St. Somewhere Journal

Autumn 2010 Issue

2010-10-24T00:01:00.003-05:00

Coming Soon!

2010-09-04T10:18:00.003-05:00

The Autumn 2010 issue of St. Somewhere Journal is scheduled for release on October 24, 2010. This will be the first issue in our transition from a monthly to a quarterly publication schedule. In the meanwhile, please enjoy the great fiction and poetry in our archives.

Issue: July 2010

2010-07-25T08:15:00.002-05:00

July 2010

Butterfly - Danielle Boodoo- Fortuné

Volume 1:

Resemblance - A Story by Danielle Boodoo- Fortuné

The Suffocated Terrace - A Poem by Sergio Ortiz

Wheel and Come Again - A Few Words from the Editor

Volume 2:

High Fever - A Poem by Gale Acuff

Summation - A Poem by John Grey

Volume 3:

Cyan Blue - A Poem by Shayla Hawkins

Parsimony - A Story by Andy Jameson

Volume 4:

Crappeau - A Poem by Elvis Alves

Chicken On A Sunday - A Poem by Carlyon Blackman

Chicken on a Sunday

2010-07-25T08:05:00.000-05:00

that old Formica dining table

topped by oil cloth, stiff and brown

set the scene of my descent into anarchy

Dada’s rage clung with such tenacity

down that duck-egg green wall of shame

how could Ma stand to feed the brute

and be so user-friendly

was beyond my imagination

a thousand meals of sacrifice

another ten thousand more

when she could no longer be his golden goose

she was any body’s whore

-----

Carlyon Blackman is a born/bred Bajan native of Barbados who is defining/refining her voice through poetry. Previous publications include The Caribbean Writer. Carlyon can be reached at blackberryjuice@hotmail.com

Crappeau (frog)

2010-07-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Crappeau was the name
my siblings and cousins used
to call me when I was a child.
We lived together in a big house
and would entertain each other
with funny games, ugly name calling
being one. My brother was guana, short
for iguana. My sister was duck. There was
cat and another cousin had the unfortunate
nomenclature of roast dog. We would get
upset when these names were applied to us
and threatened righteous, vengeful retribution
to the perpetrator. Eventually we grew out of
the custom but somehow crappeau is still
stuck in my mind.

-----

Elvis Alves was born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, NY, where he currently lives and works. He has a Bachelor of Arts, with a major in religion, from Colgate University. He also holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Cyan Blue

2010-07-18T07:33:00.000-05:00

Nassau, Bahamas

the old man
points me
down George Street
to the pirate museum

his fingers gnarled
and brown as a banyan tree
hair
ocean foam silver
eyes
wild cyan blue

already showing me
the riotous beauty
I’ll see in the wax figures
of Ann Bonny
Captain Teach
Calico Jack

this old man’s
earth dark skin
and seawater eyes

the Carib yin-yang
of duppy and angel
bondservant and buccaneer

the Bahamian brew
of his African and European blood
braided smooth
as the dreadlocks
on Blackbeard’s face

-----

Shayla Hawkins has been published in, among other journals, Calabash, The Caribbean Writer, Tongues of the Ocean, TORCH: Poetry, Prose, and Short Stories by African American Women, and Vwa: Poems for Haiti. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.

Parsimony

2010-07-18T07:32:00.000-05:00

Brownie’s idea of a good meal was one with no leftovers. No waste, no overstuffed stomachs; no need to unbuckle, unbutton and lean back with a sated groan. Not in her house. Whenever the children pleaded for something at the store, some tasty morsel, she always responded, “Why? You’ll just eat it.” She didn’t believe in waste or excess. She allowed herself one cigarette a day and sat smoking it on the veranda after the children hurried off to walk the half mile to St. Dominic’s. Three and more to come, though the last ones asphyxiated in the womb, blue shipwrecks. She kept the cigarettes in the freezer so the tobacco would not get stale.

They rebelled in small ways.

Candice went off to college and gorged herself in the cafeteria. She ate worthless things like lime Jello with a dollop of whipped cream on top. She made numerous trips back to the soft serve ice cream machine and always told the kerchiefed cooks to drench her chicken fried steak with gravy. When she came home for Christmas that first semester pudgy and satisfied Brownie said, “We must watch our figure, dear,” and shot sidelong glances at her during meal time.

Annie fell in love with a boy who could eat for both of them. After they married, she made the richest cream sauces, chose the fattiest cuts of meat, and watched him balloon from year to year. Finally he just sat in his chair in the den, too swollen with love to even come to the table anymore.

Once Haney, the littlest, dumped far too much ketchup on his plate, forming a lagoon around his cube steak. “Waste not, want not,” Brownie said and made him eat every clotted bite. Well after bed time, Haney sat, the pool of ketchup staring up at him like the bubbling witch’s cauldron in his fairy tale books. Finally, his father came in from reading the paper and set him free.

“For god’s sake, why?” he asked as they got ready for bed that night. “We’re not poor. I make a good living, don’t I?” Brownie just smiled, suddenly beautiful now as she once was the day he sailed into San Francisco harbor, all his mines swept and sunk down deep in the shimmering ocean behind him. How like a vision! But he turned away because he’d eaten a donut from his private hiding place. The powder still stuck to his lips like the remnants of some sin.

-----

Andy Jameson has worked a variety of jobs including: bookstore clerk, construction worker, FedEx driver, mover, and the person who rolls up rugs in a rug factory. He currently lives in bucolic Greenwood, South Carolina with his wife Misty and teaches writing at Lander University.

High Fever

2010-07-11T07:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sick and staring at the ceiling in
my attic bedroom and wondering what
will happen if the seam that divides and
joins the upside-down V of the roof, and
all at once, should separate. And down steps
an angel to tell me that I've just died
but that I shouldn't worry--I'm going
to meet God. I'm just nine years old, I say.
Didn't you mean to come for Grandfather?
He's in the room across the hall. Mother

walks in. Are you alright, she asks. Do I
look alright, I snap. I'm sorry--I'm fine,
I mean. She feels my forehead. You're burning
up, she says. I saw an angel, I say.
Where, Mother asks. When? Up there, I say. Just now.
Oh, she says. Was it a male angel or
a female angel? I forget, I say.
No--female. Oh, she says. I wonder what
they're wearing in Heaven these days. She smiles.
You don't believe me, I say. Well, she says,
did she speak? What did she say? It's my time,
I say. Your time for what, she asks. My time
to go, I say. Go where, Mother asks. Up
to Heaven, I say. Oh, she says. And what
did you say to her, she asks. I told her
I'm only 9 and there's been a mistake
and she must want Grandfather because he's
a lot older than I am. I told her
to try the room across the hall. I see,
Mother says. Are you sure you weren't dreaming?
I wasn't dreaming, I say. You heard me
yourself. I heard you talking in your sleep,
she says. No, I say. It was real. Sometimes
our dreams seem real to us, she says. Tell me,
she says, sitting on the edge of the bed,
do you want to die? I'm not sure, I say.
It would be nice to see God but I
want to live, too. Can't I have it both ways?
Yes, she says, looking out the window, but
not at the same time. It's started to rain.
And anyway I've got school tomorrow.
I don't think you'll go to school tomorrow,
she says. Oh, I say. Then I fall asleep.

Mother wakes me. How do you feel, she asks.
Alright, I say. What about the angel?
What angel, she asks. The one I told you
about, I say. And when was that, she asks.

-----

Gale Acuff's poetry has been published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Florida Review, Poem, Maryland Poetry Review, Adirondack Review, Danse Macabre, Worcester Review, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, and many other journals. She has authored three books of poetry: "Buffalo Nickel" (BrickHouse, 2004), "The Weight of the World" (BrickHouse, 2006), and "The Story of My Lives" (BrickHouse, 2008). Gale has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

Summation

2010-07-11T07:40:00.000-05:00

One and one is two and yet
two is beginning to show the strain
of always being the sum of something.

But your eyes
are your eyes still
And your skin
is soft as the first time
I planted fingers.

But one and one
must feel at times
that two is not the answer they’re looking for.
How do they stick to the truth?
And two, does it ever look back, and wonder...
if it wasn’t for them?
or, must it always be them?

The tree hasn’t changed
from the gouge of our initials.
The lake has been rowed and swum
and feet-dangled
into the lake it’s always been.

But doesn’t one ever wish
that just once
it could subtract the number
it first thought of
So what if the answer is zero.
Two need never know.

-----

Australian born poet, John Grey, has been a US resident since the late seventies. He works as a financial systems analyst. His work has most recently been published in Slant, Briar Cliff Review and Albatross with work upcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock and REAL.

Wheel And Come Again

2010-07-04T08:10:00.000-05:00

"Wheel and come again!"

In the parlance of the Jamaican dancehall, this is an exhortation to the selector to rewind, or spin back the record, and start a song over. The vibes are nice, the mood is right and the tune hits the spot so that you just want to take it from the top one more time - wheel and come again.

The July issue of St. Somewhere marks six months since the modest beginnings of what was little more than a literary experiment. While the journal is still in its infancy and has a lot of growing to do, it has gotten off to a good start. It may not have the widest readership, but it's definitely establishing its niche. It's beginning to set a mood, a vibe. The progress has been so encouraging that the time has arrived for this journal to "wheel and come again", before settling into its groove.

This issue will be the last of its kind. Going forward, St. Somewhere will be published on a quarterly basis, with the first of the new model being released in late October 2010. As a quarterly publication, the presentation will change, as well. In an effort to improve our aesthetic, we'll be transitioning to a more magazine-esque format. We will be using the technology at issuu.com to present our online version, as well as offering a .PDF download of each issue. These distribution methods will not only present our contributors' work in a more polished and professional manner, but also allow our readers more options for viewing and sharing the journal.

It has been an honor and privilege to gather and share such great poetry and prose here on St. Somewhere. The works of our contributors, whether established or up-and-coming writers, has surpassed the level of talent that I had hoped for when I began this little venture. Certainly not everything has gone as planned, but I honestly didn't expect to attract such a solid collection of writing in such a relatively short period of time. I'm optimistic that in its new incarnation, St. Somewhere will continue to meet this standard and, with time, to reach even greater heights.

In the meanwhile, I hope you'll enjoy this last monthly issue as much as I've enjoyed putting it together. You'll find some familiar names in the July issue, along with some new ones. You'll also notice a little bit of a different twist for this month's presentation. The titles and authors for the entire month will be revealed from the onset, but each week the links for each new volume will be activated.

Thanks for visiting St. Somewhere and we look forward to growing and sharing together in the months ahead. Good reading!

Randy Baker
Editor
St. Somewhere Journal

The Suffocated Terrace

2010-07-04T08:06:00.002-05:00

“Silence is the refuge of the helpless, and burrow of accomplices."

                                 Jorge Gómez Jiménez, Editor in Chief of Letralia

a corpse buried
under a mound
of coconuts

at the hour
of the early breeze
the red ground

where heat and light
are born like eggs
with chorizo

the stench of vomit
a dead man’s journal
I opened and

read the first entry

today I went to talk about my pension plan

with the people at the suffocated terrace

and it was like a revelation

like walking down the steps of a twisted scar
to the crack at the bottom

of my back

the journey was
sprayed with vinegar

I remembered grade school

we had better toys
and our shoes

were made of leather

hardly anyone complained
about their DNA

or taxes and I was single

a kid but I paid taxes
nothing like I do now

to the same people

at the suffocated terrace
should I say suffocating
or call it The Suffocate

is it a terrace

now that it’s walled

and readied for the next
riots

this sterile longevity

that someday soon will not have anyone
to pay their pensions or their health plans

and yet they

suffocate us on their terrace
or the likes of us       the nopalitos

coyoles fritos

pupusas rellenas de cerdo y queso
the rice and beans

of the rich       the political

the butt of their jokes

-----

Sergio Ortiz lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico and is a retired educator, a poet, and photographer. He has a B.A. in English literature, and a M.A. in philosophy. Flutter Press released his debut chapbook, "At the Tail End of Dusk", in October of 2009. Ronin Press released his second chapbook, "topography of a desire", in May of 2010. Avantacular Press released his first photographic chapbook, "The Sugarcane Harvest", May 2010. He was recently published, or is forthcoming in: YB: A Journal of New Poetry, The Shine Journal, WTF PWM, The 13th Warrior Review, Deuce Coupe, and Heavy Bear.

Resemblance

2010-07-04T08:05:00.001-05:00

He is naked and smeared with gooey mango. His mouth is stretched wide open in a horrific toothless scream.

“Isaiah,” I intone impatiently.

I cross my arms in what I hope looks to be a gesture of parental assertion. I tap my foot. I am sweating profusely despite the coolness of this September evening.

“Isaiah,” I repeat, more sharply this time, taking a menacing step toward him.

He ignores me, runs in zigzag lines across the front yard laughing hysterically. There are fine gravel particles stuck to the back of his chubby brown thighs. I intend to sigh but it comes out in this strained feral puff. And then…give me patience, Lord. He is climbing the tree now, like a little brown monkey.

“Isaiah get back here now or else…”

My voice is an uneven screech. I fly across the front yard barefoot.

He is already halfway up the tree trunk, finding easy footholds in the low mossy branches.

God help me. I cannot climb this damn tree.

The bones in my feet have forgotten how to splay and clench like this. I look up at him in horrified awe. He is sitting in a fork high up, swinging his plump little legs and giggling gleefully. I search his round dimpled face to find any shades of my own, but I am unsuccessful. For this moment in time, my son is alien to me. My body just cannot remember his presence, his essence. I cannot decode his energy; there is no serene unspoken complicity between us. Christ, he doesn’t even call me mommy. He insists upon calling me Glori. Can you imagine? As if we used to pitch marbles together in primary school. There is no neediness in his little arms when he reaches for me at bedtime. Jesus. Who is this little person? Have I not loved him enough? Is it because of what happened between Roy and me? Maybe a boy really does need his father.

“Aye Gloriaaa!” trills Jeanette, heaving her mammoth bosom over the short wall separating our properties.

“What going on there baby?”

Jeanette has the profoundly irritating habit of calling me ‘baby.’ Perhaps because I’m a young single mother, and not blessed with a loudmouthed, big bellied, furry-yet- balding husband like hers.

“Isaiah,” I say sadly.

I sound helpless and tired, even to my own ears.

“Gone up in the mango tree and refuse to come down.”

She clucks and tisks, her second chin jiggling. Poor me, poor me. Momentarily I see myself through Jeanette’s and everyone else’s eyes. I am small and defeated. I wear stretch tees with cute slogans on them, not because I like them that much but because they’re cheap and don’t need ironing. My hair is overprocessed and frayed irreparably at the edges. My son’s father needed less than nine months to know that he didn’t want us in his life. I shout a lot. No one listens. I do not have the slightest idea how to be a mother. My son, for Christ’s sake, is six years old, naked, and up in a tree. I am defeated.

“Oh, just leave him be, baby.”

Jeanette’s voice is lilting, impossibly cheerful. I hiccup like a child and am instantly ashamed of myself. God. I am a grown woman, for heaven’s sake. I can figure this shit out.

"Seriously?” I murmur, wrapping my arms around my midsection.

Suddenly I am lonely. The loneliness is thick and tangible, like a cold sweat, like a fever.

“Leave him. Boys do this kinda jackass thing all the time when they growing.”

She waves her fleshy hand absently. “Don’t study it too much, babes. Go inside.”

It’s about six now, and a cool, wet wind is blowing. Isaiah is wearing only tattered Superman underwear. His ass will get cold. I bet he will be sick tomorrow. If he comes down, that is.

I give up, and go inside slowly. Part of me feels as though my son is some sort of exotic bird that has escaped, and I fear that he will fly away forever. I make a cup of hot tea and sit down, my nerves shot to hell.

“God, make Isaiah come down now please,” I pray fervently into my teacup.

My breath creates little ripples on its milky surface.

Honest to God, I don’t know how or when I fell asleep. Does that make me a bad mother? Christ. I wake up damp to the scalp with sweat. The house is in pitch darkness.

My eyes flick to the microwave… Nine eighteen.
Oh.my.God.
Ohmigod.
I leap from the chair and run outside, fling open the door. I can hear this sound, like a puppy whining… my son, my son in this goddamned tree. Jesus.

