Our nominations for the 2015 Best of the Net anthology, which honors literary work that originally appeared on the internet between 7/1/2014 & 6/30/2015, are:
As 2014 has been careening through its homestretch, our Flappers have been even more prolific than usual, getting their work published across the internet like there won’t be a 2015.
2014 is the “Year of the Horse,” and Emily O’Neill‘s poem of the same name (included in our Fall 2014 issue) has some strongly-worded things to say about eating these kind-faced creatures.
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I’M NOT INTERESTED IN HOW TO BREAK
a horse because what’s uglier
is whether you would eat one.
Not alone in the dessert
staring down saguaros, dying
at the hands of your own stupidity.
Would you eat one for dinner
just to say you’ve done it? Could you
look into its kind, unknowing face,
scoop out the crude oil eyes, & carve
flank into a rain of steaks to last
until your next success? When
what carries you has been devoured
what will hold you until you’re away?
If tendon tangles in your teeth
I hope it tastes like trampled grass.
I hope you see daybreak as a monster.
I hope your hands stay chapped and red
for as long as it takes guilt to grow
into a shaded place hung with honey
hives where the bees sting without asking
what meat you are made of, or if
you might rot in the heat of the day.
PAINT ME SILVER
with power / let mine be the mouth
to echo all of it back / no praying,
no Devil’s Traps drawn in yellow
chalk / keep your scorpions, your virgin
blood above the door, that Latin
compulsion to leave the body
behind un-cursed /
I don’t speak any holy
tongue / in it my name means mirror / call me
the rain / I’ll make puddles, each puddle a leak
towards the future / in the desert even
the rocks bloom to greet rain / let everything
kiss me that way / let death twist
back around itself like a moonflower / let the moon
drop like a pebble into my mouth /
forgive me / I’ll crawl up your shirtfront to lick the salt
there / bang bang / call me cured / the only true trap
door out of any ritual is death / the mantra to chant—no fear
without flying, without falling,
without a haunting
where there’s a cliff
there’s a chasm / then a chill / then a voice shouting back
each secret born from your lips & dropped
into the barren dark
I WAS TOO YOUNG WHEN THE HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE TO RUN.
I hid in the bathtub, a tower of flame around me as the shower curtain turned ash & the ash undressed itself & kissed my skin & the porcelain grew warm as a sun-baked river stone. Ghosts are the only city I’ve seen
since childhood. They stand straighter than buildings, sigh
louder than a house settling in the suburbs. Ghosts have street between them
we call space and airports we call hauntings where they take off & land
in, on, & around us, disturbing all our night rituals. A bath will never
warm my bones the way the oven can, so I crawl inside & leave
the front door wide. No guests beyond the dead
come to stay. I’ve been burying letters in the mud
because rivers cannot close their ears
when someone is weeping. The bathroom is the only temple I have left. I press my face to the honeycomb floor, waiting
quiet for the dead & their backwards sun come to swallow every day
into its slippery heat; waiting for the hive to drop.
for the whole swarm to sting me.
“them bones” is spooky like a voodoo curse, punk like a bloody middle finger, and just one of five fantastic poems by Emily O’Neill that you can read in our Fall 2014 issue.
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THERE ARE SNAKES IN THE STAIRS & hens in your kitchen
clucking loving wasn’t
as hard as you made it & it might be a miracle
the birds don’t end
up strangled & swallowed
by hiss & fang
you flap & crow (stupid cock)
so early to the after-party
& your whole apartment
is women telling me not to stay
is ankle fang & feather & blood & you swallow
your tail like a secret to keep & roll
back down the stairs
I have nothing new to say
about hurt or my heart but
loving wasn’t as hard as sucking the venom out
or spite round my neck, a mink stole,
& the bones of these ugly birds have boiled & dried
so the question grows into how many wishes
arrive with each break
one for death / one for dishonor / one for tassel
shoulders & damask lampshades worn as hats /
one for bon voyage / I hate you / that isn’t a wish,
just a clean break / one for the hissing truth /
the hissing truth you’ll never stomach
if ever you knelt & asked me to tell it
I would grow scales & choke on black velvet, would spit-shine
that idiot diamond before wearing your promise ring,
would walk into the angry sea to drown
before mixing my dust with yours
before snapping a hen’s neck
just to stop that awful sound
YOU SHOUT & I OPEN cunt like a jewelry box:
dancer spinning over wooden toe & inside,
a jeweled egg. Yolkless.
Glittering.
Inside the egg, another dancer
with hands over her mouth.
Inside her mouth, a bird
on a perch singing needle
song, a cranking tin machine
& the needles are shining brass
& brass is a lie to tell a child
about who stays in charge
& children don’t always trust
like a blind man must & the metal is cold
like a lover rolled over & we know
it will tarnish
on a long enough timeline. The chain breaks.
The blind man steps off a curb & is not thrown into crosswalk
death by a stranger’s rush. The child pricks her finger on a spindle
& sleeps until she ages past ache. She will never ask
if the wolves could’ve raised her better
because she taught herself to howl
just fine.
The needles fly back into the bird’s throat & sew a new song;
a sailor sings it from a nest above the sea
& doffs his hat for the dancer’s legs, the dancer’s breasts,
the dancer’s hips spun and barbed like razor wire. She crumples
under the sailor’s gaze, is discarded. The egg closes its shining jaws around her,
steals her from what frivolous nothing
the world says she means
FLAPPERHOUSE 