The EARL SESSIONS trailer

MINDSCAPES

MINDSCAPES IS A FILM EVENT WHICH STRIVES TO BRING TOGETHER ESTABLISHED AND EMERGING ARTISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

FILMMAKERS CASSANDRA SECHLER AND GINNETTA CORRELI HAVE CURATED THE MINDSCAPES SHOW IN ORDER TO CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE SPACE FOR DARK, PERSONAL FILMS OFTEN IGNORED BY THE COMMERCIAL WORLD.

WORKS SELECTED REPRESENT A CRITICAL MOVEMENT HAPPENING UNDER THE BELLY OF MAINSTREAM CULTURE.

ARTISTS:

CRAIG MURRAY

ALASTAIR COOK

ANTHONY ROUSSEAU

H.D. LANGE

CASSANDRA SECHLER

NARA DENNING

LINDSAY LAVEN

GINNETTA CORRELI

MOSES

VERONICA MOTA

BEATRICE GUENET

NUNO O.C. MADEIRA

SIMON THEIS HANSEN

NABIL SHABAN

JASON MARSH

RUSTY RODIER

MARIANO RENTERIA GARNICA

ROLAND QUELVEN

TAMAS MESMER

GUILLAUME BAYCHELIER

JAMIE DEAN

JEAN-LUC CHARLES

FABIO SCACCHIOLI

ADRIANA NOVOA

CRAIG JACOBSON

NICLAS HALLBERG

ALEXANDER JORGENSEN

EAT CAKE AND WORSHIP SATAN

AS HUMAN PATTERN

JOAO KREFER

SHIMRIT

IOANN MARIA

FRED L’EPEE

JEREMY ROMBERG

MADEMOISELLE L.

Gunk + Elk

Sound: Zigo Rayopineal
Film: Ginnetta Correli

Agnus Dei by H.D. Lange

I just love this love it… love love inspired today. Thank you  H.D.

Ground

Written & Narrated: Alastair Cook

Directed & Edited: Ginnetta Correli

Soundtrack: Pierrepoint’s Epitaph by Dirk Drieson

Fools Game by Phillip David Grainger

Sometime believe I play a fool game choosing to walking in one direction or another only to come face to face with the words miss go roll two dice to play again.
As an optimist playing when ever card read the same and every move counter the same result I like to go to the chewing and swallowing department for assistant in absorbing fluids To which someone may replay this is the depart for question verification the department for fluid is third door on the left or is it on the right you go with no sense of hope and small likely hood of feeling any the wiser once you return What even worse is those you ask for help when finding you path or even a job would you wait one minute as I am file my nails should be found in the right file cabinet would you like to talk to the helpful rabbit a softy toy with a bemused look at least someone listen The only help you get is a girl with blond hair and GSCE in baking cakes Here how you make a victor sponge Sorry very little help when it comes to work based placement They look down at you as if to pat you on the head Speak in a manner which sagest you have an IQ of a banner fug cake and like Smelling and gammon I may have fill these form a little wrong but there no need to send the patter cake pertrole Sorry we not got work for you and I am too busy chewing gum and looking vacant to help you we all play the fools game once ever blue moon you pass go collect £200 pound s other than that is turn left here no turn right have heard about my gold fish? You listen only hoping the next word you here is something simple positive pro active

To set washing machine: set it to 30 put in powder hope for best

When I am Gone by Craig Murray

Music by Sparrow House

The End of Ambition by J de Salvo

The End of Ambition
my life is made of onion skins and eggshells
I can count them in the sink…I could count them,
that is, but I don’t…if I knew how many
there were it would take something away from the
experience…make all this trash less sacred

I’ve learned to love the trash…and perhaps that’s where
I’ve failed…in seeking out and wishing for
ordung…on the contrary I have sought a
panoramic view…everything atomic
an amoeba, even the branded buildings

not in some higher system, but merely for
color, depth, detail…merely to amuse
but it’s not so, you know…these onion skins
and eggshells have a life of their own, and it
is taking…the onions and eggs, the bagels and

lox…might as well be the whole animate
world somehow rotting in a sink in
Los Angeles…ocean, earth, and animal
decompose…a landscape, a Guernica, waste…
I could grow cilantro in it, but how would

I wash my dishes, and manage to keep from
drowning it? …killing it, with grapefruit scented
detergent? no…it’s died already, must it
die again in death? …first the trashcan, then the
dumpster in the back, at last, back to the earth

coffined in poly fibers, which cannot birth?
I wait until every dish is dirty
…then wait some more, until, suddenly, Ordung!
I spring into action, polish the whole place
with poison…now I’ll tackle the wide world!

we must keep our city clean! …the cat must have
its mouse…now the panorama is gone…
now I can work, think! …execute my designs!
…it’s all in my way, out the window with it!
…the onions, the eggs, the cat, the wife, Ordung!

…but no…it’s a soliloquy, nothing more
I shouldn’t know what to do once I’d done it
I’ll plant a tree in my sink, wash my dishes
In the bathroom…fornicate and breed…plant my
failure like a seed…relapse into content

I was a bored, excuse me, I meant to say
born, I really did…born leader at one time
…but I defied my destiny, and now the
trash keeps piling up…there’s nothing I can do
but join the unwashed masses, who dislike me

cook onions and eggs with them, in the back of
a greasy spoon…I have more patience with eggs
than people…with whom I turn the heat too high
…get to the point too fast or not fast enough
…or worse, remark that a point is what’s missing

a complete and total failure, that’s my life
…never finished or accomplished anything
I saw through it all, even my self…too bad
…I found the final solution in the trash
and left it there to rot…it smells of onions

J de Salvo is the editor of the Bicycle Review. http://www.thebicyclereview.net/current-issue.html His fiction, poetry, and articles have been published in numerous online and print publications, including Art/Life, New Angeles Monthly, and the Poetry Super Highway.

Hippodrome Mime-Last Nights of Paris-Ginnetta Correli

The word I lost by Phillip David Grainger

The word I lost

The finale moment lost to the finale pause an open breath, pull of truths really broken and changed,
I draw breath I speck my line hold the faded truth.
What world is this?
What dream of what lands?
The truth
by word or world my would is my word.
Every lie I tell that the world I give you
Every drink that my lesson it show me all I need to see and no more
I hold this truth until I can not stand
I hold this drink until even the word them self have gone and all that left all that gone is my word.
You can have my words I raze a glaze

I draw back a mask of words
I draw back a mask of lies,
An open pause a gaze of flippant comment and side ways remarks
The drunken men sing their song flippant comment smashed glass broken hearts
The drunken man song the word they lost the pause between lies can you hear they song the lonely man lost to a roll of a dice snake eyes -Phillip David Grainger

Belle Nouveau director’s cut by Cassandra Sechler

Episode 25 Typing Class

EPISODE TWENTY-FIVE
TYPING CLASS
“You read at third-year college level,” the school counselor says.
Wow, me? I smile and show my teeth.
“We don’t have a class to put you in but you can be a reading tutor for a remedial reading class,” she says.
Wow, my first few days of class at Wisbe Junior High school. I am so smart. I get to be a tutor. I always thought I was smart.
“Do you know how to type?” The counselor asks.
“Of course!”
“Great. Some kids come here and don’t have a clue how to type. For now you go ahead and join Mrs. Reisland’s typing class in room twenty-four.”
“Okay,” I say. I join the class.
“Go ahead and sit. Join in when you’re ready,You can just start typing with the rest of the class.”
“Okay. You know, I think I’m gonna like this school. A new start. I can’t wait,” I say.
“Good glad to hear it Beatie. Now go ahead and take a seat,” Mrs. Reisland says.
I take a seat near a boy with straight red hair and freckles.
“Hi, I’m Beatie.” I smile and show him my teeth.
“Hi,” he says. I know he likes me, I can tell. I smile at him. My teeth choppers like a rabbit’s two front teeth. I watch him type. He types fast. He does not look at the keys. The typewriter is not electric; instead, it’s a manual Corona. What’s weird is the keyboard doesn’t show the letters. It’s a blank keyboard. I try to type the words from the typing book assignment. I can’t type without being able to see the letters on the keypad.
“Is something wrong?” Mrs. Reisland asks. She inspects my blank paper.
“No, nothing,” I say. I keep my eyes on my feet.
“Well, if you need any help let me know.” Mrs. Reisland cannot help me.

