Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 25, June 2019

Weaver’s Cave Revista Literária Adelaide
Joan

We stopped there many mes Le -handed, she was cursed enough.
but went inside only once, The ploughman turned his back;
an hour before sunset. the village priest slapped her wrist.

We barely spoke, my mother and I, Marked by the devil, she saw crosses
hated each other— in the sky, the trees, in the stones
an unwanted son, a woman on the ground.

who wanted to be somewhere, Not certain, she cut her hair and fought
someone else. That day like a man, killed the Bri sh soldiers
was different, the rocks, without guilt.

the mouth, drew us both, Even in a prison cell, she heard a voice
as if there were a secret, like no other, that she was coming home
a treasure hidden to a castle in heaven. She was no peasant girl

in the wet darkness. born to marry and give birth, die without
We stooped, slipped, almost complaint. God’s own daughter, He offered her
fell to our knees, like Issac, a sacrifice for many,

smelled the damp and heard blood on a terrible stone. But cold eyes,
the steady drip from the judge’s iron jaw and steady finger,
the low ceiling, made her think twice, think twice again.

a bat’s wings flu er. She fainted before the rack stretched her
She lost her nerve—said it into a faithless girl, signed a paper
was dangerous—we had with her mark.

to be home before dark. And on that pyre, her soul was game
But I saw a light, faint orange for any claw or saving knife. Smoke
on the other side, blinded her eyes to a cross that might

knew I had to reach it appear above the crowd. Fire was two fires,
if I was ever going to be safe burned to punish or purge the last
in my own skin, sins from her country bones.
As if she had a choice, she bowed
safe from her. I tore her head like any martyr carved in stone,
my pants and broke a tooth, both hands ed behind her.
just to be alone.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Ben Franklin at Northamptonshire Mrs. Walsh

In the old churchyard, among The oldest woman in the building,
the mossy stones, she recalled oil drum fires,
he was just a man, one of many who lay there, street fights between the Irish
not the master of kites and keys, lightning and Italian kids, gas lamps
called down, the American Prometheus. that burned in the hallways.

These Franklins lived without Her own parents died of Spanish flu,
faces for centuries, her only brother in the first war.
simple tradesmen in a simple village, lived Her husband was a good man
and died without fame, the glory of praise, but drank his pay in a bar
ten-thousand fla ering tongues. with sawdust on the floor,

Between two countries, between himself the blood and spilled whiskey
and the people who made him, he was swept up nightly. Their children
a stranger without por olio, without were like me, immigrants, gypsies
a hearth and a bowl of stew, spoke on the run, had no kids of their own.
When I walked down the steps,
in no King’s ear or welcomed young ladies
to sit on his lap. And the day was almost over, I always knocked and asked if
the English light gray and failing, she needed anything. She never did,
cold coming down went back to her chair by the radio,
to chill the strongest bones. always tuned to a sta on that played
a reel, a dirge.
How easy it would be, he thought, to lie down
and forget ships and legal paper, taxes and tea, I moved and kept moving, went back
the fate of Indians and African slaves. once to find the street empty,
Light was their trade, one candle at a me our building condemned. Like her,
I was alone, and like her kids
to warm a table or the nave of a church, had no kids of my own.
welcome in the window a soldier home
from a foreign war, the new bride I never asked for help and listened
and groom to the turned-down bed. to music in my head, the radio
of odd memories, her silver hair
and sad survivor’s smile, sawdust,
a burned-out lamp.

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Camp Followers Revista Literária Adelaide
Father Wren

On the edge of the ba lefield, He taught Zen beneath a eucalyptus tree,
just a er the sun goes down, the coolest priest on campus.
fires burn, the wounded groan, No stuffy Jesuit, he smoked a pipe
children run and laugh. and sat like the Buddha, said God
was everywhere, in everyone.
A fiddle is played, a song sung
about a war that never ends, Many fell in love with him,
heaven the only peace a soldier but he only one, though he never
will ever know. turned sex, the chance to free
the mind and body of a willing girl
The why and how ma er less new to new ideas.
than a wound badly bandaged,
a pipe of wild tobacco, coffee But she wanted more, slept with him
cut with whiskey. in the rectory, once behind the altar—
God was watching, she said, but when
Girls who travel in a camp wasn’t he? She asked for his collar,
all their own, sell themselves a life outside the dreary stone buildings,
for ten minutes at a me,
beneath the first stars, books without blood, La n rites.
For once, he was afraid, refused
beneath horsehair blankets. to peel and toss away the mask
Some sleep but dream he made of lies, defrock himself
of falling shells, smoke for an island beach, wherever
that blinds them to the bullet
the wind blew them. She said she’d
picked out by God before tell the truth, defrock him herself,
they were born, molded in His put the collar of shame, remorse
terrible hand. And always, around his neck. He said she’d go
outside a tent, in the shadows to hell, her family too, sacraments

