‘Wool and Iron’

Horia Pop is a French and Romanian artist. He writes and shoots pictures and movies. His writings and photos have been published in America. His next stage is to find a producer to help him finance his road-movie script.

Wool and Iron

It starts with the Rough Fell and Lonk sheep who nose and tug at the thin soil

of the Colne Valley and finishes at the nap-raised slice of the croppers’ shears.

First, the fleece is delivered to the weaver’s cottage, where crushed onion skins,

red cabbage, and nettles dye it into shades between dry earth and shallow sky.

Wool is a galaxy of invisible systems, threads, clumps and connections

lapping and overlapping in the fuzzy pin pricks of infinite give and take.

Children pick and combe the mess, working the fabric between sets of dark teeth

and straightening the sticky chaos, then, in the wide light of bedroom windows, 

yarn is whispered from the fleece by the fingers of veteran spinners working 

the treadles until a beginning and an end are calmed from the soft storm of fibers.

Feed and tension. A nest of wool is pulled into rows of coloured spindles.

Feet answer hands in the turn of the spinning wheel, limbs in silky rhythm.

Then it happens, something from nothing as warp and weft criss cross into cloth.

The hand loom speaks a hundred strung threads fixing a warm solidity

its tongue the flying shuttle sent back and forth, under and over, lap and weave

until material progresses at a rate of millimeters, surface and strength tied

into an expanding texture, pattern born from the deep time of dark hills

and the blues, greens and grays that wrap the light on the valley edges.

This is the cottage industry of cotton and wool, texture teased from air

and tricked into existence by the practiced hands of the West Riding.

Next the gentle smash of the fulling mill, where a water wheel hammers

wooden blocks at the cloth and it shrinks into a felt as thick as sunflowers.

Then to the tenterfield where it’s hung on hooks and stretched back to life

in the thousand shades of cloud that shift dawn to noon to dusk to black. 

And now to the croppers, who wrap a pair of iron shears around their waists

and muscle cloth to perfection without touching it. They persuade it smooth

by raising the nap, drawing out the hairs of threads with the prayer of a thistle

and then, heavy and exact, sweeping the blades low and close as if shaving

an earthy God with a razor of iron and bicep and complete focus.

It’s the croppers’ cut which prunes warm life from upland winds.

Sam Kemp is a poet and lecturer at Northeastern University London. He teaches creative writing to students from a range of disciplines and leads various modules on poetic craft and technique. He hosts the Radical Writing Podcast and is interested in psychogeography, nostalgia and motorcycle cafes. You can find his work in the Mechanics Institute Review, ANMLY, and Streetcake, and his chapbook, Maps to Arkham, is available with Nat1 Press. www.samkempoetry.com

‘Bugs’

Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based artist and art instructor. She shows extensively in the Pacific Northwest. Past shows have included Seattle University, the Tacoma and Seattle Convention Centers and the Pacific Science Center. Her art is housed in numerous public and private collections.

Bugs

Roma gazed out the window at an owl sleeping in the eucalyptus across the quad. Movement re-focused her eyes on the ersatz stage, a steel blue flecked, glossy linoleum half-encircled by desks. Across from her, two male students rolled their eyes, occasionally flicking taps at one another's thighs. Professor Swander, called Murph for some uniterated reason, stood before the chalkboard backdrop. In a collared shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, his straight, gray hair under a black Breton cap, he was a wizard cloaked as Everyman, and everyone knew it, well nearly everyone. 

Before class the first session, not two weeks ago, the regulars initiated new students to the practice of arranging the "stage" and its audience of desks. Roma gleaned that Murph's classes had long waiting lists. She marveled that, as a freshman, she had gotten in. 

"Alright, now we're all going to sing 'Sentimental Journey."

Opening a vinyl-sided cube, Murph unsleeved a black, ten-inch disk and placed it on the turntable. He swung the needle-arm to the disk's edge. Crackles and scratches overlaid an alto voice. The two thigh-flickers went on with their separate amusement. 

"Roma," Kevin hissed. "What's the answer to number 2?"

"B," Roma spoke from one side of her lips without turning her head. Immediately, she felt that she was betraying Mr. Scaglia, a roundish man who always wore a suit and tie. He seemed like a nice man and a good teacher.

She had met tall, blond Kevin at parties before. Now that they had this class together, they were sort of friends.

Mr. Scaglia, started collecting quizzes, As if he had noticed nothing, he addressed Roma. "Miss Collins, what's GDP and why is it important?"

Roma answered.

He scrutinized Kevin. "Mr. Highwater, what are some of the economic indicators used to measure GDP?"

"I hate thish fuckin' class." Kevin stood abruptly, entangling his feet in the cords to the overhead projector. He saved himself by splaying his hands on Roma's desk.

Mr. Scaglia approached. Cold sweat breeched Roma's skin, fearing that she would be asked to take sides.

"Come with me young man," he said even-toned, as if stating tax brackets.

The teacher reached for Kevin who swatted violently, contacting only air. Mr. Scaglia waited. Before the outstretched hand could touch his shoulder, Kevin recoiled nearly toppling into a row of desks. He relented and, allowed Mr. Scaglia to steady him out the door.

The flicking eye-rollers opposite her awakened Roma's embarrassment for Kevin. Her sympathy transferred to Murph.

Arms over shoulders, the class swayed to the music. Roma thanked her lucky stars ending up between Murph's graduate reader, and Andrew, a serious student. Andrew artlessly raised the right, then the left leg in his knee-length shorts. His hand's pressure increased on her arm at each left step, distancing her from the two flickers at the end now kicking each other's shoes.

After class Roma cycled around campus to the Goleta Beach. She locked her bike to a tree in the grass verge between parking lot and sand. Doffing her shoes, she delved her toes in the warm, massaging grist. 

