Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 36, May 2020

Revista Literária Adelaide

About the Author

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is a ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a seven-time Best of
the Net nominee. In 2012 she won the Red Ochre Chapbook Contest, with her manuscript,
Before I Go to Sleep. In 2018 her book In the Making of Goodbyes was nominated for a
national book award and her poem A Mall in California took 2nd place for the Jack Kerouac
Poetry Prize. In 2019 her chapbook An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium was a
finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. In 2020, two of her sonnets were given Honorable
Mention in the Soul Making Keats Literary Competition. Her new book Alice in Ruby Slippers
is forthcoming from Aldrich Press. She has been the featured poet at countless venues, most
recently, Mezzo Cammin and Verses Daily. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Tule Review
and former Editor-in-Chief of The Orchards Poetry Journal and a member of the Sacramento
Poetry Center Board of Directors. She is currently enrolled in the Vermont College of Fine
Arts, MFA in Writing program.

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MOM’S HAPPIEST
CHILD

by Patricia Feeney

Mom’s Happiest Child

“But Patty, you’re my happiest child.”
My mother spoke with a dreamy smile,
eyes lit, tiny glints in the darkened bedroom,
the sanctuary of my ten-year-old self.
She held me in her arms as I sobbed and pleaded for help.
Her happiest child.
Riddled with bullet holes of anxiety.
Sleepless. Fearful of my father’s footfalls.
His fists. His baritone roar. The lethal calm
that preceded his assaults on my brothers.
One beaten, convicted of concocted crimes
when our father’s love of alcohol morphed to violence.

One threatened with beatings if he became his brother.
His life a foil to justify our father’s judgment of his oldest son.

One drop-kicked down a hallway. Shoved aside by our father’s storming stride.
Nicknamed Football by the oldest boy.
I was the girl, ignored.
Curled in a ball in the back of my bedroom closet.
Trying not to witness what I heard.
Counting on a mother who couldn’t save me.
The boys of my childhood are dead,
Startling endings that did not surprise.

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The first at thirty-three. A paroled drug dealer.
Overcome by a ferocious infection.
The second at fifty. An alcoholic.
Naked, dead on the floor of his bathroom, the shower pelting icy rivulets.
The third at fifty-three. An alcoholic with a fondness for Percocet.
Dead in the narrow bed of a homeless shelter. Sober, but too late.
I am here.
Survivor of my childhood. Riddled with bullet holes of anxiety.
Survivor of a parent’s apocalypse: Critical injuries. Life support.
My husband and I on a dawn flight to our son’s broken body.
I am here.
Dreading sleep: the lethal calm that precedes the drop of the next phone call.
But I am here.
Perhaps I was Mom’s happiest child.

About the Author
Patricia Feeney lives in St. Louis, MO, and teaches in
Lindenwood University’s MFA program. She is a member
of the St. Louis Writers Guild; the association of Writers
and Writing Professionals; and a founding member of the
Crooked Tree Writers, a writing critique group. Feeney’s
work has appeared in the Muse Press anthology, Shifts;
The Lindenwood Review; Inscape; Windmill; and Bayou
Magazine, which nominated her essay, “Lifeline,” for a
Pushcart Prize. “Mom’s Happiest Child” is her first poem.

151

WHEREFORE ART
THOU, MY LOVE

by H.L. Dowless

Dreamin’ Of Peaches In Moon Light

I was living in Reno Tonight when I finally close my eyes
in a hotel staring at the walls, I can be with her in my sweet dreams.
thinking of the love we’d had oh, No matter how hard I try,
N’ where we’d both gone so wrong. three years still feels like forever it seems.

Here in Reno now its midnight, Home,
the stars are winkin’ in the evening sky, where the fence roses grow,
still there’s nothing worth me lookin’ at in sight, and painted belles never go out alone.
and I’ve finally given up askin’ why. Faraway where the east wind blows,
with the Spanish moss and the
Home, tall cotton is where I belong.
where the grass still grows, I cry as I sit here on this hotel bed,
where the corn fields are bein’ sown, weepin’ while I wonder where my
and everybody knows life has gone so far wrong.
what his brother and sister needs.
Home,
Home, where the Bourbon kegs
where the church bell rings, and the thistle hedge
and everybody sings miss me dearly since I’ve flown,
those beautiful time worn songs. while a wonderful life walking in the
Where the train whistle blows spirit of past grandiose heroes
and everybody knows was all that I have ever known.
when a dear brother is livin’ all alone. I guess forever I shall pine
away my precious time
as I sing this soul worn song.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Sweet Tennessee Rose

She glances at me slowly, After many a treasured year
with her glazed eyes ever so lovely, of sweet matrimony
oh this beautiful Tennessee rose. and love,
My poor heart is underneath a cool chill fell upon my gentle dove.
her enchanting spell, Through the freshest creek side
I suppose, herb and twelve year bourbon,
of this wonderful feeling only oh how I tried,
God in heaven knows, then that dreaded day came and I bitterly cried,
oh this beautiful Tennessee rose. when the gray angel of death robbed
me of my heavenly glow,
Like sweet petals of gold, my wonderful Tennessee rose.
so smoothly flows her fine hair,
unto the magic of her person I’m totally sold; Such a stormy day
with a single stare she had in pouring rain before her Celtic grave
me completely taken, stone I stand,
I suppose, a crystal vase full of colorful wild
oh this beautiful Tennessee rose. posies still clutched near my heart
in my quivering right hand;
Oh sweet Tennessee rose, oh how I so deeply miss our love
how I adore you so, and time spent with you though,
just how much my beautiful Tennessee rose.
only God in heaven and nobody else knows. I only long for that coming day
You’re the angel of my night, when I can lay right by you there in the grave,
unto my most dreary day you oh my heavenly Tennessee rose.
give me divine light;
so my story about you goes, Seek out the good in it
this legend of my beautiful Tennessee rose. how I know I should,
but I have done the very best I could,
I courted her gently through a phase of time, with all love in me still solely given unto you.
this dear angel of mine, Unto thine my spirit and heart pine
there was no resistance I did oppose shall forever go;
from this beautiful Tennessee rose. how after some thirty years
After quite a long while, the great sadness in your
I found myself walking down that blessed isle, passing still freely flows,
arm in arm with my beautiful Tennessee rose. my darling Tennessee rose.

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Wherefore Art Thou, My Love

When our time is said and done,
our moments on earth are through,

I shall relish those cheer filled days neath a shining sun,
and those hours lying close to you.

Know this single fact of being,
My love;

an eternity can feel like a fleeting moment,
My sweet dove,

when in company with one heaven sent.

Valhalle is only a stones throw away,
a hook cast into a spring time mill pond;

yet nothing puts more joy into a darkening day
than the sight of you approaching from a shimmering horizon far beyond.

I behold thy delicate face on stormy nights,
with blue fire flashing wildly again and again,

falling rain slashing so madly that it invites
a perception of childlike voices on the blustery wind.

I still lie in waiting inside our chateau bed chamber,
my dearest love,

patiently longing for thy glorious return;
even if ye be only a spectrum forever,

my luscious dove,
my passion still shall ne’er waver.

The flame of our love candle dances gleefully by our bedside,
eerie shadows quiver on the stone wall,

I often feel thy unseen presence at yuletide,
I so long to follow you deeply into that dreary dark hall.

