| The Brooklyner Web and Literary

Acoustic Tile Ceiling

Bryce Albertson — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:30:39 +0000

Acoustic Tile Ceiling by Bryce Albertson read by Author

Perpendicular rivers
cut gorges across
a windless white desert,
pitted
by an epoch
of mustang hooves,
the herd
lean and leaderless,
directionless,

starving.

~ Bryce Alberston: Fort Smith, Arkansas | The Brooklyner

Fisher Gallery

Matthew Fisher — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:00:48 +0000

Fog

John Stocks — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:15:53 +0000

She talked often about the fog
The ‘Pea Souper’, ‘London Particular’,
That smothered all the London Streets
With corrosive fog, a ghastly miasma.

How granddad had shuddered to his knees,
His lungs corrupted, wheezing his last breath,
How fourteen tons of Flouride did for him;
Some said twelve thousand were killed that week.

She claimed it slipped through keyholes
Leaving residues, foul sulphurous smears,
‘Look’, she said, ‘it even stained his photograph,
Handing him to us, yellow and listless.

He was riddled with purulent bronchitis
Lingered until the 5th of December.
It made our skin crawl to look at him,
His angular face, jaundiced with disease.

She talked often about the Fog,
And how she had lived through two world wars
The odd bod lodger who lived next door,
Who strangled cats, or so she claimed.

I imagined the bellowing chimneys
Of Battersea, Bankside and Kingston,
Six million chimneys belching out their load
And tried to imagine, growing old

~ John Stocks: Sheffield, United Kingdom | The Brooklyner

The Czech Republic

Laura Janka — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:11:35 +0000

The Czech Republic by Laura Janka read by Author

The boy woke in the morning, and at the top of the kitchen’s garbage bin, with pieces of
chewed meat and skinned potato chunks for pillows, were the teeth from his father’s
mouth.

There were three of them, and the roots where they had been planted into pink, swollen
gums were deep red. Laying in the soggy mess, the boy imagined last night’s pork
smiling up at him. His fingers started to stretch toward the mouth-bits, then stopped.
The boy bit into his tongue, slow and heavy, and believed he tasted salt.

With pieces of old torn cloth gagging his throat and soaking up blood, grimacing and
clamping hard, opening and closing his palms into tight fists, the boy’s father motioned to
a pair of pliers on the kitchen table. The sharp metal lips spread-eagle, splayed and used,
ready to snap.

“To forget the pains in my head,” the man tells his son. His voice gargles. His voice
passes through the blood on the cloth. “A man takes matters into his own hands.”

~ Laura Janka: Morristown, New Jersey | The Brooklyner


Raspberry Cough, 2011, acrylic on masonite, 10 x 10 inches
by Christopher Moss

The Last Tenants

Sarah Archer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:54 +0000

Their evenings mapped in markings on the floor:
her love seat faced the dinner-hour news
with breadth to flank her knitting arm to arm,
his favorite chair, a table for his smoke.
An orphan ring left on the shower rod,
its open hands unclasped; on their soap groove,
a film that will not wash. Down-hall,
the deep-set squares of four oak posts
are branded in the bedroom pile, and will be so
for years.

We match our art to theirs,
hiding the space their pictures hid to mask
the wall unbleached by sun, the chinks and nail holes.
Their spare hangers hang and batter end to end
like a weak chime each time we roll the closet shut,
and so we learn to match their subtle moves.
We grow conscious of our cleaning:
from the carpet still come up the threads
of his stiff shirts, her hair, gray and brown.
Our fingers black the light switch plates like theirs.
We use a dinner chair to hide an old dark stain.

The logs we let crack on a dull grate
darken, then lighten into cold fires’ ash.
The finest flakes lift and filter through the screen;
some settle on the ground, the moss-dark garden wall,
their bulbs’ dead young heads that we let fail.

~ Sarah Archer: Los Angeles, California | The Brooklyner

Budding

Sarah Archer — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:52 +0000

I can’t guess what planted this impression
somewhere along my trachea, halfway between
the brain and the heart,
which I am waiting to name.

It barely prickles in the pink of my flesh,
this crouching unborn body,
this seed.
Huddling, mute, its hilum nourishing,
it keeps its color closeted,
but soon will nudge the blood-mud of my throat
off its shoulders
and poke up its hypocotyl like
a sly green periscope,
feeling past the hump of the tongue, the taste buds,
the white picket teeth,
to halve the air in front of it and flower.