My breath comes in rasps now as I try to climb this thing. I can’t see shit. I claw my way up the rough slimy bark. Nails break, skin tears. Leaves scratch my face. It’s all wet, prickly and gummy up here. The whining is getting closer.

“Zaiah,” I say desperately.

He hiccups. I reach into the darkness, and a soft little paw finds mine.

“Zi,” I breathe.

Are you safe? Are you hurting? Are you scared? I’m here now. I’m here. But I don’t say these things, they are all just jumbled up in my head. What matters now is my son’s trembling little body in my arms. I brace myself between two solid boughs, and where I stand, I am illuminated by a single shaft of moonlight. Somehow I am calm, I am still. I do not dare question myself, so fragile and artfully balanced is this moment.

“Zi, Mama is here, I’m here,” I say softly, cradling him.

I croon words I’ve never spoken before. My hands, unbeknownst to me, are now able to smooth away, to comfort and caress. He looks up at me teary eyed.

“Mama,” he whispers, with his mouth that I suddenly recognize as my own.

“Mama, I love you.”

-----

Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné lives in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. She is an English teacher, and has been drawing and writing for as long as she can remember. Previous publications include Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, The Caribbean Writer, and Tongues of the Ocean.

Issue: June 2010

2010-06-27T08:05:00.001-05:00

June 2010

Detail of St. Katharine Drexel Church, Louisiana Ave. - Charlotte Hamrick

Volume 1:

Bless This! - A Story by Jenille Prince

Lovesong - A Poem by Carlyon Blackman

Volume 2:

disparity - A Poem by Charlotte Hamrick

Wild Craboo - A Poem by Andre Marsden

Volume 3:

3rd Religion - A Poem by Sandra Sealy

Fluent - A Poem by Ivan Jenson

Barking - A Poem by Marc Carver

Volume 4:

To Dance On A Hot August Night With God - A Poem by Nathan Schaffner

Cuba Night Woman - A Poem by Shayla Hawkins

Cuba Night Woman

2010-06-27T08:03:00.000-05:00

After dark
I slide
like a serpent
out of my skin

and become
the blue bahía
of Cienfuegos

the rhythm
and orishas of Rumba

the sugar-sweet smoke
of Cohíba
curling
vanishing
like a spirit
into the wet-hot
Havana night

the crocodile’s
lash and bite

the fever blood
of lovers
that could call fire
from rain

Come daylight
I am woman
again

-----

Shayla Hawkins has been published in, among other journals, Calabash, The Caribbean Writer, Tongues of the Ocean, TORCH: Poetry, Prose, and Short Stories by African American Women, and Vwa: Poems for Haiti. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.

To Dance On A Hot August Night With God

2010-06-27T08:00:00.001-05:00

This little black box
I've got to get out of this little black box
that is chained and locked
because you all thought I could walk on water
but found I could only walk on rain

And if I feel a bit under the weather
or look sort of run down
it is because my mind has been squeezed
into the spaces in between
So the ghost in the corner of my eye
won't wake up

This little black box
that has been chained and locked
for four days and twenty nights
That sleepless dreaming of
nostalgic dreams
blanketing everything in the cheap smell
of dime store incense
and the filthy hope
that you'll make it with a
girl from the pages of a magazine

This little black box
that has shut up my mind
like a trap
so the thoughts can't worm through
which has left me powerless
to stop and listen or obey
that's why I look, act and feel this way

So now that I'm becoming thin
a little drawn out and pale
chocking you with a vacant stare
If I feel like a wanna-be martyr
knock me down

The little black box
has made it hard
to try and feel anymore
so that it seems the words
that pour from our mouths
into our ears
mean little of what the words
meant before

With me just babbling in the corner
while the party orbits around
that little black box
which is still chained and locked
with my old shell still rotting
inside

-----

Nathan Schaffner lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

3rd Religion

2010-06-19T23:59:00.002-05:00

Chiming of a wooden stick

calls the assembly

to a stainless temple.

Salt fish incense wafts thickly throughout,

the chorus of flour raising the hymn.

Congregants rise,

chalice brims with water

and bitter herb reminders

of marjoram and thyme

while

piquant slivers of onion and scotch bonnet

slip in.

In a call to buck pot altar

supplicants anticipate their trial of fire.

Baptised in hot oil-

they surface renewed.

Lowly lives transformed

now as missionaries,

they share the Gospel:

encased in the new Ark of the Covenant-

a revelation to rum bibbers

liming in chattel house styled shops;

glistening in napkins

inspiring awed reverence

from bakes sales regulars;

crucified by toothpicks

on cocktail party trays-

a sacrament to aristocratic palates.

***

And though

to this celestial host

many pray daily,

greed tears them asunder.

Amen.

-----

Sandra Sealy is an award-winning Barbadian writer of poetry, non-fiction (articles), fiction and drama with work published in the region and beyond. Her poem “Beauty Of The Bald Head” (1998), moved from page to stage in 2005, as a critically acclaimed CD spoken-word jazz single, to a music video premiering at the African & Caribbean Film Festival (Pelican Films). In addition, this former Cultural Officer, Literary Arts, is a storyteller and creative writing tutor to several children who have won many NIFCA awards under her tutelage. Her blog Seawoman’s Caribbean Writing Opps, which enjoys a good Google ranking, reaches several international writers.

Barking

2010-06-19T23:58:00.002-05:00

I made someone cry today.
Almost made myself cry too.
We read poems in the park.
I wanted to,
Not leave
The words there
But I just wanted the forest
to have them.

For some reason.
It seemed right.
I did not
Want to leave that place.
The place,
where my words were.
Maybe I could chisel the words into the bark.

My mark.
That would stay with them
Forever.

-----

Marc Carver was born near the Thames barrier in London. He has been writing poetry for about two years. He has been a featured international artist in America and has had close to or over one hundred poems published and four collections of poetry published. He is now happy with his poetry, it is his life's work and he is more than satisfied with the end results. His books are all available on Amazon.

Fluent

2010-06-19T23:57:00.001-05:00

sometimes I don’t understand
English
very well
it is
said
too quickly, too coldly
nobody shares
the language
as often as
they should
they say they
will talk to you later
or that they will
speak to you soon
I learned
my native tongue
by ear
by heart
and I use it
all the time
mostly I
pour English
out on pages
always
amazed how
it never runs out
but like an
ink well
in the desert
I know
one day
words
will fail
me

-----

Ivan Jenson has enjoyed success publishing his poetry in the US and the UK and he has received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His "Absolut Jenson" painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Word Catalyst Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.ivanjensonartist.com/

disparity

2010-06-13T09:10:00.001-05:00

in that house red beans & rice

cooked every Monday for four

generations until the water

washed it away.

it floated down Forgotten Street,

clapboards splintering like frail old

bones in the jaws of the beast.

The land where it stood’s going on

five years empty now, sacred ground

bleached with the salt of bitter tears

but… still loved with a fierceness that

would amaze the unbaptized.

-----

Charlotte Hamrick lives and writes in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Wild Craboo

2010-06-13T09:05:00.001-05:00

I should have known better
Than to suppose
Something so obviously fierce
Would be so polite as to make itself
Proper for my consumption.

The roots dug deep
Unhindered by rocky terrain
Flourishing where no other would
Or could.
Standing proud against the wind
On the steep hillside.

And bunched on the ends
Of each obstinate limb
Were the exotic berries.
Seductive hues of yellow
And angry shades of orange and red.
I plucked one, bit down
And the berry bit back.

Angry spears of tart stab defiantly
At a rude, presumptuous tongue
The taste of tears
From a dwindling race.
Sweat of an enslaved people.
Of saltwater graves
For "excess cargo".

The fruit rejected, and ejected
From my pursed lips.
The crushed body splatters
Like desperate Arawak
Below seashore cliffs
That seed will grow,
Those souls pass on,
And one man shall not benefit
From another's suffering.

How lucky for this tree,
Perhaps lucky for me,
That my mother's skin was brown
My thoughts at this moment
the thoughts of the earth.
And yet, I can see
There's something in my father's green eyes
Telling me "Chop the damn tree down."

-----

Andre Marsden is an aspiring poetry and fiction writer currently living in Belmopan, Belize. You can find more of his work at http://eulogyforajournal.blogspot.com/

Lovesong

2010-06-06T06:26:00.000-05:00

Tonight I must confess
I need to feel your moist-hard-lean warmth
gouging a straight-tight-narrow path
deep within me
should I be more explicit
my arousal is so implicit
it shouts of youthful undertakings
of the most primitive kind

No more narcissistic love affairs
to leave me frothing at the mouth
like some rabid dog
wallowing in uneasy imagination
wrestling slippery shadows
till victory tastes of ashes
or unclean feet…

Let’s do a rain dance upon the sheets
I need to feel the petal-soft-caress
of your lips upon my skin
stroking a fire that burns deep-deep
in the centre of my being
tease me with the thunderous applause
of your moans and groans and shudders
let the quick-lightning of your salt-wet-hot tongue
awash me in the water colours of our loving

And afterwards
let no second hand attempt
at this thing called love
make a lie of what we’ve shared
this night.
I need no sticky alibis
love soaked promises
or soppy introspection
to bring me sweet release
to feel some hope again
inside me quivering
shivering even
as flowers do after a summer rain
since a long-dry-hot spell.

-----

Carlyon Blackman is a born/bred Bajan native of Barbados who is defining/refining her voice through poetry. Previous publications include The Caribbean Writer. Carlyon can be reached at blackberryjuice@hotmail.com

Bless This!

2010-06-06T06:25:00.001-05:00

Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto. Saturday April someteenth 2009. Silky’s (formerly Sexy’s, formerly Nappy’s, formerly Afrotastic) Hair Emporium. One co-owner is at counter. Other co-owner is goodness knows where. Co-owner at counter has brown skin, sour face and thin-thin burgundy microbraids. Across street from Silky’s is sharwarma place. Shawarma place owner is Mr. Haddad. Silky’s ceiling is big painting-painting of coconut tree and man playing steelpan. To right of counter is buzzing front door. To left of counter is beaded curtain of Bob Marley in red, gold, and green tam. When someone goes into kitchen, Bob Marley’s face breaks apart, then comes back together. To right of Iere curtain is small kitchen. Jeffrey Osborne is coming from radio. Jeffrey sings some song where he keeps going “Woo Woo Woo”. And all around room, on left, on right, and at front, are things for hair. Little rubber bands, plastic/metal/wooden afro picks, big and small hairbrushes, beads, do-rags with smiling, smooth-skinned brothers with no ingrown chin hairs, scarves for keeping your hairstyle neat when you sleep, real-fake hair, fake-fake hair, and hair medicine: shampoos, conditioners (leave-in and wash-out), moisturizers, oils, waxes, gels, creams, setting lotions, leave-in treatments, hot-oil treatments, detanglers, and relaxers- all big letters and bright colour, and all promising Longer! Softer! Straighter!

Jeffrey Osborne is now Billy Ocean. Front door buzzes, and dark-skinned Mr. Linford Roberts Trini-walks into store. Grey-head Mr. Roberts was formerly of Palo Seco, Trinidad but has been of Toronto, Canada since 1965. Mr. Roberts is seventy, looks fifty, and moves like man of twenty-five. “Good afternoon darling!” he greets co-owner. He asks after other co-owner, and is told she is out. Mr. Roberts then says “Alright, I will just sit myself down and read my paper until she come back. You ain’t go even know I here! Where my chair?” Co-owner turns around and rolls her eyes, then gets Mr. Roberts his chair. Special chair is reserved for him, during his Saturday visits. Mr. Roberts then grabs copy of Share newspaper so he can find out first-hand what is going on with black people in Toronto. Mr. Roberts’ one true obsession in life is other black people. Just above stack of newspapers is calendar featuring Barack Obama with big-big grin. Mr. Roberts gazes up at Barack Obama as he takes newspaper and smiles back. Co-owner knows that once Mr. Roberts starts reading, he will start complaining.

Billy Ocean is now Lionel Richie. Front door buzzes, and brown-skinned man about six-foot-two steps into store. He has shaved head, sunglasses, jeans and leather jacket. Shaved-Head Man looks about thirty and has neat, trim, and sexy goatee. Shaved-Head Man also seems to be in hurry. He gives distracted nods to co-owner and Mr. Roberts when they say “Hello”. He glances all around store- on floor beside door, counter, top shelves, middle shelves, very lowest shelves. He turns to co-owner and asks “Do you have any shopping baskets?” in half-Jamaican, half-Canadian accent. Co-owner is amused, tells him “No!”, and that people never pick up more than two things during visits to Hair Emporium. Sunglasses Man seems disappointed at lack of shopping baskets but thanks her. Then Sunglasses man pulls out fancy young-boy phone from his pocket and studies something on-screen. He then moves to middle of store and starts staring at bottles, starting with “Action” line of moisturizers.

Lionel Richie is now Luther Vandross. Front door buzzes, and light-skinned CDs-Flyers-Parties man dances into store. He is wearing oversized white jeans, black winter coat, white do-rag on his head, and Bluetooth on his left ear. Mr. Roberts says “…and education is the most important thing!” Shaved-Head Man removes two afro picks from plastic hook. CDs-Flyers-Parties man is talking to someone as he comes in, but glances at Mr. Roberts and mouths “Hi!” When call ends, he flirts with co-owner. Mr. Roberts says “Parents need to make sure they know who their children hanging around!” CDs-Flyers-Parties man puts stack of post-card size flyers under Barack calendar. Flyers show black woman with long hair and bikini. Under woman’s navel are some words including “!!!”, “PARTY!”, “DJ!”, “BIGGEST”, “FRONT ST.”, and “!!!”. Mr. Roberts wants to know if there will be any calypso or soca at party. CD-Flyers-Parties man tells him it’s all hip-hop, dancehall, and hip-hop-dancehall. Mr. Roberts steupses and turns back to his newspaper. This makes CDs-Flyers-Parties man laugh. CDs-Flyers-Parties then starts to mock soca. He jumps up and down, waves his hand, and sings “Hands in the Air!”, “Hands in the Air!”, “Get something and wave”, “Jump! Jump!”, “Wine up your waist!” and “Moving to the left!” Mr. Roberts pretends to rush at CDs-Flyers-Parties man. Then Mr. Roberts and CD-Flyers-Parties man start laughing. CDs-Flyers-Parties man gets call on Bluetooth. Mr. Roberts says “…and children don’t want to go to school. CDs-Flyers-Parties Man waves goodbye and exits store.

Luther Vandross is now Isley Jasper Isley. Front door buzzes, and white woman with orangey-auburn hair dips toe into store. She is holding hands with half-black/half-white looking girl. Mr. Roberts says: “I always telling my grandchildren: All them big stars on TV already make their money. All you should study hard, instead of helping big stars make more money by continuing to watch them!” Orange Hair Woman’s mouth opens wide when she sees things in store. Little girl’s mouth falls open too. Little girl looks about eight, and has brown hair that falls to shoulder-blades in big curls. Orange Hair Woman and co-owner smile at each other. Orange Hair Woman says “I need something for my daughter’s hair.” Then she turns to little girl and says “Say hello, Tanya!” Tanya says “Hello!” in soft voice, to co-owner and Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts says, “I does tell them: But why you’re watching so much TV? TV ain’t watching you!” Co-owner tells Orange Hair Woman to try Sweetness For Kidz line. Co-owner points to beige and green Sweetness For Kidz” bottles near front door. Bottles feature smiling little black girl with big Goldilocks curls falling down sides of face. Shaved-Head Man says he is looking for Dreadz Lock-and-Twist Gel. Co-owner points to top shelf near curtain. Dreadz-line comes in red, green, and gold plastic jars with picture of smiling rasta. Orange Hair Woman comes back to counter with bottle of Sweetness No-Fuss Detangler and Sweetness Hair Moisturizer For Kidz with Vitamin E and Aloe Vera. Mr. Roberts says “and black people don’t support each other anymore!” Mr. Roberts advises Orange Hair Woman to take her time, and that she just has to get used to Tanya’s hair. Then Mr. Roberts tells her to get big comb, hard brush, and scarf to tie Tanya’s head down at night. So Orange Hair Woman buys big comb and hard brush and scarf. She thanks Mr. Roberts and shakes his hand. Co-owner tells Mr. Roberts that he should run store, since he knows so much about women’s hair. Shaved-Head Man comes up to counter with red head scarf, purple head scarf, and packet of multi-coloured beads. Shaved-Head Man then heads back to shelves. Then Orange Hair Woman and Tanya leave.