With the flash of blue fire on the stormy twelfth striking,
the rumble of rolling thunder from far beyond,

I behold thy delicate form in the bleakest darkness,
I sense a warm embrace from a heart so kind.

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Why didst thou flee so far from me
in the day time?

Why does there exist this gulf so deep and wide between us?
You being gone to my wasting heart for all eternity seems like such a terrible crime!

I mix crushed hemlock with the strong wine inside this chalice of silver that you see,
surely a single heavy drink therefrom shall be enough, I trust.

Then far from this authoritative collective world where I do not fit,
shall I forever flee,

Oh, so nice when this deed is soon done,
a place of adventure and true opportunity is where I need to be.

This great gulf that separates us shall then be no more,
my dear love you shall then so clearly see,

and us twain can be together again underneath a magnificent celestial sun,
dwelling for all infinity in timeless paradise,

where secular imagination possesses not the ability to fathom
such a great pleasure there in-store.

About the Author
H.L. Dowles is an international academic Instructor. He has
been a writer for over thirty years. His latest publications
have been two books of nonfiction with Algora Publishing,
and fictional publications with combo e-zines and print
magazines; Leaves Of Ink, Short Story Lovers, The Fear Of
Monkeys, and Frontier Tales.

155

INTEGRATION

by C.S. Fuqua

The Last Nail Old

Wonder, I
regret,
disconnected phones, She was supposed to outlive him,
internet searches, but she gave up,
discoveries and obituaries— left him alone,
coffins dependent on visitations
and coffins from her children
and coffins— saddled with his name,
so many coffins each waiting for all
nailed shut they hadn’t already received—
by outdated addresses payment for replacing
beside names in the son he imagines
a 25-year-old address book. in another time,
another life.

II

He built the addition twenty years ago,
leaving the rest of the house to his father,
the old man who railed at him
for ditching the first wife and son
for this whore and her brood.
He wished and prayed the old man
into the grave years before the coffin lowered.
Now the room holds the memory,
the whore’s chair empty, his failing kidneys,
and that big screen TV,
unable to muffle

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the voices and names Blood Moon
to which no one answers.
It’s the fourth in the lunar tetrad,
III as bloody as the rest,
and she’s advising,
She’s gone as are all those years. You best heed the signs
His son didn’t have the decency of these end times!
to show for the funeral.Never mind
no one tried to reach him— Who’re you quoting?
the boy knew. The preacher you sent
There’s this card from him, your money to?
homemade, arriving today,
no return address. Why’re you the way you are?
In this house—its rooms, People prayed for you when you came in;
saturated in the stench of tobacco— they’ll pray when you go out.
her kids gaze in silence But you ain’t gonna ruin my day.
from every available shelf, I got groceries to get.
his boy present only in
the words of this card But the moon, the moon…!
and the shadows of his mind Won’t those groceries go bad?
to where he banished the boy
long before today. She slams down the phone
the same as last time.

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Integration Adelaide Literary Magazine
Religion

Warned not to talk to the monkeys, Born Shinto, reared Buddhist,
he didn’t know which way she’s found guidance in the Bible Belt,
to turn to ask for the time, abandoning the sound of falling trees
but the monkeys wore watches, to the forest to resolve.
spoke his language, Husband and parents are
laughed and played the challenge that remains—
and asked him to join in, the cascade away
even as the old man from one path to another,
raged in his head one saving grace.
about pride and superiority
and god’s intentions Angry voices shatter
until the boy could no longer Sunday mornings
hear him over the creamy voice over a daughter’s needs,
of the brown girl a mother’s devotions,
with the silver-plated watch. a father’s rights.

Speak softly a prayer,
please, please,
then silence.
And tears.

About the Author

C.S. Fuqua’s books include White Trash & Southern ~
Collected Poems, The Swing ~ Poems of Fatherhood,
Walking after Midnight ~ Collected Stories, Big Daddy’s Fast-
Past Gadget, Hush, Puppy! A Southern Fried Tale, and Native
American Flute ~ A Comprehensive Guide ~ History & Craft,
among others. His work has appeared in publications such
as Year’s Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, Pudding, Pearl,
Chiron Review, Christian Science Monitor, Slipstream, The
Old Farmer’s Almanac, The Writer, and Honolulu Magazine.

158

OUROBOROS

by Nathan Tluchowski

Meandering nights of lovehunger and wondering where all those smoke rings went wandering

needspeedlove forever jissom immaculate
blessed with some sad chasm
in which to cast our sinful wasted seed
something like sink bowl or dejected wifeheart
need sweety po-ta-toes and lonely afternoon
where whistlin faroff yonder train yard stirs us
callin us forth from our smallcomfort tombs
and shakes us vigor like into
emerald eyed saturday midnight somewhere
whare all love is lasting and children never get too old
into christmases when wrapping paper smiles is more
‘portant than coffee and that silly ‘bacco cig’rette can wait
I need a hundredthousand emerald saturdays just to get my sleep right
to dance about a bit in these dream wings
which most of us leave like training wheels
jump up outta this crazy ink existence
with rickety shoe soul and cold smell coats
pushin us right through droopin weathered doorways
out into that uncertain elsewhere everywhere
so turn that collar and hope bests hopes
flying through automobile weeks waiting
for sweet sausage and warm stew
but settle for cold grits and no meat for a hundred miles
then shuffle forth with somewhat warm stomach waiting
for our kneel pray sun to mount its saintglass turret
and glittergleam through stain pious church window
where we secretly attend for that smallsweetwinetaste
of salvation

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but leave feeling worse after pastorpriest dismiss go in peace
though when hot breath hits cold quiet fog nothing outside is changed
hunger still hunger
thirst still a driving force of lifelaughter
auto still out of gas and low on air
needlove n hotbeefstewsaway from winters skeletons
of white wood dancin poplar
where the sad leaf reminders sog to remind us that yes
in fact we were all once young and connected
rooted together in brotherhood of breathing sleepdreams
not long ago like stardust
old moon hasn’t yet forgotten
that flickerflint of yer igniting lifeblood smile
and with his million century face man moon grins too
needing love in all these quiet star nights
we sigh.

Goodbye Words for the Dead Fella

while I was holler whisp’rin
my wake up midnight moans
you was wrapped up warm
and tidy in your so sheer linen
with your worms
moan groaning your way along
cold cement ground
to traintrack busseat home
died up north Vi’ ginya
carried you there by quick spectral dog
thin and fared by string of ya shoes
rythym in bone and dancin
dance dance dance
like the down south devils lit up
get out fires in your stupid feet
dance around coals but still
when end of the line fell short
you’ve gotta walk
travel heavy down through prickly winter weeds
go on with moonlight growls and gravel slippers