~ Sarah Archer: Los Angeles, California | The Brooklyner

Nod

Derek Gromadzki — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:21 +0000

Nod by Derek Gromadzki read by Author

Here ago on silent I learned to fling the shadow from a raven’s wing
to let inner hiddenness and void founder down distance
with each step close closes in
stone the crack and the snap of stone not giving
away wayward with slight tired out of how many meridians pit
against a division wider that unbecomes approach
hasped fast in the fugitive drift of sand
shambling an embrace
takes hold
such in waking as cannot yet be seemed

~ Derek Gromadzki: Iowa City, Iowa | The Brooklyner

Eidolon

Derek Gromadzki — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:15 +0000

Eidolon by Derek Gromadzki read by Author

Disjunction a rupture of the unknown mind
and what you do not know you speak
and name a place
for savage longing
limp amaranth and chant in the split between sound
and what you see –– strict this irenic reflection where
we buried medlars
under the medlar tree
that made of us a cautious tongue
until a forcing from the groves
in arid weeds to a wind abandon
that teaches trembling

~ Derek Gromadzki: Iowa City, Iowa | The Brooklyner

It’s Darkness He Wants (Audio)

Walter Wong — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:00:39 +0000

It’s Darkness He Wants by Benjamin Hale read by Walter Wong

It’s Darkness He Wants

Benjamin Hale — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:20:29 +0000

Listen to It’s Darkness He Wants read by Walter Wong

I drove to McGuckin’s and asked to be directed to the rope section.

“Aisle twelve!” chirped the girl at the register.

McGuckin’s Hardware always makes me sleepy. Something about being in a dark building the size of an airplane hangar stacked to the ceiling with hardware makes me feel like a kid dragged around on an adult’s errand. I looked at all the different packages of ropes, trying to decide which would be the best to hang myself with.

“Need any help?” said a friendly retiree in a green vest.

“I’m looking for a rope,” I said.

“Whatchya need it for?”

“I’m hanging a sculpture in an art gallery.”

“Hm.”

“From the ceiling.”

“How much does it weigh?”

“About a hundred and eighty-five pounds.”

“I’d recommend this one.”

He handed me a rope in a plastic package.

“Thanks.”

“Need anything else?”

“I think I’m okay.”

He smiled and walked off to assist another customer. I looked at the rope. It was a springy nylon rope, for mountain climbing, I guess. I didn’t want to kill myself with a fucking nylon rope. I wanted to do it the old-fashioned way, with a good sturdy old-fashioned rope.

I put back the one the nice old man recommended and selected a thicker, more picturesque rope. I also bought a package of light bulbs because I felt a sense of fidgety embarrassment putting the rope alone on the checkout girl’s conveyor belt, similar to a feeling I once had buying a copy of Mein Kampf at a Barnes & Noble (I added The Selected Poetry and Prose of Paul Celan to balance my purchase, even though I had most of the poetry in the collection already).

Maybe she has to phone some suicide watchdog organization or something if somebody buys just a rope and nothing else. Why would a suicide buy light bulbs, right? It’s darkness he wants.

She scanned my light bulbs and my rope with her laser gun thingy. Bip! Bip! She was chewing gum and gazing into the middle distance. I paid with my credit card.

I went home and put the rope and the light bulbs on my kitchen table and drank a glass of wine. I drank another glass of wine, looking at the rope sitting unopened in its plastic package on the table beside the canary-yellow cardboard package of four 60-Watt light bulbs. I walked around the house looking for something sturdy to tie the rope to. I looked up how to make a slipknot on the Internet.

I needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to someone who knew me really well. I needed someone to cheer me the fuck up, badly. I called Madelyn.

“I don’t want to talk to you, Gary.”

“Please.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I love you.”

She hung up. I called Roger to keep myself from dissolving into tears.

“Hello?”

“Hi Roger.”

“Oh, hi. What’s up?”

“Oh, this and that.”

“I heard about what happened.”

“Did you!”

“So tell me: what the fuck, exactly, happened?”

I told him my version of events. When I was done, he was silent for a while.

“Have I done anything wrong?” I said. “I mean, I’m not talking illegal. I mean have I done anything morally, philosophically, spiritually wrong?”

“Well, it’s not wrong, I guess. That’s just not the right word for it.”

“Like cheating on Madelyn.”

“Right, that’s straight-up wrong. That was spiritually wrong. But the thing is, I can understand that one. I know how that goes. People cheat, it happens. People have been dealing with that problem since the dawn of man. Operas have been written about that stuff.”

“But what have I done? What sin have I committed, here?”

“Are you ashamed?”

“Ashamed. More embarrassed.”

“Embarrassment is shame’s little brother.”

“Mortification, humiliation. Regret.”

“Well, okay, look. Don’t take this the wrong way, Gary, what I’m about to say.”