Isley Jasper Isley is now DeBarge. Front door buzzes, and two teenagey-looking girls wiggle into store. Mr. Roberts says “and black people don’t even say hello to each other any more!” The two girls have fancy handbags, tight jeans, and pretty-pretty fingernails. They head right to weave section of store. Shaved-Head Man has six bottles in his hands, including two in crook of each arm. One girl asks other girl if she should straighten her hair before she puts in weave. Shaved-Head man drops two bottles. Her friend says that maybe she should go for curly extensions if she does not want to relax her hair. Mr. Roberts tells Shaved-Head Man to put his things on counter, and keep them there until he is ready to pay for them. Shaved-Head Man is embarrassed, but puts bottles down. Teenagey Girls move from straight weaves to curly weaves, closer to Bob Marley curtain. One girl picks up pack of real hair. She tells friend that she doesn’t think she can afford real hair. Friend retorts: “No girl, you deserve the best! You deserve real hair!” Teenagey Girls hug each other, and then open packets to examine hair. Co-owner is too distracted with Mr. Roberts chit-chat to notice this. Shaved-Head Man is now squatting in front of Kinkilocks’ line of moisturizers, which is on lowest shelf near door. He watches his fancy phone, then Kinkilocks bottles, then phone, then Kinkilocks bottles again. Then he asks co-owner if store carries Kinkilocks’ Leave-in Treatment With Silicone. Mr. Roberts says “And the whole world on drugs!” (Mr. Roberts may be on to something here, wink!) Teenagey Girls are done scrutinizing weaves. They move to bottles in “Serengeti” line. Serengeti bottles feature drawing of lion lying in middle of savannah, being petted by black woman with long hair. Co-owner tells Shaved-Head Man that store doesn’t carry leave-in treatment for Kinkilocks, but he can try Maximum Leave in Treatment for Relaxed and Natural Hair. “Yes, try Maximum!” Mr. Roberts says. “My wife does use Maximum!” Teenagey Girls buy two bottles of conditioner and six packs of hair, and then they leave.

DeBarge is now James Ingram. Front door buzzes, and skinny lady about five-foot-three walks slow-slow into store. She is wearing red sweat pants, brown winter coat, and green hat with blue scarf underneath hat. Shaved-Head Man is staring at pink and blue Soft and Bouncy line of moisturizers. Skin beneath Green Hat Lady’s eyes is sagging and hanging. Mr. Roberts says “...and all the young black women keep getting pregnant!” Green Hat Lady’s eyebrows have been shaved off and re-drawn with pencil. Shaved-Head Man heads to counter, ready to pay. Green Hat lady cuts in front of Shaved-Head Man and puts two shopping bags down on counter. Brown liquid is leaking from one shopping bag. Strong smell is coming from other bag. Shaved-Head Man starts to protest. Green Hat Lady ignores him, and pulls out bright-yellow jar of Rapunzel Hair Relaxer. She dips her finger in cream. “Excuse me miss,” co-owner says. “There was someone ahead of you!” Green Hat Lady dips finger in relaxer again, and screams:

“BLESS THIS!!”

Green Hat Lady holds up two fingers, now covered in whip-creamy relaxer. She grins at co-owner.

Shaved-Head Man steps backwards, away from Green Hat Lady. He turns his eyes to floor, then Bob Marley curtain, then ceiling with pan-man and coconut tree.

Mr. Robert just watches Green Hat Lady.

“Miss…” co-owner begins.

“BLESS THIS! BLESS THIS!” Green Hat Lady yells. She dips her finger in relaxer again. Then she removes hat, and unties scarf. Most of her head is clean. Clean like Shaved-Head Man’s. Except for couple of tufts at back near her neck, some scars, and some scabs. Shaved-Head Man looks at back of Green Hat Lady’s head, and then looks away fast-fast. Co-owner tries not to lock eyes with Green Hat Lady.

Green Hat Lady reaches across counter, and touches co-owner’s microbraids. “Is it real?” she asks.

“No,” says co-owner in scared voice. Co-owner draws back from Green Hat Lady.

Mr. Roberts puts down his newspaper, and gets up. “You alright, sister?” he asks Green Hat Lady.

Green Hat Lady does not answer.

Mr. Roberts comes closer to Green Hat Lady. “Where are you living?”

Green Hat Lady gazes at Bob Marley curtain, then out front door at slushy sidewalk and passing cars.

Mr. Roberts puts out his hand. “You want me to take you home?”

Green Hat Lady shakes her head.

“How about something to eat?” Mr. Robert says. This time Green Hat Lady nods.

Mr. Roberts tells co-owner: “We going by Haddad, just to get a little something to eat! I coming back just now!” Mr. Roberts and Green Hat Lady step outside. Mr. Roberts holds her hand, glances right and left, and then they cross street.

Co-owner gives Shaved-Head Man pressed-lips smile, and starts tapping prices into register. He has bought one packet of fifty black elastic bands, one packet of beads, two jars of leave-in treatment, five packs of black-black real hair, one pack of fake blonde and fuschia fake hair, one jar of lock and twist gel, three bottles of shampoo, five bottles of conditioner, two bottles of 2-in-1 shampoo, one bottle of 3-in-1 shampoo, two jars of No-Lye relaxer, one jar of relaxer with lye, two scarves, and two afro picks. His total is $256.75 and he leaves store with five full plastic bags.

-----

Jenille Prince lives in Ottawa, Canada where she works as an accountant. Her parents are of Trinidadian descent and she lived in Trinidad for a few years during her childhood. In her stories, Jenille likes to focus on the mix of Caribbean and Canadian cultures and outlooks, and how they can co-exist in a single person. Her fiction has previously appeared in Poui.

Prizes

2010-06-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

In our effort to encourage and reward talented writers, St. Somewhere will be awarding three annual prizes to our contributors. This is not a contest in the traditional manner practiced by many literary journals and magazines. There are no special entry guidelines or fees. Winners will be chosen from among the journal's regularly selected contributors.

Award winners will be decided in January of each year and all contributors from the preceeding year will be eligible for selection. The prizes are as follows:

Jack Mandora Prize for Fiction - $75.00 USD

Awarded to a single recipient in recognition of their prose fiction work. May be awarded on the merit of one or more short stories featured in St. Somewhere.

St. Somewhere Prize for Poetry - $50.00 USD

Awarded to a single recipient in recoginition of their poetic work. May be awarded on the merit of one or more poems featured in St. Somewhere.

Caribbean Spirit Award - $25.00 USD

Awarded to a single recipient in recognition of their effective use of Caribbean dialect or nation language, whether in fiction or poetry. May be awarded on the merit of one or more works of poetry and/or fiction featured in St. Somewhere.

Issue: May 2010

2010-05-30T08:30:00.001-05:00

May 2010

The Red Door - Randy Baker

Volume 1:

Trinbagonian Psalmody - A Poem by Summer Edward

Shuffling - A Poem by Nancy Anne Miller

Volume 2:

Elements of You - A Poem by Ivan Jenson

Renuka (Pt. 1 of 4) - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Volume 3:

Quartet - A Poem by Kenneth P. Gurney

Renuka (Pt. 2 of 4) - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Volume 4:

Down In Front - A Poemy by Lee Stern

Renuka (Pt. 3 of 4) - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Volume 5:

Filling A Government Prescription - A Poem by Sandra Sealy

Renuka (Pt. 4 of 4) - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Renuka (Pt. 4)

2010-05-30T08:27:00.000-05:00

Mala met Renuka crunched in one corner of her room with her legs pulled up to her chest, her head resting face down on her knees. Mala sat down next to her and placed her arms around her shoulders. The silence between them stretched for some time.

“You know how ma does always tell we what she dream and that it mean something?” Renuka snuggled closer to Mala. “Like the other night when she dream all she teeth fall out and she say something bad going and happen?”

“Ma always dreaming about something,” Mala laughed.

Renuka paused for a second. “You believe that?”

“About the dreams? I don’t know, maybe. Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Something happen today?” Mala asked softly. “I know you wouldn’t want to hurt the baby. Remember what the doctor tell you?”

Renuka nodded. “I don’t understand why people does have to be so cruel. I didn’t know this was going to happen to me.”

“I always tell you not to let other people control your life. You didn’t do nothing wrong, so stop behaving like is your fault.”

“But is my fault for being so stupid.”

“And stop saying that because as soon as your baby born, you go forget about all this, you go see.”

Renuka’s lips took the form of a smile as she envisaged her baby. “You think so? Maybe it go be a girl and I could dress she up in pretty clothes.” She paused with a faraway look in her eyes. “I go name she Hema, I always like that name.”

“You want to go shopping for baby clothes this Saturday after work? We go buy everything for you and the baby.” Mala was encouraged by her sister’s smile. “But we buying only white and yellow, just in case.” They both laughed.

Renuka’s heart was filled with renewed hope and she was now anxious to get through the rest of the week.

***

On Friday morning Nalini informed Renuka that Mrs. Maharaj wanted to see her in the office. She had no idea why she was summoned, but she had a gut feeling that it was instigated by Denesh. His mother thought no woman was good enough for her son, especially not a mere employee. She had only been fooling herself. Renuka climbed the flight of stairs to the office and Mrs. Maharaj wasted no time on idle talk. She informed her that they were cutting back on some expenses and since she was the newest employee, they would have to let her go. Renuka knew better. Mrs. Maharaj thanked her for her service over the past few months and paid her two weeks salary.

Whatever doubts Renuka had about her dismissal were confirmed when Denesh arrived just after she gathered her personal belongings. He seemed surprised to see her there and made every effort to avoid her. Their eyes met for a moment but she turned away. It took every ounce of willpower for her to avoid a confrontation.

“Where you going?” Nalini appeared in front of her and pointed to her handbag. “What she tell you?”

“She say how business slow and they cutting back on some expenses, but she go let me know whenever they need more staff.”

“But how she could do something like that?” Nalini’s chest rose and her nose flared up. “I going and talk to she.”

Renuka stopped her. “Is all right. Is not like I can’t get a next job.”

“But you does work so hard and all the customers does like you.”

Renuka stared through the glass window of the office where she could see Denesh talking to his mother. “Sometimes people does do what they feel is best for them.”

She bid a final goodbye and walked out the door, leaving Nalini to stare after her in disbelief.

***

Renuka did not return home immediately. That was the last place she wanted to be. She spent the rest of the day walking zombie-like along the hilly streets of San Fernando, browsing through the stores at random. It felt like a better option at the time than being alone.

She arrived home late evening and greeted her mother in the kitchen. She had a glass of water and retired to her room. She dropped onto her bed and hugged her pillow so she could be alone with her thoughts. Her eyes rested on the doll she had played with since she was a little girl, and then shifted to the cricket bat; the same one she had used to help win many trophies for her school’s cricket team. Her entire world had crumbled before her and there was no one to fix it. Her mother had accused her of bringing shame to their family and her father continued to treat her like an outcast. The villagers were gossiping about her, and filling in the blanks when they didn’t have the facts. The boy she thought was in love with her wanted nothing to do with her anymore, and she was just fired from her job.

She knew Mala must be very disappointed in her, although she would never show it. She was her only solace throughout her ordeal. Renuka felt the sudden pain and discomfort inside her belly. She pressed her pillow closer against her midsection and curled up her legs. The pain grew sharper. Her eyes rested on the doll again and lingered for a moment. The image of the doll slowly faded away.

***

Mala sat next to her sister’s bedside in the hospital ward. Renuka had been sedated earlier and slept through most of the evening. She started to stir and murmured inaudible words that Mala could not recognize. Then her voice grew louder and the words became clearer.

“Hema! Hema!” Renuka’s eyes remained closed and her hands were outstretched.

Mala shook her and her eyes flew open. Mala then cupped her hands around Renuka’s tear-stained cheeks and tried to calm her. Renuka’s eyes flitted around the strange surroundings searching for recognition.

“You in the hospital. Your baby didn’t make it.” Mala explained.

“No!” Still dazed, she attempted to climb out of the bed. “I want my baby!”

“Ma find you in your room this evening. You was unconscious so they bring you here.” Mala pointed to their parents who were looking on, neither one knowing what to say. “The doctors say they try everything.”

She shook her head repeatedly. “No! I didn’t lose my baby. Is Denesh who take she! I just see him!”

“No one took your baby, you were dreaming. You had a miscarriage.”

“No! No! I know it was he!” She covered her ears with both hands and screamed. “Hemaaaa!”

The nurses heard the commotion and rushed to Renuka’s bedside. They sedated her and she drifted off to her own subconscious world.

***

Mala and her parents returned to the hospital ward the next morning. Renuka was staring at the ceiling and her wrists were strapped to the sides of the bed. Mala paused to speak to the nurse who explained that Renuka had a reaction to the sedative and had to be restrained for her own protection. Mala asked if the wrist straps could be removed and the nurse agreed. Renuka acknowledged them with a brave smile.

“Is my fault Mala, this happen because of me.” Renuka’s pain was reflected in her swollen eyes that had lost their sparkle. “I keep wishing for everything to be like before and…and that is why this happen. But I woulda take good care of the baby, I woulda be a good mother.”

Mala sat on the edge of the bed and held her sister’s head against her chest. “You go have a next chance someday, when the time is right.”

Renuka gave a faint smile.

“You see you have two visitors?” Mala gestured to their parents and they moved closer.

There were no further exchanges among them at that moment, only the sadness and remorse that were reflected on their parents’ faces. Before any more words were spoken, the state and suffering of their younger child was enough to bring them to tears. ♦

-----

Vashti Bowlah is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago, and a participant of The Cropper Foundation/UWI Creative Writers' Residential Workshop. Her short stories, articles and poems have appeared in newspapers, journals and anthologies, and she continues to pursue her passion for writing, with special focus on the short story. She has won prizes and awards for her writing, including The David Hough Literary Prize awarded by The Caribbean Writer. She also freelances as an editor/proofreader. She can be reached at vbowlah@gmail.com

Filling A Government Prescription

2010-05-30T08:25:00.001-05:00

-My lady, why you chupsing?

When you does come hey,
You gotta mek up you min’
‘bout two tings:
wait or guh long.

-Private pharmacy? If dah suit you.
True you ain’ gotta wait;
yuh might gotta pay, doh.
Evahting bout money, money, money, man.
Anyhow, I got time.
Lathe and saw put down evah since.

Line real long, yuh
but um is gob’ment.
Wuh yuh expec’?

-Party?
Don’ vote fuh a fella!
Dif’rent letter; same shite!
Mekkin’ sport.
Dem is drink up wid one annuda,
Get fat,
An’ laugh bad at we.
You tink dey ceh bout we waitin’ hey?

Wait! A nex’ one gone lunch?
Black people, boy.
Treat duh own scruffy, scruffy, scruffy.
Dah is why wunna cyan’ get nuh farther.
If dese duh white people, we wuh get dispatch evah since.

-Obama? I like he real bad but you cyan’ see
he half a white man, anyhow?
Boun’ tuh get t’rough.

-No. I does do evah’ting fuh muhself.
My daughta’ gone tuh Amurica,
An’ de gran’? Plain wufless.
She mudda really try wih she doh,
But dis drug ting, man!
Got she grip up like ah octopus,
I de see shite in dis life but…

-Guh ‘round, guh round, man!

…but not like dah.
I gih she food, if she hungry,
But she cyan’ sleep at me; I sorry.
Too tiefin’.
Wuh tek up me tablets (I waitin’ hey suh long fuh!) an’ all.

-Wait…dah woman en know
you’s tuh wait like de restah we?
Wey de fuck she tink she gine?
…Yes darlin’; de line start back dey
Behind dat red girl…
Nuh broughtupsy.

…matter ah fac’, I nuses tuh drink Cockspur an’ smoke hard.
But I done wid dah…
…buyin’ roun’s too expensive, boh.

-Companion? Yes.
Sleep nex’ tuh me
Com-fiteble evah’ night, too:
Me King James Bible.
Heh heh

-Wait! She ain’ know you is tuh say, “Mornin’”?
Young people, boy.
An’ where she gine wid all she stomach at de door?
Nuh training.

