From The Editors Issue 8: December 2011 You might have noticed that this issue is a little different to usual. That’s right, we’ve shrunken ourselves down to become an A5 ‘zine! It’s win-win for everyone, really; it makes it consider- ably easier on our poor wallets (yes, that’s right; our wallets - no funding here except our own!) and means it’s not quite as cumbersome for you to carry around, either. It also makes us stand out a little, and hey, any exposure is good exposure! Don’t make us eat those words.

All of us here at Underground hope you’ve had a fantastic 2011, and of course we hope you have an even better 2012! We’ve got great big plans for 2012, and we all hope you’re a part of it.

The Blind Will Hear It Coming, The Deaf Will See Its Shroud The blind will hear it coming, The dog will bite the hand that feeds, And the deaf will see its shroud; The mother spurn the young; The lame will feel the earthquake Each will seek to kill his foes As its feet fall on the ground. Before their stones are slung.

The wise will know its nature, Death will make its visage known, And the quick will run away; Plague will take its lot; The blessed will be risen, War will pick the owners While the damned will have to stay. Of what’s not begun to rot.

The frightened will be bargained with, And all who die will rise again, The pious, overcome; To stumble through the day. The unrepentant will be left For Heaven’s gates have shut at last; To scheme, and think they’ve won. The damned are here to stay.

The voyeurs will be stricken blind, The politicians mute; Those who once knew certainty Will stand irresolute.

Tom is a writer of literally no renown, his works unread by most and unpublished to the letter. He continues to lie in wait for a moment in which opportunity and inspiration come together to catapult him into commercial and critical acclaim. Till then, he lives in Perth in the general vicinity of his girlfriend. Lockjaw and Rabies and Bananas

This is what it feels like.

Like a rubber band squeezing your heart and your mind, pulling them together, forcing them to move, to collide at such high speeds that they will surely explode. It feels like elastic pressure so strong that you can’t fight back.

And you shout at your thoughts to stop thinking. You think of your failures. That you’ll never make it to the moon, and you’ll never be good at Algebra, and if you got teta- nus you probably wouldn’t know it until your jaw locked shut, and then what would you do with all those words you hadn’t yet spoken? You’d have to swallow them, and where would they go? After all, you’re trying to lose weight. The last thing you need are more things to swallow. Unless your jaw is locked shut, in which case you would probably welcome whatever sort of calories you could find - even empty ones.

And for a second, all of that worked. You were distracted. And then it comes rushing back: the panic, the palpitations, the muscle jumping under your eye. Jumping rope un- der your left eye. Remember when you saw the family in the park trying to do Double Dutch? Remember how the mother and father and son and daughter all stood, ready to jump together, but the mother just couldn’t lift her feet high enough off the ground. And the father kept turning around and saying it was okay, although the look on his face said something quite and altogether different?

And there, it worked again. Distracted. And the panic hits you like a semi. Your mind thinks, where am I going to go? And it hits the wall of I Don’t Know, and so your mind picks up the thought again and hurls it against the wall over and over and over until, if you don’t think of something else, the thought will burst out of your mind and you’ll be sitting in a chair at your desk with lockjaw and a hole in your head and a twitching eye.

So you think about rabies. Rabies? Remember when you were little and you had an in- flatable pool? Remember when you went outside one day and there were raccoon prints in the bottom of the pool? Because they always wash their food, your mother said, raccoons are very clean. But never go near them. They carry rabies. And for some reason, you thought of a raccoon carefully cleaning a banana in your inflatable pool.

Where are you going to go? I Don’t Know. Where are you going to go? I Don’t Know. Where are you going to go? I Don’t Know.

