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T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W
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MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W
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H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W
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M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW
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E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W
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Volume #2 July 27, 1995 Issue #4
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CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 2, ISSUE 4
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Column: Brief Encounter . . . . . . . . . . . Robert A. Fulkerson
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Column: Toward the Philosophic Mind . . . . Kris Kalil Fulkerson
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Jericho to Jericho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amelia F. Franz
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The Projector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Franz
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At the Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Samuel Barasch
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Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tara Calishain
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Early Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Kei Stewart
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The Charred Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Franz
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A Review of Dr. Seuss' _Green Eggs and Ham_ . . . . . Matt Mason
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A Girl and Her Dog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Bothum
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Post-Suicide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tara Calishain
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In the Attic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William C. Burns, Jr.
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Girl at the Prow of the Ferry . . . . . . . Helen Crombet-Beolens
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Balloon People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arthur Shotmind
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The Glint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Franz
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Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas J. Hubschman
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About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
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In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors
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Editor + Poetry Editor
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Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Staff Matthew Mason
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rfulk@novia.net + mtmason@morpo.creighton.edu
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Layout Editor Fiction Editor
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Kris Kalil Fulkerson J.D. Rummel
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kkalil@novia.net rummel@creighton.edu
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+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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_The Morpo Review_. Volume 2, Issue 4. _The Morpo Review_ is published
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electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is
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permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the
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issue remains intact. Copyright 1995, Robert Fulkerson and Matthew Mason.
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_The Morpo Review_ is published in Adobe PostScript, ASCII and World Wide
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Web formats. All literary and artistic works are Copyright 1995 by their
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respective authors and artists.
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EDITORS' NOTES
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o _Brief Encounter_ by Robert A. Fulkerson
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I'd like to take a brief moment to discuss eSCENE, the new anthology
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of the Internet's best on-line fiction, and then I'd like to turn the
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reigns over to my wife for her first column in _Morpo_.
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Earlier this year, Jeff Carlson decided that he would put together an
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anthology of the best fiction published online during 1994. He asked
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the staff members at literary magazines from around the globe to
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submit what they believed to be the best fiction that they published
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last year. It was an odd feeling, choosing and submitting works from
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your own magazine for consideration in a "best of" magazine. Now I
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know how all of the authors who submit works to us feel when they
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confirm sending email to morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu.
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_The Morpo Review_ had two stories chosen to be include in eSCENE, in
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which only nine stories from three magazines were chosen.
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Congratulations to David Pellerin, who wrote _Why They Run_, and
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Leland Ray, who wrote _Pool Night_, for having their stories selected
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and reprinted in eSCENE. Congratulations and thanks also go to Jeff
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Carlson for a highly successful first year publishing venture. You can
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read eSCENE on the World Wide Web at
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http://www.etext.org/Zines/eScene/, and it should be availble in
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ASCII, Postscript and Adobe PDF formats soon.
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o _Toward the Philosophic Mind_ by Kris Kalil Fulkerson
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About two months ago, a doctor called me into a room to tell me my
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grandfather was terminally ill. As I absorbed the fact that Grandpa,
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the man who never got sick, was dying, my perspective on the world
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reversed itself. Things that seemed important became trivial, and what
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was once normal became extraordinary.
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Up until that day, normal for me was having Grandpa in my life, day in
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and day out since he and my grandmother moved in with us when I was
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five years old. It seemed perfectly reasonable to have grown up with
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Grandpa greeting me in the morning with breakfast, sending me off to
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school with a sack lunch, and waiting for me when I came home to take
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me with him to go eat or shop or seek out garage sales. Even when I
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became "too busy" for such excursions in high school and
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college, he was still there as I left for school or work, pressing a
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grilled cheese and ham sandwich in my hand and saying, "Here's a
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little something to eat on the way, honey."
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With the discovery of his illness, I began to realize how profoundly
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my grandfather had influenced my life. Like most of our family,
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Grandpa had a gift for telling stories. In my eyes he was a magician,
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crafting words into marvelous tales, with the images carried on his
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resonant voice being shaped and unfurled by the movement of his hands.
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With Grandpa, the line between fact and fiction was fine one, for
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real-life people and places invaded his tales of make-believe and
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exagerration always seemed to nudge his real-life stories into the
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realm of being "mostly true."
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Grandpa's storytelling was the bread of my upbringing. His episodic
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adventures in which my friends and I were the heroes nourished my
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imagination, while his nostalgic tales of his family and life in
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Detroit provided me with a strong sense of tradition and heritage.
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Through Grandpa's stories, I learned his basic tenets of life: always
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take care of your family, always look for the good in people, and
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always find humor in things. Grandpa articulated these beliefs not
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only in his stories, but also in his actions, which were consistently
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kind and selfless.
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The reality of his death is just beginning to settle in my mind. My
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habits of thought are shifting from, "Oh, I'll have to tell
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Grandpa" to "I wish I could tell Grandpa." Rather than
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expecting to hear his "Hi, honey" as I walk in the door of
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my parents' house, I find myself anticipating Grandma's more practical
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"Hi, Kris." But amidst all of these adjustments, I cannot
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assuage my need for sharing those magical moments of storytelling with
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him. As much as my love of reading enriches my life, there is
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something intoxicating about the bond generated between the teller of
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tales and the listener. While the teller gives the words life, the
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listener gives them meaning.
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Therefore, to both honor my grandfather and to satiate my craving, I
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go each week to the cemetery with flowers and a book. Sitting
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cross-legged next to his grave, I choose a passage or poem from
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whatever it is I have brought with me, and I read aloud. The very act
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of releasing my voice to the open air fills the void that Grandpa's
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death created like nothing else can. And as the breeze rises to meet
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my words, I believe that somehow my grandfather is listening.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Jericho to Jericho" by Amelia Fortenberry Franz
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Don Allen Poole is a pure-dee criminal. That was John Cole's first
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mistake, the worst thing he could have picked to say to me today. That
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was enough. But did he stop, does he ever stop after he gets started?
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You don't know him of course but the answer to that is no. Okay. But
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here's what did it, the very last nail in John Cole's casket: Does it
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run in the family?
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I forgot to say Don Allen Poole is my boy cousin. He is being held in
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the state pen at Parchman. I think about it sometimes.
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And of course I tried to explain how it was to them at the office,
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hoping I wouldn't get the electric paddling machine that is kept in
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there, which I'm wondering lately if it's a lie to keep kids like me
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from doing things like busting John Cole every once in a while, going
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upside his head when he needs it. A attitude adjustment, like I heard
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Don Allen say one time. He was talking about a different thing of
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course, but the principle is exactly the same. There are some people
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in this world who just simply do not know when to quit.
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Which makes me tired lately, which wears me out, having to defend him
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from not just people like John Cole anymore who don't count but even
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my own mother who is his aunt and has been knowing him longer than I
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have been alive and so loves him more. At first though, before it got
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to me I wanted to testify it at the trial for him, that he could not
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have done what they said he did which is shoot a man in the stomach
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from Tutwiler so he had to have surgery for it and nearly died. And
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one of the reasons I was going to give them, a plain one they could
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see and understand is I have seen things about Don Allen that none of
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those jury ones have ever seen, like the time a couple years back when
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he hit his own brother Keith Poole for doing nothing but cutting off a
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piece of cheese to put in a mousetrap. Now tell me this, how can a man
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that could not even stand for a mouse to be hurting, which can not
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even talk to you like a man does, shoot a person in the stomach where
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everybody knows is the most painful and takes the longest to heal and
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then drive off to Clarksdale and shoot pool with a black man and a
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Choctaw. He couldn't, that's the answer. Which I could have told them
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if they had listened. I could have changed the whole thing, maybe.
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But they stuck me for the day with Rosemary Spinks and her fat aunt at
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their rickety trailer, playing cutouts and Slapjack and hospital. On
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television they would say a man's life is at stake here, a man's life.
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But forget about trying to explain anything to Rosemary and Hilda
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Spinks.
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And that mousetrap is not the only reason about Don Allen. All they
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had to do is talk to him for a while and they would have known. He has
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got a pet bird in there now I hear, that he caught and tamed and is
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keeping and all the rest are wanting from him.
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So that is the way things are with Don Allen Poole, my cousin, and how
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he got in Parchman in the first place. I have been writing letters to
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him since December, saving them up for when I get to go up and visit
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him on a Sunday, which I have been promised for a while. I tell him
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things like this: Hang on Don Allen, People like John Cole don't
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count. This town is full of people who don't know when to quit, who
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would have stood in line waiting and hoping for a chance to put their
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very own nail in Jesus. Is your bird all right, what do you call it?
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Do the fields get longer and flatter and dryer the closer you get to
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Parchman, Is the air there still and heavy and bright when dusk hits
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and you are sure this entire world is ready to fall apart, burn up,
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explode, when you do not know where you stop and the rest of it
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starts. Does the whitest slice of pine ever miss the tree they stole
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it from, If a bomb is dropped on China what happens to the souls of
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them who never knew Jesus, who never had a chance, who never stood in
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line and paid a dollar a hit to pick up a hammer and take a swing. Do
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you get as tired as I do of trying to explain, Do you think much about
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Elizabeth Spears.
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I don't need to ask the answer to the last one, I know he does. And
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some other things I don't need to ask the answers to either, like what
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is it you do from the time you wake up until the trustys call lights
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out at dark, because the real name for Parchman is not Mississippi
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State Penitentiary like they wrote on the sign but Parchman Farm. It
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has made a lot of money for the state of Mississippi from what I
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heard, which I'm thinking lately does not say a whole lot for the
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state of Mississippi. So I know what they have got him doing at
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Parchman, he is chopping cotton like the field hands that you drive by
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and see but never really have looked at, picking and chopping down the
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long rows with the heat dancing silvery and bright in the still air
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where they are chopping and picking. Why don't the warden and the
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trustys worry about letting them out of lock-up? They don't have to
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worry because they have got that one solved. Nobody can get loose
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because they have got tracking dogs watching, that were born and
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raised up for nothing in the earth but sniffing out convicts and
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running them down. They sit up chained all day just hoping and praying
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one of the convicts, and I know which one it is they have been
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watching close lately, will decide he has had as much as he can take
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and will try to make it to the woods and find a shack or a deep ditch
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to hide in, and then the tracking dogs understand finally why they are
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standing there chained, what it is they were born to do. A black
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convict named Bukka White wrote a song about it one time. Which maybe
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is the reason for the dream that has been worrying me that I had.