-Wuh? I aright.
Done widdout woman fuh 32 years.
Muh mudda learn me to do fuh muhself.
I does cook, clean, wash evahting, bohsie.

-Hungry? When I reach home.
Got me mauby hey, so I don’ fall down wid bad feels.
Fas’ food, killin’ out de yout.
Like dey ain’ know dah tek de lead out ya pencil.

-Woman? No soul!
She gone…
…‘long time
wid anudda man.
like she addicted to he doggie.
Believe I nuses tuh gih she muh pay packet
when de week come?
Ceh ‘bout she?
It duh October t’ird, 1972.

Well, I nex’…
(Blasted gob’ment tiefs)
You ain’ know we pay fuh dis out we taxes?
But

I done mek up me min’
tuh wait hey fuh de lil’ pressure med’cine,
an’ it ready…

Tekking yuh time ain’t laziness, Miss Lady.

-----

Sandra Sealy is an award-winning Barbadian writer of poetry, non-fiction (articles), fiction and drama with work published in the region and beyond. Her poem “Beauty Of The Bald Head” (1998), moved from page to stage in 2005, as a critically acclaimed CD spoken-word jazz single, to a music video premiering at the African & Caribbean Film Festival (Pelican Films). In addition, this former Cultural Officer, Literary Arts ,is a storyteller and creative writing tutor to several children who have won many NIFCA awards under her tutelage.
Her blog Seawoman’s Caribbean Writing Opps, which enjoys a good Google ranking, reaches several international writers.

Renuka (Pt. 3)

2010-05-23T09:05:00.003-05:00

“What happen to you?” Nalini walked over to Renuka’s counter and snapped her fingers in front of her face.

“I was just thinking.” Renuka remained in a daze.

“I find you thinking real plenty these days,” Nalini joked. “I come to tell you that you could go for lunch now, because I finish.”

Renuka thought for a moment before speaking. “I didn’t see Denesh a few weeks now and I was supposed to find out something from him.”

“He must be chasing down some innocent girl somewhere.” Nalini shrugged without any real interest.

Renuka looked up with her eyes wide open.

“Don’t look so surprised. I hear he was seeing some girl a while now, but I don’t know if he still with she or if he pick up a new one.”

Renuka smiled with relief as she recollected their secret meetings. “And what wrong if he seeing somebody?”

“What wrong is that I sorry for she. I hear is some rich girl from Gulf View and they going and get engaged soon,” Nalini said. “I think she family own a pharmacy.”

Renuka’s smile quickly disappeared and she placed her hand on the counter to steady herself.

“W…where you hear that from?” Renuka struggled to find the right words. “Is not like we ever see him with anybody.”

“Well, it look like plenty other people does see him because I hear he does be liming all over the place with she,” Nalini continued. “And I hear she real pretty too.”

“That doesn’t mean is a girlfriend. He must be just liming with some friends.” Renuka swallowed the huge lump in her throat.

“Is not like he doesn’t have a reputation you know. He does feel he is some kinda playboy.” Nalini threw her a sidelong glance. “You never hear about how he fool up a few girls who used to work here? As soon as they see the good looks and fancy car they does get catch. I only hope you don’t ever fall in that trap. I working here four years now so he know he can’t try nothing with me.”

Renuka could see Nalini’s lips moving, but she could no longer recognize any of the words that were coming out. Everything around her became a blur. She wished the earth would suddenly open up and swallow her.

“You feeling okay?” Nalini asked with genuine concern. “You looking like you just see a ghost or something.”

“I…I just feeling hungry, I will go for lunch now.”

***

Another month had gone by and Renuka still had not seen or heard from Denesh. She woke up feeling nauseous that morning and regretted feasting on that mango chow the night before. She managed to get through her workday, but returned home feeling even more depressed and irritable. When Mala came into her room to check on her that evening, she found her bundled up under her sheets.

“That’s it! I give you enough time to tell me on your own what going on. Now I will have to drag it out from you one way or the other.” Mala sat on the bed and leaned over her.

Mala did not need to say another word. Renuka sat up, threw her arms around her sister and cried openly. When she was all cried out, she related everything that had happened since she started work just over four months ago.

“I don’t know what to do again. Now he does pretend like he don’t even know me.”

Mala avoided saying what they both already knew. Instead, she offered her a comforting embrace. “The first thing you have to do is see a doctor, and depending on the results, we go have to tell ma and pa.”

“No! We can’t tell them, they go kill me!” Renuka protested. “How I suppose to face them after they find out about this?”

“I wish I could take away all of this pain, but it’s not something you could hide.” Mala took a deep breath. “Right now I just want you to try and get some rest and we go talk about it later. I going and bring a cup of tea for you because you didn’t eat anything whole evening.”

Renuka caught Mala’s hand as she rose from the bed. “I did really love him you know. I thought he did love me too, otherwise I wouldn’t have…”

Mala sat down again and wiped away Renuka’s tears. “You follow your heart and nothing wrong with that.”

“But I never shoulda listen to him. If only I did talk to you first.”

“Is no use worrying about that now, everything go work out.”

Mala closed the door behind her, and Renuka knew her sister well enough to know that she could no longer restrain her own tears that were already streaming down her face.

Renuka went to work each day and tried to resume some kind of normalcy to her life. Mala had accompanied her to the doctor that weekend. He had advised her to avoid any form of stress if she wanted to have a healthy baby. That was going to be a very challenging feat. The morning sickness persisted and she did her best to avoid drawing any attention to her condition while she worked. Her heart was filled with hope and joy when Denesh came into the store later that afternoon.

“Pregnant?” his eyes widened when she confronted him between one of the lanes. “You sure?”

“If you don’t believe me, you go know for sure in a few months.”

“A few months? You mean you keeping it? You can’t do that!” he said after his initial shock had worn off. “I’ll take you to a doctor and he’ll take care of it.”

“How you could say something like that?” She placed both of her hands over her stomach.

He grabbed a tight hold of her arms and shook her violently. “I’m not going to let someone like you ruin my life. If you tell anyone that I’m the father, I’ll deny it. I’m getting married as soon as I finish my Degree and you’re not going to get in my way. I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that!”

Without waiting for a response, he released her arms and cursed under his breath while he stormed off. Renuka stood frozen in shock. Her eyes remained fixed on him until he disappeared into the office.

***

Another week had gone by as Renuka struggled to get through each day at work. Only the thought of having a healthy baby got her out of bed every morning and throughout each day. She stepped into the small parlour on the junction after she exited the taxi that evening. She wasn’t feeling too well and went in to purchase a juice before she began the short walk home. She greeted the two elderly villagers who were there and felt their scrutinizing stares burning into her flesh.

“Ent that is Basdai small daughter?” One of them spoke in a hushed tone.

“My sister see she by the doctor the other day and she say how it look like she making child.”

The other woman opened her mouth and lifted her eyebrows. “But I didn’t know she get married, Basdai never tell me nothing.”

“She not married,” the other woman replied. “Some boy must be fool she, but I eh hear who he is. You never hear nothing?”

“No, but I sure is not nobody from the village otherwise I woulda know something by now. I wonder who it could be.”

“That’s what does happen when you let your young girl children go out and work. You doesn’t know what they doing when they say they going to work.”

“She not a bad looking girl. They shoulda marry she off as soon as she finish school. Ent she write exam together with your daughter?”

“Yeah, and look I done fix up she wedding already. If I was Basdai, I woulda hide my face.” The woman gestured. “None of my children go make me shame so.”

“That must be why we hardly seeing Basdai these days. I must go and look for she.”

“I hear the father nearly kill she with licks and tell she to get out he house but is she sister who beg for she. The father don’t talk to she up to now.”

Renuka had heard enough. She finished her juice and quietly slipped out without looking in their direction. She placed both hands across her swollen stomach and when she thought she was all out of tears, they started flowing again.

continued.....

-----

Vashti Bowlah is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago, and a participant of The Cropper Foundation/UWI Creative Writers' Residential Workshop. Her short stories, articles and poems have appeared in newspapers, journals and anthologies, and she continues to pursue her passion for writing, with special focus on the short story. She has won prizes and awards for her writing, including The David Hough Literary Prize awarded by The Caribbean Writer. She also freelances as an editor/proofreader. She can be reached at vbowlah@gmail.com

Down In Front

2010-05-23T09:00:00.002-05:00

I wonder if you will be kind enough
to lower your head so I can see what’s happening in front of me.
Because I know that you don’t want me to be out of the loop.
You want me to be a part of the civic activity,
perhaps, in the way that all the rest of our citizens are,
confronting the daily issues that beset us on all sides.
You want to be able to include my name
in the list of people who care;
who can offer positive solutions for the difficult predicaments of our times.
But who nevertheless place blocks on their shoulders
over which birds maintain they will never be able to fly.

-----

Lee Stern has published over 120 poems. Many on the internet. He lives in Los Angeles

where he continues to age as gracefully as the circumstances allow.

.

Renuka (Pt 2)

2010-05-15T22:52:00.001-05:00

Renuka remained calm while Denesh drove through an area that was unfamiliar to her. She asked where he was taking her but he quickly dismissed her concerns. Denesh pulled into the carpark of a secluded guesthouse and turned off the ignition. He got out of the car and when she didn’t immediately follow, he came around to open the front passenger door. When she still didn’t budge, he stooped down to meet the level of her eyes.

“We’ve been looking forward to this moment all week.” He moved a loose strand of hair from her face. “I hope you’re not having second thoughts.”

Renuka felt a heaviness in her heart. Her eyes were fixed on the old dilapidated building that was in dire need of painting. “I…I just thought…” She fiddled with her fingers on her lap.

“I told you there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of everything,” Denesh coaxed. “If you’re feeling shy you can wait here while I go in, and when I return we’ll go through the back. Would you prefer that?”

She lowered her head and nodded. She was afraid that if she tried to speak, the looming tears would escape.

He returned a few minutes later and led her inside the building. They walked up the stairs, then through the narrow corridor and stopped in front of a door. Renuka blushed when she heard the moans and hushed voices coming from the other rooms. Denesh took out a key from his pocket and after some difficulty with the lock, he led her inside. He switched on the lights and turned on the standing fan. He adjusted it so it was directed on the small bed to the left of the room. A kerosene lamp and ashtray were on a night stand next to the bed, all of which had seen better days. On the right was a tiny washroom that was partly hidden by a door desperately hanging on to one hinge. Renuka’s heart sank.

“I know it’s not much but what matters most is that we’re together, just you and me.” He walked towards her with a broad smile and reached for the top button of her blouse. Her petite body was dwarfed by his large frame.

She turned away and wrapped her arms protectively across her chest. “You think your parents go be mad when you tell them about we?” She focused on a dirty spot on the wall.

“They’ll understand once I tell them how I feel about you. They want me to be happy.”

“So how come you didn’t tell them before?”

Denesh stole a glance at his watch and ran his fingers through his thick dark hair. “I have to find the right time and I will, so just relax and everything will be okay.” He removed his shirt and reached for her blouse again. “All you have to do is trust me.” This time she did not protest.

***

Renuka woke up very early the next morning. Memories of the previous evening with Denesh were constant in her mind and she walked around with a silly smile on her face.

“Ma gone in the market already?” Renuka joined Mala in the kitchen.

“Yeah, pa carry she.” Mala took a sip of her tea. “She say for you to wash the clothes and I go help she prepare lunch.”

Renuka fixed her tea and breakfast and sat in the chair opposite to her.

“I find you in a strange mood since yesterday,” Mala said after observing her for a while. “For that matter, you moving strange a while now, but today you just looking different.”

“Why you say that?” Renuka avoided any eye contact.

“You just have some kinda glow this morning.”

Renuka clasped both hands around her teacup. “You must be seeing things.”

“If you say so.” Mala shrugged her shoulders and studied her for a while. “You work late yesterday? I thought you does finish one o’ clock.”

“Yeah, but they ask if we could stay and pack up some goods that come in, so I was glad for the extra money.” Renuka felt guilty at how easily she lied.

Mala lifted her teacup to her lips and from above its brim, she studied her younger sister.

“You get your A-level results yet?” Renuka was anxious to change the topic.

“No, but I go pass for sure, and then I going and sign up for nursing,” Mala replied. “What about you? You decide what you doing yet? You can’t work for Maharaj’s Variety Store for the rest of your life.”

“I know, but I will hold on for a while and save up some money. When I get my CXC results then I go see.”

“What about teaching? You always like children so you could make a good teacher.”

“I was thinking about that.”

Renuka was thankful that Mala did not continue to press her on her whereabouts the day before.

Denesh had not tried to meet her since they had spent that evening together. She had only seen him once when he had made a quick visit to the store. She had tried to get his attention, but he complained that he was busy and promised to meet her soon.

That was one month ago.

continued.....

-----

Quartet

2010-05-15T22:51:00.001-05:00

We sip our tea and debate
if the internet makes the world flat,
though we agree that electric light
fails to replace the sun.

We eat our scones and compare
love stories from our youth
with all their first kiss curiosities
and how many dates before sex.

We wipe our lips and digit-list
our all-time favorite songs and movies,
and note how the count of best friends
never utilizes more than four fingers.

We sit back and breathe
in the violin duet that plays
Sunday mornings at our cafe
and wish for a viola and cello.

-----

Kenneth P. Gurney lives in Albuquerque, NM, USA. His poetry appears mostly on the web as he prefers to spend SASE and reading fee monies on flowers for his lover. To learn more about Kenneth, visit http://www.kpgurney.me/Poet/Welcome.html

Renuka (Pt. 1)

2010-05-09T09:05:00.001-05:00

Renuka woke up in a cold sweat. She felt disturbed and confused that she had had such a strange dream. She and her sister were playing cricket in a savannah. Mala swung her bat and sent the ball flying into the air. Renuka was running to catch it, her eyes fixed on the ball. She felt the earth loosening under her feet. Mala flung her bat to the ground and ran towards her. She managed to grab Renuka’s hand just as she slipped. Renuka’s hand slid out of her sister’s grasp and she started sliding down the face of a cliff.

Renuka dismissed the dream and her mood. She wanted the rest of the day to be perfect. It was finally Saturday. She didn’t want a silly dream to spoil it. She took extra care in getting dressed and even experimented with a bit of makeup. She scrutinized her appearance in the mirror and felt pleased that she had invested in a new blouse. The pink cotton material complemented her short denim skirt and dangling earrings. She thought of Denesh and her lips curled upwards. She fantasized about the special plans he must have made for them. This would be a very memorable day for her. She knew he must also be looking forward to this evening as much as she was. Maybe he would buy her some roses or even take her to a fancy restaurant. She smiled at the thought. She sprayed on her favourite perfume and was careful to avoid looking directly at her mother as she flew past her and out the door.

***

“I see you barely make it on time today.” Her co-worker greeted her.

“Oh gosh, Nalini.” Renuka rolled her eyes. “You know how hard it does be to get a taxi in Princes Town, especially on mornings.”

“Judging from that outfit you have on, I feel is some boy you must be checking.” Nalini shot her a quick glance from head to toe. “I never see you dress up so to come to work.”

Renuka blushed. “You know you is the first person I go tell if I have a boyfriend.”

Nalini gave her a dubious look. “You better hurry up because just now the store go open and Mrs. Maharaj not in a good mood this morning.”

“She does ever be?!” Renuka threw the words over her shoulder and walked away. She opened the door to the storage room, which also served as the staff lunch room. She searched through her handbag for her compact mirror and held it out in front of her. She pulled back the loose strands of hair into place and applied a brighter shade of lipstick. She dropped the mirror into her handbag and placed it on the shelf next to Nalini’s. Then she exchanged her shoes for the comfortable pair of slippers she kept at the store.

A few minutes later Renuka emerged, her heart racing when she caught a glimpse of the familiar figure just walking in. She almost knocked over a desk lamp from one of the display stands trying to catch up with him between the lanes.

“H…hi Denesh.” She stood in front of him, a head shorter. “I didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

“My dad has some business to take care of, so mom asked me to help her out until he gets here.”

“We still on for later?” she looked coyly into his eyes and fiddled with her fingers.

“Shhh.” Denesh looked over one shoulder and then the other. “Not so loud. What wrong with you?”