She had adopted the habit of studying at the beach living on Rhodes, a street on a hillside above Pacific Coast Highway. Short and quiet, few knew it existed. Neighbors there would not have tolerated big crazy, but her family's little crazy stayed inside the apartment. Atop the garage, the compact living room strained with TV, her younger brother's music on the stereo, or his raucous friends wrestling. The eight by ten kitchen scarcely dampened the waves cataracting down the doorless, steep wooden stairs to her room. Whenever Roma needed to study, she headed to a tranquil spot on the sand.

She was on the beach less than an hour having already read Mac Beth three times. In sophomore English, she surprised herself by liking Mac Beth. She surprised her counselor, opting for Shakespeare junior year with the college-bound students. In the years of junior college struggling to undo her disappointing high school career, she read it again.

The Goleta bike path followed the slough. No streets or traffic intersected. To her right, hills blocked the ocean view. To her left citrus groves displayed ripe, orange and yellow fruit. Sloping, green changed to a flat tract of one-story houses. Roma turned.

The house on Rhoads Avenue differed in every way but name from the apartment on Rhodes Street: the latter tall and narrow on a hill, the former flat on flat land. The Rhodes apartment was on the second floor except for her large, dank room. It had clearly been a patio, now enclosed, evidenced by the concrete floor and green corrugated fiberglass roof. Her new room on Rhoads was a small dry-walled box. Rhodes carried sounds of her brother and of her mother chatting with Judy, the flight attendant in the studio apartment aside Roma's room. Rhoads reverberated quiet in the sparsely furnished house.

Entering the back door, Roma saw Carol's pear shaped back at the sink.

"Hi, Carol." Roma set her books on a stool. "Doin' anything exciting tonight?" It was a gratuitous question. Carol, a doctoral student, was about as exciting as her mousy hair.

"George and I are going to see The Fisher King." Carol dried her hands with a towel.

"Let me know if it's any good."

Carol left. The house was empty.  

Roma sat in the living room to read. Every passing car distracted her. She looked for something on TV. Its two channels had a sit-com of young adults playing adolescents and a nighttime soap with big hair. She went to the kitchen phone, picked up the receiver, and depressed the one, the two, the one . . .

"Excuse me, ladies," Mrs. Dufort distracted Roma from her distraction. 

She had been fighting against the undercurrent in her legs and chest to think about Graham Green. Mark Forrest, six foot four, lanky, cut, a little geeky behind his wire-rimmed glasses, had sat next to her. They'd been talking before class about the priest character as if he knew her.

"Amanda, Myra," Mrs. Dufort addressed two girls in the doorway. Flannel pajama bottoms and slippers showed below their jackets. "You'll need to go to the office and get a tardy slip. Don't come back until you're dressed appropriately for class."

Myra and Mandy laughed making their noisy way up the hall.

"Hello." Myra answered the phone.

"Hey, what are you girls doing?" Roma knew Mandy would be there, too.

"Hola, chica!" Myra recognized Roma's voice. "Nothin'. Are you here?"

"No."

"You should come down. There's a party at Twenty-Eighth and Hermosa."

"No, by the time I get there, I won't be able to park, and you guys'll get bored and leave."

"The fair's this weekend," Myra reminded Roma. "Come down tomorrow and meet us there."

"Okay." Roma brightened at the thought of going home and something to do.

The next morning Roma climbed the exterior stairs to the Rhodes apartment. Her brother Sam actually set down his cereal bowl and turned from the TV. 

"Hey." He smiled.

"Hi," Roma replied. "Mom home?"

"No, she's at the store."

Cartoon sound effects followed Roma through the kitchen and descended the open stairs. Already her room was changed. In the middle a card table stood with shoeboxes and scrapbook albums. Sam's bike leaned inside the sliding glass door. A pile of her mom's clothes neatly draped the bed.

Myra laughed aloud, hunched, her thumbs hooked through Taz's belt loops as she followed him through the kitchen. Eyes like slits, Roma, Matt and Amanda traipsed behind. Taz opened the door into the garage, a trapezoid of light diving its concrete floor. An added interior wall lined the width of the garage with egg-crate batting. Mandy shut the kitchen door behind her. In the sudden, pure darkness, they all broke out laughing.

Taz illuminated a turntable with a miniscule light. Giggling, Myra and Amanda pushed Matt upright and off of them on a pink chenille covered couch where they had landed. Roma sat down on its arm. Taz carefully cleaned the black, revolving vinyl. He strapped a bass guitar over his shoulder, its solid body blocking most of his. Dark hair hid his face while he tuned the strings. The instrument blocked Taz's slight body. He adjusted an amp and set the stylus. Deep notes resonated through Roma, but her shiver came from Taz's playing.

In Manhattan Beach, the first three blocks perpendicular to shore are narrow alleys alternating with "walk-streets". Walk-streets are not really "streets" but triple wide, concrete walks faced by house fronts. Parking is a nightmare at best. A weekend, during the fair, it was nearly impossible. Roma turned the car up a steep, alley and paralleled partly obstructing a garage door.

She followed a narrow ingress between two houses. At the front door she pressed the "bell". A shorthaired blond woman her mother's age smiled through the kitchen window. The door opened.

"Hi, Roma." Beth raised her hand in a small wave hello. "I haven't seen you for a long time. " She opened both palms upward, "What brings you by?"

Roma deliberately faced so that Beth could surely see her lips. Please, flat fingers circled her heart, might she leave her car behind the garage. Roma's fists gripped the invisible steering wheel. She balled her hands one behind the other, thumbs atop index as if readying for successive thumb wars. Beth agreed as long as the car on the right could still get out adding that Roma might see Taz at the fair.

In the middle of the walk-street, Roma gazed west. She couldn't see the sand only three cement hillocks dense with houses. She could see the water. The waves were big. The houses that she surveyed were unrecognizable. Some had added cedar-shake siding, others rooftop decks. A very few remained single story. The cinderblock and stucco two-story opposite, where her family once lived, was now clad in cheap wooden siding with a gaudy, octagonal, stained-glass window. The fence around the front yard had been removed.

