Category Archives: Excerpts

“Red Planet” – Poetry by J.G. Walker

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, ,
A Glimpse of Mars - Alma Woodsey Thomas, 1969
A Glimpse of Mars – Alma Woodsey Thomas, 1969

A trek to another world is both ordinary and alienating in “Red Planet,” one of two powerful poems by J.G. Walker in our Summer 2015 issue (now available via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop).

{ X }

YOU WILL GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
Alone, staggered by your own audacity

Attend to the mundane:
Forward your mail—except the bills
Pack all your books
Bring an extra jacket
Find out when to put out the trash
Fall back and Spring forward,
And write home (check how often the mail runs)

Also, make sure to grow green, leafy veggies,
Buy dark curtains to keep the inside from getting out

{ X }

12122014 (34)J.G. WALKER is a writer, musician, and teacher who lives with his wife in Colorado. His work has been featured in Oracle Fine Arts Review, Lullwater Review, and Aoife’s Kiss. He is currently trying to create the impression that he’s hard at work on a novel, Visitation: A Novel of Death and Inconvenience. You can find him at odd times on Twitter @jgwalkr or online at jgwalker.net. 

“Exit Interview” – Poetry by E.H. Brogan

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Interviews, Poetry, ,
Franz_Von_Stuck_-_Dancers
Dancers – Franz Stuck, 1896

The questions and answers in E.H. Brogan‘s “Exit Interview” are unlike any exit interviews we’ve ever had, but that’s why we love it. It’s one of two very flappy poems E.H. contributed to our Summer 2015 issue, now available via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop. And if you’d like to hear a recording of E.H. reading this poem, click the Soundcloud player below the text!

{ X }

Q: WHAT’S A BROWN ROUND STONE?
A joke, but all it does is cry.
It’s the distant mountains
that you hear, laughing.
Q. What is like a raisin except
too large to enter a mouth?
It is where the letter went,
and not unlike a glove.
Pluck it shriveled from the tree,
sew its long sides up.
Q. If I asked tequila once again
I’d lose it in the waterfall.
This is as it was before. I admit
I bombed the dam.
Last time I swore you not again.
You haven’t tried that pony out,
the chestnut to the race.
Q. Would you dance with me once more?
Always.

{ X }

image1E.H. BROGAN is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a B.A. in English. She has poetry in or forthcoming from Star*Line, Cider Press Review, Bop Dead City, and others. She blog-runs and co-curates for Kenning Journal. Her house is built of books. Tweet @wheresmsbrogan for more.

“Where Do We Go Post-Sex and Death” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, ,
Gypsy and Harlequin - Remedios Varo, 1947
Gypsy and Harlequin – Remedios Varo, 1947

“Where Do We Go Post-Sex and Death”  is but one of four impeccably surreal poems that Jessie Janeshek contributed to our Summer 2015 issue, now available via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop.

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    AFTER WE FALL                 from the nuclear playground
                                  the rental car
 
after we free up
        the haul that’s our brain?

 
Today we play singles w/a black dog
                a robot, a gunshot

 
nothing political, blue uniforms chic.
                Today we get hammered
                and after the father song
         bells and toy blocks.

 

It’s like someone cries in the woods
      that bird screams so loud
      It’s like the green worm
                  of the world falls on me

 

as we walk up and down
                this harlequin town
the color of our month is tangerine.

{ X }

jessie janeshek headshotJESSIE JANESHEK‘s first book of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008).

“The Fugitive” – Poetry by Kristine Ong Muslim

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, ,
Robot - Nam June Paik, 1993
Robot – Nam June Paik, 1993

A robotic refugee seeks freedom in “The Fugitive,” one of two unforgettable poems by Kristine Ong Muslim featured in our Summer 2015 issue (which you can order online via Amazon and Createspace, or at fine independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop).

{ X }

THE ALARM SOUNDED when you wrenched your unfinished
form free of the straps, when you bolted for the door.
The gatekeeper, who forgot to close it, has been fired.

He has been delivered to the recycling complex
through the old conveyor belt near the service dock.
That door—your door—has now been sealed,

welded shut, the white edge of its black hole still
recoiling when touched. Your strings leave a trail
of oil and petroleum-based panacea for metal joints.

