, she can feel herself both absent yet alive in a way she could never put into words. she will age and live a life independent from this moment. but in this time and space there is something sacred created, not by any deliberate action; through her contemplation and stillness: a thing that will stand far longer in the silent histories of this world than anything else she might do or say.
she takes a breath, looks at her watch, and turns back to walk to her car and go home.
3
Dock Building by Bobby Cashman, photograph
4
Murky Reflection
by Steven Hammond
Women with plastic faces
grace us, shit-faced
in this tar trapped existence.
Our hearts choke us as we breathe.
I cannot inhale the zeal,
the fanaticism
the sense of it all is way great.
In lactose doses,
we are saturated to the core
but our bones will be strong
lasting longer in the dirt
than our spirits ever had.
Whimsical, we stumble to the grave
in love with ourselves,
guided by Ze and his long fingernails.
The sharp pain reminding,
We’re Zombies.
5
Tastes Like Burning
by Steven Hammond
Jelly-like firebomb discharge
turning skin red.
Shot child’s head rolling away.
Lead us not
amongst marching instep schoolgirls giggling
Appalling—
Soldier or not, now only a figure
dangling from a noose
I cast my vote today.
6
More Than I Can Ask
by Valerie Deus
I saw a waiter who reminded me of you
He was the waiter at Juniors. He wasn’t the one who
served me a grilled cheese and fries I pigged out but a long
sentiment walking above booths all split lipped and raw
from Easter Sunday dinners business lunches and
graduation toast.
It wasn’t his build or his features that made me see you in him but the way he walked by like he didn’t need me.
I didn’t know how to measure this
I think of giving you a call and telling you I’m happy
You’ll ask how can I be happy without you?
My mind leaves for Cuban sands in couple of hours,
a dense breeze reminds the old boy’ rum
rum clouds my Midwest settlement
It is everything for now
I built it for two and I’ve been craving it’s conversation
but you
won’t believe me predicting I’ll never last outside of NY
Don’t ask me why
I’m using the stationery from a company that fired me
maybe it’s my nesting instincts like twisting bed sheets
into a womb
the comfort of knowing exactly how someone feels about you
It’s the guessing that kills
Why haven’t I got this Warsaw story yet?
Why can’t I tell the stories of walking across
ice bridges for what felt like 20 winters
Dough faced women who sold me the Gazeta
Or bread or counted my coins at the market.
I was proud when my maternal instincts kicked in and I came home with pizza
How I would bee through my days and
barely found time to live within my nature or without you
I have many things on my hands
You ask that I stay cool and finish this story
At the time when we both wake up
I’ll try to call you one of these NY mornings
7
Bar Hopping
by Valerie Deus
I sit right here at the bar sipping my drink
I wait
wait for you to meet me at the bar then to the movies
where we will lay out and stretch ourselves out in celluloid
and our waist will buckle under the corn and brown sugar water
walk home and talk about our days his filled with customers
who wouldn’t consume bruised frozen corn or the tomatoes you touched
the milk goes bad and chickens won’t egg and
my friend tells me dangling-participles are what old men do to girls in the park
my time
filled with dreams of students freebasing comma splices and mainlining fragments
the rest O.D. on run-ons
They smile but doesn’t help
8
by Dan Donche
The wind thrashes past me fiercely and I get the feeling my hair is not as it should be. Biting cold percolates through my skin, all I can hear is deep howling, that and the high pitch of my wife's voice skipping across the walls inside my head, whining how we need to decide, by today, whether to go with Town Taupe or the Oak Moss carpet for the guest room.
Not even two minutes ago, the Bostonian's colostomy bag overflowed and the newly freed shit threatened to add its own vibrant flavor to my pleated khakis, reactionary Jesus Christ whispered his direction brought Aswad's undivided attention upon me. And today was off to such a fantastic start.
The wailing alarm clock tears me from a saucy dream featuring my neighbor's sixteen year old daughter. Feel my way to the bathroom in a series of right angles and leave my wife a nice surprise on the toilet seat, scour my teeth with bristles that feel like metal, skip the shave. Shaving is dangerous these days. I'm tempted to play a little game I like to call Guess the Prescription but I'm afraid I'll live through it. Back to the bedroom, I throw on the ugly clothes my wife laid out for me last night. I slip a Bukowski novel into my bag, just for shits and grins, you know, to fuck with those peoples in security, then I redo the buttons on my shirt so they're on crooked, you know, to fuck with those peoples' insecurity. I kick the bed to see if she'll stop snoring; she rolls over and, though the accident has brought nothing but asspain, I'm still thankful I don't have to see the monstrous transformation she undergoes with each sunrise.
Two apples later I wake her ass up to give me a ride.
The noise of a hundred voices weaved across the cavernous expanse of the room wraps around me, yet I could hear a ninja's footsteps, a butterfly landing. It's hospital bright here, annoying, and my wife cleaves a corridor through the bodies attached to the noises, dragging me behind her as through she has my trust. We make it to the counter and I pray for a miracle, something like spontaneous human combustion to erupt in the heap of skin and hair to my immediate left, think maybe if she ate more calories it could possibly come true.