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I was being driven by a man I could not see through Rome, Mississippi,
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down the blacktop that leads to the gravel road that leads to the
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Holiness Church where I asked him to stop. Where I was standing in the
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doorway but not inside looking at the women in that church and
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wondering who it was they were praying for, who are always fat and
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moley, speaking in tongues and flopping like chickens, popping their
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hairpins out and then falling slain in the spirit like they call it,
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and somebody finally reaching down and covering them up with one of
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the blankets they keep stacked on the front pew for people that are
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slain in the spirit. Standing there seeing how hard they were praying
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and wondering could it do any good and deciding I think that it was
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better than nothing and then back on the blacktop again with the heat
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bouncing up and the rows blurring past, like legs of a giant centipede
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starting to run together. Passing through the gate like we didn't need
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to stop and passing the women's part where the wire is not as high and
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stopping where I knew he was and being inside asking for Bukka White
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who was the only one that could take me to Don Allen and not finding
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Bukka White or Don Allen Poole or anybody else I could see and then in
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the lock-up myself, holding on and biting even the bars that were wide
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like poles, staring down the cells at all the rest of me's, looking at
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us looking back at me, held in Parchman Farm.
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That dream made me wish almost that I was not the cousin of Don Allen
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Poole, that I had never been inside the Rome Holiness Church, that I
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was one of the others even, one of the ones not set apart like me and
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Don Allen and Bukka White who had to leave his wife and baby girls for
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Parchman. Which the only good thing about is you cannot chop cotton on
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a chain, it is not like television where they are keeping the lick
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with one of them singing about silver and gold and laying the track
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and crossties with the rest of them saying ump in time and swinging
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the big hammers high and then bringing them down. That is one thing he
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will never have to do I tell myself but if you have ever chopped
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cotton in the delta you know it is not much better even off the chain.
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And it bothers me too lately that the rest of them, the ones like John
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Cole and the jury ones that voted him in there and the rest of them
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that love to tell me not to think about Don Allen never seem to get
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theirs. They sit in the cool while others are smelling the fertilize
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from the planes always flying over dusting, burning in your nose and
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stinking. They would not lift a hand, would not pick up a finger to
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help him out, to wipe the sweat off his face or hand him a cool drink
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of water. I have heard the Parchman Farm Blues by Bukka White, and he
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had the right idea.
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Which makes me think all over again about the dream, about Don Allen,
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about how when a convict got loose we used to sit and wait after Mama
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and Daddy had left with knives from the kitchen, me always behind the
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couch wondering how hard do you have to stick a man to take him down.
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Is it between the ribs you need to get him, or do you go straight in
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for the stomach. That's how I looked at it. That's how I used to
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think. Which is all right, I don't blame me, how could I know? But if
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a convict was to break out tomorrow I would not be waiting behind the
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couch with a knife. I would do this, hang a red ribbon out the window
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just like a woman named Rahab did that was in the Bible. Jericho was a
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strong city too.
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I hear them calling me to get dressed because today is Sunday and we
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are driving to Parchman which means I can take the letters. Which
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means we drive past the Holiness Church with all the women praying
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hard as they can for somebody that is trying to bust free somewhere.
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Which also means we pass the women's prison and the shiny wire and are
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inside and looking straight at Don Allen, right in his face. But the
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truth is I am not feeling so great. I am not feeling so hot today.
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I'll stay here instead and finish the letter I started to him last
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night because Don Allen understands anyway about things like people
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being sick. I'll tell him this: I could not make it due to sickness.
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Your suffering is not forgot. Rahab was not a good woman but did the
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right thing. Jericho was the strongest city ever built.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"The Projector" by Matthew Franz
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The blank screen flapped violently
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rolling itself up the wall.
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The projector had begun to make
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that horrible chattering sound.
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Frames jumped out of order.
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Faces appeared in duplicate.
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In the back of the room sat the elderly schoolmarm
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patiently waiting for the situation to correct itself.
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The pupils became restless -- eyeing their wristwatches
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inscribing dead words with their pen-knives.
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When the film ended (the presentation not quite perfect)
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they formed shadow-birds on the projector screen
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blocking the lint-filled beam with their fingers
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flapping like the slashing blades.
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And they dug deeper into the wood
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carving initials like epitaphs.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"At the Party" by Samuel Barasch
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Amidst,
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the purplered
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noise
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of the sweaty flashing
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lights
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and crowds of
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marijuana
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pressing too close
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beer breath
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screaming
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over
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guitars drums distortion
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and
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smokey LSD,
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I saw the strap of the black, felt dress slip
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and
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show
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her perfect milky back.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Houses" by Tara Calishain
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I started by loving the windows, moved to shutters
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opened the wide eyebeams of longing and wrote love songs to mortar
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palm against brick, hips to wall
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translated the message of digested stone through chest and belly
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being sweet with the framework, a statue with back to the road --
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with no voice to you I called to your house
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bribing the gardens and listening endlessly
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the weary gossip of the surrounding flowers and
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you became the heretic beyond the dark
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beyond the shade, beyond intent
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another framework I hoped would contain me
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wander through opaque fires and go unpunished.
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But I am too slim for you to choose
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there is not enough to me and I'm sorry
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but the green grass over and under testifies, and tastes sweet --
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I love you with all my intensity, and your house loves me.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"Early Spring" by Michael Kei Stewart
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Blue sky's an intrusion
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when the cloudy dims
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and branches softly wave
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their welcome to the rain.
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Then the sun's a stranger,
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and the yellow light
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is hard upon the poor old snow
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that waits for water cold
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to wash it down the drain.
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Rain turns all to smoky day;
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the grey clouds close my eyes
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and turn me
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back in memory
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to moors unvisited, and that grey rock
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where clutched my hands
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green lichen
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on the cold, damp rough.
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These tired beginnings
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are like sleep:
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When seasons change
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we want just five more minutes to remain
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ourselves
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before becoming something new.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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"The Charred Language" by Matthew Franz
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I am provided new hope
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by the sharp straight sticks
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bark peeling from the trees
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unwrapping itself down the trunk
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layer by layer
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the moments
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the residual years
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the dead flesh cleansed
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by peroxide-foam.
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Lower the ear slightly to hear
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this silent language bubbling anew.
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Waft the mediciny aura
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to clogged nostrils.
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Probe the dark cavities.
|
|
Feel the eyelids
|
|
of reconstructed dinosaurs open.
|
|
Spray the bones with distilled water.
|
|
Splash the tarnishing of time:
|
|
foreign bodies bonded
|
|
where the flesh used to prickle
|
|
where hair stood on end.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
A Review of Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" by Matt Mason
|
|
|
|
|
|
_Green Eggs And Ham_ is a book which certainly caught me by surprise.
|
|
I hardly expected a book with a bright orange cover and a goofy feline
|
|
in the upper-right corner saying "I Can Read It All By Myself:
|
|
Beginner Books" to be such a stunningly frank analysis of human sexual
|
|
maturation. But Seuss certainly defies the reader's expectations, and
|
|
he does so wonderfully.
|
|
|
|
The book begins with one character rolling across the pages with a
|
|
sign reading "I am Sam" (3) and then "Sam I am" (7). Seuss starts off
|
|
with a blatant Judeo-Christian Yahweh image, recalling God's response
|
|
to Moses on Mt. Sinai when Moses asked who was speaking to him, and
|
|
God replied with a resounding, "I AM" (Exodus 3:14). Here, Seuss gives
|
|
us a softer "I am," cleverly mixing the Christian with the
|
|
pre-Christian in the form of Sam, a character who begins with the
|
|
omnipotent cry of the Biblical God but whose name and playfulness hint
|
|
that he is also to be considered a Pan-like character.
|
|
|
|
We then see Sam approach the book's other character, an unnamed
|
|
Everyman whom he offers the green eggs and ham. The eggs are clearly
|
|
symbolic of the female ovum, the ham (the meat) being the male penis,
|
|
and the green coloration is a common symbol of springtime, new life,
|
|
the awakening of sexual urges. So Sam is not simply offering food, Sam
|
|
is questioning our young Everyman about sexual desires.
|
|
|
|
At first, Everyman only sees these urges as an unwelcome distraction,
|
|
proclaiming, "...That Sam-I-am!/ I do not like/ that Sam-I-am!" and
|
|
then denouncing the green eggs and ham, striking out at and denying
|
|
the strangeness and discomfort of the biological stirrings working
|
|
within (9).
|
|
|
|
And so Sam begins testing Everyman. He begins in a simple yet
|
|
existential way, asking, "Would you like them/ here or there?"
|
|
effectively asking if Everyman would prefer that sex be in a
|
|
conservative, imaginable fashion in the "here" or in the unexpected,
|
|
the different, distant, far-out "there" (14).
|
|
|
|
But Everyman refuses to even consider it, turning away from Sam.
|
|
|
|
No sooner has Everyman's back turned, though, and Sam appears again
|
|
and demands attention. This time, he asks, "Would you like them/ in a
|
|
house?" (19). Sam attempts to see if Everyman's doubts about sex stem
|
|
from the fear of possibly starting a family and being financially
|
|
unable to care for them; if Everyman was prosperous, owned a house,
|
|
would that soothe Everyman's negativity towards sex?
|
|
|
|
Sam also takes this opportunity to ask, "Would you like them/ with a
|
|
mouse?" indicating a timid partner for Everyman (19). Sam wonders if
|
|
the sexual experience scares Everyman, and perhaps a submissive,
|
|
non-threatening partner, symbolized by the mouse, would be what
|
|
Everyman needs to be comfortable with his/her own sexuality.
