Loss Amplified
Across the gravel alleyway outside my window my mother spends the nights forgetting. Chips are counted. I hear the clack of mahjong bricks being fingered and stacked and raked over the cluttered tops of padded tables. I listen for her voice: her laughter, her chronic cough, her occasional smoky sigh, and when these familiar sounds drift lazily into my bedroom through the torn mesh screen with the mosquitoes, I hold my pillow close. It's not difficult imagining her coin-calloused fingers fanning thick dust and smoke from her face. Captured in my mind is the image of a sweaty amber bottle of San Miguel beer, my mother's ragged fingers wrapped around it, raising it to her dry lips.
Come daybreak my mother staggers home across the alleyway, kicking up dust. Exhausted, she drops onto the straw mat beneath the electric fan, where she pretends to sleep, pretends she is alone. Her closed eyelids twitch to stay off the deep slumber that will surely bring my father back. In this state of half-awareness, the quickness of her hands startle houseflies that buzz her pasty skin and thread her uncombed hair.
Shadows lengthen along the floor and up the walls. My mother rises to prepare our meal. Over bowls of rice and vegetables we exchange emotionless glances, addressing without words one another's emptiness. The mask of loss and pain has never faded from her face. After showering and dressing, my mother's coarse lips press against my forehead, always followed by the whispered promise that tomorrow, always tomorrow – she will move from the hazy past into the future. She will find a way to heal herself. But not until tomorrow.
* Robert Aquino Dollesin was still a kid when he left the Philippines. He now resides in Sacramento, where he manages to pen out short work now and again.
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Sunday, September 21
Loss amplified - new flash fiction
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 21 Sep 2008 10:42 AM BST
Multimedia files welcome
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 21 Sep 2008 10:38 AM BST
Just a quick reminder to say that we are always interested in receiving sound files of contributors reading their work. Ideally in an MP3 file format – however we also have the technology to convert other sound file formats into MP3s for loading in our podcaster.
And if you have MP4 videos of your performances, we can use them as well. Saturday, September 20
New haiga by Witt Wittman
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 20 Sep 2008 09:54 AM BST
 * Witt Wittmann is a retired educator who has three published books, Musing at La Poulaille, TatWitt, and Echoes of Memories. Wittmann has also illustrated other authors' works. Friday, September 19
New prose by Georgina Bruce
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 19 Sep 2008 03:22 PM BST
About a leg
There was this boy who thought he was his grandfather’s leg. His grandfather had lost his leg in the war, which at the time was the best thing that could have happened to him. It got him out of a heap of trouble, got him home, got him home scot free. No, he’d never missed that leg, had never mourned it. Thirty years to the day he lost his leg, his grandson was born. From an early age the boy claimed to remember his former life as a leg. As a small child the boy often claimed he was a leg standing on the hot deck of a boat in summer. Later, his grandfather told him of the boating trips on Windermere, before the war. There was a time of wet beds, of nightmares, when the boy dreamed of the bullet and the amputation. But this passed. The dreams stopped as he grew older. The boy did his best to be a leg to his grandfather, but his grandfather stubbornly refused to treat him as anything but a small, strange boy, and wore his shiny plastic prosthesis anytime he needed the services of the missing leg. The boy grew disheartened. When his grandfather eventually died of old age, the boy was bereft. Now he was a leg without a grandfather. His life felt small and lacking in purpose. He took to staring out of the window of his room for long hours at a time. He contemplated suicide. One day, looking out of the window, he saw a man on crutches in the street below: a man with just one leg. The boy felt a delirious rush of excitement racing through his veins to his heart. He knew then that he could go on being a leg, if only he could find the missing body he belonged to. For a leg cannot stand on its own two feet. It needs a will to direct it, a body to walk it, a heart to pump blood to its toes. * Georgina Bruce is a writer in search of readers. She has a site at http://thebeardedlady.wordpress.com Thursday, September 18
New poetry by Jack Henry
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 18 Sep 2008 01:14 PM BST
blind w/out seeing
yesterday i complained about money about not having money enough money to live the life i want but then i don’t really know what that life would be at 44 i am still searching and i find comfort in knowing i will never find what i am looking for but then there are moments moments when clouds gather and dust turns to mud when the orange blossoms of the coral tree fall at my feet and begin to rot when i look out across my opportunity both those at hand and those lost and it comes back to money about not having money i went for a walk in downtown los angeles Sunday morning, just before church but after the missions kicked all the night dwellers to the street i see their eyes but they do not see me i do not exist, not to them, just as they do not exist to most they wander off in their personal daze searching for comfort, food, shelter and it hits me it always hits me i live in a house, i eat on a regular basis sometimes i buy a chapbook or a six-pack of beer sometimes i leave change in a dirty cup of an outstretched hand sometimes i climb out of my own self-pity, my own self loathing, sometimes i remember that i am fine i have my