thrown by the fire, li le boys denied forever. But even when
pretend they are soldiers, she vanished, never told a soul,
fight to prove their only worth, he saw her beneath the eucalyptus tree,
click wooden swords. saw her everywhere, his sexy,
smiling savior.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

About the Author:

William Miller’s seventh collec on of poetry, The Crow Flew Between Us, was published
by Kelsay Books in the fall of 2018. His poems have apeared in The American Poetry review,
The Penn Review, Shenandoah, Praire Schooner and West Branch. He lives and writes in the
French Quarter pf New Orleans.

202

A PIECE OF TIME

by Peycho Kanev

The Hospital Alterna ve Fate

Snow-white and farinaceous and “Your le leg is a li le bit longer
li le green. than the other”, the doctor told the boy.
“But do not worry, your big penis
Tall windows will compensate for that”.
and birds on the branches outside His mother giggled. She was one of
like in an aquarium. those “simpleminded” folk.
Squeak of rubbers soles The boy felt happy.
and wheels on the linoleum. And now he is
a man. He went out in the evenings
Then a scream echoes that quickly fades away. to watch at the star-filled sky.
It goes out and starts to wander from To listen to the shrieks of the owls,
room to room — the s llness of the river; the passage
of me, to look at the colors.
the pain is looking for a new recipient. Years passed.
Now he is walking
across the fields of France, carrying
the canvas, the brushes and the pale e
on which there is a lot of yellow, so
much yellow.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

A Piece of Time

And the cup of coffee in my hand
and the sun warming up from above
and the concrete street with the people
and the iron tables crowding around me
and the tourists talking to each other
and the kids s ll half asleep and smiling
and the bird on the branch next to me
and the almost invisible thread in its beak
and the white clouds moving slowly
and your words when you said
you would never come back
and I look at my watch that
has stopped forever.

About the Author:

Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collec ons and three chapbooks, published in the
USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Ra le, Poet-
ry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheeps-
head Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland
Review and many others. His new chapbook tled Under Half-Empty Heaven was published
in 2018 by Grey Book Press.

204

FOUR MILES TO ARCADIA

by Stephen Reilly

Four Miles To Arcadia From A Neighborhood Le Behind

The citrus groves punctuated with fruit. But the beauty is not the madness
Is it that early in the season? With Tho’ my errors and wrecks lie about me
the pastures s ll green,
– Erza Pound, Canto 116
the ca le could care less about
what ques ons I ask The Widow Douglas she took me
or the north-south traffic on U.S. 17. Neither do for her son and allowed
she would sivilize me; but it was rough
the young Mexicans sipping living in the house all the me...
cerveza and Pepsi in Nocatee.
Four miles to Arcadia. Are pastorals pastoral? – Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Choose for this ride your oldest oak browns,
Confederate greys, peeling I.
clapboard homes and lives. Aw, the hell with it, Ezra Pound.
I will nibble on the snippets
from your life in this mall,
sipping my French vanilla decaf, surrounded
by the flamingo pinks and aquamarines
of a Mediterranean facade.
The scraps on your bones are half price.
We who live on our American
Express have no need
for your Social Credit. We consume
what our appe tes desire,
and what they don’t desire,
we will learn to want.