|
|
|
|
But, again, the answer is resoundingly negative, a denouncement of the
|
|
natural gifts represented the by green eggs and ham.
|
|
|
|
Our plucky little Pan is far from satisfied, though, and returns in
|
|
Everyman's path, asking, "Would you eat them in a box?" (22). His
|
|
earlier question about the house was, perhaps, not relevant; so Sam
|
|
wonders if Everyman would prefer simple, more hardy circumstances.
|
|
Nothing fancy, nothing expensive, just the spare setting of a box.
|
|
|
|
Like before, he joins this with a second question, asking, "Would you
|
|
eat them with a fox", an obvious counter to the timid mouse-partner of
|
|
before (22). Now Sam asks if Everyman would prefer a wilder partner,
|
|
someone beautiful and inventive; the fox representing not only beauty
|
|
in the American fashion, but the wisdom and cunning of older, European
|
|
folklore.
|
|
|
|
But Everyman simply repudiates all of Sam's offers:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Not in a box.
|
|
Not with a fox.
|
|
Not in a house.
|
|
Not with a mouse.
|
|
I would not eat them here or there.
|
|
I would not eat them anywhere.
|
|
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
|
|
I do not like them, Sam-I-am. (24)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Everyman claims empirical control over these boiling urges. By
|
|
stating, "I would not eat them anywhere", Everyman steadfastly refuses
|
|
to give in to any aspect of sexual curiosity. Even so, we can see that
|
|
it's unsettling, as the frantic and lengthy reply to Sam shows.
|
|
|
|
And then Sam tries a different angle. He wonders if what Everyman
|
|
needs to "turn on" is something technological, modern, perhaps
|
|
electrical or synthetic. He asks the bold question, "Would you? Could
|
|
you/ in a car?" (26). Sam hints in Freudian terms that perhaps sex
|
|
could spur on Everyman's movement of the ego through the
|
|
transportation symbol of the car.
|
|
|
|
But, as before, Everyman rejects this.
|
|
|
|
So Sam counters with, "You may like them/ in a tree!" (28). If
|
|
technology may seem a bit shaky to Everyman, it seems logical that
|
|
nature, symbolized by the tree, is what it takes to make this Everyman
|
|
recognize and respond to his inner stirrings, inner stirrings which
|
|
can be said to be nothing more than common and natural in all living
|
|
creatures.
|
|
|
|
Steadfast and determined, Everyman again rejects Sam's questions, but
|
|
the lengthy answer (again rejecting the box, fox, house, mouse, etc.)
|
|
shows that Sam's (nature's) persistence is unsettling Everyman.
|
|
|
|
So Sam immediately hits with, "A train! A train!/ A train! A train!/
|
|
Could you, would you, on a train?" (33). Sam is tempting Everyman by
|
|
exclaiming (four times! just like there are four compass directions,
|
|
four corners of the world, etc.) a symbol of even larger ego movement
|
|
than the car! Here, Seuss uses a strong symbol of fertility; with its
|
|
phallic shape and sexual rhythm, when trains were first introduced to
|
|
less developed nations, sometimes women would gather near the train
|
|
tracks and lift their skirts as the train passed, believing the virile
|
|
train would fertilize them. So here, Sam tests to see if what Everyman
|
|
desires is great power, growth, and fertility.
|
|
|
|
Again, Everyman curtly refuses, lamenting, "Not on a train!! Not in a
|
|
tree!/ Not in a car! Sam! Let me be!/ I would not, could not, in a
|
|
box," etc. (34).
|
|
|
|
This train section's placement is particularly important. In Sam's
|
|
inquest, I mark nine clear sections (counting the car and tree as one
|
|
section, similar to "box and fox" and "house and mouse" since they are
|
|
clearly paired up as opposites) and this is the fifth, the central
|
|
one. This section clarifies that the issue preventing Everyman from
|
|
giving in to Sam's questioning is deeper than a physical impotence, as
|
|
Everyman is here symbolically offered great virility. It's Seuss' way
|
|
of letting us know that we should be looking deeper when Everyman
|
|
replies "I would not, could not."
|
|
|
|
Sam then continues, testing to see if what Everyman wants is mystery,
|
|
perhaps danger, asking, "Would you, could you, in the dark?" (36).
|
|
There's no reason to believe that Sam here refers to a sinful dark, it
|
|
seems more a darkness where inhibitions are lowered, a more soothing
|
|
venue in which Everyman could feel more comfortable and less
|
|
self-conscious about sexual expression. It could also be a dark of
|
|
fear, as Sam must honestly admit that sexual expression has many
|
|
frightening aspects in the forms of diseases, unwanted pregnancies,
|
|
the pain of giving birth, etc.; Sam moves from the easier, fluffier
|
|
approach to a more honest one with this.
|
|
|
|
And Everyman gives the constant reply, "I would not, could not..."
|
|
(37).
|
|
|
|
Sam then tries to see if sex for more hedonistic reasons would appeal
|
|
to Everyman. "Would you, could you,/ in the rain?" (38). In almost all
|
|
mythologies, water represents life, as that's what rivers and spring
|
|
rains bring to agricultural societies. So would Everyman have sex if,
|
|
not just being life-creating in the form of offspring, it were a
|
|
life-giving act for Everyman, a refreshment, a germination, a baptism
|
|
into new life, new awareness?
|
|
|
|
Again, No.
|
|
|
|
Here, then, Sam stops and asks simply, "You do not like/ green eggs
|
|
and ham?" (40) to the expected reply of, "I do not/ like them,/
|
|
Sam-I-am" (41). I find it fascinating that Sam here returns to the
|
|
basic question. This underscores how far Sam has come from that basic
|
|
question and shown many facets to human sexuality.
|
|
|
|
And then Sam continues, "Could you, would you,/ with a goat?" a
|
|
surprising and pivotal question at this point (42). At first we wonder
|
|
why Seuss would bring in such a bizarre animal here, but the answer,
|
|
of course, comes from the ancient Greeks. As most competent drama
|
|
students could tell you, the Greeks had a ceremony where they would
|
|
take a goat and ritually place the collective sins and problems of the
|
|
village on the poor beast, then beat it and send it away as a
|
|
purification of the village. Here, Sam tries to show sex as a
|
|
purifying act, asking Everyman to see that sins and hang-ups have no
|
|
place here, they can be exorcised as God is not the prudish God of
|
|
some interpretations but an earthier God who asks us to embrace our
|
|
sexual natures.
|
|
|
|
And then, finally, Sam asks, "Would you, could you,/ on a boat" (44).
|
|
Sam indicates a more massive movement of the ego than either the car
|
|
or the train of before. Slower, yes, but larger. Plus the entire
|
|
purpose of the boat is to travel on top of the water, on top of
|
|
life-giving forces vastly larger than the rain Sam brought up earlier.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yet Everyman still replies:
|
|
|
|
|
|
I would not, could not, on a boat.
|
|
I will not, will not, with a goat.
|
|
I will not eat them in the rain.
|
|
I will not eat them on a train.
|
|
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
|
|
Not in a car! You let me be!
|
|
I do not like them in a box.
|
|
I do not like them with a fox.
|
|
I will not eat them in a house.
|
|
I do not like them with a mouse.
|
|
I do not like them here or there.
|
|
I do not like them ANYWHERE! (46)
|
|
|
|
I do not like
|
|
green eggs
|
|
and ham! (49)
|
|
|
|
I do not like them,
|
|
Sam-I-am. (50)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As Everyman says this, notice how it slows down from an orderly list
|
|
of what Everyman does not like to the shifting of the structure into
|
|
smaller, enjambed lines. This change is actually best conveyed by the
|
|
illustration which Seuss uses at this point in the book. His drawing
|
|
shows the boat, which Sam had just brought up, sinking to leave him
|
|
and Everyman immersed in an ocean: no longer floating atop life and
|
|
nature and mystery but actually swimming in it!
|
|
|
|
Here, the narrative leaves the theoretical, as Sam no longer asks, he
|
|
states:
|
|
|
|
|
|
You do not like them.
|
|
So you say.
|
|
Try them! Try them!
|
|
And you may.
|
|
Try them and you may, I say. (53)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And Everyman finally gives in! Out of sheer exhaustion, he takes a
|
|
bite and is immediately electrified:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Say!
|
|
I like green eggs and ham!
|
|
I do! I like them, Sam-I-am!
|
|
And I would eat them in a boat.
|
|
And I would eat them with a goat... (59)
|
|
And I will eat them in the rain.
|
|
And in the dark. And on a train.
|
|
And in a car. And in a tree.
|
|
They are so good, so good, you see! (60)
|
|
So I will eat them in a box.
|
|
And I will eat them with a fox.
|
|
And I will eat them in a house.
|
|
And I will eat them with a mouse.
|
|
And I will eat them here and there.
|
|
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE! (61)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is a long journey, but Seuss shows that the persistence of nature
|
|
(or our God-given biological urges) can eventually wear down anyone.
|
|
As Everyman goes through the full journey of sexual maturation,
|
|
Everyman discovers all the things that sexual expression can be,
|
|
until, in that climactic scene, everything falls into place; Everyman
|
|
is both worn down by Sam's persistence and fully aware of the
|
|
complexity of all the facets to a blooming sexuality, causing Everyman
|
|
to try and then to joyfully embrace the "green eggs and ham."
|
|
|
|
Through this simple narrative, Dr. Seuss has created a brilliant
|
|
account of human coming- of-age. It also contains a message that sex
|
|
is not something to feel ashamed of, for did not even the
|
|
Judeo-Christian God ask us to "go forth and multiply" (Genesis 9:7)?
|
|
Seuss shows us that a well-informed, even skeptically approached
|
|
sexuality can be a good thing, as this is no ignorant, uninformed
|
|
desire; Everyman is careful, realizing all that sex can be before
|
|
embracing it!