health i have opportunity i have moments beyond the vainglorious it hits me that i am not a good man or noble or important or anything other than a line on a page or a number in a government file i watch these people file out of the missions on 6th street into the parks and alleys and wonder what i would do, if my own self-pity, became my own self-reality most likely i would curl up and die they are the heroes, not the cops or the firemen, no real heroes are people who survive on nothing, live on nothing, wake up to nothing and keep moving away from nothing i am just a whining poet without focus or dedication for a couple of weeks i won’t complain about anything but it creeps back and it creeps back and it creeps maybe i will remember most likely not i am trying but some moments i know i am blind * Jack Henry says: I a writer based in the rolling sage brush of the high desert in South East California. I have had a few things published here and there and if you are that curious please go to http://deadbeatpress.blogspot.com Wednesday, September 17
New poetry by India Rose Badiner
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 17 Sep 2008 03:12 PM BST
The Moment When it Could Have Been
She was quiet for many hours by the window As if time was only a constructed and conjured up illusion of the human mind Standing parallel to her dark, strange and intricately painful demons In full acceptance with divine order of the universe and its divine suffering She let go and released slowly but surely opening the gates of herself that placed her in a energetic Alcatraz Isolating her all the people in her life she had lost And some before they were even obtained Her hands shattered With a burning fever of tortured anger So intangible and ungrippable Requiring a vessel That cannot be found * India Badiner lives in Big Sur, California, with her parents, five semi-feral cats and Raindog, a sloppy, overly friendly Rhodesian Ridgeback. She is a graduate of Robert Lewis Stevenson School in Carmel and currently enrolled at the Big Sur Charter School. She has traveled widely, including Kyoto, Paris, Amsterdam, Shanghai, and lived in Rome for two years studying Italian and the 'sweet life'. Tuesday, September 16
Sophie Jarman's going to a wedding - or a funeral
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 16 Sep 2008 03:07 PM BST
My Wedding is a Funeral
There is this man I know quite well, who has changed the way I feel about life; he says, "Jump," and I say, "For you, I'll eat all my words and my underpants." One of my friends said it is love, or infatuation. There is a word for the emotion, 'asphyxia.' He chokes the world around me. Without him there is no oxygen, no way of breathing. And I kind of like it that way. It was all because of him that I started to write again. But- It was all because of you that I started to laugh again. So- I want all the money. Now. On the table. Like one of those George Raft B-Grade gangster films. I asked him to give me away at my wedding, it was not real, a huge, red-faced farce. He said yes. "Catholics don't support same sex marriage." he said. "All the Catholics are in Sydney celebrating mass." He is C of E. He is tall. He is thirty one years my senior. He held onto my arm, forcefully almost. He kept a straight face. He asked me what to do. I made him walk me up and down a patch of mud, laughing. And I kind of liked it. There was a girl at my wedding that I still like. A lot. She had fire in her eyes. She had toilet paper in her hand. She made me a tie. She stroked my head like a cat. And I kind of liked it. For Christmas I promised to buy her a sex toy. For her birthday I promised to have a shower with her. The Catholics should pray for all the things we never do. The Catholics should pray for all the crazy homosexuals. The Catholics should pray for all the crazy homosexuals we never do. Last night I wondered if she would ever touch me. Last night I wondered if I broke her heart. Last night I wondered if she had one. A heart, I mean. This started off as a funny story about him giving me away at a wedding. It ended up about her again. Everything does. I wonder. What she thought. About me going out with men. And women. I wonder. What she thought. About me losing my virginity. I wonder. If she will talk to me when I see her next. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. If God will forgive me for my sins. * Sophie Jarman is a 14-year-old Australian poet living in Tasmania still pretending to care about her education. http://sjarman.deviantart.com/ and www.myspace.com/existentialawakening Monday, September 15
New flash fiction by Bill West
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 15 Sep 2008 03:29 PM BST
Imagine the Glass is Green
Outside, his car still burned. Thick smoke wrapped around the bay window as if he were trying to climb back inside. She popped another sleeper, washed down with absinthe. Imagine the glass is green. Drink will block him out. She slips fingers inside her robe and strokes bruises. But she is safe inside a tumbler of Fairy Green, where his fists can't reach. The incendiary bomb had been worth every penny. Just the click of a button and she'd caught him. Cherry flames and smoke. She'd flinched at every punch he'd thrown at the unbreakable glass. After a while he'd slumped against the steering wheel, a smoking crash dummy segmented by flames. Nearly empty. She fumbled the last pills into her mouth, rolled them on her tongue, raised the glass to her lips and drank. * Bill West lives in Shropshire, UK and has been published both in ezines and in print. http://writewords.org.uk/bill_west/
Two new poems by Dayseye - updated
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 15 Sep 2008 09:31 AM BST
Mystery solved regarding this piece we originally posted last Thursday... Today's contributor is a bit (OK a lot) of a mystery – we have just two clues: the pen-name Dayseye and an @tesco email address...
