Short, Fast, and Deadly
i58
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
Cover Photo by Ray Scanlon
16 January 2011
Featuring:
M. R. Carter
David E. Haase
Perry Nardone
Rebecca Anne Renner
John Sobieck
Marcus Speh
Chris Vola
Copyright © 2011 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved
Names & Other Languages
I got sick in the ER waiting room, and this 70 year old man, Walter Gripp, and I sat on ER bathroom floor talking about our wives. Pearl, his wife, had a heart attack. He kept saying her name like it was the most important word he’d ever learn. Pearl was a nurse in WWII. Pearl loved green apples. Pearl smelled like winter in the Berkshires. My stomach churned: Elizabeth’s name never sounded like that.
by Rebecca Anne Renner of Port Orange
Honorable Discharge
Autumn spills a tomb, the speckled nuts an avalanche now black with the stench of a squirrel’s panicked hive. It’s dusk. As the brown fibers skim downward, teeny lovers with mouths like scarecrows sneak me shyly, sharing saliva and a newly rolled joint. But I am alone on this decaying causeway, thinking only of the refrigerator’s glow that in these colder nights has become the underbelly of my headstone’s promise.
by Chris Vola of New York
Modern Inspiration
She brought him here to show him her favorite piece.
My art teacher cried when he saw this, she says. You have to look deep.
He knows it’s bullshit. What’s this one called, Red rectangle on large black rectangle, 1945, oil on canvas?
She scoffs. Emma was right about you. Thank God for that ass.
Later, the man unplugs his phone. He is not to be disturbed. He is painting triangles. All the same. All vacant.
by John Sobieck of Minneapolis
I am hamster
duct taped
toetowheel
pokefuck
me everytime
you feel feral
by David E. Haase of Denver
Stiletto Studded Meat Machine
Swaying-green machines flying into the electric-blue eternity. Fire-water hanging on the last glimpse of a sleeping-sword. Melting-grease of winged-soul life. Down my throat. Live another night. Falsified Kodachrome of nutrition bleeding through the metallic-suns. Costa Blanca controls the swirling-black beans. Benjamin-revelers turn into spirit-spinning monkeys losing it all in a stiletto-studded meat machine.
by Perry Nardone of Framingham
Upon Visiting Distant Land
Tired foot from shifting clutch. I see fire up ahead. I stop to find a woman with baby.
Her words are foreign to me, coming out as scribbled lips spitting syllables into a desert’s dusty vortex of thoughts racing as she keeps screaming.
I try best to stay calm, but her voice is not relaxing.
I’m reluctant to hold her baby as she spits up more words as blood to sanction my praise for stopping to help in the first place.
by M. R. Carter of Hagerstown
superfoods
when i came home, family dinner was waiting: i found bison, ostrich and deer on my plate. heart of the bison for courage. ostrich's hip for humor and hind leg of the deer for daredevilry. spinach for muscle, sweet potato for an orange slice of heaven, peeled onion for the true nature of things.
by Marcus Speh of Berlin, Germany
