Six Month Check-Up by Constance Stadler

Flashing enameled perfection

in response to my whine

crisply

she lowers the light.



I hear them
honing their Lilliputian weaponry

the sterile cabal

plans a frontal assault --

I soil myself.



The coleus on the window sill

is on its last legs --


I take it personally.


Constance Stadler has been writing, publishing, and editing poetry from the 'prehistoric' epoch of print journals to modern e-times. She was formerly an editor for South and West and is currently a contributing editor to the e-zine Eviscerator Heaven. Her most recent work appears in such 'zines as ditch, ken*again, Pen Himalaya, Rain Over Bouville, Clockwise Cat, Hanging Moss, Neonbeam, and Gloom Cupboard. Her chapbook, 'Tinted Steam', will be published in 2009. As a political anthropologist specializing in North Africa and a violinist, her influences are multiform. Work in formative years with the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks was seminal, but no less so than Sufi Dervish dancers, and the challenges of mastering Bruch's first concerto.

Mama's Fancy Christmas Shoes by Misti Rainwater-Lites

After the funeral I put on Mama's fancy Christmas shoes.

They were black velvet decorated with bright symbols

of that Christian holiday that had become so unabashedly

commercialized and cheapened. Colorful glass balls.

Candy canes. Cowardly yellow stars. Balls break,

candy canes rot teeth, yellow stars portend nothing

while pretending instant holiness. It's enough to

make a cowgirl want to shoot out her horse's eyes

and hang herself in plain view of the whole goddamn

peanut munching corral. I put on the shoes, though,

because I was naked otherwise. I put on the shoes

because I wanted to feel closer to Mama who was

gone to a place I would never see. I put them on

and did a dance.

I felt like tapping even though there were no taps

on the soles of these shoes.

Suddenly I wanted to cook breakfast

for most of the world.

I wanted to marry a man who would

expect me to bring him peach cobbler

and ice cream while he sat on his ass

watching Westerns on the plasma television.

I wanted to put blinders on and trot my way

through the Valley of Denial.

I was the most ambitious cheerleader

since Eleanor Roosevelt.

I took the shoes off.

There was no one around to kiss the sores.

"Family Tradition" was on the radio.

I threw the shoes at the radio.

I missed.

Misti Rainwater-Lites is the poetry editor at decomP, the editor and publisher of Instant Pussy and the art editor at The Poetry Warrior. She has chapbooks available through Kendra Steiner Editions, Erbacce Press, Scintillating Publications and Deadbeat Press.

Ebullience Press

Editor's Note

I hope everyone has enjoyed what they have read so far. This group of authors, writers, and artists have wonderful working spirits.

The schedule is changing around here at S&V beginning in February.

Monday: Editor's Note which will include call for subs at other publications, small press information, and updates on the S&V prints.

Tuesday - Thursday: poetry, prose, flash, art, and photography
Friday - Sunday: Featured Writer/Artist/Photographer

I was originally going to have a separate day for regular contributors but have decided to keep posting their work in the mix. Regular contributors will have a tag because there won't be a bio each time I post their work.

I know some are questioning my decision to post calls for subs by other magazines, but I started this zine because I wanted to read more work by my favorite authors and find new authors I hadn't seen around, not necessarily become an editor. In keeping with that idea, I'm asking online and print magazines to send information about their publications to shootsandvines@gmail.com with mag info in the subject.

I want to encourage others to utilize what small presses can offer: beautiful books and most importantly, control over your work. Small presses may send information to shootsandvines@gmail.com with small press in the subject.

I want more work. I want poetry, prose, flash, art, and photography. Doesn't matter if you have submitted here before, be it yesterday, last week, or last month. My schedule runs in a way that I can keep posting you without it following something of yours I've already published. Send submissions to shootsandvines@gmail.com with online submission in the subject.