Episode 24 First Night

EPISODE TWENTY-FOUR

FIRST NIGHT
I lie on the red velvet couch inside the living room of the trailer. Mother smokes a Salem next to me on the couch. The Salem stinks of peanut butter.
“Mom, that smoke is making me sick.” Mother continues the puff.
“Can you put that out? I can’t sleep.”
“I’m almost done.”
“I hate that smell.”
Mother pulls the last of the smoke into her lungs.
“Good night, Mom.”

LATE FIRST NIGHT
I dream. In my dream, I see myself. I sit on a goat. I hold the goat’s horns and guide the goat. Me on top of a goat. Together we ride through a village in Tuscany. People in the village follow us with flutes and tambourines. They sing in the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard.
I am the Messiah. The chosen one. Something touches me, invades me. My
goat stops. I kick the goat with the heel of my spur. The goat does not move.
Someone grabs one of my breasts from behind. I open my eyes. It’s dark. I see a shadow and smell a stink of body odor mixed with beer. A man. I feel him. He touches my body and caresses me. I open my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Huh? Oh, I thought you were asleep,” Lenney whispers.
I pull the blankets tight around my chest. Shit…
What the hell was that about? Why did Lenney do that? I’m scared.
I don’t know what that was about Beatie I don’t either.

Episode 23 Father Exits

EPISODE TWENTY-THREE
FATHER EXITS
Father is quiet. We travel in the Datsun to Mother’s trailer twenty miles away to the desert. A mile an a half outside the town of Twenty-nine Palms.
The trailer park is called the Oasis Park. We pull into the trailer park.
“Where’s the Oasis?” I ask.
“Please don’t talk, Just don’t talk,” Father says.
Up a dirt road inside the Oasis Park a small barefoot girl pushes a stroller
and smiles at us. Father passes her and stops the car in front of space #348.
The man Lenney, from the mental hospital sits on the porch of a single wide manufactured home. He wears a white tank top and holds a beer can. His dark slippers surround his white socks. He takes a sip of beer. Father backs up the Datsun and pulls up the driveway. I get out of the car, my trash bags filled with clothes. Lenney smiles at me and glides his hand across his greased-back hair.
“Hello there.”
“Where’s Frata?” Father asks.
“Oh, let me get her. Honey, he’s here with Beatie,”
Mother comes outside. Her hair grown long. She wears a pony tail. Mother smiles and welcomes me with her arms.
“Beatie!”
I don’t want to hug Mother. Mother smells of sweat and cigarettes.
“Hi Mom,” I stare at an old frayed green couch on the porch. We walk inside the modular home.
“Frata, you know I doing you a big favor,” Father says.
“What do you want us to do, live in the street?” Mother says.
We sit on the red velvet couch from the bright yellow house our family once shared together.
Father sits. “How much dis gonna cost to get dis dump out of foreclosure?”
Father’s shirt pocket stuffed with his blue checkbook, pen and pocket protector.
“Two thousand dollars.” Mother says. She lights a cigarette.
“What you do with all the money you get from the state?”
“I don’t have it,” Mother takes a drag off the cigarette.
“Mama Mia. You crazy”
Father swings his head towards the shag carpet. Lenny takes a sip of his beer. Lenney sits in the kitchen at the metal dining room table, his back to us.
“What does he do all day?” Father asks. He points to Lenney.
Lenney takes another sip of beer and takes a seat on the couch near us. He wipes his face with his shirt. No one answers Father.
“Frata, what you are doing is crazy, I don’t know how you gonna live Frata. Your gonna end up back in dat mental hospital.”
Mother stares at the carpet. Father writes the check and tears it out of a
book. He hands the check to Mother. “Make sure you call the mortgage company tomorrow and let them know you need a receipt.”
Mother takes another drag of her Salem. “Again, What do you expect me to do?” She stares at Father.
“Frata, I don’t expect you to do anything. It’s your life now. If he gets a job maybe dat could help your situation. Maybe then you could go back
to college and become a real nurse.”
Father hands Mother the check. She smiles and folds it. Mother stuffs the check inside the back of her back jean pocket.
“I am a nurse.” Mother keeps her eyes on the ground.
“All I know is I have to get back to the office. Dis is your problem, nurse.” Father points to me.
I keep my eyes on a dusty framed black and white poster of Elvis on the wall nearby. Darlin little pie/Don’t you worry/I’m gonna be right by your side. I smile at him. Elvis will not let me down. Father stands up and tucks the front of his shirt back inside his pants. Father puts his checkbook inside his shirt pocket.
“Goodbye, Frata.”
Father does not move his head back to Mother or me. Father’s neck is stiff and points straight ahead. Father walks out the sliding glass door.

Episode 22 A Period

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO
A PERIOD

“Your dad told me to tell you can get pregnant now,” Valoria whispers to me. I’m in my room trying to figure out what shoes to wear. My China doll shoes or my brown track shoes.
“What are you talking about? I thought you weren’t going to tell him.”
“He saw blood in the toilet earlier in the bathroom; he just knows.”
“How could he know?”
“He just does, that’s all. So he wants me to let you know that whatever you’re doing with boys, you could get pregnant now. So you better be careful.”
“He thinks I’m having sex with boys?”
“Well are you?”
“No, I am not having sex with boys.”

WHAT TO DO WITH A PERIOD
Father sits on the red velvet couch in the living room. Father’s hand is in his pants. His belt unbuckled… I know what your thinking his pants are always unbuckled. Father watches bombing footage from World War II on television. His head faces the dark kitchen. I open a drawer in the kitchen and grab the plastic cellophane wrap box and three paper napkins. I fold the napkins in half. I pull out a sheet of plastic wrap and rip it against the blade of the box.
I wrap the plastic wrap around the napkins. I repeat the process three times
until my sanitary napkins look like burritos. Father keeps his eyes on the
television. I take the burritos to the bathroom. I put two inside the cabinet under the sink and safety pin one to my panties.

PHONE CALL
Operator: “I have a collect call. Will you accept the charges?”
“Who is it?”
Operator: “She says her name is Lucy Ricardo?”
“I’ll accept.”
“Hi Beatie.”
“Hi Mom, how are you?”
“I made you a key chain today in occupational therapy.”
“You know I could always use a key chain.”
My eyes spin slow. I look out the window. Mother is silent.
“Mom, I gotta go.”
“Beatie I’m getting out of the hospital this week.”
“Really? Where are you gonna go when you get out?” I hear Mother breath on the other end of the phone.
“Lenney and I are getting married. We are gonna buy a mobile home.”
I have nothing to say to this.
“Beatie, you can come stay with us.”
I have nothing to say to that.

