—this is in response to your recent complaint about our librarian’s treatment of your son Mouse Mousie or whatever alias you currently got him using—he’s nothing but a stick-faced mole of a hellraiser; him and that pal of his—Rat, I think it was? Mouse, Rat, Rat, Mouse, no after a while they merged into one somehow. One great problem for me—one great problem for the patrons of the library—one great problem for the entire library system—legendary in their snot-caked red raw howling blathering yelling screaming superindifference to everyone else—like the whole planet revolved about them—the way the planet that spawned them is doomed to circle in chains forever about the big fat overheated and overestimated big fat squirt-ass of a Mothersun. I would probably have less disruption to my supposedly calm cool day to day life which is why I got into this field to begin with, if they stripped nude in my library but just sat quiet heads thrust deep in their respective computer screens their privates hidden in their fat tubular roundy-round fleshfolds and their hands buried in the dark somewhere thereabouts doing the unthinkable at least no one would have to hear that at least nobody would have their deep thought-trains burst and ripped and severed over and over by the bleating of your undisciplined thoughtless crushing bore of a Rat or a Mouse or a Mouse or a Rat or whatever they merge in my face anyway into one quick downzip of a couple of dozen fuck the rules ass pimping hoodlums! No rules in the animal kingdom, you know, Miss Mousemother. They can lick themselves in the animal kingdom you know Miss Mousemother and that’s exactly what your phony son and his helped do to each other all day every day. We had to dumpster the chairs they sat at because I did not doubt that some of the hours they did sit quietly, heaven forbid, they may have done this or that nasty and use your imagination Miss Mousemother. Negative Rat-lady queen of all bass lines including one of the most eloquent found in the variations, to which Bach added chromatic intervals which provided tonal shadings; and as you also are main patron-saint of each and every fecal impaction human dog hippo or otherwise, get this and see it is the most final—this plot to self-enrich your gang most masturbatorily, for the consummation of which you called me this day—you’re not their Mother you’re probably just some collegepal slut-bitch in on the plot— yeah I know I know, the plot; the final insult being that your rockyheaded supposed son got down and jackhammered his head repeatedly into my floor yes my floor not your floor or their floor but my floor—and then got himself swept to the hospital for phony treatment—I cannot imagine how much you are paying the doctors and nurses there to diagnose a nonexistent problem—my God what’s this world coming to—the word professional means nothing any more —I ought to quit my job unbank my cash-nest and lock into my one-roomer and hermit yes hermit my time away so I don’t have to deal with such as your so-called boy or you, you little slut of a bitchface if that’s what you call yourself—yah I bet you do because inside yourself you know what you are—and I could bonbon my way out to eternity; but tell me yonder slappy-slutgirl— I ask you and the RatMouse evil twinboys are you really going to sue me and the system? Are you really really going to eh? Are you are you because if you dare you will at first see from your illusion of a safe calm sandbeach just the line of horizon—then after some hours a trail of smoky brownwisps will start curling up; then after some more hours a forbidding grey foretop will appear coming—then a battleship will form, mount over the horizonhump, and you will just go all agape—you may even layback and feast down a big sleepypicnic of a lunch while observing this anomaly like it’s just the start of a big parade—every other time you have basked at this beach it’s just been swimmers in sweetwaves but this time why a warship—a terrible trojanesque warship stuffed half with lawyers and half with well-thought-out briefs no not that kind the legal kind —including that wondrous canonic variation in four-four time, which Kenneth Gilbert saw as an allemande despite its lack of anacrusis--and half with motions; rotary motions turning in a circle; linear motion moving in a straight line; reciprocating motion moving backwards and forwards in a straight line; and oscillating motion swinging from side to side back to front top to bottom east to west north to south and again over again yah and; when you are all hypnotized by this transformation of normal life to abnormally entranced, the battleship will ground, burst as a classically woven straw piñata, and you will be buried in paperwork that you cannot burn away because we will have your oxygen and you and that RatBoy cum Mouseman buried, so—the message is don’t fuck with the regional library system no not the regional library system we are Flush with money and not the doggy kind doggy kind doggy kind no. If you don’t get that then go look it up, stupid. Good day sir or whichever you crappy diss’ of a mothering p—<end voicemail>
