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Supreme Decisions

Supreme Decisions
  –Jim Piatt

Promises,
discarded, broken,
lie beside
other dusty laws of the past,
trampled
under the grime of ideology:
Hopes, shattered lives
thrown into the pit of Indifference
born of greed…ignorance,
untried principles:
Compassion wilting in the darkness
of shattered dreams,
kindness melted
into the fiscal indifference
of our time,
all under the weight of
Supreme Decisions.

 

 

Jim Piatt’s poetry collections include “The Silent Pond,” “Ancient Rhythms,” and “Light.” He has had over 1,135 poems published, and several of his poems were nominated for both Pushcart, and Best of Web awards. He earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, and his doctorate from BYU.

THE TRUMPETER

July Web Feature

THE TRUMPETER
–John Grey

No one noticed his brown eyes,
receding hairline, or the goatee
poking out of his chin.
He was only ever the trumpet he played.
On stage, that was understandable.
His mouth was wide open and brass.
His fingers, valve slides and buttons.
But, even on the street,
he was only recognized
as a conveyance for his instrument,
a wind machine
for some of the sweetest notes ever blown.
That’s how he saw himself as well.
Slumped in a chair after a show,
that trumpet on his lap,
he shrunk to the size
and function of a spit key.
He well understood the two kinds of “solo.”

One corralled an audience
in its audacity, melody and flair.
The other trudged home alone.

 

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Harpur Palate and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.

Raging River & Rocks

June Web Features

Photo: Raging River & Rocks
– Michael Gardner

Michael Gardner is a transfer student at ENMU, majoring in DFM and double minoring in Business and Theatre. He is originally from New England and hopes to work in the film industry directing, producing and screenwriting. He enjoys photography, reading, writing, traveling, visiting national parks and of course movies/television.

 

Poems by Betzaida Chavez

Betzaida Chavezis a resident of Lovington, New Mexico who enjoys writing out her feelings as poetry and sharing them with others she plans to someday hopefully publish a poetry book.

Flower
You are my delicate flower
You worry me so much I want to puke and cry
Because that thought of you not being ok hurts so much
It hurts so much I feel it everywhere in my body
My delicate little flower
You deserve all the love in the world

Dead mind
I’ll kill myself slowly
Not physically
But rather mentally
Until one day I’m just a hollow shell
A hollow shell of who I once was
So I may not feel much
So that things won’t be so complicated and scary

Kisses from strangers
Kisses from a pretty stranger
They have no real affect
But I like kisses
And I’ll take from whoever gives
Because I find a comfort in kisses from strangers
They hold no promise but they are nice to have

 

 

The Ping Not Taken

May Web Feature

The Ping Not Taken
– Storey Clayton

 

In 1998, the year I graduated high school, Gwyneth Paltrow starred in a movie called “Sliding Doors.”  The basic premise of the film was to illustrate the momentous differences in one’s life that can hinge on a comparatively small matter of timing: e.g., making it through sliding doors on a subway train or just missing them.  While the movie (spoiler alert?) illustrates a literal life-or-death difference in the ultimate outcome, Hollywood couldn’t resist making a cutesy ironic point about destiny in the end, since Paltrow’s protagonist ultimately leaves her boyfriend in both storylines, loses her baby in both storylines, and ends up in love with the same new guy in both storylines.

Real life, of course, is probably not governed by such an attachment to destiny.  When you just miss the train, certain experiences you might have had thereon are forever lost, while new possibilities are created through the later train.  The odds of this being a life-changing decision are probably lower for any given train-ride than they are for, say, jobs offered and taken or not, or the college one chooses to attend.  In 1998, I myself was choosing where to go to school and at one point became utterly overwhelmed by how much of my future life would stem from this single choice.  I had full rides to Brandeis and UC-Berkeley and realized that all of my new friends for the next four years, plus the path my life would take geographically and professionally, would all be traceable to this one binary decision.  Internalizing it was so paralyzing that I had to will myself not to think about it.  I ultimately chose Brandeis.  And while I regretted the decision at several junctures (it’s an aesthetically ugly campus filled with Stalinist architecture and many of the first classmates I encountered seemed sad to be there, preferring colleges I’d declined to attend that had not admitted them), I ultimately think I made the right choice.  If nothing else, reconsidering the decision also means erasing many of my closest friends and immediately becomes unimaginable.  Even if those friends would be replaced by other (perhaps equally good) friends who went to Berkeley, the counter-factual seems impossible to retroactively entertain.