Her upstretched hand clasped the large one not quite dragging her up the hill. She couldn't keep pace with those big feet without socks in topsiders. Each measured step of the hairy, muscular legs had to be made up with her five small steps. About halfway, he would let go taking two or three giant marches toward the summit. Then he'd turn around looking to the ocean then down at her. Pushing and pushing her little legs, it seemed to Roma like she was face to face with the sidewalk. Finally she would reach him, hugging one of his sandy limbs. He'd scoop her up in his arms then onto his shoulders setting her down at almost the top to open the gate for her.

The hillcrest verged between two worlds: the beach side concrete and tight-packed houses, and the park side beyond which the houses had street-fronts and yards with trees. Booths and canopies edged the left field. Along the railroad track, unused by trains since before her mom was born, a man led a small elephant, on its back a small girl in pig tails.

Roma descended the stairs into the park. She meandered through a maze of nylon awnings offering fruit flavored ices, measuring pitch speed, or painting children's faces. She watched people climb a net ladder only to have it invert at varying distances from the top. 

At the "Beer Garden", a roped section at the corner of the park, Amanda and Myra sat at a table shaded by oaks. Roma presented ID to a guy, not much older than she. On the elephant a boy of five-ish searched nervously for his mother. Spotting her, he smiled. Roma heard a voluble, familiar voice.

Miss Crane, who did indeed resemble a crane, her long neck on her skinny frame, wrote an equation on the chalkboard.

" Larry," she asked, "what should we do now?"

The boy next to Roma, his dangling feet swinging over the linoleum, responded, "Do what's in the parentheses."

Miss Crane drew chalk across the green plane, Roma watched Amanda whispering to Myra.

To a girl in the next group, "Yvonne," Miss Crane posed and turned to the board, "where do we place the decimal point?"

Timing it expertly, Myra whispered to Taz. The class, expecting Yvonne's answer, heard Taz, loud and clear.

"At der Wienerschnitzel?"

Myra, Mandy, Taz and his friends Doug and Ben sat in an oblate of chairs. Taz pulled his chair back to widen the oval. He was half a foot taller than when Roma had last seen him. His jaw had lengthened so that he looked more like his father and less like a dark version of Beth. He grabbed a vacant chair for Roma and set it between him and his two friends.

"What are you doing these days?" 

“I'm going to UCSB. I'm just home for the weekend. How 'bout you?"

"I'm moving in with a friend downtown." The sides of his eyes crinkled. Black pupils in sea-glass green reflected the shadows. "He's been getting me a little studio work. He's a keyboardist." 

"That's great," she said and meant it. Simultaneously she imagined an oppressive apartment with no outdoors. 

They spoke about their brothers, his working in an office downtown and going to law school, hers . . . They spoke about people from junior high and high school. Midafternoon sun approached the ridge. The shade shifted behind the table. A dry, offshore wind blew in. 

Doug announced, "We're goin' home, maybe go in the water."

Taz stood looking toward Mandy and Myra, "You wanna come with?" 

Mandy and Myra locked eyes. Mandy shook her head. "No," she answered for both of them.

Taz lowered his gaze to Roma.

She and Taz walked down to The Strand. On the left, they passed a few three-story houses. Each had a short, definitive border separating small, hard-scaped yards from skaters, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Opposite, past a three-foot cinderblock barrier, the sand stretched 200 feet to the ocean. People and colorful towels dotted it for miles. Taz opened a solid gate in a low, brick wall fronting an aging, two-story. The afternoon glare on the concrete made it difficult to see, but within the wall's shadow, Roma saw a bounce. She stopped for a second. 

Taz said, "Oh, that's Bugs."

Roma cooed bending to pet the small, gray bunny. Bugs hopped lazily away, staying close to the wall and its strip of shade.

Exiting a sliding-glass door, grabbing their surfboards, Doug and Ben said, "Hey."

Entering, Taz explained that this was the guys' apartment but that he stayed here more often than not. The only window in the dark room was the sliding door. There was a couch, coffee table, and a TV on a crate. To one side was a bar counter, behind it, a sink, hotplate, toaster oven, and fridge.

Once in swimming gear, Taz and Roma dodged cyclists and skaters to the deep, scorching sand. In painful joy, they trotted to the water's edge.

Roma watched the waves roll in, clear, even, big.  She watched their smooth faces breaking feet higher than her head. Taz strode in, his trunks hanging tenuously below the ripple of dark ribs under his new lean muscles. The small of his back pulled like the tide. He dove in then turned to her grinning, hair dripping black.

She went under the water unexpectedly warm, and came up next to him. A breaking wave pushed them yards toward the shore before their feet could purchase. It felt strange yet natural for him to abruptly turn and kiss her. Holding hands, they rushed into the next draw and plunged.

Bobbing over swells, diving between breakers, they waited to frantically swim toward shore and place themselves just where the ocean's force would propel them on the surface. Landing sometimes on their feet, sometimes scraping to a halt on the sandy bottom, they ran back in splashing. 

The evening sun still heated beach though it didn't burn their feet until they had almost reached The Strand and the arid offshore wind had encased them in a salty crust. Bugs was hopping and stopping in the now extended shadow of the patio wall.

In the shower Taz and Roma rinsed the salt from their skin and the sand from their hair. Their slick, supple bodies touched. Warm water and tender excitement washed over Roma. When they emerged, the apartment was dark.

"Shit." Taz uttered. "Those guys left without us."

Roma gave a perplexed look.

"We were supposed to go to a party at Pickfair to meet a producer, but Ben has the invitation."

Taz wrinkled his brow and paced for a minute. Relenting, his face relaxed into a smile. "How about The Lighthouse?"

Ten dollars? Myra's dad was a doctor. She didn't blink, but ten dollars was a lot to Roma. Every weekend Roma biked to the harbor to wash boat decks for spending money. Now she handed a ten to a bouncer. A sign declared "Two Drink Minimum." Her stomach tightened. She only had four more dollars, and she wasn't old enough to drink. What if they carded her?