Monthly Archives: December 2022
Poetry from Ashley Mann
TAKING SIDES and why do you hate (democrats) (republicans) exactly- only hearing about them, not talking with them, hating them, for what they're only more people who don't know what they're talking about, flipping on a screen of one side to believe and the next day relishing that the same screen agrees. people dislike an other side because someone else judged it and they agreed, upset when their side is judged and are there really sides anymore when we all do the same things at the bottom of a hole, too dark to see POUNDING PAVEMENT driving in cars on highways is the norm, living in simulations is the norm, spots for cars in a city outnumbering slots for human beings, bands don't make bass but computers, machines pound their noise into heads eyes, ears, minds oversaturated, filling time, no time to see overviews, totality, what's happening, no time no time to be wise fentanyl lab made food cause disease more addictive than drugs- find em cheap on every corner, every store, wrapped in plastic- a by-product of oil- because it's cheap because it's cheap because it's cheap to die, they'll watch they'll watch they'll watch as you die TEXAS In Texas you'll see a field of grass out to the horizon flat and a couple donkeys while you hear a jet plane overhead. You'll see a plane low landing toward a military base as the old yellow school bus rolls by. Neighborhoods of identical houses in plywood uniquely priced. Neighbors will forget to say hi. Rolling out trash bins on wheels to the curb and pay strangers a dumping fee, they won't know your name, dogs snarling at you from behind their gate, in Texas, there'll be no sidewalks of people walking by, there'll be no choice, more headlights growling, roaring than real eyes passing by, in Texas. LIVE MINES you would get everyone sick, sick enough with disease that they'd die- as to (rid) (dispose) of the carnage that would have remained after a disaster- maybe you'd get the government to agree, to work with you, because millions dead through disease is easier on the mind than the thought of piles blown up, exploding to dust- gas pipelines- laid mines would be easy to do if no one saw you do it, if they saw you looking normal, under their own eyes, construction crews, foreign builders always building, laying foundations, construction sites, trenches and laid mines maybe you'd introduce into the environment the specimen- named-disease, toxins in foods, eaten willingly addicting, fentanyl pills made at the seat of the world, in the east, undetected- would this be ironic funny even they say comedy is tragedy plus (after) time- and live mines Mann is a young writer from Texas. She has worked as a writer and analyst at the state's house of representatives and committee on appropriations in Austin. She spent the pandemic living in San Francisco to release through contemporary writings and illustrations. She believes poems ought not always be fluffy, but real.
Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh
birds come home from paradise and sing songs the silence recedes *** Angst Angst Angst Angst Angst AngstAngst AngstAngst AngstAngst AngstAngst AngstAngst AngstAngstAngst AngstAngstAngst AngstAngstAngst AngstAngstAngst AngstAngstAngst аnd I’m not scared anymore *** the fields what's lurking out there nothing It's been a month of war *** what the tear hides spring is playing hide and seek а winter feeling creeps into my heart а tear freezes and doesn't dry up inside the child the wizard dies and becomes an adult *** You don't come home You don't come to the neighbors You don't come to me You don't come to your senses You can't take out the trash You don't clean your ears Looks like I died Inside your head Mandatory link to the source «You don't come home»:https://issuu.com/tiptonpoetryjournal/docs/tpj52 *** This poem smells blue | | | The color of wrinkles in the sky ¶ Black shapes in clear water ∆ This verse will be picked up by crows in the morning And they will be thrown from heaven On icy concrete heart rocks ~ All in vain .
Winner of the international competition «Art Against Drugs», bronze medalist of the festival Chestnut House, laureate of the literary competition named after Tyutyunnik. Nominated for Pushcart Prize.
Published in the journals “Dzvin”, “Ring A”, “Polutona”, “Rechport”, “Topos”, “Articulation”, “Formaslov”, “Colon”, “Literature Factory”, “Literary Chernihiv”, Tipton Poetry Journal , Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal , dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route , Better Than Starbucks Poetry & Fiction Journal, Littoral Press , Book of Matches , on the portals “Literary Center” and “Soloneba”, in the “Ukrainian literary newspaper”, Ice Floe Press.