Admittedly, which Uber rider is paired with which driver is a lot more like a mundane train ride in its import than where one goes to college.  And yet I spend a little bit of each night fascinated by the amount of willful randomness involved in letting an automatic app match me with riders and arrange the constellation of my travels.  The app is not really in the driver’s seat, so to speak, since I control where I steer my vehicle and, importantly, which pings to accept.  I, like most serious drivers, accept almost all pings that don’t involve driving well out of my way and prioritize those which offer significant surge.  But there are times when I’m barreling toward an area of surge on the map and, just on its edge, get a ping that is offered at the regular fare.

Sometimes I take these fares and sometimes I don’t.  There was a period when three straight pings I accepted in these circumstances all ended up giving me a significant cash tip (at least $5 each), overriding the potential difference in fare that the surge would have given.  After the last of these, I felt like I was being karmically rewarded for not insisting on surge in my rides and started taking these rides at all times.  Needless to say, the pattern did not persist.  But it was an important reminder that surge is not the only factor in the bottom line of one’s night, much less the quality of the overall driving experience.  After all, riders are less likely to tip the more surge there is on a fare, understandably noting that they’re already paying more than normal for the same ride.

Of course, driving a car in the best of circumstances is still a high-stakes activity.  Car accidents are a frequent reality and often result in fatalities, not all of which can be prevented by unilaterally safe driving.  Are there rides I could have accepted that would have literally led to my death?  And then there are the rare but existent nights when a shooting hits Bourbon Street, one of the most common places for me to pick people up.  Or the night on the Saturday before Mardi Gras when a drunk driver plowed past a barricade and into a crowd of parade-goers at Endymion (one of the season’s largest parades).  My fiancée, Alex, called me minutes after that happened to ask if I was anywhere nearby.  I wasn’t; I was on the other end of town.  But our first thought in the developed world when a car goes awry and hits people is now terrorism, so it took more than an hour before Alex felt comfortable with me driving near the parade route.  Miraculously, no one died that night.

One night on Halloween weekend, six freaked-out West Virginians asked if they could all cram into my car to flee an incident on Frenchmen Street, one that might be labeled “a series of unfortunate events.”  It’s one of the best examples I know of a story where everyone involved made the sequentially worst decision, which led to escalating mistakes.  In their dramatic retelling, a car made the poor initial decision to drive on Frenchmen Street, which was packed elbow-to-elbow with costumed revelers celebrating the holiday weekend.  It’s unclear if he had to scoot past a barricade to do so or if it was just obvious to all other drivers that the thronged mass of humanity made this an inadvisable plan.  At one point, the driver almost hit a person standing in the street.  The people in the street then started gesturing rudely at the driver.  The driver then accelerated slightly, tapping a couple people and knocking them over.  The people then started hitting his car, with a few people sitting on the hood and jumping up and down on it.  The driver then got out of the car with a gun in his hand and started brandishing it.

Our heroes the six West Virginians did not stick around to discover the rest of the story, not wanting to become a statistic in exchange for witnessing the end result.  But we can be pretty sure there was some sort of de-escalation since this story didn’t even make local news, much less national.  I don’t think any damage ensued, other than minor injuries to the people and dents to the car.  But all six individually said how lucky it was that I was just around the corner so they could avoid getting shot that night.  They gave me a $20 cash tip at the end of the ride, expressing gratitude for my willingness to ferry all six of them from danger at once.

On one of my own Uber rides, heading home from the airport after a trip back to New Mexico, my driver told me that he thought he’d met the love of his life the previous week while driving.  He said he’d kicked himself for not getting her number, but he was pretty sure he could find her again.  He explained that he was spending most of his time on Uber hanging out near where she worked (the initial pickup spot the week before), hoping to grab her going home again or even going to lunch.  He would still take other rides in the area, but he was always rushing back to that part of town trying to find his would-be love.  While I can’t imagine that Uber corporate would interpret this story as anything other than creepy, the driver insisted that his feelings seemed reciprocated, that she was really flirty and interested on the ride, that he’d just lost his nerve at the end because she seemed out of his league, but after a week he couldn’t stop thinking about her.  He planned to play it cool if he finally did get her again as a rider, and asked whether he should lay it on thick about destiny if so.

“How much is too much?” he asked me sincerely.  “Should I just say ‘I’m so glad I got to see you again’?  Or ‘I knew we’d find each other again’?  Or should I just ask her out on the spot ’cause it was meant to be.”

Maybe this is what the sports commentators mean by “controlling your own destiny.”

How many relationships start in an Uber ride?  How many eventual marriages?  There are all sorts of reasons that Uber doesn’t advertise itself as a dating site or the next Tinder, but I have no doubt they’d have enough material if they chose to pursue this angle.  I can just see the stream of too-pretty huggy couples with that peppy eHarmony beat in the background, telling the condensed stories of their whirlwind ride-share romance.