But the lady working, with the thick Jersey accent, squares us away, very accommodating, excessively affable though, like some corporate evangelical cheerleader, and despite her noble intentions, I feel very uncomfortable during the whole transaction. In fact, she could burst into flames as well and I wouldn't care.
Try to convince my old lady that I can handle it from here, that an employee will assist me, but no, the bitch is too intrinsically helpful, my suffering ensues.
I take a seat and reach into my bag for the Bukowski book, pretend to read so people leave me alone. No doubt the book's presence confused the security personnel, wondering what a guy like me was doing with a thing like that. Somewhere to my right a baby starts to shriek and I wait, wait, wait for it to stop but it's a persistent little bastard so I choke the sound off with the help of James Taylor, iPod headphones pumping my head with music, go 'head and fill her up. Someone sits next to me, the piercing smell of Vitalis and cough drops orbiting his head like a swarm of invisible flies, skittish satellites.
There's nothing I can do about that, the smell.
Someone comes by to check on me and my fetid neighbor, I wonder what it would be like to fuck her, if my condition would enhance the experience or if the results would be tainted because she's just really good. For a brief instant I catch a whiff of her underneath the haze of my neighbor's, and I have to adjust my package to compensate for sudden changes. I can't wait for her to return, but in the meantime, I figure since this guy is making me so uncomfortable, I can at least return the favor. I twist my head in his direction and begin.
"I meet with Dr. Talmage again in about eight hours and my featureless existence will be as it once was," I tell him, trying to sound creepy as possible. "He'll perform the penetrating keratoplasty this afternoon, an outpatient procedure, and I'll be able to see immediately after, though with corneal transplants like this, the best vision isn't for another six to twelves months usually." Then I lean in to talk softer, invade his space some more, "It's hard for me to sit still because of the anticipation. It's happening to-day." A whisper, "I'm so giddy." I wish I could see his face.
"At first they said that was it, though," I whistle, "I'd been done in by the chemical burns," grip his shoulder open my eyes wide, "no hope." Swallow hard, turn away. "Referral after referral, second, third, fifth opinions, and finally Dr. Talmage tells me he can help me." Pause for effect. "I'm going to be healed."
I can hear him breathing heavily, oblivious to the rotten atmosphere he's perpetually encased in, and he replies, "Well I hope everything works out okay, for ya buddy. Ya lucky, cause they couldn't do nothing about the perforated diverticulitis. That's what they said I had, and," he inserts a light chuckle here, "they had to explain it to me, too. It's an intra-abdominal infection, that's all. Gave me a colostomy bag and sent me on my way."
And I immediately regret saying anything, begin to wonder if they've nested us in some macabre handicapped section we're not supposed to know about. I nod and put the headphones back on.
And we're among the clouds now, and if I plug my headphones into the armrest I can hear the pilots talking on channel 28. I lean my seat back and try to fall asleep, but I keep thinking of that flight attendant and what her tits might feel like, taste like, when all of a sudden this guy starts yelling, "My name is Aswad Faqir Mohammed, my name is Aswad Faqir Mohammed," and I jerk upright in my seat when the Bostonian clutches my arm all of a sudden.
Several women scream and the infant flares up and the prayers of one devout believer float up to God and I hope they don't interfere with the navigation systems of this plane. Asswad, or whatever his name is, says something like, "Allah Akbar," and I thought, "This is just typical, isn't it?" and then he commanded us to remain silent and that there was a bomb on the plane, yadda yadda yadda.
I know we're all gonna die.
The baby is still wailing, which just causes Aswad Faqir Mohammed to speak even louder, which I'm not listening to, and the Bostonian is still clamped onto my arm, and I hope the flight attendant is okay, because they're usually the ones examples are made of, which is what he's talking about now, killing anyone who does anything foolish, which is when my neighbor's colostomy bag leaks out all over the place, and I mutter Jesus Christ to him and then suddenly Aswad is there, right in front of us, screaming, the hotdog smell of spit and wet warmth upon my face in a thousand shards, and he sees that I am blind, picks up the Bukowski book. He laughs to himself as though I was almost clever, for an infidel, and throws it.
Then he says I shall be his example.
And just like that some Arabic rolls off his tongue, almost beautiful, that language, and somebody who had remained quiet this whole time grabs hold of me and uproots me from the seat, drags me up to the front of the plane and Aswad Faqir Mohammed continues to say that this is what happens.
The rest makes no sense to me.
Here I am, plummeting down, down, down through the atmosphere, the wind thrashing past me, cold, and I don't understand how this is happening. Perhaps it doesn't matter if you can open the plane door during flight or not, all that stuff about uneven pressure and sucking and wondering what happened to the door, cause they're probably all gonna die anyway. The shitty part for me is not the fall, not the freezing cold, not knowing that I will collide with the unforgiving ground in some mystery place, but that I don't know when this will happen. In times like this, I tell you, it doesn't help to wonder if you'll land in a marsh somewhere and escape the Hand of Death unscathed and live forever in legend. It doesn't help to wonder if a leather bomber's jacket will help take the edge off the icy blast. Nothing makes sense, and it's fruitless to even care.
But I do think we should go with the Town Taupe for the guest room.