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    Bumble Jacket Miscellany: a miscellany for poetry and fiction 2:2

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      Bumble Jacket Miscellany

      a miscellany for poetry and fiction

      Winter 2011

      Published by: Bumble Jacket Miscellany Publishing

      Copyright 2011 by Bumble Jacket Miscellany Publishing.

      VOLUME 2 NUMBER 2

      Bumble Jacket Miscellany

      a miscellany for poetry and fiction

      Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, in creative works contained herein is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing from Bumble Jacket Miscellany, or as expressly permitted by law. The publisher apologizes in advance for any errors or omissions and if contacted will rectify these at the earliest opportunity.

      We accept electronic submissions only. For more information, please visit our website at: https://sites.google.com/site/bumblejacketmiscellany/home

      Edited by Meredith E. Torre

      Cover and Illustrations

      Meredith E. Torre

      Contents

      Poetry

      Michael Lee Johnson

      Leaves in December

      Fly Wings

      James G. Piatt

      Do Not Tell Me Lies

      Leaving

      Flowing

      Jerome Brooke

      My Lover

      Janine Surmick

      The Fire

      Little Red

      The Wheel

      Joseph Buehler

      Late Night

      The Gem Holder's Candy

      Andy Psomopoulos

      iron church/iron shirts

      the song remains the fame

      class-if-eyed

      Rodney Nelson

      Gone to the Animal

      The Village Part of a Time

      William Doreski

      At the Mournful Resort

      Wine for Breakfast?

      Currency Exchange

      America's Sex Life Has Tired

      Fresh from the One Great Holstein

      Meredith E. Torre

      From Whence I Came

      Gertrude Stein's Balloon

      Fiction

      Jennifer York

      Henry and Anne

      Joseph Buehler

      The Gingerbread Man

      M. E. Mitchell

      An a.m. Lament

      Leaves in December

      Michael Lee Johnson

      Leaves, a few stragglers in

      December, just before Christmas,

      some nailed down crabby

      to ground frost,

      some crackled by the bite

      of nasty wind tones.

      Some saved from the matchstick

      that failed to light.

      Some saved from the rake

      by a forgetful gardener.

      For these few freedom dancers

      left to struggle with the bitterness:

      wind dancers

      wind dancers

      move your frigid

      bodies shaking like icicles

      hovering but a jiffy in sky,

      kind of sympathetic to the seasons,

      reluctant to permanently go,

      rustic, not much time more to play.

      Fly Wings

      Michael Lee Johnson

      Black wings

      landing on unwanted

      space, like the devil

      in bad spots that itch

      fly swatter hammers,

      summer fly body parts splatter

      blood crucifixion red,

      blood stains splat against the kitchen wall.

      Blood crucifixion red

      Dead? Sacrifice?

      Or does Jesus call, resurrect all?

      Black wings.

      Do Not Tell Me Lies

      James G. Piatt

      Do not tell me lies about

      The green falling waves,

      That crash carelessly upon

      The burning sand,

      Or massive rising

      Clouds which cling to the

      Bottom of the sky

      In amazement;

      Do not huddle in the back of

      My dark earth bound brain, where

      Songs of yesterday still lie

      Silent, and dormant:

      Do not pull upon my

      Searching heart,

      Nor correct the rhymes

      That echo noisily

      Inside my eager soul, or in the

      Unfulfilled longing

      Within my being,

      Bring to me gaudy prisms

      Of beautiful vibrant

      Colors that will reflect

      Delightful images

      In my drifting senses;

      Give me a desire,

      A hunger for truth, and

      For all that

      Is delightful,

      Pleasing, and

      Alive!

      Leaving

      James G. Piatt

      Leaving painful thoughts

      Leaving hours of darkness

      Leaving them,

      Unloosening my

      Lover’s hand,

      Leaving our memories

      Dreads and fears

      In the beat of my heart;

      Leaving the lonely song,

      Death’s lonely song,

      Death’s dark lonely song:

      Subtle and sorrowful

      Yet strident the notes,

      To and fro they go

      Filling the hours

      Of darkness

      Waning and falling,

      Yet in the Fullness of the

      Orange and pink morning,

      The sun replete with joy

      Covers the gaping hole,

      The darkness of the earth:

      I leave her and leave

      My song with her then

      Gazing to the west with

      Silver beads upon my cheeks

      I communicate silently,

      With her fleeing, soul.