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"A Girl and Her Dog" by Mark Bothum
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 1
|
|
|
|
"That dog of yours is completely useless."
|
|
|
|
"He's a dog. What's he supposed to do? "
|
|
|
|
"Just look at him. What's he doing now? Is that legal? Wow, he's
|
|
really going at it. Not in Texas. That's gotta be illegal in Texas."
|
|
|
|
"How many beers have you had? And I thought he was both of ours. You
|
|
even picked him out. Said he was a li'l cutey. But geez, you're right,
|
|
does he ever get tired of that?"
|
|
|
|
"I wouldn't. Hey, you realize he ain't got any thumbs? He'd be a lot
|
|
more useful around here if he had thumbs. Maybe do some chores."
|
|
|
|
"You should quit drinking. I'll talk to the vet again tomorrow."
|
|
|
|
"You sure talk to the vet a lot, what's the deal?"
|
|
|
|
"We've got a lot of pets. Noticed?"
|
|
|
|
"Just the smell."
|
|
|
|
"Drop it."
|
|
|
|
"Okay."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 2
|
|
|
|
"The vet says there's a Procedure."
|
|
|
|
"What's with the capital 'p'?"
|
|
|
|
"Huh?"
|
|
|
|
"You capitalized 'procedure'."
|
|
|
|
"Well screw you! You put it in quotes!"
|
|
|
|
"I did not! Those aren't quotes! Those are...I forget. "
|
|
|
|
"Never mind. The vet says he can help us."
|
|
|
|
"Help us what? Are we moving again?"
|
|
|
|
"You're drunk. We're getting thumbs for the dog, remember?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh. Sure. Thumbs. Have we located a donor?"
|
|
|
|
"You need help. AA maybe. No donor, he's got a tail."
|
|
|
|
"Why use his? You've got plenty to spare."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 7
|
|
|
|
"Jesus, he's got thumbs, and fingers. Kinda furry though."
|
|
|
|
"I talked to the vet. We decided that just a thumb would be
|
|
pointless."
|
|
|
|
"You decided? No wonder it took the whole tail. What did this cost
|
|
me?"
|
|
|
|
"Seventeen thousand dollars. And change."
|
|
|
|
"Seventeen thousand dollars? We had seventeen thousand dollars?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, no. I sold the boat."
|
|
|
|
"We had a boat?"
|
|
|
|
"Well kind of. It was your mother's boat. She died last week."
|
|
|
|
"My mother died? That's...and nobody told me?"
|
|
|
|
"Your sister called. You were drunk. I said you were at work."
|
|
|
|
"Thanks. I think. Why didn't you tell me?"
|
|
|
|
"About your mother?"
|
|
|
|
"No! Dammit, I loved that boat."
|
|
|
|
"Would you have sold it?"
|
|
|
|
"Never!"
|
|
|
|
"See?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 27
|
|
|
|
"I taught him to pay the bills."
|
|
|
|
"Get outta here."
|
|
|
|
"Really! There's this extra cool Windows program.
|
|
|
|
"I'm sure. Bill Gates can't run Windows well, but our dog can?"
|
|
|
|
"It's really neat. Little icons flash when the bills are due."
|
|
|
|
"And the dog knows this?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes! See? The electric bill's due, and the little lightbulb comes
|
|
on."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah?"
|
|
|
|
"Yeah. And the grocery store flashes this little doggy bone icon."
|
|
|
|
"This is getting really weird."
|
|
|
|
"It gets worse."
|
|
|
|
"Should I care about any of this?"
|
|
|
|
"Probably not."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 41
|
|
|
|
"Hey! What's the deal? I just got home!"
|
|
|
|
"Oh. Uh, he drank all your beer."
|
|
|
|
"Pardon me?"
|
|
|
|
"The dog got into the fridge and drank all your beer, okay? I'm
|
|
sorry."
|
|
|
|
"Where's he at now?"
|
|
|
|
"Sleeping it off on the bed. On my side."
|
|
|
|
"Why your side?"
|
|
|
|
"Because my side doesn't have vomit on it."
|
|
|
|
"My side of the bed has vomit on it?"
|
|
|
|
"Yes."
|
|
|
|
"Is that why I've been sleeping on the couch?"
|
|
|
|
"No."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 55
|
|
|
|
"So how was your day?"
|
|
|
|
"It was great. They canceled my project. Yours?"
|
|
|
|
"The dog's been depressed lately, so I got him a pet."
|
|
|
|
"Our dog has a pet?
|
|
|
|
"Why not? I got him a cockatoo."
|
|
|
|
"What the hell's that? Is that legal, in Texas?"
|
|
|
|
"We're not in Texas, you idiot. But yes, it's legal."
|
|
|
|
"There's a little black dog in our backyard. I can see it from here."
|
|
|
|
"That's ours, did you happen to stop at the bar?"
|
|
|
|
"Maybe. He's digging up the flower bed, should I shoot him?"
|
|
|
|
"You really are an idiot. He's planting tomatoes."
|
|
|
|
"Dogs don't plant tomatoes, they piss on them. I was gonna do that."
|
|
|
|
"You were going to do what? Plant them or piss on them? And just
|
|
when?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh. Nice. You know I'm overloaded. Gimme a break."
|
|
|
|
"Right. You've got 'action items' and 'tequila' on your daily
|
|
planner."
|
|
|
|
"That's a fairly negative attitude. You may need counseling."
|
|
|
|
"Ninety five dollars an hour."
|
|
|
|
"Then again, you're probably fine."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 72
|
|
|
|
"What's he doing on my computer?"
|
|
|
|
"Surfing the Net."
|
|
|
|
"Surfing the Net?"
|
|
|
|
"Surfing the Net."
|
|
|
|
"Surfing the Net?"
|
|
|
|
"Surfing the Net. You're almost making sense. Bar burn down?"
|
|
|
|
"What do you know about that?"
|
|
|
|
"Nothing. Directly."
|
|
|
|
"What about him?"
|
|
|
|
"Him? He's a dog. What could he know?"
|
|
|
|
"I think he stole my credit card."
|
|
|
|
"No, that was me. You weren't using it anyway."
|
|
|
|
"It was maxed!"
|
|
|
|
"The dog and I fixed that."
|
|
|
|
"Fixed? You can't do that. Wait. Did I save any money?"
|
|
|
|
"No. But between the two of us we got your limit increased."
|
|
|
|
"What about the interest rate?"
|
|
|
|
"What about it?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 98
|
|
|
|
"He screwed up some of my directories. What the hell is he doing?"
|
|
|
|
"You're the one said they went graphical 'so women could use it too'."
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I didn't get slapped for that one?"
|
|
|
|
"Check your right temple."
|
|
|
|
"Christ, that feels like a burn."
|
|
|
|
"Fireplace poker."
|
|
|
|
"You smacked me with a hot poker?"
|
|
|
|
"No, the dog did. He's getting a stronger grip."
|
|
|
|
"Why did he do that?"
|
|
|
|
"You're the one that had him neutered. He's very Equal Rights."
|
|
|
|
"He has political opinions?"
|
|
|
|
"No, not really. He just doesn't like you very much."
|
|
|
|
"But, I buy his food! I support his ass!"
|
|
|
|
"Well, not anymore. He has a separate account."
|
|
|
|
"Where did he get any money?"
|
|
|
|
"From me."
|
|
|
|
"Where did you get any money?"
|
|
|
|
"From you."
|
|
|
|
"Oh. Then I guess it's okay. Wait. Where did I get any money?"
|
|
|
|
"From your mother."
|
|
|
|
"I think I need a drink."
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAY 100
|
|
|
|
"Ms. Brown? Hello? Pick up if you're there...okay, well this message
|
|
is just to tell you that we intend to continue the search for at least
|
|
another week. If your husband's out there, we'll find him. We've got
|
|
some of the best dogs on the West Coast involved. Although I must say,
|
|
that dog you volunteered seems to be leading the pack around by it's
|
|
nose. It's uncanny..."
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Post-Suicide" by Tara Calishain
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fingers spread, gripping the cold
|
|
hips heavy on the plaster, head down
|
|
eyes clenched like fists, teeth showing
|
|
in a threat-grin, smiling at the floor.
|
|
|
|
The phone's ringing. Who is it?
|
|
I-don't-know-they-hung-up.
|
|
|
|
They'll find me in a fetal rictus
|
|
being born and protesting all along
|
|
a hydrogen bond is my only lover
|
|
to keep me flesh, agony, hips to floor.
|
|
|
|
The phone's ringing. Who is it?
|
|
I-don't-know-they-hung-up.
|
|
|
|
Now if it was a noise or something, a gun or howl
|
|
something they could examine
|
|
something they could pronounce incorrect
|
|
instead of this mosaic insanity
|
|
|
|
The phone's ringing.
|
|
Never mind
|
|
|
|
instead of this mosaic insanity
|
|
they could fix me but I hear
|
|
there's no cure for this.
|
|
I hear it makes your spine shrivel
|
|
I hear it makes your eyes turn colors
|
|
I hear it sets you in cancer for life.
|
|
Maybe if I freeze carefully
|
|
maybe if I make it a magic ceremony
|
|
maybe if I break without bothering anybody
|
|
No time like the present, no shrine like a carpet
|
|
Fingers digging through the weave
|
|
Eyes sealed and streaming
|
|
Face burrowed in the maelstrom
|
|
smiling at the floor.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"In the Attic" by William C. Burns, Jr.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I remember you
|
|
The smell of you on the sheets
|
|
The feel of you
|
|
slick with sweat
|
|
A parade swelling
|
|
in the summer heat
|
|
Pounding with noise
|
|
|
|
I whisper your name
|
|
in the dusty attic
|
|
|
|
Nothing moves
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Girl at the Prow of the Ferry" by Helen Crombet-Beolens
|
|
|
|
|
|
Holding your baby-doll
|
|
dress so as not
|
|
to expose
|
|
your skin,
|
|
you stand at the prow
|
|
of the ferry,
|
|
knowing you are observed.
|
|
There is about you
|
|
a self-conscious posing
|
|
as you stand and stare
|
|
at the scene before you--
|
|
balancing the beauty
|
|
against discomfort.
|
|
I would not choose
|
|
to stand so long,
|
|
though I understand
|
|
why you do.
|
|
The scene almost demands
|
|
this sacrifice of privacy
|
|
as a declaration
|
|
of fidelity.
|
|
The winds whip around
|
|
and across you, teasing
|
|
your dress as your hand
|
|
uncomfortably holds
|
|
the skirt in place--
|
|
all the while
|
|
trying desperately
|
|
to appear casual
|
|
as you do it.
|
|
What right have we,
|
|
the observers of observers,
|
|
to allow such painful
|
|
consciousness to mar the view?