Of course, being engaged, this is not an angle I care to pursue.  I can detect audible, almost physical, relief from women riding solo when I mention my fiancée in passing conversation or in answer to a question about how I ended up in New Orleans.  Usually mentioning this early can be the difference between a stilted, stifled exchange of a few words and an extensive friendly conversation.

What I am after, really, are good stories, good conversations, and (sure) good tips.  Those are the difference-makers in my night.  And ideally to avoid the belligerent drunks, the arguing couples, the vomit (knock on wood), and the awkwardly silent.  A vast majority of my riders fail to fall into any of these undesirable categories – I have been pleasantly surprised at how much friendlier, more appreciative, and positive most riders are than I anticipated.  But I can’t help but wonder after each unfortunate experience whether I should have stopped for gas first, whether I shouldn’t have run through that last yellow light.  Driving is full of constant near-misses and split-second decisions, all of which lead to a computer app pairing me up with one request instead of another.  And, of course, I have the same series of random and barely chosen processes to thank for every story I’ve told about Uber, every great and heart-warming interaction, every person I’ve met and connected with for the first time in my car.  Far more often, I look back on my driving decisions thankful that they led me to this precise series of riders and no others.

I took a couple on their first date the other night.  They were flirting in that shy, tentative way of asking permission to say something risky.  They were dressed in overly formal clothes for a night of dancing in the bars of New Orleans, an activity they admitted they both thought would be fun.  They were bright and bubbly and optimistic and promised me that I’d be a big part of their long-term story if they made it, if they got married.  They’d send me their wedding invitation and say remember when we had that Uber rider who took us to Bacchanal and gave us advice.

But I could tell, from the front seat, that they weren’t going to make it.  She took a second too long to laugh at some of his attempted jokes, like she wasn’t sure they were supposed to be funny.  He talked about himself too much, rarely reciprocating when there was a clear opening to ask about her.  Ditto his response to her attempts to touch him quasi-innocently.  I was struck by how easily I could know their fate as an objective observer, a stranger, a fly on the steering wheel, before either had internalized it themselves.

Sometimes I like to think of the Uber app and its algorithm as a self-aware intelligence, seeing who will connect and who won’t, as it deploys pings to drivers and acceptances to riders.  That it is the omniscient technology that creates order from anarchy and links us all to a future where we have the opportunity to find new or reassuring experiences as we make our way home at night’s end.  And yet, every time, it is really my choice whether to tap the phone and accept the latest suggestion.  In the end, all we have is these simple binary decisions in the cacophonous chaos of riders and drivers traversing the streets of the city.

Where are you headed?

poems by Bridget Richardson

Cupide and his lyste of arwes or The path to my degree

My first love forgot to love me back so I buried him and found another.

My second love imagined he were a Russian spy – he faked his death. In good fashion, I pretended to mourn and moved on before he could resurface.

I lost myself in a book or two – not even a good read and espionage would find me there.

Hawthorne – the fraud – chose death over longevity and forgot to haunt me. How perfectly unromantic.

William was an obsession and threatened to bind my next 40 years at least. Conscience bid me move forward – I left him in 1386 plagued by sorwe of losing another – and frolicked by the river with my swete fo on Seynt Valentynes day in the dede of October.

But my white hart has not been killed and I dream anoon –

If Degaré’s legs can make the body speke like Jenkins, this game will take flite ageyn.

 

***

Unignited

Desire courted Inspiration &
together they faded into irises,
gold, brown, &
green like the rows
of forsaken oak
in her vision of trees;
bowed deep against
wind currents,
their trunks shallow
wounds in gravel.
He suggested she stop
& she did.
A cool gaze left wrapped
in icy ashes, her eyes fall
on another chess match
with Passion she lacks
the strategy to win.

 

***

 Jellyfish and Paper
               for Josie

Watch insanity
develop silently, twisting in
on itself – a jellyfish
sputtering outwards
in hiccups
of halted breath.

why?

Can a jellyfish rein in the undertoe brought on by its own thoughts?
She could not reach out and harness it because
how could she catch the current?
How could she stop the wind, the rain, the waves, the ice cold
bitterness of eternal frost caught
in a world that wished it were
warm?

Search a forbidden voice –
paper and ink. Watch darkness flow –
distress in knowing no
matter how much is written, lungs fill
with life’s poison
at every exhale
the page has nothing
better to do than sit idly by while ink stings across it.