Our troubadours have gone
YouTube or talk of L.A.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

We surf the unreali es of reality TV. but you taught us well.
Videos sunk deep into the mire of Plato’s cave, Your black bough produced many seeds.
our character measured in 140 characters, Make all things new. Image as mirror.
and we all byte into our Apples. Duchamp’s nude s ll descends
London looked magnificent down her staircase,
a er primi ve Penn. step by step, impression by impression.
Your ideas and me superimposed
* against ideas and me,
a smorgasbord of exo c recipe.
In a 1960 Dodge, plastered silly
with large fluorescent-green How could I predict my muse’s
flowers, pretending peace transfigura on into a siren,
with the help of Panamanian metamorphosis into Medusa
herbs ambrosia-sweet, si ng on a bus bench?
the alchemy of logos conjured a host of images, “It’s all a botch,” said the stone grip of silence.
fragments, swirling mosaics out of dust.
This magic, I thought, like Melancholy over honeydews,
enchanted mud, creates my plums turn quickly
what the canvas cannot. Circe to soggy prunes on the bo om
could work no be er charms. of this Wes nghouse.
(I never did understand: What
must I do to be perfect?) Passé as pastrami whatever I try to say,
School bells rang with Pavlovian precision. lacking the seriousness of kale.

Dionysian dancers celebrated in the city parks, II.
while the jungle crept closer on its ger paws. Much can be forgiven – go and sin no more –
Zippos taunted huts. Burn, baby, burn. but even suburban prejudice cannot
Wa s imploded. The daily dead counted. pretend itself completely innocent,
One small step for 2-S baccalaureates. since vile a acks always feed on
The kaleidoscopic caravans “first and final solu ons.”
of backpackers stumbled their way west – Steam engine smoke, running on
Campbell’s Soup, Campbell’s
Soup, Campbell’s Soup – me, stained the sky black.
the hinges blown from Pandora’s box, Wiesel ate the soup and bread
and Brother McCallum envisioned tas ng like corpses,
his silk shepherds and the rails headed infernally east with
led to slaughter by cloven-footed goats. the Blood of the Lamb and the
blood of the lambs.
* Whatever you did, you did to
the least of your brothers.
I could not imagine what you imagined
as you walked along the gas-
lighted streets of London,

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Fear not, the hate burns on. I, too, have witnessed the Pilgrim State,
The cancer spreads. on Long Island, a netherworld where
Southern night lit bright with the winds dragged November
the light from ki lamps. leaves over concrete
You were right: Too late men and bri le laughter scratched
cease to be destroyers. the brick walls raw.

Pisa taught its own lessons Ginsberg granted your forgiveness in Venice.
to the son of Homer.
A wasp built its nest without III.
any need for explana on. Let’s face it.
Existence sought no persona. The Shining trinkets ckle the mind.
mountain was a mountain. One day or another, we, too,
But Cyclops, blinded, feared the darkness. cling to our fallacies,
Nero and Germanicus dead. sinking deep into the warm humus
Only Virgil and Dante guided the with vodka mar nis and so jazz so ly playing,
way out of the underworld. our bodies fragrant with ennui.
Christ never got the call. The Think of Nims diagnosing
church bells never sang. sen mental hallucina ons
The white oxen, burdened by wooden as warm nests coddling affec ons,
yokes, headed to market. where the near blind see only what
Gibbon sat in the toppled ruins of Jupiter confirms and comforts their
while the bare-footed Franciscans too tender emo ons.
chanted the hour of Vespers.
That moment annunciated the decline and fall. Voices, barely audible, strain from
behind the college gates.
Judas knew to e himself good knots, The decree came from Versailles:
and all Peter could do was crawl Let them eat the novel.
off, crying hysterically.
Elizabeth had nothing good to Open the hothouse. Drink undis lled air.
say, sullen and silent, Stones crumble silently in empty coliseums.
curled like a fetus in a corner where With the magic of a moly, a
sunlight shuffled across a rec room floor. bromine for the bourgeoisie,
Checkerboards missing checkers. King me with the arcane and obscure mesmerizes.
the sha ered cla er of a thousand voices, Eclec c incanta ons stave off the mundane.
aroma c as the urine and an sep c.
A small comfort to stroke a “Wrong from the start.”
radiator like a warm cat, Tomorrow enshrines today as revela on,
but the meat was s ll good under the fungus. so the cri cs see you easily sprin ng