the first and last date the film we saw was a clinker, it needed not just a clip but a shave, we joked – we who had not shared jokes together, ever, only knowing each other on the basis of a photo and bio found on findingdates. com; after that we went for a few drinks at a wine bar with wooden pulp-dusted floors, a sign of the live havoc just starting up, electric guitars revving; i didn't know what to think of you, how should i know what to think of a man whose main interest in life is cinema? you could be anyone, you are just some man, you could be anyone, how should I know? Chablis tinted your cheeks a pinkish shade, a fetching flush that made me smile, made me set to liking you, so we could talk about the bad film, and how it was that it was bad, and for an hour before we parted you seemed warm, realistic, very naturalistic. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ IN THE ALMOST INVISIBLE WOODS One wavering caterpillar green as a Granny Smith apple crosses the cupped blue flower, supping in luminosity. We sit on an oak bench dedicated in memory to a William Owens, 1925-1985, who “loved this woods”. We sit silently hoping to hear the woodpecker again. It's been a year. When I was little I used to catch gobs of caterpillars, let them crawl up and down my bare arms, tickling. There was more of them then, more of everything: frogs, butterflies, birds, bees, trees, lizards, wildflowers. Now there is more of people, and more of people-things. It is what it is. What else is there to say? My legs are stiff as twigs. Your neck is cricked from looking upwards into labyrinthine tree tops that cluster against steely clouds closing in. We're not alone. We didn't realize at first, but behind us a world of Dungeons & Dragons opened up. Medieval soldiers with cardboard swords kneel in bushes. Soon swords will cross. Queenly women – possible witches – watch over, maybe casting spells. Up the hill a bit, a family picnics. And just beyond them on the smooth caterpillar green grass of a golf course, a man hits his club, staring after the ball that's small as a plum but white and hard as stone, and just as serious. Awhile ago, a woman on horseback was hit on the head by a wayward ball and instantly killed. I don't know who she is. From far off this little woods is almost invisible. Close up, there is a caterpillar on my hand. * Dayseye is Leah Armstead who lives in Aberystwyth, Wales, where most days she walks by the sea. She's won writing prizes and published poems in magazines and anthologies in the US and UK. She has worked as a facilitator of poetry workshops in many settings such as schools, mental health drop-ins, psychiatric hospitals, and nursing homes. In addition, she researches medieval European art and literature. Sunday, September 14
Jonathan Pinnock would like to complain
by
Charles Christian
on Sun 14 Sep 2008 09:42 AM BST
It's autumn, the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and disputes with energy companies over the size of the bills they send us. As here – at Ink Sweat Towers – we are currently engaged in a frank exchange of views with the muppets who supply our electricity supply and have spent many hours listening to muzak on their voicemail systems, we had to publish this piece...
I Wish to Register a Complaint Press 1 for Sales Press 2 for Technical Support Press 3 for Customer Services Press 4 for Accounts Payable Press 0 to hear this menu again I'm sorry, I didn't catch that Press 1 for Sales Press 2 for Technical Support Press 3 for Cust- Press 1 for Billing Assistance Press 2 for Service Alterations Press 3 for Payment Difficulties Press 4 for Complaints- Press 1 for Meek and Feeble Press 2 for Quietly Assertive Press 3 for Passive Aggressive Press 4 for Abusive- Press 1 for You're a Bunch of Fucking Wankers Press 2 for You Couldn't Find Your Arses with Both Hands Press 3 for Why Don't You Shove Your Fucking Awful Product Up Your Arse Press 4 for I'm Going to come Round There and Fucking Kill You Press 0 to hear this menu again Press 1 for You're a Bunch of Fuck- Thank you Your concern has been noted Beep * Jonathan Pinnock is married with two children and a 1961 Ami Continental jukebox. His fiction has won several prizes, shortlistings and longlistings, and he has been published in such diverse publications as Smokebox, Every Day Fiction and Necrotic Tissue. His imaginatively-titled website can be found at www.jonathanpinnock.com |
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