      Flowing

      James G. Piatt

      Sounds of water fleeing

      Over smooth stones

      Created by eons of years

      In a mountain brook,

      Nature's symphony shaped

      By warm gentle winds

      Performing an aria through

      Huge gnarled pine trees,

      A ballet of Oak leaves

      Swaying gently,

      Green clad pixies dancing

      With tranquil delight!

      These are the things

      That flow in my

      Mind, sitting by

      A tranquil pond!

      My Lover

      Jerome Brooke

      My lover gave me a box of sweets

      Long years ago, before he sailed

      off to the wars, soldier of the Queen

      He kissed me then, and promised to return

      then sailed away in the iron ship

      I remember the box, I can see his smile

      I was young then, I have no more

      tears

      Late Night

      Joseph Buehler

      Late night

      restaurant:

      yellow florescence

      glares.

      She

      pours coffee

      carefully; a young

      man and his

      girl

      talk quietly

      in the back.

      An

      old man enters

      and

      looks around

      wonderingly.

      He sits

      at the counter

     
    and

      fingers a menu;

      people go by

      outside

      covered

      in night

      The Gem Holder’s Candy

      Joseph Buehler

      The gem holder’s candy isn’t pure.

      It stinks of hollowed out logs and snatches of

      pitch and claws full of Uncle Jack’s Impatient Rum.

      It was set afire long before you were even conceived

      in the hollow blue dawn glare of a false apocalypse,

      thrown overboard on that silent historic starlit night

      when the mighty ship slid down into cold depthless

      waters of grief and ignorance, arrogance and hope.

      Underneath it all, Uncle Horace struggled valiantly

      (you can’t take that away from him) with the covers

      that pinned him tightly to his bed, dead drunk and out

      of it all---sleeping his way down to watery death.

      Yet let’s remember to celebrate the flying colors of that

      auspicious day when the fleet came flooding in, marching

      bravely to the high pitched strains of the vigorous old

      European waltz---you remember it?---old something

      something striding through the cabbage swamps?---oh

      come on now, what was it again?---how did it go? Some-

      thing like “thump, thump, thump” to a progressively high

      note and then it trailed off at the end. You remember?

      “Thump, thump, thump,”---what a wonderful old tune that was.

      The Fire

      Janine Surmick

      I.

      Shattered glass littered the mulch,

      impaled the stem of an orange tulip,

      thrust from manicured earth.

      A drizzle slowly soaked

      the maple dresser by the window.

      The edges of a framed photograph—

      embracing sisters –

      curled and folded.

      In the air,

      something smelled heavy, thick.

      The gray sky,

      smolder of charcoal,

      singed memories, swirled

      with the occasional draft of wind.

      II.

      We climbed this tree for summers,

      old knobby oak.

      The branches extended up and out,

      but one branch grew parallel to the ground.

      Vines and fallen leaves entangled

      the lone, long arm.

      The twigs grew distorted fingers

      like Rodin’s hands,

      clenched, twisted, angry.

      I made up a story about the Hangman’s Tree

      and climbed the gallows one afternoon.

      I hung,

      suspended above the ground,

      my shoulders cracking as I swung like a gymnast.

      The branch crackled, splintered.

      I don’t remember screaming when I fell,

      six feet of branch in my thirteen year old fists,

      head colliding with rotting roots.

      III.

      Plastic peppers poked out of a bowl

      in the condo style kitchen.

      It was dark when we moved

      with plastic bags of underwear, shirts

      paid for by the Red Cross.

      The smoke from the melting plastic

      in our neighbor’s dryer followed us.

      I wondered where those children slept

      as I stubbed my toe on a stucco table.

      A plastic picture frame –

      family of models sitting at a table—

      smiled from the entertainment center.

      I looked at my little sister,

      brown eyes wide,

      arms folded in an x across her chest.

      I took her hand and we followed

      the smoke to our backyard tree

      and climbed the Hangman’s gallows

      until morning.

      Little Red

      Janine Surmick

      buttoned her crimson coat

      and opened her black umbrella.

      The slick pavement

      reflected gray skyscrapers

      off puddles in the street.

      In a hospital Downtown

      Grandma sputtered blood,

      awaited her weekly visit.

      Flashes of yellow and black,

      fragments of letters

      splashed against legs.