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

ahead of Yeats as symbolic. CHARTING A FUTURE TIDE
Very few purge themselves of pretensions.
On this, the start of my sixth decade,
Let’s skip any capes, leaving our in the second decade of a new
berets with the surrealists, century, a new millennium,
and seal our obsessions ghtly in a Mason jar.
And yes – dear God, please – the shrinking shores surround us,
save us forever more from inch by inch, decade by decade,
the brandy-breath Rocky-fellers tossing
their pennies to empty-belly kids, the wrack line of weeds and
glib voyeurs sucking up their junkie debris creeps landward.
thrills in the flesh of dead eyes,
and the flocks of sparrows The mangroves don’t lie.
twi ering like magpies. My granddaughter, surrounded
Sanc monious cant marches us
all towards Apocalypse. by her children and her grandchildren,
Lazarus, will – should – some Gabriel real retels her family stories,
– no figment flickering in light – come?
Bring us a compassionate ear about her grandparents and our
hearing and listening well, peccadilloes from the past.
voices we can embrace, ones bearing the Her tales head south, beyond
bandages, water and sponges needed the waves lapping over the oyster
whenever we descend into a beds of Okeechobee Bay,
silence illuminated by the night, south to where our house is
darkened by the dawn. a home for the groupers and snappers,
where the endless schools of
sardines flicker silver.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

On The Day I Die

The sky is clear.

Sparrows bathe in the dust of a vacant lot.

The Weather Channel promises a week of beach days,

days I will never see, but that’s OK.

Enjoy. They’re yours. We all get our share.

Keep any, if any, obits saccharine free:

He could be a schmuck.

He wouldn’t give up the shirt off his back.
He never took off his jacket.

These words, my words, evaporate,
lighter than a mist descending upon the Atlan c.

Tell my wife she’s the iron and steel,
whether she believes it or not. Make her smile.

Ask her, gently, to change the kitchen clock ba eries.
It’s me.

About the Author:

Stephen Reilly’s poems appeared in Boomer, Albatross,
Steel Toe Review, Wraparound South, Main Street Rag,
Broad River Review, Cape Rock, Poetry South, and other
publica ons. One of his poems appears in the anthol-
ogy Florida in Poetry: A History of the Imagina on (ed-
ited by Jane Anderson Jones and Maurice O’Sullivan,
Pineapple Press, Sarasota, Fla. 1995). Steve is presently
working as a staff writer for the Englewood Sun, a dai-
ly Florida newspaper with circula on in south Sarasota
County, Charlo e and DeSoto coun es.

209

A PURPLE SHADOW

by Stella Prince

Leaves were crisp against my boots. About the Author:
The crunch of s cks sounded
like a baby’s ra le. Stella Prince is a writer and poetess. Her ar-
The moonlight made my quiet eyes dim. cles have been published in magazines such
Woods are purple and black.
Woods are full of mischief. as “Seshat Literary Journal”, “Amazing Kids
I listened so ly for something exci ng. Magazine”, and “Good Life Youth Journal”,
Nothing. and her poems have been published in “A
Except for the shadow. Celebra on of Poets: A Na onal Anthology”
The shadow followed the moonlight. in Fall 2017.
I followed the shadow.
Something else might have followed me.
An animal might have followed that.
The purple shadow raced across the woods.

Never to be seen again.
The leaves were yellow, not sky blue.
The shadow raced relessly across the acre,
the search was on.
My quiet eye lay upon the wood.
The woods filled with silence.
Silence is loud and obnoxious.
The purple trees swayed on.
The shadow followed the moonlight.
I followed the moonlight.
Something else followed the moonlight.
An animal followed all of us.
The purple shadow escaped into the sun.
Never to be seen again.

210

KA OCEAN

by Daniel King

Ka Ocean Atman Counterfire

Oceans form with an oboe call; Arcing hard from eclip c heights
Brahma’s seas with a Tritonic horn. Equitant we hide our fleets
Now the sea is a blue spinel; Far from so interstellar night
Now the sea is a sparkling gemstone. Wai ng now for war.
Cabochon floats its topaz egg, Frontmen foes will embrace defeat:
Shabda on all the signs to be read - This is what we swore.
Ka a sign of those first to form,
C a sign of the waves that will warm Muon blasts interlace the dark
Coral cays in a future age, Strafes’ equa ons factor well
Coral cays that will lure and engage Space itself will be smashed to quarks
Mys cs drawn to the Milky Sea Centaur men, rejoice!
Surfers keen to see Chi Rho Kalki. Triumph comes with neutrino shells
Kali fears our voice.
As Hanuman strode through
the sapphire rip de Mantra chants now defile their minds
So now Hanuman strides to Kalki Atman raids now rape their souls
And everyone follows in the Yantra bombs now erase their kind
shadow he casts on us all. We have slashed their race!
Steel enslavement was long our goal.
We will rule all space.