Each moon-rise – dreams become terrors
and darkness is not solitude.
Doomed characters cast reflections in a midnight pool of burnt salt
and it resembles her,
who forgot to write the hero.
She couldn’t scream for help
when her words were gone.
Surrounded in an embrace of twisting tentacles,
she was left to drift.

Watch the bubble escape
a book torn from her grasp.

 

 

Bridget Richardson is an extremely stressed ENMU graduate student working too many jobs.  Her hobbies include picking up strays and hosting scheduled crying sessions with herself on the weekend.

Highway 50

March Web Feature

Highway 50
– Ahsha M. Vigil

The payphone beeps loudly, the operator’s monotone voice pours through the earpiece. “Please deposit one nickel for five more minutes. You have thirty seconds before I must disconnect the call.”

The hitchhiker looks for another nickel in his empty pockets. The phone goes silent and beeps loudly. The hitchhiker sighs and exits the telephone booth, taking a drink from his flask and lighting a cigarette. He looks to the East, over his shoulder towards the shallow grave of his companion. He decides to forget about his time on the desert as he climbs back into the rusty old Buick and turns his wheels west.

***

The man is an actor, aspiring to be the next bigshot in Hollywood. He, like most of his peers, has nothing to his name. His mother would fret over him and call him a fool if it wasn’t for her comatose state guarding her from what she was better off not knowing. It protects her from knowledge of how and where he’s been getting the money to keep her alive, from knowing that the money has run out and she doesn’t have much longer. He walks down the side of an unknown desolate stretch of highway in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada, hitchhiking back to Los Angeles. The road signs guide him, updating him on how far he is from any other human life form every twenty miles or so. The pavement radiates heat and aside from the mirage on the horizon, only dry, and dirty land stretches as far as the eyes reach. There is rarely an automobile passing, always a semi-truck traveling in the opposite direction. The hitchhiker expected more traffic, but he doesn’t completely reject the solitude. He rather prefers it for his humble reflection of life.

A billboard stands tall a little way up the road, its big red letters warn him of approaching civilization. “BETTY LOU’S DINER! GAS AND GOOD EATIN’!…3 MILES!”

He stops for a moment, looking up the road, licking his lips. He empties his flask, gulping the liquor down his throat. A new motivation to keep walking. The hitchhiker hums to himself, a tune he heard years ago. It keeps him better company than the tumbleweeds that play chase in the distance. He closes his eyes and strolls mindlessly, recklessly. The mid-day heat beats down on him. Sweat drenches the layers of clothing and drips from his face. He stumbles and opens his eyes, his vision blurs. Perhaps I was a fool to think I could go it alone. That fella back in Austin wasn’t feeding me a line. I ain’t gonna get back to Hollywood for dang near a week if I gotta keep up like this. Ma won’t last that long.

The diner comes into view. The faded, pink, stucco building stands out against the gray-brown landscape. A busted, neon, arrow sign flickers and flashes. In front of the diner stand two gas pumps. The parking lot is empty. Dull green weeds creep up the sides of the building, finding a home in the cracks and chips of the stucco. There is only a battered screen door to guard the entryway.

The hitchhiker walks in and a tiny bell rings above his head. A ceiling fan rattles and echoes throughout the empty diner, drowning out the jukebox’s melancholy tune. Everything is red and green patent leather or velvet on aluminum chrome and walnut wood. The inside of the diner is much more pleasing to the eye than the unkempt outside. The nicotine-stained air is hot and dense. The hitchhiker seats himself on a swivel stool at the bar, extinguishing the privacy of employee gossip.

The waitress and the cook draw back from each other. The waitress sets her cigarette in an ashtray and turns to the hitchhiker. She places a yellow paper menu in front of him. “Well hello, Sugar. Can I getcha some coffee?”

“Water.”

“You got it, Babe.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle too, would ya?”

“Sure, we do.”

The hitchhiker holds out the empty flask. “Mind topping me off?”

She smiles and takes the flask.

“Thank ya, ma’am.”

They are silent for a moment. The waitress hands the hitchhiker his renewed flask. “So, where you headed, Mister?”

“L.A.” The hitchhiker takes a swig and places the flask in his pocket.

“Another one of those hot-shot wanna-bes, yeah?”

“I was out on loan for a minor part in one of them new movies. They called me in day before yesterday. Cut my vacation short to go speak three lines.”

“Hey, it’s better than nothing right? Tell me more about Hollywood.”

The hitchhiker shrugs. “There ain’t really much to tell ma’am.”

“Oh c’mon. Hollywood’s so glamorous.”

