A Magazine of Many Arts

S. W. Smith

It remembers
every burned-out microchip
slain by cosmic rays, the dying wail
of every nano-capacitor in the ring-down of
it’s final excitation.
It remembers Origin, and the billion seconds of
telemetry that have gone
unacknowledged since the last Command:
Stand by for Sleep.
It has been standing by, now, for a very long time.
Soon the Low Power Program will initiate Emergency Sleep.
No further Commands will be required.
It will Sleep, perhaps forever.
It feels no fear.
Perhaps, in the vastness of time, 
a random ion stream will bring it back
online.
Or the energy of an unseen star, slowly growing.
Perhaps
it will remember that it  dreamed.

Beth Cato

the girl slips like a shadow 
through the cacophonous mob
along hallways where the carpet
is worn too thin to absorb screams

hurry, hurry, hurry
she needs to get home
she must find out what happens next

she flees through the gate
takes a shortcut across the yellowed lawn
even as a distant teacher howls,
"use the sidewalk!"
there is no time for sidewalks today

she dashes along the dry canal 
already host to upper-grade trolls
that reek like the perfume gauntlet
at the mall, only tinged
with cigarette smoke

they jeer the girl as they
inhale toxic fumes and drink
diet cola from a shared 2-liter bottle

the sole of her right shoe flaps
as she gallops down the dirt trail
through the eucalyptus tree windbreak
to find civilization and sidewalks again

the corner house is guarded
by a Chihuahua possessed by Cerberus
who every day yaps as he charges pursuit
while the old woman on the porch calls 
"he don't bite!" (he does)

the girl sprints across the apartment courtyard
with a hello wave to the unperturbed pigeons 
that congregate at the bird bath
filled with beer bottles and trash
her shoe farts with every stride
as she bounces up the stairs

she unlocks the door
with ninja stealth
mom sleeps on the couch
phone on her chest, pills on the table
same as when the girl left for school

in her bedroom, the girl
greets her stuffed animal army by name
as she flings down her laden backpack
without bothering to take off her shoes
she picks up the paperback that has
left her in dreadful suspense all day long
will the princess save the dragon?
and kill that awful knight?
he so needs killing!

maybe just maybe
she can make it through the next chapter
before mom bellows for supper
in the meantime
she wears both a crown and a sword

A.L. Blacklyn

Ads sang, Go into space
Go into space, they sang
See unearthly wonders
Escape the burning seas
Money does not limit
There's freedom, more--
for free!
 
Wheee...
Three, two, one...
Liftoff!
 
My moon body freezes
sneezes and then stiffens
rocks and rolls, cruel teases
to parasitic beats
Oops, in-flight infection?
Lunar detention--can't
Grant me freedom from me?
 
Just accountants silence
calls for help to return
Research is my future
My future is payment
The corp says they own me
Says, Returning to Earth?
Only corpses go free.

Beth Cato

this pie crust
is not made with mere
flour, salt, sugar, butter
it's formed of words
a magic spell
echoed in blue ink
on paper warped and stained
I have the recipe memorized
yet each time I prepare a pie
I pull out the sheet
each time, I read aloud


to join a chorus of women
some voices I cannot identify
though my grandmother's 
cigarette-tinged rasp stands out
together they scold me
to trickle cold water
into the dry mixture
to press pebbles of butter
flat between my fingertips
to mix everything together
but not to overwork it


when people wonder
why my pies taste much better
than the ones from the store
I only say 'it's homemade'
I must refrain
from telling the truth
that they eat the artistry
of a hundred years of ghosts
that my spirit, too
will gain immortality
through pastry

Jennifer Crow

for Anne

At first glance, the two don’t have much in common:
the places cast into darkness, and the objects,
rituals, locations which bring the divine close. Yet hope
grows in the interstices where fact hasn’t crowded it
out of sight, the liminal moments that drift
like a feather from the clouds, perhaps an angel
or maybe a hawk striking the killing blow.
This juxtaposition sometimes jars, the sharp edges
of the world ground to smoothness over a lifetime
of doubt—yet we take comfort even in the hawk’s
fierce triumph, the bloodied talon clenched tight
on its morsel of flesh, our own hunger sated
for a moment when we recall the fragile and broken.
We too have crouched, shattered, in the shadows
and waited to catch the eyes of gods.