Bananas. Bananas are on your diet. And you push your chair away from your desk and will your eye to stop playing Double Dutch because you think you might be going crazy and you had better go eat the banana before you step on a rusty nail and your jaw locks shut and you’re forced to swallow your words. It’s Not Equal

Iniquitous life is breaking me again And they live in an 8 bedroom mansion The system I cannot face Made from children’s skulls Capitalism is a disgrace How can they not give in Slavery for a home As the youth do in despair Yet better than an African starvation And take their lives Or a Chinese abduction They are far too rich I’m left alone with an American suicide And most too poor Our needs are never met Yet I can bear it now This horror they create of mass drunkenness So I write Ignorance to what we do in our silly jobs And the good people And we are forced into it The ones that help No choices The nurses All to die one day The community workers And pass on our wealth Thirty something years of service If we have any All for a modest home And CEO’s sip virgin’s blood As a forest nears its end

THIS TIME IN UNDERGROUND...

The Blind Will Hear It Coming 1 Poetry Lockjaw and Rabies and Bananas 2 Prose It’s Not Equal 3 Poetry Sprung 4 - 5 Poetry Obsidian Skyline 6 - 11 Prose Untitled 11 Poetry Made in the Amazons, Not in China 12 - 15 Prose Corky 16 - 19 Prose Ocean 20 Poetry

Sprung At war, pretty vacant Pinned down at my station I am transfixed by the wood grain The veneer Betwixt mouse & knuckle…

Then notice the time And then the date – Time on the wall, Date on the cascading desk calendar – The daily quote etched below the numerical It’s Sigmund Freud: “Flowers are restful to look at. They have Neither emotions nor conflicts.”

This makes me think of DH Lawrence’s Bavarian Gentians & almost simultaneously of a blue plastic shopping bag Caught in a ghost gum I saw on my break In the New World car-park. It is Spring! And I am infected at root With ennui.

Unlike Freud & his Bavarian Gentians... Hang on, isn’t that DH Lawrence? Whomever Unlike those last century types I do not a) have a special relationship with flowers b) feel the subcutaneous sap rising in interconnectedness

I have no strange communion it seems With flower, tree, beast, nature. They yield no essence to me & yet…what do I see? Only the new material century consumptive way – The fatal mark of the human ego – That now knows better! Yet still without fourth thought Let alone second Inserts electronic towers on top of sand dunes Ravaging melaleuca & fragile tuart And polluting in total The deeper life of place?? Ostensibly, insanely So we can enjoy better connection!? My complacent part in this – The complicit ego – That thinks & perceives & writes only Of this very serious loss Perhaps the greatest loss possible?? Of the real disconnect that's occurring And of a plastic shopping bag In a supermarket car-park Stuck in a friggin’ tree!?

I feel nothing…really. I do nothing. I am alone but I fear Not in this regard.

Perceptions blocked It’s back to the date, the clock And time to knock off Another day, another dollar!

Tomorrow’s quote (again from last century): “There is no such thing as society”

Hi fucking ho! Obsidian Skyline

Ocean ripples pass over cold, olive skin. Bubbles float at the surface—the sun’s glow is dulled from the darkened blue stream. He’s drowning, he knows. Clenching contin- ues to punish his lungs, hungry for breath. His hands push against the glassy fold of water holding him down, but the force is too strong. A scream escapes his lips, but no one can hear him.

Beep, beep, beep, beep…

He punches through. Gasping for air. He’s free. He’s alive. He’s won.

Beep, beep, beep, beep…

Kez snapped his eyes open and his entire body jerked skywards from where he lay in bed. His eyes scanned over the room, dark except for a few white rays of sun- light tattooing the walls in strips. He ran his hands over his face, damp sweat dotting his forehead; black strands of hair adhered uncomfortably. His feet sunk into the carpet as he began to stand, balance becoming a daily issue.

He tugged at the blinds. Mandarin light and warmth enveloped the room. A smoky atmosphere of thick, shadowy dust lined the horizon as the sun rose behind decaying mountains of granite. There was no hope of streams or water in such an environment, yet Kez remained weary. He remembered a time where water filled the earth and the sky was blue. A long time ago—yet his nightmares were still focused on that sin- gle impossibility. Fear of drowning and the need for a perfect world clashed in his mind. But those thoughts weren’t allowed in a technocracy based on rationality.

