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sparkle + blink 50
2014 Quiet Lightning ISBN 978-1-312-02276-8 Sixth World Traveller and Forsaken but not forgotten by Monica Mody are excerpted from Kala Pani, published by 1913 Press. Life During Wartime, Thank You for Sending Me an Angel, Psycho Killer, and Girlfriend is Better by RJ Ingram are from a project entitled Stop Making Sense. Judds Studio Door by Lex Kosieradzki first published in Anamesa book design and cover art by j. brandon loberg set in Absara Promotional rights only. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from individual authors. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the author(s) is illegal. Your support is crucial and appreciated.

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CONTENTS
curated by

Evan Karp + Sarah Ciston

featured artist

j. brandon loberg Set 1

MATT LEIBEL MONICA MODY

This is your captain Sixth World Traveller Forsaken but not forgotten an average distance the face of infinity is not a poem

1 3 5 10 13 17

CHLO VEYLIT

[We are becoming the same smell...] 9

COSMO SPINOSA

MONETA GOLDSMITH Gods last words

Set 2
GERALDINE KIM LEX KOSIERADZKI RJ INGRAM

Broken Sword Judds Studio Door Life During Wartime Psycho Killer Girlfriend is Better

25 27 33 35 36 37 47 49 51 55

Thank You for Sending Me an Angel 34

SIAMAK VOSSOUGHI Sharpness TOMAS MONIZ Trigger

Commitment 48 Fetid
MICHAEL COOPER TERESA K. MILLER

the car rode into dawn from California Building

E T L IG I U Q

HTNING IS SPONSORED

BY

lagunitas.com

QUIET LIGHTNING
A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet Lightning is to foster a community based on literary expression and to provide an arena for said expression. QL produces a monthly, submission-based reading series on the first Monday of every month, of which these books (sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts. Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the board of QL is currently: Evan Karp founder + president Chris Cole managing director Josey Lee public relations Meghan Thornton treasurer Kristen Kramer chair Sarah Ciston Katie Wheeler-Dubin Kelsey Schimmelman director of books director of films acting secretary

Sidney Stretz and Laura Cern Melo art directors Lisa Miller, Rose Linke, and RJ Ingram outreach directors Sarah Maria Griffin and Ceri Bevan directors of special operations If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in helpingon any levelplease send us a line: e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

- SET 1 -

MMMM

MMEIMEM

THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN

This is your captain speaking. Weve reached our cruising altitude of 25,000 feet. Our flying time today in this Boeing 767-300ER is approximately 5 hours and 39 minutes. Were anticipating a smooth ride. Ill be checking back with you a little bit later as we get closer to our destination. Now I invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Note: This is your captain speaking... continues interspersed throughout the first set.
1

MON

IMMMMOMM

FRO M

KALA PANI

sixth world traveller At the time, of course, I turned them into media sensations. Sameshape & Othershape were unaware of it, but they became ethnic, geographic and social curiosities for an entire nation. I had just joined a gang of bloggers. We prowled streets and slums, technical handbooks and audience pages, artists studios and alternative film clubs, buses and body doubles, city squares and the Commonwealth Games Village, dance shows and the Department of Atomic Energy, environmental groups and the east side of the river, town halls and martyrs statues, looking For signs of urban dystopia. We were rough and restless with cannon and sought relationships that would, historically and comparatively, challenge us. The junkyard was the perfect setting. Ext. Junkyard Full Moon. Sameshape & Othershape notice the moon. Sameshape tracks how long Othershape stares at the moon. SAMESHAPE OTHERSHAPE SAMESHAPE OTHERSHAPE
3

[This is Your Captain, cont.] This is your captain speaking. Passengers, I have a confession to make: I am a flawed and selfish man. Sometimes I waste water. I run the tap for no good reason and indulge in occasional 40 minute showers. I have swiped hotel towels. I have stolen illegal cable and wifi. I have had impure thoughts. Quite recently, in fact. And again, just then. Ive overindulged in drink at parties and made loud, factually dubious claims regarding subjects I know little to nothing about. I have slurred these thoughts, horribly. I am jealous of pilots who are better at piloting than I am. I am jealous of World War I fighter aces with multiple kills. I am jealous of the loop-the-loop tricks the Blue Angels do during Fleet Week. I am jealous of Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberger, the celebrated Hero of the Hudson. I could be more charitable. I could read flying adventure stories to children in hospitals. I could learn, perhaps, to genuinely care again for someone or something outside of myself. I could get a pet. I could write a screenplay. But pets are messy and needy and Im obviously on the road a lot. And hospitals are just plain depressing. Thanks for helping me think that through, passengers.