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go sack it home cross dead rails
friend to all the broken wine bottles long the way
great merica neath some sad dumb howl
like starving lost coyote
hungry and lonesome for warm bed home
whistlin church songs to the sky
drinkin in the cold north night
with faint scent of youth and grease
homes up on ahead awaitin
you promise tired shoe
with hot chicken, hams, and sweetlove gravy
same old bed with the you shaped hole worn in
high noon sneak snuck whiskey tucked n waitin
right in the closet behind the baseball cards
and mother’s there and all the word is
tidy
laundry starched like little kisses on your cheek
and every beast is broiled harmless
frozen breath and worn out shoe
dawn dreams instead of road
yellin out wake up crescendo
dozing death in shrouded sleep
snoring laughter then forgetting
with a mournful rattle yawn
where again we can stagger drunk
you and me
through old virile streets of song
reveling in piss whiskey
stumbling home to some new door
to sleep like the dust
on unstirred lips
withering in winter wind while we wait
for every molecule
that was once us
to be cleaned up nice and
tidy
swept away by some motherly breeze
eternity is just a day away
so sleep easy til then
my forevor imbecilic friend
and take care to keep
from freezin’

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Ouroboros

Oh Intangible Tabernacle of imagined cunt! command, control, cuckold
Oh Great Exodus! To hurt her just a little more than she hurt you
Women walk by my window Wanton siren sighs from these
strange nurses, warm and wondrous pass imposing thighs
something to observe, something to carry. Played out in earnest
Daydreams wayward outside my window to love shower mornings
gaggle goes on way to lunch to passive aggressive pacifism
While I sit stranded on islands of tile Putting fists into drywall .
A Tangent reality, a symptom, Breathing together, bending together,
something to sift through.. Breaking together, with elegance.
Legs. Blossoms played out to bloodlettings.
Playing the daydream tapes all the way through Gone with all the ones who came and went
From sweet tentative kisses In befores,
and awkwardly entwined bodies Heads that laid ‘pon my chest before
to pain, to the dismissal of problems, Sighed hauntingly with such
glass shattering arguments, exiles, trust like saccharine
weekends away from locked out home. Played out to stolen hearts dripping strychnine
A thousand moments flood my mind Wondering now the wandering roses
All with different legs and faces. Hopes laid like Eucharist in them
With bloodstains in her jeans, rusting leg razors To only find ourselves sinking
Littering the shower, our dirty clothes stacking Invested, stuck, separated.
As the count of days since we last made love The wondrous women
Continues and compounds. Waltzed by my window
Nightmare efforts to: and I do not wish them to return.

About the Author

Nathan Tluchowski is a 28 year old emerging writer from
a small, dying steel town in Ohio. In the past year his work
has been published in Vagabonds from Weasel press, the
winter poetry collection from JerryJazzMusician, Volume 4
of Sonder Midwest and by The Whitewall Review.

162

MORNING WATCH

by Gene Stevenson

A Cold Hell Morning Watch

A cold hell, In a morning darkened to
fear between the neon, rainfall, the boundaries of
taxicab strangers, the earth are set close in.
killers in trucks, Hands heavy as if tied to
the man around the drawer handles, booted feet
corner conceals a ache with generated heat,
knife, like sin. too long the letter to write,
too short the conversation,
A confrontation, too far the ten horizons.
in the hotel room,
he & his desperation, If wattle were transport
thunderstorm-thoughts, & adobe carriage, the
battle fatigue, branches arching the roof
adrenalin the winner, would be an arc on the map,
no sleep this night. the wind a vehicle.
How the air has turned
A light shines, alien lately & the earth
through the blinds, unfriendly as if preparing
a sweet cocaine, for fire to come & conquer.
morning overcomes,
beast locked away, The answer to the question
soul’s scream buried in lies in a closed loop, no
a murmur of clean clothes. manner of entrance or exit,
closing tight enough to
grasp light & to hold it back,
compact a white river into
black dust that comes alive,
alive as the land laid bare
before the parapet.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Plans to Leave

In the early morning, That night,
I make plans to leave. the hot bed & damp sheets
Heavy clothes stay behind. seem crowded, thought
Boots & sandals, two suitcases restless in its fear of being
& a trench coat go. read. Back turned, face to
Move in with a friend. the wall, the suitcases press
Find an undemanding job. down with accusation, still
Rent a studio with a view, empty, still dusty on the shelf.
settle in to read & write. The passport remains in
Ask for no entanglements. its usual place while my
Make no commitments. pillowed ear twitches with
Incur no debts. each heartbeat, familiar sounds,
Do the real work: reminders that another day
walk the streets, see all, has passed as I make plans
listen to the encountered. to leave, a move that cannot
take me from myself.
By afternoon,
I have not moved from the desk.
Consider pain & responsibility.
Stare at the bookcase that
my hands built strong & ugly
for the love of books,
colored bindings, lives of
more solid men & women,
the bed behind me, waiting,
scene of more struggles than
months in my years. How
awkward, this, the heaviness of
the ex-piano player, the
one-time hockey player,
the former husband & lover.

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Might Could Work

Might could work with
sentiment &
not much else:
the sudden spew of
words on a page.

The writer pulls his
shoulders back,
plays the pride card, &
in an unanimity, says
This is good.

Except that it is not.
Needs another touch,
another eye, another
voice to complete it,
so in the drawer it goes.

About the Author

Gene Stevenson: I write to make some semblance of order
out of disorder, to make sense of the unthinkable, to make still
photographs out of daily rushes. My poems have appeared in
Chicago Tribune Magazine, DASH Literary Journal, Dime Show
Review, Gravel Literary Magazine, The Hudson Review, and
Swamp Ape Review. I have lived in several U.S. states, as well
as Istanbul and Rome, and currently live in North Carolina.

165

A NEW BEGINNIN

by Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo

A New Beginning I cried, I spoke softly,
I smiled, closed my eyes,
Of my heart I felt you on my body.
A missing piece. When you arrived,
It hurt, it hurt,
Oh, how it burned! Oh you were everything…
How it cut— You put me back together,
How it tore! Healed my wounds—
But oh that was nothing… Warmed my heart!
Forever, forever,
When you arrived A wandering piece
I felt it in my body. Of my heart.
I cried, I moaned,
Shouted, screamed.

Forgot who I was
And why I was there.
I just wanted the end!
Then: the beginning.
I remembered
Why I was there.

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Ink of My Roots Revista Literária Adelaide
Flint Knives

At first, I didn’t want to speak. The sun became small and danced in my hand,
Every time you spoke, But the wind came and put out my fire,
I listened, sifted through, Cutting me like a million little flint.
Put the seeds in my heart.
So, from the wind I took a knife
I tried to speak, And against it, I slashed mine,
But you wanted to hear And caught the spark.
Yourself alone.
I saw a new sun
The seeds sprouted. Bloom in my hand
I tried to speak, And dance once again.
But you interrupted to hear
Yourself alone. It is Time

As the flowers bloomed, I saw you rush past,
I decided not to speak. By your side, I hurried and
Soon I was tired.
I reached into my heart, I stopped.
Pulled out some flowers, You continued.
Dipped the roots
Into the ink of my roots, Your path has no end,
Melted the colored petals But mine does.
Into the colors that melted me:
Stems for strength, But if I can give what I don’t have,
Leaves to gather light, If I can hear what is not said,
Pistils and stamens And say what is not heard,
To multiply the beauty. If I am able to see clearly
With my eyes closed,
Again and again, Then,
I gathered the seeds, When I reach the end of my path,
And planted and re-planted, I will be ready to be born.
Brushed the roots over white flatness,
Filled with color, a wooden emptiness:
Now another flower, now another song.

Now you see,
Now you feel,
What I meant to say.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

The Moon

I wandered alone in the dark. The moon looked into my heart
Only the dim sparkle of the stars And called me into the lake.
That shone through the clouds I could not resist its brightness,
Guided me through the fog. I waded deep into my own tears.