Arcing down what a joy we feel
Bowmen proud we parade our fleets
Heirs, we ride on the endless wheel
Planets must be razed.
Now we march on molten streets
Shiva’s name be praised!

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Firefly Floodwall Adelaide Literary Magazine
Moon Arrow

All those stars, Nunki blue! Soon A spacecra , hard steel- tanium fused,
I’ll soar and see the blaze Alloyed with Mars’ grape, is first the man sign:
Wilderness starwalls hide from me. Expressing male love it shows the accused,
Cepheid beacons, chakra charmed, The world, Kalki rules as Kah, the new Vine.
Flood my path, set me free -
Topazine guides through stellar dri s; The topaz half moon is poised, a longbow
Firefly paths to reach the Ri : To aim my spacecra at Mars’s red eye.
Delta’s light marks the great Sagi arius Arm. I’ll land with arms spread, a cross, so all know
I’ve signed a new, Sagi arian sky.
Engines flare, pressure grows;
Kaus Australis shows the way And then I’ll see Kaus Australis, sharp, bright
Feral, unfathomed, wild and scarred. Emerge from red dust and arrow white rays
Nebula-kno ed twists of dust; At those who s ll seek to stop me mid-flight,
Primal stars, searing hard - At those who see crowns as
Galaxies cry for prime assault welded cheap braze.
Noumenal, fierce, my soul exalts.
Vishnu’s Third Leap bestows
Trivikram wanderlust.

Glancing back, Titan’s disk shrinks
among a maze of suns
Filaments charged with glowing gas.
Thousands of years from now I’ll see
Coming home, worlds en masse
Blazon my name for reaching stars
Nearer the Spiral’s central bars:
Praise Kalra! Praise Kaldog!
Praise the king – Hail Kalki!

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Gita: Outduel Annelid

Galaxies I transit now in astral cra Kavi;
Semio c nets are spread from text to Milky Sea.
Feral signs condense in empty ri s of space, or, worse,
Lurk inert in cyberspace beneath the universe.
Some like numbers enter minds through sound or sight or thought;
Twenty thousand years ago, I smashed the one I fought.
Far in darkness, annelid, it raged but I, Kalki,
Fearless, chained it deep within the semio c sea.
Ages passed, it fought again, but nothing routs my men
Mantra-crazed, it self-erased, rejec ng every pen.
Great Shikhandi soothed the crew yet spiral shells remained:
Only Shiv machines could clear the minds the signs contained.
Wars like this, Arjuna shaped, are really duels of Five:
Signs are what we ba led then and signs helped us revive.
Chaos rules this Age of flowing light, the endless Eight:
Ordered texts prevail against the purely inchoate.

About the Author:

Daniel King is a prize-winning Australian writer. His poetry
collec on, Amethysts and Emeralds, was published by Inter-
ac ve Press on May 15 2018. His hobbies include surfing,
skateboarding, following the latest developments in space
explora on, and listening to the music of Mike Oldfield and
Project System 12.” Daniel King Ar st Statement: I am an
Australian gay writer, with a strong interest in Hinduism (par-

cularly pertaining to Kalki, the 10th and final avatar of Vish-
nu, the Preserver, incarna ng now and forever together with
Shiva, the Destroyer), mys cism in general, and astronomy.
As a surfer, I am also strongly influenced by marine imagery.