MAT T L E I B E l

MON

IMMMMOMM

FRO M

KALA PANI

culture & society special report:

FORSAKEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Some have questioned the motives of the new government in forcing the world travellers to undergo deprivation and imprisonment; others have come to see the world travellers as larger-thanlife symbols of tolerance and courage; still others have become actively involved in resistance activities initiated by a gang of bloggers. But the real change has happened in the world travellers themselves. From the mid-60s to the early 70s, the world travellers were selected out of a large target group, details of which have been kept blatantly off the record upon request. According to a routine legend, first generation sorting criteria picked: (a) the rheumy-eyed, or (b) the rheumatoid. Later criteria were developed based on a more evolved business model. One source tells us that the search was conducted by international organizations that set standards for a wide range of travel services. They
5

looked for clients who offered super graphics and stunning sound. Storage also added value. What is less known is the fact that clients were tested further for streaming and downloadable themes of love and hope. It is unclear why this was found necessary since all traces of either theme were rendered shiny soon after the new government laid its hands on the world travellers. Conspiracy theorists have many things to say and if we have time today well get to at least the most reasonable of these. Meanwhile, the new government narrowed its list down to six candidates and put them on a flight where their anxiety symptoms were measured. The metronome of anxiety continued to beat as they collapsed and their eyes watered.

Rigorous training After being profiled and selected, the candidates were sent for specialized training. Almost immediately they were put on a special diet to boost their immunity. Twice a day stories were boiled into a thin white gruel for themthis comprised their breakfast and dinner. Their eyelids were clipped open and they were presented with ribbed cable sweaters. Since the technology had not yet made it possible for their dreams to be scanned, they were put under a 24-hour strict surveillance. Cameras followed their every twitch and every move. Specially manufactured leakproof catchers took imprints of their ps at the end of every day and very soon the ps

MON I C A MO DY

had dipped to a critical low and the dipper horn turned illegally red but the warning that was sounded never did reach the ears of the world travellers as

they lightly flounced in their soft immersion. Ill with stories, this was when I stopped visiting them. Everything that follows in this report is hearsay.

MONI CA MODY

[This is Your Captain, cont.] This is your captain speaking. I have turned off the fasten seatbelt sign so you can feel free to move about the cabin. But see, passengers, heres the problem. Fact: theres a widehipped drink cart five feet in front of you clogging up the entire aisle. Immediately behind you is a line ten-deep for the rear lavatory: you can see legs uncomfortably crossed, toes impatiently tapping. Clearly you are not going to be able to move about as freely as you might like. Thats just basic physics. You are mostly stuck, constricted: thats why I inflected free with quotation marks when I made the announcement. And its no accident I just used the word constricted, either. Note that constricted puts one in mind of a boa constrictor, which then suggests the movie Snakes on a Plane, which, in turn, evokes some pretty primal fears about the nature of entrapment, particularly at our current cruising altitude. This movie, unsurprisingly, has been banned by this airline (and presumably all airlines) on all flights, foreign and domestic. As have other airline disaster movies and even, I believe, the obviously satiric Airplane! spoofs. Clearly, the notion that you are imprisoned within a great metal tube of potential fiery death is something you need to be able to forget about for a few hours en route, to maintain your sanity. I have, obviously, upset many of you by reminding you of it here. My deepest apologies. In the seat pocket in front you, youll find a Memory-Wipe: dab it on your face to forget what Ive just said, and please continue to enjoy the flight.

MAT T L E I B E l

CHC

CCVCCCCC

we are becoming the same smell. We are growing eyes, eyes on backs of knees, eyes rooted in sides, peeking between our toes, and sprouts! We are developing crusts, a taste for starch. The dirt grows inside of us, we are helpless to stop it. We have captured something wild, it poisons us. We are on hands and knees, we are vomiting, we are so many eyes. We have lost our hands to eyes. Our bodies are shrinking. Becoming round, hard, limbless. Plant us soon, we will take root. We will stretch, we will climb over ourselves. We need only a little rest. Put us in dirt, we crave dirt, pull it over us like comforters. Take us soon, we are so very hungry. Hungry for dirt, for a burned taste. Discard us, leave us, let us fall apart.

AN AVERAGE DISTANCE
car alarm antagonist cageian piebald more picaresque yellow sounds annoy a zen we disturb the sound (is that the air vent? theres that hum, isnt there?) listening to the page inflect to the immediate responses of the environment fixed speak itself in the mind real time power the voice gets a cold obvious origins boggled the sounds come into the poem made of the same stuff as language performing the pictures of the sound a different disruption of change a bad name be disruptive detractive from interruptions film backwards is the resurrection a symbol of hope typographical reality defunct dated solutions to historical problems

10

C H l O V E Y l I T

[This is Your Captain, cont.] This is your captain speaking. Passengers, have you noticed that Captain is an anagram for I Catnap? Which, Im guessing, is something you dont want to think about me doing during the course of todays flight? Ill put your mind at ease: even during the most crushingly repetitive stretches of sky-blue tedium, my compulsive habit of thinking up silly anagrams ensures that Ill stay wide awake at the controls.

