by Neon Books
just from looking?
Nancy Hightower
Image by Colin Brough
REM
"REM" first appeared in Inklings.
I am forever making an entrance,
bumping into empty spaces:
vacant lodge, the room with one bed,
the darkened waterpark, and the house
where I killed.
my heart beats sideways, paper doll, paper thin,
as I suction myself across
the creamy landscape, reading locations.
inside the room – a bed,
suspended mid-air,
a spiral staircase springs up to meet it,
and the little girl
is sometimes there,
tries to remember my name,
sees me slithering across the board.
on my way out.
in between the rafters of waking,
I split myself into a pair of eyes,
bulging, waiting.
*
Magdalene
I have often heard about phantom limbs
how they ache upon you
like some lost relative,
begging to have their cups washed,
another piece of toast.
the body remembers
when running was simple:
the minutia of each muscle contracting
against cold light, the art of forgetfulness.
no looking over one's shoulder, like Lot's wife,
to see the flames licking souls dry.
when I rammed my unholy frame
right into your feet, tears split down my eyes
and I felt the breaking, cracked glass, stained light,
blessed the new hollowed place
where you would be buried.
wounds eventually draw themselves in;
I keep your memory swept up
the back of my neck, piled behind the mind.
only when I walk forward
can I detect the slight limp
the unwanted halt, the forever leaning
against your shadow.
*
Drought
there is comfort in winter, snow-peaked
crescent moons, the cold bitten skin
on hands; an icing over of bad summers.
we expect a certain consistency regarding seasons,
a dying when the time is right, the pleasant aspect
of going numb, sleet and madness.
but this winter is different, warmer.
no freezing rain pelts my face or forces
my head down in submission,
no wind to drive the body
back under heavy quilt where
I shed all my scales, smooth myself
back into the shell.
instead, a strange sun bullies
across the sky, blinds me with its insolence.
I hurl sweaters aside, leaving
their comforted bulk and thick weave
for a flimsy shirt, arms bare and the elbows
dark and patched. I am misplaced,
standing under the wrong day,
and the night is far worse, a nocturnal desert
which sweats me out by three AM.
my dreams, though, are spiked with icicles,
dirty-white and hanging like daggers above the bed.
each morning I wake,
my eyes pierced with water.
Contributors
Image by Evgeniy Lukyanov
Sam Frankl is twenty-two years old and works on a construction site off the Walworth Road. He writes for London Word periodically in their "Speaker's Corner" section, and regularly contributes to Le Cool's weekly listings. Last week he completed the first draft of a novel he has been working on since the end of the summer.
Eliza Victoria is the author of Lower Myths (Flipside Publishing, 2012), The Viewless Dark (Flipside Publishing, 2012), and the short story collection A Bottle of Storm Clouds (Visprint, 2012). Her fiction and poetry have appeared in several online and print publications in the Philippines and elsewhere. For more information, visit [https://elizavictoria.com/].
Lynn Hoffman is from Brooklyn and lives in Philadelphia. He is the author of The Short Course In Beer. He leads wine and beer tastings, but most of the time he just loafs and fishes.
Tracey Iceton is an English teacher and creative writing tutor. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, was winner of the Writers Block NE "Home Tomorrow" short story competition and a shortlisted finalist for the 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize with her piece "Apple Shot". Her publication credits include; Litro, Tears In The Fence, Ride Magazine, The Yellow Room and the Brisbane Courier Mail. She is currently working on her third novel – part two of a trilogy on the Troubles in Ireland – while working on publishing part one, Green Dawn At St Enda's, in time for Easter 2016. She can be contacted through the Society Of Authors.
Michael Frazer is currently a PhD candidate at Auburn University. Mostly working in postmodern fiction centred on the Southern Californian landscape and the Orange County locale, he also explores and experiments with other genres in writing and electronic music production. Because Postmodernism is play. Some of his forthcoming work will appear in Used Gravitrons and Kudzu Review.
Kate Folk is from Iowa and now lives in San Francisco. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of San Francisco. Her work has been published in PANK and Bartleby Snopes, among other magazines. Visit her at [https://www.katefolk.com/].
Heidi James's novel Wounding will be published by Bluemoose Books in 2014. Her novella The Mesmerist's Daughter (published by Apis Books) was launched in July 2007. Her novel Carbon, was published by Blatt in October 2009. Carbon is currently being made into a film by British film company, Institute For Eyes. Her essays and short stories have appeared in various publications and anthologies including Dazed And Confused, Next Level, Flux, Brand, The Independent, Undercurrent, 3:AM London, New York, Paris, Dreams That Money Can Buy, Full Moon Empty Sports Bag, and Pulp.net. She has an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English Literature.
Nancy Hightower has had poems published in The New York Quarterly, storySouth, Big Muddy, The Cresset, Strange Horizons, and Liquid Imagination, among others. She has also had fiction published in Word Riot, Prick of the Spindle, Bourbon Penn, Prime Number Magazine, and work forthcoming in Gargoyle.
Andrew Shoemaker is an American photographer based in Southern California. Originally from Lincoln, NE, he specializes in Landscape, Waterscape and Nature photography in the American Southwest. His website is [https://www.andrewshoemakerphotography.com/].
