artichoke haircut volume three
spring 2012
editors justin sanders jonathan gavazzi adam shutz melissa streat
layout & cover design adam shutz
cover art
“everyone i know goes away in the end” by melissa streat www.artichokehaircut.com
Artichoke Haircut (ISSN 2164-2729) is published biyearly by the people listed above. This is our third issue and we still don’t know what goes here. So all the info that’s usually in this space we haven’t come up with yet or we have no idea what it means. We’re still poor and still can’t afford lawyers. But we’ve seen this phrase a lot so we’ll put it here: All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012. And oh yeah, watch out for our reading series, “You’re Allowed,” at Dionysus Lounge, Baltimore. Happy reading and postulating.
artichoke haircut adam shutz katie long chris toll james claffey lyn lifshin sean wilson
Editor’s Note poetry
On a Business Trip
poetry
This Is How We Make a Broken Heart
fiction
Sixteen Magpies poetry
Champlain, Branbury, the Lakes at Night fiction
Water to the Sea
volume three
7 8 11 14 17 20
ernest williamson iii gerry lafemina kenneth kruse eleanor leonne bennett lily herman
naomi neal megan boyle
art
I Wrote It; Pathogen of Social Misery; The Grand Ladies of Greece
poetry
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Clown Baby and the New Geography
fiction
38
Greetings from the Animal Kingdom photography
Get Back Better On; Sleep Without Ease
poetry
Fucking, or: Out of the Void Comes Boundless Laughter; Reasons Not to Sleep with People they fiction
Instructions for Grief poetry
8.14.09
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45 48
54 60
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dave k.
fiction
To The Estate of Charles Schultz
poetry
63
Not Even the French Laugh at Me; The Ghosts are Sharpening their Knives Again
65
allison whittenberg
Life Slips
70
andrĂŠs amitai wilson
Freiburg; Grandson’s College Fund (Tribute)
c.l. bledsoe
amy willoughby-burle
poetry
poetry
fiction
Limbo
72 77
Editor’s Note W
hen I first declared myself a poet, not that long ago, and began to send off my work, I sent it to the only literary magazines I knew of at the time – The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, etc. Inevitably, I ended up with a mailbox crammed full of rejection. And if it were not for the extent of my youthful arrogance, my writing career would have ended then and there. But, beside the fact that I was striving for a goal so impossibly far off it may as well have been stuck in a couch cushion aboard the space station, I couldn’t help wonder who these people were judging my work. I imagined magazine editors much in the way that Kafka imagined all bureaucrats (including God): wizened and powerfully faceless creatures standing before some marble gate that
held the mythic land of famous poets. I’m sure that’s what most beginning writers, and for that matter, what most writers who have never worked as editors believe (yet probably with less hyperbole). But as an editor I can tell you, although cigarettes have wizened my face to some degree, that description is far from apt. And while I think it would be infinitely rewarding, unfortunately I hold no key to the land of literary honey. As it stands, we are simple folk, and our “gate” is a small and poorly decorated apartment in midtown Baltimore. We simply look for work that is surprising in its originality and word choice, and work that while well crafted is not overly wrought. Our humble attempt is to showcase as many interesting minds (disturbed or otherwise) as we can fit into our small magazine. Artichoke Haircut
poetry
8 katie long
Katie lives in New York and works in public radio. She would like to move somewhere warmer and likes the idea of paddle boarding.
On a Business Trip I
’m in a hotel room in Dallas Sounds nostalgic And someone stole My complimentary USA Today But, Dallas, a hotel room There’s that dusty light coming though Those sheer rayon curtains The way it hangs sunk but still you know Dr. Phil is on TV Not really (Tyra Banks), but Phil rhymes with still It’s all the same idea [...] Artichoke Haircut
11 poetry
chris toll
Chris Toll is listening to the Voices in the Wind. Publishing Genius Press recently released his new book, The Disinformation Phase. His favorite quote is by Emily Dickinson: “I believe in the Impossible -�
This is How We Make a Broken Heart A
pproximately 13.7 billion years ago, an antimatter scientist drops an antimatter test tube. In the summer of 1966, Bob Dylan leans as he steers his motorcycle into a curve. Beneath a lilac bush, the FBI sniper takes aim. Behind the tinted glass of a limousine, the imposter memorizes the lyrics filed in a loose-leaf binder. [...]
