GUD Magazine Issue 0 :: Spring 2007
Page 22
And meanwhile I had a goal. I dreamed of going to Africa and helping to fight the spread of AIDS and educate against female genital mutilation. I wanted to learn from African culture and do what I could to help the people there. I had no time to worry about my Hope Chest.
But none of my explanations swayed them. My dad unveiled a receipt from the clinic that he'd already paid to give me breast implants as a graduation present. My mom nodded and repeated the tail ends of his rants, Gilbert-and-Sullivan style, as he insisted I needed Upper Substance.
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No Motor Home by Kenneth Ryan
Our squatter's Cuddy
Cabin in the woods:
misplaced
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Past Due: Final Notice by Kenneth Ryan
When Kentucky caught fire they sent us to a mountaintop road too late for anything but boys diving low scattered in dirt,
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Fortune by Kenneth Ryan
My fingertip traces the cup of your palm, whorls whimsically the soft belly behind your knuckle,
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The Eternal's Last Request by Joshua Babcock
My name is Sofi. I did not always wish my father dead. For most of my young life, I served him faithfully, dutifully, as his chronicler. My father's name is Kratos. Throughout the width and breadth of Bahkshir, he was known as the Eternal.
I have been privy to many of Kratos’ famous stories, either seeing them unfold myself or having them told to me from a firsthand perspective. My father never told me the tale of his genesis.
For generations, Kratos protected the countryside of Bahkshir from the Bahkshirin Sea to the mountains we call the Cradle of Antreous. He conquered the undead armies of the Beshevite necromancers, sealed away the malicious Archduke of Vengeance, and defeated the reptile goddess Severina. He was responsible for dispatching Orgus, the master of the onyx golem, and the demon steeds of Celops. There are thousands of other tales as well, and they have all been writ elsewhere, some even by my own hand.
Much of the courage and unquenchable altruism that my father had personified was dashed when the armies of the western Kingdom of Naskil arrived. They were headed by the great magus Malnorant, Tome of the Time-Siege gripped tight in his withered hand.
Kratos the Ageless had met with nothing but victory in his previous adventures. Yet, against the powers of the Tome, he found himself as weak and defenseless as we mortals.
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Where Water Fails by Rusty Barnes
Richard guesses Maggie is at it again. He hears the steady yammer of a mallet in the kitchen as she pounds meat against the rattly metal countertop. Once she'd gotten so mad at him she'd thawed out two entire freezer bags of venison tenderloin and beef steaks, beat them all into submission for hours. The next day she'd invited the Burnhams over for dinner, and she had made conversation about the latest shows, the church bazaar, but watched his face, covertly, every time he took a bite. She knew he'd noticed. When he asked her later why she was so fierce about it, she'd looked up at him sweetly and said, “Because it feels like I'm hitting you. Every time is one time I don't have to argue with you."
This pounding of meat. What has he done this time? He thinks back over the last twelve hours: nothing out of the ordinary, nothing at all. Waking, work, home.
The front-porch refrigerator is open, and a twelve-pack of soda still ringed in plastic sits on the concrete floor. Maggie usually fills the fridge, but why would she leave it open? He de-rings the soda, puts it in, and closes the door. It becomes more mysterious, this whole thing. He notices the mudroom light is off and the livingroom curtains are closed against the fading sunlight. There is no whir of washing machine or dryer. Lunchbox by the door, boots next to the lunchbox, hat and overshirt hung up. Still no singsong hello. No kiss.
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Dialogue with the Hollows of Your Body by Benjamin William Buchholz
When I am blind and very near to you in the vesper stillness of a cell, small and veiled from the street, through shiver, heat, arch of back and hips, pressure placed by the flat of your palms against the flat of my palms: speak.
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The Kiss by Konrad Kruszewski
(art)
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Longs to Run by David Bulley
Imagine hurling yourself across January crust, skimming on top, reckless and loud. The bright full moon, slung low over the trees; the ruby blood spread across unbroken brilliant white snow. Think of gorging and fullness and contentment and the steam from your nose sending breath into the heavens, you a part of everything. Dream of life.
