Thank You, Lasse Hallstrom
Sabrina McLaughlin

Because in every arty film that has a dog in it,
The dog nearly always dies,
As if they enjoy causing pain
To poor sappy souls susceptible to sentimentality.
Artistic pictures, indie films,
Have some spiritual agenda,
The bildungsroman in which whatever sorry creature
The child coming-of-age has loved
Is doomed from the opening credits -
Dog, pony, kestrel, yearling deer, antelope fawns,
Et cetera  et cetera  ad finitum.
I felt I couldn't bear it this morning.
That motherless, dogless boy,
Something sad in his voice and demeanor
As he helped the developing girl
Soccer player hide her small breasts by binding them
With the sorrow of the euthaniser
Who administers the lethal injection.
They wouldn't let her play if they saw -
He seemed wistful at denying
New-forming woman-child beauty
For the sake of athletic aerodynamic streamlining.
His mother was dying and needed quiet to rest,
So they sent him away, and after he left
They killed his dog, the bastards.
It made him sad to think of Laika,
That little dog the Russians sent into space alone
And left to die,
A sacrifice for the progression of humanity.
Finding some returning joy -
Like slow heat of the glassmakers' furnace
Breathing life into art,
Or warmth of sun thawing
Ice encapsulated 'round fingertip-like ends of birch branches,
Watching a harmlessly mad man swim naked
Beneath the Swedish ice, popping his head up like a seal.
The men of the village were trying to fish him out:
"I don't want to be sensible. 
I want to be left in peace."
Everything we love, is taken from us,
We must bear pain and sorrow when it comes
Or try never to love, never to feel at all
For fear of the smoldering throb of loss:

I'd rather love than not,
And take the pain with the pleasure
Even if it sears me senseless,
Even if it means interstices of little peace
I'd rather be a sensitive.
Maybe this sadness will kill us all in the end
But by whatever Gods we choose
We'll go down fighting
Pounded into the gravel of the road.
Gutshot and trailing berry bright
Love coloured blood
In the snow,
I'd go down railing with the last ecstatic arduous
and blissful breath,
Ragged gasps of my triumphant and vital animal death,
Damn you, you killers of dogs.

m

Actors And Actresses
Sabrina McLaughlin

Don't make your songs belong
To a precise time and place -
If you do,
At every note, phrase, key change and chord,
You will think of him
Or feel the chill
Of drear winter
In the steamy midst of August.
I remember you most often in summers since;
I feel you pulse like heat lightening,
A particular electric friction
Making clothing feel constricting.
I think of you when the pinching pain in my side comes,
A very visceral animal ache I am aware, I miss you.
But who I miss is, was, a figment.
Some fewer and fewer mornings
I wake still sensing your hands,
Sizzling dry solstice heat
Of your fevered, fervourous hand on my back
Possessive and suggestive.
Once you were a laceration
Kept open licking torn flesh;
Now one of some faint old scars
I absentmindedly run my fingertips over
Like a rosary, like old worry beads,
like a smooth medicine stone.
It was a version of you that died
That I held in my naïve arms
Kissing healed-over needle tracks.
I've since made a fiction out of you,
A melodramatic self-serving invention you became
When I desired to posture as tragic heroine.
I created and possessed you as embellished memory.
I am a self-created fiction - we all are - a novel creature,
An actress always in the transmorgrifying Proteus of a character
I've become for myself-like Finnegan's Wake,
She is a Work In Progress.
When you last said goodbye
You took my hand and kissed it
As if you were fluidly, flawlessly finishing a scene.
This is our theatre, or artwork,
I've cried my crocodile tears,
I have nothing of you
Only a phantom pain
And these broken-English words and cliches.

You're just one of many princes:
Stephanie Szymanski

You're just one of many princes:
gold crown, cream skin, pearl teeth,
smooth hands, smooth feet.

Hot shot,
top dog,
big gun: you lounge in a leather throne
dishing out commands like hundred dollar bills
with a smirk on a smug face and watching yes-men
scurry back and forth, beads of sweat on their brows.

You lean back with a satisfied groan, "It's a rough life."
Your idea of labor is working your way
through the ladies-in-waiting
the royal jewels, indeed.

Hot head, smart mouth
quick tongue, slow mind.
You never have to think twice,
you never look over your shoulder.
You never stop, and you never stop to wonder
when the horses are eating out of your hand
whose palm have you been licking?

You're just one of many princes
     but
the king is watching you.

Dried Memories
Megan E. Bradley

He painted vibrantly
With long deep strokes
And a brush
So caked with ancient
Colors and maskings
Of last years masterpieces
Bristles once soft as hair
Now crinkled and shriveled
Like a rotting fruit forgotten
On a hot August day
A once-brown handle
Now a rainbow of colors
Each spotted and unstructured
Distinct, still changing
Each painting marking itself
Upon that brush
With its splashes and splatters
Of memories
Some light, fading away
As the chipped handle
Loses more innocence with
Each stroke
Some dark, like imprints
On the mind of the painter
Who looks at his brush
As though it were painting his life

Cemeteries in Winter
Eric Lesniak

Sometimes in autumn
the clouds race across the sullen skies
only for a second, then quickly slow down
as if somewhere something important has
happened, but is never realized

Below in the cemeteries of earth
voices of loved ones echo from the stone walls
but upon looking there is no one
except for the lonely angel who broods past
the tombstones

The bodies of the buried lay
beneath looking up at the
skies
wondering what their souls are
up to

Once and a while the sun reflects off
of a hearse which is followed by a
procession
people with pale red faces filter out
look around, say goodbye
and vanish as if they too have died

A cool wind unfolds over the
graves
carrying with it petals of some
flowers left behind for
eternity
the angel turns to watch for a
second then quickly moves on
as if somewhere someone is
expecting him.