CH lO VE Y lI T

11

CC

CCCCCCCCCCC

T H E FA C E O F I N F I N I T Y

IS N O T A P O E M

so many hazards are contained in words, like the starfish dying in the pacific ocean from unknown disease, from its arms twisting into knots in other directions, and quartered and crawling away

that they can be drawn

within their own bodies a phantom limb

leaving an empty husk,

. driving across an intersection or in the quiet of a room, sometimes i wonder if i have already left my body as it continues in that imaginary gap where finally i am allowed
13

to forget, forget

the bamboo stalks outside

growing at some determined rate or the blue clothesline swaying with the wind . i am not trying to divide only navigate where as if each thing inexistence, the light falls, could be itemized until it untethers

and it would all come together suddenly intelligible or rendered actual

14

C O S m O S PI N O S A

[This is Your Captain, cont.] This is your captain speaking. Passengers, do you remember the ginormous cloud of smoke that shot up into the sky out of that unpronounceable Icelandic volcano that blew its top a few summers ago, throwing air traffic over Europe into what we in the airline business refer to, colloquially, as a grade-A clusterfuck? I think about that cloud sometimes. Not...in a romantic way or anything, mind youI mean, its not like I have feelings for the cloud. And even if I did, how would I even begin to address those, like, in a physical sense? Its more that, just thinking about the cloud calms me, somehow. I like to imagine flying through it, my 767 disappearing into another realm, being enveloped by the clouds ethereal whiteness in a spiritual embrace, a precipitation-based bear hug. Passengers, I realize this might sound strange. But I spend a lot of time up here, living among the clouds. They tend after a while to take on individual personalities for me. Sometimes they put me in mind of Roman Emperors Ive read about: Hadrian, Constantine, Marcus Aurelius. Other times they remind me of household appliances, sports stadia, enormous government supercomputers, circa 1955. And sometimes the clouds appear to me as big white fluffy dogs. Dogs that can float. Dog balloons. Air pooches. Woof. Woof, woof. If I were forecasting, Id say my mind has become mostly cloudy, with a slight chance of crazy.

MAT T LE I BE l

15

This is your captain speaking. My ex-wifes name is Edie. She has remarried: another pilot. This is hopefully all the background you require, passengers, to see how crushing a blow it was when the horse I wagered on in the 8th Race at Del Mar last Sunday lost a photo finish by the shortest of whiskers to a nag named Edies Flyer.

16

MAT T L E I B E l

N MO

EMMMMOMMMMIM

G O D S L A ST W O R D S

Nothing original ever came after the phrase according to studies, but anyway they did this study at MIT about people on their deathbeds, and they discovered that the most common last words spoken by people at the hour of their death is indeed the word fuck, followed by the phrases: My God, Holy Fuck, and curiously, way down at the bottom list (Picasso I believe said this), Fuck me sideways, there go my Goddamn fucking chopsticks again! I havent been around enough of the dying myself to confirm the frequency of these terms use, but I do like to imagine all of these people living for themselves in that momentunfettered, unrehearsed, unadulterated (less Charles DarwinI am not afraid., more Keith MoonGet these goddamn fucking nuns away from me for christs sake) What I mean to say is, how often are we warned about the secret consequences of what we say, of the great and terrible unforeseena butterfly
17

flutters its wings on a beach in Brazil and a tornado brews someplace in Japan; a girl announces her Saturday night plans on her Facebook page and another defenseless kitten gets mauled in an alleyway by a pack of angry war hogs. The scientists who studied the Butterfly Effect at MIT offered the image of a butterfly causing a tornado rather something more pleasant like a popsicle epidemic or much-needed rain, becausetheres no way to avoid this nowaccording to studies, something detrimental is precisely one thousand times more likely to occur than just about anything else. Which is why sometimes Im afraid to talk to the homeless guy on my block, who will ask me even though everyday he forgets who I am Hey! Heyguy, hows your week going? Spare any change today? because, you see, I worry if I respond what might happen later tonight to my seventh grade self, whos stuck working the late shift at the Seven Eleven; sometimes Im afraid to talk to the cute bartender with the sunken eyes and her sheer youllnever havemeness
18
MON E TA G O l DS mI T H

because I dont want to mess up whatever great thing shell tell me she has planned a year from not now. Because Id probably bring her back to my tiny apartment only to find fresh ant colonies in the corners of the bedroom (too terrified to touch anything or to clean them up because of what might occur on Omaha Beach twelve years from tomorrow). So I mean, what if every time some little boy curses (he says the words fuck my uncle, for instance or he says, your mothers a Goddamn astronaut, practically begging in that case for divine retribution), an angel loses its wings? What if God does exist, on a kind of technicality, but what if He when He made Earth He was just a teenager at the timeso that His whole dinosaur stage had hardly worn off by then, and He still hadnt quite learned about things like morals, and otherness, and responsibility yet? What if He was just a little high the day when he told Adam Sit tight, Ill be right back...oh and btw (lowering His great God voice to sound more deserving of His authority) dont touch my shit or else? What if when He came back and saw that Adam did exactly that (really, who would take
MONE TA GOlDSmI T H

19

a god like that seriously?), God decided to punish them on a whim for the rest of eternityhaving them multiply and procreate, and not in that order, just so that He could drown them all a handful of times and then leave them alone forever which are the two biggest mistakes you can make as a parent, practically Parenting 101so that from that point forward all life on Earth would be divided: half the world would always have abandonment issues, clinging to the hope He might return one day, while the other half would more or less conveniently forget all about Him at least until the hour of their death, when they would find themselves crying out the very same thing God must have said once upon a time, just after He came down to check up on His beloved Adam that first time and maybe He was in a bad mood Hed just lost a videogame, lets say, to Mammon or to Lucifer or to the wise men with that potent frankincense and myrrh the stickyicky kind that always sets Him on edge a little but He doesnt quite know how to turn it down we have to remember these were the teenage years
20
MON E TA G O l DS mI T H

so that when He saw what happened down in the garden He was all like, What the fuuuuuck? because what else would God say in that situation? Because He wasnt thinking; its just what came out.