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32 art
ernest williamson iii
Dr. Ernest Williamson III enjoys the refuge of the art world and aside from amassing hundreds of publication credits, he is seriously considering running for President of the United States some time in the future. Check out his website: www. yessy.com/budicegenius
I Wrote It
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Pathogen of Social Misery
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The Grand Ladies of Greece
38 fiction
kenneth kruse
Kenny Kruse writes in the MFA program at the University of Alabama and he grew up in Utah. He enjoys wandering, music, and the occasional shamanic ceremony.
Greetings from the Animal Kingdom
S
I. Postcard in Summer
o I sit there, counting the five kids again, scanning the water, twisting my neck, one two three four five, one two three four five, uno dos tres cuatro cinco, yi er san si wu. They are there. And then they are screaming. Two, Three, and Five are screaming. “It’s a fish,” they scream, “it’s a fish. It’s dead.” It’s swimming, it’s not dead. “Come get it,” they shriek for me. Their round eyes anticipate fireworks. The fish looks like it is chewing a ping-pong ball. It bulges on the surface in tired circles. The
children keep shrieking. They are shrieking and there are four. Four is gone. I scan the water and the beach. Up by the sidewalk, Four is shaking in her mom’s towel. The fish is quieting. Its circles have become gentle. The children lose sight of it in the water. The waves come more quickly. The fish is quieting. I pull it out in a bucket. A fish and its water in a bucket are heavy. I walk barefoot into the woods. I pour the bucket into the dirt. The fish shrieks in sighs. The children swim in circles. 19 Artichoke Haircut
The fish is a pawn broker. The sun sneaks away and the silence is part of a drunken Russian winter. I bring the shovel down, crisp and hard on the side of its head, a scalpel. The fish absorbs the shovel, continues its quiet dance. There is no clean cut here. I find out that last summer the fish died in droves. The water temperature changes too quickly in these glacial lakes and the fish bloat. They rise to the surface, breach, and, unable to submerge, they swim. They dance in schools at the surface in circles, twirling quietly, stoned, quieting until they float, floating to the shore and to stillness. I bring the shovel down again. The fish should flop, but it quivers. I bring the shovel down again, again. One two three four five. One two three four five. Yi er san si wu. Uno dos tres cuatro cinco. I carry the empty bucket back toward the beach. They are watching, and I’m now the type of person who would kill a fish. “I heard you manned-up,” another guard says.
I put the shovel back in the shed, lie down on my stomach, trace a circle in the sand with my big toe.
II. Postcard in Fall So let me ask you this. When you are walking along, counting trees with red leaves, with orange leaves, the brown ones on the ground, and you can’t walk anymore because you can’t count fast enough, and this tiny squirrel approaches your foot, looks up at you with these cranberry eyes, runs up your leg, and nuzzles into your elbow, you forget everything else, right? And even if there is blood coming out of its face onto your arm, you don’t throw it off, right? Well I don’t. I name the thing. My heart beats faster when it falls off of the bed or down a step. I should let it go when green pus comes out of its belly. I should know, but the vet says it’s normal. I try to get this woman named Carol who lives in the woods with dozens of squirrels to take it. She says she doesn’t take the sick ones. “We ruin [...]
45 photography
eleanor leonne bennett
Constant doubt and inconsistent successes test all artists. If you find it too easy you are doing something wrong. Either put more work into your art or put yourself out there to get shot down. It’s the only way to really learn—hearing honest opinions and seeing different aesthetics.
Get Back Better On
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Sleep Without Ease
48 poetry
lily herman
“My sex-life runs the entire / Mythological gamut.” — Ovid, The Amores
Reasons Not to Sleep With People They a
re forty-three are eighteen are too scared to get hard are Republicans maybe are autistic are someone you already slept with and it was no good are someone you already slept with and it was too good are from Texas identify as queer identify with their mothers have a boyfriend think they’re a dyke and have a boyfriend are a male model are a couple on the fritz don’t use condoms only own glow in the dark condoms have their nipples pierced have a knife collection call it plowing call you a goddess used to date your brother don’t know where to put it talk about the government think Bill and Ted [...] Artichoke Haircut
54 fiction
naomi neal
Student, feminist, traveler, smarty-pants, sexy cat lady. Good at lying, bad at headstands.