The dim, windowless club, made darker by black pews on a square U of black risers, smelled of stale beer. Mandy sat on a pew next to Matt. Taz stood, barely matching Myra's slight stature, to kiss her on the lips. They sat. Roma, on the end, wondered why she'd come. 

A man in black jeans and a "Lighthouse" t-shirt asked what they'd like. When her grapefruit juice arrived and she realized that the cover included the two drinks, Roma breathed deeply. The house lights lowered. Moody, gelled spotlights hit the small stage and the brick wall behind it.

At one in the morning, the streetlamps lit wide, fading circles on The Strand. The offshore breeze warmed the air. A lone skateboarder passed opposite. Another couple walked ahead in the distance. Taz swung Roma's hand to the metronome surf.

"My parents don't listen to music." Taz spoke loudly in the quiet night. 

Roma had never thought of that. 

"I was three or four. I don't know why I was at my Uncle Walter's. I guess he was babysitting." Tacit. Four arm swings. Taz continued. "He turned on the stereo." Swing. "I remember feeling the bass and drum through the floor and then through me. I knew . . ." Swing.

Dawn grayed framed by the sliding glass door. Roma listened to the sharp, even crash of waves. Taz lie unmoving between her and the couch back, stomach against her spine, arm over her. She tried not to stir. 

The steely sky was starting to blue when Ben came through.

"Morning," he offered.

"Morning," Roma replied.

Not the rushing water from the faucet nor the clanking cups and utensils on the counter disturbed Taz. Roma delicately detached herself. Taz shifted. 

"Hey," he squint-blinked to the world at large then focusing smiled at Roma.

By coffee time, Doug had joined them. They exited through the slider mugs in hand. Slate water-walls pounded, visible broad as the beach was. The waves reached so far ashore that it felt dangerous wandering onto the sand.

They retreated, balancing barefoot on the dividing wall. 

"Look!" Taz shouted pointing beyond swells.

He overbalanced and dropped onto the beach. Doug, Ben, and Roma, bodies fixed, synchronously turned their heads. Rubber-gray silhouettes arched in a green face of sea. Roma remembered water rushing her to land, salt baking on her skin. She loved the ocean, but they belonged there. She jumped onto the sand next to Taz. 

Roma towel-dusted her gritty feet. Inside, she put on yesterday's clothes.

"I gotta go." She gathered bits and pieces into her backpack. 

Taz pecked her on the lips. They stepped outside where Doug bent, searching the corners of the patio.

"What're you doing?" Taz asked.

"Bugs is gone," Doug pronounced. He glanced up at them mouth open. He bounded over the wall to search The Strand. Taz investigated the side area. Doug shook his head saying, "I've already looked there."

From a neighboring yard, Ben walked into view and shrugged palms upraised. Taz perused another yard. Ben started the opposite direction from Doug. Taz hunkered to peer under the neighbors' deck.

Backpack hoisted over her left shoulder, Roma passed the two big houses and turned the corner to the walk-street. Her legs pushed her up the hill, face to face with the sidewalk.

Carla Del Conte has been published in The Easy Reader. She has a bachelor's in comparative literature and a master's in French. She has taught in California public schools from junior high to junior college.

‘mouse’ & ‘the ballad of mona lisa’

Lydian Humphries is a multidisciplinary artist living in Flanders, New Jersey. If not hunched over his next project, he can be found enjoying a cup of tea with a cat in his lap.

mouse

the best gift i received
recently was a handful
of lint. my computer
mouse is fostered
by my dear friend
whose own is lost in
the depths of a library,
on some work table,
maybe never seen again.
another friend works
at a different library
and he takes abandoned
water bottles home,
so i wonder if it, too,
has been adopted.
the sensors in well
-loved mice work
sparingly, with jarring
movements across
virtual monitor seas.
with a handful less
lint, they might
be free.

the ballad of mona lisa

there's a version of her that looks like my mother
all middle parted black hair and unsmiling eyes
she was tuesday lunchlady and recess supervisor
now, she stars in my stress dreams about forced acupuncture

there's a version of her that looks like my first grade teacher
all middle parted black hair and compassion in her smile
she taught me how to count change
and counted on me to keep changing

there's a version of her that looks like home
moss-colored smock like my old heated blanket
veil as my foggy bathroom mirror

i can't say that i belong in the renaissance
all my queerness and disability allegedly won't fit
but maybe—maybe—she belongs here, with me

Mal Virich is a queer, non-binary, autistic, and disabled poet who tends to ruminate on self-identity, trauma, and the profound impacts of interpersonal relationships. Their debut chapbook a vivid dreaming was published in November 2024 by Bottlecap Press. They are currently in their fourth year of their undergraduate degree, studying creative writing, Spanish, and Chican@/Latin@ studies. Alongside their studies, they are a peer advisor and poetry reader for The Madison Review. www.malvirich.com

‘Chew the Wild Side on the Meat’, ‘Punctuality Prospers’ & ‘Hindsight Can Get Hazy’

Allison White is a writer and frequent traveler based in the Los Angeles area. Her work has placed in several screenwriting contests, including the Austin Film Festival for her feature "Waverly". She frequently tells stories of the often vibrant human experience, and what it means to be flawed and loved. She travels all over the world to experience this life, and see what the world has in store for her.

