The Bell I hear Now
There is a
Bell
That I
Hear now
Tolling
Far off
But i
Wonder
If it
Will mark
A
Transubstantiation
Or summon
My executioner
__________________________
First Love
I walked alone by the quays,
Leaning on a wall that overlooked the river
There was a boy
Swimming alone in the grey strip,
He looked at me (do I know you?)
Waved
A fist clenched by the cold water
He smiled,
the smile grabbed my shoulders
shaking me out of my reverie
He drowned
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Featured Writer: Alan Kelly
You have to Dig Deep to Bury your Daddy
Walking past reception was always such a task for Mary. The group of heifers from admin, who engaged in regular routines of pampering, pruning, pigging-out and petulance, would all be gathered around discussing their weekend and would invariably attempt to engage her. Mary looked at the floor and walked by quickly . She had never been the kind of woman easily tempted by novelty and catharsis.
With her neck still red from the noose’s kiss, Winnie Ferns, a gangly, flat-faced, dreamy nut of a woman, shouted Mary’s name.
“What is it, Winnie?” Mary asked in a quavering, fragile voice.
Winnie dangled a large envelope at Mary like a fisherman teasing a fish. “A note was left at reception for you.”
Mary gingerly pinched the edge of the offering with her thumb and index finger as if it might bite her. “Thank you.”
Later, Mary sat on a park bench and looked at the envelope. Enclosed within were two curious items. The first was a photo of two children, emaciated and lying face-down with their blond hair matted with dirt. The second was a press-cutting which was about the apparent murder of a teenage boy found in Phoenix Park.
Then Mary noticed a third item: something folded up in a piece of white parchment. She opened it and discovered a Union key with a ragged blue tag containing the letter C and the number 165. A message written on the parchment:
“Failure to adhere to this custom could result in serious consequences”
Mary furiously crammed the items into her bag. There had obviously been further developments in the death department. Mary saw that the rain had started.
Alan Kelly has contributed to 3:AM, Pretty Scary, Penny Blood, Film Ireland, Butcherqueers, Bookslut, GCN and The Laura Hird Showcase. His fiction has appeared in Dogmatika, Beat the Dust, Gold Dust, Sein Und Werden, Six Sentences, Parasitic, The Beat and Shoots and Vines. He works as a film and arts journalist and resides in Ireland.
Walking past reception was always such a task for Mary. The group of heifers from admin, who engaged in regular routines of pampering, pruning, pigging-out and petulance, would all be gathered around discussing their weekend and would invariably attempt to engage her. Mary looked at the floor and walked by quickly . She had never been the kind of woman easily tempted by novelty and catharsis.
With her neck still red from the noose’s kiss, Winnie Ferns, a gangly, flat-faced, dreamy nut of a woman, shouted Mary’s name.
“What is it, Winnie?” Mary asked in a quavering, fragile voice.
Winnie dangled a large envelope at Mary like a fisherman teasing a fish. “A note was left at reception for you.”
Mary gingerly pinched the edge of the offering with her thumb and index finger as if it might bite her. “Thank you.”
Later, Mary sat on a park bench and looked at the envelope. Enclosed within were two curious items. The first was a photo of two children, emaciated and lying face-down with their blond hair matted with dirt. The second was a press-cutting which was about the apparent murder of a teenage boy found in Phoenix Park.
Then Mary noticed a third item: something folded up in a piece of white parchment. She opened it and discovered a Union key with a ragged blue tag containing the letter C and the number 165. A message written on the parchment:
“Failure to adhere to this custom could result in serious consequences”
Mary furiously crammed the items into her bag. There had obviously been further developments in the death department. Mary saw that the rain had started.
Alan Kelly has contributed to 3:AM, Pretty Scary, Penny Blood, Film Ireland, Butcherqueers, Bookslut, GCN and The Laura Hird Showcase. His fiction has appeared in Dogmatika, Beat the Dust, Gold Dust, Sein Und Werden, Six Sentences, Parasitic, The Beat and Shoots and Vines. He works as a film and arts journalist and resides in Ireland.
Call for Submissions
Shoots and Vines is looking for more work for the online zine. Send poetry, flash fiction, prose, vignettes to shootsandvines@gmail.com.