The factory workers imagine you in the wastelands
outside the factory, imagine you taking in the heat
rising from the red canyons of Water Snake, imagine

you before an oasis, an oasis they believe you deserve.
Soon, you will be rendered inert by static electricity.
But for now, run. Run as far as your rubber appendage

can carry you. Run until your obsolete engine coughs up
its last. Just don’t look down. Don’t look down to see
what you have become. Your eviscerated abdomen—

its walls slick, glistening clean of what used to coil inside,
what used to pulse with life. The factory workers inspect
the parts of your body that fell out during your escape.

They scavenge what can still be used in the assembly line,
what can be repackaged to match the plastic mold of legs,
the scented sconces of noses, the waterlogged tongues.

Some of them expose your discarded wires to the world—
the blue loosely clinging around the yellow, the red wires
peeking out of the bloodless foam that insulates everything.

{ X }

KristineOngMuslimKRISTINE ONG MUSLIM is the author of several books, the most recent being We Bury the Landscape (Texas: Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012) and Grim Series (Wisconsin: Popcorn Press, 2012). “Scarecrow” and “The Fugitive” will be collected in her forthcoming book Black Arcadia from the University of the Philippines Press. http://kristinemuslim.weebly.com/

“Emily Dickinson’s Dorm Room” – Poetry by Kailey Tedesco

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, , ,
the-smiling-spider-1891
The Smiling Spider – Odilon Redon, 1891

Now that it’s Back-to-School season, let’s take a tour of “Emily Dickinson’s Dorm Room,” one of three very flappy poems by Kailey Tedesco in our Summer 2015 issue (available here, here,here, or here).

{ X }

MY CHAMBER IS A LITTLE CLOSET—
Neglected and boarded up,
blanketed with dust and the
veil of a Stranger’s past –

My armoire is a well-visited morgue
where spiders take formaldehyde
and bite the common flies –Death
brims within my Sunday shoes –

The washroom – a waste basin.
Ladies purge their regrets, wretches
echo in the halls. Yet – they Play
pop-songs through the hours –

I guess I wanted this after all.

{ X }

Headshot UpdateKAILEY TEDESCO is currently enrolled in Arcadia University’s MFA in Poetry program. She edits for Lehigh Valley Vanguard and Marathon Literary Magazine, while also teaching eighth grade English. A long-time flapper at heart, Kailey enjoys hanging out  in speakeasies, cemeteries, and abandoned amusement parks for all of her poetic inspiration. She is a resident poet of the aforementioned LVV, and her work has been featured in Boston Poetry Magazine and Jersey Devil Press. 

“Workplace Violence” – Fiction by Leland Neville

Excerpts, Fiction, Flappertising, Flappricana, ,
desk-murder
Desk Murder – R.B. Kitaj, 1970 – 1984

Let’s ease back into the work week with a bit of the old “Workplace Violence,” Leland Neville‘s diabolical short story from our Summer 2015 issue (available here, here,here, or here).

{ X }

IT WAS WORKPLACE VIOLENCE, possibly premeditated. The approaching sirens announced my crime. I didn’t have a lawyer. My iPhone was back at my desk. Rudy’s laptop was opened, but I didn’t want to trespass. I remembered the names of those law firms whose ads are impossible to avoid. Their phone numbers all contain seven identical numerals.

One of Rudy’s responsibilities involves escorting terminated employees from the premises of the National Data Archives. That usually happens once a day, always after lunch. Rudy doesn’t carry a gun. (I never witnessed a fired worker refusing to leave or even offering a mild verbal protest.) Our division of the National Data Archives (nine hundred associates and growing) is strictly an information call center. Other departments of the NDA answer letter and email queries.

I had delivered one vicious punch to Doug’s head in exchange for an instant of mindless pleasure. I definitely wanted him to die. Doug collapsed on his ass. My right hand burned. A woman screamed and a man yelled, “Shit!” I think I smiled.

Doug’s round shiny bald head trembled and white foam poured from his surprised mouth. A muscular, six-foot man, one of my coworkers, restrained me. “What got into you?” he asked.