Chew the Wild Side on the Meat

I remember the monumental sight of dry, craggy and fang-like peaks; shooting into the sky from
the jaw of the earth. I was on the trail and the air’s increasing elevation was getting thin. My
phone was off and forgotten in the rig – it wouldn’t work in these mountains, and I wouldn’t
need it for the summer. No connection to the living rush of the concrete flow, back there, in
society. My pack was heavy – I had everything, but experience. Most of life can only be learned
in action – there’s no way to prepare. Happy souls are packed with failure that the rules can’t
teach. All these years since prove the basics true... go green, stoke adventure, manufacture desire
in the primal pumps of your heart and persist to personalized motives. Some flames smoke out
before the spark. I don’t know how the others felt, but I like to get deep, and lost, when I don’t
know what I’m doing... but if you sit and dwell, you never really get down the trail... so get in
thick of discomfort, go on with it, and you’ll never regret it. I repeated phrases and there was no
going back, now. I started to sweat, the trail ran steeply up the hill, and transformed into
switchbacks, cut into the mountainside. We climbed, aimed at the other side, and with each step
we were consumed by the woods. Civilization, the noise of the streets, the pace of society, greed,
the brutal consumption of our hours by corporate production, the hunger of the money machine,
and that illusive societal status, we chase like starvation, and it won’t mean shit when we are
dead; yes, it all started to fade, and our wild senses creeped out. Released by the sight of dead,
flesh chewed bones, which led to a mutilated carcass. Out in the wilderness, you enter the food
chain, and not at a prime position... keep alert, I thought. My legs seared with lactic acid, painful
notifications in the body like the iPhone buzzes when it receives a text. The synapses fired up to
my brain which said, where the hell you going; the damn bar ain’t this far, or fucking difficult, to
get too? I grieved the harsh loss of civilized comforts like sidewalk strolls to boozy ends with
friends, back in town. Change plays soft, false notes, on our memories. I clipped over the last
few yards to the crest of the ridge, and between those peaks in that rugged Idaho wilderness;
from the heights of busted lungs at the top of barrenly beautiful mountains, over raw,
undisturbed, enter-at-your-own-peril, backcountry glory, like observance of the sea pulls you in.
So did the void of that serenely remote, wild landscape. It beckons eyes that need to see the pain
beauty of truth. It’s an itch to be in the moment and connect with Mother Earth’s, the eternal
home and it’s thriving pulse. I stayed in those woods till the snow came, and I’ve never been the
same.

Punctuality Prospers

The day always arrives.
You should too.
The first step to survive.

Hindsight Can Get Hazy

The sun is fresh.
Flames spray the same way as yesterday.
Death is inevitable,
We’re born to be brave,
The tough ages get the extra decay.
Change slowly comes, nothing might occur,
When things get heavy,
You got lines with drugs to blur.

Nicholas Viglietti

‘WILD DESIRES’ & Collected Works

Daniel Newcomb - “This body of work represents a small portion of over 30 years of my images, exploring the world's forgotten architectural sites. I intend to preserve these structures artistically. We should not forget these nostalgic series of dreams. They are displayed here for our memories; for our children's memories. As Jack Kerouac said "I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder...."

WILD DESIRES   

A boy is out there, in the desecrated world, his face a semblance of mine.

Black, chiselled and glossy.     

He carries himself,

the way I carry myself like porcelain 

delicate as first love. 

He knows a lot about life or so he chose to believe, enough to truly see it as vain.

But despite his profundity, he’s in mighty chains. 

A slave to life and his crude desires. 

His wild desires, more than often, on lonely nights cruelly attempt to seduce 

him out of the temple of sanctity. Some nights their ancient tricks blossom into limelight. 

Other nights, when his soul is underneath his feet, he makes a mockery out of them. 

On successful nights, he becomes an animal.

A beast crossing the web-thin line between morality & obscenity. 

He growls like a famished fox as the heat of unfettered desires tours his veins. 

He looks into the mirror but he’s no longer himself. His voice, no longer a forgery of mine.

His hands, weapons of assault, like rebels, always spurn his command of staying stiff,  they drift forth and back. His hands take him to places he had vowed a million times never to imprint again. He journeys unwillingly again into desecration. 

You can pick guilt like shards of glass on his black face. His hands are cold now, trembling, 

wet with remorse. His eyes are trying to unsee all the evil they just absorbed.

He returns, sullen-faced, to the dusky sitting room, like a bee lured by the sweet scent of nectared flowers. He returns to his brown wooden table to scheme another breakout from the prison of his ungodly desires. 

He’d long scrapped, like the bark of a mahogany, the notion of seizing his breath as an antidote to his woes. For it’s an open secret, his father’s joy courses like the Nile river across his black glossy face & his mother becomes restless like a toddler at the sight of him in pains.   

He’d also talked to his sisters about the darkness ravaging him like plague, seeking a torch for his darkness in their sisterly counsel, but their balm only worked for a few weeks, then like all other ways he’s sought out of this maze, it ended in smoke. 

Undeterred, he’s plotting another coup d’état against his draining desires. He’s been knocking God’s golden door since he was eighteen, now his knuckles are swollen & bleeding doubts. 

But he stays staid, an equestrian statue, before God’s golden merciful door. Hoping one day 

to absorb his liquid mercy like a famished foam.  

LOVE SONG IN A COLD WORLD 

It’s 3:16 AM WAT &

Slumber’s slowly departing the shore

Of my eyes like sunshine at the eve of dusk.

The night is a cemetery of dead

& decaying dreams. 

Darkness loves amplifying 

Like a wicked spell the eerie echoes 

Of losses wailing within the chambers 

Of my head. 

There are crickets outside 

My window serenading the night 

Into a form of delight,

Singing to phase the ghosts 

Stifling the breath of my gaseous 

Hope into oblivion.

It’s been awhile I weaved

A basket of verses I know 

Can hold water, it’s been 

Awhile I opened ajar the door

Of my dusty rusty heart 

To the classical ardour of love

Without suspicion. 

Time drifts and keeps 

Drifting by like tidal wave, 

Like caravans of tradesmen 

But the ghastly names

Of all I had lost to the wicked

Fangs of fate, keeps marauding 

Like gregarious sheeps 

The oblong street of my memories.

I question what love is whenever 

Love like a seasoned cat burglar 

Stealths upon me. I do not, this 

Time around, stare dead 

Interrogatively into love’s hazel 

Eyes when you offered me your homely hand. 

It’s been hours, days & years of war 

Between us, & we’ve decided to take 

A recess from enormity. We’ve decided,

Despite the shortness of our lives, to love 

Each other for the rest of our days.

YOURSELF THE FIRST BATTLE TO CONQUER 

There’s no evil anywhere 

Worth fighting save the ones

In the dungeons of your soul. 

