“When All the Trees Go Up in Flames, Only Water Puts Them Back to Sleep” – Poetry by Kailey Tedesco

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The Fire - Rene Magritte, 1943
The Fire – Rene Magritte, 1943

“When All the Trees Go Up in Flames, Only Water Puts Them Back to Sleep” is just one of three superbly flappy poems by Kailey Tedesco in our Summer 2015 issue (available here, here, here, or here).

{ X }

SHE HELD THE FOREST
like a hairbrush in
one hand, and my
grandmother’s pond
like a hand-mirror.

With her vanity set,
lifted gently from
the alabaster of earth
she spends seven days
combing through

the tangles of her fire-
streaked hair as fallen
strands puddle in the under-
growth –

A reflection ripples
over her drowsed eyelids –
the foxes wake to hunt.

{ 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. 

FLAPPERHOUSE Reading #4 / Issue #7 Flight Party

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Flap into Fall like a skull-faced pixie on a rocket-powered vacuum, and join us as we celebrate the flight of our 7th issue with our 4th reading on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 from 7 to 9 PM at Pacific Standard, 82 Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn.

Starring MICHAEL DÍAZ FEITO, B. DIEHL, ALIBI JONES, ANNA MEISTER, SHANNON MOORE SHEPHERD, BUD SMITH, DAVID X. WIGGIN, and the late F. SCOTT FITZGERALD.

FLAPPERHOUSEReading4Flyer

“The Story of Essa” – Fiction by Alison McBain

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Enchanted Beach - Boris Mago, 1938
Enchanted Beach – Boris Mago, 1938

Alison McBain‘s “The Story of Essa” is a stirring, dream-like tale of transformation from 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 }

I. SAND

BEFORE HE BROUGHT THE KEY, Essa had been chained to the basement door her whole life–locked within the confines of her own ten fingers and the ability to work small magicks when on call. Before she sunk her feet into the sand, before the rough-hued grains cascaded over her toes, she had never known how to move with any sort of rhythm.

The seagulls sang, and the wind came down to partner her, and she danced and she danced and she danced.

II. SILENCE

Words had never been required. She saw herself as a newborn, the thin loops of the basement chains cascading around chubby wrists and baby cankles, and the admonishment of angels telling her to hush. When he came before her, he didn’t ask questions–he gave her fully-formed sentences, directives for training and the execution of purpose. He taught her how to summon her will and focus it to the desires of the mind; he taught her how to name, silently, all the colors held inside.

But her words were not noticed when she tried them out. Her mouth fell idle in the absence of encouragement. Her tongue dwindled down until it became a tube and split at the end. Sometimes, she cast her tongue out like a net to scent the air, little lizard-girl pining for the day. Continue reading “The Story of Essa” – Fiction by Alison McBain →

“Nice Things” – Poetry by CL Bledsoe

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Back Room - John French Sloan, 1912
Back Room – John French Sloan, 1912

“Nice Things” 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 }

MY IDOLS HAVE ALL GONE BALD OR TAKEN
day jobs. It was a question of wear-

and-tear on tire treads, the desire
to no longer wince when introduced.

Shoulders stoop under the weight
of freedom, all that designer pizza and cheap

beer, and I’ve finally run out of cool tee-shirts.
Listen: I know the real money’s in pet

psychiatry but I’ve always been allergic
to their saliva. I know there’s nothing

to be gained from an understanding
of the self, a concern for actually solving

problems, the wisdom to attempt empathy.
There are no important things in life except

the fear we might be the last ones in the room
when the bar closes.

{ 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.

“Red Planet” – Poetry by J.G. Walker

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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

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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

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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.

{ X }

    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

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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

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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

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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 →