25
March 2026
"Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?" - Groucho Marx
JEREMY ERIC TENENBAUM, FOUNDING EDITORwith ABIGAIL SWOBODA, ALEC CALDER JOHNSSON, ARIA BRASWELL, JANE-REBECCA CANNARELLA, KELLY RALABATE, and MEG MUNRO
Please subscribe to SORTES through Patreon
SORTES is supported through the beneficent Patreonage of
IRIS JOHNSTON • JOHN STEIGERWALD • JONATHAN MCLELLAND • KELLY RALABATE • PATRICK EBNER • ROBERT POPE • AND SHEILA MURPHY
SORTES is indexed or abstracted in EBSCO
JOIN THE SUAVE SORTES MAILING LIST
Direct submissions, letters, and ombudsmanry to
From PHILADELPHIA, the WORDSHOP of the WORLD
Cover and Events Images: Poets of the Cities New York and San Francisco 1950-1965
B Myers
“The Muddy Roots of Glimmyril”
Glamour, grimoire, gramarye, grammar: all related and all sprouted from a medieval murk of error and quasi literacy. Words that appear in modern English fully distinct and with the antagonistic differences of siblings. Those who choose to dig through this loam will find connecting stems leading down to hidden roots -- in this case, the ancient Greek gram ("that which is drawn," as in a picture, character, letter, etc.), a truly prolific word with stems appearing in many other languages. In fact, it even wanders through Latin and French to reappear in English with identical spelling but a much-altered definition. It's provocative to think how grammar, a word concerned with rules and definitions, is a tongue slip away from glamour, whose meaning is nearly the opposite. The truth versus the lie.Similar-sounding glimmer, glimpse, and gleam, though cognate with each other, are not related to the others. Instead, we find these and various cousins in languages like Dutch and German mostly representing intensities of light and sight. Down in the Proto-Indo-European substrate, we find the root of these to be the fecund ghel, which at its simplest means "to shine." This root has given us glow, glisten, glare, glass, glaze, and glitter. It also gives us gold and yellow. Ghel was associated with the colors yellow and green, and etymology finds a connection between these colors and bile or gall (the latter word is in fact another descendent of this root) -- a peculiar shade of meaning that might have influenced our word's origin.But does glimmyril really come from either stock? The y looks Greek in one light, Celtic in another. What if the word began as a compound? Could ril be related to the Indo-European rei ("to flow, run," and hence our river and rill)? Should we seriously consider the German klimmen (cognate to our climb) as some have put forward? That would have a poetic logic, considering the substance's tendency to organize itself into threads or tendrils that seem purposeful (a climbing river, if you will). But this is rash speculation.Conjecture aside, we know the word is quite rare. It traces back to the 15th century, first appearing in German works around this time and in French shortly thereafter. Bypassing England, it appeared in American English in the 18th century. Once in America, as in Europe, the word -- and the substance -- remained in the shadows of folk mysticism, ignored by the chemists, encyclopedists, and philologists of the time. But let's step back a moment to consider what glimmyril is created from: glimmy earth.Strangely, we must turn to colonial America for the first known written mention of glimmy earth. There is no reference to it in Europe before modern times. Since glimmyril must have first been created there, its makers must have been familiar with glimmy earth. Probably the omission is due to this knowledge being part of a guarded, oral tradition.In America we find a description of glimmy earth in a paper Benjamin Franklin wrote around the time of one of his visits to England. Franklin had an abiding interest in agriculture and regularly wrote about the subject. He brought seeds and new ideas back from his trips to Europe, introducing Americans to English advances in crop rotation, new food plants, and even the use of gypsum as fertilizer. And so, anything so curious as glimmy earth would of course have caught his attention. In this paper, addressed to the Royal Academy of Brussels, he noted that in Pennsylvania, there was a "certain uncouth soil called glimmy earth by those Farmers, who, when digging up an old Jakes would oftimes give it to Potters, who, being Emigrants and using secret methods, made a kind of clay to shape ugly little Figures." Franklin mentions glimmy earth again in a Pennsylvania Gazette editorial, there merely mentioning how enterprising workmen might sell glimmy earth for a small sum rather than dumping it. Franklin had a keen curiosity, but in this case his distaste for continentals clouded his perceptiveness, and he apparently never delved further.While glimmy earth did appear in the odd newspaper or almanack during the 18th century, it was never more than a curiosity to the public. Publications sometimes referred to it as night dirt and in some cases may have conflated it with animal manure. When it was mentioned in conjunction with glimmyril, comments were generally