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Balloon People" by Arthur Shotmind
|
|
|
|
|
|
Their heads are filled with helium.
|
|
That's why they float
|
|
Above the rest of us
|
|
With their feet dangling.
|
|
|
|
They are the balloon people.
|
|
Hummingbirds are their enemies.
|
|
They call their fathers Dad,
|
|
Never Pop.
|
|
|
|
They fight a lot,
|
|
But, unless they're cornered,
|
|
They never fight dirty
|
|
Or blow things
|
|
Out of proportion.
|
|
|
|
Sometimes, though,
|
|
They seem to enjoy
|
|
Making derogatory remarks
|
|
About solid-headed folk.
|
|
|
|
They are not good dancers,
|
|
But their songs are among
|
|
The merriest on earth.
|
|
They giggle and blush
|
|
If you talk to them
|
|
About freedom.
|
|
|
|
Last week one of them
|
|
Forgot to stay outdoors.
|
|
Now he's stuck at the top
|
|
Of my cathedral ceiling.
|
|
|
|
You can't simply climb a step ladder
|
|
And pull the guy down.
|
|
He'll just bite and kick and scratch
|
|
And mutter nasty things about your sister.
|
|
But eventually he'll just shrivel up
|
|
And fall to the floor.
|
|
|
|
That happened once before
|
|
And I came home one afternoon
|
|
And found the dog
|
|
Playing with the poor devil's
|
|
Little paisley bow tie.
|
|
|
|
I yelled at the dog
|
|
And accused him of killing
|
|
The little balloon man.
|
|
The dog just stared at me and growled
|
|
In a silly, high-pitched voice.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"The Glint" by Matthew Franz
|
|
|
|
|
|
1.
|
|
It has been alluded to
|
|
in past conversations
|
|
discussed in darkness
|
|
|
|
the vision forming
|
|
while you circled the body
|
|
(your compass needle spinning)
|
|
|
|
Inklings, agitation --
|
|
the voice behind your ears
|
|
whispering
|
|
|
|
The aftertaste on your tongue
|
|
the echo of dead words
|
|
lost in the vacuum
|
|
|
|
2.
|
|
Slowly (but not as unexpectedly as you might think)
|
|
the idea surfaced, emerged
|
|
like the naming of an era
|
|
Inevitable, predestined, perhaps even deliberate
|
|
but logic, religion, the sciences of delusion
|
|
provide no answers
|
|
|
|
Because you wished for it
|
|
wept and fasted, wept and prayed
|
|
nearly tearing your hair from its roots
|
|
Studying the prophecy
|
|
ignorant of the consequences
|
|
|
|
You failed to see how the audience was growing restless
|
|
how the language had become a mere catalog of verbiage
|
|
|
|
They spoke to hear the sound of their voices
|
|
They listened with forced smiles
|
|
and subversive laughter
|
|
impatiently looking at their wristwatches
|
|
wishing it would soon end
|
|
hoping for a distraction
|
|
|
|
But now it seems so timeless
|
|
as if it were ever different
|
|
The past erases itself
|
|
unless assigned a purpose
|
|
|
|
3.
|
|
What is left in the world of the quotation mark?
|
|
the annotated source, the etcetera?
|
|
where the unique
|
|
is but a black form, a shadow-puppet
|
|
tangling its strings in the wind
|
|
|
|
What has become of the comma, the period
|
|
the exclamation mark?
|
|
the unmailed letters?
|
|
the telephones left ringing?
|
|
|
|
There is nothing
|
|
but the sound of muffled breathing on the line
|
|
|
|
4.
|
|
The void
|
|
has been extended
|
|
indefinitely, perhaps infinitely
|
|
|
|
These glass walls thick and clinky
|
|
(like an antique Coke bottle)
|
|
The sucking of air
|
|
slowly pumped from the bell jar
|
|
|
|
You cloud the glass with your breath
|
|
(though breathing has become more difficult)
|
|
wipe away the fog with your squeegee-hand
|
|
Curse your reflection in the mirror
|
|
|
|
The greenhouse-sun soaks through
|
|
warming the air
|
|
though eventually
|
|
it will become cold & quite comfortable
|
|
|
|
You notice the eyes that glisten, pierce
|
|
how they sparkle on the lens, penetrating
|
|
They melt, burst, run down the face
|
|
in the shuddering glare
|
|
like the beetles you cooked as a child
|
|
holding the magnifying glass to the sun
|
|
to focus the beam
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
"Company" by Thomas J. Hubschman
|
|
|
|
|
|
Some people are hopeless. Jack and I have known each other since we
|
|
roomed together in college. I've been wining and dining him and his
|
|
various wives for the better part of two decades. Never once did I
|
|
suggest he was an irresponsible child, a big baby who bolted from
|
|
every serious relationship he's ever been in. I even let him sleep on
|
|
my sofa after each of his marital fallings-out. I loaned him money
|
|
(some of which he actually paid back). I let him borrow my cars, which
|
|
he ran into the ground as if they were his own -- correction: as if
|
|
they were _not_ his own. I put up with his tirades against capitalism,
|
|
organized religion, and anything else which he imagined I held dear. I
|
|
never forgot his kid's birthday or failed to buy his current wife a
|
|
Christmas present.
|
|
|
|
But no more.
|
|
|
|
We have him over two or three times a year. He lives in Park Slope
|
|
now. Jennie and I are still in the same brownstone we bought in Cobble
|
|
Hill when Jack lived over this way with his first wife. Carol was a
|
|
sweetheart, pure Marymount but without the Mounty's sharp tongue or
|
|
prissy manners. She doted on Jack, actually supported him so he could
|
|
paint his watercolors. He's a good artist, though not as good as he
|
|
likes to think. Until last Saturday we hadn't seen him since the
|
|
summer. We spent most of August in New Hampshire at an old farm my
|
|
partner owns. I offered our brownstone for that time to Jack and his
|
|
present mate, but he declined -- said the "vibes" were wrong.
|
|
|
|
He always brings a bottle of wine to these get-togethers, the same
|
|
generic Bordeaux Rouge. I think he's trying to make a statement: "I'm
|
|
just an ordinary bloke, a man of the people." I don't mind that he
|
|
doesn't bring anything better than vin ordinaire. I couldn't care less
|
|
if he brought nothing at all. In fact, I'd prefer it that way. It's
|
|
not _my_ fault nobody buys his paintings.
|
|
|
|
I was standing at one of the big windows on the parlor floor when I
|
|
spotted him and Mona coming down the block, Jack in his
|
|
twenty-year-old raincoat, Mona in something off the rack from the
|
|
Salvation Army. The wine was tucked under his arm. They were neither
|
|
of them talking, and Jack looked especially glum. I remember thinking,
|
|
'Uh, oh,' because since the baby arrived last January, we don't have a
|
|
room to spare. 'It's the YMCA for you this time, my friend,' I said,
|
|
turning my attention to the Coopers' West Indian cleaning woman who
|
|
was shooing a scrawny stray from the garbage cans in the areaway.
|
|
Which reminded me of something that happened the week before. But I'll
|
|
come to that later.
|
|
|
|
"Something for the spirit," Jack said, handing me the wine. I mouthed
|
|
some words of gratitude, noting the $2.99 price tag. But subtlety is
|
|
lost on that man. He beamed as if he had just presented me with a '67
|
|
Chateauneuf du Pape. Then Mona offered her cheek and I suggested that
|
|
we have an aperitif in the parlor.
|
|
|
|
We redecorated last spring. Rewired the entire house, had plumbers and
|
|
plasterers in, and finally restored the oak parquet which was laid on
|
|
original cherry planks at the turn of the century. With the paint job,
|
|
the work damn near cost a second mortgage, but the house's value
|
|
increased fifty percent. Not that we're thinking of selling. Tanya's
|
|
only in kindergarten, and Bobby starts Trinity High School in the
|
|
fall. We also bought a new sofa and armchairs -- ordered the patterns
|
|
directly from Braunschweig. To fill up some of the white space on our
|
|
new walls we bought a couple oil paintings from a local artist I'd had
|
|
my eye on. One is a huge floral arrangement, slightly out of focus,
|
|
the other a beach scene. They each measure four foot square, but you'd
|
|
have to see our parlor walls to appreciate how well they look.
|
|
|
|
I made the mistake of hoping Jack would approve. I should have known
|
|
better. It's not as if I don't have plenty of his own pictures hanging
|
|
about, although not in the parlor where they would be lost in the
|
|
sheer expanse of that mammoth plastering job. He'd already seen the
|
|
oils last summer when we had him and Mona over for pesto and steaks in
|
|
the yard. He wrinkled up his nose at the still life before turning his
|
|
attention to the beach scene. For a moment I thought he actually might
|
|
say something positive. But he just grinned maliciously. "You can
|
|
almost feel the sand between your toes," he said, and asked if I had
|
|
any beer in the house.