MONE TA GOlDSmI T H

21

[This is Your Captain, cont.] This is your captain speaking. I know that as the skies outside the window seats grow darker, you are probably craving sleep. My interruption is not welcome. But unlike you, I cant sleep. By which I mean not only my current piloting responsibilities, but that I suffer from generalized insomnia. It is difficult for me to turn my brain off when I lie down, even when my eyelids feel heavy as sumo wrestlers. I worry, largely, about existential things: with war as a constant, is there hope for humanity? How can long-term solutions be arrived at if the entire political system is predicated on short-term expediency? Will I ever again be able to feel and love, fully and deeply? Are we all free-willing masters of our own fate or are we merely puppets in an elaborate SIM game played by bored and likely quite geeky higher beings? Is Captain Sully Sullenberger (despite the accolades, the talk show appearances, the best-selling book, the national platform as a spokesman for air safety) really truly happy or is his fame, perhaps, more of a prison for him? None of these concerns are in the least alleviated by my constant tossing and turning, my secret penchant for mooshing pillows into odd cloudy shapes designed to indent perfectly with my head. Nor are they helped by my late-night caffeine binges. Nor my chronic teeth-grinding, nail-biting and tendency toward weird dreams. But you. Hey You, you sleepyheads back there in Coach. Heres what you need to do. Pull down the shade on the window. Turn off the overhead lamps. Reading time is over. Laptop time is over. Suduku time is over. Naptime is here. Close your eyes. Recline your seat back as far as the little metal button on the side of your
22
MAT T L E I B E l

armrest will take you. Rest your weary head against the tiny red-pillowcased pillows weve equipped you with for just this eventuality. A creative visualization may help. Picture a desert island. Palm trees. A hammock. Someone beautiful and dark and scantily-clad rubbing lotion on the small of your back. Your favorite tune, sung by a chorus of angels. Or if that doesnt work: count sheep. (Do people really count sheep anymore? I do. When I do it, I picture myself as an actual shepherd and settle on a number, then when I find Im missing sheep, I panic. I wonder where they could have possibly run off to, and call out to them, plaintively. I give the imaginary sheepdog Ive hired a dressing down, for not doing his job properly. Obviously, none of this makes sleep easier for me. But never mind.) Sleep now, sweet passengers. Thats it. Sleep, my sweet sheep. Sleep.

MAT T LE I BE l

23

- SET 2 -

GGR

GGGGGGGGGG

B R O KEN SW O R D
in the universe next to ours, were all together I see us and cut a small slit between space/time we fuck through that slit we hold hands through that slit the slit folds into itself slicing off hands theres a universe with infinite severed hands, clasped tightly together, folded and bloody theres a universe where no people exist just sunlight and sea the light glitters through the water and reveals other universes if there were eyes, this would be seen theres a universe without significance things dont stand for other things there things are things there we are we there

25

J U D D S S T U D I O D O O R
For some reason, at one of his studios in the town of Marfa, Texas, after installing several of his earliest sculptures, Donald Judd sealed off the door with bricks and built a new door, slightly smaller than the old one, several feet to the right. At the studio, a docent explained to me that the door was moved in order to provide a better view of the sculptures from the entrance. After the tour, I approached the docent and asked if I could photograph the doors. I made my way back to the studio, took the photo, and snuck inside for another look. I noticed that something was amiss. She had explained that Judd determined the ideal placement of the sculptures only later to discover that the original door displayed them too isometrically, that you noticed the edges too much. However, as I paced around the studio I found a vantage point from which the arrangement of the room was conspicuously imperfect. In the far back corner, near Judds desk, I had discovered an ugly view. Judd was a man of many talents, but none so dazzling as his knack for arranging rooms, especially his studios. Why then, in this studio, the only one where he performed such a bizarre renovation for the sake
27

LL

XLLL

LLLLLLZ

LL

of the work, should there have been even a single ugly point? I asked the docent about it and she told me to meet her at Dairy Queen just before it closed at midnight. I showed up an hour early and had a hamburger and a milkshake for dinner. She arrived at eleven forty-five and beckoned me to the cab of her pickup truck. I dont want to talk in there, she said. We rolled up all the windows and she put on some music. You want to know the real reason Judd closed that door off? I nodded. There was a thing in the door. Youve never seen anything like it. If you started to walk in from a certain angle, and then looked down at the threshold, youd see a little ball of light, and if you looked at it for a second youd suddenly be able to see all of existence, at every point in time, from every possible perspective, with every possible variation and every possible outcome, in a single view. Have you read much Borges? He wrote a story about exactly whats in The Aleph! I was instantly willing to believe her. So why did he cover it up?