dismissive. We learn in American Agriculture (1779, author uncertain) that "proving that clay called glimmyril from night dirt" was only practiced by "older Germans who had many superstitions," and that they were wont to consult the moon for all manner of decisions, believing "a man will suffer moon madness if it shines on him in bed, that cutting fingernails in a new moon prevents toothache, and that fish hung in moon light will become poisonous." The author tells us that likewise, glimmy earth was proved by spreading it out during a full moon and allowing it to absorb "virtue" over several nights.While English-speaking natives were looking down their noses at the uncouth newcomers and their folk healers (especially the hex-making brauchers), the accounts written by the newcomers themselves provided less judgment and more description. For example, there was the enduringly popular Der Lang Verborgen Bruder (The Long Hidden Brother), published in 1816. This grimoire provided tidbits about the process of turning glimmy earth into glimmyril, and there is good reason to think the author knew more than he wrote. There were references to the best kinds of glimmy earth (a green tint meant it had not aged well, a reddish tint would give unpredictable results, and a deep brownish black was considered ideal), and even some "recipes." Here and elsewhere, we find such ingredients as ground bone, quarry dust or swarf, fungi, crow feathers, raccoon fur, and hard cider or applejack to be combined with glimmy earth before its moon curing. Following a quick firing to dry it, the material was mixed with clay and a nameless liquid (referred to only as broth or barm), shaped, thrown, and brought to the kiln. The resultant creations (Franklin's "ugly little Figures") were then painted or adorned with caps, trousers, and jackets, typically made of cheap materials like burlap, and leftover scraps of cloth. The figures were placed in what were obviously strategic or warding locations by farmers: henhouses, corn cribs, kitchen doors, and wells.The old sources, in addition to sharing ideal colors, locations, and best harvest times, noted that glimmy earth's faint smell was rich yet inoffensive. The best material had veins or tendrils that were strangely damp to the touch, evocative of mucilage, yet leaving the hands dry. This was the "quick" stuff approved by potters. Both our modern-day field antiquarians and backwoods brauchers concur that these damp veins of glimmy earth are the most potent. Harvesters, then and now, tease out the material like miners working veins of gold.Quick glimmy earth may even worm out of its central mass into the surrounding ground. This is a mystery no sources touch on and we will leave it for others to explore. Instead, let's consider one more etymological thread. It comes from a bit of doggerel once common to areas where it is known glimmy earth was harvested historically.Glim, glam, glom
Up from dirt he come
Glom, glam, glim
In the kiln with himForgotten now, this slightly menacing rhyme was once heard in the barnyards and country lanes of the Pennsylvania hinterlands and points further west. We have already considered where our subject word may have come from, and now here we have glim and glam appearing suggestively together. But what about glom? Many readers will be familiar with the English word meaning "to snatch, seize, or grab." However, that glom didn't enter common usage until around the end of the 19th century. These lines go back much further -- there are accounts of rural schoolchildren reciting them in the 1810s. If we keep in mind the lines originated with people who kept the tongue of the old country for generations, there is a more interesting scenario. The Latin glomus grew into new forms in French and found its way into German as well. Its basic meaning ("ball of yarn, wound like a ball, rolled together"), never radically changed. In fact, some farmers of the time referred to the root balls of trees as gloms.Were the lines a translation? Or did they arise from some braucher's potter's bench with deliberation? Or are they nonsense? Another mystery we must leave to others. What we do know is that the phrase "glim, glam, glom" appears in other places and always in connection with braucherei.In an 1836 letter to a colleague at the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania, a country physician complains of the rampant "superstitions and practices of the hex men" in the area. In his listing of their superstitions, he notes that they would make small clay "man statues," and on the bottom of the right foot "inscribe glim glam glom and on the left foot glom glam glim…these statues they give to poor ignorant fellows" for warding evil, disease, and bad luck. This practice is corroborated in other accounts by doctors, curious travelers, and one journalist who ventured into the hinterlands before retreating back to Philadelphia to write about "certain of the folk who would make clay statues... and write verses of utmost nonsense upon their feet, by which hexes and fancies be sealed." What to make of these "man statues" or "ugly