If you have been published here, submit again. The purpose of this zine has always been to give readers a place to read work by their favorite writers and new writers.
I am also looking for more photography and artwork.
Shoots and Vines Print is off to the copier this weekend. In February, I will begin working on April's issue: poetry, prose, micro flash, art, and photographs are needed. Send subs to the above mentioned email, but please put print zine in the subject.
If you have been published here, submit again. The purpose of this zine has always been to give readers a place to read work by their favorite writers and new writers.
I am also looking for more photography and artwork.
Shoots and Vines Print is off to the copier this weekend. In February, I will begin working on April's issue: poetry, prose, micro flash, art, and photographs are needed. Send subs to the above mentioned email, but please put print zine in the subject.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Two Pieces by Wanda Campbell
Illinois Traveler
When I see Kentucky sunrise,
when fog rises over hills or
rain falls on the knobs,
when I see an out-of-state license plate,
when the moon is full and clear
or the wind blows from the north,
I long to hear your voice,
soft like prairie breezes and
I wish to hold your hand,
weathered by years of
farm boy days. I think
maybe, we could drink
a simple cup of coffee,
but even then I fear the world
would end.
_________________________________________
The Jungle is no Place for a Fairy
I knew a word weaver
who wandered away
from her woodland home
in search of shiny tokens.
Lost and disheveled,
foolish and floundering,
she walked alien beaches
and bleak city streets, begging
for foreign bread crumbs
and strangers’ appraisals,
Barbarians stole her wings
while cannibals ripped her dress.
Vampires lurked in shadows,
waiting to taste her blood.
She fled beneath a rock
where she dreamed of home.
In dawn’s light she scattered
tainted tokens in the dust
and left only her footprints
for the vampires to drink.
Wanda D. Campbell, alias Nochipa Pablio, is an elementary school teacher, award winning poet, novelist and freelance artist who makes her home in the Appalachian foothills. Her work has appeared in various publications such as StorySouth, New Madrid, Mid-South Review, Pegasus, Other Voices International, Coal: An Anthology of Poetry by Blair Mountain Press, Instructor Magazine and many others. Preserving a heritage for future generations is to Wanda, therefore, proceeds from any sales made on her poetry go to help fight mountain top removal and to enrich the lives of the peoples of Southern Appalachia.
When I see Kentucky sunrise,
when fog rises over hills or
rain falls on the knobs,
when I see an out-of-state license plate,
when the moon is full and clear
or the wind blows from the north,
I long to hear your voice,
soft like prairie breezes and
I wish to hold your hand,
weathered by years of
farm boy days. I think
maybe, we could drink
a simple cup of coffee,
but even then I fear the world
would end.
_________________________________________
The Jungle is no Place for a Fairy
I knew a word weaver
who wandered away
from her woodland home
in search of shiny tokens.
Lost and disheveled,
foolish and floundering,
she walked alien beaches
and bleak city streets, begging
for foreign bread crumbs
and strangers’ appraisals,
Barbarians stole her wings
while cannibals ripped her dress.
Vampires lurked in shadows,
waiting to taste her blood.
She fled beneath a rock
where she dreamed of home.
In dawn’s light she scattered
tainted tokens in the dust
and left only her footprints
for the vampires to drink.
Wanda D. Campbell, alias Nochipa Pablio, is an elementary school teacher, award winning poet, novelist and freelance artist who makes her home in the Appalachian foothills. Her work has appeared in various publications such as StorySouth, New Madrid, Mid-South Review, Pegasus, Other Voices International, Coal: An Anthology of Poetry by Blair Mountain Press, Instructor Magazine and many others. Preserving a heritage for future generations is to Wanda, therefore, proceeds from any sales made on her poetry go to help fight mountain top removal and to enrich the lives of the peoples of Southern Appalachia.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Two Pieces by Ray Succre
The Talk
The Talk arrived late, six months in,
and the question I dreaded rode in on fairly pure wings.
"How many?" she asked in a squint of chaste suspicion,
whereafter I was expected to profess a certain something
near virginity, my own chaste integrity with the past.
I had moved about in some horrid shade, however.