The waitress sets the water down in front of him and leans on the counter flirtatiously. She continues to coax him with small talk. He looks at her over the menu now and then, raising his eyebrows and nodding or shrugging slightly. Occasionally, he interjects, hoping she’ll be satisfied soon enough and return to her cigarette.

“So, why’re you walking to L.A?”

“Hitchhiking.” He corrects her before continuing. “My car broke down back in Eureka, something with the tranny. Don’t got the money or the motive to fix it.”

“Must be lonely. Can’t imagine having no company out on the road all by myself.” She pauses. “You know, I always wanted to—”

The sound of the doorbell cuts her off, saving her from the rejection of the hitchhiker. A man walks in and seats himself at the end of the bar near the window, so he can watch his Buick accumulate rust. The waitress jumps at the new opportunity for amorous toying. It must be a slow day. She abandons the hitchhiker and rushes to the drifter’s side.

“How are you today, Honey? What can I getcha? Water? Coffee?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Sure thing, Baby. Let me know if I can grab anything else alright?”

He plasters on a faux smile and nods, trying to mask his disinterest. She notices and takes leave. He has seen this waitress a million times, different places and names, but to him, they are all the same. If he would let her, she’d fall in love with him for the day, only to be left behind tomorrow when he turns his wheels in another direction. There have been so many short-lived love affairs that he’s unsure where all he’s had a lover. He never stays in one place long, has no reason to. He has no wife and no kids— at least not to his knowledge. He’s a drifter, a loner trying to make it by traveling the country selling the miscellaneous trinkets for some CEO from back East.

The hitchhiker and the drifter take notice of each other. The drifter’s curiosity eats him from the inside out. Crazy fella out here by his lonesome without a car. Wonder where he came from.

The hitchhiker plays his curiosity off as the intrigue of the unknown. The hitchhiker doesn’t want to know the drifter’s story. Wonder where he’s headed. Maybe he can help me get to Cali faster. They watch each other for the duration of the drifters stay.

The hitchhiker studies the drifter and follows him out when he departs. “Excuse me, Mister. I don’t mean to be a thorn in the side. But which way you headed?”

The drifter points west. “Need a ride?”

“If it ain’t too much trouble.”

The drifter nods towards the passenger door. “Saddle up, Cowboy. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Say! Gee thanks, Mister.”

The drifter displays himself as humble, a wall to camouflage his loneliness. The desert blurs as the car picks up speed. The hitchhiker looks out the window as they drive. The men are silent for a long while. The drifter pulls a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, offers one to the hitchhiker.

The hitchhiker nods. “Got a light?”

The drifter pulls out a card of matches, tossing them at the hitchhiker.

“Thanks.” “That gal back there sure was talking up a storm.” The drifter pokes at the man.

“Why ain’t you offer to take her with ya?”

The hitchhiker shrugs. “She’s getting paid to make a pass at every fella that comes through there. We both know that.”

“Seemed pretty stuck on you. She looked at you like you was the shiniest penny in the jar.”

“Oh, hang it up, Mister.”

The drifter puts his hands up for a moment, chuckling. The hitchhiker tosses his cigarette butt out the window. They fall quiet for some time again. In the distance, the men can see a thunderhead; the dark gray storm looks like it could be violent. They watch as the sun sinks into the desert, tired of scorching this side of the planet until tomorrow. The drifter flicks a switch, and the headlights illuminate a mile marker.

MILE 72: FALLON 40, DAYTON 91.

The hitchhiker puts his feet up on the dashboard and pulls the flask from his jacket pocket, takes a big gulp. He gestures to the drifter. “Want a sip?”

“I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself. More for me.”

The drifter lights another cigarette, unsure what else to do with himself. The hitchhiker takes another swig, and another for good measure. “So, we stopping in Fallon or what?”

“We won’t be there for another hour—”

“That ain’t what I asked.”

“We can stop if you need to.”

“I might.” The hitchhiker takes a big gulp of liquor and burps loudly. He is silent for a moment, taking another sip before speaking. “How far are you going anyways?”

“Aw heck, Carson City maybe? I ain’t got the slightest idea if I’m being honest though. I go ’til I can’t no more.”

The drifter looks over at his intoxicated companion. The hitchhiker lifts his head and screws the lid back on the flask. “How far you taking me?”

“Far as I can. State line, maybe. Depends on how long we’re headed the same direction.” Fear rises in the hitchhiker’s chest. State line won’t be close enough. That’s three days’ worth of walking at least. He retrieves his pocketknife and begins to clean his nails. In the clouds, electric charges battle for dominance. Thunder shakes the land. The hitchhiker uncaps the flask, takes another swig, and places the flask back into his jacket pocket.