Poetry from Vernon Frazer
Panning Out
the ontological panacea
galloping airbrakes their launching
moles against angry vibrations
inveighs awful reverb to
orange scrape dentures
and beefburger eyeballs
the reveries of memoriam putting
darkening the screwdriver period
harkening sonic calcification
negative zoom: sternum
curls tight in tumid sector breath
the cornered moonbeam’s communique
latent in seawater
softened the homecoming eardrum
while
victors
bubbled
driveway claimants
stepped where clichéd glitter
stoked thoughtful commotion
drenched by deuce dropping
narrowed diaper compartment fairgrounds
Day Turning Dark for the Night
daylight drifting
intones the scented patois
its daydream stolen
the mixture
a bartered abandon
disposed the grim fret
holiday eponym aggression
the firestorm boiled
at empty eyebrows
to rapture in firecracker roadhouses
( )
a subterranean temptation
glinting retorts umder caliper vessels
nominal venom prefixes
nuance eyebrow tactics
repentance blueprint blown last
off the walks, a despair tankard
covered in a thermostat virginal
cowered before posse moonlight
( )
numbered breakthroughs
catapult the thought, not the few
the insight rushing
sycophantic mezzanine colors
docket tension
wayside caring
the chance phonemes neon remedial leave
The Loyal Backing Away
spectral allegiance
sampling
the legendary obscure
a rugby phantom
gone missing in the rain
a dalliance
dripping slippery breath
over wet tentacles
periphery bursting a drunken glow
no motto left
to have or habitate
over
each
nomenclature cufflink suicide undecided
beyond the reach
of any tonic’s clef
( )
at root
a sonic declamation
amply
scuttled
the celebrity rumor gloss thickened
its equivocal moss
festering essential time legions
where lingering denotes
chronic enervation in keeping
up with
a rumored sample
under a hiding sun
a traitor shadowed
Under the Weathered
the rain needs certificates
abducting a marginal soufflé
process merchants acquired
a projective conditioner view
that shuttered trough tests
to pace their slow sharking
over clustered frustration
their regions remembered
decorations bare for the rite
fossil taxes renewed raking
over the scrotal oration cloud
a weary gabble once it left
phylum rafters a cartilage city
warring below sweatshirt fringe
benefactors plaster the known
parameters vomit members
shopping becomes undone
for the wetter energy barking
commotion to terminal daylight
a tractor-lined euphoria danger
factored when foundations air
footed barbarity notwithstanding
clamor swim coincidence taunts
lunging turned danger a force
as voltage pits looted their colors
from omelets deleted as savage
the wary pain of practical turmeric
their savage daylight left unfilled
a mudslide flavored the movie
Story from Peter F. Crowley
Dump
From the early afternoon light filtering through the tavern’s off-white shades, Sharon’s frown had become apparent. She sat there watching Daryl eat an enormous pulled pork sandwich after finishing her grilled tempeh and arugula salad.
“What?” Daryl asked, taking off his baseball hat and wiping the sweat from his brow.
It was over 90 degrees. From where they sat in the back, not a trickle of air from the doorway fan was palpable.
Sharon’s lower jaw sunk low as she started to open her mouth. She placed her pointer finger to her lips and thought for a moment before putting her shoulder-length, red hair into a bun.
“He’s not a bro but he’s different from me,” she thought. “He doesn’t get the details of my paintings and how it’s really only them that matter. Kara even said that the details ‘overwhelm and inform’ the whole. But the last portrait I did of an old woman, all that Daryl said was, “Very cool.” Did he even look at it? I tried to show every skin cell of the woman’s face to depict the dark circles around her eyes and all her wrinkles.”
“Not talking again?” Daryl asked.
The waiter came by and asked if everything was ok. Sharon responded that all was well, as Daryl had just taken another large bite from his sandwich.
Did they want the check? Sharon shook her head.
It’ll be ten years before he finishes that sandwich. He eats so goddamn slow and look how he chews! Like a cow chewing on grass all day. Hurry up, cow!
Sharon tried to remember if Daryl had asked her something. He must’ve, but what?
“How’s your sandwich?”
“It’s good.”
Sharon raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Why do you always have to be so sarcastic about everything? You don’t have to look down on me for eating meat.”
“I don’t.”