I left the tall trees behind When I looked up into the sky,
and had to battle the wind alone. The moon was not there.
The cold air grasped my heart It’s reflection was gone.
And the wind threw me to my knees. I felt myself slip down into the lake.

Drops of rain fell from above, As I drowned, I called out to the moon,
But it was the tears Then realized: it was in my heart,
That flowed from my eyes And I understood why it had appeared,
That formed a vast lake before me. Why it had called me to the lake.

The lake of tears was a mirror. The moon never left me:
The reflections of my life It was with me as I drowned.
Rippled across the surface. Then the sun’s blinding light surrounded me:
It had come to take me home.
In that lake I saw the darkness,
I saw stars peering through the clouds. The moon warmed my heart,
The clouds drifted away as I watched, But it was the sun that warmed my soul.
And at last I saw the bright moon. I closed my eyes, and smiled as I died.

About the Author

Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo is a visual artist, poet, and teacher based in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Her artwork addresses themes of identity, transformation, and empowerment. She
has a BFA in Art (Pictorial Art) and a BA in French from San José State University. Her artwork
has been included in over fifty exhibitions in galleries and museums across the United States.
Elizabeth’s poetry is included in two print anthologies and is included or forthcoming in
various print and online anthologies.

168

THE ALCHEMIST,
GRASPING FOR

MEANING

by John Sweet

incantation for the refused are you a failed poet just
waiting for the moment when you
the rumor of your death or can become a forgotten suicide?
the lie that is your life
look
both
maybe anthems are for fools and guns for cowards
and at the same time
refusal is the key
sunlight and famine and
unpaid bills no masters
no slaves
the news of war
which is how we define both nothing more holy than yourself
the past and the future
let the whores who would
a false king and a blind prophet buy and sell you
and the vast emptiness between them devour their own kind or
where cities used to stand let them starve

have you forgotten let them be the corpses we
how to cast a shadow? wrap in flags to burn

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everything is wrong and it’s all someone else’s no harm
fault
i am tired of writing letters to
a pale white sun in a silver sky and the teenage suicide i used to be
all of the emptiness where
everything that hides i am tired of the
hides in plain sight almost-sunlight

all of your father’s despair and the sense of loss
all of his self-pity,
which is what he left you when he died who is it that builds a
town in nothing but shades of grey?
had a smile on his face when you
found the body, but that who is it that builds the workers’ houses
might’ve just been the drugs in the poisoned shadows of factories?

might’ve just been the simple joy consider democracy
of floating up above the pain
consider nihilism

only one of them can
exist without the other

only a kingdom of fools would
believe in
their own infallibility

a milkwhite god

a manifest destiny

find the point where all of your
most deeply held lies converge
and place your headstone there

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the alchemist, grasping for meaning or your death, which is invented at your birth

all days lost, all man with the gun says
minutes, all hours there need to be changes,
but he’s just as dead the rest of us
tell her this and then
close the door, he’s high on the fumes
or maybe say nothing of burning children

write it down instead, he’s trapped in the shadows
black ink on a grey afternoon, of his father’s fists
and then pull the trigger
a slave and a whore,
wait for the but fuck it
sound of laughter
no one comes to this town to
what else have you live up to their fullest potential
got but time?
no one talks about better days
until there’s hope of them
ever arriving

you learn this early, and then
it just seems like something
you’ve always known

About the Author

John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of
upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and
in the continuous search for an unattainable and constantly
evolving absolute truth. His latest poetry collections include
HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and A FLAG
ON FIRE IS A SONG OF HOPE (2019 Scars Publications).

171

MAN UP

by Frank Modica

Man Up Drift

Good Catholic boys in button down shirts I borrow my father’s powder blue
and blue jeans fought on the 1966 Chevrolet Bel Air Sedan, an unsexy vehicle
school playground, but big enough to transport six
testosterone-addled
rising and falling in the masculinity standings. teenage boys to a rock concert.
This brutal competition snared everyone,
I drive to Rockford, a 90 minute trip
large and small, Polish, Italian, from suburban Chicago to the indoor stadium,
or Irish, and my turn was coming. parse the minutes for the warm up
bands and REO Speedwagon,
I tried everything to dodge this bullet hope nothing upsets my timetable.
but holy cards and rosaries didn’t save me,
I dismiss the weather reports—it’ll
good grades couldn’t defer the inevitable, blow by, just a dusting,
I had to meet the bullies in but the concert starts late, the warm
the alley after school. up bands drag out their sets.
I watch the clock-we’re cutting it close,
If I didn’t fight back I was already a loser, hear murmurs through the crowd-a
my adversaries would stalk me in the stairways, big storm’s on the way.

shove my head against a wall, call me a fag. After the first song of the headline band
I had to show up, suck it up, and be a man, I hustle my buddies out of the auditorium.
A freezing slush accumulates on the local roads,
so I put my glasses in a book bag, the car feels unsteady at every stop and turn.
took a punch, threw a punch.
By the time we hit the interstate big snowflakes
Bloody nose, black eye, plaster the windshield; a
so what, Italian boys don’t cry. blowing, howling mess.
I wish away the truckstop
phone call to my parents,
count the hours until I face the music.

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Blurring the lie

I claim I’ve gazed at women’s faces,
arms, legs, buttocks, breasts
because I admired their classical proportions,
their undeniable beauty.
I loudly assert that I’ve never acted like

the creepy guys who sit down uninvited
at women’s tables and hit on them,
who think they are God’s gift to every lady.
But can I be honest with myself,
re-evaluate all my interactions,

make amends for all the times
I’ve been the arrogant jerk
leering at women who walk down the street,
who stare down the fronts of their dresses,
who look away only when they catch my eyes?

About the Author

Frank C Modica is a retired teacher who taught children with
special needs for over 34 years. His writing is animated by
interests in history, geography, and sociology. His work has
appeared in Slab, Black Heart Magazine, The Tishman Review,
Crab Fat Literary Magazine, and FewerThan500.

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VERTIGO 18

by Januario Esteves

18
The shattering of the Self from the apology of the sensations of the normal sub-people of lust is
divine vertigo in a quasi-pornographic record of modernist transgression that blasts sensations all
over space in abrasive delinquency in order to achieve a kind of sublimation of the sexual boldness
with which it is liquidates. the other.
Januario
2019

17
Saving trees, saving lives, we cannot take homes away from animals because without them we
are nothing, learn to build bonds and trust, make our lives more bearable with a calming effect on
the cognitive emotional perception of behavior and body language than magic. of nature makes it
happen.
Januario
2019

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16
The inhumane way cities fight the homeless by trapping where they stay overnight, committing
suicide to the spirit, a friend did it once in his life along the railing of a fence in the middle of sunset
and saw a rainbow pool for the first time. time like a road to heaven.
Januario
2019

15
After being accused of murdering twenty-two school people who were buying him, he said; people
wore masks on their faces security quards who claimed to be evangelical for the common cause in a
mix of live performances with Hare Krishna songs.
Januario
2019

14
A man makes mud lamps to light candles while a four-meter-long snake is pulled out of a sewer and
a data-storage sniffer dog searches pedestrians looking at riot police while a migrant warms up with
a blanket. space in the distant night ahead.
Januario
2019

175

RULE BEYOND

by Daniel King

Kalpa Adept Hemitropes

I am alone, eternal and one At last: this is fate
Follow my journey, the waterline’s force For the Pavonis climb is done
Galaxies and the Rift, And now Olympus Mons awaits.
The Earthlight that burns,
Twin-born I reign all I sense my gestalt
Infinity’s son. I am the Twins: more than their son
On this ascent, this base assault.
Afterglow’s warmth others will yield
Cold ways a last choice The tiers, topaz brown,
But old. Are remote but can be won,
Kalpas wait, And I’ll gain a basalt crown.
Kalpas pass,
Kalpas that show men The promise I made:
The power I wield. At the caldera, in the sun,
The sign of K will be displayed.
I chart the far millennium’s sea
Cepheid paths that the Tower reveals No pulleys, no ropes
Titans of the Gate It is a dare that I can’t shun
My men hail my name: This fate of crystals, hemitropes!
Adept and trigon
Kalki.