|
|
|
|
He never even glanced at the pictures this time. He just plopped down
|
|
on the sofa and crossed the legs of the old polyester slacks he wears
|
|
for these occasions. He had on a pale blue cashmere pullover -- Mona's
|
|
Christmas present. He needed a haircut but knows he's still
|
|
good-looking enough that it doesn't matter. Mona herself had on a dark
|
|
sweater- and-skirt combination. She's a few years older than Jack, but
|
|
still quite attractive -- lucky for her. I didn't like her at first,
|
|
but she's grown on me. I've even come to feel sorry for her. Jack was
|
|
a bit of a pill to live with twenty years ago. I don't imagine he's
|
|
gotten any better.
|
|
|
|
"Cinzano and soda?" I asked, feeling more than a merely social need
|
|
for a drink myself. Mona agreed, but Jack gave me the amused look he
|
|
puts on to make me feel as if I've just made a fool of myself.
|
|
"Budweiser for the gentleman?"
|
|
|
|
I went back downstairs for the drinks, leaving poor Jennie to hold the
|
|
fort. When I returned Jack was holding forth about co-oping in the
|
|
Slope -- greedy landlords and Yuppies who will pay any rent and drive
|
|
honest citizens like himself out of the neighborhood. He hasn't forgot
|
|
that I was a landlord myself until my salary was such that I could
|
|
make the mortgage payments without renting out the top two floors.
|
|
|
|
"Why don't you try another part of the city?" I suggested. "It's still
|
|
possible to find a reasonable rent in Greenpoint or . . . Long Island
|
|
City."
|
|
|
|
He eyed me icily. He always brings out the tease in me. It was Mona
|
|
who broke the silence.
|
|
|
|
"No way," she said, most of her Cinzano gone. "This is as far from
|
|
Manhattan as I go."
|
|
|
|
"Greenpoint is actually closer to Wall Street than where we live now,"
|
|
Jack told her.
|
|
|
|
"Makes no difference. I'm not moving anyplace other than Manhattan.
|
|
You can _have_ the boroughs." Jack gave her an even chillier version
|
|
of the cold glare he had just shown me. It's hard to gauge the state
|
|
of a relationship from just a few minutes conversation, but on the
|
|
basis of what I'd seen of Jack's previous matings, I gave this one
|
|
another six-months-to-a-year.
|
|
|
|
We headed back downstairs for dinner. Jennie had prepared prawn
|
|
cocktails, followed by filets minions bordelaises. I put together the
|
|
salad myself. We don't eat like that every night, and I said so. But
|
|
Jack's comment that this was the first decent meal he'd had in weeks
|
|
did nothing to improve the climate between him and Mona.
|
|
|
|
"I made you lasagna just last week."
|
|
|
|
"So you did."
|
|
|
|
I offered them Italian bread that's still baked fresh every hour at a
|
|
shop on Henry Street. Mona glared angrily into her dish of prawns, but
|
|
now that he had successfully insulted her, Jack's own temper was much
|
|
improved.
|
|
|
|
"Did you tell Jack and Mona about the visitor we had this week?"
|
|
Jennie asked. She had been bouncing up and down to see about the
|
|
filets. I was grateful for the change of subject, but I would not have
|
|
raised this particular one on my own.
|
|
|
|
"It was the oddest thing."
|
|
|
|
I went on to relate how I had heard the doorbell ring when I was doing
|
|
some touch-up work in the kids' bathroom on the third floor. A moment
|
|
later Tanya came bounding up the stairs and said there was a "dark
|
|
man" at the door. I thought immediately of the plasterer who still had
|
|
work to finish on the basement level, and cursed under my breath
|
|
because we were expecting company that evening.
|
|
|
|
But it wasn't the plasterer. It wasn't anyone I had ever seen before.
|
|
|
|
"Yes?" I said through the glass door. The young man -- he looked to be
|
|
in his middle twenties, "dark" all right, but not negroid -- was
|
|
smiling broadly. He was dressed in jeans and a flak jacket. It was a
|
|
damp, chilly day, but he didn't look especially cold. "Yes?" I said
|
|
again, having no intention at that point of opening the door; there
|
|
had been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. But he
|
|
kept on smiling and pointed a long brown finger at his chest, then at
|
|
me, as if there were no chance of his being heard through the glass.
|
|
By this time I had him figured for a salesman or, worse, Jehovah's
|
|
Witness. We could have gone on with our charade indefinitely, so I
|
|
decided to open the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I
|
|
figured I outweighed him by twenty pounds.
|
|
|
|
"I would _never_ open my door to a stranger," Mona put in. "I don't
|
|
even open it for Jack unless I can see him plainly through the
|
|
peephole."
|
|
|
|
"Which you rarely can."
|
|
|
|
"I'm nearsighted," she replied. "If _you_ were nearsighted you'd
|
|
understand."
|
|
|
|
I fumbled with the key -- we rarely receive visitors on the parlor
|
|
level -- until I finally succeeded in worrying it through the ancient
|
|
lock. The man never hesitated. He was into the vestibule even before
|
|
the door was fully open. I positioned myself between him and the
|
|
inside entrance. "Yes?" I said again, this time with authority.
|
|
|
|
"Hi," he replied, offering his hand and an even brighter version of
|
|
his big smile. His teeth were whiter than Tanya's piano keys. His eyes
|
|
were black. "My name's Alonzo. I'm homeless. I've been asking folks in
|
|
the neighborhood if they can help me out with some canned goods or
|
|
leftovers they might have in their fridge. I used to have an apartment
|
|
on Court Street, but the landlord evicted everyone so he could
|
|
renovate for condos. I've been out of work for more than a year since
|
|
I injured my back. I'd appreciate any help you can give."
|
|
|
|
I like to think I'm no fool when it comes to spotting a con man. But
|
|
it was only afterward that I realized I should have asked what he
|
|
would do with canned goods if he was homeless, not to mention how he
|
|
was surviving with just that cotton jacket to keep him warm. I guess I
|
|
was hypnotized by his big grin. Even so, my mind was working overtime
|
|
calculating how far I was from the nearest weapon (the poker in the
|
|
parlor fireplace would do), whether it was likely he had a knife or
|
|
gun concealed under his jacket, and if Tanya was still up on the third
|
|
floor or, more likely, was hovering just behind me, her thumb in her
|
|
mouth.
|
|
|
|
Of course, I left out these deliberations in the story I told Jack and
|
|
Mona. As I said before, if Jennie hadn't raised the subject I would
|
|
not have brought it up on my own. I knew Jack would try to turn the
|
|
incident into some kind of joke at my expense.
|
|
|
|
I told Tanya to run downstairs and tell her mother we had company.
|
|
Half a minute later Jennie appeared, in her usual dither, but hardly
|
|
expecting to find this dark stranger in her parlor.
|
|
|
|
"This is Alonzo," I said. Even before I could finish the introduction,
|
|
he was pumping my wife's hand and treating her to his hundred-watt
|
|
smile. "He's a homeless person," I added, and sure enough, Jennie
|
|
looked as if I had said he was an Egyptian mummy. But Alonzo's grin
|
|
never flagged. "He stopped by to ask if we had any extra food we could
|
|
spare."
|
|
|
|
Comprehension finally registered on Jennie's pale brow. "You're
|
|
collecting for the homeless? Why, that's wonderful."
|
|
|
|
"No, ma'am," he corrected, "I _am_ homeless. I'm collecting for
|
|
myself." And then he gave her the same smooth rap he had laid on me
|
|
when I first opened the door.
|
|
|
|
I figured this game had gone on long enough, so I told my wife to see
|
|
if we couldn't spare something from the pantry. "Aren't there also
|
|
cold cuts in the fridge?" I called after her as she was hastening back
|
|
to the stairwell. She hesitated, showing a look that made me want to
|
|
burst out laughing despite my own apprehensions -- I still didn't know
|
|
what Alonzo's real game was, and by this time he was ensconced in my
|
|
parlor, having a look at the beach scene.
|
|
|
|
"Would you like to . . . sit down?" I asked, indicating a wooden
|
|
rocker that wouldn't be offended by his weathered denim. But he
|
|
favored our new Braunschweig sofa. He fingered the lush pattern
|
|
critically.
|
|
|
|
"Very nice."
|
|
|
|
"How long have you lived in the area?" I asked. "I mean, before you
|
|
were evicted."
|
|
|
|
He spotted the still life and got up to have a closer look. When he
|
|
replied, it was in the manner of someone who had more important things
|
|
on his mind. "Two, three years."
|
|
|
|
"You're not sure?"
|
|
|
|
He completed his appraisal of the still-life. "What difference does it
|
|
make?" he said, his grin gone stale around the edges. Then, perhaps
|
|
realizing how I, his benefactor, might take his offhanded tone, he
|
|
added, "I mean, what does _time_ matter? It's all karma anyway." He
|
|
sat down again, this time in the rocker, and looked as if he had no
|
|
intention of going anywhere else for the rest of the day. "You like it
|
|
here?"
|
|
|
|
I replied that we liked it well enough, but I was wondering what was
|
|
taking Jennie so long to throw a few cans into a paper bag.
|
|
|
|
"I don't come from these parts originally," he said. "You can probably
|
|
tell by my accent."
|
|
|
|
Actually, I hadn't noticed he had any accent at all -- a sure sign, I
|
|
then realized, that he was not a native New Yorker. "Where _do_ you
|
|
hail from?" I asked.
|
|
|
|
His dark eyes -- they had become oddly bright -- fixed on me as if for
|
|
the first time. "I already told you," he said, "I'm _homeless_."
|
|
|
|
Just then Jennie appeared, staggering under the weight of two full
|
|
shopping bags. I never asked our visitor to clarify his response, and
|
|
he didn't seem inclined to pursue the subject. I gave him something
|
|
short of the bum's rush to the door, but he made a point of putting
|
|
down his shopping bags on the top of the stoop and shaking hands in
|
|
full view of the neighbors.
|
|
|
|
"My _God_!" Mona said when I finished the story. "He could have been
|
|
an ax-murderer!"
|
|
|
|
"I doubt that," I replied, sipping some pinot noir. The steaks had
|
|
been first-class. "He was too skinny to have something as bulky as an
|
|
ax concealed on his person."