For now, he would settle with reality. An onyx gasmask rested in his hands as he pushed himself into the elevator. The elevator quaked—but quickly recovered—and propelled. The doors slid open and an army ranging from technicians to soldiers and scientists crossed the titanium chamber lifelessly. Each retained a basic emphasis on emotional control. Not a single ‘hello’ or greeting as Kez started towards his mandatory lane.

A girl of around his age—probably nineteen, they’d all stopped keeping track years ago—gave a mechanical smile and passed a plastic tray of food and vitamins through the slot of a glass window. She watched him take his pills, a task suited for those in soli- tary.

But Kez didn’t swallow all of them; he allowed the blue pill to rest beneath his tongue.

It was the pill for brain suppressors, the pill that would have made him as thick and emotionless as the rest.

“Thanks,” He said robotically.

Near a window, Kez found a table populated with medical students and scholars. He slid the tray forward and sighed. The ‘food’ resembled a maroon sludge of molten rock.

He couldn’t eat the stuff for another day. He raised his eyes to catch the averted glance from the nurse across from him. The kid beside her stared at Kez uncertainly—almost brainlessly.

He pushed back from the table, sneakily removing the blue pill and squeezing it in the glass of protein drink. “I’m not feeling very hungry,” He explained in a monotone, con- ceding voice. Kez passed a nod to the five at the table, clutching the gasmask. “Keep what you want.”

He turned away, striding quickly to the elevator. A single glance back proved his as- sumption true. The nurse and kid took the food hungrily, while the scholar who had sat next to him stood from the table and made a beeline for security’s cove. Kez tapped the button for the surface repeatedly. As the doors closed, he could see the black-armored guards running through the crowds to reach him. They were too late.

He held the nozzle of the gasmask to his mouth, biting down on the inside for support as he tied the straps around the nape of his neck. His breathing grew heavy and thun- dering to his eardrums. The glass of the goggles blurred and cleared, back and forth until the doors opened to the roof.

He ran towards the edge, despite stares from mechanics and businessmen, practically huffing through their masks in awe. He took a deep breath, bid the men farewell, and leaped.

His arms fanned themselves instinctively, his legs bracing for the ground. But he made it by an inch, landing on a floor-lower rooftop. He beat the roof in a rolling clatter, his side drilling into pebbles, and the gasmask threatening to come undone. Kez forced himself onwards, gaining levity once more and running to the building next over.

He landed just a half a floor lower than before. He was making progress. Progress towards the world he had so desperately wanted to be a part of. This world—this ash filled landscape void of life behind the walls—all of it, was so unreal, so harsh and painful. Even the sun seemed to refuse to rise in the mornings, and during winters, didn’t at all. Where Kez was headed, he’d heard rumors of forests. He’d heard of wildlife and cities unbound by rules and regulation. The next time Kez would awaken, he would be somewhere safe. Somewhere like home.

Kez stopped. The last jump . He was close to the ground, but that didn’t mean his bones wouldn’t break from the fall. The guards would catch up. The security cameras had al- ready caught his whole escape. He had only a few moments.

“Goodbye,” he whispered. Sirens sounded as he jumped. The objecting yells and shouts from security a few build- ings back were clouded with the rush of wind and dust against his skin. His arms stretched forward and grabbed hold of a stone windowsill. He looked down—the ground was within safe distance. He dropped, his shoes greeting the unknown feel of soil. Kez smiled to himself; he was almost free.

‘Almost’ was a seemingly wide term. Kez ran around a mile before the barracks came into view: large, metal electric gates surrounded the military complex, along with a train of defense vehicles and several gun-equipped guards.

He traced his eyes along the scene as he skidded to a stop, dust settling in his midst.

He had lost the guards who had chased him quite awhile back, but a challenge was still provided.