little Figures" that both fascinated and repelled the educated classes? That, at least, has been explored elsewhere. Curious readers will find an excellent orientation in Charl Vormwald's Colonial Hex Men.Knowledge of glimmyril spread west over time, with references especially appearing across the Midwest in the 19th century. Then... silence. The 20th century appeared to forget it. Outside the occasional mention in a folklore journal, the word disappeared. In fact, it can't be found in any major dictionary. But we know glimmyril's production never entirely stopped. It continues to be made, though details are scant. Today's practitioners, when they can be unearthed, are reticent.Of what we know, modern practice follows the old methods, though some details seem mongrelized. There continues to be an emphasis on timing (working by lunar phases) and the quality of glimmy earth. The ingredients are similar. Of these, any alcohol of suitably high proof is now acceptable, and it is agreed that there is a preferred fungus known today as goldy tar foot or cave scat (older sources also have it as cave sprack). There are still two discrete firing steps, and the material is always shaped as a diminutive manikin. Recent sources use the term glimmy man -- a name that has gained traction recently thanks to its resurrection by cryptid hunters. Dressed or painted, and sometimes holding objects such as satchels, rope, or shovels, these figures can look vaguely similar to the garden gnomes that dot American lawns. But unlike those terra-cotta figures, our subjects were of course made with a purpose beyond ornamentation.Even to our knowledgeable readers, glimmyril's appearance after its final firing is probably unknown. The glimmy men are only brought out after being thoughtfully prepared and bedecked. But before these final touches, glimmyril appears tan to bone colored, with an ashy cast. It is damp to the touch (not a pleasant sensation, reportedly) and usually cooler feeling than surrounding objects. The substance is light yet durable -- unlike terra-cotta, it is renowned for not breaking when dropped. That said, while fragments of glimmyril have been acquired by interested parties, we find no lore about its durability and no record of chemical analysis or even an interest in strength testing in academic literature. With the lack of scientific curiosity and the tendency of field specimens to disappear, it seems unlikely that we will learn anything about glimmyril's properties any time soon.Of glimmyril in its final form, much has been written by Vormwald and others, and we will leave it to readers to decide whether glimmy men are folk guardians of an occult nature or a vestige of the human proclivity for creating wards and signs to protect land, livestock, and valuables. Either way, the subject remains neglected in the realm of American arcana. It is a compelling mystery, and this author believes much remains undiscovered.
Jennifer Marysia Landretti
Seven Senryu / Haiku
shotgun
windchime
catalpa pods in october --
.........a thousand lynched serpents
amid the drooping fans
.....of court prostitutes
a lane of brightened frost
....................inches toward the giant skeleton
........sleeping on its bones
embers within
a circle of striped blankets
made of fire
............deep in the urban park --
painted turkey chained like a bicycle
to an ornamental shrub
line
......twig
..............................wire
.
............................................-- a finch!
struck, the brass bowl chimes
.
..............................................fly orbits away
returns
René Regoula Houtrides
“I'm Not Zsa Zsa”
"Zsa Zsa! Zsa Zsa! Come here! I'll give you $500 if you take off my slippers."For 500 smackaroos I'm willing to give it try. I hold my mother's blue-veined right ankle and gently remove one -- only one -- wooly slipper. I'm testing her monetary offer. I wait for my $250. When I realize the moolah is not forthcoming, I sigh and extract the slipper from my mother's other swollen foot.My name is not Zsa Zsa. It's Connie. My mother is 87 years old. She is in a nursing home. To my knowledge, my mother has never known anyone named Zsa Zsa except -- via television -- that Gabor sister with the Hollywood Hungarian accent, the carnival jewelry, and the cavalcade of questionable husbands."Zsa Zsa," my mother says to me, "what is the name of that thing? Over there, in the corner, with legs like a . . . a thing?"Words float from my mother's Alzheimer's brain like soap blown through a child's bubble wand. Verbs, adjectives, nouns burst noiselessly, one by one. The proper noun Connie popped a while ago; I am a visiting stranger. I worry that I'm heading in that bubble direction myself. For instance, I once had a mnemonic device for being able to name the six Iroquois nations, but I can't remember it."The thing in the corner is a walker, Mom.""What?""It helps you walk. Do you want to take a little walk?""No.""Let's go down the corridor. It'll be good exercise for you.""No.""OK. How about in the wheelchair? You don't have to walk, I'll push you."My mother tries to think. She reaches