Woods of shade-makers. No denying it.
So I stated.
She winced.
"I had no idea you were like that." she said.
"I wasn't. They were."
"It's disgusting."
A freeborn man knows once is once again,
shade outstretched to roll in his flames,
until he considers but one, holding this tightly,
the great one after all the once-more ones, a finality.
The official proposal came later, and to great tolerability,
marriage, and all throughout it, other sorts of talk.
_____________________________________________________________
Eventually I Stopped Believing in Myself
Naps aren't my thing, but I had one. When I woke in the afternoon,
there was fruit rotting in the mesh basket in my kitchen,
the air was horrid hot and reeked of pits in the earth,
and I found an eel twisting about in my bathtub—
you know, horrific imagery to welcome my new self.
Perhaps most upsetting was that my clothes no longer fit,
for my legs were covered in goat hair and my feet had transformed
into hooves.
"Oh hell. People will think I'm sinister, now. There'll be no more
trust to be had, no parties, no coffee shops, no cheer. I'll seem evil
because of this, and up to no good."
My wife returned home and shrieked.
"You're the Beast!" she shouted, leaving me.
"I didn't mean it." I muttered, alone in my apartment, the new Hell.
I decided to be a social beast, then.
Devil or not, alone or not, I still wanted to hang out in town.
Perhaps I might be able to change the general view of me.
They ran all directions, terrified.
This made me a terrorist, one who caused terror,
and some brimstone piddled down.
I didn't feel as if I'd done this, invoking brimstone,
but supposed I must have. Who else?
The first person to try and follow me was an entertainer.
He told me he was a poet, would serve me with wicked rhymes.
I kicked his khaki sack high onto a roof.
Had the world made me a great foe,
or had it ignored me so much I had grown to work against it?
My hooves clopped the streets, my breath rotted the air.
History had built my form from pagan gods,
to convert people religiously, and the name of my home
was stolen from the Norse.
I didn't do any of that; they did. I chose to abandon evil, then.
Becoming human again, and thought good, turned out to be
simple enough:
I just started believing there was a devil for me, as well.
Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son, as a stay-at-home dad. He has been published in Aesthetica, Gloom Cupboard, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novel Tatterdemalion (Cauliay Publishing) was recently released in print and is available most places. He tries hard.
For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit me online: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com
The Talk arrived late, six months in,
and the question I dreaded rode in on fairly pure wings.
"How many?" she asked in a squint of chaste suspicion,
whereafter I was expected to profess a certain something
near virginity, my own chaste integrity with the past.
I had moved about in some horrid shade, however.
Woods of shade-makers. No denying it.
So I stated.
She winced.
"I had no idea you were like that." she said.
"I wasn't. They were."
"It's disgusting."
A freeborn man knows once is once again,
shade outstretched to roll in his flames,
until he considers but one, holding this tightly,
the great one after all the once-more ones, a finality.
The official proposal came later, and to great tolerability,
marriage, and all throughout it, other sorts of talk.
_____________________________________________________________
Eventually I Stopped Believing in Myself
Naps aren't my thing, but I had one. When I woke in the afternoon,
there was fruit rotting in the mesh basket in my kitchen,
the air was horrid hot and reeked of pits in the earth,
and I found an eel twisting about in my bathtub—
you know, horrific imagery to welcome my new self.
Perhaps most upsetting was that my clothes no longer fit,
for my legs were covered in goat hair and my feet had transformed
into hooves.
"Oh hell. People will think I'm sinister, now. There'll be no more
trust to be had, no parties, no coffee shops, no cheer. I'll seem evil
because of this, and up to no good."
My wife returned home and shrieked.
"You're the Beast!" she shouted, leaving me.
"I didn't mean it." I muttered, alone in my apartment, the new Hell.
I decided to be a social beast, then.
Devil or not, alone or not, I still wanted to hang out in town.
Perhaps I might be able to change the general view of me.
They ran all directions, terrified.
This made me a terrorist, one who caused terror,
and some brimstone piddled down.
I didn't feel as if I'd done this, invoking brimstone,
but supposed I must have. Who else?
The first person to try and follow me was an entertainer.
He told me he was a poet, would serve me with wicked rhymes.