213

TEXAS TOWER

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Texas Tower the wife you killed
and le behind
You set your sites on
the highest point in town and the marksman in you
with a maximum range takes over, perfect aim
and full inaccessibility from the deck of the tower
for the enemy below. aim true, hand steady, you site
the enemy
Who is the enemy now who is the enemy
you wonder as you drive
to the university and rise you shoot to kill
to the tower top you shoot to kill
your footlocker full of guns you shoot to kill
700 rounds of ammuni on you shoot to kill
the tumor in your head
the size of a full metal jacket. you shoot to kill you shoot to kill you shoot
to kill you shoot to kill you shoot to kill you
Who is the enemy now shoot to kill you shoot to kill you shoot
you lock and load to kill you shoot to kill you shoot to kill

you, the sharpshooter the enemy
in the Marines, top gun you, who
at home shoots to kill.
at a loss

In one of the deadliest school shoo ngs in US history, a 25-year-old veteran transported a cache of
weapons in a footlocker to the University of Texas at Aus n on August 1, 1966. From the observa on
tower in the main building, the former Marine shot random people on campus, killing 14 and injuring 31.
On autopsy, a tumor was found in his brain, which some experts say may explain his violent outburst.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

13 Seconds

And bombs dropping overseas
where the war con nues killing
the people and young soldiers
lose me, limbs, their minds
and the heroin’s cheap
on campuses the students
in torn jeans smoke weed
talk revolu on, form lines
around buildings, chained
to the ivy-covered walls
and the bombs drop
in Cambodia and students
at Kent State and everywhere
stand up and march, chan ng
to the universal gods
peace in our me
and the Na onal Guard
Ohio’s young soldiers
lose their minds
destroying lives
like other sha ered soldiers
at VAs across the country
killing
four students
wounding
nine people
sixty-seven rounds
in thirteen seconds

no peace in our me.

On May 4, 1970, unarmed college students were gunned down by 28 members of the Ohio Na onal
Guard. Some of the students were par cipa ng in a protest against the bombing of Cambodia by the US
military, others were merely walking across campus. Four were killed, 9 others injured. In response to the
unjus fied violence, hundreds of American schools closed as more than 4 million students went on strike.
The tragedy was memorialized in the popular protest song by Crosby, S lls, Nash and Young, “Ohio.”

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Mondays

She’s sixteen a policeman lies bleeding
five-two, bright eight children on the ground.
red hair in the window
barricaded I asked for a radio
inside her house, single and he gave me a gun,
ma ress on the floor she says later
shared with Dad. blames her father
the whiskey and beer bo les
I don’t like Mondays sca ered around the house
she says her epilepsy
aims out the window her bike injury
at the school across the street that single ma ress
a BB gun, then on the dirty floor.
a semiautoma c rifle
aimed at li le kids. I don’t like Mondays
shoots out the windows
I don’t like Mondays. shoots up the children
This livens it up, shoots down her future
she says and
the principal dies spends Mondays
saving the children in jail.
the custodian dies
saving the children

On January 29, 1979, a 16-year-old girl shot 10 people from the window of her house in San
Diego. The children were lined up at the gate to the Cleveland Elementary School, wai ng
to begin the day. Later, Bob Geldorf and the Boomtown Rats wrote the song “I Don’t Like
Mondays,” which became a top hit in the UK. In 1989, another shoo ng occurred at another
Cleveland Elementary School, this one in Stockton, California, with 5 killed and 30 wounded.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Zero Equals Infinity

When he pulls up in the van He corrals the hostages
he can smell the pines with the bomb
fresh needles in spring sunlight in the classroom
and the gasoline bomb where the children
in the back seat. sob and curl up
watch TV, read stories
His manifesto says: sing happy birthday and pray
Threaten one and all are at your mercy! to the women in white
floa ng overhead.
His crew has bailed
the others refuse to help Two million per child and an
create a brave new world audience with the president!
full of brilliant children
like Cokeville Elementary. He es the shoelace
to his loyal wife’s wrist
This is a revolu on! the touchy trigger
but she twitches
His loyal wife lures smoke and fire fill the room
them down the Pine-Sol hall so he shoots her
a job applicant, the UPS man, teachers then himself
and children, laughing children the children screaming
following like baby ducks the angels urging them out
to the first grade classroom the open window
finger pain ngs on the walls
li le toadstool desks. to the sweet smelling arms
of the thick green forest.
Zero equals infinity.

