Ataraxia
Vol. 1 • Jan/201 4
selected literature with illustrations
A Romance by Tim Schlee
They lived in the shadows, groping in the dark to map the form of the other. Hers was a subtle research, half caress. His hands, by contrast, could not be contained, leapt from knee to shoulder or from buttocks to breast, and in their haphazard delight needed constantly to retrace their manic movements. The way was not easy. When her legs grew restless from sitting or weary from standing, she shifted, and they started over. He cursed. When at last his scattered probing mapped a web too loose to remember and his concentration broke, he beat himself, and they started over. She sighed. He couldn’t bear a distortion, a flaw of any kind in the image he drew in his mind. She wanted no part of him to go untouched, unmapped, unknown. It was love they were after, full and complete, and it was love they would find. But just when he felt he was approaching the end of his research, she moved and spoiled everything. He cursed. She sat down. They waited for the sun to rise.
11/19/13
by chris drew
1 latest news: man in red hat walks in house woman driving by yawns
2
unbothered eyes at the slip of a word burning down into a fresh tract for underbrush sly seeds thoughts to take hold unshouldering heavy concerns and bracing for impact no lack of control serious jaws and a tongue with two lips too blooming petals bundled sounds through the air as waves colliding surprising with intimacy cold ears and flannel
Hill Sermon by Jahni Delmonico Following the grey highway, straight as a dog’s tongue, cutting between masses of old, religious hills. The hills and sky in argument, scraping borders with sharp, wild bushes and irresolute trees. “When Christ awoke entombed, he pressed himself into the damp & naked earth which swallowed him and became immortal.” “Buried” synonymous with “renewed.” He hears the shifting wooden floors, pausing rabbits, cars breathing speed. He pushes up rocky crosses and weaves together the roots of timeless sprouting billboards.
Fuck It. Who Gives a Shit? Just Drive! by Keenan Schott
Too drunk to drive 65 We soared into oblivion Tossing spent airplane bottles of cheap vodka Into the winter air And cruise controlling past Middle American hopes and nightmares and wet, wet dreams Blunts were passed like the Eucharist. Cars were passed like gallstones in unremarkable shits. With our hair haphazardly thrashing In the gelid draft That weaseled its way in Through windows cracked for cigarette smoke We listened to casingle after casingle By bands we were far too young to enjoy sans irony And belly laughed at the ineffective rhetoric Of the anti-abortion billboards That littered the side of the road.
We stopped at a McDonald's for dollar menu delicacies. I threw up into a toilet paper clogged toilet. Then I ate an ice cream cone. With appetites not quite satiated And cash wads not quite depleted We hit the road Like deadbeat dads beating an already battered stepchild And debated which 'anywhere' We'd fall in love with next.
Ataraxia is a monthly zine organized, edited, and printed by rasasvada. We publish various projects online and in limited paper copies. Find more poems, stories, articles, art and info about submitting your own work at rasasvada.net.
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