FRANCES
A Few Months Later
Frances is tall, dark, and part Italian. He has olive skin. I kind of forget about how his wavy black hair sits almost to his shoulders. Instead, I concentrate on his smile. Frances is two years older than me. We have been boyfriend and girlfriend for about two months. I love him and he loves me.
“Hey cutie” Frances pulls up beside me on his beach cruiser.
“Need a ride?” He pats the handlebars of the bike.
“Sure,” I say.
Frances lets me to jump on the handlebars. His special chosen plucked cherry blossom. Frances smiles. His feet move fast fast. Frances stands on the pedals his throat behind me. I feel his face on my my neck. The smell of his cologne makes me want to be close to him.
“Turn here. I don’t want my dad to see me.”
I point to the alley close to my house. Frances stops the bike.
“Here you go, cutie.”
“Thanks Frances, you’re so sweet.”
I wrap my arms around and look up at him. We kiss gentle. Frances’s lips are soft. Both of us into the moment. I melt into his eyes with love. Frances looks into me and then I see it. The brown mud Datsun turns up the alley.
“Shit! It’s my dad.”
“Huh?”
The Datsun accelerates and is coming right for us.
“Oh no, he’s gonna kill me,”
Frances’s stares straight ahead. Father pulls up next to us and rolls his window down.
“Get in da car, and you leave her alone, Beatie has enough problems.”
Frances pedals away fast.
“Get in da car, Beatie.”
I have no choice. I get in the car.
“What are you doing with dat boy, huh?”
Whack! The gorilla’s hand bounces off my head. A volcano erupts in my brain.
“You’re too boy crazy. Instead of school you study boys. Dats crazy.”
My chest pounds. Father whacks me again on the head.
“Dad, we’re just friends.”
“Don’t lie, Beatie.”
Whack again! This time on my cheek.
“Now get out.”
I get out of the car Father opens the front door. We walk inside the house. I make my way fast down the hallway. Father is right behind me.
“You Goddamn Dummy Ding!” Father gives me a sharp toe in the butt. A whack and another kick. I’m on the ground. Father quietly kicks me with his right dress shoe. He is done. I crawl to the bathroom and shut the door. I lock it.
“You dick! You dick!”
I grab a brush and throw it at the door. Father can’t get me. If he tries I will punch him with every muscle. Every fiber. Every bone of my body.
“You need to leave dis house,” he says.
“You keep a dirty room and you lie. I cannot keep you here. Understand?”
“Fuck you!”
I yell from behind the bathroom door. The clack of Father’s feet knock in a hollow rhythm and the front door closes. The Datsun’s motor starts. Father leaves.
I sit on the floor. My fingers trace the dusty floorboard of the bathroom. The particles of dust like fibers of people. I blow the dirt clean.

The Hanging Stanes

Filmed in Tecopa CA last weekend. Cold. Wind blowing crazy. We left next morning. Use to fantasize baking my old age here. Smoking. Creating. Until the woman cleaning our motel room said: “Don’t drink the water”

The Hanging Stanes was written by Sam Meekings.
Alastair Cook recites.
Music by Rad Wolf.

Fear by Phillip David Grainger

I walk the path of my greatest fear the open door the sign post clearly marked. just standing there its slimmy teeth ready to eat you whole with no refund.
I fear the worst standing there knocking nothing can help me Ive been cornered by a new file and sorting systerm.
well of all the final moment killed and placed in alferbetical order that what happend with a libray book 5000000 year late back.
The great creata moves like an A to Z Guid to sorting and filing no file out place and time out of jump.
behind the desk the mad lady with the gun.
Yes Tabather the with a stare that can strike you dead half a mile and a lazer gun with a killer zap mod.
I fear the worst this librain can sort a book at five pace ande smell the fear in ten second.
I fear the worst the dark room the open mouthed demoned which will swole us whole no warming light or helpful throught.
But remember hold you mind thinck only of jam jars.
Yes that right the blood stain book were just the remain of jam, the final step one foot closer her widen she look at the book as there handed to her those poor book traped cramed in same place never to see the light again
will anyone safe the bookn from the wicked Tabather
No Jam jar, no flack jack no through only stillness in the libray

The Thought Police by Barry Titus

The Thought Police

Major Jane, government spy, surveilled through ground glass
flights from my vest to capillaries, a sail loosed within my mask.
She begged a monk in exile to broadcast to and from my mind.

The Tibetan priest’s eighty hands smear mud on eyes, mouth, nose.
The blades that gouge their sexual glands pulsate their bladders, your envelope.
The mind: shade watches ozone dissolve a lake like veil.
Monks look down my skull until a revelation: cheeks and legs on water, thigh up.

Jane said, “Sex!”
The pulse falters and puffs out. I’m punctured. The monks exude more neon letters. Words fasten and crease me. Sentences incinerate skin.

The clouds expand down between shreds.
Jane says, “That’s a pose.”
How should I not kill yourself?
The Dalai Lama says: “It’s your ego.”
What calm does the lama worship?
The elbow that will never move, torn edges so sliced and ripped a shape must have flown to roost.

Embrace your arm and confront the stalks and the thread feathered rib bones.
Thousands of nights, noon and dawns flood out a valley not on earth.

Spurn the lilac breeze, looks at bosoms annihilate. Monks, see no pallor ooze from under a blanket pressed on a face. Their corpse press on my lung. My prodded flesh mourns in drool. Gas lit words glide on runners and are let ebb like pennies you lose.

As the Buddhist Congress ordained you said: ‘Nirvana is as a woman you love.’
Cindy is a girl. What do you think of her?”
To think the silence that dust suspends must fall on an breathless pond
whose motion dissolves to crystal
like smoke that moves behind a mist.

Above the waitress’s tray, snow

Fallegt Utsyni For a Minor Reflection

Disintegration-Last Nights of Paris-David Eng-Ginnetta Correli

The Church Bell Player by Barry Titus

I did not know some facts until after I wrote this. The CIA had blamed my grandmother for some mistakes they wanted to hide. During the 1950′s they had let English agents spy on the H bomb, steal the plans and give them to Russia. CIA pretended my grandmother had done it. They harassed my father, planted agents, tinkered with his car and tried to kill him. Two years after this novel ended, I moved from a hotel to a one bedroom apartment. The Dutch and US cut off my television cable. I had a friend, Jan Derek (Dirk) Pasterkamp, a Dutch folksinger with an apartment but no identity card. We smoked cannabis every afternoon, played the guitar and sang. He went out on my bike and bought grass. We had a friend, Walter the German, we met on Leidseplein where we talked twice a week. Walter only talked about marijuana. One night I insisted that Walter and I rent a hotel room to watch television. We found one above Rookie’s cafe, and went downstairs to have coffee. The only ones at the next cafe were an older man and an adolescent girl. Fluffy haired with spectacles, he wore a beige check jacket and tie. The girl, four inches shorter and thinner, sat part way around the table. As he spoke, now and then she shifted her glance. He pushed his face toward something down the street, hers partly moved. Later, upstairs, I lay on the bed. Walter on the floor rolled joints. I heard thumps like someone banged on the wall, and smaller bumps; then a door shut which made Walter look up. Words came through the wall. With a blush and a grin, Walter translated:

“Dirty little bitch. You’re an evil girl, you mean, filthy slut.”
                                                            
February, 2000                                         
The attempt to cut an egg increased the charge in all my muscles. Pieces sped off the plate. My numb hand could not fork them up. Girls shook their heads No or didn’t answer. The perfect, vanilla kewpie doll, a level blue eyed blond with a round forehead and globe breasts, never saw me through the glass pane. The effort to cut conflicted with the muscular overcharge. I sawed on. The struggle united with the increased effort and doubled. I was enraged over an egg. I cursed, trembled and sneered. I stabbed at the fatty bacon, l pinned and shredded. A piece flew off the table. Tall Rita with the spear head cheekbones looked back from between her legs.
After breakfast, ease of walking provoked the CIA treatment to clench my lower back. Two days later, Rita left her bra on. The gluteal muscle followed the tendon and shuddered to return twenty times. She said she might know of an apartment; drop by tomorrow. The next day I felt a scratched anger. Black whips hung on the wall. Rita cell phoned in German. The apartment was no longer free. I thanked her and left.
In my small hotel room, I added details to old notes of interrogation by hidden CIA officers. I had been experimented on. The federal spies had done ten thousand conditioning trials on me with humans and electricity. Now I told secrets I had promised to keep: the officers’ names and hints of their personalities. They’d repeated their recognizable voices. If I concentrated, the letters wavered. In a light sweat, I trembled and felt I was losing my balance.
Upside down, Rita’s breasts had flown and swelled close. Her buttocks, a semi soft bubble, followed the cord in cream. I had glimpsed an extra spasm in her back.
Two canals East and five blocks South lay Nieuwmarket, a large square where at one end stood a brick fort with conical roofs. Down a side street halfway to a canal, a slim blond admitted me. Four days later, she said: “No.” I walked back to the hotel. On the bed, relaxation brought images of men who rushed with weapons. I cursed the government. The swearing erased the attackers, but not the nervousness created with frequent electric current. I went out again. I told Rita I yelled on the phone at my first hotel. The maid thought I meant her and they asked me to leave. How was the weather in New York? “Snowing.”           
In a stationary store I saw a German dictionary and thought of Rita but it was too small. Her question about the weather suggested a trip unfairly fast. Two days later, I tried a full chested blond. Upstairs she said, “I can’t. That’s it.”
Up at 2AM, tired, my thighs and biceps flexed. The main avenue was outside my window. A tunnel of air mourned from the left. “Breasts.” The plump brunette took her bra off. They faced away from me. “Now what?”  “Just stand.”  I held her. Outside the hotel window, a beggar played a plastic pipe. The Tv was too low to hear. If I looked too hard at the subtitles, the words switched places.