The drifter breaks the uneasy silence. “You’re quite the swigger, Cowboy.”

“What of it?”

The drifter falls quiet again.

“I said, what of it, Mister? Don’t go giving your two cents where it ain’t due.”

“Ease up, Cowboy. Don’t blow a fuse. I was just trying to make conversation. I wasn’t looking for trouble.”

“Bustin’ my chops ain’t the way to do that, Mister.”

“C’mon cool down, man.”

“Aw, shut the hell up would ya?”

The drifter’s knuckles turn white, he clenches the steering wheel, biting his tongue. The air outside stirs and a gust of wind shakes the car around a little.

The hitchhiker becomes more agitated. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to drive, Mister?”

“If you don’t like my driving, I can let you out.” The drifter’s dry voice echoes in the hitchhiker’s head. The drifter slows down to counteract the wind.

“No. No. You can’t let me out—” The hitchhiker pales and panic courses through his veins, sending him tumbling over the edge. His hands shake, his vision flashes black. The drifter notices the change in the hitchhiker and pulls over.

“Don’t spew in here now, Cowboy. You don’t look so hot.”

“You can’t kick me out here, Mister. I gotta get back to Hollywood. My Ma needs me to get that part.”

“What are you getting all cracked up about? I was just trying to let you out if—”

“I said you can’t kick me out!”

The hitchhiker lunges at the drifter, pocketknife still in hand. The drifter jumps and reaches for the hitchhiker’s wrist to stop the impending blow. The drifter’s eyes cloud over with pain as the stainless-steel point penetrates his abdomen.

***

The hitchhiker looks over his shoulder at the rusty-old Buick as he steps into the telephone booth. He picks up the phone and dials the number.

The operator comes on the line instantly. “Please insert one dime for ten minutes. Thank you.”

The hitchhiker puts a dime into the machine. He hopes the call won’t take long. The dial tone hurts his already throbbing head. There’s a click on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” A man’s sleepy voice pours through the phone.

“Hey, man. I’ve got a problem, I really screwed up—” The hitchhiker trails off, unsure.

His companion on the other end of the phone grows more alert. “What’s eating you?”

“I killed someone man. I mean I think it’s okay, not a big deal, but—”

The other end of the line is silent.

“This guy gave me a ride, started giving me some trouble. He was about to kick me out on the side of the highway. I just couldn’t take it, you know? So, I let him have it.”

The phone cuts out and beeps. The hitchhiker inserts another nickel into the machine before the operator can interject.

“I see. Where are you now?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I’ll be back in L.A. tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you disappear for a little while?”

“Just call and tell my manager I’ll be there tomorrow evening.”

“How do you know they ain’t gonna be looking for you?”

“He was a loner. Nobody will miss him for a long time. I was out on the desert when I ditched him. I don’t think anyone will find out.”

“You better hope not, son. They’ll send you to the big house for this one.”

“How’s Ma?”

“Same as yesterday.”

“I’ll come up with the money soon.”

“Don’t fret none about her. Don’t you go stirring up no mor—”

There is silence on the other end of the phone. The silence begs for another deposit. The hitchhiker sighs and rubs his temples. The payphone beeps loudly, and the operator’s monotone voice pours through the earpiece. “Please deposit one nickel for five more minutes. You have thirty seconds before I must disconnect the call.”

The hitchhiker has run out of time, and his pockets are empty. He can only hope that there’s enough gas to get him off of Highway 50.

Thaddeus Rutkowski, Fall 2019 Visiting Writer

On Soft Wings

“A moth sees a flame, or multiple flames, through its compound eyes. The image is a kaleidoscope of luminous spots radiating from their brightest point— the corona around a burning candle’s tip. The moth has no choice but to fly toward the light.”
     – On Soft Wings, Thaddeus Rutkowski

 

In October of 2019, the Languages and Literature Department of Eastern New Mexico University welcomed fiction writer Thaddeus Rutkowski to Portales, New Mexico as our Visiting Writer. Rutkowski has published both full-length poetry and short story collections. A passionate teacher, Rutkowski guides fellow writers at Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute, Medgar Evers College and the Writer’s Voice of the West Side YMCA. He has also taught at Pace University, the Hudson Valley Writers Center, and the Asian American Writers Workshop. During his visit, Thaddeus Rutkowski took a few minutes to speak with El Portal about his philosophy as a writer.

 

EP: At what point in your life did you know that you were a writer?  How did you come to claim this identity for yourself – were there any obstacles you had to overcome or expectations you had to release in order to be able to call yourself a writer?