into her on-the-blink brain and emerges empty-handed. She splays those hands across her mottled temples. At this angle I recognize her from when she was younger and bright with love, before time glazed her eyes with Vaseline, cottoned her ears, and shook her voice.I clasp my mother under her armpits and hoist her toward the wheelchair, which skitters away as I try to stabilize it with my foot. I forgot to put the brake on. I'm not doing this caretaking job very well. I lost my real job because I wasn't doing that one well, either. The last straw was when my phone rang, for the umpteenth time, in the middle of a meeting with a client."I need to take this call," I mouthed silently to Mr. C, my boss. "It's my mother."Mr. C's face registered an expression I didn't recognize. He was angry? He was sympathetic? He was suppressing a sneeze? It turned out to be what his face looked like when he was deciding to fire me.What my mother said during that phone call from Florida was, "I'm alone and there's no lights. Nothing. What am I gonna do? It's all black and bluk. I can't see anything."It was 11 a.m. where my mother was. How dark, how "black and bluk" could it be?"Mom, did you get a storm?""No, I didn't get a phone.""Not 'phone.' Storm. Did you get a storm?""What form?""Did you get a RAINSTORM?""What?"I got off the phone and immediately called the home health aide whom I was paying to make daily visits to my mother. The aide explained that electrical service to my mother's apartment had been disrupted two hours ago and was now restored. The only darkness my mother was experiencing during her call to me was the murky fear that brimmed inside her tattered mind. That darkness was huge. No electrical service could pierce it.The next day I flew, jobless, to Florida. My mother had been living there for the past 11 years -- first with my father and then (after his death) alone -- in a condominium that appeared to be made entirely of plastic. I had deduced, from my mother's recent phone calls, that the sheer artificiality of her environment had seeped into her mind and turned it synthetic.When I arrived at the condo, a TV was blathering in the living room. My mother had company -- Esther and Esther's husband, Ira. My mother had befriended the couple at the Lego-like housing development where they all lived. The trio was watching a public service announcement. Bacteria had invaded the county's water supply, and the health board had issued an advisory. Residents were instructed to boil all water used for drinking or food preparation, for three days."Hear that?" said Esther. "The water is no good. We need to boil it for three days.""But if we boil the water for three days, doesn't it just boil away?" said my mother."Don't be silly," said Esther. "Before it boils away, you just add more."Ira wobbled the remote in his hand and changed the channel to a football game."How do they do that?" my mother asked, pointing at the television. "That box. How do they get all those little people in there? And that one, is that Valerie?""No, Mom." I said, "I'm pretty sure the quarterback is not your older sister."There was no use mentioning that any game that included Valerie would have to be played in the afterlife."Esther, I think I have cancer," my mother said.I'd heard my mother's theory before, and I knew something about cancer. That was the disease that had prowled burglar-like into my husband, Ray, and cornered him. Ray had worked in the printing industry, and the instigating culprit had probably been the benzene used to clean the equipment. So, for five nightmare years, I knew plenty about cancer. Radiation. Chemotherapy. More than once, I was convinced the doctors were a batch of schmoes. I detested acute myeloid leukemia's trickery, what it did to Ray. The jarring bone pain, the rake of fatigue, the combustible hammer of fevers. Ray wasn't the kind of guy to throw in the towel. But sometimes you lose. Ray died at 4:43 a.m., when the streets are quiet. He was 52. So be it.When my mother continued her lament with, "Esther, I think I have cancer and my daughter won't tell me," I walked over and stood as close to her as I could, like a child with her ear to a door, trying to catch what was happening on the other side of it.Up, from somewhere, trickles a memory of my standing just this same way, long ago, little more than a baby, in my pink feet-y pajamas. And my mother opens the door, her apron smudged with fresh-baked birthday cake. Oh, delicious."Mom," I said, "Don't say that to Esther. Don't confuse her. I'm your daughter and I'm telling you that you do not have cancer.""Yes, I do. Just ask my daughter. We went to two doctors. First one, then the other one. That one put me in a machine, a machine on my head."By the second quarter -- Miami Dolphins with possession on their own 10-yard line -- my mother, Esther, and Ira were all asleep. My mother, a disintegrating vessel, on the Barcalounger, her face rocked back. Esther and Ira snoring, side-by-side, on the sofa. I gazed at the three of them. That's probably what I'd looked like when I'd fallen asleep on the airplane. Sometimes we all