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TWISTED VINE LITERARY JOURNAL WESTERN NEW MEXICO UINIVERSITY SPRING 2015 ALL CONTRIBUTORS RETAIN COPYRIGHT TO THEIR RESPECTIVE WORK. THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS WITHIN THESE PAGES ARE IN NO WAY REFLECTIVE OF WESTERN NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY. MASTHEAD: Editors-in-Chief: Caseyrenée Lopez Eric Allen Yankee Assistant Editors: Debra McReynolds Roseanne Kofron Faculty Supervisor: John Gist Website/Social Media Team: Debra McReynolds Becca Knowlton Roseanne Kofron Janeen Thompson Brown Core Readers: Janeen Thompson Brown Dane McCarthy Ryan Crisp Raymond Jurisic Bonita Chavez Eric Allen Yankee Caseyrenée Lopez Cover: The Protests at New Waterloo by: Ege Al'Bege 1 EDITOR’S NOTE: The process of publishing Twisted Vine has exposed me to so many talented writers. My consciousness has been expanded by all these new literary adventures! Thank you so much to the writers and staff who contributed to making this issue of Twisted Vine great. Eric Allen Yankee, Co-Editor in Chief This is one of the largest publishing projects that I’ve had the pleasure of working on, and for that, I am grateful to all of the wonderful writers that have contributed to the spring issue of Twisted Vine and made this possible. I also want to give a big thanks to the awesome staff that were vital in helping us bring this collection together! Cheers to you all! Caseyrenée Lopez, Co-Editor in Chief We at Twisted Vine are proud to present our readers with an eclectic range of work, and are sure that this issue will have something for everyone. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Pigeons and Panthers | A.L.A Covington |5 The Case of the Serial Luddite | Andrew Gretes |13 Experience It Through My Eyes | Elyssa Bonifacio |20 Oddly up a Tree | Bowen Astrop |21 Machismo | Brandon Madden | 22 Birth of a Star | Michal Mitak Mahgerefthe | 28 Cosmothology | James Bruce May | 29 Pink Paradise | John Gorman | 31 Cleave | Kathie Jacobson | 36 The Protests at New Waterloo | Ege Al'Bege | 40 The Confirmation of Cherishing the Colors with You |Phaedra DeJarnette | 41 Wind Warriors | Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz | 43 Monument | Thomas Kunz | 44 NuBook 2.001 | J.T. Townley | 52 Femme Noir 6 | Allen Forrest | 59 P=F/A | Lauren Wethers | 60 Two Stars | Andrea Fitzpatrick | 65 Nowhereness: Characters/ Heads | Margie Kelk | 67 Mabel | Sara Krueger | 68 Inside, we are TVs | Sara Krueger | 69 Death of a Prophet | Miles Liss | 70 Evening | Miles Liss | 71 Search and Rescue Roaches | Yvette Schnoeker-Shorb | 72 I don’t want to tame my lover | Jesse Back | 73 So Long, Be Lost | Amanda Tummarino | 74 Old School | John Stocks | 75 No Trespassing | Stefan Chiarantano | 76 Call it forever then | John Stocks | 77 Creatures | G Smith | 78 That Last Jazz in the Sky | G Smith | 79 Sleepwalking | Jason Dean Arnold | 80 Captured | Marc Irwin | 81 3 In Praise of the Small Press Print Magazines | Richard King Perkins II | 82 For the Record | Richard King Perkins II| 83 Perceptions of Paradise | Ken Simpson | 84 The girl who lives on my backsteps | Eve Kenneally | 85 1993 | Eve Kenneally | 86 Maze 4 | Warren Stokes | 87 Maze 3 | Warren Stokes | 88 Candlelight Tales | Deborah Singer | 89 Your Divine Demystified * | Deborah Singer | 90 Bordering | Kim Peter Kovac | 91 I Can’t Breathe | Kim Peter Kovac | 92 Gone But Not Forgotten | Melissa Toledo | 94 Coito Ergo Sum (I Rut How I Am) | Gerard Sarnat | 95 For Andy Warhol | Dan Maclsaac | 97 Grasp the New World in Birth | Lewis Rosenbaum | 99 Word and Image | Emily Tucci | 101 Giving it All Away | M.C. Rydel | 102 Beginning by Spying on Cooper’s The Spy and Ending with an Interjection from Kim | Francis Raven | 103 Keeper Bees | Robert Vivian | 122 Mr. Jablonski | Larry Schreiber | 123 HWY 1 | Allen Forrest | 125 Nightingale of the Andes | Katacha Diaz | 126 Imagine a Door | Jay Shearer | 129 Writing on Stone: In Search of an Oracle | Jay Hansford C. Vest | 136 Untitled | Evan Williams | 139 A Chest of Drawers | Denny Riley | 140 The South Valley Surprise of 2002 | Alisa Hagerty-Miller |141 My Father’s Son | Dan Branch | 146 Mask | Dan Branch | 150 Dolls World | M.M. Adjarian | 151 Out of the Box | Andy Miller |158 About the Contributors | 160 4 PIGEONS AND PANTHERS By: A.L.A. Convington Hours after she learns that Jim Morrison died, Cordie sits alone in Central Park, staring at a bottle of MD 20/20 lying in the grass. The thin layer of raspberry wine sparkles as the morning rays penetrate the glass. On another day, she might have envisioned a psychedelic