The festering corruptions

To begin with 

Littering like confetti every nook 

& cranny of the society are never yours 

To battle

If the dark desires of your life are not

Yet like wild dogs under leashes. 

Isn’t it a big blemish on the white garment 

Of his supposed freedom, a man whose ugly 

Desires still paddle the ship of his existence?

Do not say a man’s true value lies 

In the magnitude of his impact 

On the stems, roots and branches 

Of his immediate society,

For that’s definitely a piercing 

Arrow aimed at the acute sight 

Of understanding…

For what a man truly is, is hidden, a myth 

Even before the mirrors of his livid room, 

Before the bare body of his beloved

Laying in the cozy heaven of his bed,

Save God, nobody can ever measure 

Out the true value of another being.

Harmattan’s blinding fog can only distort 

The scope of vision of an ordinary man, 

If you have God flowing like blood in your

Veins and arteries, your scope of vision 

Will never fault even at old age. Some say 

In their ignorance, that it’s the eyes 

Before the board of our skulls that’s blessed

With the miracle of true sight, but mystics 

In the garden of my heart whisper to me 

Like cold ancient voices 

In the middle of the night:

Squash the eyes of your skull like eggs, 

Nurture the garden of your soul 

Like a bed of edelweiss 

And whatever lurks within 

The gates of earth 

& hides within the vault of heavens

Shall bare themselves

Before the eyes of your soul.

GOD I BEG YOUR PARDON 

God,

I beg your pardon 

But what will become 

Of this heap of mess, mound of trash

I label as me, if you fail to shield me 

Under the parasol of your grace?

The sun of ignominy is setting 

In the sky of my making, the sky’s 

Dark & fierce with rage… 

God is this omen a compass 

To my destined inevitable end?

Days of my youth are getting dark

Darker than nightfall, & the eyes of my faith 

Are swiftly gathering soot like chimneys.

It’s hard, I swear…. The little water 

Of faith in the bowl of my mind 

Keeps turning into gas, every second, 

Can’t you see the meagre pool of goodness 

In me turning into vapour before your eyes?

I’m lost, no light on this forbidden road,

No peace, nothing like happiness exists

In this wilderness but like a rite 

That mustn’t be forfeited 

The legs of my deeds keep returning, 

Prancing with wild delight upon its thorns. 

Life, tell me what you wish to fashion 

Like a garland out of me & let me be once

& for all. Fate, I have been behind your

Gloomy bars for aeons, dutifully oiling 

The rusty engine of your desires…

What’s freedom like again on the taste buds 

Of tongues?

Please let me have a taste…

This is coming from a very dark 

Place, the hades within, wherever the light is, 

Someone  please send it my way. 

The world is trembling tonight, 

The songs on the lips of the wind 

Are ancient like Rome, where’s the sweet jazz 

Of freedom we were promised to behold 

Mid-way right before we embarked 

On this journey of self-actualization?

Abdulmueed Balogun Adewale is a black poet from Ibadan, Nigeria. A Pushcart prize and BOTN Nominee. He was longlisted for the 2021 Ebarcce Prize, shortlisted for the 2024 Gerald Kraak Prize, finalist 2021 Wingless Dreamers Book of Black Poetry Contest, won the 2021 Annual Kreative Diadem Poetry Contest & the 2024 Dr. Samuel Folorunsho Ibiyemi Poetry Prize. His poems have been published in: Applause Literary Journal, Red Cedar Review and elsewhere. He tweets from: AbdmueedA

‘Art Appreciation’

Claudia Excaret Santos is an emerging photographer. Her photos have been published at Azahares Review, Blue Mesa Review, Red Ogre Review, Punto de partida, and L'esprit Literary Review.

Art Appreciation

I don’t look for faces
or for creatures fantastical
when I look at daytime sky.

When I look at daytime sky
I glimpse the artist’s studio
spilled paint

bold brushstrokes
backlit canopy
blue velvet canvas

splashes slashes
strokes streaks
swirls smears

pillows and billows
black white great gray
and blue hues all over.

Abstractions the attractions
when I look at daytime sky
feel like falling flying floating

face-first into that canopy
that comfort that vision
breathless to behold.

Robert Eugene Rubino has published prose and poetry in various online and print journals, including Hippocampus, Moonstone, Cagibi, Cathexis Northwest, Raw Art Review and The Write Launch. He's old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and smart enough to solve Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle. Other days, not so much.

‘Never Say Goodbye’, ‘Up On Cemetery Hill Road’, ‘Verdant Cascades’, ‘The Woman In White’ & ‘Follow the Light’

Lindsay Liang

Never Say Goodbye

In the 1920’s the cure 

for insanity was amputation,

tooth extraction, 

or a lobotomy.

I wonder if a broken heart

is madness or cardiac arrest,

a matter of semantics

or a forensic figure of speech.

Inside I am boiling

like a pot of paper wasps.

No wonder we didn’t stay

together – the past and future

circling both of us

like a kamikaze.

I look around at old mistakes

and twisted chances,

watch you leave my house,

the short walk down the driveway

your back straight, 

the argument unending,

although I knew 

I would never see you again,

the anonymous architecture 

of our unspoken farewell.

Up On Cemetery Hill Road

The Jehovah’s Witness

Kingdom Hall

is next door 

to the Lutheran Church

the parking lots separated

by a stone wall

the congregants

play softball against each other

Sunday afternoons

waiting for the umpire

to call out their names

as they cross home plate

each base like a station

of the cross

understanding the metaphors

of summer afternoons

curve ball, hit or miss,

squeeze play, sacrifice fly.

Heaven a long way— 

an even longer walk

than over the stone 

wall next door.

Verdant Cascades

In this landscape, clouds appear

as mountains, white cap on white

tinged with yellow, pink, even a hint

of the same blue as the sky

which in the afternoon turns

grey then gray then grave.

Thunder heads boom & crackle

on schedule these summer days;

when rain falls, 

ducks, turtles, lizards

head for the lake without 

need for directions, GPS,

or even language:

a useless catalog of words – 

vocabulary of verdant cascades.