28

L E X K OS I E RA DZ k I

It didnt work with the installation. Didnt work with the installation? Yeah it had to go. I frowned. I mean, you have to understand, you dont just go plopping sculptures next to something like that like its nothing. She paused, then asked, Are you an artist? I nodded. Me too. So you get it, right? It matters where you put things. You wouldnt hide a painting in a bush unless you really meant it that way. It seems extreme still. He could have found a way to work around it. Its not just something he needed to work around. How much do you know about Judds work? A little, just the stuff Ive seen. So the most important thing for him is the idea that objects generate time and space, that things constantly create the realities that surround them. But then hes setting up this studio and he finds
LE X KOSI E RA DZkI

29

this other object, the aleph, where time and space are completely flattened. Everything that ever was or ever will be, from every angle, is there all at once, in that single point. Theres no space and no time in there. Its just all at once. Do you see the conflict? Imagine yourself walking through Marfa, moving through the streets and out into the desert, around the sculptures: youre thinking about time and space. Youre thinking about your body, and your eyes your whole being relative to everything else. Youre thinking about how everythings generating versions of you and youre simultaneously generating versions of everything else. You look at the beds in the studios, and the light pouring in through the big glass windows and the desert beyond them and youre thinking about how shits being generated and generating other things even when youre not around, even when nobodys around, even when youre asleep. Its just happening. And then you open a door and look down and WOW! Theres everything that ever was and ever will be, from every angle, all at once. You realize that all of existence is one solid piece that doesnt move and doesnt change, and your experience of movement and change is an illusion, that whats actually going on is that youre just becoming aware and unaware of different parts of the aleph. I guess I sort of would have expected him to leave it there. Like he wouldnt have the heart

30

L E X K OS I E RA DZ k I

Its not just an isolated thing. It resonates with you and not necessarily in a good way. Its sort of terrible to leave it once youve started looking. To see so many possibilities, all of them and believe me, youve never been so sure of anything in your life that these are all the possibilities it makes you feel very weak and pointless, like nothing you can do or think isnt already laid out, planned, accounted for by the aleph. Thats the part Judd had such a hard time with. Sure, it was interesting to him that it was there, but he had to get rid of it for the sake of the work, and his own sake. He would look at it for hours and hours, and then hed suddenly stop and curse loudly and go and get drunk in his library. Then the next day he would tell everyone that if others saw it, it would make them into the wrong kinds of people. What those wrong people would be like he never quite specified. He was very clear, though, that he didnt want those types running around, at least not if he could help it. I saw it you know, before he covered it up. It was spectacular. It felt sort of like I was looking down onto the Earth from a spaceship, but more extreme. I never wanted to leave. I think thats why Judd found it so abhorrent, that it feels like a separate place thats the same world as ours, but more real. I think that his whole thing about how it would manufacture the wrong kinds of people was just a political trip he got on when he was trying to account for the aleph, but I think it does point to an underlying politics in his work. You have a role in creating reality, and everything else does too. Its the
LE X KOSI E RA DZkI

31

idea that reality is an intersubjective space. The aleph crushes that. When you see it, it confirms that reality isnt an intersubjective space. Its a predetermined space, and predetermination isnt good for the kind of agency that was important to Judd. But all that aside, its really powerful to have a moment where your perception so vastly exceeds what it usually is. Its like drugs. You can have a problem with them. It would have been inhumane to leave the aleph. It wouldve made people feel depressed and ashamed, like they were living an incomplete version of the truth and only it could turn them on to the real thing. She yawned and rolled down the windows. I could hear a thunderstorm somewhere off in the distance. All the lights in the Dairy Queen had just been turned off, and the lonely sap who had to close was taking out the trash. A hot gust of wind with lots of dust in it blew through the truck and stung my eyes. Then, for some reason, I leaned in to kiss her and she pulled back and shoved me and asked me just what the hell I thought I was doing. Im sorry, I said, I should probably go. She glared at me and agreed and started the engine of her truck. I thanked her for her time, and apologized again.

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L E X K OS I E RA DZ k I

RRRRRRRRR

LIFE DURING WARTIME

1 I transformed into this thing, this beautiful starship or train & everything broke apart the moment like a pincushion exploding. 2 whispers lured my hands down into the well silvered by a pool of light inside of the cup. I drank up before breathing again & was filled with golden spears ringing around my pores. My ears trembled & lips tasted of grapefruit & he grabbed my wrist, this canvas boy. 3 As we rode through districts of ice somebody knew of my secret embellishing, my knowledge of snowstorms & rainbows. 4 & I slept in dazes for the rest of the triplying in bed, dreaming of winds falling down to tie my skin to the quick surface of sleep.
33

THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME AN ANGEL

the street wants to remember the noise a street makes right before midnight. the man in the checkered shorts drinks red wine from a bell jar & then from a thermos & then doesnt drink at all. his watch says its quarter till, but he always keeps it a little slow. what are we going to do with him? the angel in blue corduroy asks. the man is either half asleep or half dead at this point. lets take his wallet & mail it back to him tomorrow so no one can rob him, the shorter angel replies. they say a little spell, which sounds like calligraphy against the cool noises of october. the man stirs as the smaller angel reaches for his wallet. in his blurry state he makes out the curve of her nose & glasses. grandma? he asks her, & finds enough strength to stand. oh good, youre awake. now hurry, or youll miss the last train.