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Rule Beyond Revista Literária Adelaide
If the Stars were Yours

Its delta glorious, the Trifid Nebula If the stars were yours, the rheostat of caution,
Is incandescently as One Traitor software, would bequeath
And bathed in emerald and beryl radiance Worlds and moons to Earthset,
It guides and magnifies eternal brother suns safeties and exhaustion
Or to dark stars, their sawteeth.
With lapis lazuli reflection luminance
A background delicate and blue If the stars were yours, the heresies of ferrite,
Like wispy galaxies, but forming characters Rust, not topaz, would set back
And mystic arrowing; behold the rune of Tyr Moonrise, casting signs deserving of my cordite,
Laser jade-fire and steel flak.
And Mars redoubling, enduring, rubicund
That ruby honouring our rule; But the stars are mine, and
Emission mistiness in Scutum’s bright beyond polytope internment,
Red-Eye ennobling each bold and blazing jewel. Law of Crux, lore of heroes,
Metaphor or fortress, authorises triumph:
The brilliant scintillance of Sagittarius Signed Kalki, signed the Chi Rho
So blends as dominant and white
A blond philosophy; Kalki the warrior
His delta spectrum broad, his prism danburite.

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Anthem: Superhuman, I Win

And the iron butterfly soars Kalpa song of the Trimurti
Its proboscis triple, curled tight. And the last instar.
It has won With the pathname now known and
It is armed the unsent alone it is Tau autumn
Austere and strong. grey with the light of dawn.
It is endless And the huntsmen join Hanuman,
It is timeless Twin formed and wild in the dark
It contains us tain of life, always newly born.
It has saved us. It is Vishnu
Like a manta probing the void Shiva shaping
Like a mantra chanted for joy Brahma changing
There springs man’s far life. Maya’s signs to the real.
With the Zero and One united, Kaustubha It is trigon
and Tower now plunge into formal night. Kathor’s striving
And the crystal spheres from the gate are the Hamsa’s feeling
light of the 8 and are joined as in aphanite. Delta K and intense.
It is Atman It is endless
It is boundless Lord of Being
It drives us Lord of Seeing
And it guides our way. Chant this anthem
It untames us It is One.
Lord of Being And the heir this way formed is
Lord of Seeing the one who now warns
Lord. And directs all who see to embrace
Sing this paean time’s new shape and to love Kalki
Chant this anthem Our God.

About the Author

Daniel King: I am an Australian same-sex oriented writer, with a strong interest in Hinduism
(particularly pertaining to Kalki, the 10th and final avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver, incarnating
now and forever together with Shiva, the Destroyer), mysticism in general, and astronomy.
As a surfer, I am also strongly influenced by marine imagery.

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INTERVIEWS



DAVID W. BERNER

Author of the
THINGS BEHIND THE SUN

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something that
we will not find in the official author’s bio?

I make a pretty good omelet. I planted tulips for the first time this past fall and they bloomed
magnificently. I have a bit of a sweet tooth. Chocolate chip cookies come from heaven. Coffee
is the nectar of the gods, and I’m admittedly a snob about my brew choices. It’s also kind of a
hobby. I think I have three French presses and two moka pots. I’m a fan of Americana music.
Love a good road trip. And there is nothing as sweet as the sound of baseball on the radio.
There is something about the voice of a baseball announcer coming out of a tiny speaker on
a spring day that tells you everything is right with the world.

2. D o you remember what was your first story
(article, essay, or poem) about and when did you write it?

An elementary school teacher had our class work on a project; the students got to construct
a book from scratch. We wrote the story, then created the cover out of paper mache and wa-
tercolors. We even did the illustrations. It was absolutely thrilling. My title was The Cyclops.
It was a under the sea adventure that I am certain was born out of my early fascination with
the Jacque Cousteau TV documentaries about the ocean and the all that incredible life far
below the surface. I always considered this my very first story. It was such a fun and creative
thing to do. I still have the book. It sits on my bookshelf.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?
The title for Things Behind the Sun: A Novel comes from a song by Nick Drake, a rather ob-
scure British singer-songwriter who died too young. The lyrics have been interpreted many
ways, but to me, the song is about staying true to who you are despite what others tell you
to be; it’s about following your heart and the urges in your brain no matter how others per-
ceive this. In the book, each one of the characters, even minor ones, are trying to stay true to
who they are and where they see themselves in the world. That process creates conflict and

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struggle and they all have to find the balance that gives them peace. That ultimately is the
theme of the book. Find Drake’s song and listen to it. He was a wonderful lyricist, a real poet.

Things Behind the Sun is also a follow-up novel to an earlier book, A Well-Respected Man,
which was honored by The Society of Midland Authors for fiction in 2019. The new book
continues the story, but it remains a standalone book at the same time. I wanted to write
more about the protagonist, Martin Gregory, the reclusive writer who takes on the challenge
of his life—raising his adopted son.

4. H ow long did it take you to write your latest work and
how fast do you write (how many words daily)?

I’m a relatively fast writer. It’s the drafting and editing that is the slower process. My first ca-
reer is that of a broadcast journalist where speed in writing is important. The slow plod is not
for me and would never do in that profession. That said, when I’m working on a manuscript, I
can only write for about an hour or two at one sitting. After that, my motivation wobbles, my
ideas sputter. I can come back to the writing, but will always need a break. I take a walk, read,
do home chores, work on my teaching duties. I am not a planner or outliner. I write and hope
to find the story as I go. This process works for me. So, to answer your question, considering
all of these factors: I am a rather fast writer. In one sitting, I might write somewhere between
700-1200 words. Things Behind the Sun took about a year to get it where I wanted it.

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

Unusual? Maybe not that, but I have a unique place where I write. It is an outbuilding on my
property. We call it The Shed. And that’s just what it is. It is 8x10 feet. I have enough power
for a laptop and a lamp, books are all around me, one of my guitars is in there. I was inspired
by Dylan Thomas’ boathouse and the “sheds” of writers like George Bernard Shaw, spaces all
their own, spaces just for writing and creating. I built some of my shed on my own—placing
barn wood on the walls, tiling the floor, painting—and that was a labor of love, creating my
own space. It’s a sanctuary for me. I’m inside it almost every day.

6. I s writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize,
or is there more to your creativity than just writing?