This Side of Beautiful
Dawn Leas

Beautiful women
do that
you know
what you
are doing
 
now

tongue dragged
enticingly over
upper lip

not once,
but twice

sad eyes
piercing through
disheveled hair

crossed arms
inviting in
rather than
repelling away

now

making witness
(which in
this case
is me)
walk away
feeling as
if he
has wronged
you know
rather than
been wronged

now

exalt in
your beauty.
It will
carry you
everywhere
nowhere;
nowhere
everywhere
in life.

Strange Territory
Dawn Leas

I wear my Yankeeness
like a scarlet letter south
of the Mason-Dixon line.

I say you guys not ya'll.
It's sneakers not tennis
shoes to me.

I prefer Cosmopolitans to Mint Juleps,
giant oaks to weeping willows,
crystal lakes and ocean waves
instead of the muddy Mississippi.
And what exactly is a tornado drill?

I am fast track northeast;
not a laid-back southerner.
And where does winter cold
and snow fit into this picture?

Lost in strange, foreign territory
so it seems.
Just give me a minute or a lifetime to acclimate
to the weather, the vibe, the lingo.

I can change I promise.
Banish wrong words.
Absorb the right.

Submerge me in culture unlike my own
and like a chameleon
my speech will slowly slow;
the southern drawl will take over
and I will address you as Miss
while sipping a Mint Julep
under a mimosa tree.

Slow me down and turn me into a lady.
I'll do anything to just fit in.
Ya'll.

Signs
John Zielen

I begin to lay myself down,
cigarette rolling between my fingers
hot, musky summer morning behind.
Digging through paper that is green and binding
trying to make way for worldly treasures worthy of my class.
Squalid and hopeful; ignorantly I sat.
Until outside I hear faint cracks.

Wind picks up into an unrestrained gale,
tormented: the torrents of spring fighting summer.
A shiny piece of material I long to find,
to spend the right dollar and put in more time.
Getting my fill of excess so detained.
Freedom lost, freedom gained?

This water smashes the porch,
wooden and built so fresh,  new.
Waters that have flooded for decades before;
darkness returned to the day, unimaginable it seems.
I plug in this electric
and sit on my bed
money surely spent well.

Fighting the words of cowards so complacent,
addicted to sad repetition, I have joined them.
Romanticism is dead, it is so empty, spiritful of sorrow

as the torrential rains open my eyes.
No tears, no comfort, or the innocence
of words that deliver my mind from exile.

Pouring, soaking, washing:
the rain has subsided the thunder still crashes.
Animals hide in their cages and shiver.
All animals, and no survival. No vision, no desire.
Heart relays, "I'll die when I'm forty."
Stress drinks the water from our constant-parched souls.

But no! I must repent. I must go on!
Into something complex as a song.
The bridge I cried under, I will walk upon
above these flowering waters!
Whenever, if ever, shall life be consumed by such grace.
As when the sky broke open, and let us see his face.

morning's first thoughts
Megan Rowlands

morning's first thoughts,
soft and untouched,
uncoil from the conscious
like a phone cord unravels;
wet with sleep and dream
they emerge in a cloud of fog
thick as gauze;
desert mouth, dry as Arizona,
distracts for a moment as images
from the night before come
pouring down like rain:

vodka bottle
big toothed grins with yellow gums
snake eyes

I want to crawl back into bed.

m

Executions In An Office Building
William Thomas Jr.

We replaced the sun
with a wasted light bulb
See the way it’s turned black? See the way
it’s burnt itself out
like a fire burning in rooms without oxygen
like a fire burning in hearts without dreams?
We’re blowing out candles
before we’ve used the light to find our way
out of these manufactured parades
We’re folding the blankets and making the beds
before we’ve even won a wink of sleep.
The shadows flicker
like ancient films
and the darkness plays on and on and on
and then again
all over again
What a dreadful isolation these cubicles provide
We tie ourselves up to the lampposts
And hang us abruptly by our necks
These black working ties are our gallows
as we sway over computers glowing
The way they glow is
like ancient films
in dark and empty theaters
in darkened theaters devoid of bodies
We tie ourselves up to the chandeliers
And hang us abruptly by our necks
these black working ties are our gallows
and the labor force surrounds our suffocated selves
These business suits work well as funeral wear
and these days keep repeating
verbatim
like broken records
Don’t skip a beat. Don’t break the silence.
Just hear the awful crackling and popping sound.
These days
feel like
needles scratching across the vinyl
Don’t skip a beat. Don’t break the silence.
Just sway over glowing computer screens
for an audience of paper-pushers pushing paper through empty arenas
What will appear
on your lonely tombstone?
The corporate logo and
“Rest In Profit”
Not a name, just an employee identification number
Not a birth date nor a death date just
“nine to five.”
These cubicles are tombs. These desks, funeral pyres.
Over copy machines that illuminate our glazed faces
we stare and salivate
making copies of copies of words we never read.
We are not human beings
We are numbers attached to resumes
kept on a glowing computer somewhere
awaiting deletion
These cubicles are tombs. These desks, funeral pyres.
And we all float facedown in cold coffee mugs
Unscrew the light bulb from the sky
Take the record off the player
Untie these nooses from our necks
Still the shadows flicker
like ancient films
and the darkness plays on and on and on
and then again
all over again
Unscrew the light bulb from the sky
shear the beds of all their blankets
Relight the candles and let us discern our way out of these cities
let us find our way out of these epic tombs
Unscrew the light bulb from the sky
And put the sun right back where it belongs
Turn off the TV. Turn off the PC. Turn around and look
at the path you’ve tread to this locked door
Did we bring the keys?