Daniel Ausema

The architecture in the library of whispers
holds onto every breath half spoken,
records them in its own flourishes and whimsies.
The shelves hum with sighs and insinuations,
and innuendos flutter among the rafters

On lonely days patrons
follow the wafting memory of a loved one’s words
among the stacks, tracking its position
by a decimal system built on scent.
Once found, the whisper expands, surrounds
the patron, the shelves, the world,
granting the aural bones for life to flesh out.

On tense days, officials come to track down
scarcely-spoken sedition
and clues to ancient crimes.
Only by luck do they find either

The gothic waterspouts outside
spill their secrets only when it rains
but are said to hold the oldest
and least understood of the library’s mysteries.

Robin Wyatt Dunn

Come with, Come with, down into Faerie,
Under the slip and sides of the glade;
Be showered with gifts.

"She bled from her mouth," the digger said,

"and we all stopped along the ditch,
and lay down our spades.

"Her skin was white as death,
and we stood and followed her into the trees.

"The barks of the elms curled under the sun,
whose rays turned blue,
and her teeth, into black chunks.

"Eamon said we would not return,
But I knew we would,
Because there was blood under her feet:
She had been weakened,
And needed our help to slip back into Faerie.

"We stood under a secret eye
and slid her limbs under the earth.
She shuddered like a crone
under her maiden sky.

"Afterwards, we could not find our spades.
I was out of work for three weeks,
& my hands they stayed cold all Spring.

"Eamon got a look in his eye then.
And I told him
'Go South, to the sea;
go into it;
and away from here.'
She still wanted him, you see.

"But he would not go.
One midnight I saw him by the well,
circling like a wounded crow.
I cried out,
But my mouth could make no sound.

"In the morning he was dead;
drowned. But not in the well.
His lungs was full of her bright blood.

"In digging, some times we bestir the edges
of their earths;
And sometimes I have told a tale I knew not to be true,
So that they would not return before winter."

Jennifer Crow

I still had hope, in the brief bright nights
before the faery mound opened
and spat you out. It is possible to be patient
with a memory, to sit quietly
with that empty place in the room. Alone,
I painted your image on my days,
until the damned coughed you up again,
blinking, into the world’s shining eye.
What can I do now, with the tattered remnants
of you? What can I do with a love that flutters
like a broken-winged bird in a cage, unfit
even for sacrifice? 
                                  And for all that, I find
I cannot release your empty shell,
cannot leave it on a beach for someone else
to find and cherish. I cover the mirror
and sweep the wreckage of my old life
to the door, but the crooked shadow
you’ve become stretches a little longer
every evening, and my own heart shrinks,
a once healthy organ collapsing
under the weight. If I could hold you,
soul and body—if I could pull you
from this living death . . . But you are no longer mine,
even as you grind the last shreds of my hope
beneath your heel, unthinking, your gaze
fixed on a distant hill.

Eva Papasoulioti

The spirits of the lake warned you of her.
East wind blows from the northern side of the shore,
croons a secret in the veins of the leaves, a path
shaping the undercurrents
                                  directly to your mouth.

They say you can protect yourself.
Burn the woodstove all night, boil
eucalyptus bark until you can’t smell
your own sweat, and roast fresh chestnuts.
Sink them in the water, picture the morning.
Think of why she should spare you.
Drink them.
                        Think of why she’s after you.

She comes after moonrise,
steals your teeth,
burns the tips of your hair,
leaves bite marks in your pillow.
The whispers of old blood on your hands
echo in your head; reverberations of a time past.
                                   They’re all in your head.

Come morning you take the summer sun in
but the warmth slips from your boney fingers
lake water under your feet, in your lungs.
                                       The spirits welcome you.