I play guitar and write music. It’s mostly for fun now, although I was in a band many years
ago. Nothing serious. But we had our good times. I’m hoping soon to professionally record
some of my compositions just to see how they might sound with the right touch. A friend
has a recording studio in his home and he’s produced some of his own work there. It will be
a kick to give it a go.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?

There are many—Jack Kerouac, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Ernest Hemingway, Jim Harrison, Hen-
ry Miller, Mary Oliver’s poetry, Billy Collins’ and Dylan Thomas’ poetry. I love Annie Dillard
and Rachel Cusk, especially the trilogy she recently published. I don’t know how much influ-

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ence on my style there has been from all of these writers. It is more their creative spirit that
has moved me and continues to inspire me. Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, may be his only
true upbeat book, has always been an important book for me. More recently, I admire the
seasonal series of books Knausgaard wrote—just gorgeous writing. One of the best books
I’ve read in years is The Friend by Sigrid Nunez.

8. W hat are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

I have two projects. One is a manuscript on the process of growing older framed around the
annual changing of the clocks from Standard to Daylight Saving. It’s a reflective, personal
work that I hope will resonate with others. We all grow older. We’ve been doing it since the
day we were born.

I’ve also started a new novel about a lonely widower who sets out on a long-awaited
European trip and finds himself entangled in an unexpected relationship, in spiritual won-
derment, and becomes an unforeseen accomplice to a fugitive from the law. It is early in the
process. We’ll see where it goes.

9.  Did you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

I rarely think about this. Maybe I should. This may sound selfish, but I write books for me, the
kind of books I would hope to read and then hope readers will enjoy them as well. Writing
to a particular kind of reader is not my approach. Many times when I begin to write, I don’t
know where it’s going. It is as if the story is already out there somewhere and I have to find it.

The themes of my books have always been shaped around fathers and sons, travel, and
finding one’s place in the world. But there was no plan to write in this way; it just happened.

10. Do you have any advice for new writers/authors?

Write. It sounds simple, but you just have to make time and write. Write a lot. I have been
involved with conducting and speaking at workshops where the participants ask about what
the secret is. I say there is none. It’s a process and you have to do it. Musicians don’t become
proficient and then virtuosos by not playing their instrument. You have to play all the time.
Write, even if you can find only a few minutes in the day. Make the time. There is no other
way. Think of it like exercising. If I do it every day, I will feel better, and my health will improve.
If I write every day, undoubtedly I will get better at it, as long as I stay critical of my own work.
At the same time, if you want to be a good writer, you need to read good books. Read the
classics. Read the masters.

11. W hat is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?

Many years ago, an early mentor of mine—Thomas E. Kennedy, a fabulous writer—told me
to consider my senses. I had come from the journalist’s tradition of writing and I needed to

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spend more time and put more thought into including sensory language in my writing. He
encouraged me to pay attention more acutely to what I hear, smell, taste, not only what I
see. It changed my writing. It shaped it with a newness I didn’t know I had. I think what he
was trying to tell me is that I needed to put more of a premium on the poetry in my head and
find a way to meld it into my prose.

12. H ow many books you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

Fifteen to twenty books a year, maybe. I read essays, poetry, and literary fiction mostly. I’m
rereading Jim Harrison’s collection of poetry. I also love essay collections. Henry Miller’s The
Wisdom of the Heart includes an essay that is the very best piece I’ve ever read on the art
of writing. I also recently reread Annie Dillard’s Teaching a Stone to Talk. She is a master of
observation and language. Oh yes, how can I forget. I’ve reread Patti Smith’s M Train and
Year of the Monkey. She has the heart of a poet and observes the world with the skill of a
journalist.

13.  What do you deem the most relevant about your writing?
What is the most important to be remembered by readers?

I think the only way to answer this question is through the eyes of the reader. It’s hard for
the writer, for me, to see his material clearly through his own lens. A reviewer once said that
my writing always contains “an enormous sense of humanity.” I am more humbled by that
comment every time I read it.

14.  What is your opinion about the publishing industry today and
about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?

I think the so-called “democratization” of the industry with self-publishing and hybrid pub-
lishers is ultimately a good thing. But this demands the reader to be more discerning. Gate-
keeping by the pig publishers helps curate work, that’s the good side. The bad side is that
the traditional gatekeepers can also censor new voices. I liken a lot of what is going on in
publishing to the music industry. Artists can create their own work and offer it online in
various platforms without ever signing a deal with a big record/music publishing company.
Many of those artists are amazing; many are not. Listeners and readers beware. Along with
this, comes great opportunity for small and medium publishers who are willing to take risks
with new writers to shine and offer great work.

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185

LOUIS GALLO

Author of the CRASH

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something that
we will not find in the official author’s bio?

I come from a line of self-made men who could build anything, fix anything, me who worked
hard every day, but who also found time for music. My grandfather played violin, his father
was a published composer who immigrated from Italy to New Orleans; my father played
flute in both the Army Airforce Band and the New Orleans Philharmonic. My great-uncle
Achille played cello and repaired violins for a living. Not sure any of them every read much
less thought about poetry, though I often heard my father quote Omar Khayyam. I always
felt inferior to my grandfather and father because it seemed they could do anything almost
instinctively. I was destined to go into their businesses, but fate intervened. I enrolled at
Tulane University as a freshman and, voila, discovered literature, which changed the course
of my life. Naturally, I have felt guilty my entire life about defecting from the family business.
But I was hooked on poetry mostly, though I too was a musician, playing piano, flute and
tenor sax in a rock and roll band.

2. D o you remember what was your first story
(article, essay, or poem) about and when did you write it?

I wrote my first poem when I was either four or five years old. I did not know it was a poem
at the time or that it was a pretty bad poem. It goes like this:

Daddy is good.
Daddy is very good.
I love Daddy.
I think I still have the original copy in a box stored in the attic. After that, though, I turned
mostly to drawing cartoons, even entire comic books. I complete around thirty volumes of
them—and these too are still stored in my attic somewhere.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?
I have three books of poetry forthcoming, but the latest I have actually received from Ade-
laide is entitle Clearing the Attic. What inspired it was my futile attempt to clear out my attic

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literally of years worth of stuff and more stuff. I found a box with all sorts of mementos from
my remote past, mostly old Mardi Gras beads and throws from the carnival krewes in New
Orleans, things my family and I actually caught as the parades rolled by. I inspected each one
of them and were saving them for my daughters whom I assumed would cherish them as
I did and do. My youngest daughter happened to be sitting in an armchair across from me
as I pulled each doodad out of its box, and as she notice her name written on the box: for
Madeleine. She looked at me and asked, “What is that stuff?” I told her and explained that
I was saving it for her and her sister. She frowned, smiled and said, “Daddy, we don’t want
that shit. Sell it on eBay.”

4. H ow long did it take you to write your latest work and how
fast do you write (how many words daily)?

I write very fast, set texts aside for a while then go back and revise, revise, revise. I must have
ten thousand files of poems, stories, essays, whatever. I have always felt compelled to write,
even as a little kid, I wrote, I always wrote, a day without writing seemed horrifically empty. I
have always considered it a curse, but what can one do when so cursed. Write. Since my latest
book is a poetry volume, the poems were compiled from a few years of work, so it’s impossible
to say exactly when they were written. Sometimes I find files I had saved on disks from decades
ago and cannot not ever remember having written the poems therein; same is true for old print
literary journals. Sometime I actually publish NOW a poems I had written forty years ago!