|
|
|
|
"Even so . . ."
|
|
|
|
"More likely he was putting you on," Jack said, helping himself to the
|
|
scalloped potatoes.
|
|
|
|
"Putting me on how?"
|
|
|
|
"Goofing on you, man. Conning you."
|
|
|
|
"Oh, I don't think he was," Jennie said, shocked as always at any
|
|
suggestion of mendacity. "Do _you_, honey?"
|
|
|
|
I made a reach for the creamed cauliflower and shrugged. "The thought
|
|
crossed my mind. But what difference does it make? If he actually
|
|
needed food, then we did a good deed. If he didn't, what did we lose
|
|
-- a few cans of tuna?"
|
|
|
|
I spoke offhandedly but was expressing a conclusion that had taken me
|
|
the better part of a week to come to. I had felt very foolish indeed
|
|
when I still thought the entire episode might have been an elaborate
|
|
joke.
|
|
|
|
"Of course, he may also have been casing the place," Jack said.
|
|
|
|
But I was tired of the subject. I turned toward my wife, who had
|
|
become very quiet, and suggested that we have coffee up in the parlor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
After we were settled again on the sofas, Tanya came down for her
|
|
goodnight kiss. Mona immediately lost her preoccupied look and opened
|
|
her arms wide to the child. Jack watched with ill-concealed disdain.
|
|
Mona had no children of her own, although her first marriage had
|
|
lasted fifteen years. Jack had a son living in Connecticut, a nice boy
|
|
a couple years older than my Robert. As I watched Mona fuss over Tanya
|
|
I realized that she probably wanted nothing more from life than a
|
|
child of her own. _Fat chance_, I thought, keeping one eye on Jack,
|
|
who preferred even the beach scene to that of his woman showing
|
|
affection to another human being.
|
|
|
|
After Tanya had headed upstairs for the night, Jack asked, "How much
|
|
did you pay for them?" nodding toward the still-life.
|
|
|
|
"Actually, we got a good deal. The artist was relocating and wanted to
|
|
travel as light as possible. We probably paid less than half what
|
|
they're actually worth." I had no intention of giving him a dollar
|
|
amount. No price would have seemed right to someone who hadn't sold
|
|
any of his own work since last year's Promenade exhibit. Besides, I
|
|
_liked_ the paintings.
|
|
|
|
I brought out a bottle of kirsch to wash down the coffee, put some
|
|
evensong on the stereo, and as we all sat sipping, a rosy glow seemed
|
|
to permeate the room, a sense of good fellowship, however slightly out
|
|
of focus, like my still- life. I reached for Jennie's hand, thinking
|
|
how lucky I was to have a loving wife and family, good health, and,
|
|
yes, an old friend like Jack, however trying he could be.
|
|
|
|
Then through a haze of ecclesiastical reverberation I heard, "Of
|
|
course, the same fate could happen to any one of us here. The way
|
|
things are going, we could find our asses out on the street just like
|
|
Alonzo."
|
|
|
|
"What are you talking about?"
|
|
|
|
"You don't believe there's a 'safety net' that catches us if a real
|
|
calamity strikes? Suppose you fell ill or lost your job because of --
|
|
I don't know," he gestured with our Swedish crystal "-- professional
|
|
misconduct. It isn't only doctors who get sued for malpractice, you
|
|
know. Or, take my own case. Where would I be if Mona lost her job and
|
|
couldn't find another?"
|
|
|
|
My mood was ruined. I suspected that whatever ideas I had been putting
|
|
into Jennie's mind for later were also in jeopardy.
|
|
|
|
"What are you talking about? Even if we did lose my income
|
|
temporarily, Jennie could take up the slack. Just as _you_ could," I
|
|
added, no longer concerned about stepping on his delicate ego.
|
|
|
|
"Suppose you both got ill at the same time? Suppose one, or even both
|
|
of you, were in a serious accident? It happens, you know."
|
|
|
|
"Yes, of course it happens. And when it does people fall back on their
|
|
savings, or their insurance, or in the last resort on their families."
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Your brother lives in New Mexico. Would you be willing to relocate to
|
|
New Mexico?"
|
|
|
|
"If I had to, certainly," I said, feeling my wife's fingers tightening
|
|
on my own. "My God, Jack, you have this maudlin imagination that
|
|
always thinks the worst. I mean the preposterous!"
|
|
|
|
"It's not so preposterous. There are thousands of people on the
|
|
streets of this city who would have also thought the idea
|
|
'preposterous' if you told them a couple years ago they would be
|
|
sleeping on subway gratings. What about your Alonzo? Didn't you say he
|
|
had a good job before he lost his apartment?"
|
|
|
|
"He was obviously lying. You said yourself he was a con man."
|
|
|
|
"Then, why did you give him food?"
|
|
|
|
Mona let out a big sigh and looked at her watch. When she did, the
|
|
animosity I had been feeling toward her mate suddenly included her as
|
|
well.
|
|
|
|
"To get rid of him," I said.
|
|
|
|
My wife turned toward me with saucer eyes. "Really? You didn't believe
|
|
him?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, I did and I didn't. Giving him what he asked for just seemed
|
|
the easiest way to get him out of our hair. Look," I said to Jack,
|
|
"what are we arguing about anyway?"
|
|
|
|
"Who's arguing? You just got taken, man, pure and simple. You feel
|
|
foolish, but you don't want to admit it. It's a human reaction."
|
|
|
|
"Thank you very much, but I don't think I need you to tell me what's
|
|
human."
|
|
|
|
Jennie pinched my arm as if I were a sleepwalker heading toward an
|
|
open window.
|
|
|
|
"Actually," Jack went on, "you're right. People like you _don't_ have
|
|
anything to worry about. It's only poor bastards like Alonzo who end
|
|
up on the street. _You'll_ weather any kind of calamity, and your kids
|
|
will go to Ivy League colleges. That's what the American Dream is all
|
|
about. Your own father was a laborer who broke his ass so you could
|
|
become a professional. You send your kids to private schools instead
|
|
of those retarded parochial schools we had to go to. Your kids meet
|
|
the right people and become high-powered business types. You don't
|
|
imagine they'll settle for being lawyers or doctors, do you? Hell, the
|
|
professions are for the children of Jews and immigrants."
|
|
|
|
Never mind that he had already done a 180-degree turn about Alonzo.
|
|
Never mind that we were both drunk enough to be able to claim
|
|
afterward that anything we said should not be held against us. _In
|
|
vino veritas_, I say. The next thing I knew I was on my feet, heading
|
|
for the same parlor entrance which hadn't been opened since I let
|
|
Alonzo in.
|
|
|
|
"Here's your coats."
|
|
|
|
"Gerald!" Jennie cried in protest.
|
|
|
|
Jack accepted his ragged raincoat with a sour grin. We were both
|
|
swaying from the kirsch, but I had already decided that if he tried to
|
|
throw a punch I would hit him right back.
|
|
|
|
He did nothing of the kind. He put on his coat, then helped Mona into
|
|
hers with more solicitude than he had shown her all evening. She
|
|
looked too terrified to speak, but just as I was about see them out
|
|
the door she turned toward me, looking as if I might hit _her_, and
|
|
asked if she could please use the bathroom.
|
|
|
|
Suddenly I felt like an ogre.
|
|
|
|
"Of course," I replied. "And I'll call you a cab."
|
|
|
|
"No need," Jack said. "We'll take the bus."
|
|
|
|
There was an uncomfortable minute while we waited for Mona. Jennie
|
|
asked nervously about Jack's son and the boy's mother. Jennie and she
|
|
had been rather close for a while, but after Carol and Jack separated
|
|
she avoided us for some reason. I still felt bad about how I had just
|
|
acted, but there was not the slightest trace of anger on Jack's
|
|
handsome face.
|
|
|
|
Mona joined us again, wearing a fresh application of lipstick. I was
|
|
sorry for the scare I had given her. "Come see us again soon," I said,
|
|
leaning toward her freshly powdered cheek. But she averted her face,
|
|
leaving my kiss hanging in midair. Neither of them said good night --
|
|
not even to Jennie, who was close to tears.
|
|
|
|
"Goodbye and good riddance," I said as I watched them walk down the
|
|
block, Jack's arm through Mona's to keep her from tripping on the
|
|
flagstones.
|
|
|
|
I haven't heard from Jack since and I have no intention of calling.
|
|
Jennie's asked if she should go ahead with the plans we had for a
|
|
surprise party to celebrate his fortieth birthday.
|
|
|
|
I told her to put it on hold.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
About the Authors
|
|
|
|
|
|
o Samuel Barasch (baraschs@stu.beloit.edu) is currently fininshing his
|
|
last year at Beloit College where he is a computer science major. He
|
|
has started Beloit's own internet literary journal, _Highbeams_. It
|
|
can be found at http://stu.beloit.edu/~highbe/ He is planning to have
|
|
this piece printed in a magazine called _Poettechnitians_.
|
|
|
|
o Mark Bothum (mark@intermec.com) is originally from Klamath Falls,
|
|
Oregon. Mark dropped out of school in his junior year to pursue a
|
|
career 'shooting pool and driving around in old trucks.' He is now
|
|
somewhat surprised to find himself employed by a Fortune 500
|
|
mega-company near Seattle, Washington.
|
|
|
|
o William C. Burns, Jr. (burnswcb@gvltec.gvltec.edu) is an Artist,
|
|
Poet and Engineer (APE). Poetic and illustrative works have appeared
|
|
on the cover of _Ebbing Tide_, _The Morpo Review_, _The New Press_,
|
|
_Beyond the Moon_ and _Sparks On Line_. Having no shame, Bill has held
|
|
public readings at the local Barnes & Noble and Open Book book stores.
|
|
He is indigenous to the eastern part of the planet and sustains his
|
|
family teaching electrical engineering courses. Other occupations have
|
|
included pumping diesel, mining coal, peddling heavy equipment and
|
|
fixing traffic lights.