Kez ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled, securing his gasmask one last time be- fore walking casually towards the gates.

“Hey,” He began. His hands shook with fear, but he placed them in his pockets, away from view. “We gotta soldier breaking regulation—he escaped. Can I get a glance at the security cams?” The man in the tollhouse blinked his eyes behind the foggy goggles of his mask. “Hello? This is important. He’s gonna hijack aircraft soon.”

Logic. Handle the more medicated type with logic; something his staff sergeant had taught him last year in basic military training.

The man finally nodded. “Come in,” He said.

Clink .

The door unlocked and Kez entered, examining the building’s command dashboard carefully. The man turned his back, checking over the security cams.

“Hey, wait a minute,” He looked to Kez. “Is that you?” “Look out!” Kez shouted, pointing behind him. The man braced in the few seconds it took for Kez to knock him unconscious. “Sorry, man.” He muttered, turning the dial on the fence to harmlessness.

With that, the gate popped open, and the security troops simply stared. Kez dis- armed the man in the tollhouse, carrying the gun with ease as he neared the fence. The guards didn’t seem to understand what was happening. They were perfectly clueless.

“I’m taking one of these.” He motioned towards one of the empty vehicles.

As he pulled out in reverse, he could see the security guards running towards the bar- racks, slowing to a stop as it became apparent he couldn’t be caught on foot. He sped off at upwards from one-twenty mph, rolling through the mountains.

Where the oceans used to be remained an enormous trench of sediment and ground.

Tucked in the body of a mountain, close to the coastline, Kez could see the entrance to where he was headed.

The car stopped before it. He ran to the cave and through the dark tunnels, a scent of grass growing the further he walked. There was light somewhere far away—just a dot—but unmistakable.

Kez’s heart raced like never before as the tunnel grew brighter. He took one last turn, and there, at the end, was exactly what he was searching for.

Humanity .

Inside the mountain, the walls glistened like water, black and smooth with heightened ceilings. A spring lay in the center of a grassland, water bubbling and echoing across the vast space. Dark green trees lined the inner walls of the cave, needles and pine- cones dotting the ground. Children ran freely, unbound by regulation clothing and pills meant to compress their true nature. People—everywhere. Happy and free. The way Kez had so deeply de- sired to be. He slowly removed the gasmask and allowed it to fall to the ground.

He could breathe.

Untitled

Your specter has lingered, haunting my head and haunting his bed the one in which once upon a time you just slept. With your third generation mein kampf scars and your Sartre filled head. Things that I know not from you, but from him

the one who’s space you once shared and who’s air I now breathe. The one whom I love, the one you discarded the one who has now slipped from the cord you tied around him. The dark cloud that is you, bringing shade to my heart tinting my elation with doubt and my trust with fear. You are the root of the only lie that I have seen pass his quivering lips as I sunk my teeth inside mine and had a taste as I let it bleed. The vivid way in which you swiftly dismissed me and the smile you used as a way to gnash your teeth as you illustrate the way it was when he was the boy and you the girl.

Wooden walls,polaroids of you, the door I never should of never walked through then It was my turn to be the ghoul, to be the ghost Haunt the maze in which you grew up, haunt the glass floor which saw the both of you leap in blind faith. Maybe it would be ok if you didn’t still help yourself to his spare change or I would not hear your messages buzz in place of bedtime stories. The thing is that I’m not even one to be considered the jealous type it’s just that this train of thought makes me feel faulty.

Searching for the meaning behind your hand me down prose and the thoughts you borrowed from those who you study in a formal course. It is not much worse than my delusions of beauty and grandeur but I am used to me, and don’t want to deal with you, the lies from you dry lips or all those dystopias and drugs you read through. You now, I have read Burroughs too, and fell for Kerouac’s whims. It is ok now,my bones must rest and i must forget the problem I created myself. Made in the Amazons, Not in China

The day John's life turned to shit began on a good note. On his first Saturday off in months, his girlfriend, Gina, made him a deal he couldn't resist: she'd give him a blow job, if he'd come with her to the flea market.