“Does anyone know first aid?” asked a female coworker. “I think he’s dying,”

“I think he’s choking on his tongue,” said another female coworker. “Someone should place a pencil between his teeth.”

Doug rolled onto his belly and extended his arms. He began a steady swim kick. I focused on his Kanji neck tattoo and single black stud earring.

That’s when Rudy from security arrived. He ignored Doug.

“You’d better come with me,” he said.

Continue reading “Workplace Violence” – Fiction by Leland Neville →

“How to Confuse an Idiot (Turn Over)” – Poetry by CL Bledsoe

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, , ,
Nephi Grigg, Tater Tots Inventor & Ore-Ida Founder By Gibchan (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Nephi Grigg, Tater Tots Inventor & Ore-Ida Founder – Photo by Gibchan (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

“How to Confuse an Idiot (Turn Over)” is one of five wry yet poignant poems by CL Bledsoe in our Summer 2015 issue, which you can order online via Amazon and Createspace. Copies are also available at fine independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop.

{ X }

A LIFE CAN BE LIVED ON TATER TOTS AND IGNORING
hopelessness, which means never looking
in the mirror, the sky, the colored waters

of others’ eyes unless you smell your own
death. Shush. Ketchup is enough luxury
to compensate for heaven. I’m not lazy,

I just don’t believe life is worth enough
to beg for more when no one’s listening
anyway. If you need more, there

are always food trucks, frozen pizzas,
cheesecake in a tub. They all feel close
enough to real to fool the apathetic soul.

This is a calendar life, you may say,
but no one will listen. I’ve tried. The best
you can hope for is mustard for your corndog.

{ X }

HeadshotCL BLEDSOE is the author of a dozen books, most recently the poetry collection Riceland and the novel Man of Clay. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

“Summer Love” – Fiction by J. Wendell Miller

Excerpts, Fiction, Flappertising, Flappricana, Review, , , , , ,
Drinking Bacchus - Guido Reni, circa 1623
Drinking Bacchus – Guido Reni, circa 1623

There’s still a few weekends left this summer, so if you plan on doing any binge-drinking you may want to consult the alcohol reviews in J. Wendell Miller‘s “Summer Love,” one of many educational pieces you can read in our Summer 2015 issue (available here, here, here, or here).

{ X }

MILLER GENUINE DRAFT

Brewery: MillerCoors
Type of Beer: American Pale Lager
ABV: 4.7%
Sociability: High
Adrenaline Factor: Extreme

Review: Maybe the first beer you ever stole, this bitter American Pale Lager likely got your eleven year-old heart racing. You probably tried your best to keep your friends from seeing what you really thought about this effervescent pisswater, though you suspect they all hated the taste, too, hated the bitterness, the smell, the lingering sense of dread and the ultimate betrayal of not getting any of you even the slightest bit wasted. This is really good, your friend probably said after a long pull, but you’re a bad fucking liar, you would have silently countered. When you finished the last few drops, you might have stood in a line and chucked the empty cans over the fence in your friend’s backyard, only to be caught the next day, lectured on how disappointing your actions were.

Grade: B-

{ X }

Five Star Brandy

Distillery: Petri
ABV: 80 proof (40%)
Sociability: Medium
Family Hatred Factor: Very High
Ability to Water Down to Avoid Punishment: Very Low

Tasting Notes: This brandy features full-bodied notes of vanilla, raisin, and blackberry, though they are lost in the burn when taking pulls from the bottle. Be advised, this smooth brandy will often cause quarrels with family, in which the sounds of shouting will disappear beneath layers of sobs and fists slamming into cheek skin. Pairs well with water, but there’s a good chance fifteen year-old you will be grounded at length because of your poor judgment and brazen disrespect for authority. Years later, you will attempt to recreate the magic of your first taste of this low-quality brandy and the love of your life will kiss the stale vanilla notes, the flat cola chasers, and the crusted vomit on your lips before ultimately leaving you.