|
|
|
|
o Tara Calishain (copper@mercury.interpath.net) fixes computers and
|
|
does marketing consultant work for a living. When she's not doing
|
|
that, she writes, composes music, and plays _Colonization_.
|
|
|
|
o Helen Crombet-Beolens (snowcat@pinn.gen.nz) is a 25 year old PhD
|
|
student and tutor in the English department of the University of
|
|
Auckland. She has been writing poetry on and off for many years, but
|
|
she has never had any of her work published before.
|
|
|
|
o Amelia Fortenberry Franz (aff@tenet.edu) teaches English and history
|
|
in the San Antonio area. Her writing has appeared in _The Texas
|
|
Review_ and _English in Texas_, and she edits (along with husband
|
|
Matthew) _Gruene Street: An Internet Journal of Prose and Poetry_.
|
|
|
|
o Matthew Franz (mfranz@tenet.edu) is a graduate of Texas A&M
|
|
University and currently teaches middle school history in San Antonio,
|
|
TX. His poetry & fiction have appeared in _The Inkshed Press_ and
|
|
_Portland Review_. He co-edits the e-journal _Gruene Street_ with his
|
|
wife, Amelia.
|
|
|
|
o Thomas J. Hubschman (tjhubsc@dorsai.org) was born in Teaneck, NJ and
|
|
educated at Fordham Prep and Fordham College in Bronx, NY. He's lived
|
|
in Brooklyn for twenty years. He's married and is a free-lance editor
|
|
and consultant to Black Excel, a scholarship service for minorities.
|
|
He has had two science fiction novels and short mainstream fiction
|
|
published in _New York Press_, _The Free Press_ and _Voices of
|
|
Brooklyn_ (ed. Sol Yurick). He's currently marketing _Billy Boy_, a
|
|
contemporary novel about a rudderless young man who becomes involved
|
|
in a murder; and _Park Slope Stories_, a collection of short fiction.
|
|
He can be found on the World Wide Web at
|
|
http://www.dorsai.org/~tjhubsc/.
|
|
|
|
o Michael Kei Stewart (markst@ratsys.com) is a documentation manager
|
|
in Massachusetts whose desk faces a window. He often looks out that
|
|
window. He graduated from college with a degree in painting, and
|
|
sometimes still thinks about that. With his wife, he visits Disney
|
|
World and tries to write stories for children. They have two cats.
|
|
Life is odd.
|
|
|
|
o Arthur Shotmind (eddas@huber.com) has had other poems published in
|
|
_The Morpo Review_.
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
In Their Own Words
|
|
|
|
|
|
o _Jericho to Jericho_ by Amelia Fortenberry Franz
|
|
"The central idea of _Jericho to Jericho_ sprang, strangely
|
|
enough, from my own experience as a young girl growing up a
|
|
short distance from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at
|
|
Parchman. I wanted to capture the thrill of a manhunt and the
|
|
emotional effect that might have on a precocious young girl. I
|
|
actually remember plotting strategy with my brother and sister,
|
|
for how we would disarm and immobilize 'the convict' if/when he
|
|
came around looking for trouble."
|
|
|
|
o _At the Party_ by Samuel Barasch
|
|
"In this piece, I have tried to simulate the chaos of a really
|
|
wild party. The narrator escapes the chaos, however, when he
|
|
perceives the target of his desires."
|
|
|
|
o _Houses_ by Tara Calishain
|
|
"_Houses_ was written after I stayed up all night with _The
|
|
Fountainhead_ and _The March of Folly_. Somehow they got mixed
|
|
up in my mind and spat as a poem."
|
|
|
|
o _Early Spring_ by Michael Kei Stewart
|
|
"_Early Spring_ is one of many attempts I have made to document
|
|
the feelings I experience when rain threatens. In this case, I
|
|
was sitting at my desk on a spring day, watching the clouds
|
|
thicken and the wind stir the trees outside my window. A sudden
|
|
glimpse of blue sky seemed very incongruous. Rain often rouses
|
|
a visceral feeling that seems to be part anticipation, part
|
|
awareness of some ancestral memory, and part sleepiness. Rain
|
|
is a strong force to me, probably because I experienced Kenya's
|
|
rainy seasons when young."
|
|
|
|
o _A Girl and Her Dog_ by Mark Bothum
|
|
"I'm currently involved in a joint effort to produce a
|
|
high-tech action-adventure novel, while maintaining a carrer in
|
|
engineering. Time management is critical and stress a constant
|
|
companion. I wrote _A Girl and Her Dog_ over a weekend when
|
|
ideas for the novel weren't flowing. Rather than stare at a
|
|
blank screen and drink beer, I blasted the short story out as
|
|
an exercise in dialogue. My girfriend never read it."
|
|
|
|
o _Post-Suicide_ by Tara Calishain
|
|
"_Post-Suicide_ was an attempt to express the notion of
|
|
'super-sanity'; the erroneous perspective that one can see all
|
|
possible outcomes of all possible actions and is thus reduced
|
|
to immobility."
|
|
|
|
o _In the Attic_ by William C. Burns, Jr.
|
|
"There was a summer, back in 1973, when I sat in the window and
|
|
watched the fans on the roof of the cafeteria all night. She
|
|
sat there beside me, and we didn't say a word the entire time.
|
|
I wonder how she remembers it."
|
|
|
|
o _Girl at the Prow of the Ferry_ by Helen Crombet-Beolens
|
|
"The poem was written some time after the event described, when
|
|
I was again travelling on the ferry-- this time feeling perhaps
|
|
more self-conscious myself :-)."
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
WHERE TO FIND _THE MORPO REVIEW_
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back issues of The Morpo Review are available via the following avenues:
|
|
|
|
|
|
= Electronic Mail (Send the command "get morpo morpo.readme" in the body
|
|
of an e-mail message to lists@morpo.creighton.edu, exclude the quotes)
|
|
|
|
= Gopher (morpo.creighton.edu:/The Morpo Review or
|
|
ftp.etext.org:/Zines/Morpo.Review)
|
|
|
|
= Anonymous FTP (morpo.creighton.edu:/pub/zines/morpo or
|
|
ftp.etext.org:/Zines/Morpo.Review)
|
|
|
|
! = World Wide Web (http://morpo.novia.net/morpo/)
|
|
|
|
= America Online (Keyword: PDA, then select "Palmtop Paperbacks", "EZine
|
|
Libraries", "Writing", "More Writing")
|
|
|
|
= Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems
|
|
- The Outlands BBS in Ketchikan, Alaska, USA [+1 907-247-1219,
|
|
+1 907-225-1219, +1 907-225-1220]
|
|
- The Myths and Legends of Levania in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
|
|
[+1 712-325-8867]
|
|
- Alliance Communications in Minnesota, USA [+1 612 251 8596]
|
|
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
SUBSCRIBE TO _THE MORPO REVIEW_
|
|
|
|
|
|
We offer three types of subscriptions to The Morpo Review:
|
|
|
|
= ASCII subscription
|
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You will receive the full ASCII text of TMR delivered to your
|
|
electronic mailbox when the issue is published.
|
|
|
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= PostScript subscription
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You will receive a ZIP'ed and uuencoded PostScript file delivered to
|
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your electronic mailbox when the issue is published. In order to
|
|
view the PostScript version, you will need to capability to uudecode,
|
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unZIP and print a PostScript file.
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|
|
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= Notification subscription
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You will receive only a small note in e-mail when the issue is
|
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published detailing where you can obtain a copy of the issue.
|
|
|
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If you would like to subscribe to The Morpo Review, send an e-mail
|
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message to morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu and include your e-mail
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address and the type of subscription you would like. Subscriptions are
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|
processed by an actual living, breathing person, so please be nice
|
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when sending your request.
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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|
|
ADDRESSES FOR _THE MORPO REVIEW_
|
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|
|
|
|
! rfulk@novia.net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Fulkerson, Editor
|
|
mtmason@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . Matthew Mason, Poetry Editor
|
|
rummel@creighton.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . J.D. Rummel, Fiction Editor
|
|
! kkalil@novia.net . . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil Fulkerson, Layout Editor
|
|
|
|
morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu . Submissions to _The Morpo Review_
|
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morpo-request@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Requests for E-Mail subscriptions
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morpo-comments@morpo.creighton.edu . . . Comments about _The Morpo Review_
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morpo-editors@morpo.creighton.edu . . . . . Reach all the editors at once
|
|
|
|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR TMR
|
|
|
|
|
|
Q: How do I submit my work to The Morpo Review and what are you looking for?
|
|
|
|
A: We accept poetry, prose and essays of any type and subject matter. To
|
|
get a good feel for what we publish, please read some of our previous
|
|
issues (see above on how to access back issues).
|
|
|
|
The deadline for submissions is one month prior to the release date of
|
|
an issue. We publish bi-monthly on the 15th of the month in January,
|
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March, May, July, September and November.
|
|
|
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If you would like to submit your work, please send it via Internet
|
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E-mail to the E-mail address morpo-submissions@morpo.creighton.edu.
|
|
Your submission will be acknowledged and reviewed for inclusion in the
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|
next issue. In addition to simply reviewing pieces for inclusion in
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the magazine, we attempt to provide feedback for all of the pieces that
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are submitted.
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Along with your submission, please include a valid electronic mail address
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and telephone number that you can be reached at. This will provide us with
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the means to reach you should we have any questions, comments or concerns
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regarding your submission.
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There are no size guidelines on stories or individual poems, but we ask
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that you limit the number of poems that you submit to five (5) per issue
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(i.e., during any two month period).
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We can read IBM-compatible word processing documents and straight ASCII
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text. If you are converting your word processing document to ASCII,
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please make sure to convert the "smart quotes" (the double quotes that
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"curve" in like ``'') to plain, straight quotes ("") in your document
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before converting. When converted, smart quotes sometimes look like
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capital Qs and Ss, which can make reading and editing a submission
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|
difficult.
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Our next issue will be available on September 15, 1995.
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