Rita called me: “Bugs Bunny.” How did my stomach get like that? The bicycle in Copenhagen. I couldn’t tell her the conditioned anxiety didn’t let me rest. A new, thick Langenscheidt’s dictionary lay on her sink edge. In Oudekerk Square, Old Church loomed, nine cement walls with nine orange tiled roofs, some conical. The bells rained a slow hymn, deep and high gongs; the melody rang like fallen cans scattered over clanged chords.

In May in the Broodje, a sandwich shop on Old Church Square, Rita came in for a sandwich, her face white above a navy coat. Her eyes looked higher than in make up. That night, the tunnel with air walls worried listened at 2:20 AM. The Church bell player, never married, wondered where the despair in the music came from. Never broken up, she hadn’t discovered grief.
         
Rita waved at the stars on the rear wall. I couldn’t think. Five minutes later, I said we could live in New Paltz a college town thirty miles North of New York, if she just wanted to get away. How to explain a college town. The students didn’t speak to strangers. We’d have no friends. The tension could build into an argument about what? She’d have to go back to Holland. A man spoke. Rita seemed to shrink backwards, like a scared deer.
         
I knocked on the glass beside the vanilla kewpie’s turned away face. She let me in. “____ me, ____ me, ____ me, ____ me.”

****
I had finished twenty poems since I left New York. An empty envelope from Mother; female modern dance; the word vergeven. Kopy Kwik copied and bound them. Under the plastic sheet, the front looked like snow with typewritten titles at different angles. Rita was probably not a lit major, but her x curtains were closed. The next day, walking up her street, I seemed to glide on light blue wings, but her curtains were closed, closed for a week. I worked on events from 1989. Hot water from the shower could make coffee in a glass container.
         
“Poetry; they came out well and I thought of you.” She flipped through it. Thanked me without looking up and put it on a package. The kewpie spanked my ass cheek with a leather fly swatter. Rita’s curtains were closed for another week. When I saw her, I asked her if she had a chance to read the poems. Yes. She brushed her waist length hair. Too complicated? Maybe.
Rita was with Ann sitting in a booth. One day with a shadowy look, Ann said, “Ulrika’s on vacation.” Her name was Ulrika; she’d discussed me. I put my hand on the kewpie’s shoulder. In two minutes, she said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes. How are you, Dracula?” Rita Ulrika joked.
Beside Kewpie’s armoire stood a pair of tan suede cowboy boots. Above them hung a fleece lined leather jacket. She said she will love others and I will love others. I asked if she was six feet tall. Only five eight, her wide dark eyes denied. How often did she go to the tanning booth?
“Twice a week, you seem tense,” Kewpie said.
I said: “I have strange problems. The government gave me this treatment. Electromagnetic rays.”
“Who is using these rays on you?”
CIA sounded crazy so I said FBI. Rita stopped on the way to her chair, hand half raised.

I knew I shouldn’t bring police attention to her or talk about surveillance…
To be continued

Barry Titus is a 71 year old poet and writer born in New York City. His publications include: the novel, Masks and non fiction,The Dalai Lama Caper. Barry has spent the last seven years in Holland.

Color of Meaning by Phillip David Grainger

Words are colour true hidden between if and maybe ” David you know what the power of the message will do, you know the price of finding me”
“Maybe this is not the way of it “
Maybe you should try to find me”
The truth or my truth is nothing without you. If that the chose then I choose this path”
The greatest fear certaint, the marked paragraph where in lyes unquestioning meaning. “The power of the message the certainty of the destruction that it will cause just to find me”
certaint unquestioning, what good are these when all fact conspire against.
Words tone and pitch to strike a lye or hit a truth “David I choose for you to forget this, forget me this is not you world”
“I would lye to keep him safe ,the lye within a truth I would keep him from me knowing that it would better that the truth I require “
“becouse of you Edward I know there are world times were I am never just an on looking”
“David remember to live on till all the little that left
Your faded words mean little as your cold heart beat no compassion “Edward the power of the message I will use it to keep you safe stop the flame of memory
“Tom I can not save you, what you have done the path you walk you are lost so am I “
But lyes and tainted truth
“I see a world of perfection even in the smallest detail, I see no mark from the passage of time or dent were age has been unkind “
The black fog the reflection of your own self the monster the action you choose David
Just like Tom ,like all who tried to find me that what this refection show”
wear the eye it see all but know nothing
“I dont see or rather I choose not to see why destroy this world why question , look the crake faded truths.
This world of perfection was never yours to find
The lonely child who navigate a world by an alferbet which she has yet to learn, the lost child to the howling wind
“What I face,what I know?
What can I see, I can not tell”
Wear the teacher who knows all. the lyer and keeper of realy truths
“This is my mind ,my world, this creation but that note dose not make sence the word Edward left but word not for me
Final wear the mind that stop or the heart which fail ,danger as the game is lost , as the water of the mind turn cold,icely and unkind these word are gone the game stop.