Shoots and Vines print Issue 2 will be released in April. I plan to add more pages with the second print. Send poetry, prose, micro flash, art, and photography to shootsandvines@gmail.com with print zine in the subject. I'd like to use art this next time for the cover (must be able to be downsized to half of an 8" by 11" sheet of paper). The zine will also be available online in PDF and open book.

Shoots and Vines Issue 1 will be ready for print this week. In next week's Editor's Note, I'll include a PDF which can be printed and distributed. Issue 1 will be on display and free for the taking at River City Food Co-op and Penny Lane Coffee House. If you want a print copy snail mailed to your door, please send an email to shootsandvines@gmail.com. I'll ask for $1.00 to cover cost of mailing.

Issue One in PDF viewing:
PDF

Issue One in Open Book:

Get your own - Open publication

And some of you have asked where my new writing has found a home. Truth is, I haven't written anything new since I began S&V. In the upcoming months, I'll be working on print collaborations with some S&V writers, and a print zine of my work. Keep an eye on S&V's profile at ISSUU to see this work. I'll update you in the Editor's Note when they become available in print.

Thanks again for submitting and reading. Keep up the great work.

Crystal

Featured Writer: Christian Ward Day 3

Moth

Landing on a photograph
of my father, it must have thought
the bulb of his scalp was a source
of light; just as for years I thought
the transmissions from his heart
was love.

Featured Writer: Christian Ward Day 2

The Source


Now that grandfather’s tumors have started

collapsing the timbers of his organs, his body

has started to stink. Nurses hold their breaths


when changing his sheets, giving him food

and water. The daffodils in the vase by his

windows have turned away, shut their petals.


I ignore them when sitting down by his side

to read him the newspaper, tell him of daily

happenings. When it increases in intensity,


I smile and remember reading how the ark,

filled with putrid smells from 151 days

of travelling, beached itself on the summit


of a mountain and all known life crept out

from that foul smelling source.

Featured Writer: Christian Ward Day 1

Winter


You cannot dream of winter

happening because it is always

there in the background,

whatever month it is. Walking

along a pier in August you

will hear it grinding against

the iron legs, in the gulls’ mews.

Sitting on the porch in April,

you will feel it rubbing against

your legs, turning your skin

white as milk. Fake a surprise look

in November when snow falls,

ignore the glimpse of ice behind

your parents’ eyes.
__________________________________________

Fulton Street

After Walker Evans' 'Girl in Fulton Street'


This is not the city Frank
wrote about. There are no
hum coloured cabs or men
stopping for a cheeseburger
and malt shake. Lana Turner
has not died and the sky
has not worn its funeral coat.
This is the city made of glass
where people wear alien nouns
like Fedora and Cloche Hat
and sniff the air like gundogs,
eager for the scent of their identity.



Christian Ward is a 28 year old London based poet whose poetry
can be currently seen in journals such as Thieves Jargon and Origami
Condom. His chapbook, Bone Transmissions, will be released in March
courtesy of Maverick Duck Press.

Inside the Snowglobe by Paula Ray

You shake me up to watch
my mind fall in flakes,
your amusement.
No longer content to be
the drowned figurine,

feet glued to winter scene
never changing season.
You always churn my world
into a blizzard of thought,
unless I cry my dammed tears

all over this shelf I have allowed myself
to be placed. Among your other souvenirs.
I wait for you to toss me aside, unwanted.

The impact of the fall
will bust me
free.

Specks of glitter
will no longer be my bad luck,
my shattered reflection,
but your mess to clean.

Before I'm released, gaze at me
one last time and watch this
pretty little fantasy land piss
all over your open palm,
like your future's sprung a leak.

Paula is a musician and emerging writer from North Carolina where she teaches band, gigs about town on her saxophone, composes, and feeds her literary addiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such publications as: Word Riot, Mad Swirl, Oak Bend Review, The Orange Room Review, and A cappella Zoo. For a more extensive list of her publications with links, check out her blog: musicalpencil.blogspot.com.