On May 16, 1986, a former policeman fired for misconduct arrived at the Cokeville Elementary
School in Cokeville, Wyoming. He and his wife held 136 children and 18 adults hostage with
guns and a gasoline bomb. When the bomb accidentally exploded, the man shot his wife
and killed himself. His manifesto stated his plan to start a brave new world with intelligent
children. Some of the children claimed angels in white floated overhead, urging them to go to
the window to avoid ge ng hurt. Although 76 were wounded, all of the hostages survived.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Future Mass Shooter

drops out of high school 8:00 a.m. die.
works at a gas sta on
lives at home The future mass shooter
trolls alt-right sites gears up in the boys room
roots for Trump shoots a football player
praises Hitler shoots a cheerleader
asks where to find shoots up the computer lab
cheap assault rifles shoots up and down the hall
to kill a lot of people. shoo ng, reloading, shoo ng
reloading, shoo ng, reloading
Work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. shoo ng himself.

The future mass shooter I just want out of this shit.
jokes about Columbine
jokes about Sandy Hook
buys a semi-automa c
mingles with the students
at his old high school.

On December 7, 2017, a 21-year-old dropout from Aztec High School in Aztec, New Mexico,
trespassed on school property with a loaded handgun. He shot 2 students and tried to
kill more before commi ng suicide. The previous year he had been inves gated by the
FBI for his pos ng on an online forum about buying weapons for a mass shoo ng. He did
not own a firearm at the me, but bought one legally a month before the shoo ng.

About the Author:

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan lives in South Florida and writes noir with a dark
humor. Books have been released by publishers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Poetry
chapbooks include The Art of Bars (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Days’ End (Main Street
Rag Publishing, 2017). Project XX, a novel about a school shoo ng, was published in 2017 by
Salt Publishing in the UK.

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A PLACE CALLED HOME

by Diana Papazian

A place called home You

I’m from a place of endless nights You, self-mo vated, hard-working, loyal.
of conversa ons by the kitchen stove. You, eloquent, op mis c, funny.
I’m from a place where people smile, You, poised, level-headed, open-minded.
yet their eyes betray genera ons of You, well-dressed, leading a charmed
sorrow and misplaced hope. life, smiling at the camera.
Where children are loved fiercely You, nail-bi ng, anxious, obsessive.
yet seldom praised, You, sleepless, paranoid, desperate.
for too much praise might You, an social, pessimis c, suicidal.
make them less than humble. You, so complex, so human, so vulnerable.
I’m from a place where people dream
of land that spreads from sea to sea
in a land-locked reality.
I’m from a place that might seem bleak
and yet is home, warm, sweet home.
I’m from a place...

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Before you were born

Before you were born, I was a workaholic. Perfect.
I was a 9-5er, a jewelry maker, an ar st. A er you were born, my heart exploded.
I was a wife, A er you were born,
part- me, a er work, when I had a moment. I was terrified
I was a daughter, because I realized that I could never,
when I wasn’t busy worrying about ever imagine life without you again.
my job or my next jewelry show. I realized that I would have been
Before you were born, just fine if you weren’t born
I knew I didn’t want children. but now that you were here,
I loved them but didn’t want them there was no going back.
because I was terrified of the responsibility, A er you were born,
of losing myself, of screwing up big- me. I knew that I would live for your
Or maybe I wanted to adopt them. hugs, your snuggles, your kisses.
All of them. A er you were born,
Before you were born, I knew that I would never stop worrying
I remember speaking with my sister- again (as if I needed to worry more!).
in-law, who was pregnant, A er you were born,
about how we would have no problem leaving I realized that I could never hear
our children with our parents or husbands about another child being hurt
so that we could get away and without instantly thinking of you
make me for ourselves. and becoming a blubbering, emo onal mess.
Before you were born, A er you were born,
I was blissfully unaware. I realized that while there would be moments
And then you were born. during which I would want to hide
A boy when I wanted a girl. in the basement
A brown-eyed (once established), and cry out of sheer frustra on (terrible twos!),
when I wanted a blue-eyed. while I’d be delirious from sleep
But you were there. depriva on (going on 2 years),
You were perfect. I would never, ever, regret that magical
Absolutely. day when you came to us.
Astonishingly. You were born.
And I was born with you.

About the Author:

Diana Papazian is one of the crazy people who quit a stable
government job, with her husband’s support, to try and make a
go of her beloved jewelry business and wri ng. She is originally
from Armenia and some mes s ll finds herself fine-tuning the
balance between her Armenian and American selves.

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