Tijuana from Radland | Sean Ulman
Tijuana from Radland | Sean Ulman
Deadly Chaps Summer Chapbook Series (19 June 2011)
Page 8
When my father’s father died, | James Tolan
When my father’s father died, | James Tolan
Deadly Chaps Summer Chapbook Series (19 August 2011)
Page 16
let’s make the world so quiet again | Diana Salier
let’s make the world so quiet again | Diana Salier
Deadly Chaps Red & Deadly Imprint (19 September 2011)
Page 21
Ghazal for Harley | Harley Arthel
Ghazal for Harley | Harley Arthel
Deadly Chaps | SLCwrites (19 October 2011)
Page 8
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
Memory Crashes
A:\
You remember coming
together like two halves of an urgent message.
I remember
using another tongue.
by Michael K. Gause of St. Paul
Memory Crashes
B:\
It’s what people make
with what life gives them, you said.
I remember
it just never being sweet enough to enjoy.
by Michael K. Gause of St. Paul
Memory Crashes
C:\
You remember the shock in my voice
the flowers in the vase.
I remember hurting
like my mother’s funeral.
by Michael K. Gause of St. Paul
Memory Crashes
D:\
You remember how happy you were I called,
so you could finally tell me off.
I remember my orders
You will start a fight, and you will lose.
by Michael K. Gause of St. Paul
Memory Crashes
E:\
You remember finding your power animal,
a better job.
I try to forget your voice didn’t crack,
how tail lights blur with the years.
by Michael K. Gause of St. Paul
Pushcart Nominations 2010
Short, Fast, and Deadly and our chapbook annex, Deadly Chaps, would like to congratulate our 2010 pushcart nominees: Cath Barton Rebecca Bohn, Gretchen Cello, Howie Good, Kenneth Pobo, and Parker Tettleton. Their award-nominated work is collected once more below:
Songs Without Words
1
The clock
stretches out
both hands
toward us.
Fingerless hands.
2
She missed
class a lot
that semester.
I tried to talk
to her once
about it.
She listened
quietly,
like a dark
window.
3
Her name was
Staci Love.
Love -- to feel
tender affection
for somebody
or for something.
I looked it up.
4
She had begun
to smell by the time
they found her,
and later I heard
it was self-starvation,
an irregular heartbeat
under beaten gold.
5
The clock deserted her,
and ever since,
it isn’t late,
but it feels it.
by Howie Good of Highlands
*first published as part of "Hello, Darkness" by Deadly Chaps
Letter
I want you to write me a letter out of chewed fingernails and spilled red. I want you to put it in the egg carton, so I’m surprised when I open it, expecting to find jumbo whites and there instead is tightly folded paper. I want it to start Dear Happiness and end Love Notwithstanding, so no one who opens the egg carton will know who it is for or from except me, I will know. I will know, my brother.
by R. S. Bohn of Dearborn
*first published as part of "Letters from the Egg Carton" by Deadly Chaps
Kathmandu Nights
At the club on Freak Street a tall, stooped guy bought me a sickly-sweet green drink, strummed his guitar and sang old songs. Mum’s memories came alive for me in the smoke-swirled room.
I went through the photos in the chocolate box. There they were. Both long-haired, wearing kaftans. Him stooping even then.
The barman remembered me. By myself.
"Anyway," he said, "I don’t allow guitars. Can’t stand the sound of them."
I went through the photos in the chocolate box. There they were. Both long-haired, wearing kaftans. Him stooping even then.
The barman remembered me. By myself.
"Anyway," he said, "I don’t allow guitars. Can’t stand the sound of them."
by Cath Barton of Abergavenny
occasion of fabric’s brief duration
Sometimes I drift
(like I’m losing)
Garments.
Never stay on for long.
Side tracked. At 1am-2am
4am.
I mean clothing
(optional)
Falling.
Off.
by Gretchen Cello of New York City
You’ll Hear Nothing (At Best)
At worst, you’ll hear: you’re father and mother, brother, sister, aunt and uncle, grandfather and grandmother, the dog, cat, fish, the sky, grass, hills, trees, the water over, under, upon everything, the sun, moon, all the way up and down, every shape of cloud, the button, pocket, shoe making each print, the ink, words when I lower my head, the stolen breath, where it went, what’s ever, that never spent.
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock
I Sit With Tomas Transtromer
My favorite poet and I sit in a warm restaurant. He’s kind and wise and psychological. I’m shabby and a kook and nervous. I resent him for being wonderful. The Baltic Sea rears up and smashes into the dining room. I die. Transtromer rises over the water, writes a poem. It’s an elegy. Impeccable.
by Ken Pobo of Media