Instructions for Grief
Dab your eyes with the handkerchief she made you. Make sure to smudge the mascara
around a lot so everyone sees that you’re crying. Remember, the worse you look, the better the person they’ll think you are. Drop your head on the shoulder of whoever’s sitting next to you like it weighs too much for your fragile little neck to support. It doesn’t matter whose black-clad arm you end up clinging to for support. There are lots of ways to work this. For example, if it happens to be one of your handsome cousins from Kenosha, make sure to hang your face toward the ground. This might prompt him
to drape a heavy arm across your shoulders. More importantly, it will deflect any badbreath smell lingering from the bucket of KFC you devoured on the drive over. Nobody expects the grief-stricken to buy mints, but stink-mouth is never attractive. Unlike your hair, which looks its best in this simple coiffure. Show it off to its full advantage. Who says you can’t mix business with pleasure? After all, it’s not like you two are that related. If you’ve been asked, or if you’ve wisely volunteered, to say a few words, don’t panic. Standing at the podium for a few moments, in public agony, is one of the best things [...] Artichoke Haircut
60 poetry
megan boyle
Megan Boyle jumped into a freezing cold bay though no one wanted her to. She came out smiling and smoked a cigarette. She has broken her ribs on a seesaw at 3am. She has peed in your sandbox. This piece appears in her new book Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee (Muumuu House).
8.14.09 w
hen customers stand in my peripheral vision for too long my throat feels like it wants to choke itself i want to scream ‘what do you want from me’ and fall to my knees from the perspective of my tongue my mouth feels infinitely huge if i close my eyes and someone touches my skin the touch feels somehow enormous i think i experience emotions similarly i want to see a periodic table of emotions, i want to see flow charts [...]
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63 poetry
dave k.
Dave K. is a consortium of museums in western Massachusetts. His blog is Banners of Death (www.beeohdee.blogspot.com).
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65 poetry
c.l. bledsoe
C.L. Bledsoe is a teacher who lives near Baltimore with his wife and daughter. Before he got fat, he was in a punk band.
Not Even the French Laugh at Me I
never wanted to be the man farting in the basement, so fat bending over winds him. Idiosyncrasies depreciate with age. Masturbation dulls when you realize women my age pee when they laugh, and the young are so young. Remember: I stopped smoking for you, learned the secret of language and put on pants. Once, I ate murder for lunch because I skipped breakfast, spoke in riddles only the elect understood. Now, I can barely handle tomatoes. Artichoke Haircut
But the basement is warm and full of comfortable things. I don’t need to see what isn’t being used anymore. I can open a window to help with the smell. It’s too loud upstairs and they don’t allow beer. In the dark, I forget and remember.
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72 poetry
andrés amitai wilson
Andrés Amitai Wilson was named after the famed Spanish guitarist, Andrés Segovia. A musician, poet, and medievalist, he lives in Western Massachusetts with wife and bandmate, Asia Mei, and an elfin daughter. When not conversing with the long-dead he likes to practice yoga and binge drink espresso—two activities that indeed undermine each other.
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Grandson’s College Fund (Tribute) W
hat made him do it, claw through foreign stinks, dumpsters, high and low, damp and dark as Mount Purgatory? Excavating obliterated Coke cans, he swaggered with a smile, radio in hand, his teeth—the tusks of ancestral totem beasts, his cardiac head, black as God, pumping three times a day with crippled cart; he’d set off from the chipping colonial
in WWII fatigues until his eighties to palm through palimpsests of garbage. They all knew him—my “Baba,” a sergeant of the heart, at war with Pharisees and history—neighbors who probably thought him crazy; I’d say dreaming, I’d say floating, I’d say loving like a good zealot, and conquering like a good commando.
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other stuff:
“ Yo u ’ r e A l l o w e d ” 8 . 4 . 1 1 Artichoke Haircut
Special Thanks Artichoke Haircut would not be what it is today without the help, assistance, kind words, pats on the back, and supplies of psychotropic drugs from the following people (in no particular order): Saralyn Lyons, Isabelle Livingston, Layne Humphrey, James and all the Dionysus staff, Gregg Whilhelm at City Lit, Adam Robinson at Publishing Genius Press, Ian Humphrey & Matt Kelly at Lunar State Radio, Matt Shutz, Jess Borowski (& all of South Korea), Timmy Reed, Mary Elizabeth Mays, Kendra Kopelke, Stephen Matanle, Marion Winik, Mike Young, Erik Pecukonis, Sarah Jane Miller, Malcolm Favor, Megan Lloyd, Harwood , the dark voice in the back of our minds, Baltimore, everyone who puts up with all our crap, everyone who comes to our reading series, and our dear friend from Ireland: John Jameson.