"I don't know, babe. It's not really my scene." He pretended to shrug in complacent resistance and began making coffee. He would've gone without the offer. He did love her after all, and he did promise they'd go if he managed the day off.

But since she offered…

John heard the clink of her spoon hitting her bowl, followed by her chair shuffling over tile. A brief silence lingered until he poured water into the coffee maker. She wrapped her arms around his back.

"Please?" Her breath fell on the nape of his neck like a feather. He pressed "start".

Gina meant to buy some decorations for the apartment. They had been living there for three months, and the only thing on their walls was a Fear and Loathing in Las

Vegas poster, the one with the maniac driving a red Chevy. She didn't mind it. She un- derstood the appeal, free inhibition wrapped up in drugged out impulse. She just need- ed more. She didn't know exactly what she needed, but she knew she wouldn't find it if she didn’t at least go looking.

They went from stall to stall. She felt John watching her, amused by everything she did. She flipped through dozens of paintings and post cards and fingered tapestries of all colors and fabrics. Yet, none of them screamed, "I'm special."

Then at the last stall, she found a green tinted, toughskinned shrunken head. She had seen one before. A friend returning from practicing medicine in Peru brought one back as a souvenir. She picked it up and turned to John.

"Really?" He hated it. Even as a non-practicing Catholic, it still scared the crap out of him.

"It's probably not even real. You have to admit, it's pretty cool."

"If by cool, you mean fucking creepy, than yes, it's the coolest thing ever."

"Did you know that shrunken heads belonged to captive war enemies?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Well, you probably also didn't know they were shrunk to prevent the soul from avenging its owner."

"Great. That makes me want it even more."

Gina lifted the head to John's eye level and began talking in a fake Spanish ac- cent.

"Señor, you know you want to buy me."

"Not really..." He stared into the sewn eye lids. "But since my weird ass girlfriend likes you. I guess we're taking you home."

They placed the shrunken head on the wall outside their bedroom. John swore he felt it peak in through the crack of their door. He also ignored the strange hums he knew he heard.

When he was finally able to fall asleep, he only had nightmares about an angry brown man with a red painted face and sharp teeth. He told Gina over breakfast about his nightmare and how the shrunken head un- nerved him.

"No, I didn't feel like Juan Carlos was watching us."

"You named it?"

"Yeah. I name everything though. You know that."

"True. But still. How about that nightmare? I never get nightmares."

"And you think Juan Carlos is responsible for that, too?"

"I don't know. Kinda, yeah."

"You're so cute when you're crazy."

"Shut up. I'm just saying. Whatever. I have to get ready for work." John got up and placed his plate in the sink.

Work didn't help John's mood at all. Somehow all the guests had experienced a problem and decided it was John's fault for the hotel's substandard service. He came home and saw the string attached to the shrunken head sway ever so slightly.

On the following day, he found his tires slashed and car broken into.

Tuesday and Wednesday were bill days, which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't have been as terrible if he hadn't had to pay for new tires, a car alarm system, and cab fare to work. He overdrafted twice.

John spent Thursday half at the hotel fighting with guests and half at home fighting with Gina.

"Look at all the shit that has happened to me since getting that thing."

"You're just having a rough week. An inanimate object cannot control your life." "I don't want it in our house anymore."

"I live here, too, you know."

"I pay the rent, and my name's on the lease."

"Pulling out the big guns, aren't you? Asshole."

"Why's that stupid thing so damn important anyways?"

"Why are you such a pussy?"

"Fuck you."

Gina packed her belongings while John worked on Friday. She wanted more than whatever happened the night before. Never once did she think that she was being un- fair or idealistic; all she thought about was wanting better. She left a note on the coffee table.

