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10/7/08: Eek!

One of the Three Blind Mice Finds Work
By ALARIE TENNILLE

Joie de vivre.   I know the secret.

People don’t expect it from me.

Think I should be bitter scurrying

around, nowhere to nowhere, in my

prison of darkness. Oh, the flashbacks!

The screams, the dreadful screams—

not knowing where they came from!

“Les souris, les souris!” shrieked

the farmer’s wife.   I could feel the knife

cutting the air.   Heard the pain

of mes amis, but didn’t recognize

my own voice: a high E that smelled

of iron and salt and made me see

light for only a second.   Somehow

I got out of that sharp blackness

into this one, a velvet, welcome black

smelling of lavender, musk, ginger,

and flowers most people can’t name.

It’s my job to mix the scents in right

proportion so no one knows except

another Nose. Joie de Vivre—the

perfume that’s the talk of Paris.

2008-10-07 13:00:41 GMTComments: 4 |Permanent Link

10/6/08: Um, hey, Tim ...

A Letter from an Imaginary Friend
By TIM PETTET

Dear Tim,

From this corner in your old room,

from my place in this high pile

beneath Spidey and the Hulk,

I write to thank you for throwing in

the dilapidated coloring book

and the crayon. If it weren’t for

this raw sienna (what you

used to call brown) and this page

depicting a colorless Gunga Din,

I would have no voice at all.

Pretending that you’ll read this,

I’ll go ahead and say

thanks, too, for your imagination

and the days you gave me

before your sanity set in.

Your Old Friend,

Alladin

p.s. What have you done

with my magical lamp?

2008-10-06 12:43:07 GMTComments: 2 |Permanent Link

10/1/08: The first thing we do ...

LET'S KILL ALL THE BROKERS
By JON HERBERT ARKHAM

They played with money
for their living -- till we found
them a place to rest.

2008-10-01 15:20:24 GMTComments: 2 |Permanent Link

9/23/08: Yeah, right, whatever ...

THE QUARREL

By MARK McGUIRE-SCHWARTZ

Originally published in Whatever Literary Magazine, March 08

He said Yes,

and she said Yes,

and he said Yes,

and she said Yes, Yes.

and he said No, Yes,

and she said Yes,

and he said Yeah,

and she said Right,

and he said Sure,

and she said Fine,

and he said Yes, Yes,

and she said Yes,

and then – having reached an

impasse – they started all over again.

2008-09-23 12:34:22 GMTComments: 0 |Permanent Link

9/11/08: Seven years gone

TALK

By JOHN MARK EBERHART

Once more, the shadow issues:

"moral decay" and Hollyweird

vixens; vouchers, welfare queens;

guns, gay marriage, abortion.

I was brought up to believe

in perfection and grace --

or at least their pursuit.

That was my America.

Now, towers fall and lives

are crushed and still

the politicians feed on --

vermin in Oxxford suits.

Rain from another hurricane

is falling on my inland acre.

From the TV in the next room,

some fool keeps repeating:

"Four more years. Four more years."

2008-09-11 15:31:05 GMTComments: 2 |Permanent Link

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