The Woman In White

I wake up alone

in a strange apartment

and hear thunder.

Perhaps it is memory’s

hammer on the floor above –

nails protrude from the ceiling

dripping with time.

I miss the woman in white

and see her face

hovering above the earth

un-anchored to the ground,

floating like an icon

in a blood red sky.

I am pregnant with her—

this will be a hard delivery:

the cut swift and deep.

Boulders and ice,

stone and fire,

spill from my belly,

her face like thorns

behind my eyes.

Follow the Light

My cousin John

older by five years,

taught me to play basketball,

how to eat a taco.

When he died,

I kept waiting for him

to come back from the dead.

After all, his brother,

my other cousin, was a priest,

and Jesus raised Lazarus

from the grave after 3 days.

I remember other stories

of people clinically dead,

revived somehow, 

who spoke of a light 

they followed like traffic signs 

in the Lincoln Tunnel,

coming out again, alive, 

on the other side.

Instead of grief, I feel anger,

and wonder what my aunt 

would say, her whole family

in Armenia killed in 1915,

ghosts haunting

her house on Long Island, 

already crowded,

jostling for space with John.

MICHAEL MINASSIAN is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His poetry collections Time is Not a River, Morning Calm, and A Matter of Timing as well as a chapbook, Jack Pays a Visit, are all available on Amazon. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com

‘Lux Et Veritas’

Lindsay Liang

Lux Et Veritas

Ian Foley didn’t get into Yale. Application denied. The admissions department regretted informing him, although they commended his achievements, urging him not to be despondent. There’s a record volume of students banging on the university gates. Competition is greater than ever. Ian is bound for an amazing undergraduate experience. Somewhere else.

         The rejection letter, read out over dinner in the spacious dining room of the Foley family  home, passed from Ian to his father, Kenneth, to his mother, Ann, and then to his sister, Isobelle. Everyone stopped eating as the three-paragraph missive made its way around the giant mahogany table.

         “This makes no sense,” said Kenneth Foley, thoroughly puzzled by the news.

         “What on earth should we do about this?” asked Ann. Action must be taken. 

Isobelle, four years younger than Ian, felt the deteriorating mood. She knew Ian would leave for college anyway, vacating his larger bedroom with its walk-in closet and en-suite bathroom, and she couldn’t wait to be the only child in the house. Unless her parents bought her a new one, it would also mean receiving the keys to Ian’s Mustang convertible. However, regardless of future material gains, she wanted her brother’s departure to be as pleasant as possible to prevent more arguments between her parents.

         “We should appeal the decision!” yelled Isobelle. “They must’ve made a mistake and we need to challenge this.” She knew her parents would bicker over tactics and wallow in uncomfortable periods of prolonged silence. Her mother was correct. Something must be done.

         The idea that it was all a big mistake didn’t come from nowhere. Everyone - family, friends, and the teachers and administrators at his school - assumed Ian would be accepted. It was a foregone conclusion. Both Kenneth and Ann graduated from Yale. Kenneth even continued through the medical school program. Ann’s father not only graduated, but also donated large sums to the university when his real estate business became a multi-million-dollar concern. In fact, many of Ian’s family members, going back generations, were Yale alumni. He also had a high GPA, a high SAT score, and top marks in all his AP tests. The one thing he lacked was much in the way of athletic ability. He joined the basketball team in his senior year, but gave up after a few practices. It shouldn’t have mattered because he was a ‘legacy’ candidate and his parents were sure he’d be on his way to Connecticut that summer.

         “Let’s hire a lawyer, Ken. That’ll put more weight behind an appeal. They can’t get away with this. We won’t let them,” said Ann, perplexed by the injustice. As a stay-at-home mother of teenage children, she had plenty of time to lobby Yale. “I’ll call my dad so he can pull some strings.”

         “Didn’t your dad say this was a formality?” asked Kenneth, frowning. “Are you sure he talked to the right people?” Ann’s father was a wealthy and well-connected man who claimed to play golf with the governor of Connecticut and the president of Yale. He was a Bonesman, a Rotarian, and a Freemason. Kenneth was skeptical about the potency of his power of persuasion in retirement. “I think the old man prefers bridge to golf these days.”

         “This isn’t his fault and I can’t let you sit there and pour scorn over a man who did everything he could to help our son,” said Ann. “That’s beneath you. The culprit here is probably some grubby penpusher on 50K a year who hates people who’ve done well for themselves.” Ann grew tired of her husband’s digs at her father. When did people start resenting those with money and power? Kenneth’s connections, as a cosmetic surgeon in Delaware County, Ohio, extended only to clients and members of their local church. He didn’t network with the same vigor and deliberation as Ann’s father. He lacked influence.

         “Well, it could also be something to do with affirmative action,” stated Ian, eager to ease the tension and pitch a theory with some currency. “Maybe quotas override legacies these days.” Ian’s parents, temporarily freed from their feud, looked at each other and shook their heads in contemplation of this possibility. Surely nothing superseded a legacy student? Isobelle was confused.

         “What’s affirmative action? Is that some diversity thing?” she asked.

         “It means they gave my college place to someone less qualified because they happen to be Black.”

         “That’s not fair!” yelled Isobelle. “After all the work you did? That doesn’t make sense. Why would they do that?” While she didn’t care where her brother went to college, Isobelle had a keen sense of injustice. Thinking about her future, she hoped to live in a merit-based world where hard work was rewarded.

         “They’re trying to make up for what happened in the past. Somehow that involves punishing me!” Ian felt the increased weight of the decision as the conversation developed.

         “Do you think Coach Freeman is at Lake Muir because of affirmative action?” Still confused about the whole concept, Isobelle’s thoughts turned to the only Black teacher at their school. Ian grinned at his sister’s question. She might be onto something.