Of Canine Bondage by J. de Salvo

8/25/01
      It started. I’m not sure exactly when, but it did. First it was fantasy, then pictures, movies. Finally…well, I still have that choice. Ah, Sophie.
      Before I get into this battle with myself…the hardest kind, and after all, who wins?…I need to ask a question. Not for you, for me. Why does sex have to be interesting? In nature we see a lot of rape, and my darker side inclines me to not have a huge problem with that. There’s something about force, about the exercise of power. It’s delicious. The next fundamentalist nut job who tells me we have no animal ancestry needs to set up a mirror above their own bed. If there’s one thing scientists and preachers agree on it’s that the main function of the sex act is for reproductive purposes. 
8/26/01
      Sophie is looking at me now, somewhat warily. She’s done a lot of work for me already. I can’t think that crossing this line will mean as much to her as it would for me. After all, I can’t expect her to understand the difference between filming something (fiction), and just doing it for shits and giggles (non-fiction). Her professionalism is superior to mine in that aspect. It’s all real to her. She’s what we in the porn business call a “real amateur”. Dogs don’t act. They can be taught to perform, but they don’t act. The cries of pain and pleasure are one hundred percent real. 
8/27/01
      I don’t know why I’m so afraid of this final act. I’ve been felated by Sophie and countless other dogs before, that’s how it started being more than just a thought. The thing was I didn’t start it. I had to finish myself off that first time, but I soon learned how to use food both as lubricant and enticement. Sophie is the best of them so far. I really love her. I really do. That’s the problem. I know I will cause her pain if I go forward with this. Not that she’ll remember it, or be traumatized, like…say… a little kid would be. But while I’m doing it… (Doing it? Am I really that serious?)…there will be physical pain. 
8/28/01
      Before I made Dog flicks I was into rape flicks. The problem was the raping was never real. The most clever one was a sci-fi piece about how there’s only one woman left on the planet after a big nuclear war, and she doesn’t want to put out. That was a big seller. I am an artist first, a pervert second.
      A fairly famous artist, actually. If it ever came out that Douglas Miller and Dr. Strange Love are the same person, I’d be in some real shit. 
8/29/01
      Part of me, I think, as I am not the most in touch with myself person around, would like that. I’d like to go down like a radical, an extremist… to hell with everyone else. I wanted to do it, so I did. Go down screaming; the most famous dog fucker of all time…. as fascinating as I was revolting.
      I like to be revolting. But I will not tolerate any half measures…no no no. I need to be revolting either in total secrecy, or completely openly. I am leading up to something, perhaps. 
8/30/01
      Or perhaps not. I suppose it’s just that I am sitting down and thinking about it. Most days I go about my business and turn a blind eye to my darkest sides. Then I make myself drunk, or take drugs…and they come out of the shadows. Take last night for instance. I was drunk when I wrote that, trying to give myself courage. I went into her room. I looked her right in the eye. I wanted to do it, but somehow I couldn’t disconnect my conscience. Yet the craving remains.
      I am a forty two year old man. For all intents and purposes, I have stopped having normal relations with women. My contact with women, in any real sense, stopped when I was married. That was when I was 33. 
8/31/01
      I have re-read yesterday’s entry many times. I am surprised at its honesty. That is what I set out to do here, though, but I am surprised that it is happening. I have never written anything before, so if I am gone and you are reading this, please excuse my bad writing.
      What I wrote yesterday seems significant. I’m not sure how. Maybe I’m afraid of women. That’s a theory that’s out there, about my kind of extreme pervert that seems to make some sense. The more I think about it though, the more I think that maybe I’m afraid of myself. I’ve never had any real trouble giving pleasure to women, not that they’ve seen fit to complain about. I’ve often been told that I was a good lover. Maybe it was getting married that did it. My wife and I never have sex anymore. We are bored of the same old thing. Maybe we are afraid to admit that. Not maybe, we are afraid. I can sense it in the room at all times. We hardly ever even speak anymore. Our sex life, or lack of it, has taken over everything. 
9/1/01 
      Did a shoot today. Lesbian Dog Porn. Sophie was marvelous, as was the actress. What was her name? I considered paying her a little extra to go to one of my empty studios and turn fiction into fact, but I chickened out at the last minute and went and masturbated in my office instead. Not so much chickened out, as I was actually emboldened. Is that the word? It sounds right anyways.
      No doubt she would have done it. She is an addict of just about everything and has no principles to speak of. Not only has she acted out so many diversely perverse scenarios of mine, but it has been whispered in my ear on many occasions that she does not limit her self to screen work if the price is right. It would be easier with someone else involved. I would feel less responsible. Maybe I will call her. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
9/2/01 
      No way. Man, what was I thinking? This girl is money hungry, and she could expose me. I was working on one of my films today. Not one of the dirty ones, but one designed for people with less evil imaginations. As I was watching the actress play out a scene I had written, I began to leave the set. In my mind, I mean. I began to picture her in the same role the other actress had played in the other film. I could just see little Sophie licking her cunt, loving the salts and the juiciness of it. Lesbian dog porn is an invention of mine. Imitators have sprung up, but they are few. It’s not essentially different than woman on male dog type flicks, except that the woman is never penetrated by the dog. That is what your average dog porn lover is looking for; the canine equivalent of the Tijuana donkey show. I have built my niche market by pushing that anonymous manila envelope. So far I have not found any actors willing to film with male dogs. Even hard core stars have their standards I suppose. But I will some day. Maybe then I will turn one way or the other. When I picture it in my head, it is always easy to do…and it is never like you picture it, is it? 
9/3/01
      I suppose the normal thing to do at this point would be to kill us all. I mean her, myself, the children. That seems shocking in too average a way. Maybe tonight I will do it. Also, you always hear of loving fathers faithfully executing themselves and their family out of love or poverty or both. None of this applies. I could do it, I suppose, just to act it out. I’m fond of such things. But no, I fear that I am totally alone….that this involves only me.
      Not true, of course. With my death, many things would come out. My trauma will be theirs. Good. If people would share each other’s trauma more, less of us would go out on our own limbs. 
9/4/01
      I thought the point of this was to get better. To try and work it all through and see if there’s any hope for redemption. But sickness, and I am sick, I admit it now, breeds sickness. It is hard to think of the thing you are not supposed to do without being tempted to do it. And yet you must think of it in order to learn to stop doing it.
      I could just let her go, but every time I try, something stops me at the last second. I have got as far as the front gate. Once I even opened it, but she just stood there staring at me, innocent to all that was in my mind. It seemed like it would be as cruel as it was kind to let her go. No, the problem is mine. 
9/5/01
      It all comes down to rape. I want to rape a woman badly, and I cannot tell you why. Some of us are just made in different ways than the rest of you, and yet we still have the instinct to preserve ourselves.
      I do not want you to think that I am talking about some billboard slut. Some blonde with lipstick and high heels. This would give me no satisfaction. If I use such women in my films, it is only because they are commercially viable. But not my type. Such women are always being raped by the eyes; I would like to rape someone who would never expect to be raped. Of course, I do not have the courage to carry it out on humans. And…still no penetration of the other…of Sophie.
      It is a question of loyalty. A dog is loyal once it has been made so, and it is very difficult- though not impossible- even to beat this out of it. That is the kind of woman I would want. The one who protests to the rape at first, but then ends up liking it. This persona exists in legend, for those of you who think that I am only referencing smut. I think that in this day and age, this would only be possible with a woman who was unattractive by modern standards. Such a woman would be the only one capable of responding to such a thing. Of course, I know the chances would be very low- but I am trying to get this out, to end my denial of the fact that I think these things.
      Previously, especially during the dark ages, you can almost understand an attractive woman wanting to be raped. Sex was taboo, and yet we must imagine that people’s carnal urges were not much less developed. The evidence would certainly seem to indicate so. But I digress. Once upon a time, the only virtuous way to get laid was to “allow” yourself to be “raped”. All sex, as in the animal world, was, virtually, thought of as rape. It was a way of protecting one’s reputation in those chivalric times. “He abused me”, such women would say to their girlfriends, smiling knowingly. “But I tell you, after a while, it wasn’t bad…”
      Now, of course, attractive women are raped by the eyes of all men. They know this, and this makes them unattractive to me. I love to pass some slut on the street, and make her notice that I seem to ignore her. I have grown the discipline of keeping them out of my vision, of looking towards, but never at them. This includes my wife.
      I tell you, for those of you who are interested, as I am surely not: that is the way to get them. Don’t look at them. All their lives they will complain about the eyes which pry under their tops, their skirts, their pants. But just let a man pass who doesn’t give them the time of day and they ask themselves: “Why? What’s wrong with me?”, and straight away they make it their mission to seduce him. These are generalizations, of course. But things become generalizations by first being generally true. Obviously, I am not talking about Lesbians. Or dog fuckers, for that matter.  
9/6/01
      I have done it. Not really…only in a dream. But this is different from closing my eyes and touching myself in a number of ways.
      …First and most of all, because of total suspension of disbelief. Some level of this is necessary to reach climax during masturbation, and of course during sub par intercourse, but there is- sadly, must be- some level of awareness that disbelief has been suspended. Not so in dreams. They only continue, typically, as long as we believe them to be real. It is amazing how much we are actually willing to believe, if you think about it. We can accept phantoms, all kinds of creatures, drastically altered buildings and sometimes entire cities. Sometimes even our own house has changed in some inexplicable way, or we walk into another room and find ourselves in another place; yet we do not question it. Dreams are proof that the only thing we question, on an instinctive level, is our own death. This seems to be the only possibility which begs the question: is this real? Of course, most of us are not ready to accept death, and that’s as it ought to be. It has probably helped us to stick around while so many other species have faded away. And yet, death is a very common thing, whereas many of the other things we dream about are highly improbable, if not impossible.
      (The fish would seem to contradict much of what I have just written, now that I think of it. Perhaps sex, reproduction is the key. Of course it somehow had to come back to that.)
      I am always myself in my dreams. I mean that I never have the oft reported experience of watching myself. I am always me, in my own head, seeing with my own eyes. I could only see the back of her head, unless I bent my neck to get a better view of her face.
      Strangely, she did not seem to react at all. There were no shrieks of pain, no thrashing around trying to get away. The look on her face was…almost worried. The same kind of look she gets when she is watching me eat. Except…how can I put this?…her eyes were not intent. It was as if she were lobotomized, they were so dead and empty of feeling. It would not be this way in real life, I know. I must have cum several times; at least three, judging by the evidence.   
9/7/01
      The best and the worst in us are borne in secrecy.
      I am turning into a poet. I did want to be a writer when I was younger. I guess I just never had much to say until recently. Now it is coming out, all of it. It is no longer secret. From myself, I mean. My motivations have gone unexamined for so long that it seems like I must have finally become aware of them through inertia. Then they just poured out onto these pages by their own will. I had no thought to write this all down. One day I just had to. Writing hard core scripts is not really writing. There’s not much dialogue, mostly instructions. I don’t write the scripts for my “normal” films.
      I’m not such a great writer yet, though. I was trying to talk about secrecy…about taboo, and how it makes us go astray, perhaps even further than we might have.  In secrecy there is no reference. No one there to say to you: you’re fucking up. That is why I have always loved confessions. However heinous the thing confessed, once published it is harder to get away with again.
      I read confessions. That is just about all I read, these days. It started with Rousseau in college… although that was barely a confession. That just made it all the more delicious in its own way though. Because of the morals of the time, the man had to write a book almost as long as the bible just to get it off his chest that he was a masochist. Still, I imagine de Sade must have read certain portions of the confessions over and over again. They must have given him the courage to expose himself. By exposing himself, he built a dam against the flood of his passions. He could only go so far. Had he not published, and continued having his little, um, “sessions”, he would most likely have gone down in history as a shocking item in the French or Czech newspapers. “Nobleman rapes and murders woman on country road!” Instead, we have his plays…which, whatever you think of the subject matter…are well written.
      I have read them in the French. Did I tell you I speak French? You who will read this when I publish my confession? I don’t want you all to think I am without education. Then you would chalk it all up to that one factor. 
9/8/01
      I have made a decision. I will kill myself in three days, on my birthday, and leave these notes out where my wife can find them. She has known that I am doing something secret and nasty for some time, I imagine.
      The thing is, to expose myself, to talk about all the things that I have done, would almost certainly mean imprisonment. It is too late to seek help. There are no real specialists who understand my problem. The science and the data are all behind the times. People chose to ignore Kinsey’s warnings, not to deal with the darker side of sexuality, and now we are paying the price. If I had not been born in such a puritanical country…but who knows. Enough ifs. I do not have long to live, and I intend to carry out every sick plan I have hatched in the meantime. Starting tonight.   
9/9/01
      Why am I doing this? To stop myself? To give myself courage? How much courage does it take to fuck a dog?
      I chickened out again. After last night’s entry, I drank myself into a stupor and cried intermittently all night. My wife came up to me and asked me what was wrong, and I ran away from her into the basement; forgetting Sophie was there…where I had left her. She did not follow. Amazing how I have convinced myself on some level that she does not exist, or at least does not matter. My wife, I mean. Not Sophie, obviously…she is ever present. Her existence blots out all others.
      Writing it, I felt so sure of it. But if words only deceive me, of what use are they one way or the other? But then I went down there, I looked in her eyes. She saves herself, somehow. Though in all things she is an abiding and loyal little thing, she knows somehow. She fears me only when I am ready to cross this one line. She can sense it –at least on some very basic level- her hair stands up on end, and she freezes on the spot. The thing is, she becomes afraid. Perhaps if she would resist…or better, somehow seem to want it. 
9/10/01
      Each day brings me closer, yet further away from a decision. I am no longer a whole person. I do not so much live as vacillate. I go to work in the day, and everything passes by me. Thankfully we are wrapped for a month or two while my starlet finishes up another project which she is under a more pressing contract for. Whether I shall be here or not all comes down to Sophie. I will try once more tonight. 
9/11/01
      This is it. Odd, but since early in the morning, the phone keeps ringing. I have dispatched Sophie’s violated body. She went quietly, drifting off in a pleasant opium cloud. Damn, there it is again. It’s my wife; she keeps calling over and over again. Well, let her. I am going to take the shot now. 