“I can’t understand why you don’t want me to tell anybody about we, even after two months.” Renuka pouted. “Like you ashame of me or what?”

“It’s nothing like that. You know how my parents are, so I’m just being cautious.” He spoke in a whisper. “I want to talk to them first before they find out, so promise me you won’t tell anyone until I say it’s okay.”

Renuka hesitated and he lifted her chin with two fingers, forcing her to look at him. “Besides, I want you all to myself for as long as possible.”

She turned away for a brief moment before nodding with a hint of a smile. “As long as you don’t take too long.”

“I won’t.” His brown eyes glistened when he smiled. “I’ll meet you later then, at the usual spot.”

Renuka floated towards the baby section to prepare for her first customer. She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs that she was Denesh’s girlfriend. She would be the envy of every girl she knew. There were several times when she wanted to confide in Mala, but did not want to risk losing Denesh, or her job. He loved her. He had said so many times. She would do as he asked because he was much more experienced in these matters than she was.

Renuka felt like a thousand fluttering butterflies were released in her stomach. Her workday was drawing to a close, but her evening was just beginning. The clock struck one and she was the first to rush out the door. She walked to the bottom of High Street, and waited. At one-thirty Denesh pulled up in front of her and she got into the passenger seat of his car.

She fiddled with her fingers while he observed her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She took a deep breath. “I just a little nervous.”

“There’s nothing to be nervous about. I will take good care of you, I promise.” He flashed a smile that captivated her and everything else was forgotten. “I was even thinking that I will have that talk with my parents this weekend.”

“So we wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore?” She turned to face him and her entire face lit up. “And I could see you more often?”

“We’ll be like a real couple and I could finally show you off to everybody.” He turned to her and she reacted with a contented smile.

“You don’t know how happy that will make me.” She touched his arm. “Because sometimes I does wonder if you really serious about me.”

continued...

-----

Elements of You

2010-05-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

you are
right handed
politically
you lean left
you are
warm hearted
yet your
hands are
cold
you
are a very young
old soul
who is
long winded
but short temperd
strong willed
but weak
in the knees
you are
touchy-feely
and then
standoffish
don’t know
yourself
very well
but still
would like
to get to know me
everyone
wants
what you have
you don’t
know what
that is
but if
it was
bottled
it would
be very
expensive
and sell
at Macy’s

-----

Ivan Jenson has enjoyed success publishing his poetry in the US and the UK and he has received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His "Absolut Jenson" painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Word Catalyst Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.ivanjensonartist.com/

Shuffling

2010-05-02T09:57:00.000-05:00

The waves bend
for shuffling, send
a full pack of cards,

one by one onto the shore.
The tide’s hand sweeps
up all loose change

into the sea's deep
pocket and throws
the dice of pebbles

out. I pick one up
and take my chances
with The Bermudian

Sand Dollar to bring
the return of memory
back home when I feel

I have lost everything.
I bet on the push,
pull of emptying, filling.

The churning rhythms
that turn a poem
into a small hard shell.

-----

Nancy Anne Miller was born in Bermuda and has a MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Her poems have previously featured in St. Somewhere and have appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, Haiku Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Via, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review and The Cordite Poetry Review among others. She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2008 and organized and read in Ber-Mused the Bermuda Festival Poetry Event for Bermuda's 400th Anniversary.

Trinbagonian Psalmody

2010-05-02T09:55:00.002-05:00

Sometimes you move just so and the heavens grow
Or you talk too hard and an angel’s lard
Fall and make holy bread upon your tongue.
Or you on the street and your heart don’t beat
And the world like hell with an oven heat
Because flour white, heaven white
And blind, you always blind.

Sometimes you send God wave, He rant and rave,
So you turn your back, you give God back,
Your face turn green, your soul get lean,
And fool, you still a fool.

Then it have such nights when the holy sights
Of the angels’ law there outside your door
Could move your heart ‘til your poor heart
Start to jamboree like mad.

So you lock up tight but the bol’ face night
Come again with flame and it have no name
For the thing that loose, like a tiger choose
To roam your dream tonight.

You scream, you scream, but it only seem
That the earth asleep and the answer deep,
Too deep to understand.

Now your head done damp, your crystal lamp
Guide you through the trees to upon your knees,
You pray so hard that you loss your guard
In the shadows where you are.

So you take the breeze and what else you please
You run and run till you reach the sun
Then the day come swift, the darkness lift
And you feel to pray aloud…

Yes you pull back drape, your whole soul gape
‘Cause you see God eye and it fill God sky
And it sound like love, it roar like love,
It make you pray aloud…

I born a child and I die a child
My body tame but my spirit wild,
My soul like rain and it fall a while
Till the ground done fill and the angel spill
Sun and wind from far.
Sun and wind from far.

Amen, and Amen.

-----

Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Summer Edward currently lives in Philadelphia. She is a Masters student in the Reading, Writing, Literacy program at the University of Pennsylvania. She blogs at http://www.well-lovedtales.blogspot.com/. Her poetry and art has previously been featured in St. Somewhere, as well as Philadelphia Stories and tongues of the ocean.

Issue: April 2010

2010-04-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

April 2010

Father and Son - Summer Edward

Volume 1:

Canefields We Too Forget - A Poem by Summer Edward

Relief and Belief - A Poem by Changming Yuan

Volume 2:

Broad Creek Sunset - A Poem by Jim Carson

The Antique - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Volume 3:

That First Kiss - A Poem by Raud Kennedy

Inwood - A Poem by Nancy Anne Miller

Volume 4:

Free at Last - A Story by Vashti Bowlah

Our Last Supper - A Poem by Ivan Jenson

Free At Last

2010-04-25T12:05:00.004-05:00

I hear sirens in the distance; growing louder every second. The neighbourhood dogs are howling. I rush to the living-room, and see my three younger sisters huddled together on our bare wooden floor. I walk towards them and see my mother sprawled in front of them. Her face is bruised. There are fresh wounds on her body. I whisper in my sisters’ ears that she is not in danger but they are too convulsed in tears.

A police car stops in our front yard. An ambulance follows. I run out to alert them but our neighbour, Tanty Rosie is already there. A crowd is gathering. Two officers and the paramedics enter our tiny living-room. The paramedics rush my mother into the ambulance as my grandmother arrives and accompanies her. My sisters cling to the stretcher, screaming, and not even Tanty Rosie can calm them. My grandmother is crying while the ambulance speeds off; sirens blaring once again. I run after them, but they do not see me.

I turn back and search for Tanty Rosie among the crowd. The gathering is much larger than the previous occasions when my father had gone out of control. Tanty Rosie is sitting with my sisters on a makeshift bench under the mango tree in our front yard, surrounded by others. Their faces are all somber. One officer walks up to her so I wait nearby.

“Is you who call?” asks the officer.

Tanty Rosie nods. “They father quarelling whole morning.”

“You know why?” The officer jots down some notes.

She shrugs. “He have a temper ever since I know him, and he was in the mad house a few times. He does always beat them children for nothing. Whenever they mother try to part she does get licks too. He never even send them to school.”

“What about the boy?” The officer gestures towards the house. “Garvin is he name?”

They’re talking about me. Why?

“He was like my own son and never disrespect nobody. Anytime he get a chance he used to come by me and watch TV. He say how he father going and put electricity just now and he go buy a TV for them. He was real excited about that.” Tanty Rosie’s voice breaks. “He tell me how he father make a bat for them to play cricket, so last week I give him money to buy a ball.”

“You see which way he father gone?”

“I was cooking lunch so I didn’t come out.” Tanty Rosie shakes her head. “Just last week he beat they mother and chase she down the road, and she was hiding by me. She whole body still blue-black. I hope all you find him because he’s a wicked man!”

“We go find him, Trinidad is a small place.” The officer closes his notebook.

A hearse pulls up. Two men exit. They are wearing long white coats and gloves. I follow them inside our house.

“I can’t believe a man could do this to he own child!” The first one speaks.

“Some men not fit to be parents,” the other replies.

“I sure this boy not more than fourteen,” the first one adds. “He didn’t have a chance.”

I step closer and see the lifeless body laying battered and bruised in a pool of blood. Flesh is protruding from the gaping wound at the side of the head. The cricket bat is thrown a few feet away; it is split in two. The men in white shift the body onto its back and into a white bag. I recognize my cotton t-shirt and drop to my knees when I see my vacant eyes staring back at me. One of the men moves his palm over my face and closes my eyes.

-----

Vashti Bowlah is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago, and a participant of The Cropper Foundation/UWI Creative Writers' Residential Workshop. Her short stories, articles and poems have appeared in newspapers, journals and anthologies, and she continues to pursue her passion for writing, with special focus on the short story. She has won prizes and awards for her writing, including The David Hough Literary Prize awarded by The Caribbean Writer. She also freelances as an editor/proofreader. She can be reached at vbowlah@gmail.com

Our Last Supper

2010-04-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

when you take
hope off the table
and serve me
stone cold
reality
without
any side
wishes
while leaving
me thirsty
for more
and then
when you
go and
desert me
and tell me
to wake up
and smell
the coffee
you have
not sweetened
well then
you have
not fed
my body
nor my spirit
and you leave
me with
no choice
but to go
to Starbucks

-----

Ivan Jenson has enjoyed success publishing his poetry in the US and the UK and he has received recognition for his bold Pop Art. His Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and he has sold several works at Christie's, New York. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Word Catalyst Magazine, Poetry Super Highway, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many others. He now writes novels and poetry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. http://www.ivanjensonartist.com/

Inwood

2010-04-18T07:56:00.000-05:00

Lucy's urine came through her white uniform
as she held me tight while we both laughed.
My tennis garb stained too with a bitter yellow
from grapefruits we stole from nearby orchards.

Mr.Gibson chased us, shot rounds from
his shotgun, yelled he would call the police,
large fruit over the ground, planets fallen
from the heavens after his aimless firing.

I sat on the cool stone of the tool shed,
peeled the skin off like leather from
a soccer ball we would kick all over
'Inwood'. Cut our loot in half to hand

over to Lucy with a silver spoon in
the middle. Segments now a sun dial
in the garden we made together, where
hours were ours- existed for the devouring.

-----

Nancy Anne Miller was born in Bermuda and has a MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Her poems have appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, Haiku Quarterly, The Caribbean Writer, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Via, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review and The Cordite Poetry Review among others. She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2008 and organized and read in Ber-Mused the Bermuda Festival Poetry Event for Bermuda's 400th Anniversary.

That First Kiss

2010-04-18T07:55:00.000-05:00

What was cute in the beginning
irritated in the end.
Behaviors initially overlooked as not a big deal
were the tips of icebergs floating
in a treacherous sea of unspoken rules and expectations.
Division of skirt-work and trouser-work sounded cute
until it meant being stifled in a fixed role
without the hope of growth.
I took a gamble on you, me, on us,
but now I wish I could’ve broken up with you
before our lips ever touched.

-----

Raud Kennedy is a dog trainer in Portland, Oregon. More of his work can be found at http://www.raudkennedy.com/

Broad Creek Sunset

2010-04-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

Light daggers
Crimson, purple, gold
Slice at the heart of a Broad Creek Sunset
Sol slowly surrenders to the Low Country night
Bidding farewell with a dying glow that backlights a cloud fuzz horizon
Evening tide recedes
Baring it’s fangs of cracked shell and seaweed
There is something for me here in these elemental rhythms
This pulse of earth and sea
But its import escapes me
I hear only whispers of waves lapping at the shore
And a solitary seagull
Cackling in amusement
At my search for deeper meaning

-----

Jim Carson is an Architect living in Atlanta with his wife, daughter and Snickers the wonder dog. His work has been published in numerous journals and includes poems published at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Southern Fried Weirdness, Dew on the Kudzu, Clapboard House and Pocket Change (of which he has received little for his work). He can be reached at jcarson@ncgarch.com.

The Antique

2010-04-11T07:35:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Latchu never expected such behaviour from her only child. Since he married two years ago, she felt she had lost a son, rather than gained a daughter-in-law.

“This house is too big for you ma.” Varun slid into the chair across from his mother and leaned forward. “What if something happens to you and no one’s around?”

“I feel like your father still here.” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

“Pa’s been gone for over a year, you shouldn’t talk like that.”

“You go understand after you spend your whole life with somebody.”

“I’m just concerned about you, that’s all.”

“Then you and Kate should come and stay with me, you didn’t have to move.”

“I told you, Kate wanted to be near her parents and her job after the baby’s born.” Varun shifted a few times in his chair. “At least think about it, you’ll fetch a good price for this house.”

“Your father build this house with he own hands.” She tapped the hand-crafted wooden arms of her antique rocker. “He give me this when you born, and I used to rock you to sleep here every night. He say it go support me in my old age when he not around.”

Her hands were unsteady as she placed them on Varun’s shoulders and kissed his forehead, just as she did when he was a little boy. “I can’t live nowhere else.” The tears came streaming down her cheeks after he rose and locked the door behind him.

A week later he turned up with a sale agreement and confessed that he had found a buyer for the house. He needed to secure his job at the realtors and pleaded with her to sign, which she did with quiet resignation. She vacated the house a few days later, taking only some photos and personal items. Varun promised to return with a van the next day for her rocker.

“You and Kate wouldn’t even know I there.” Her voice was barely audible from the back seat of his car.

Varun focused ahead to avoid her eyes in the rearview mirror. “The baby’s almost due and we’ll need the extra room. But I found a nice seniors’ home nearby where you’ll be comfortable and I’ll visit often.” He lapsed into silence.

She wanted to say that he barely visited her before, when she already had a comfortable home.

Mrs. Latchu watched the other residents with their visiting families during the first week at the seniors’ home. She remained confined to her quarters to evade their prying eyes, which held only pity. She grieved for her antique rocker that often brought her solace.

“Are they treating you well?” Varun turned up two weeks later and sat next to her on the edge of the bed.

“They okay.” She managed a smile. “You bring the rocker for me?”

He lowered his head. “It fell down and broke while I was moving it so I threw it out. It was old anyway.”

Her lips parted, but there was no sound. The silence stretched between them. They exchanged a few words and he sprang to his feet, bidding her farewell.

Her eyes rested on her wedding photo on the bedside table, and shifted to the photo beside it. She recalled that moment when Varun had taken his first step and she had grabbed the camera, encouraging him to walk towards her. He had fallen a few times and she took him into her arms, assuring him that she would rather die than see him fall.

She lifted the photo and pressed it against her chest, her eyes glistening with tears. She closed her eyes and a smile lurked about her mouth. Her husband was beckoning her with outstretched arms.

-----

Vashti Bowlah is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago, and a participant of The Cropper Foundation/UWI Creative Writers’ Workshop. Her articles, poems and short stories have appeared in newspapers, journals and anthologies, and she continues to pursue her passion for writing, with special focus on the short story. She has won prizes and awards for her writing, including the David Hough Literary Prize awarded by The Caribbean Writer. She also freelances as an editor/proofreader.

Canefields We Too Forget

2010-04-04T08:19:00.000-05:00

We forget the smell of canefields too
our cambric of dry season skies
grows spotty, soiled by foreign canards
shook from our souls the dust of an isle
to sink under Atlantic ocean trails
which we cross unbidden yet eager.

Sometimes we forget the old stories
that mango trees were our childhood
plums governed us like politicians
placed our red primers on our desks
stood alert to sing lustily to liberty
of creeds and races, our native land

Consumed, fires of hope and prayer
Consumed, pledge our lives to Thee
Consumed, our “destiny”, we said.

We forget Boyo and Carla, our friends
their lessons and profound meanings.
Anansi crept up on us in our dreams
spun the gossamer of story power
over our heart, as yet magic cocoons
or else it was red light, green light
mother-may-I, deep into starlit dusks
the balmy husks of coconuts at night

Could not contain this preparation for life
strange and ironic its paths, this life
bewildering and rugged its ways, this life
drunk as batemamselles wandering
by unreliable, treacherous schedules
of mating season seduction, this life
that seemed so impressive from far away

That made us slowly forget our fields
of cane, roaring sea in my country’s soul
great, good-hearted law not to trespass
the winding, sacred histories of slaves
indentured peoples, left their footprints
on the soil, so that when the ash flies
in a mid-day wind, we would not forget.