Think, next time at the grade-school mixer, when you realize that your child's teacher has spoken only to fourth-graders for so long she seems weirdly retarded, and the principal is instituting yet another “Peace Plan” for negotiating and “envisioning” and group problem-solving and anything, anything but fucking goddamned motherfucking stinking reading and writing! Look at cute Susie's mom all smarmy and stupid, lapping it up. Think, wouldn't it be nice to smell her fear? Just for a minute?
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Ah Those Letters in the Attics or Modern Lit by Lida Broadhurst
Come these women at some crossroads, not of boards. Flesh sags like melting ice cream as they drag upstairs to attics.
Believing they wish to clear away ripped lampshades, clothes rotting like buried shrouds, chairs with arms or legs snapped in two, they refuse to remember lovers dancing in unfamiliar patterns.
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Pepé In Critical Condition by Tomi Shaw
Redux: Vanilla Wafer
"Life would be so much easier if I were a cartoon character."
He heard it in line at Starbucks that morning, pouring out of the sour mouth of a stickly old lady with frosty-purple-icing hair. Betty Boop popped into his head, his chuckle derisive. He ordered his coffee and stomped his loafers out the door without even bothering to listen to which cartoon character she figured would improve her life. She was the antithesis of Betty Boop, and that was all he needed to know.
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Having Fun at the Party by Fran Giordano
(art)
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The first day of the last day my face fell off by Rohith Sundararaman
my mother woke me up one day with my face in her hand it fell off, she said, holding it like garbage i looked at it and then i looked at mother she blushed so freud was right i ran and hid in the closet
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Sown Seeds by Errid Farland
Mr. Popperoy dispensed his wacky-old-man wisdom in a jumble of disconnected words, a Vedic sort of chicken-scratch that sometimes annoyed and sometimes entertained Trace, depending on his mood.
That day, they rolled out and on like tumbleweeds set loose by thirst and heat and time, and they vexed Trace more than anything else, preoccupied as he was with his wife's latest discontent.
"Vishnu!” Mr. Popperoy said, like a sneeze, then he followed it with, “God bless you!” Then he chuckled.
"Real funny, there, Mr. Popperoy,” Trace said.
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She Dreams in Colors, She Dreams in Hope by F. John Sharp
Pasha removes bread and dried fruit from a canvas lunch bag and lays them on a napkin, arranging the pieces until the composition pleases her. She usually places the bread on the left and the fruit on the right, but she reverses it whenever she is about to work on Goran, like today.
"Look at Pasha,” says Goran, who dumps his food onto the square metal table. “See how content she is that again she has no m
eat for her lunch."
Raisa frowns. “Goran, you should spend more time worrying about meeting your quota and putting meat on your own table. Leave Pasha alone for a change."
"I think Goran is jealous of Pasha always making quota,” says Niki. “How long since Goran made quota? A month?"
"I made it a week ago Thursday."
"So twice in a month then?” Raisa says. A threadbare blue babushka exaggerates the movement of her head as she nods to make her point. The dim light makes her graying hair look rusty.
Goran grumbles and bites off a chunk of day-old bread, which crunches and resists his efforts. Pasha continues to eat as though the conversation hasn't been about her, her mouth turned slightly upward, giving her the appearance either of being satisfied with her circumstances or of waiting patiently for an opening.
They sit, together as always, in the block-walled lunchroom with small windows, high up, with a view of only the hazy sky. Bare bulbs cast harsh shadows on the fifty or so workers who take the middle lunch period. It is their only break from a twelve-hour shift making metal parts that can be used for cars or trucks or tractors or tanks. They are never told which.
"Besides,” Raisa says, “I think that Pasha doesn't much care for meat, do you, Pasha?"
Pasha finishes chewing and swallowing a raisin. “Meat or no meat, it's no matter to me. My food is good enough.” She takes another raisin and chews deliberately.