J. de Salvo is the editor of the Bicycle Review. http://www.thebicyclereview.net/current-issue.html His fiction, poetry, and articles have been published in numerous online and print publications, including Art/Life, New Angeles Monthly, and the Poetry Super Highway.


 

Episode 21 Picture Time

Mr. Fedlister, combs my hair and parts it down the middle. He pulls each side of my locks behind my ears.
“You need a haircut,” Mr. Fedlister spits on the comb and strokes my hair strands again with the comb.
I’m ready for my close up. I stand on the stage. My hands rest on a textbook. The book sits on a classroom desk. A nature scene and earth globe behind me complete the picture scene.
“Smile. Say cheese,” the photographer looks through the lens. I hear a click.
Lights flash. I smile and hold the pose.
“One more time please” the photographer presses the button. The lights flash again. I blink. See dots. The dots blink and don’t stop. Off and on someone plays with a light switch in my brain. My head starts to hurt and my brain can’t keep up with these lights. I try to chase them away and close my eyes. The lights come back. Watching them swim I see neon-colored tetra fish. My stomach feels pain. I receive a message from the burrito I brought from home and ate today at lunch.
“Out. Let me out. I can’t stand it in here! I can’t breathe, Beatie,”
“Mr. Fedlister, I think I need to get to a bathroom fast.” My hand rubs my belly.
“First, Comb your hair again. Your hair is so messy, Beatie doesn’t your dad ever take you to get your hair cut?” He hands me a small black comb. I run the comb quick against my ears.
“I’ma comin’ out, Beatie, ya better let me. I ain’t stayin’here no more,”
“I gotta go,” I hand the comb back to the teacher and run out of the room. There is not much time-Burrito wants out. Once at the bathroom. Latch a door behind me. Hug the latrine. Stick my finger down my throat. Hang my head inside the bowl. I gag.
“Please Beatie, get me out fast!”
Try again. Put my finger inside. Tickle my throat.
“I’ma comin’ Here I come!”
something comes up my stomach. I release broken Burrito into the potty.
“You saved my life.” he moans. I stare at broken Burrito and flush the toilet.

MORNING TIME
Dressed and ready to walk to school. An unwrapped burrito sits on the counter of the kitchen. I throw it in my brown lunch bag along with an apple.

LUNCH TIME
I eat my burrito and take two bites from my apple.

AFTER LUNCH
Neon fish swim in my head again. My brain gets a message from Burrito.
“You gotta let me out fast. I can’t take it no more.”
I let Burrito free into the latrine.
“Thank you Beatie, I love you”

LATER
“Beatie, your dad’s on his way from work to pick you up,” I lie on a cot, covered with a brown blanket inside the nurse’s station. Mrs. Reid pats my head.
Father arrives, his eyes soft.
“Mrs. Reid, I think I’m gonna throw up again.”
“You betcha, Beatie, I wanna be free your brother Jeffrey isa’ comin too,”
Mrs. Reid grabs a plastic dish off the table near the cot. My body shoots up and I hurl Burrito onto a dish.
“Good girl, get it out.” She pats my back. I hold the plate close and concentrate.
“This is the third time in the last two weeks your daughter has thrown up at
school,” Mrs. Reid says.
“She also looks like she’s losing weight. She’s getting too thin. Maybe you should have her looked by her doctor. Does Beatie have a pediatrician?” Father pauses for a moment, his feet uncrossed.
“I’ll take her to dat doctor soon.”
Father stares at the wall. Father’s legs cross.