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

I used to—back before computers. I needed a clear desk, a cup of coffee, a fountain pen,
blank sheets of paper, a sixty-watt student lamp focused only on the white sheet of paper,
the rest of the room dark. I wrote out everything by hand in those days, then transferred
the writing to an old mechanical or electric typewriter. With the advent of computers and
word processing, I have no particular rituals. I just sit before the screen and write. Only rarely
now do I write by hand—only when waiting in the car, usually. I despise laptops, so I keep a
pad of paper and a pen on my dashboard. I never wait in the car without writing something,
anything, good, bad or ugly.

6. I s writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize,
or is there more to your creativity than just writing?

I admired painters and tried my hand at painting, but, alas, I was a dismal failure at it. I tried
sculpture with slab of marble, but, again, failed. I can draw cartoons in a James Thurber
fashion, but it’s merely a hobby for me. I was first flautist in my secondary schools until
graduation. We played classical music then—Beethoven Schubert, Dvorak, et al. I must have
been pretty good because upon my Freshman entrance to Tulane, the orchestra director
gave me a call and asked me to try out for a flautist position. Well, I walked into the audi-
torium, took my place beside the other flautist, took one look at the score—something by
Stravinsky—and walked out, apologizing to the director en route. Reading music had always
been my downfall. I could play by ear pretty well and I could play well, but reading music and

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Stravinsky killed me. I did go on to play tenor sax in a New Orleans rock band, and my band
even won the New Orleans Battle of the Bands one year. Funny thing is I cannot remember
the name of that band even though we featured a number of Ray Charles numbers, Ray
being one of my all-time favorite popular music singers. To this day, I adore Ray Charles, and
I even cried on the day that he died. But my musical career sort of ended after high school.
I still play piano every now and then but mostly by ear. I can even play the slower etudes of
Chopin if I read the scores carefully.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?

Oh, man, that list could be endless. I was a double-major in philosophy and literature, so I
have been influenced by both. One of the first philosophic texts I read as a college Freshman
was Plato’s Republic—and it blew my mind. I had never heard of philosophy before. To read
Plato/Socrates was a revelation, especially the Allegory of the Cave. I wrote my doctoral
dissertation on the novelist Walker Percy who was intensely influenced by European exis-
tentialism, and thus I read deeply into Camus, Sartre, Marcel, Jaspers, Heidegger—also, Ni-
etzsche and Kierkegaard. These ideas influence me deeply, and I steer towards novelists who
echo their ideas. The only writing styles that influences me among philosophers are Camus
and Nietzsche. Otherwise, with philosophy, the influence of ideas is what matters. Among
writers I have been influenced by The Odyssey, The Bible, Lao Tzu, Ovid, Dante, Shakespeare
(of course), James Joyce, Emily Bronte, D.H. Lawrence, Yeats ( I LOVE Yeats), Keats, Coleridge,
Eliot’s Prufrock and Four Quartets, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Thomas Pynchon, Don
DeLillo’s White Noise, Doctorow’s Ragtime, William Vollmann’s Europe Central, Flannery
O’Connor, Anne Sexton. . . I could go on and on and on. I consider Madame Bovary and
Wuthering Heights, perfect novels.

I like ANYTHING by Walker Percy, especially Lost in the Cosmos. But the one novel that I
love most is One Hundred Years of Solitude (Un Cien Anos de Soledad) by Gabriel Marquez.
I adore it and when I first read it I felt my head explode. I would have give parts of my body
to have written that book.

8.  What are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

I write poems all the time or drafts of poems. I go over them repeatedly and edit incessantly.
I am also doing a lot of flash fiction, much now published, though the form seems rather lim-
ited to me. I used to write many short stories but have dwindled in output there, the markets
for long stories rather diminished in the flash age. Right now I am compiling new volumes of
poetry, reworking and redoing them constantly.

9. Did you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

I have never thought much about it. I have no idea who reads my work, though sometimes
I get fan letters from people I don’t know at all. I know lots of editors like my work a lot and
continue to publish it, issue after issue. And I assume they know what their readers like as

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well. I do have an imaginary audience when I write, and that audience consists of people
who think the way I think, who appreciate humor and philosophic touches in fiction or poet-
ry. That may sound egoistic but c’est la vie. I truly cannot imagine any profile of my readers.

10. D o you have any advice for new writers/authors?

Yes, very simple, never stop writing, never give up no matter how high the rejection slips pile,
trust mostly your own judgment, get inspiration the fiction writers and poets who most appeal
to you, trust your instincts, observe, observe, observe . . . a poem or story may- just happen to
lie in the direction of your glance.

11. What is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?

Not sure I’ve heard any, let me think . . . maybe from Verlaine (or was it Valery?) never stop
editing, editing can go on forever until that moment when you declare the work finished for
good even if more editing can still be done. I think one could edit so relentlessly that one
would be left with one word only: OM.

12. H ow many books you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

I read countless books annually decade after decade. I usually read two or three at a time.
Right now, and this will change maybe by tomorrow, I am reading Raymond Carver’s All of
Us (his collected poems which I like better than his more famous short stories), C.K. Wil-
liams’ Collected Poems (one of America’s greatest contemporary poets, alas deceased), and
Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters (a fantastic volume, almost every poem about his wife, Sylvia
Plath—convinces me that Hughes is the greatest contemporary British poet, despite Larkin),
though he too deceased.

My favorite genre is poetry, though I do read many novels and short fiction as well. My
favorite novels are those with poetic flourishes stylistically. I prefer style over plot. Plot often
seems mechanical to me. Some novels, though, do both brilliantly: One Hundred Years of
Solitude.

13. W hat do you deem the most relevant about your writing? What
is the most important to be remembered by readers?

Relevant? With the advent of the Corona Virus I began to think that everything, especially
poetry, was irrelevant. Then I started a Facebook Group called Gallo’s Poetry Students Jam.
Within one day, we had over 170 members sign up, each posting their poems, students from
every era, decades apart, all reading and responding to each other’s poems. I realized that
far from being irrelevant during a global crisis, poetry, of all things, was brining people to-
gether, giving them hope and joy and aesthetic satisfaction. What I hope readers remember
about my work is the humor, often very dark, the intensity, the grievous yet potent sense of
nostalgia, the irony, the style, the sense of tempus fugiting relentlessly, the tragic sense of
life (Unamuno) while at the same time the reverential Proustian privileged moments—say,

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when you play with your dog during a global pandemic, and her innocence and purity tran-
scend the morbidity and mauvais foi engendered by that pandemic.

14.  What is your opinion about the publishing industry today and
about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?

It is changing so rapidly that I can’t keep up with it. Not too long ago I believed that digital
platforms for literature could never compete with old-fashioned print industry. I have com-
pletely changed my mind as the years progressed. Some of the digital platforms are much
superior to their print equivalences, not all, but many. Authors must keep informed about
calls for submissions from outfits like New Pages.Com, Submittable, Poets & Writers, etc.
Editors tell you exactly what they want and you can decide if you fit in. You can find sites that
publish extremely long fiction, a rarity today—I just got a very long novella accepted for pub-
lication this way--, or flash fiction, or poetry, or whatever. It is also necessary to keep up with
WHAT is being published these days so you know if you are way off base or on the money.
The major publishing houses of old churn on but they rarely take chances, tend to publish
only what is trendy or assured of sales, require literary agents. But thanks to the internet, no
more SASE’S, that ordeal; on the other hand, the wait time is often just a long.