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Jack Rabbit by Jamie Dee Galey
(art)
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Chicken by John Mantooth
I learned about defiance, real defiance, on a school bus. I was seventeen. That was the year I started drinking, the year my mother took my car keys away from me after I came home drunk. She waited until I was sleeping one off and hid them, knowing I wasn't about to give them to her, nor was I going to stop drinking. Not then. Becoming sober was still decades of misery away.
So I rode the cheese wagon, mornings and afternoons, sitting in the back with a couple of delinquent ninth-graders who looked up to me because I told them the sordid details of my life, embellishing most of them to the point of absurdity. But the more I embellished, the more the two boys, Davy and Ty-Ty, wanted to hear.
I told them that I was on the bus because some drug dealer associated with the Mafia took my car when I told him to fuck off. I told them that I had a sweet deal lined up with a guy who was going to sell me a brand new Dodge Viper. I'd be getting it in a couple of weeks. I told them about my brother Steve, who worked in the pits at Talladega, and how he always got me pussy when I went to visit him. I told them that nobody could tell me what to do, and I meant nobody.
"What about Champ?” Davy asked. I looked up at our bus driver. We called him Champ, and I always assumed it was because he used to box, but perhaps I was wrong. Either way, his big forearms, thick black mustache, and scarred face always gave the impression that he was not one to be crossed. I'd only seen one kid try it since I'd been riding, and he was dealt with swiftly and soundly. Champ threw the bus into park, slung off his seatbelt, and stormed back to the boy's seat. The boy cringed into his seat, petrified.
"Sure, he can tell me all he wants, but I'm not going to do it.” And then, for effect, I added, “I'm not scared of that old man,” while in truth I was terrified by the prospect of crossing him.
Champ had one rule on the bus: stay in your seat. So it didn't surprise me when Davy called me on my big mouth.
"Stand up then,” he said. “Stand up and we'll see how tough you are."
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The Tale that Launched a Thousand Ships by Janrae Frank
There is a small village called Summersnow up near Bluedog Pass. A race of little people called the Badree Nym live there. They are a magical race with large pointed ears, fair skin, and freckled faces, with hair that ranges in color from pink to blue and even to black. A little old man abides there—no one knows his name—and every day he sits beneath a spreading oak, smoking his pipe and telling stories of his adventures. People—humans, mostly—come from far and wide to hear them. In certain seasons, even minstrels and bards can be found sitting at his knee and listening with rapt attention.
One day three human kings came to see the little old man, having heard of a tale that he had told about a wondrous magical sleeping princess and the horrible monster that guarded the enchanted castle where she lay.
The little old man was always happy to have someone new ask for his stories, and he told them all about the sleeping princess. She had long golden hair and skin as pale as milk. Her castle stood on a distant island, in a grove of Idyn trees that bloomed yearround and bore rainbow fruits like those that grew in the sun-god's garden. A giant's stair carved from matchless jade led up to the castle gates. A feathered dragon laired in the courtyard, guarding his captive prize.
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Poetry Code by Robert Peake
Many comparisons have been made over time of software source code to poetry. The Perl Haiku Contest, for example, promotes writing very compact yet expressive poems using a very compact yet expressive programming language. There is even the phrase “code poet,” which means an exceptional programmer. However, little has been said of the ways in which poetry, written in a human language, might be similar to software source code, which is designed to be interpreted by machines. That is, no one talks about “poetry code."
When I proposed the idea that poetry might be similar to source code on my website, I encountered a kind of knee-jerk indignation.iii This pleases me because it indicates a certain reverence for the mysterious and intangible qualities of poetry, a kind of sticking up for the art. However, I think this reverence is often extended to encompass the perceived subjectivity of poetry in a somewhat misguided way. That is, people tend to assume on instinct that poetry and code are so necessarily different that it is somehow an insult to poetry to compare it to software. I suggest that a good deal can be achieved by questioning this assumption and exploring the similarities further.
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