THE GYMNAST
A few days after school I see Mr. Fedlister. He walks toward the teacher’s
lounge.
“Mr. Fedlister, watch me. Watch me.”
I run through the grass, both my arms raised at the elbows. My Hands flop straight ahead. I run, dive and roll. I am a gold medal gymnast, a swan.
“Good job,” Mr. Fedlister glances in my direction.
I stand proud. My arms reach for the sky. This is the moment. I wait for my medal. My arms held high. The star spangle banner plays God bless America. Father and the rest of America watches me from inside the Olympic stadium. Father stands from his seat first.
“Look at dat” his gorilla hands clap with a strong muffle sound for me.
The world follows Father. People rise from their chairs. The world gives me a standing ovation. It’s the proudest moment in the American history of women’s gymnastics. The camera on Father. He wipes tears with a clean handkerchief. The camera on me. I smile valiant. The medal placed upon my neck with a bouquet of purple lilies handed to me by “Bella” the famous gymnastic coach.
Beatie brings home the Gold. Nadia, the silver medalist gives me a hard look. I smile at her. I don’t care, too bad for her. I won.
Mr. Fedlister walks away.

I WALK HOME ALONE
My mind thinks about food. I am hungry. I hope Father left the back sliding door unlocked and I can steal some cheese and bread out of the refrigerator.
Father told me: “Do not eat dat food when I’m not home. “You can eat an apple if you’re hungry.”
I open the wooden gate to the backyard of the bright yellow house. I make sure I put my foot on each of the round concrete stepping stones. (Someone told me that if you step on a crack you break your mother’s back.) I skip on each stone leading towards the sliding glass door to the dining room. My stomach growls. The sliding door is locked. I peer into the window and see the time on the clock near the thin bar table. The time reads 3:15. I hit the glass with my fist. I cup my hands and make circles around my eyes and press my face against the window. I see a bag of red apples on top of the refrigerator. I turn and pretend to eat a vanilla ice cream cone dipped in chocolate.
I hear a noise, a slight cry. I walk toward the sound. Lift my leg to take a step.
“Aaahhh!”
See greasy, gray fur. Red eyes open, a bright red mouth. A long thin tongue. A belly in the dirt. I lose my balance. The face of death. My behind foot grazes the spine. My lead foot smashes the ribs. Hear the crack then a high-pitched baby squeal.
My heart rushes and I run. My mind follows. I am scared and sick to my
stomach, but think your here with me and I know I’m not alone. We will make
it, won’t we? We just gotta wait till Father gets home, right? Wish we could leave but where would we go? Next door? Lorena’s house? No… Father will have a fit if we leave. We better stay here.
Now can you see the cat’s ear? A pink bit of flesh poking out of the ground. It’s sick isn’t it? All these dead cats in our lives, but your here with me and you won’t let me down. Thank God. Were gonna make it. We sit on the steps and wait. Thank God your here with me. I don’t know what I would do without you. A few hours pass. The cat is silent now. Let’s stay far away from it.

THE DEAD ARRIVAL
Father arrives! He opens the sliding glass door quick.
“Sorry I’m late, I had to present an offer for a house” he says.
“Daa-Dad, there’s a dead cat out here. I had to sit here alone while it died. It was horrible.”
“Dead?”
“Yeah, Dad… dead” Father walks out to the backyard.
“Where’s dat kitty?”
“Over here Dad” Father follows us to the dirt. Father squats and examines the cat. Father’s knuckles bend with one knuckle stuck on his chin.
Father grabs a garden hoe near the peach tree. He taps the dead animal with the small shovel, a serious look to his face.

“Dat poison I put out must have worked.”

before i died i felt the wind rushing my face by Rad Wolf

Dog by Alastair Cook

Maybe Die by J de Salvo

Maybe die

My wife is asleep
The city is outside my window

And me?
I have nothing

Just this last piece
Of night

Every road out there
Leads to trouble right now

Better not
To go anywhere, better

To go to sleep
Right now

But there’s something
Inside me, crawling

Wants to shoot out the windows
Wants to make a mess

And clean it up later
Hope no one finds out, then

Stick my face into the night
And maybe die

J. de Salvo is the editor of the Bicycle Review. His fiction, poetry, and articles have been published in numerous online and print publications, including Art/Life, New Angeles Monthly, and the Poetry Super Highway.

Naked by Rich Hillen

I’m naked in the middle of a department store and no one notices. It’s not a department store. It’s a Grocery store. It’s not a grocery store. It’s a sex club. A department store of sex. A grocery store of sex. Still no one notices me. The room is filled with cocks. Cocks in hands. Cocks in mouths. Cocks in pussies. Cocks on guys and cocks on girls. Cocks. Cocks. Mine blends in with the rest.

I dig a shallow grave in the corner to sit and die in as I watch couples, singles and transsexuals living their lonely morbid lives. I accept my fate.

There’s an old man rolling around on the floor begging for someone to piss on him as he touches himself.

There’s men whipping women and women whipping me. Tied up. Tied down. Begging. Crying. Laughing. Moaning.

Men on women. Men on men. Women on women. Trransexuals and transvestites doing everything in between.

I grab my cock and start my own memorial and pay tribute to my surroundings. I get turned on and laugh to myself when I see the fully clothed tourist girls clinging to their men frightened by the scene. They’ve never seen such debauchery in real life. I have. This is the highlight of my life. I think.

A woman walks up to me in a short tight dress and offers a hand. It’s not a woman but looks like a woman so I give myself to her. My cock is hers. She has her own but takes mine. I abandon everything until I cum. The party’s over for now.

At least I was a part of something, someone for a moment. I crawl back in my grave.

Rich Hillen Jr is an author, artist and performer. He is famous for The Serial Killer Coloring Book from the late 90′s. Hillen has since made a string of horrible full length and short films such as Serial Killers Gone Wild, Night of The Groping Dead and Welcome Home. He also founded Crawlspace Records mostly to promote his former band The World Famous Crawlspace Brothers; acoustic songs about serial killers. While he fights his sex, drugs & rock n roll addiction on a daily basis, Hillen is also working on a novel called: Yellow Socks chronicling his relationships with his paranoid schizophrenic mother and the various other mentally ill women throughout his life.

Crash Dive by Barry Titus

Crash Dive

Viral lightening burnt this shirt green
for a second a day.
Radar stations recorded
a six thousand feet per second descent.
The wounded in the damaged boat
a rope dragged under water
at night past Japanese enemy guns
to a beach.

Narcissus bleeds the darkest blue,
platinum carpet and overcast.
Divorce,
son in tears,
until you see a lawyer.
At dark
over a bay of water
lost control
in the haze.
“…. another student to court,
a bad influence on his ‘son’.”

Assay the shade when it alters your arms.
He’d heard the words,
an urge as a phrase,
so the impulse must be pulled
by the CIA.
Silence yourself,
shrivel,
an all afternoon session,
five a week with Jeff Goldberg
who orders small, and no answers.
“I’m not qualified.
I don’t really want to go.”

Served papers
have locked your child’s breast
behind a lawsuit letter
two hundred a piece
and words you break.
Pots and pans weep chrome roads.
Gongs slash screams and bells.
Staircases circle.
The sky piles stone.
Insults cut the skin away
to eat the meat
stomach and bannister radium.

If guitar with the guy over the intercom
changed body or arms
they stopped to reeducate
until he disowned
and reported their version.
Go for, jam out,
any drama role
can cause restless and impulsive
and then the flank
ulcers kiss purple and rove down.

The scorn of God
if film star Peter Lawford
who listened to
and stared at the butler
was weak and false.
Then come the dark and unsure
with feelings.
The Navy robot
salvaged the broken fuselage.
Military law will deduce the causes
and transcribe the duress,
lessons
he had to not look aside during.