I kicked his khaki sack high onto a roof.
Had the world made me a great foe,
or had it ignored me so much I had grown to work against it?
My hooves clopped the streets, my breath rotted the air.
History had built my form from pagan gods,
to convert people religiously, and the name of my home
was stolen from the Norse.
I didn't do any of that; they did. I chose to abandon evil, then.
Becoming human again, and thought good, turned out to be
simple enough:
I just started believing there was a devil for me, as well.
Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son, as a stay-at-home dad. He has been published in Aesthetica, Gloom Cupboard, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novel Tatterdemalion (Cauliay Publishing) was recently released in print and is available most places. He tries hard.
For inquiry, publication history, and information, visit me online: http://raysuccre.blogspot.com
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The Wrath of Provincialism by Colin James
The Wrath of Provincialism
Take two pens
and hold them in your left hand.
Let the ink lines
move lightly over the page.
Pretend you are in a village
in the north of England,
and pray that fat gentleman you created
buggering anything that moves,
is accepted here
as one of the locals.
Colin James has had poems published recently in the following magazines, Ditch, Waterlogged August, The and Snow Monkey. He works in Energy Conservation in Massachusetts having migrated from the north of England which he revisits whenever the Scottish landscape painter, John Mackenzie, has an exhibition of paintings.
Take two pens
and hold them in your left hand.
Let the ink lines
move lightly over the page.
Pretend you are in a village
in the north of England,
and pray that fat gentleman you created
buggering anything that moves,
is accepted here
as one of the locals.
Colin James has had poems published recently in the following magazines, Ditch, Waterlogged August, The and Snow Monkey. He works in Energy Conservation in Massachusetts having migrated from the north of England which he revisits whenever the Scottish landscape painter, John Mackenzie, has an exhibition of paintings.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Two Pieces by Harry Calhoun
Fireplace
The first few fires upon the hearth
beneath our belt in our warm winter
comfort-food belly
the coffee ready in the morning-timed
pot ready to please us again
the warmth we know is arising
planned, set or just ready
for some warmth, fire in the evening
coffee in the morning
we need this and want this
a planet cannot go around without
somebody chopping, working,
setting fire to something
maybe something we hadn’t seen before
and noticing what warmth
arises
____________________________________
Sing
or, what keeps me writing
the only security is in security
is in keeping yourself sane and happy
with your security blanket poems
keep bangin’ ‘em out
again and again and if
it’s the same thing over and over
well isn’t life like that anyway
except if you don’t
speak up you have no voice
and that’s how it is
when you die, they tell me
and I can’t remember but I’ll bet
it was that way before I was born
Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. He has had recent publications in Abbey, Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Abandoned Towers, Dante’s Heart, Yippee! and Word Catalyst, for whom he writes a monthly column. He also has poetry forthcoming in LiteraryMary, The Dead Mule, Nefarious Ballerina, &c, A Common Thread, Buk Scene, Neonbeam and others. Harry writes an online wine column about quality affordable wines called Ten Dollar Tastings.
The first few fires upon the hearth
beneath our belt in our warm winter
comfort-food belly
the coffee ready in the morning-timed
pot ready to please us again
the warmth we know is arising
planned, set or just ready
for some warmth, fire in the evening
coffee in the morning
we need this and want this
a planet cannot go around without
somebody chopping, working,
setting fire to something
maybe something we hadn’t seen before
and noticing what warmth
arises
____________________________________
Sing
or, what keeps me writing
the only security is in security
is in keeping yourself sane and happy
with your security blanket poems
keep bangin’ ‘em out
again and again and if
it’s the same thing over and over
well isn’t life like that anyway
except if you don’t
speak up you have no voice
and that’s how it is
when you die, they tell me
and I can’t remember but I’ll bet
it was that way before I was born
Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. He has had recent publications in Abbey, Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Abandoned Towers, Dante’s Heart, Yippee! and Word Catalyst, for whom he writes a monthly column. He also has poetry forthcoming in LiteraryMary, The Dead Mule, Nefarious Ballerina, &c, A Common Thread, Buk Scene, Neonbeam and others. Harry writes an online wine column about quality affordable wines called Ten Dollar Tastings.
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