Grade: C+ Continue reading “Summer Love” – Fiction by J. Wendell Miller →

“Beauty Sleep” – Prose Poetry by Melissa Moorer

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, ,
Sleeping Woman - Amrita Sher-Gil, 1933
Sleeping Woman – Amrita Sher-Gil, 1933

Melissa Moorer‘s dreamy & evocative prose poem “Beauty Sleep” is one of several fairy tale-inspired works you can read in our Summer 2015 issue (available online via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop).

{ X }

IT’S THE MORNING AFTER; the morning of the day that doesn’t move: forever. Stumbling in, blinking from the singularity of prescription white, I can’t find even noise. According to the news it was a spinning wheel (and who are they?), a tragic accident, but they still find ways to blame you. She should have worn a helmet! Gloves. A seat belt. She shouldn’t have worn a skirt so short. They use words like ‘careless’ and ‘victim’ to describe you and your sleep so contagious the whole city came down with your dreams. But I know better. It was a different kind of needle stick—steel and plastic sharp—intent to make it all better like kisses, but no one can prescribe that (lips and breath are too wet for squares of white paper). Now you can’t hero but just sleep and sleep, fallen into a day held fast with the hot pink of princess promises.

Somehow through the weight of all those dreams, the city grows up around us thick as thorns. Your carceral smile is framed now in metal and concrete grown from the asphalt grid, your flesh store-windowed in a mannequin curse. Thanks to Zeno and his philosophy, to Descartes and his grid that is really a net (his hard science that is nowhere/everywhere except against: bodymind boygirl natureman fairytale) no one can get to you. I try, but all I am is blood and skin and teeth and timespace is metered, running. In this universe — the only one we’ve got, babe — time is only one way and we are in it. Outside in the dead streets umbrellas stall against the rain that threatens in drops and pools above, refusing the fall.

Moving always toward (you), I am pierced into place by the infinite steps between one and two. At the center, at absolute zero (the fogged breath between seconds) where you sleep too hard and fast, time crystals into seconds and minutes. Fused into diamond hard pieces the day breaks and reflects us back on us and back. Expecting a battle or at least a cutting through, I brought nothing but edges, but you’ve had too much of sharpness. You lie locked in and waiting for the touch that isn’t needle stick, but soft. Soft enough to slide by and through. Soft enough to erode sleep into the waking even the dead won’t admit to wanting, a heartbeat red and wet and yearning for the pull of mouths that make no promises but themselves. You said words are just a symptom, a phase transition, but verbs move when nothing else will, smoothing over the edges that cut one from one, step from step, piling up the plurals into woods and streams and even suns. Almost there, love. My heart trips over the red syllable: Snow.

{ X }

MMoorerMELISSA MOORER is a research assistant for the fabulous Roxane Gay and an Assistant Editor at The Butter. Her work has been on the short list for a few awards (Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Award (2003) and the storySouth Million Writers (2010)) and published in many luminous zines and journals (LCRW, Hot Metal Bridge, Vestal Review, The Northville Review).

“5/15/1984” – Poetry by J.G. Walker

Excerpts, Flappertising, Flappricana, Poetry, ,
reveille
Reveille – Stanley Spencer, 1929

Shell shock hits early for the recruits in “5/15/1984,” one of two powerful poems by J.G. Walker in our Summer 2015 issue (available online via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop).

{ X }

TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS AFTER THE HEAD-SHAVING, it hits us,
Forty odd kids wishing we were anywhere but here.
No one wants to look in the mirror,
Afraid of what might be looking back.

Little-known fact: We awake five minutes before
Reveille, stumbling in the dark, fussing
With itchy socks.  It’s one of many surprises.

The deck is beneath the overhead,
A floor is a deck, the toilet’s the head.
Cool water flows from the scuttlebutt.

There’s a joke in this place, we’re sure of it.
We should be laughing, but our
Lingua franca is still a work in progress.

{ X }

12122014 (34)J.G. WALKER is a writer, musician, and teacher who lives with his wife in Colorado. His work has been featured in Oracle Fine Arts Review, Lullwater Review, and Aoife’s Kiss. He is currently trying to create the impression that he’s hard at work on a novel, Visitation: A Novel of Death and Inconvenience. You can find him at odd times on Twitter @jgwalkr or online at jgwalker.net.