34

R J I N g RA m

PSYCHO KILLER
on the frontage road a burly man in a red pickup truck cries into his palms. meanwhile I was trying to sell my car, I know, I know. he doesnt see me look but I cant stop looking. taking the bus will only add another half an hour to the routine. what is this? the spry asks herself in front of the radio, what is this? did you hear? twenty kids gunned down in school. did you hear the man in the truck sobbing after he dropped his daughter off at Oakland Tech. no. I put an ice cube in my coffee & listen over a drone from a man as he explains how much damages my car has. they change it from the news & Psycho Killer comes on. all three major panels need to be replaced as well as the bumper, the other nicks are simple fixes well do in kind. in kind. I think that was the phrase that had me change my mind. quest-ce que cest? meanwhile my own father decides whether its a good time to call or not. I think we didnt talk about the kids or their parents or their teachers or the shooter. I think I told him about the song & how the dj needed to be fired. what is this? he asks me. what are we doing to ourselves?

RJ INgRA m

35

GIRLFRIEND IS BETTER
war was not a gracious lover. at night she would leave to make tea & listen to the sound of spoon against saucer for hours. her sunday drives to the ice cream parlor took several hours & rarely would she remember what flavor she chose. we sat down at the beach & I folded the towel exactly how she liked. I could see the cream in her eyes & it reminded me of exactly how much she could care. I will always have that afternoon at the horse race when we get older & stop making sense; war had so much fun, she didnt even notice how much money she lost. but then she stopped sleeping in & started to worry me. she would rise to make tea & listen to the metal clink against the saucer for hours.

36

R J I N g RA m

S SSS

SSSSSSSSUS

SS

S H A R P N ESS
The thing about a man with a gun is that now he has aims, now he has something hes pointed at, which makes him sharp, now hes more than just a ball rolling around bouncing off other balls. So it makes sense that when writers have sat down to write, theyve often worked with a man who has a gun. It makes sense that theyve needed him to be sharp. His sharpness is often the thing that lets them find the story. I wanted to write about a man who was just as sharp without guns but I didnt know how. I had just come to San Francisco and I was working at a school as a playground monitor. Every recess was fascinating because I could just watch people and see who they were. One thing I saw was that boys wanted to be sharp just as much as men. I could sometimes feel just as lonely among them in my looking for a new way to be sharp myself. But not for very long because they were kids so they were wonderful. Among the third-grade boys there were two schools of thought when it came to their playing gun games. The boys in Mrs. Hamptons class were not allowed to play gun games and the boys in Mr.
37

Verdis class were. This did not make the boys in Mr. Verdis class go after the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class. There was no fun in shooting somebody who couldnt play. But sometimes I would see the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class watching the boys in Mr. Verdis class, watching the sharpness with which they could duck around a corner and turn and fire one last shot, the way they could close one eye and aim their finger at someone across the play structure, and the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class would look a little hopeless like they were never going to know what it was to feel as clean and pointed as a gun, like they were going to stay unsure and shapeless forever. I was glad to see it because I always felt hopeful to see that boys and men were in the same struggle together. It was better than thinking there was a clear dividing line between them. That was there too, but it didnt tell the whole story. My first attempt at getting the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class to do something other than watch the boys in Mr. Verdis class was touch football. There was something very clean and pointed to a ball being thrown just past a defenders hands and being caught for a touchdown pass. But there were kids who could play and kids who couldnt. They didnt say it, but they knew there was something egalitarian about gun games. Anybody had a chance of shooting anybody. The football games turned into two-on-two, and then pretty soon that petered out as well.
38
S I A m A k VO S S OUgH I

One day I was sitting on the bench next to Devon, who was in Mrs. Hamptons class. I wish we could play shooting games, he said. Mrs. Hampton has that rule for a reason, I said. What is the reason? You should ask her. At home in the evenings I was writing different stories, trying to find the man who was just as sharp without guns. At first I thought he drew his sharpness from how distant he felt from the world, but I wasnt so sure. There was a man I would see walking home who stood asking for change and he would smile at me beautifully when I gave him a quarter. His smile was closer to what I was looking for. Where I lived there were boys with guns. I knew because one had pointed his at me. For about two or three days afterwards, it had been difficult to watch the boys in Mr. Verdis class playing with their fingers for guns, and then it felt like it had before. But I agreed with Mrs. Hamptons rule. There was something about boys playing gun games in a world where boys had guns. It did not seem right. A couple days after we talked, Devon told me hed talked with Mrs. Hampton about the rule.
SI A mA k VOSSOU gH I