Actually, I do, but not that much. If you just ate chicken and beef occasionally, it’d be different. But you eat beef or pork every day. Don’t you realize how bad that is for the environment? Methane is worse than CO2, dude. And you say you care about climate change. That was probably just to get into my pants.
“I have to say: I’m really loving this conversation we’re having.”
“Me too.”
“See what I mean? And I don’t even know if you mean it or not. But I guess not, right? Because we’ve barely spoken all through lunch.”
“That’s because you’re eating.”
“We’ve both been eating. You’re just done.”
“Yep, I was done like ten minutes ago.”
“Is it a race? I can’t help it if this place makes ginormous sandwiches.”
“You don’t have to eat all of it.”
“Come on, this kind of thing would taste horrible the next day. It’s eat it all now or waste it, you know?”
“Interesting.”
Was he always so boring? He couldn’t have been. Or maybe I was just blinded by his good looks and how into me he was.
“Really? You don’t find that interesting. You shouldn’t say stuff that you don’t mean. It almost seems like you’re just responding to me on autopilot and you’re really just way off on another planet or something.”
That would be preferable to being with you.
Sharon got up and went to the bathroom. A thick cigarette smoke pervaded the air. The stall she went into had an empty Heineken bottle floating in the toilet.
“Figures,” she thought. “He always likes divvy places. Maybe that was cool when you’re 21 but not when you’re 35!”
When she returned, Daryl was lying on the floor underneath their table, with his head popping out at the end. The plate of pulled pork sandwich, of which there was still ¼ remaining, was on his stomach. She rested her feet on his ribs as she sat down, and it felt particularly comfortable. The White Stripe song “Stop Breaking Down” came into her head and she tapped out the beat with her heeled shoes.
“I think I got it! That’s Green Day’s “Basket Case,” right?”
“No.”
“What is it then?”
“Why does it matter?”
Daryl peered up at her, trying make eye contact and asked, “Don’t you love me anymore?”
“Did we ever say we loved each other?”
“Yeah, we both did. Remember? We were in Brooklyn at your favorite restaurant in the whole world.”
Sharon thought back to a year ago, four months after they had met. They were seated outside at a narrow row of tables next to a dozen-story brick building. It was an Indo-Chinese vegan place. She ordered an amazing Gobi Manchurian appetizer; he just sat there with a coffee, saying that he wasn’t hungry. He looked into her eyes and said those words. When she replied in kind, his eyes hazel eyes beamed.
Love is weird. I thought I loved you then, but did I? Maybe? But maybe I was just really horny and lonely. I definitely don’t love you now.
“Why do we always have to talk about these kinds of things?”
Why, really, do we have to talk at all?
“I don’t know. I guess that it’s nice to reminisce about the nice times that we’ve had together.”
Sharon looked straight across the table to where Daryl had been sitting and said, “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been together for almost a year and a half now. Don’t you think it’s time to give ourselves a little space and maybe see other people?”
“You mean like an open relationship?”
“No. I just mean us not see each other anymore. Ever.”
Daryl stopped chewing and looked up to the ceiling fan, which had finally whirred on.
“…I don’t think that’s something we need to do.”
“I do,” Sharon said, shoving her heels deep into his side as she pushed herself out from the booth.
She stood up, looked down at him as he masticated on a mouthful of pulled pork and said, “I’m dumping you, Daryl.”
Nanny
“Good timing,” Giselda thought, taking off her shoes.
Jimmy, the 13-month old she was hired to watch, had fallen asleep for his morning nap just before she arrived.
Giselda looked out the window, from the dried-up grass on the expansive front lawn to a sign in the neighbor’s yard across the street that read “We’re proud of our Christian Academy student.”
She took out her phone and scrolled through Facebook. Her friend Adriana and her new American husband had posted pictures from a fishing trip to New Hampshire. But Giselda knew that Adriana didn’t even like fishing. Giselda’s mother had finished reading the Harry Potter series for the fifth time. Her São Paulo high school classmate, Luiz, posted something new against Bolsonaro.
“Would you like a coffee?” asked Lisa, Jimmy’s mother, who Giselda had responded to on a local Nannies/Babysitters community page seeking childcare.
“No thank you.”