-----

Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Summer Edward currently lives in Philadelphia. She is a Masters student in the Reading, Writing, Literacy program at the University of Pennsylvania. She blogs at http://www.well-lovedtales.blogspot.com/. Her poetry and art has appeared or is forthcoming in Philadelphia Stories and tongues of the ocean.

Relief and Belief

2010-04-04T08:18:00.000-05:00

When one leaf begins to tremble
The whole willow may remain still;

When one poplar tries to shake
The whole forest will stay calm;

When one forest cannot help agitating
There must be something arising, like a storm.

-----

Changming Yuan authored several books before emigrating from China. He currently teaches writing in Vancouver. Yuan's poetry appears in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, London Magazine, Southern Ocean Review and over 200 other literary publications. His debut collection "Chansons of a Chinaman" and monograph "Politics and Poetics" both released recently. Yuan has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Issue: March 2010

2010-03-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

March 2010

Apalachicola, Florida - Ed Hagelstein

Volume 1:

The Wicker Man - A Poem by Andre Marsden

With Feathery Strings - A Poem by Fitzroy Cole

Volume 2:

Bloom - A Poem by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

The Day the Wind Stopped Blowing - A Story by Patty Somlo

Volume 3:

In View of Edison Bridge - A Poem by L. Ward Abel

Look Like Armageddon - A Poem by Randy Baker

Volume 4:

Circumference of Shame - A Poem by Ernest Williamson III

Smothered Nostalgia - A Story by Jill Okpalugo-Nwajiaku

Smothered Nostalgia

2010-03-28T08:57:00.001-05:00

The story of how we naturalized in America makes me sick for it seemed we had traveled earth’s farthest borders to hear that our country suffers from acute corruption. In a hilarious article I read yesterday, a writer named Stephen argued that Satan once lived in Port Harcourt city before he and a host of his angels were flushed out of heaven for breaking the rules. If I had my way, I would stay put there for it seems to me a more peaceful and hassle-free place to reside in. Were I the son that Papa wanted so badly, I would have sued for peace between him and Grandpa Ojemba who chased him out with a big coconut knife for refusing to help Obidiya wash off a pile of soiled dishes. Possibly that would have spared us this arduous task of living in diaspora.

Grandpa Ojemba finds it difficult to discipline his sons because he rooted in them the erroneous belief that they are super-humans. He disciplined sons by assigning them female tasks to test their loyalty to his teachings. Anytime I try to paint a panoramic view of home; even after I put out the carroty jack-o'-lantern Papa gave me for graduating cum laude; I linger in a mental blankness. How big was the coconut knife? Is Grandpa Ojemba still married to Obidiya? What would happen if I told him that Papa washed dishes for pay in a restaurant? It is this mental vacuum that makes me stay here without question.

Our house in Port Harcourt city had big fusain gates with ornamented patterns like the red-hot center of charcoal. Healthy green bean seedlings curled round the waists of gnarled pawpaw trees like knotted shoelaces, and there had been a giant mango tree beside my bedroom window where insects met. But after the swollen river washed away the old overcrossing, it was cut down to build a footbridge. And thereafter, Mama swept the spread of sand on our frontage with stunt broomsticks that left comely patterns on it. We didn’t pay tons of taxes there. Neighbors didn’t collect naira simply to babysit toddlers. And whenever we put on the black-and-white TV with antennas resembling giant nailheads, we never saw as many gunmen and serial killers on NTA as we did on cable TV. I am yet to precisely center these striking pictures of home in my brain.

This mental vacuum makes me ask questions. How did Stephen know that Satan once lived in Port Harcourt city and when is this “once”? Why hadn’t he stated Satan’s new residence: the country, its resources, the president? His response lacked answers for his theories take off from a prejudiced mind. And out of boredom, I once wondered what made him so.

Regarding these incontestible questions, I have shown willingness after these twenty-four years to remain in America. It is a decision that roots in sadness so I live here with my tail between my legs. As I knotted Papa’s necktie this morning, we talked about home. And when I wouldn’t stop philosophizing about the big coconut knife- the blade, the tip, the haft- he said it was my prerogative to extrapolate. After Papa shaved his mustache and tied his shoelaces, he said that Grandpa Ojemba had set aside some lashes of utali for me on my return. Such whippings would raise scarlet welts on my skin but I didn’t care for I have reserved some tears for that day.

-----

Jill Okpalugo-Nwajiaku has been published in Snap online literary journal, Identity Theory, All Things Girls, Glint and Poetry & Writing.

Circumference of Shame

2010-03-28T08:55:00.001-05:00

sailing south along Cape Cod
in the hush marsh
bleeding indifference
as the tide comes in
your hands were sultry
black
kissed with
sand
Jamaica came into our love
that moment
though I was draped in a T-shirt
twice my size
surprise in my eyes
led to weeping of my secrets
but the bass was hot and salty
and the lemonade was so sweet
I questioned its necessity
its necessity to treat me
more kindly than the
woman serving it
and all of my imperfections
so haplessly
25 years ago
this
day

-----

Ernest Williamson III has published poetry and visual art in over 240 online and print journals. He is a professor at Essex County College and a PhD candidate at Seton Hall University. You may visit his gallery at http://www.yessy.com/budicegenius/

In View of Edison Bridge

2010-03-21T08:49:00.000-05:00

The small fan blows half circles
right to left to right
in memorized patterns.
Awning shades and

keeps out direct breezes
from Cuba. They
pass through porch screens
on the day before I leave.

I’ll leave these things
to deal with stillness
locked tight behind hard pine
and history. No music will play

when I’m gone.
Old books won’t flutter
from anyone’s reading.
The solitary room

won’t wait for my return. But
we’re little gods who think
we run the world, that even
empty houses jones for us,

that our leaving makes
a difference.

---
Poet, composer of music, lawyer, aspiring teacher and spoken-word performer, L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been published at The Reader, The Yale Anglers’ Journal, Versal, The Pedestal, Pale House, Kritya, Ditch, Open Wide, Moloch, and hundreds of others. Abel has recently been nominated for “Best of the Web” by Dead Mule and The Northville Review. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006) and the recently released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).

Look Like Armageddon

2010-03-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Oh, mama, Oh, mama
Oh, mama, now
Say a prayer for yuh son
Dem out a street wit’ gun

Yout’ man dem lookin’ a fight
Mi feel seh blood ah run tonight
Teach yuh children wrong and right
Don’t yuh know it’s a dreadful life

Fiyah bun, world done
Jah-Jah come, man
It look like Armageddon

World leaders, World leaders
World leaders, now
Unu plannin’ for yuh war
But we cyaan tek nuh more

Yuh know we seen dis all before
An we nuh want unu wicked war
Ah one ting dat mi know fi sure
One day, we nah go tek nuh more

Fiyah bun, world done
Jah-Jah come, man
It look like Armageddon

Starvation and poverty
Mi look around and it’s all mi see
Is there hope for society?
Dem suck de life outta you and me

Fiyah bun, world done
Jah-Jah come, man
It look like Armageddon

When mi check the situation
Lawd, mi haffe ask why
We all need redemption
Hear de sufferahs dem ah cry

Fiyah bun, world done
Jah-Jah come, man
It look like Armageddon

-----
Randy Baker is the editor of St. Somewhere. His poetry has most recently been published in The Copperfield Review and tongues of the ocean. In summer of 2010, he will be releasing "Beyond the Horizon", a collection of poetry and prose.

The Day the Wind Stopped Blowing

2010-03-14T09:34:00.001-05:00

The day Filomena packed three square cane suitcases and left the tiny tin-roofed house she had shared with that man for seven years, the wind quit blowing in the village of Caliba. The men and women of Caliba stopped what they were doing and listened. Women leaned out the windows to hear the silence. Men watched the trees to see how they looked when they were still. For the first time since some Spanish sailors slid a small boat onto the sand in that jewel of a place with palm trees and parrots and the scent of gardenia oiling the air, the wind had stopped blowing and people suddenly became aware of what things sounded like.

Lady Orlando Dey heard the wood screech and gasp when she flung open the window to listen hard to that silence. Lady Bianca realized that her singing voice was low and gray, with the haunting flavor of smoked fish. John the Carrier, given that name because anyone needing something heavy moved called on John, heard the little click his breath made just before he exhaled and worried that his heart might soon run out on him.

As soon as the people of Caliba stopped listening to the sounds they’d never heard before because the wind was making such a racket, they got scared. The wind didn’t stop blowing for no reason. Being a superstitious sort, the Calibans knew that the departure of the wind signaled some sort of frightful disaster. So they began to fret and wonder what the appropriate precautions ought to be.

Some of the women, like Lady Orlando Dey, decided to hammer the shutters closed on the windows.

“If the wind stops fast like this, it will surely start up again strong and mad,” she told her neighbor John the Carrier. But without the wind, it was hot as all get-out and to close the windows made it hard to breathe.

John the Carrier chose to sprinkle dried gardenia petals on the floor in the shape of a hibiscus. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like a good thing to do. Hal the Shrimpseller bolted the wooden shelves to the wall and removed the empty bottles from the high places. Old Lady Minna Lee sat in front of her altar and kept up constant prayer for twenty-four hours straight without sleeping. And Billy the Lover Man visited one of his women and tossed on the cot with her straight through the night, until the sun popped out from the clutches of the glittering blue sea.

All that night the wind was silent. There were at least fifty different fights that flew around because for the first time, the men could hear what the women were saying. In Caliba, the women were afraid to tell the men what was on their minds, so they muttered their displeasure an inch or two under their breath. In the huge silence left by the absence of wind, the men heard the words they’d been missing.

“Why don’t he pull his big fat butt up out of bed and cook himself some fish? That man’s a lazy no-good-for-nothing and one day he’s gonna find me gone.”

The men heard this instead of the quiet humming they’d liked so much before and grew wild. Someone who didn’t know better might have thought the wind had come back, given all the air the men and women of Caliba were stirring up inside.

Filomena carried her heavy cane suitcases the two damp miles to Caliba. Her old Grandmother Pope lived in that small village and strung necklaces from pearls the oystermen dug up. Filomena had vowed never to sleep again in the cramped tin-roofed house she’d shared with that man in Granville. That man, Filomena found out, was doing his business between the oily thighs of too many women in Granville to count. If that wasn’t bad enough, Filomena had caught that man in bed with her best friend Dalia.

Filomena was a strong brown woman, with wide dark eyes, high cheekbones and a smile that made men blink twice. Her breasts were ripe as late summer melons and her soft round hips danced when she walked. It wasn’t the weight of the suitcases that dragged Filomena’s back closer to the ground. It was that man weighing her down. The heat of the morning hadn’t made Filomena sweat and wipe her brow. That man’s damp breath on her neck and his hands fiddling under her dress the whole time she walked had turned the heat up inside her. She tried telling that man to get off her back but he hung on laughing, reminding Filomena every chance he got, “I’m your man, Filomena. Your man will never leave you.”

That afternoon, when Filomena dropped her heavy cane suitcases in the little square box of a wooden house next to Grandmother Pope’s, she tried tossing that man off her back. But the harder she tried, the tighter he closed his arms around her chest and the louder he guffawed. The whole afternoon, as Filomena dusted and swept and aired out the little house on Seven Pearl Way, where when she leaned out the window she could hear the sea, she moved around all bent over, while that man promised that he’d never leave.

As soon as Filomena dropped down onto the narrow cot, that man squeezed into the tight space next to her. She had trouble breathing because that man was taking in all the air. Several times during the night, she jumped out of bed and yelled at that man.

“You get away from me, you hear?” she shouted, waving her arms and then rustling in one of her suitcases and pulling out a sharp kitchen knife. “I’ll use this on you, if I have to.”

That man only laughed and answered back, “Don’t matter to me what you do, Filomena. I am your man. I will always be your man.”

By the morning, Filomena had come up with a plan. One thing that man had forgotten was that Filomena happened to be a woman of power.

“You have pushed me too far this time,” Filomena said, shaking her finger in the direction of the bed, where she could hear that man snoring and feel the hot air he was stirring up with his breath.

Filomena pulled a bright purple flowered dress over her head and walked across the bare wooden floor. She unpacked her small black pipe from a corner of the smallest cane suitcase and a blue can of sweet-smelling tobacco. She took her time filling the pipe and lighting it. The air grew thick with smoke.

She set the smoldering pipe on the table and looked through each of the three cane suitcases, pulling out dried branches and candles, small tins of incense and boxes of brittle chicken bones, crumpled leaves in wrinkled brown bags and mixtures of dirt and licorice and special herbs that brought on a lightheaded feeling to anyone standby nearby.

When she was done, she closed up the suitcases and carried them to three corners of the room. She cleared a space on the floor, roughly an equal distance from each of the corners, and began sprinkling bones, dried leaves and herbs and dusty licorice, creating small piles, in a pattern that resembled a six-pointed star. She started to whisper next and blow each of the piles, so that the lines of the star began to blur. She whispered and blew, whispered and blew, and muttered things in a language without verbs. An hour passed and then two, and Filomena kept up her whispering and blowing and muttering, until the colors had mixed and created the most beautiful dusty lavender imaginable.

As everyone knows, lavender is a color of sadness. And after all her effort, Filomena understood. Lavender had to be the color she was left with. She had made that man go away. She had lodged her whisper in his heart, so that he would always want Filomena but never know how to find her. But in that man’s place was a blueness Filomena would have to contend with. And a lavender she understood might never go away.

In the middle of the afternoon when Filomena finished sweeping all that lavender into an empty gray tin she placed on top of a wooden crate next to her cot, the wind suddenly started to blow again in Caliba. Lady Orlando Dey was nearly knocked off her feet. Old Lady Minna Lee ceased her praying to listen and wonder whether the wind had come back to stay. And Billy the Lover Man kissed one of his women and got all wet and salty with her again, in celebration of the end of a silence that had started to make Caliba seem such a dreary place.

When Filomena heard the wind start up again, with a screech and jolt, then a loud sputter, until it caught with enough force to blow in from the sea, Filomena simply shook her head and said, “Uh huh.” She opened the front door and watched the wind whip the curtains into a complicated tangle, fly up her skirt and fill the little house that only hours before had been breathless with that man’s presence.

It didn’t take long for the men and women of Caliba to learn that a woman of power had come to live in their little fishing village and that’s why the wind had stopped blowing. One by one, they stepped into Filomena’s house. Man after man and woman after woman spilled their troubles out, cluttering up the narrow rooms and dusting the bare wood floor. Not a single one asked Filomena about the blueness hovering in the air and the lavender spotted in the corners. Neither did they inquire as to why she had come to Caliba.

The people knew that Filomena was a woman of power. They realized that Filomena had stopped the wind and started it up again. That was all they needed to know, to ask Filomena to fulfill the many wishes they’d been afraid to let out, until the wind stopped and started and something marvelous took place, though they couldn’t say exactly what.

-----
Patty Somlo lives in Portland, Oregon. Her short story, "Bird Women" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she was a finalist in the Tom Howard Short Story Contest. Her work has been published in The Santa Clara Review, The Sand Hill Review, Under the Sun, Fringe Magazine, Switchback, and in the anthologies, Voices from the Couch, VoiceCatcher and Bombshells: War Stories and Poetry by Women on the Homefront. She also has work forthcoming in three anthologies: Rainmakers' Prayers, Solace in So Many Words and Common Boundary.

Bloom

2010-03-14T09:33:00.001-05:00

(for Mama)

Her skin is smooth to the touch
Fragile in its tea- coloured translucence
like parchment, thin and delicate.
Beneath fingertips, barely noticeable,
the raised crosshatch of aquamarine veins.
Eyes are graying now, all of a sudden
after sixty three years of brownness.
Wet gray, like smooth, slick river stone
slippery, secretive, the colour of transience.
She has a way with orchids, people say
and her hands smell like green seasoning.
She reminds me of vanilla and garlic
for reasons I cannot explain.
When she comes into the room
she is beautiful in the most unexpected way
like a secret all caught up in a sigh.

I once heard someone say
that women expire,
… we fade away.

…..All this talk of fading
when we haven’t even
begun to bloom.

---
Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné lives in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. She is an English teacher, and has been drawing and writing for as long as she can remember. Previous publications include Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, The Caribbean Writer, and Tongues of the Ocean.