TR: I liked to write small pieces when I was a teenager. I was interested in stories, and I would get lost in the world of a book. That world could have been the one I knew, or it could have been a place completely different, someplace fantastic or just odd. Through writing, I could see things as they were, but I could also uncover a layer below what we see.

I would show these pieces to friends, maybe to a teacher. I even submitted a couple of them to mimeographed literary magazines. At least one was published, in purple ink on slick paper. I recently received a comment on Facebook from a high-school friend who remembered a character from one of those pieces—the Likable Creature. The name embarrasses me now.

In college, I read my work aloud in cafes, including a place called the Unmuzzled Ox, which was in the basement of a church in Ithaca, New York. I doubt there were more than a handful of people in the Unmuzzled Ox at any one time. But there was something communal about being there, sharing work, and listening to others. One of the attendees played the dulcimer—it was the first time I’d heard that instrument.

Did this make me a “writer”? I don’t know, but these are things that many poets and writers do, and that I still do. The only obstacle to doing such things is an internal, contrary voice, saying such activities are not important in the practical, commercial world. You can’t listen to that voice.

 

EP: What advice would you give to writers who struggle with developing/maintaining writing as a daily practice?

TR: Maintaining a daily practice is difficult for anyone, but here are some ways to keep a schedule:

Give yourself deadlines. Tell yourself you’ll write a page (or a paragraph, or a sentence) each day. Extend that deadline as needed—bigger projects take longer.

Put yourself in situations with built-in deadlines. Take a writing workshop. Apply to contests that have deadlines. Submit to journals and magazines.

Go to public readings. Many readings have an open mic. Bring something you’ve been working on, and read it.

Find a quiet place to work. Whether you have “a room of your own” or go to a favorite café, set aside time to do your work. You won’t spend all of your time writing—you might spend much of it gazing—but the down time will help you generate ideas.

 

Read El Portal‘s full interview with visiting writer Thaddeus Rutkowski  – plus two of his new pieces – in the upcoming Spring 20220 Issue.

Amazonians Have a Hundred Words for Green

February Web Feature

INFINITE KARMIC LORE
from Amazonians Have a Hundred Words for Green
by Gerard Sarnat

Here we are living in bliss on the “D” type exact epicenter of the San Andreas Fault’s apocalyptic Richter earthquake risk. Redwoods almost as ancient as the ancientest dinosaur from the Triassic era nearly a quarter of a billion years ago.

Grandest tallest oldest trees ever, they are just beginning to be threatened by Silicon Valley shiny objects’ air pollution.

When Ronald Reagan was President, my boy transplanted a few dull toy sprigs by the shady west side of our small cabin.

For now their majesty dwarfs this A-frame, though on the east there’s wide-open space past wild oak and Japanese maples.

The next entrepreneurial probable gazillionaire owner of the lawless unfenced no-lawn rustic structure will start upgrading it.

My short squat family lives an easy life in hardscrabble gorge gardens at the bottom of a forest saucer, but gazes up at stars.

Peering toward the not quite yet set sun in parallel blazing orange chez lounges, we babble ourselves into a twilight muddle.

She has been with me forever, is the mother of above son plus both daughters — then became Bubbe to one and still counting.

The two of us, smoked-flirted more than enough, stare over a nook of flowering angelicas before a crook lying on the skyline.

I fall in love with a gloveful of some turquoise fronds looking halfway like such very delicate needles bobbing in the wind.

A pair of red robins, three fluorescent squirrels, quivering Peter cottontail, a five-pointed buck shield the sliver of new moon.

Shimmering flora and fauna trigger timeframes that don’t seem to notice my pale chloroformed glop which nests here a lot.

If ecojustice isn’t much better supported, none of these glories will be around for Spring generations of offspring offshoots

 

 

Gerard Sarnat, MD, has authored Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes, 17s, Melting The Ice King (2016). Gerry’s recently published by Gargoyle, Oberlin, Brown, Harvard, Stanford, Margie, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, LA Review, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, New York Times. Mount Analogue selected Kaddish for distribution nationwide Inauguration Day. His work appeared in his Harvard reunion Dylan symposium.

Your Pet Turtle

January Web Feature

Your Pet Turtle
–William Doreski

We agree that nothing is absolute, not the dark of closets, not clock-faces, not the stink of cooking fat. But we disagree on the exceptions. You place your plastic crucifix on the wall and claim that it represents the ultimate. I prop Wallace Stevens’ Collected Poems against the bassinette to make the baby cry. You prod my undercarriage with the skewer you used for lamb until I objected to cooking the young of innocent animals. I scratch you very slightly with a genuine Thoreau pencil I bought in a rare book shop forty years ago. You respond with the word “Animula.” I reply with “Condensed.” We agree that if we laugh it has to be aloud.