look like that. Sort of deceased. We are the future dead people.An hour later, When Esther and Ira left for their apartment in the neighboring building, my mother was still asleep. It seemed like an opportune time to poke around for an information update. Just when I'd found my mother's bills (all unpaid, in an unplugged electric frying pan, the lid on tight), the doorbell rang. I peeked through the little glass pane at a quartet of Jehovah's Witnesses. Were they only allowed out in groups?"May I give you a truck?" said a courteous male voice in a business suit."A truck?""A tract."I didn't want a tract. I would've been interested in a truck. My car had broken down, irreparably, several months ago. I was just about to reject the tract when my mother piped in from the other room."Visitors?"She sounded interested.What the hell -- my mother had always been hospitable. I ushered the Witnesses in.They sat in the living room. They said, "Thank you." They said they'd been talking to all their neighbors in town. They wanted to share some good news. Was my mother looking forward to leaving this world of trouble and sorrow and going to live in Heaven? My mother smiled and nodded. The three Jehovah's Witnesses approved of her response. They'd seen many people who were on the path to destruction. But my mother, according to the Witnii, seemed like a blessed soul who had grasped the importance of everlasting life. Did my mother realize that not all religions could take her to the summit of truth? The Witnii gave my mother pamphlets that contained information drawn from the greatest book of all -- the Bible. If my mother would allow these words into her heart, Satan would flee in her presence. And she wouldn't need to study the Bible alone. Oh, no, not alone. There was a Kingdom Hall nearby, on Eldridge Road. The three Jehovah's Witnesses would love to welcome her to one of their meetings. For, as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah 2:3, "Come, you people, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah . . . and he will instruct us about His ways, and we will walk in His path." At the meetings, my mother could speak with people, like herself, who had devoted themselves to loving one another and to doing good works in Jehovah's name. Did she know that there were more than three million Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the world? The day was drawing near when Christians who were joined in the miracle of unity would enter everlasting life, "as in heaven, also upon earth" (the book of the disciple Matthew 6:9 and 10). The wicked, those who did not heed the warning, would perish. But the chosen, the chosen would be transformed. All that was required of my mother was that she pray in earnest for the coming of the Kingdom, serve Jehovah, dedicate herself to being one of His witnesses. If she had questions harbored in her heart, Jehovah's Witnesses in her community would discuss them with her and would help her to answer them. Did she have any questions at this very moment?Yes, she had one. Would any of the Jehovah's Witnesses like a banana?After the disappointed Jehovah's Witnesses left, I fed my mother dinner. It took prodding and reminding to get food into her. The only thing she seemed truly willing to eat was toast.In the hushed darkness of 60 years ago my mother soothes my chest with Vicks VapoRub then pulls the blankets up around me. I am too sick to go to school. My breath squeaks in and out of me. I smell the clean of sheets. And the Vicks, first hot, then hollow cold. My mother, a genie, pads out. The kitchen rattles. My mother returns. A tray. A cup of tea. The tiny loop of teabag string. Two slices of toast, perfectly golden on a shiny plate. Butter slithering off. All exactly how I like it. I sit up against the pillow, just a little. For the tea. For the toast. For my mother's palm on my forehead. For the brush of her eyelashes when she kisses me. After I crunch the last bite of toast, my mother takes the tray, the cup, the bright plate. And leaves me in the room's safety, where now the air takes me in its palm. And, without my knowing when, my eyes blink me off to healing sleep. When I awaken, my mother is there."Feeling better?" she asks."Yes. Yes."I realized I'd have to stay in Florida for a while, try to figure out what to do next.At first, I rented a car -- a big American whale of a thing. I'd strap my mother into the passenger seat, and we'd go wherever she wanted. She wanted to go to the mall. Florida is awash in malls. I'd steer the vehicular behemoth past boarded-up malls, half-built malls, failed malls, white-elephant malls, to visit the mall of the moment.All I can say is, "You've seen one mall, you've seen a mall."To keep myself amused I fantasized about starting an anti-mall movement. I came up with a motto, "Break the chains."One mall day my mother and I stood in the aisle of a supermarket the size of Alaska and just as cold. I was selecting toilet paper."That's not the brand I buy," said my mother. "Why are you buying that kind of toilet paper?""Because it's recycled," I said."Yuch," said my mother.That