“Good, because I’d have to charge you for it.”
Lisa laughed and stood over Giselda, watching her look into her phone.
“How long are his naps, usually?”
“What?” asked Lisa, unaccustomed to ESL speakers.
“Jimmy’s naps, are they usually for one hour? Two hours?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They could be anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours.”
“Wow, quite a range!”
Lisa nodded and walked away.
Giselda fished out a hair tie from her purse and tied her long, silky black hair into a ponytail. She looked to her phone and saw Rodrigo’s number pop up. They had broken up two months ago, but he kept calling her to “check on her health.” It was around the time that she had Covid when she stopped taking his calls. She had been symptomless for over a month and a half but the only foods she could taste were Guaraná and her roommate’s barbeque beef.
Giselda texted, “I’m fine. Stop calling me all the time. Ok?”
A few minutes later, just as she heard fussing coming from Jimmy’s upstairs bedroom, Rodrigo texted back, “Ok. But I care about you. If the feeling isn’t mutual then I’ll just go back to São Paulo.”
“No, stay. Not because of me though. I don’t think we’ll ever get back together. But the money you make at your fancy job, it doesn’t make sense to leave now. Your family needs that.”
Rodrigo was a software engineer at a Boston financial firm. Although he didn’t make as much as his American colleagues, he was fairly content with his salary.
Giselda felt a tap on her shoulder.
“Umm, excuse me. Did you hear Jimmy?”
Lisa looked down at Giselda with small, squinting blue eyes. Her dirty blonde hair was parted in the middle and tucked behind her ears. When she bent over and tapped Giselda, the right side of her hair fell across half of her face.
“Yes, but it just sounded like a little fussing. Do you want me to go and get him?”
Lisa stood upright and leaned towards the staircase with a tilted head.
“He quieted down. Never mind.”
Lisa went back to the kitchen and began chopping vegetables. She turned on the radio to her favorite soft rock station.
“Just as an fyi, I don’t pay for the time when he’s napping.”
“Are you serious?”
“It wouldn’t be fair to us. I can’t pay you to just sit there. We aren’t loaded.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re loaded or not. This is my time that you have to pay for.”
“It’s your time to go on Twitter or text your boyfriend. I won’t pay for that.”
Lisa opened the freezer and took out a plastic bag with several pizza crusts from weeks ago. She placed them into the microwave to defrost, then put them in the toaster until they got warm and crispy and started chewing on them while chopping celery.
Giselda remained seated in the family room and stared at the Persian rug. It had multiple gilded boarders, each one smaller than the others. In the center, there was a detailed depiction of a king seated on a throne. A woman wearing a wimple clasped his leg with both hands.
“I like that we can still talk,” texted Rodrigo.
Giselda started to text back when her phone was snatched away. Lisa stood over Giselda wagging it in her face.
“Hey, we provide free internet service for you here and we aren’t a public library. So, drop the sour face, k?”
Giselda gritted her teeth as Lisa handed her phone back. She looked back to the picture of the king and woman. The king had one of his hands on the woman’s head, as though he was petting a dog.
Giselda clutched the phone, put her arm back and hurled it at Lisa as she walked away.
“Ouch, fuck!” said Lisa, holding the back of her head where the phone had hit. She pointed towards the door and said, “Get the hell out of my house!”
Giselda walked slowly towards Lisa and picked up her phone from the off-white linoleum kitchen floor.
She looked into Lisa’s eyes and said, “Gladly, you miserable woman.”
As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry and academic essays. In 2020, his poetry book Those Who Hold Up the Earth was published by Kelsay Books and received impressive reviews by Kirkus Review, the Bangladeshi New Age and two local Boston-area newspapers. His writing can be found in Middle East Monitor, Znet, 34th Parallel, Pif Magazine, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both) and The Opiate.
Photos from Channie Greenberg
Poetry from Beth Gulley
At A YMCA Swim Meet The inexperienced, unsupervised lifeguard splashed the baby vomit into the pool. The mothers collectively gasp. Last Chance Last chance sunflowers Wilt on the table Winter claims it’s time Brave World I was brave today. I went into the world, and didn’t take a sweater. We Find Out This house hemorrhages nails. Where from? After a big wind we find out.