“Whoo boy. Gimme a second.”

“Alright.”

“Okay, I’m ready. Go.”

“It’s not so much that the whole thing is wrong per se, but more, uh … what? Weird, creepy, and pathetic.”

“Right. Got it. Okay, so it’s not wrong, just weird, creepy and pathetic. Sleazy, would you say?”

“Yeah, a little of that, too.”

“Is weird, creepy, pathetic and sleazy worse than spiritually wrong?”

“Yeah, in a way. There’s a certain, you know, romance in spiritual wrongness. Abetting juvenile delinquency doesn’t sound as sexy as a crime of passion. What you did is a little more like getting caught masturbating on a bus or something. Creepy old weirdos who hang out with teenagers and get them drunk are less often celebrated on the classical stage.”

“What about Falstaff?”

“Good call. But Prince Hal is heir to the English throne, that’s a different situation.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“What are you talking about, ‘forgive’? You don’t need to be forgiven. Not by me, anyway.”

“Can you ever look me in the eye again?”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re my friend, Gary. I’d look you in the eye even if you got caught masturbating on a bus.”

“Thanks. Jesus, that means a lot to me. Seriously.”

“Was there any fallout with Naropa?”

“I had a very uncomfortable meeting with the administration the other day. They’re probably gonna can my ass.”

“Even though you’re tenured?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s just splendid.”

“Ain’t it, though?”

“Look. It sounds like you’re going through a rough patch right now.”

“Rough patch. What does that mean? A patch that is rough? It’s a driving metaphor? Sewing? Patch. You know it’s bad when your last friend left is using platitudes on you.”

“What if I drove out there to visit you?”

“If I was more together right now I’d say, ‘Oh, God no, don’t worry about that, I wouldn’t want you to make that ten-hour drive just to come cheer me up.’ But right now I’m so fucking fucked up that instead I’m going to say this: please, please come out here. I need help. I really need help.”

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am.”

I drank two and a half bottles of wine and took a sleeping pill. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, I just wanted to knock myself out cold so I could miss as much Earth-time as possible.

I woke up at noon-ish with an evil black cloud of a hangover, twisted up in sweaty bed sheets I hadn’t changed in two months. My skull felt like some parasitic alien monster had laid eggs in it, and each of my teeth was wearing a fuzzy little sweater. There should have been flies buzzing circles around my head; squiggly cartoon stink-lines rising out of me.

I drove to McGuckin’s to return the rope. Luckily still had the receipt. There was a long line at the customer service desk, which made me antsy and pissed off, but the woman at the counter didn’t ask any questions. She gave me my money back and I used some of it to buy a cup of coffee at the coffee shop next door.

I hung out there for a while, drinking coffee and reading the funnies. Dilbert was really good that day. In the first panel he says to his evil little dog, “I’ve decided to take up sculpture. I’m going to make a sculpture of an elephant.” “Well, you know what they say,” his dog says, “just take away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.” In the next panel he’s chipping away at his block of marble with a hammer and chisel. In the third panel he’s standing there with the hammer and chisel, having reduced the block of marble to a tiny pile of crumbs and dust. “There wasn’t an elephant in this one,” he says to his dog.

I read the punchline, burst into tears, and the other people in the coffee shop stared at me. I wiped my eyes with a scratchy paper napkin and drove home.

As I walked in the house I smelled wine immediately. A giant stinging wallop of spilled wine. Not a specific wine, but a slumgullious mishmash of lots and lots of wine, rapidly souring in a big puddle somewhere. It hit my nose like an olfactory freight train, but nothing was amiss. The house looked normal.

“Hello?” I said, and because I felt the need to say it I could tell I wasn’t alone in the house.

Two men in black knit ski masks came out of my kitchen and beat me up with baseball bats until I almost died.

Sorry, I find it boring and pedestrian to overlavishly dramatize the business of getting repeatedly bonked around with baseball bats. I must have even been bored by it at the time, because I fell asleep in the middle of it, and woke up three days later in a hospital bed, sans some of my favorite teeth. And with a number of broken bones. And with nerve damage and internal bleeding and a concussion so severe they drained some of my spinal fluid and drilled a little hole in my skull to ease the brain swelling.

I was informed that I probably would have died if Roger hadn’t driven in that night, walked in though the unlocked door and found me lying unconscious on my kitchen floor. Get this: I woke up without my sense of taste.

~ Benjamin Hale: Brooklyn, New York | The Brooklyner


Horse Thief Lake, OR 1, 2008, C-print soaked in Horse Thief Lake water, 16 x 20 inches
by Matthew Brandt