He returned from work and felt the emptiness left in the apartment. He inhaled and slowly exhaled through his nose. From the door he saw two things, a note that had to be a break-up letter and the damned shrunken head. He turned around. He needed to be anywhere but there.

A week after he was introduced to Juan Carlos, someone stabbed John as he walked to his car after working a double.

When he returned from the hospital, the head had fallen to the floor.

Stuck for ideas? Creative spirit running a little dry? Finding it kinda hard to pull those ideas (if there are any) out of your brain and onto the page? Why not trying a writing exercise? Here at Underground, we periodically update our website with new ideas to get the juices flowing.

Drop on over to www.underground-writers.org and have a look - who knows, what starts as a fun little exercise might just turn into something incredible. Corky

Corky weaved toward us on his bicycle. We could see that he'd been drinking.

“Hey li’l brothers,” he slurred.

We stepped off the sidewalk and let him pass on his bike. The bicycle was a mess. A broken headlight dangled from frayed wires, the frame was tar- nished and faded by rain and sun, and spokes were missing from the wobbly wheels. He was a mess, too. He smelled of old liquor, new sweat, and days without bath or change of clothes. A lens on his glasses was cracked and he didn’t even seem to notice.

“What’s happ’nin?” He stopped and leaned unsteadily on one leg to greet Brother Juniper, the preacher of the little mission for poor white folks from across the railroad tracks who had been coming along in the other direc- tion. He leaned too far and crashed to the ground with a thud and a moan. The bemused preacher untangled him from the thicket of arms, legs and met- al, lifted him onto his feet, and brushed the red chalky dust and tiny jagged rocks from his shirt, pants, and skin.

“Corky, are you alright?" asked Brother Juniper. "What in the world…?”

“No…nope…yep…yeah, I’m okay," said Corky. "Hey, where’re you off to?" he asked

He tried to look serious and sober. He was unsuccessful.

“I’m goin’ to the noon Holy Week Service in town," answered Brother Juniper. "It’s at the First Baptist Church today. Let’s park your bike. You can come with me.“

“Well hell. You must need it more than other folks do!”

“The services are for ev’rybody…Baptists, Methodists, Holy Rollers, Presby- terians, Episcopalians, Quakers…ev’rybody," said Brother Juniper. "I reckon we all need it! Come on. It’ll do us both good."

The preacher looked at us.

"Hey there, boys," he greeted. "I almost didn’t see you. Come here. Close your eyes. Hold out your hands.”

We said hello to Brother Juniper, careful not to look him in the eyes, as Mom- ma and Poppa taught us to do with white folks. He wore a blue shirt, khaki pants like the ones Poppa wore in the fields, and tattered black shoes. This must have been his uniform because it was what he was wearing every time we saw him. His bespectacled eyes were circled by perfectly round lenses in wire frames that hooked around his ears. They made him look more like a college profes- sor than a new preacher just out of preacher training school. We came to him, closed our eyes, held out our hands and felt the small, barrel shapes of the chewing gum they sold in big barrels at the counter of the Green Stamp store on Main Street.

“Thank you, sir!" we said together.

“You’re welcome. Now you boys run along to where you’re going and do what needs to be done. Blow some bubbles along the way!”

The preacher put his arm around Corky’s shoulders and they started up the road toward Main Street. As they lumbered along side by side, the midday sun sat high in the sky and cast their shadows straight down behind them. A preacher and the town drunk going to church together! It was a sight to see.

“Carver, I’ve never seen a drunk person go into a church before," I whis- pered. "Whatcha ‘spect’ll happen? You reckon he’ll get struck by light’nin’?”

“I don’t know but I figure som’pin’ll happen," whispered Carver.

“Let’s follow behind ‘em and see,” I said.

We’d never been inside of the white folks churches downtown. We’d only seen the outside of them. The church we went to was plain and simple. It was a one-story building with a steeple on top. It was made with pine boards painted white. There was an iron bell in the steeple, the same bell that rang us awake and called us to church every Sunday.