light show. After all, it’s supposed to be the Age of Aquarius. No longer, though. Not after the news Patter, her old man, relayed in the wee morning hours when this day was still dark. Why did he have to die on her birthday? She lifts the bottle and watches the pink sheen amble down the flat side until it pools in the bottom. Then she holds it up to the sky. “Here’s to you, Jim.” The music, the mantra, the man. Her idol since tenth grade, five years ago, a quarter of her life. He has broken on through to the other side. Cordie sings it out, then squints into the sun. Is he up there somewhere? With her mother? No, forget Mama. Forget sister P.J. and home and Virginia. Cordie turned her back on all that when she, Patter, and the rest of band moved to the city on New Year’s Day. Happy 1971. A whole new life, a new band—Windows. Like the Doors, but better. Even when you close them, you see through to the other side. They would change the world with their words and sounds and meld into a whole new kind of family. But Joey was right. That hulk of a man with the panther tattoo on his chocolate skin, her first New York friend. The 60s were over, he said, calling her “Sunshine” as she beamed up at him. This silly Southern girl had missed it, and the world remained unsaved. And now Jim is lost to her, too. Cordie downs two swallows and looks around. A few yards away an old man wearing a tattered coat sits on a bench. One arm embraces a garbage bag as if it contains all he holds dear in the world. The other hand clutches a paper bag, which he soon lifts to his lips. His eyes follow the pigeon strutting away from him until they catch another pigeon headed toward the bench. Pigeon ping-pong. He holds the bag in the air once, seeming to toast the approaching bird, but his frown remains as one after another passes. She pulls herself off the ground and approaches the bench. The ripe aura of mildew and sweat would drive most people away, but it makes no difference to her. She reeks from being out since before dawn, drinking, letting tears fall on her feet as they pounded block after block. Bench man’s face is dirty. Hard to tell if he’s black or white or even all that old. Is he black or white? Mama’s voice again, coming at her after high school the first year the county integrated the schools. Mama, always wanting to know who Cordie was talking about, not sure she liked her going to school with “colored” kids. Afraid of the world. Maybe she would have changed if she’d known Joey. “Hey,” Cordie says. The man doesn’t look up. “Hey.” Louder this time. “Jim Morrison died.” Still, he watches his pigeons. She sits beside him. When he takes a swig, she follows suit. “On my goddamn birthday.” The man turns his head slightly, but doesn’t look at her. Only the pigeons. “They buried him before they told anyone. But I shoulda felt something.” Cordie starts watching the pigeons, too. That’s how she’s been lately. Just bobbing her head and following her paces, ever since P.J. came up from Richmond last month to see their gig— 5 Windows, the opening band at Max’s Kansas City, a prime New York rock venue. Starting to make it. The applause. Proud of my little sister. The high. Then gig over, uptight P.J.’s accusations. You’re drinking too much, wild, acting crazy. Crazy! Then worry turning to anger at Cordie, the spoiled child, the favored one. Cordie runs across Park Avenue, but P.J. followed, so Cordie returned the fire of blame. P.J. went off to college, left her alone with Mama. Crazy? You know nothing about crazy. Then the secrets spilled out. P.J. didn’t know how Mama was, how she smothered Cordie with her needs. P.J didn’t know the stories Mama told her, what Mama had suffered, or believed she had. Tears, screams, blurring into more words and tears, and too much was said. Since, no P.J., and Cordie worries that she drove her sister away. For weeks she stayed low. With the pigeons. Windows didn’t have another gig until July 3rd, her twentieth birthday, so she pulled herself off the ground to play. While Jim was taking his last breaths, she and the guys rocked. They drank, laughed, and sang happy birthday, dear Cordie. She made everybody sing to the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, too, because it passed two days before. Happy voting to you. Too late to save the boys in Vietnam, but now eighteen-year-olds will vote war away. Ain’t no flower jammed in a barrel gonna stop the bullets from flying. Joey smiling at her, shaking his head. What was he trying to tell her? He won’t explain the tattoo—was he a Black Panther? They were against the war, she thinks, but violent.