He saw with the wholeness
of the alone
when love hasn’t smashed it.
Focus on him
immobilized eye and ledge
like the spine of a tame cat,
even him who hated
the shallowly scooped angles.
His feet lifted gnawed latex
by the tongue and cloth laces
to pound up wires to loudspeakers.
Above the banquet tables and seat rows
unnoticed cathedrals shaded the ceiling.

Unspoken self
to be washed off
drained not even by phosphorous
until mute upon muteness.
The breathless add a wall
as the door to your cellar.
Stand, you can steal each skin cell
through stillness to listen.
Have no knowledge of what comes next
like paint on your pants
when you must not glance at a guest.

When the morning moisture is glazed off
the ripest green grapes
are the first seen,
hands full over the wagon side.

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Barry Titus is a 71 year old poet and writer born in New York City. His publications include: the novel, Masks and non fiction,The Dalai Lama Caper. Barry has spent the last seven years in Holland.

Fuck Your Words by Rich Hillen Jr

I want to fuck your words. Never mind your body, your face, your personality. Never mind you. It’s your words I want.

Press myself against your words and have my way. Take your words. Kiss, lick, caress, fondle, molest and taste your words. Fuck your words. Bend your words over the chair and give it to them. Hard, fast, wet and deep inside your words.

Obsessed since I first read them I dream, eat, sleep, love and lust your words. Day and night your words cut through my mind and my body like a sharp scalpel. Incision after incision I try to live my life but your words won’t let me. I love your words.

I want to fuck your words. Tie them up. Whip them. Rape your words.

I want to hold, cuddle and spoon your words. Sleep, eat and drink with your words. Live with your words.

It’s not you. It’s never been about you. It’s not what you do or how you act. It’s your words that excite me. Fascinate me.

Still what I want the most is to fuck your words.

I want to fuck your words.

Rich Hillen Jr is an author, artist and performer. He is famous for The Serial Killer Coloring Book from the late 90′s. Hillen has since made a string of horrible full length and short films such as Serial Killers Gone Wild, Night of The Groping Dead and Welcome Home. He also founded Crawlspace Records mostly to promote his former band The World Famous Crawlspace Brothers; acoustic songs about serial killers. While he fights his sex, drugs & rock n roll addiction on a daily basis, Hillen is also working on a novel called: Yellow Socks chronicling his relationships with his paranoid schizophrenic mother and the various other mentally ill women throughout his life.

Episode 17 Court Morning-Mourning

“You are so beautiful.” Mother says to me.  My hair has been curled with sponge curlers. I wear the pink and white flowered dress Mother bought me. I also wear black Mary Janes. The shoes surround my white Bobby socks with white lace around them. Mother strokes my hair with a brush and drinks coffee.
“Don’t be afraid. The judge will be real sweet to you. I just hope I don’t see that girlfriend of your father’s. What’s her name?”
“Oh, you mean Valoria? They’re just friends, Mom. That’s not his girlfriend. Dad’s just lonely, that’s all.”
Mother takes another sip of her coffee. She closes her eyes and presses her hands to her forehead. Mother’s fingers shake.  

I LOVE COURT
In the court room I see people who sit on benches. I sit near the back with Mother. Finally, I see him. Father sits toward the front. Father looks like a young boy. He smiles with his lawyer as if the lawyer is his father.
“The court calls case number #45987 Scareli versus Scareli,” the bailiff says. 
Mother and I walk towards the front of the courtroom. Father is already in front of the judge. The three of us together again.
“First what I like to do is to call the minors to my chamber. The judge removes his glasses and wipes them. “Lets all take a ten-minute break,”  
The bailiff leads me through a long hallway to a room.
“Have a seat,” the bailiff says to me. I sit in front of a large oak desk with framed pictures of the judge’s family. Certificates surround the walls. I breath. I am scared. The judge walks in and takes a seat at the desk.
“Want some candy?” He hands me a lemon ball.
“No thanks”
“The judge puts the lemon ball in his pocket. “Well, then. Do you want to live with your father or your mother?”

Inhale

I stare at pictures of a happy family on a big desk. A boy, a man and a young mother with long, soft blonde hair combed to one side. The mother smiles. Her teeth white. A pearl necklace hung soft on her neck.

Exhale

“My mom is crazy, she can’t take care of me. She just got out of a mental hospital a month ago and she doesn’t have a job either. So I have to live with my dad. There is no way I can live with her.”
Inhale
“Beatie, I always like to hear what the child has to say. I will keep this discussion with you today in mind when I make my decision. By the way, you say your father is not crazy, correct?”

Exhale

“No way. My dad is one of the smartest men in the world.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. If it wasn’t for him I don’t know what would happen to me. I mean, my mom is just plain crazy. She never does anything around the house and she always sleeps. She thinks my dad has girlfriends and everyone in the world is out to get her. My dad has one friend named Valoria who spends the night sometimes since Mom moved out. Dad says they’re just friends, but Mother thinks my dad wants to be with Valoria instead of Mother. Can you believe that? Maybe if she wouldn’t sleep so much my dad would want to be with Mother instead.”
Keep breathing
“Is that what you think?” The judge asks.
“What else could it be?”

Inhale

PATRICIDE OF THE RICARDOS
Our parents return to the courtroom. I wait on a chair outside of the room. It’s a blur and I’m confused. I’m a fish in a glass bowl waiting for someone to feed me fish flakes. A young boy stares at me through the glass.
“Hey Cosmo” the boy says to me. I pucker my lips since I can’t speak. Maybe the boy will feed me.
“Jeffrey it’s time to eat dinner.” I hear a woman’s voice say.
“Okay Mom I’ll be right there” The boy stares at me from above.
Please feed me I wiggle my fin. The air is getting thin.
“See ya Cosmo” The boy walks away.
Time passes. Mother walks out of the courtroom first with her lawyer. Mother dressed in a glitter pant suit. The lawyer shakes Mother’s hand. Father walks past Mother and the lawyer. Father looks away as if passing a stranger on a busy street. He walks in front of me. Is it possible Father didn’t see me? Mother picks imaginary sparkle lint off her shoulder as Father’s feet leave us. Mother’s lawyer walks away. 
“Mom, what happened?”
“Your father divorced me and gets to keep the house, Ricky is dead.”
“What about me?” 
“You get to live with me on the weekends.”
“Is that good?” I ask.
“No.”

AFTER THE PATRICIDE
Mother smokes a Salem in her housecoat. She rubs the ass of a cigarette in the glass black ashtray on the night stand near her bed. She covers herself with a dirt cream-colored blanket. Mother falls asleep. Mother wakes to go to the bathroom and eat puffed rice cereal out of a box. Mother does not leave her apartment for three months.  

DEMON EXTRACTION
(Father visits Mother at the Flat)
“Frata, you’re gonna end up back in dat hospital if you don’t get out of bed. It’s been three months now and dis house is a mess.” Father and me sit by mother’s side.  
“How are you going to get a job and pay your rent if you can’t get out of your bed? The money you took out of our bank account isn’t gonna last forever,” Father says.
“What money?” Mother asks.
“What do you mean what money? The money you took out of our bank account. What did you do with it?” 
“I gave it to my brother,” she says. 
“You gave it to your brother? You crazy woman! You crazy! You Crazy…”
Father stands above Mother. She lies under heavy blankets. Father swings a pen near Mothers forehead.
“Follow the pen!” Father says.  Mother follows the pen with her eyes. Father swings the pen pendulum. Slow then fast, he moves the pen from one side to the other side. Mother’s eyes follow the pen. I watch Mother. Her eyes close. Father makes the pen go faster. Father’s brow furrows. Father thumps Mother on the head hard
with the pen. Mother growls and turns a dull shade of pale green.
“Damn Crazy Woman! I command a crazy woman to become sane!” The bed shakes. 

Thirteen-Squaretumbleweed