39

What was her reason? I said. Well, I didnt actually ask her why she has the rule. What did you ask her? I asked her if instead of shooting bullets, we could shoot lasers from our guns. She said no. Then I asked her if we could just shoot whipped cream from them. Whipped cream? Yes. Then the person we shot at would just get whipped cream all over them. What did she say? She said no. Why didnt you ask her her reason for the rule? He looked off to the side. Because I know its a good rule. I just dont think its fair that the boys in Mr. Verdis class get to play those games and we dont. I understand that. You think it should be the same rule for everybody. Yes. Did you tell Mrs. Hampton that?
40
S I A m A k VO S S OUgH I

No, because if she talks to Mr. Verdi about it, and he tells the boys in his class that they cant play it any more, they might get mad at me. Okay, I said. Ill talk to her about it. At the end of the day I told Mrs. Hampton about it and she agreed that the rule ought to be consistent. On the way home I thought about the boys in Mr. Verdis class. They were going to have to find something new. Well, it would be a good practice for them for finding who they were without guns. If any of them grew up to be writers who wanted to write like that, theyd have had a little experience. If a man wanted to write like that, he couldnt be halfway about it. Thats what I was learning in those days. I couldnt go home and watch a television program in which the characters expressed their sharpness through gunfire. It was nothing against those programs or those characters, I just felt further away from understanding what guns really were when I watched them. I felt further away from knowing how to write without them. And I realized that the key to watching those programs was identifying with the shooter. But there was nothing to stop me from identifying with the man who got shot. They usually accounted for this by making the man who got shot a villain. But there was no getting around the fact that the man who got shot had once been a boy.
SI A mA k VOSSOU gH I

41

I had a friend or two tell me that I was over-thinking it, but when I walked home and saw the smile of the man asking for change and the corner where the boy had pointed a gun at me, I didnt think I was. There was no getting around the fact that a writer had to know who he was in relation to guns. He had to pick them up or not pick them up, but if he was going to not pick them up, he had to all the way not pick them up. He had to not pick them up with the same decisiveness as men who had picked them up. By the end of the week the boys in Mr. Verdis class were not allowed to play gun games any more. They moved around lazily and uncertainly in the schoolyard, but it opened up a world to the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class. They didnt have to sit and watch to see the sharpness they wanted to see enacted any more. They had running races and they played handball and four square, and they even organized games of football for themselves. It was good to see, and I knew the boys in Mr. Verdis class would come around. They didnt have anybody that they could watch and see possessing that special thing just by a move with their fingers. There was only the slow way. The boy who had pointed a gun at me didnt have a chance for the slow way, didnt have as much of a chance as the boys I knew at least. When I tried to hate him, there were so many feelings that came before hating him that hating him would get lost.
42
S I A m A k VO S S OUgH I

Hating him was a gun, and all the other feelings were all the other games that I watched the boys in Mrs. Hamptons class play. That was how Id thought about it the next day, how Id almost lost the chance of ever watching those kids play again. Ill take the slow way, I thought. Ill take the slow way with writing and watching over kids and everything. Ill take the slow way because the slow way lets you see how much is right in front of you, and I wouldnt trade that for any kind of fast way. I was learning from the playground how much was right in front of me, and I felt like if I could do that in writing, Id be in business. The boys in Mrs. Hamptons class brought the boys in Mr. Verdis class into their games, and pretty soon I was sitting on the bench by myself, which was fine. It was easy to think when a man sat down to write that his best subject matter was men who had been decisive in picking up a gun, but I didnt believe it. His best subject matter was life, and it took whatever form it took in front of him. If he was lucky enough to see it take the form of boys playing, it didnt do anybody any good to say that that was less important than men and guns. Just before the bell rang, Devon walked up to me and asked me to spin a basketball on my finger and then slide it to his finger. It was his way of saying thanks for me talking with Mrs. Hampton.
SI A mA k VOSSOU gH I

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You know that I didnt want to do the shooting games because I wanted to kill anybody, right? he said. Sure, I said. Why did you want to do it? It just looked fun. It looked fun to run and hide behind something and aim. I understand. It wasnt because I wanted to hurt anybody. Yes. I remember you said you thought it was a good rule. He smiled to see his own consistency. Why do you think its a good rule? Well, guns are bad, I know that. But theres something you can be with them that you cant be the rest of the time. Im hoping to find a way to be that the rest of the time. How are you going to do that? I dont know, I said. Love?

44

S I A m A k VO S S OUgH I

He looked at me. That might work. Its worth a try, dont you think? He nodded. That really might work, Paymon. It was breathtaking to see in his face that those were the two options before me. It was better than any television program.