The white folks churches, on the other hand, were beautiful and stately. They were the tallest buildings in town.

They were made with bricks, stones, and oak wood and looked like castles on each corner of the town square. There were copper bells in their towering steeples, bells that rang in each hour of the day and played hymns at noon- time.

The First Baptist Church was the biggest church of all. The town doctors, law- yers, bankers, and planters went there, the men and their families who ran our town, who cast long shadows over us black folks, shadows that stretched from Jim Crow to the Civil War and all the way back to the slavery days.

We hid behind the grand old magnolia tree on the front lawn to watch Brother Juniper and Corky climb the steps to the heavy oak doors that opened in toward the entrance hall.

Two men in their Sunday suits stood at the doors to welcome them to the ser- vice. We could see around them inside the wide doors. On the wall there was a picture of Jesus with long brown hair and a long beard with light around his face looking up to heaven. Under the picture there was a long table with the words “This Do In Remembrance Of Me” carved into the front of it. There were colorful spring flowers and gold offering plates on top of it.

The men reached out to shake hands with Brother Juniper and Corky. Brother Juniper took his hand from Corky’s shoulder to offer a handshake in return. Corky wobbled at the sudden freedom and fell into the arms of one of the shocked men. You should have seen that usher’s face! He looked like he had just eaten a plain radish chased by a spoonful of castor oil! He pushed Corky back onto the embarrassed Brother Juniper and into the other usher. He must have breathed in Corky’s smell because he turned his face away.

The confused group held onto each other and sort of jitterbugged their way into the church. They stopped in stunned surprise in front of the table. Corky raised his arms. A bottle of liquor he was hiding in the waist of his wrinkled, baggy pants fell out and crashed onto the marble floor. As the congregation sang about streams of mercy flowing down from the cross, streams of whisky flowed everywhere else. Pieces of glass gleamed in the flood of light.

“What the …?!” gasped one usher.

“Get him out of here right now!” yelled the other usher.

The smell of the whisky wafted over the lawn and burned our noses. What were the folks in the sanctuary thinking?

“Go on! Get him outta here! We’ll clean it up!" screamed the ushers.

The bewildered Brother Juniper took Corky into his arms and limped him down the steps and onto the sidewalk. They hobbled away.

The ushers came out onto the steps. Nervous chuckles gave way to relieved belly laughs.

“He oughtta’ve known not to bring him here. Especially when he’s drunk. Somebody needs to sit down with that young preacher and let him know what’s what.”

“Yeah, the next thing you know he’ll be tryin’ to bring nig..."

We moved on around the tree and started for the seed store.

Submitters

The Blind Will Hear It Coming, The Deaf Will See Its Shroud - Tom Coates Lockjaw and Rabies and Bananas - Alexandria Gilbert It’s Not Equal - Thomas Ladwig Sprung - JW Gordon Obsidian Skyline - Shannon Koga Untitled - Veronica Lozada Tucci Made in the Amazons, Not in China - Jennifer Martinez Corky - Trevor Scott Barton Ocean - Zoe Jane Miller

Ocean

I cried a salt-lake; in the corner of eyes, a stinging chlorine, drying like uncovered gel; blue-white, sticky yet sweet. For that lesser (more) sea, some call love others, imagination; I strayed into, shoes, wool and all; and struggled, against the rips and coils, til the waves stripped me bare, and lightened me, from the gravity of a sunless, silk shore. My neck frayed, two perfect slits; and the murky water translated my screams to sound- everything was clear, like birth, as stillness. Forever, Yet, it is evaporating; the fish, the flowers are dying; and between the sand and the surface, I emerge (submerge), as the salt encapsulates me, and I sting, too much to move, too little to leave.

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So we’re hosting a “design us a logo” competition… and there’s even a prize beyond the whole “feel good about yourself” part too!

Keep an eye on our website for more details, and till then… happy holidays, stay safe, and keep that pen to the page!