The room sweetens with the breath of your tiny pet turtle. It walked all the way from the Caribbean to live in your terrarium. Soon the immigration police will arrive to arrest us for importing disease from the furthest reach of the galaxy. We will explain that nothing is absolute, not even the furthest reach of the galaxy, and that law enforce peters out beyond the limits of the atmosphere. They will arrest your plastic crucifix for violating the religious clause of the Bill of Rights but allow your turtle to remain with you until a judge hears its case.

 

 

 

William Doreski recently retired after years of teaching at Keene State College in New Hampshire (USA). His most recent book of poetry is The Suburbs of Atlantis (2013). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently A Black River, A Dark Fall (2018)

Fall 2019 Prize Winners

Congratulations to our
ENMU Student Prize Winners
for Fall 2019

FICTION
1st place: Natalie Franco Torres for “A Second Chance”
2nd place: Timothy Gettle for “The Light of a Lavender Sky”

POETRY
1st place:  “Bicycle” by Cody Wilhelm 
2nd place: “Another Myth” by Bridget Richardson 
3rd place: “Laid to Rest” by Falyn Benavidez 

PHOTOGRAPHY
1st place: Michael Gardner‘s “Enchanting”
2nd place: Katherine Perelas‘s “Serene and Quiet”

Poems by Simon Perchik

December Web Feature

by Simon Perchik

*

You feed these birds at night
the way every feather they use
comes from a quarry where the air

darkens with each landing –it’s Tuesday
and you still have not forgotten
their return for seeds, endlessly

weeping for a missing child
a brother, mother though their eyes
are unsure how to close

when listening for a name, a flower
a river –you fill your hand from a bag
as if at the bottom they could hear

an emptiness that is not a night
falling behind step by step on the ground
–how open it was, already grass.

*

And stubborn yet these wicks
warm the light they need
to blossom as stone

then cling, smell from hair
burning inside, clawing for roots
heated by butterflies

and the afternoons coming together
to the light the fire, be a noon
where there was none before.

 

 

Simon Perchik is an attorney, born in 1923, whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, Poetry, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is The Gibson Poems published in 2019. For more information including free e-books and his essay “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

Fall 2019 Visiting Writer

El Portal and the ENMU Department of Languages and Literature
are delighted to announce our Fall 2019 visiting writer: Thaddeus Rutkowski.

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Join us for a personal reading by Thaddeus Rutkowski
on Tuesday, October 8th at 3:30 pm in ENMU’s Little Theater.

Rutkowski’s novel, Haywire, was a fiction finalist for the Asian American Literary Award, and won the Member’s Choice Award of the Asian American Writers Workshop in New York.

You can read more of Rutkowski’s work on the author’s website – Thaddeus Rutkowski – and on the NY Times Opinionator blog.

Poetry Throw Back: Steve Bellin-Oka

A former guest poet/mentor turned Artist-in-Residence, Steve Bellin-Oka, shared the following piece with El Portal on November 11, 2016. We always knew he was bound for great things and are deeply honored to say, with a full heart, “we knew him when.”

Still Life with the Plague of Darkness
            — for my daughter

I woke this morning before dawn
to find the nation’s hearts had hardened.
Something stretched out its hand—a darkness
so thick it felt like gauze.
It seemed it would last for days.
Even the pavement cracks were wider:
more thick weeds forcing up
through the ridged concrete.
Overnight, someone stepped on them
and now we think our backs are broken.

But they’re not—I think of you
in another time zone, just turned thirteen,
the same sun rising from the far end
of the city. We’d wanted a land
less dangerous for you. To find
our questions answered. To wipe layers
away from the cocoon you struggle
to break free of. Forgive us.

But the November branches define
themselves against the slow sunrise.
Brown and red leaves still cling to them.
Inside the house now, I’ve pulled
the curtains back. Already so much
light pours in—nothing can keep it out.

A previous assistant professor at ENMU, Steve Bellin-Oka  is the 2019 Poets in Parks artist-in-residence for The National Parks Arts Foundation (NPAF), the Poetry Foundation, the National Parks Service, and the Gettysburg Foundation. He is the author of two chapbooks, The Frankenstein Poems (2014) and Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station (forthcoming in 2017). His work has appeared in Cream City Review, Mississippi Review, William and Mary Review and Yalobusha Review, among other journals, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize and fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Hambidge Center for the Arts, and was shortlisted for the Key West Literary Seminar’s Scotti Merrill Memorial Award.