SI A mA k VOSSOU gH I

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TTT

TTTTTTTT

TRIG G ER
She asks me to sit on the bed. She tells me to lie back relaxed and casual, like Im not that interested. Any thing you want, I say, the sound of my voice, hunger. She steps back spreads her legs like shes bracing herself, like shes going to fire a gun. Instead, she says, I tell all new lovers this. I was assaulted. I was told to get naked. I was told to take off my clothes. For a long time undressing freaked me out. It was a trigger. So now I choose to do it myself. The way she pulls her t-shirt over her head, reclamation. The jutting of her chest as she unclasps her bra, arrogant. She drops her pants, a pronouncement. She faces me braless and in pink panties. She never takes her eyes off me. I get up. She stands ready. Piece by piece I remove my clothes, dropping each thing to the floor. We breathe in the smell of our naked bodies. When we embrace the sound that escapes her mouth, a war cry, a victory chant, the thump of something hitting a target.

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COMMITMENT
My father said never trust someone who uses big words. My mothers eloquence was legendary. As a child I learned the fine art of knowing your audience before you spoke. So when my new lover mentions commitments under the covers right before sex, I try to think of it as foreplay, imagine the words length: syllable after syllable after syllable, imagine the heft and girth of it, close my eyes to the hot m and t sounds made as you utter it over and over: commitment, a threat, a challenge, a boast, a dirty thing with no discernable beginning or ending.

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T O m AS MON I Z

FETID
When my daughter asks me why Ophelia loved Hamlet, I feel like I should know the answer. One: Ive read it. Two: Ive seen the movie. Three: Ive attended the play. Four: I was an English major. So there really is no excuse; however, I have no idea. I say, Desire is strange. Sometimes we love for the weirdest reasons. My daughter looks at me like Im quoting a Hallmark card. She says, Ophelias a fool and Hamlets a jerk. And she kills herself in a river. I hate stories like that. They stink. And plus all those stupid, fake words. That night, I find my old copy of The Collected Tragedies of Shakespeare. I find Hamlet. I read and realize my daughter is right. I too dont want a love doomed by miscommunication or insecurity. I want a love thats dirty and gritty and maddening but honest, a love that takes the risks and does the work, a love that knows words like fetid but isnt afraid to simply stink and grunt and snort. I want a love that instead of choosing to drown, swims like a motherfucker against the currents and will pull down its own rescuer because its desperate to live.

TOmAS MONI Z

49

THE C

MI

MMME

MMMOOM

AR RODE

INTO DAW

EM

dull firebird hood ornament that ripples the tenements the night of unsucked fingertips the trainwreck of your face lit at regular intervals by the street lampsgas fireeach shred body pulled from the car I sing to the nether gods who despise the ungrace of your callow spring and sonnets! from the wreckage of your eyes we gasp as armies collide over the mainland, heads lowered in their meat buckets, bullets stinging the churchbells ring in the boxcutter dreams of your hands seeding cornsilk in the ridges I sing to the flocks that were all the dividends from your lost child support payments! of my spine my head lulled undrinking your garden, lost in
51

 your nape scent of wheat, we unburn winespeaking a hand in the gap of our thighs each a history of motions outward, twisting and tithed I sing to the things that we do one to another love cries monstrous, Monstrous! each grey cell feeding your daffodils lifting bells open among our writhing mouths open, our shovel severed headsun buryre burythe fattened man sits proud, stonefaced on your prow. I sing to the traffic lights--vile rulers of time, the scourge of my yes, my no, for this you will learn to burn! [it is the tick, the unlaundered shirt, the unsignalled lane change, the missed last step that will teach you my tarantella] I sing for the consternation of Agnes, a firewallno syphilis fever could breach he was cold, swollen in his mismanaged understanding!
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MI C H A E l C OOPE R

 the insomnia of your body, my flag unfurled tight against all wind all stare dew from your chalice shall name me, each time more your criminal becomes each dark sentencea gallows your level, returned stareemissary of openmouthed flowerswe stoneunlevitatable [the mescal tears, the muslin sound wraps your ears, burnt thing, no pink beneathe the blood wellspring of my thighs wrapped around your unlistening] I sing my blackened worm-man by this dark apple half with this dark loam stolen from the floor of the witchs hut I thee wed our razor rose pale heart-moon maps one blood over the demon trod earth stilled by sight of us boil the hollow inside of chocolate skinned effigies of stately white rabbits with howl of the sutures of claw
MI CH A E l COOP E R

53

and bed, barefeet in wet grass your hair knot of my untying life7 startled white birds rise from this page made of mehollow stirred by the desire of barred you flecked new, with reddend wingtips.

54

MI C H A E l C OOPE R

FROM

TT

TTTT

TTTTTTTT T

C A LI F O R N IA B U IL D I N G

29th & MLK/ the roof burned out for as long// We clawed for something remote/ to wake up in a bed not our own and tell on it// When you get far enough from the earth, everything looks dirty// What would grow from the packed ground, balding ball field & track/ hypodermics, fraying filters, human shit// In an overbuilt maze of rebar and glass/ palm trees and wide freeways// Blue woman, skeleton riding a bike, bronze firefighter, matador, heads on platters/ Every new shot what has already been taken// If among palm trees/ murder// Not just what will grow, who will we feed it to/ Who will eat it//

Steel mill fallen to a husk of bays the frontier creeps back salvage bordello, rebar for the bridge

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- march 7, 2014 -