With Feathery Wings

2010-03-07T09:33:00.000-06:00

With feathery strings of shimmering black pearls
The morn stretches orange-pink fingers… welcome.
Before the crescendo of traffic and blaze of sun
Brunts the ripe squawk of birds
I too for flight am light-wired
High-headed and word-fully attired…
Dew on grass bejeweled prisms
Rainbow-spackled liquid prisons;
Pregnant with power overhead lines hummm
An ahm croonin’ too some
Earlymornin’blueswithoutyouchune…
One by one avian minions side-step
Down-wire like puffy moppets
‘Til slam of brakes and tooting horns
Disturbs Dawn’s calm and up-come Horus
Breaks the chorus of bird-song…
The afternoon beckons

-----

Fitzroy Cole migrated from Jamaica in 2007 and now lives in Miami, Florida. He has published an anthology "ForTheSakeOfMagic...PoetryIsLife" under the pseudonym Fitzroy "Jagga/Viva!" Cole. It was published through XLIBRIS and is available online from Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon.com. In 2005, he published a double/reversed anthology in Jamaica, which is available at bazba.com. It is titled "Lyrical Sonnets from the Heart/Sojourner".

The Wicker Man

2010-03-07T09:32:00.000-06:00

"Good evening, ma'am!"
"Evening, Mami!"
I hear the wicker man
Calling out up the street.
I can't see him and yet I know
Upon his face there is a smile.

Dark gums, white teeth,
And burnt-bronze skin.
"I bring some'a mi crafts;
Basket, Hamper ahn so."
"I mek them all miself, yuh sih"
"I bring them all this way come sell."

Upon his back
Straw items sit,
Each one as light as air.
And yet his back is bent
Not from the earthy weavings' weight,
But more the miles that he has come.

Her nose up-turned,
Face fixed in scowl,
She steps out with blind eyes.
She does not see the scars.
She does not see the calloused hands,
Or tired legs, Or hungry eyes.

There's no answer,
No words offered,
Just some grudging glances
And a shake of her head.
And wicker-man is sent away
To sell his goods at some new door.

Dust on his feet,
Pockets empty,
He wipes his sweat away,
Ignores his tired limbs
And dons his smile as he moves on
To try and sell his wares again.

-----
Andre Marsden is an aspiring poetry and fiction writer currently living in Belmopan, Belize. You can find more of his work at http://eulogyforajournal.blogspot.com/

Issue: February 2010

2010-02-28T08:25:00.001-06:00

February 2010

Three Tree Frogs - Amy Brown

Volume 1:

Ten O'Clock - A Poem by Charlotte Hamrick

Mysteries - A Poem by Geoffrey Philp

Volume 2:

Gulfport - A Story by M. V. Montgomery

Wine - A Poem by L. Ward Abel

Volume 3:

Beached Bones - A Poem by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

Chereme - A Poem by Kane X. Faucher

Volume 4:

Fingers - A Story by David Murphy

Strange Fruit Compote & Felt Up - Two Poems by Brklyn Vigor

A Pair of Short Poems

2010-02-28T08:24:00.006-06:00

Strange Fruit Compote

Strange fruit ain't so strange
'Least not in my neighborhood ---
That's all we eat here.

Felt Up

Covers hold me better than any soul could

But I’d rather feel a soul do it wrong

Just for the sake of feeling a soul at all.

-----

This is the debut of Brklyn Vigor as a published poet, though she has honed her skills for years through song lyrics, spoken word and through her blog. She strives to introduce heartfelt poetry with intense imagery for her audience, using words to create a visual portrait.

Fingers

2010-02-28T08:24:00.000-06:00

Imad Al-Bokhari of the desert city, Shangri-La, was born with ten fingers at the stroke of noon to a young woman with healthy teeth, breasts full of milk, three fingers on her left hand and two on her right. The right hand was wrapped in fine gauze—thin, soft, and stained crimson—because Asra had needed to pay for a doctor and was otherwise impoverished.

Asra, during the truncated time she knew Imad, said he was a strong baby—so strong she feared he would perforate her nipples with his baby teeth, so strong that his midnight cries roused the neighbors through the thin apartment wall, causing them to plead, “Allah! Destroy that child!” Asra smiled when she heard these solicitations, however, because she felt Imad would one day be a leader among men, and the strength he possessed as a baby would be necessary in the future. She kissed Imad’s forehead with her nose, rocking him in the crook of her left arm, and favoring her right hand which, in the month since his birth, had turned crocodile green due to a staph infection.

A month later, Asra felt feverish: her right hand throbbing, her palms sweaty, her forehead hot. The infection had led to pneumonia and, within two months, Asra lay dead in a hospital which had too few beds, two hundred patients, and only three doctors. As Asra’s family was unknown to her friends, Imad was raised by Asra’s neighbors, the Al-Bokhari’s.

By the time Imad turned twenty-two, he had become the preeminent thief of Shangri-La. He wore a long white robe, a ruby ring on his thumb, and he had no education at all. His beard was long; his face was ugly with warts, acne scars, and rotten yellow teeth. From long nights of drinking and cigarettes, from years of consecutive mornings without ever brushing his teeth, and from his abominable habit of sucking onions, Imad had acquired what seemed to be a permanent case of halitosis, and it was only because he tied a bandana around the lower half of his face—to confine the stench—that he could steal jewels at midnight from the bedsides of the somnolent.

It was during one of these nights that Imad the thief found himself treading stealthily across a soft, deep rug toward a boudoir, having filled himself with a touch too much to drink. Imad hardly worried about the drinks, however, because the rug was silent and the room was spacious and uncluttered. But the rag began to slip down his face, and Imad was so drunk that he did not notice the slipping rag or the misfortune that approached. With a small hiccough, the rag fell off, and the terrible stench of his halitosis was emitted; the tenants awoke, and all was undone.

In the months after Imad was released from his ten year incarceration, he found no work at all—no employer wanted to hire a convicted thief and a motherless bastard. So Imad was forced to sell his fingers as talismans. The butcher who bought Imad’s digits was a spectral man—much shorter than Imad—and thin like a slim iron rod. This butcher’s hair was long, and his face was sallow, with malicious eyes and a tongue that was said to be sable and like a trident. The cleaver that the butcher carried on his belt seemed half the size of his body, and this butcher, Hasim Hussein, was considered an evil man for all the amputations he had performed. Hasim’s amputees were paid an amount equal to three month’s wages of a working man, and the amputations were performed in a sunless alleyway which contained, at its far end, only a merchant’s stall that sold fava beans and rice. The wheels of the stall were broken, and the merchant hardly tended to his stall anymore, only sat behind the broken cart and read the daily paper, his cracked lips muttering as his eyes moved. The merchant was so accustomed to the violence of Hasim Hussein’s business that he rarely blinked when the echoing screams of men and women drowned the SCHNINK of the cleaver as it slammed into the stones of the street.

Once the fingers were dismembered, Hasim would place them in a vat of boiling acid, which ate the flesh away and left only the bones. The boiling acid would be dumped out, and Hasim would catch the finger bones with a filter, place them on a towel, and allow them to dry in the scorching Shangri-La sun. The finger bones would be strung onto a necklace by Hasim’s wife, Shahira, and the necklaces would be sold to the tourists who came to Shangri-La looking for sex and bones, or whatever else might be prostituted from the human body.

The stump, where Imad’s thumb used to be, burned. Imad’s hand was wrapped in gauze—fine, soft, and stained maroon—and he was afraid that he would either catch a staph infection and die, or that the stump would heal and he would live.

“Either way,” he mumbled to himself, “I’ll want to be out of the sun.”

The Shangri-La sun, which was hot even in winter, seemed to boil the city now that it was summer, and the air above the cobblestone, sandy streets was shimmering with heat waves. The white apartments of the quarter where Imad lived reflected the sun, and the mosque, which was the whitest, cleanest building of all, seemed blinding, so that as Imad walked past it on his way to a bar which lay in a basement below some crumbling tenements, he was forced to shield his eyes with the rough cotton of his sleeve.

Inside the bar, Imad ordered a drink and lifted it with the two stubs of his hands. The gauze stained the glass, and the glass became viscous and red wherever the gauze touched. But Imad cared very little if the bartender made him purchase the glass, for Imad had the equivalent of six months of a worker’s wages in his shoe—because Hasim Hussein had taken Imad’s final finger that afternoon, and Hasim had doubled Imad’s payment in a rare display of empathy.

“You’ll need the money, Imad. You’ve got nothing left to sell,” Hasim had said, then he brought the cleaver down. At the end of the street, the vendor licked his dry lips, his eyes feasting on the news.

After six weeks of drinks had whittled six months of wages into spare change, Imad spent the last of his money on an onion. He set the onion on the ground, which was yellow and sandy, and kicked off his sandals. He lifted the onion between his fingerless hands, and, through a nearly unbelievable act of contortion, he peeled away the onion’s skin with his toes.

Imad’s toes were blistered. He had yellow toenails, and calluses had formed on his feet’s soles. He could feel the customers in the market watching his contortions and, through the corner of his eye, he saw a woman in a black shawl turn her head. The onion skin felt light and flaky between his toes, and the hot wind whipped the thin peel away. Below his ass, the ground was sandy and burning, and the shimmering yellow sun—always hot, potentially lethal—made the back of his neck sweat, because Imad was leaning forward and was stretched like an ostrich. When Imad’s muscles began to cramp, he ignored the feeling; similarly, he ignored the cool, uncomfortable trickle of sweat beginning to creep down his neck and into his shirt. People passed very near him, edging around him to speak to a vendor in the market or to pay for their fruits, their vegetables, their poultry. The marketplace was quite loud, but Imad was unconcerned with the noise, because his focus was on the white onion whose skin was now gone. With his head between his hands, Imad could smell the eye-watering scent of onion, his own body odor, and, from nearby, the tantalizing smell of falafel. Using the very tips of his toes, Imad tore off an onion peel and let it fall to the ground. Chickens were clucking in the hands of a butcher as Imad trapped the peel between his two fingerless hands, put the peel into his mouth, and began to suck.

It was dusk—nearly dark—very late for business. But though the day was cooling, and though the butcher’s arm was sore, it was plain from Imad’s frantic actions that he had lava in his veins.

“What do you want, Imad?” Hasim Hussein asked, looking over his shoulder. But when Hasim looked, he saw in Imad’s eyes the drought and the sobriety that had weathered Imad, and Hasim answered before Imad could speak. “I will not subtract your toes, Imad. There’s no market for it.”

But Imad, whose thirst had charged his resourcefulness, had expected that reply. “There is a woman,” Imad said, “With a fetish for feet. She has a sexual hunger, and she’s so rich she wears a necklace whose band is made of blue diamonds. It’s not my toes she wants, Hasim; it’s my feet.”

Hasim Hussein eyed Imad uncertainly, “Come back tomorrow.”

“It’s true—every word of it, butcher.”

“Come back tomorrow.”

When Imad returned the next day with a splitting headache, shaky hands, and pupils dilated nearly to the size of marbles, Hasim Hussein knew that Imad had been telling the truth, and that he could exploit Imad’s condition for his own economic gain. Hasim waited for Imad to speak.

“Have you made up your mind? Do you realize I’m telling the truth?”

“I have made up my mind that you are lying,” replied Hasim. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Consider, butcher,” begged Imad, “Who would lie to you in order to have their feet cut off? Surely you must know I am telling the truth? You are twice a wicked man if you know.”

“Come back tomorrow.”

Imad shook his head gravely. “I’ll find someone else,” he said. “Any fool can wield a cleaver.”

“You’ll find others,” replied Hasim. “but my amputations are like surgery.”

“Then do it.”

“Alright, but I want your hands as well.”

That night, Hasim was forced to boil the flesh off all the bones himself, because Shahira had said the feet and fingerless hands were too grotesque to handle, and that any person who touched them would catch a pox, and their body would erupt in sores.

Imad Al-Bokhari’s foster parents had told him the story of his mother’s death, so when, two days later, Imad’s foot began to turn the shade of a crocodile, Imad knew immediately that he had contracted the disease that had murdered his mother.

Imad had a coin between his teeth when he first noticed the discoloration on his calf. Throughout the entire day, Imad sat on his legs in the market, and when people came by, they sometimes tossed Imad a few coins. He had started the habit of pulling open his long, tattered coat with his handless wrists, whenever people tipped him, and showing the philanthropists that he had no feet. Occasionally, he would receive another coin and a morsel of conversation. But when Imad discovered that his calf was becoming the hue of healthy vines, he struggled to his feet and, walking like a penguin, he began picking his way through the maze of unmarked roads and burning cobblestone streets that constituted Shangri-La.

Imad arrived in the sunless alleyway of Hasim Hussein and the fava bean merchant who read his newspaper unceasingly; the merchant who allowed his foods to wait and grow cold. In the middle of the alleyway, resting crookedly against a cracked three story tenement, was Hasim Hussein. As Imad walked into the alley, he noticed that the air was redolent with the scent of fresh blood, and flies incessantly buzzed around the body of Hasim Hussein. Hasim’s eyes were shut tight, and his chin lay slack on his chest.

“Hasim!” Imad called. “Butcher! Are you dead?”

Hasim lifted his eyes, “No—it has only been a busy day.”

“My leg, Hasim—look at it!” Imad lifted the hem of his robe.

Hasim observed the leg without discernable emotion.

“I need you to cut my leg off,” continued Imad. “The infection will give me pneumonia.”

“I can not do anything with a leg,” replied Hasim. “And you can do even less without it.”

“I’ll take my leg with me.”

“You’ll die if I cut it off.”

“I’ll die if you don’t.”

“Then it is all the same to you,” said Hasim reasonably. “And I am a businessman, not a charity.”

“I have nothing, Hasim. You can sell my leg.”

“I can’t sell your leg. No one wants a leg. I could continue to chop you into tiny parts, Imad, and no one would want any of you. Even your heart is worthless.”

Imad, impoverished, miserable, and with abominable breath, shifted from one stump to the other, and scratched his beard with the stub of his wrist. “Please,” he said.

“You’ve been a worthless wretch your whole life,” laughed Hasim fondly. “Allah should never have let you live. But I will relieve you of your staph infection. Lay down on the alley, and put your leg out in front of you.”

Imad let himself down slowly. Setting the stumps of his wrists against the stones of the street caused a trickle of blood to stain the gauze further, for the wounds were still fresh. Imad grimaced, but Hasim, who observed Imad’s face, displayed no emotion. Imad lowered himself to the ground, then lay on his back gingerly, stretching his legs out before him. Above him, a clothesline stretched from the rooftop of one tenement to the next, and orange and red linens fluttered against the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky. The alley’s stones were cool against Imad’s skin, and he watched as the linens flapped. Hasim stood over him, standing near his waist. Then Hasim kneeled on the ground, holding the cleaver high above his head. It wasn’t until Hasim grinned wickedly that Imad understood what was to occur, but Hasim brought the cleaver down, and the SCHNINK was notable only because it echoed throughout sunless alleyway, with no cry to muffle it, and even the merchant looked up in fear.

-----
David Murphy has an MA in English from Kansas State University where he was the fiction editor and, later, editor in chief of their literary journal, Touchstone. David is now working abroad, in northern Afghanistan, as consultant and Administrative Director of an educational development project funded by The World Bank.

Beached Bones

2010-02-21T12:50:00.002-06:00

We searched for bones on the beach
broken and scattered, like our own.
We found bits and pieces in the sand
scarred and glistening, oozing oil
still unbleached by salt and exile.

We’ve been looking for our bones
between the hot sky and the tall grass
for all these years, you and I.

We’ve been collecting them, shining them,
hanging them on hooks and strings,
pressing them against our skin,
listening for an echo that would explain
the gold in your hair and the slant of my eyes,
seeking stories beyond this wearying deception
of naming and being named.

We hid all these teeth and vertebrae
in your pockets, not wanting to lose them
again in the blue anonymity of the sea.

---
Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné lives in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. She is an English teacher, and has been drawing and writing for as long as she can remember. Previous publications include Bim: Arts for the 21st Century, The Caribbean Writer, and Tongues of the Ocean.

Chereme

2010-02-21T12:50:00.000-06:00

A chereme is the smallest unit, akin to a phoneme in language, of a sign in sign language. Think of this gesture, or quasi-gesture or micro-gesture...

