Joyce Lautens O'Brien: "September 27, 2001"

Everything will be all right I tell myself

At first I couldn’t sleep it hurt couldn’t

believe

everything was changed nothing

the same ever again men weeping

on television in full public view too

awful for words lives buildings peace

everything normal gone forever ground

to gritty dust and ash but sixteen days after

flags flying a resurgence of hope I laugh

with friends take Giuliani’s advice and

spend I buy a watch I had my eye on

before

a luxury item gold plated with Roman numerals

to mark the hours I check my portfolio down

but not too much not too much to bear

and the economy improving by the second

by the second quarter no doubt back up

to speed people flying through the air just

like they used to no cares in the world

everything the way it was what lies

we tell ourselves

what lies ahead

(this piece first appeared in Connecticut River Review)

Howie Good: "Mal de Mer"

1

What’s the weather there? he asked. Some people prefer the sea. The taxi had dropped me off and then climbed the sharp hill that led to all the years ahead. The man put a finger to his lips. We had worked out a scheme – a woman like the girly pink rose machine-embroidered on the back of her backpack.

2

He invoked the rule of thirds, but couldn’t explain it. All I knew was that it had something to do with pictures. I had gotten a price from him. Bullets were extra.

3

I met a woman you never met. She talked about the jellyfish incident and removing fragments from her flesh. She said what she most missed was the strangeness of every day. All of France mourned her.

Brad Liening: "Desperado"

I rode my horse over the hill,

there was a sound like

invisible language alighting in trees,

like a thousand bees

with a thousand microphones,

I knew I had a job to do,

I was needed in an important way

though I myself was unimportant

like a snowman falling

into an icy crevasse,

a cemetery full of

mostly forgotten, grassy graves,

that was all I knew but

just then the sun looked beautiful

like a beautiful woman

stepping out of a limousine

into a field of scorpions,

my horse was frightened

and in the deepening dusk

I whispered wild promises to us both.

Eliezra Schaffzin: "All the Comforts of Home"

Annie counted the napkins, rolling them up and stacking them like scrolls. She counted the napkin rings. She counted the forks, knives, and spoons. She counted the chairs and she counted the table, though it was quite clear there was only one. She counted it again, shaking her finger at it each time: one, one, one. She counted every piece in the china set, and counted the wine and water glasses after that. She plucked a reluctant crab off the soup tureen and counted it with the ladle and the salad bowl and the tongs. The waves ushered in a gust of sun-warmed wind. The sand shifted. By the time she was ready to count the finger bowls, they were gone. 

Brian Beatty: "Wigs and Hymnals"

Whatever river takes you,

it’s going to make you, too.

Locals soaked to the bone

swear that’s the only baptism

the seriously righteous need.

Who am I to disbelieve them?

Small, smooth pebbles fall out

of their teeth as they pry, pray

and preach themselves hoarse.

And I’m not here for trouble.

That doesn’t matter, of course. 

To mollify shouting onlookers

with convictions much deeper

and mightier, I’m quite certain,

than any I'm ever likely to hold

(doubters from the next ghost 

town over have surrounded me) 

my faithful hosts begin running 

around lighting each other’s hair 

on fire — using book pages

lit with wet matches.

Meanwhile we do no harm; for they

   That with a god have striven,

Not hearing much of what we say,

   Take what the god has given;

Though like waves breaking it may be,

Or like a changed familiar tree,

Or like a stairway to the sea

   Where down the blind are driven.”

- Edwin Arlington Robinson,  from Eros Turannos


[According to some sources, there are 558 days, 18 hours and some minutes remaining.]

Doug Draime: "Now That You Are Gone"

                  for Beth

The fact that we can receive

and transmit

music and voices through the air

amazes me. Everything amazes me! 

That life goes on amazes me. Your body

is under the

earth now. Molecules still expand

and contract. People are still at

war: the couple up front are still

trying to

kill each other. Children born innocent

still have a chance, if they don’t

accept it all. You are gone. Wall

Street goes on. Flowers grow. 

They still pick up the garbage. Evil

people who should have died

long ago still suck blood. 

It all amazes me! My love

for you and your love

for me always amazed me. 

And I pray your spirit

finds rest from

the world that killed

you. 

What I want to know is where can I offer

myself up? What mountain do I climb? 

(This piece appeared earlier in Northwest Magazine)

Chris Moran: "Eyes of Iblis"

Spires of the sun pulsate and ache throughout the continuity of the void,

Through collapsed, weaning light. A limbic light whose fulminating aura is felt

Though never touched. I can never feel empathy for anything except for a failing thing.

Crossroads dim in this contingent vacuity. A devil touched me. Birthed me, brandished me.

Though my target eyes smile breath varnished. A tragic nudity, a stillborn. Palatial saturation.

Channels of decay. A fuming tension puts a barrier between my life-stream and other currents

Which flow parallel. The flow of days onward is a collapsible echo. Morph into an annihilated

Dream. The burning sensation of moon rain flitting the planet. To master our capacities

Fuller and fuller on command. To put my dream on this planet. 

Cecilia Chapman: "Let Me Sleep In Your Crystal Kitchen"

Please view at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbWrWqKGlxU

Music by Jeff Crouch, cell images by Steve Johnson; from Danger Archive, part of the Surreal Suspicion series currently in production.