Short, Fast, and Deadly
ISSN: 2163-0712
Edited by Joseph A. W. Quintela
9 October 2011
Featuring:
Ahimaaz
K. Balachandran
Devlin De La Chapa
Joe Montalbo
Jenny Rossi
Will Sharp
Meg Tuite
Copyright © 2011 by Individual Authors
All Rights Reserved
Arranged Would-Be Against a Desired Backdrop
Profusely perspiring rapidly blinking, at that outdoor delicatessen by the backdrop of cemetery, his back to one headstone, between flowered vases, Mister facing Miss sits.
Speaking thoughts stealing glances, half as much anxious and isn’t half showing but for her hypersensitive olfaction, Miss attends that call and half hushedly speaks.
‘Dear, I’d rather he’s embalmed’
by Ahimaaz of Hyderabad
Puzzle
A heart shaped
white cloud
slowly turns red.
A zooming black bird
pierces through it.
A love story--
beginning or end?
by K. Balachandran of Thiruvananthapuram
Stepford Chronicles
Let’s turn the oven on to 350.
Make chocolate chip cookies.
Chop off our hands instead, watch them
fumble while the jilted lovers of our mouths hit the button reject,reject, reject nude rosebuds never blooming in heat.
by Jenny Rossi of Burlington
Irreversible Rupture
Implosion. Words blast through us like splintered wood or water flowing over a creek in quiet tones, nothing trailer park or back alley about these words when they combust inside us. We don’t let on that there’s a hole getting larger inside us by the second, like newspaper burning or a wave just before it hits. We stare at each other, still and deadly as the eye of a storm. Internal organs incinerate.
by Meg Tuite of Santa Fe
IPA
Instrumental Phobia Antidote. Indelibly Palatable Appeal. I Plead affection. Immeasurably Profound Advisor. Intelligence? Possibly? Absurd!
I Perfect Attraction. Idiot Penetrates Agreeably. It’s Popcorn Again. Indecisive Pendulum Argument. Indefensible Pickpocket Attack. Interrupted Psychotic Assault. I Preen Attractively. Instantly Pacify Admirer. I Perfect Amatory. I Pull-out Amicably. Inevitable Pass-out Amnesia.
by Meg Tuite of Santa Fe
Pork Chops and Iced Tea
Pigs scrambling
Pigs pink, curled blue tails
Pigs sloughing in scum filth
Pigs on a beating slab
packed to perfection
within a universal remote
to my TV dinner
by Devlin De La Chapa of Phoenix
Joe's First, Last, and Only Denominator
We drank as friends and spoke beer for hours, but on love, Joe spoke but once: “All I look for in women anymore is sustained interest in the contents of my butt. The last woman to have it was my mother, and they say it's normal to desire one's mother.”
Sexist? Yes. Charmless? Yes.
But still.
My finger caressed the rim of my mug.
by Joe Montalbo in Binghamton
Preliminaries
My tongue
a spoon in grapefruit
by Will Sharp of San Antonio