The midflip of the infamous bird.
The murdering hand of Abraham stopped in mid-strike.
The aborted flagging of a bus driver when it is too late.
The intent to point at something that is now being explained.
The smile mothballed before it could be seen by someone who is not the person you thought s/he was.
A dead man's hand in the half-formed shape of a sign orphaned by its "speaker".
Urine that smells of gold in the rising above all pedestriana.

---
Kane X. Faucher is an assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of 10 books and has placed over 1100 poems, articles, short fiction, and reviews internationally. He currently lives and works in London, Canada. He is a recent recipient of the &Now Award for Best Innovative Writing, and has recently released a collaborative poetry post-code experiment entitled [+!] with Matina Stamatakis and John Moore Williams. His next novel, The Vicious Circulation of Dr Catastrope, is coming out in 2010 with Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink. He is also a co-editor of the academic journal Autopsia, and associate editor of the journals The Poster and the Semiotic Review of Books.

Wine

2010-02-14T10:06:00.000-06:00

There’s more wine to drink
these days, and less money
to buy it. Don’t say
I’m running when I inhale
my grape. It’s more like
singing out of fear. When
I drink, I stand my ground.
When I sing, I become
more than I am or maybe ever will be.

---
Poet, composer of music, lawyer, aspiring teacher and spoken-word performer, L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been published at The Reader, The Yale Anglers’ Journal, Versal, The Pedestal, Pale House, Kritya, Ditch, Open Wide, Moloch, and hundreds of others. Abel has recently been nominated for “Best of the Web” by Dead Mule and The Northville Review. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006) and the recently released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).

Gulfport

2010-02-14T10:05:00.004-06:00

My dad had arranged a few sticks of furniture to remind us of home. A fold-out table, two kitchen chairs. They looked forlorn out there in the woods, but when we sat across from each other, I closed my eyes and tried to ignore everything else: his tattered ball cap, his mud-streaked face, his scraggly beard. I tried to call up a happier memory of him making me pancakes, me swinging my legs under the table.

He slept in a discarded pup tent and had to curl himself up to half his length. The tent provided only an illusion of insulation, with an opening at the top where mosquitoes and flies could get in. But his body temperature probably remained too low to attract many bugs. Wrapped in an old blanket, he tried to goof around and pass the whole thing off as some big post-Katrina sleepover adventure. But I would sob after I left him. It all seemed beneath human dignity.

***

When the storm hit Gulfport, we dutifully joined the long line of unmoving cars on the freeway. I sat in the back seat under the mound of bedding Dad had whisked me off in, still in my pajamas, and we listened to the reports of the hurricane on the radio. It was scary but kind of exciting to see the families in other vehicles, and the state guard there trying to keep everyone moving, sometimes bringing out a tank of gas to a stalled car. We eventually made it to a Red Cross Center and were given vouchers for a hotel. That was fun too, since I had never stayed in one before. There were lots of other kids like me enjoying the strange holiday from school.

Then I would catch a glimpse on TV of our coastline and some of the houses and get a bad feeling that I would never be able to go home. I was right. When it was safe to go back, we only found swamp where our neighborhood had been.

***

After seeing me off to the school bus stop, Dad would sometimes go down and chip mud off our roof or crack open the stuck windows in the hope that would dry out the house. He also made a game out of treasure hunting, promising to look for lost toys and bring back anything he could. I was young enough to appreciate every musty-haired Barbie or stuffed bunny or plastic ball, fascinated with their war-torn condition, even though each kid in the trailer park had been given a donated toy after the storm and again at Christmas. But I accepted my father’s finds as the gifts they were rather than as hard-won mementoes of my own lost childhood. He soaked all the toys in a bleach bucket. That would get the dankness out, but leave them covered in black spots.

Dad not only lost his home in the storm but also his job, at a factory that would never reopen. Maybe if he had abandoned his house-salvage project earlier or if we had progressed further through the rings of FEMA assistance, he would have found it possible to get back on his feet. As it was, he would waste hours landscaping around the trailer park or helping the volunteers to unload trucks, feeling better that way about receiving assistance, or hoping to advertise his usefulness among them and to come into a job that way.

Then he got sick, he said from all the chemicals in the trailer park, and before he could ever quite get back on his feet, the assistance had run out and we were being evicted.

***

I’m not sure of all the logistics, but I’ve never doubted that my Dad loved me and did everything he did out of concern for me. I know he fought to get us on a list for public housing with the Mississippi Regional Authority but was told that the federal funds had dried up and the wait list included over five thousand names. Then after he got sick,

he started talking with the volunteers about putting me into foster care, just until he got himself back on his feet. He probably pictured himself showing up at my new home soon with a new car and bundle of packages. I know he never foresaw a change like that becoming permanent; he just wanted me to have a house and a yard and a stable life.

So I eventually went to live with Mrs. McIntire, a widow, in her mansion in a brand new subdivision. And I started high school.

Twice a month, my dad drove out to visit. He still had the car, which would noisily announce its arrival and make Mrs. McIntire look doubtful, but I would hop in and try not to notice the lived-in smell it had, because it provided us the freedom of some father-daughter space. We would head to a state park and walk around, and Dad would always bring something to eat.

He could even become jocular, firing questions at me about school and Mrs. McIntire’s and looking mostly satisfied with my answers. Or teasing me about boys and being old enough to drive in a couple of years, and how the roads would no longer be safe for him. I tried to solicit information from him, whether he had found a new job yet, whether he was taking care of himself. Then he would become defensive or change the subject.

***

This went on for about four months. One day Dad didn’t show, but I got a call on a borrowed cell phone. He told me the car had broken down en route and he’d been forced to abandon it on the highway. He couldn’t afford a tow. But he was not too far from my area and said he’d think of something. He asked to speak to Mrs. McIntire, who agreed, under the circumstances, to a late visit that day. And my Dad did show up in person at the door, dirty and unkempt. Then we went on a walk around the subdivision. He made appreciative remarks about the neighborhood and its natural borders and became a little gruff only after I asked him what he intended to do.

***

That’s how he first came to be living in the woods near the Poplar Stream subdivision.

The neighborhood is gradually being hewed out of a no-man’s land on the edge of town. It really does live up to its name by having a stream that cuts through the middle and into a wooded area, past the gate, builder’s dumps, and honeysuckle vines.

Dad’s visits at the door stopped when Mrs. McIntire started to object. He had nowhere to take me, no car to drive me in, and there was nothing but highway connecting us to anywhere else. Perhaps Mrs. McIntire feared that she would eventually be forced to invite him in, but Dad himself seemed equally alarmed by that possibility and the questions which might ensue. Besides, he was Mrs. McIntire’s biggest fan, always singing her praises and reminding me how fortunate I was (though he didn’t really know her).

***

A couple of weeks later, he caught me when I was out in the back yard reading a book and motioned me over. He whispered that he was now living nearby—quite close—and that I should drop by and visit him when I could. I grew excited and tried to ask him where, but he hushed me, worried that Mrs. McIntire might catch us. Then he pointed toward the far line of pines and my heart fell.

After finishing the dishes that night, I excused myself to Mrs. McIntire and went out for a walk. I never went out past the edges of the subdivision. None of the neighbors ever did; actually, they rarely even walked down the block. They just commuted back and forth between their workplaces and McMansions and led comfortable lives indoors.

It was kind of eerie stepping into the woods alone. There were briars that were a little hard to see and fire ant mounds to avoid. Vines covered everything else.

I did not walk quietly, and as soon as I thought I was deep enough in, I tried calling softly, “Dad?”

Almost immediately I heard an equally soft, “Lissa Honey?”

A lanky figure emerged out of the wall of green and gave me a rare, embarrassed hug.

***

I saw Dad at least once a week after that. I told Mrs. McIntire I was taking up jogging, and she accepted this part of a teenage girl’s obsession with her appearance. She might have grown a bit suspicious, however, when at the same time my appetite seemed to increase, and leftover buns and cheese and fruit began to disappear. I tried to keep my thefts as petty as possible, and Dad was too proud to accept food that didn’t look like leftovers.

Building had started up again on the edges of Poplar Stream: Phase II.

“What will happen to you then?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Might not reach this far. Or it might. I guess I may have to leave you for a while. See if the economy’s started to pick up.”

***

That was two years, three months ago. Driving school, tests and dissections, high school cliques–I survived them all, though without making a lot of friends. I often feel like an old lady hanging around Mrs. McIntire, her cats and her garden. Though she’s always been a gracious guardian, especially after Dad left, I sometimes feel resentful of her, too—not rich, but living in a house that could easily shelter a large family, and probably spending enough on cat food alone to feed several third-world kids. I know it’s not her fault. She was kind enough to take me in, much more than most would do.

Although it is the Deep South, it does get cold here in the winter and we have sudden squalls. When a flood hit our county this past summer, the Poplar Stream stream rose, flooding basements and knocking over trees in people’s yards. Of course I have lived through much worse. And I know that no act of God ever would or could separate me from my father. Only shame could do that. I wish we could banish shame forever along with port authorities, hurricanes, and gated communities.

***

I know that wherever my father sleeps, he is dreaming of our little bungalow in Gulfport. And he is always ready to get up at any time of night to bring me a glass of water or to comfort me from bad dreams.

---
M.V. Montgomery is a professor in the Atlanta area. He is the author of two recent collections of poetry, Strange Conveyances (Plain View Press) and Joshu Holds a Press Conference (Conversation Paperpress). His fiction will appear soon in Cafe Irreal, Weirdyear, and Two-Bit Magazine.

Mysteries

2010-02-07T09:24:00.002-06:00

(For Pam Mordecai)

I still don't know how you surprised
him, and I'm still waiting for an answer
for why you did it--like you
must have been hungry or needed
drugs to feed that other hunger
that vanishes in a cloud of smoke?
But the mystery, like the question
of the soul, the presence of angels
remains--why did you kill my brother?

Why did you mash up his pretty smile,
spill his brains over the back seat,
with your gun and bullets,
so I find him with blood over his chest
and arms down to his legs
that used to scamper
down the lane with one tire
and one piece of stick with me
trailing behind him, and we would
pretend that he was the Governor General
and I was the Queen of England,
riding in a limousine to King's House?

And how I wish to God
it could have been like when we played
dandy shandy, and I would throw the ball
so hard, and he would slide away
from the danger like magic,
laughing, “Slip, you fool”
so that when you think you had cornered
him in his car, all you would have heard
was, "Not there. Not there!"

---
Geoffrey Philp, author of "Who’s Your Daddy? And Other Stories", maintains a blog at geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com. His next collection of poems, "Dub Wise", will be published by Peepal Tree Press in September 2010.

Ten O'Clock

2010-02-07T09:23:00.001-06:00

She shouldered the weight of

her responsibilities by day with

proficient hands and simple faith,

treading lightly over stones immoveable,

through fields of sugar cane, sweet

but unyielding, skirting swamps of

quick sand waiting to suck her into

herself should seeds of regret find

fertile soil.

Her days were like this, bequeathed

to others, but the night….

The night was hers to covet

within a tub of steamy froth,

the earthy scent of tea olive

soap on a sea sponge

harvested from the Gulf, lather

from neck to breast,

from breast to thigh,

from thigh to toe.

Vapor rising as if from Vesuvius’ peak to mingle

into worlds imagined. Hercules

could not have been a more ardent

enthusiast of the goddess-born bliss

of her bath ~

(voyeur though he may be)

and within the vapor of her bath each night

rose also

her dreams, finally escaping

the daily incarceration of duty

to fly…

-----

Charlotte Hamrick lives and writes in New Orleans, Louisiana.

About Us

2010-01-09T20:25:00.005-06:00

St. Somewhere is an online literary journal with a focus on the Caribbean region and surrounding areas, such as the Coastal South of the United States. Our primary mission is to present works from, about or inspired by the Caribbean. Our secondary mission is to present works related to the areas surrounding the Caribbean, in an effort to compare and contrast those underappreciated elements of shared history and culture that exist between both people and places.

While print publications certainly have an appeal of their own, the internet provides a different type of environment in which literature can reach a widespread audience unprecedented speed. We believe that our chosen publication model gives us the opportunity to showcase worthy poetry and fiction, while taking advantage of the nature of the internet and digital technology. Through innovative and creative means, we seek to connect writers and readers in the ever-changing landscape of modern publishing.

There are many online literary journals and magazines, but St. Somewhere hopes to help fill an underserved niche in the writing market. Literature from the Caribbean region has relatively few viable outlets, despite its rich history and large potential audience. Of those outlets, many are not readily accessible to a broad audience. Despite the vast array of online literary outlets, those with a Caribbean focus are in even shorter supply here than in the print world.

Additionally, St. Somewhere wishes to foster a sense of accessibility that is often lacking in more formal or academic publications. As such, we seek to feature the work of both natural talents, as well as the formally trained, the emerging writer, as well as the established writer. Well-written and well-crafted works are, of course, what we wish to highlight, but we also believe that "literary" does not have to mean "snobbish". If we can find the common ground between the reader, the MFA graduate and the self-taught author, we will have accomplished this goal.

Submissions

2010-01-09T20:20:00.014-06:00

Submissions Are Now Closed for the Autumn 2010 Issue

All New Submissions Will Be Considered for the Winter 2011 Issue.

Submission Guidelines

St. Somewhere is published quarterly, with new issues being released in October, January, April and July. We accept English language submissions for publication in our online journal. Works written in English lexicon dialect/creole are also encouraged, as well as translations. Submissions are accepted via email only.

We welcome all genres, though we lean toward what is typically referred to as literary. The Caribbean region is our primary focus, with secondary emphasis on surrounding areas, such as the Coastal South of the United States. Work that has a strong connection to these areas, either literally or philosophically, has the best chance of acceptance. However, quality always has an appeal, regardless of subject matter.

Fiction: Please submit short fiction of 5,000 words or less. Submit your fiction as an attached document or in the body of your email. We prefer a web-friendly format, meaning that we'd appreciate it if you'd single space your paragraphs and double space between paragraphs, with no indentations.

Poetry: Any form is acceptable. Unlike some publications, we have no particular bias for or against rhyming poetry or free verse. Send no more than 5 poems, single spaced in the body of your email.

Essay: Please submit essays of 5,000 words or less. Submit your essay as an attached document, or in the body of your email. We prefer a web-friendly format (see above under "fiction"). For our purposes, we consider an essay to be literary, film or cultural criticism, book reviews or creative non-fiction.

Visual Art: Submissions of visual art will be accepted and considered for use as cover art for our publication, as well as interior art. Scanned images of visual works are acceptable, but photography is particularly encouraged. For photography that includes identifiable individuals, you must be able to provide a copy of a signed model release form. Please submit your art work as an attachment in .jpg format.

Submitting: All submissions should be sent via email to: editor AT stsomewherejournal.com

Subject lines should be formatted as follows:

Submission - Fiction
Submission - Poetry
Submission - Art
Submission - Essay

Include your real name, pseudonym (if any) and a brief bio of no more than 150 words. If you have a website related to your writing or art, please provide a link. Please include all of this information in both the body of your email, as well as in any attached documents.

Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but we expect an immediate notification if your work has been accepted elsewhere. Previously published work is not generally accepted, though exceptions may be made, particularly for previously self-published work (including personal websites).

Compensation: We do not offer financial compensation at this time for each published work, though we will award three annual monetary prizes as described HERE. In an effort to further recognize our contributors, St. Somewhere will also submit annual nominations to the prestigious Pushcart Prize. All of contributors will benefit from exposure for their work, including a bio and reference to their own websites, if any.

Rights: Upon acceptance, St. Somewhere assumes first online publication rights, the right to include your work indefinitely in our online archives and the right to digitally distribute and archive your work through downloadable media (i.e. .PDF or .DOC files). For work that has been previously self-published, in print or online, please inform us of the publication specifics (including links to online locations, if applicable). We ask for exclusive online rights for 60 days after publication, after which you are welcome to publish your work elsewhere, either online or in print.

Words of Advice: Failure to follow the submission guidelines as outlined and explained here may result in your submission being rejected. Please proof read your work before submission, as well. While we are pleased to consider all submissions, anything that needlessly slows down the process may increase your chances of rejection. If you don't take your work seriously enough to follow these simple instructions, there is little reason for us to take your work seriously.