15.  Important question for me: What, aside from other literature
and art, are you main influences (muses)?

I regard all of my, and all of everybody’s writing, to be essentially autobiographical. However
“objective” an author strives to be, it all passes through his or her brain and must therefore
be mediated by that brain and that brain’s experiences and memories. My work is unabash-
edly autobiographical. My muses are first and foremost, my beautiful wife, and then my two
daughters with her. Almost every story I write “uses” them as characters in one guise or an-
other. Same with my poetry. When I write about women, mostly, I am writing about my wife,
Cat. SHE is my muse. She gives me ideas, inspiration, a raison d’etre. Of course I often deviate
and write about other things but they are almost always things I know, have experienced,
remember. I write a lot about nostalgia, the yearning for the past. I have a volume of poems
entitled Archaeology which explains this thoroughly yet in short lyric form. The past for me
is very electric and alive. The present moment does not exist. The moment you say NOW, it’s
already the past. The future is too weird to call and also does not exist—it funnels almost
instantly into the past. One of my major interests and themes is memory, its slipperiness, its
potency, its defects, its magic. I have this Proustian obsession with memory—the taste of the
madeleine cakes, the smell of lacquer on the banister.

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I basically NOW This one before computers in Columbia, SC

This one when I published THE BARATARIA REVIEW My Muse, Cat
in NEW ORLEANS

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KIPP VAN CAMP

Author of
THE SECRET OF ROCKS HYRAXES

1. Tell us a bit about yourself – something that we will not find in the official author’s bio?
I love athletics. On the side I coach my 16 year old sons track and field team, specifically the
throwers (shot put, discus and javelin). The experience working with young people is more
beneficial to me than I ever have been to them. I am more convinced now, than ever, that
the world is in good hands when the younger generation takes over!

2. D o you remember what was your first story
(article, essay, or poem) about and when did you write it?

I had a patient whose wife had just died. She was an artist. Shortly after she died, this pa-
tient’s health deteriorated quickly. I soon was forced to hospitalize this man with his failing
health. Upon learning that the wife had been an artist, I asked the son to bring in one of the
wife’s paintings to hang on the hospital room wall for the patent to gaze upon from his hospi-
tal bed. The son brought in a self-portrait, in which the wife had painted a portrait of herself.
She was an excellent artist and captured her own expression. The man became so inspired
at seeing his wife’s face once again that he re-discovered a will to live, and soon recovered.
I wrote this as my first short story and it was published in the local newspaper as “a wife’s
powerful influence, even from the grave.” This was my first short story in 1990, during my
internship. I’ve been writing ever since.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Secret of Rocks Hyraxes. My father died of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This experience
inspired me to write this historical fiction novel about stem cells, AD, and how a father can
shape a man’s life.

4.  How long did it take you to write your latest work and how
fast do you write (how many words daily)?

It took me 12 weeks to write “The Secret…”. It then took another year to edit, re-write and
reorganize the manuscript. When I am writing fulltime, I can write 4000-5000 words a day.

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5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?
As soon as I finish a chapter, I send it to my sister and my nephew for their input. They have
been invaluable assets in developing my writing style.

6. I s writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize, or
is there more to your creativity than just writing?

I engage in autologous stem cell medical research. This is actually quite a creative endeavor,
as I am designing protocols and new therapies for a vast number of untreatable diseases.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?
James Rollins-our genre is similar. James Herriot-Our writing styles are similar. AJ Cronin-Our
ability to take a difficult medical or scientific topic and to explain it in easy to understand
explanations is quite similar to Mr. Cronin.

8. W hat are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

I have begun formulating the second book in this series, “The Secret of Rocks Hyraxes”. I am
planning three books in this series, at least at this point in time.

9.  Did you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

I believe anyone who is inquisitive about science and medicine should read my books. I also
think that anyone who finds theology and religious studies interesting will be able to relate
to my novel.

10. Do you have any advice for new writers/authors?
Keep writing, and NEVER take ‘NO’ for an answer!!!

11. What is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?
Believe in yourself and your writing. You are the only person who writes like you. Trust yourself!

12. H ow many books you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

A Season of Life by Gregory Marx

13. W hat do you deem the most relevant about your writing?
What is the most important to be remembered by readers?

I spend much time researching my subjects. Each geographical location, each scientific ref-
erence, each theological reference, and each medical statement is based on fact. This makes
my story extremely plausible, even though it is fiction.

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14. W hat is your opinion about the publishing industry today and

about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?
Getting published is a decision, not chance or blind luck. Getting published takes dedication,
and methodical effort. Everything necessary to get published is now at our fingertips, tech-
nologically speaking.

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DAVID LAWRENCE

Author of the
IN THE SUBURB OF POSSIBLE

SUICIDE

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something that
we will not find in the official author’s bio?

I am a ranked tennis player and ski racer. I boxed on television and championship cards. I have
a Ph. D. and was the CEO of a large insurance company. I rapped three albums and wrote a
jazz album. Every major magazine has written articles about me. I starred in a movie at the
Sun dance Film Festival. I have published one thousand poems and several hundred articles.

2. D o you remember what was your first story
(article, essay, or poem) about and when did you write it?

My first book of poetry was “Living with Mirrors” in 1974. It was written with my wife.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?
“In the Suburb of Possible Suicide” is my latest novel and it was inspired by my lost adoles-
cence in Great Neck.

4. H ow long did it take you to write your latest work and how
fast do you write (how many words daily)?

I write about five pages per day. I started this book in jail for tax evasion and wrote and re-
wrote it during the next 25 years while writing other books.

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write almost every day. I do a lot of my writing in a small office at Gleason’s Boxing Gym.

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6. I s writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize, or
is there more to your creativity than just writing?

Sports are my other form of creativity. I find boxing very creative. I write songs and rap.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?
As I get older I am influenced by no one. When I was young I would imitate everyone. Now I
dive into myself and find my personality. When I was young I liked a lot of the European writers.

8. W hat are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

I am working on a book of poems about death and a novel about my business failures.

9. D id you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

Sad people should read my books. Also early middle aged people who are finding themselves.

10. Do you have any advice for new writers/authors?
Write every day and let the words dictate the theme to you.

11. What is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?
Follow the words.

12.  How many books you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

I stopped reading because I am 72 and want to use all my time for writing.

13.  What do you deem the most relevant about your writing? What
is the most important to be remembered by readers?

I am sensitive, humorous and off base.
14.  What is your opinion about the publishing industry today and

about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?
I am what I am and don’t wish to imitate any other writers.

My other books. Published poetry books are “Lane Changes” (Four Way Books), “Living on
Madison Avenue” (Future Cycle Press) and “Dementia Pugilistica” Turtle Bay Press. He has also
published “Blame it on the Scientists” (Poetry Chapbook), and memoirs, “The King of White
Collar Boxing” (Rain Mountain Press,) and “On Jail: The Essays” (Prison Foundation.) He signed
a contract with Eyewear Publishing in the UK for the poetry book “Broken Paragraphs.”

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