      Red meandered

      past the crowd by the Starbucks

      on the corner,

      past the Italian man selling sausages

      and lottery tickets.

      She pulled out her cell phone

      while she waited at the bus stop,

      the battery flashing low.

      Grandma could feel the Wolf

      surging inside her.

      Her heart monitor beeped

      while she waited and wheezed.

      She could almost taste

      the raisin bread

      Red brought every week.

      She closed her eyes:

      twenty years ago,

      hand over hand

      with her five year old granddaughter

      rolling and pounding the dough.

      The bus pulled up

      and Red crushed her cigarette,

      smoothed the plaid cloth

      wrapped around Grandma’s

      shared recipe.

      The bus hissed as it pulled away.

      She remembered the first time

      Grandma taught her how to bake:

      fingers thick with dough,

      the flour-speckled kitchen table.

      Red giggled as the yeast rose,

      opening the oven door.

      But that was years ago.

      Before lung cancer.

      Grandma clenched her wrinkled fist

      around the metal of the hospital bed.

      The machine beside her beeped.

      Red listened to her iPod,

      tapped her heeled boot

      as the bus came to a stop.

      Grandma closed her eyes,

      slid into a dream,

      as Red’s warm palm

      wrapped her swollen knuckles.

      She heard a whisper,

      Grandma look at me with your big eyes.

      Grandma dreamt of twenty years ago,

      a kitchen, the sweet smell of bread

      filling her house.

      The Wheel

      Janine Surmick

      In a tarot deck, the Wheel of Fortune predicts a change, representing the life cycle. In Greek mythology, the three Fates, sisters, determine a person’s birth and death.

      The loom wheezes as it revolves.

      My sisters stopped talking years ago.

      The golden thread is thick and slices

      my pale fingers each time I raise the shears.

      I have bled for every life

      I’ve been compelled to take.

      My fingers and the shears are heavy.

      As my sisters wrap the thread,

      the massive wheel clicks.

      I see a man draped in purple,

      at a yoga class, like a lotus, praying.

      I don’t want to kill him;

      I don’t want the thread of his life

      to cut into my eternal own.

      I try to pause, to freeze the ongoing

      motion, the constant clockwise spin

      of the Wheel of Fortune.

      My body is connected to it.

      It hurts to not follow;

      my hand is heavy,

      a magnet compelled to its poles.

      My scissors snap the thread.

      The image of a man suspends

      Midair before he slides out of the lotus

      and tumbles off the wheel.

      Drops of my blood

      follow him down

      and the Wheel revolves,

      heavily clicks,

      and another life is given,

      forever bound to me,

      althou
    gh I can never take my own.

      iron church/iron shirts

      by Andy Psomopoulos

      caress of steel screems diemond rush

      apocalyphtica jewels air second crush

      spit-shine savior o-neil brush

      snapper master dapper bush

      ruddy sleeving wilson show

      little drummer boy time flow

      portable faith stavretti glow

      immortal cross horizon snow

      know Sabbath blemish angel whirled

      no strap-shoe comfort clearing girled

      burnside cleaving bloodmade kyrled

      sum funky orthodox coltrane swirled

      arctic epic seldom writ

      directed trumpet wraith

      godless angels just a bit

      erased blackbored faith

      camphor bastards leeking shine

      panning diamonds in a brine

      sublime black-ajax lasting wine

      st. george penny my machine

      black blue white arresting marks

      black box radiation sharks

      hellenic loving windsor-arks

      jerusalem-steel-british-barks

      iron church

      iron shirts

      black on black believing

      density-fein-concieving

      iron lurch

      iron birch

      crew oak super milk

      roaring rodent Luna silk

      calling golden tensor angles

      split cry fashionista wrangles

      super-scry-a total tearing bangles

      bloody loving cosmic mangles

      the song remains the fame

      by Andy Psomopoulos

      all I say is cupid

      (dirty goddess!)

      my milk strays black and artful

      medea flanks a magic ingrane..

      a horse-drawn-desserts-promise

      celling soles-devil-lived strata; of

      sirus angel-maker prize

      can you dig it?

      in disguise?

      star star atlantis:

      it’s the warriors….

      the warriors killed sirus

      broken soldiers

      the crows ruby liver

      hard deep supernova

      black yardbirds clanging

      little flames

      corroded cracks

      wall wailing fames

      morocan buxom greyded splendour

     
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