         “You know how I feel about Coach Freeman!” Ian didn’t last very long on the basketball team. Although tall, he was uncoördinated. He also had the stamina of a Koala on vacation, running out of breath after a few laps of the court. Worst of all, he hated following orders during practice. There was too much yelling for his taste. Coach Freeman roasted players so close to the bone you could smell rendered marrow. Ian remembered recoiling with shame when the coach threw a ball directly at him and he failed to catch it. “You have the reactions of a cart horse in heat,” roared Freeman. The other players laughed while Ian nursed his shame and a staved middle finger.

         “I assume you didn’t use him as a reference?” asked Kenneth, worried about what may have poisoned the application.

         “No, of course not. To be honest, I’m not sure the man can write a sentence. He knows about being “in the paint” and not much else.” Ian’s air quotes and the aura of disdain about Coach Freeman caused Isobelle to shrug. She didn’t know anything about the PE teacher apart from overhearing Ian and his friends make fun of the way he talked.

         “So, who did you use? Out of interest,” asked Ann, curious about possible enemies within.

         “I asked the head of Math, the head of English, and the head of History. Why? Do you think one of them ruined my chances?”

         “Well, we don’t know, do we? It’s possible,” answered Ann. “And, by the way Ian, these are all academic references. You have nothing there about sport or extracurriculars or service. Maybe you stacked too many eggs in one basket. What about tennis? That’s your real sport. We should have looked into the process more closely from the start like we said we would.” Ann glanced at her husband. She mentioned this imbalance months ago and was ignored. This was supposed to be a collaborative family affair. They may have given Ian too much freedom.

         “For God’s sake, mom, it’s okay!” Ian’s disappointment turned to frustration while his family was victim-blaming. “I don’t play tennis much these days anyways. I have other interests. Ms. Hartman could mention Math Club, Mr. Miller could mention Model UN, and Dr. Bain could mention the academic quiz team. I was in clubs after school and on the weekends with all of them, adding to my college resumé. I picked those teachers because of that.” Ian chose his references based on those with whom he spent the most time. He had strong relationships with all of them.

         “I’m sure Dr. Bain wrote you a good one. You’re always in his classroom,” said Isobelle, recognizing the name of Ian’s favorite teacher.

         “Yeah, I don’t think any of them would write anything negative, especially him.”

         “Don’t worry,” Kenneth interjected. “There’s no point speculating. It’s just going to drive us all crazy. As your mom said, we’ll hire a lawyer and get to the bottom of this.” The Foleys nodded, eager to finish dinner with the knowledge that this travesty would be resolved.

         The following day Kenneth, Ann, and their lawyer arrived at Lake Muir Preparatory Academy, the elite private school which Ian and Isobelle attended. They conducted a forensic investigation of all the application materials to see if anything was out of place. The lawyer needed to see copies of the letters of recommendation, in case something negative set off alarm bells at the Yale admissions office. Three teachers were summoned to a conference room to discuss their individual letters.

         “We realize this is an unusual request and we’re sure your letter is fine. We just need to rule everything out,” said the lawyer to each teacher. All responses were the same.

         “I wouldn’t agree to write a recommendation letter unless I was going to write something positive.” Two teachers, under pressure from their administrators, provided a copy of their letters. One refused.

         “We need to see a copy,” said Ann abruptly when Ian’s history teacher failed to produce the document.

“I am afraid I don’t have it,” lied Dr. John Bain. A letter of recommendation is supposed to be confidential. Ann’s face fell and she drummed her manicured fingers on the desk.

“You wrote this on a computer, didn’t you?” asked the lawyer. Dr. Bain nodded. “Fine!  We’ll have the IT department go through your files. This letter is school property after all.”

“That’s okay by me. I didn’t save it.” He’d written the recommendation on his personal computer at home and had no intention of handing it over.

“We understand why you’re doing this, Dr. Bain. You’re worried about the integrity of the process and the sanctity of confidentiality. But, as you can see, this is an exceptional circumstance,” said Kenneth, eager to smooth things over for the best result. “We’re not accusing you of anything. Just trying to cover all bases.”

“Perhaps, if something you wrote was misconstrued we could explain it or rewrite it for the Yale admissions office,” clarified Ann. “We’d like to rectify the misunderstanding.”

“Sorry. I don’t have a copy.” Bain wasn’t budging and there was nothing anyone could say. As far as he was concerned, the letter was between him and Yale.

“Okay then, thanks for your help,” said Ann. “We appreciate your professionalism. As you know, we’re major supporters of this school.” John Bain knew exactly what that meant. It was as blunt as a breezeblock. The Foleys helped the school build four new tennis courts at the beginning of the year. “Not that we’re looking for preferential treatment.”

“We just think the school should do everything it can to get to the bottom of this situation,” added Kenneth. “This…miscarriage of justice.” The Foleys stared at the history teacher, convinced that his letter of recommendation contained the element that torpedoed their son’s dreams. They couldn’t prove anything, although they would take steps to find out as much as they could about this devious, unhelpful man.

Dr. John Bain stroked his grizzled beard. As an overworked, underpaid, glorified service employee, the situation amused him. They thought they could walk over him. Instead, he represented an obstacle. Remembering what he heard over the weekend, he grabbed a bottle of water and took a drink, trying not to laugh out loud.

He was at a bar on Saturday night and bumped into the school’s basketball coach, Carl Freeman, who revealed the real reason Ian was unable to attend Yale. It had nothing to do with academics. Even the lack of athletic ability or experience wasn’t the main problem. Ian joined the basketball team at the start of the season and then quit without informing the coach. He stopped going to practices, but he included his participation on the team as part of his college application. He embellished his resumé. He lied. It was a question of personal integrity. This irked the coach so much he called the admissions office at Yale and made a formal complaint. This conversation compelled Yale to reject Ian Foley’s college application.

John Frame was brought up in Wick, Scotland. After earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Aberdeen University, he emigrated to the USA, and worked as a teacher in NYC and Columbus, Ohio. Since 2018, he and his wife Rama have lived and worked in China and Senegal. You can find his work here: https://jrframe.wixsite.com/website.