was the same day my mother insisted on buying me underwear. Brushing aside my objections, she selected panties that were three sizes too large for me. Cutesy pictures of little boys in baseball uniforms adorned the crotches. Messages under the figures read "Home Run!" and "Slide!" -- what was the consumer demographic? Overweight female pederasts?In the evenings, we sat in the living room and watched the box with the little people in it, including, according to my mother, frequent appearances by Valerie. My mother would sew. By which I mean she would hold an article of clothing and a sewing kit on her lap. One night -- the night that Valerie was the guest host on Jeopardy! -- my mother glowered at a spool and said,"I hate this roll of thread. It will outlive me."When I ran out of money, I brought the sea mammal back to Hertz Rent-a-Car. After that, my mother and I (sometimes with Esther and Ira in tow) went only to those malls within walking distance of the condominium complex.Florida is not pedestrian friendly. There was the day we were at a busy boulevard. Six lanes of traffic, divided at the halfway mark by a skimpy island. I was escorting my mother and Esther and Ira. I had a grip on my mother's spongy arm. Suddenly the sponge slipped from my fingers. Where did it go? There, in the middle of the street -- crazy traffic bearing down on her -- was my mother, in her bright yellow housedress. She was holding Esther's hand. Esther was holding Ira's hand. They paused in their geriatric Brueghel dance. In some limbic danger-sensing portion of their primal brain stems they registered that they were no longer attached to me. Ira tried to complete the crossing. Esther froze in place. My mother turned slightly, half thinking to head back toward me, and safety. There wasn't time for that. Not with that Ford moving at such a clip. The three of them were one shape stretched across the boulevard. No way I could get to them. And no value to all of us getting mashed on that Ford's shiny fender. If I got hit, who would negotiate hospital matters?"Keep going, Mom," I shouted, my decisiveness urging her forward. "Keep going! Keep going!"And there she went, obediently leading the others toward the opposite shore of sidewalk. I was proud of her. The traffic flowed past like whitewater rapids, my mother's little kayak of friends surrounded by honks.That event signaled to me that it was time to leave Florida. I took my mother with me. During the flight I must have escorted her to the toilet a zillion times. You think I exaggerate? OK, then at least a million times. I swear. At our destination, soulless LaGuardia Airport, the plane's suitcases twirled along the luggage carousel, looking like they were square dancing after a run-in with an overzealous anesthesiologist. My mother might as well have been on that carousel. I might as well have been on that carousel.I kept my mother living with me for as long as I could. It was an adventure. A sitcom. A soap opera. An opera. She eluded me more and more, skidding -- day by day -- further from my clutch, as surely as she had on that Florida boulevard.There was the night her voice, calling my name, drew me (in an idiot stupor) from my bed. The voice came from somewhere in the kitchen. What was she doing in there at 2 a.m.? I hurried along in the darkness. Suddenly I was skating. My feet hit a slickness and leapt into the air ahead of me. I was Buster Keaton. I was an Olympic gymnast. The judges from Romania were holding up their scorecards. They were giving me a 9.9. Then I was on my back, on the kitchen floor. So much for nailing the landing.I was supine in a small pond of maternal pee. Apparently, my mother had awakened in the night, searched unsuccessfully for the bathroom, and finally had squatted in the kitchen to relieve her bladder."Is anything wrong?" my mother called out. "No, I'm fine," I said. "No problem."No problem. Not like in the echoing gym of junior high school where I fall playing basketball and fracture my forearm. My mother holds me all the way to the hospital, while my teenage mind explores the riddle of injury.
I concluded that I could no longer take adequate care of my mother. I found a "nice" nursing home. The administrator plunked a stack of documents in front of me. Based on knowledge gleaned, years ago, from the useless surge of green- and blue-scrub clad frantic personnel rushing an airways cart into my already dead husband's hospital room, I signed the proactive Do Not Resuscitate forms.And now here we are, my mother and I (aka Zsa Zsa), months later, shuffling a wheelchair out the door and down the corridor of the Rose Grove Senior Facility. My mother strokes the passing floor with her dangling feet; she's a child helping to propel its stroller. A bandage on my mother's left leg covers a sore that insists it will not heal. My mother, once the proportions of a midsize sedan, is so thin that I suspect I might be pushing a wheelchair of unoccupied clothing along a sickly green hallway. I should take these slumpy empty clothes out of the wheelchair and to the laundromat. Bring lots of quarters.As we pass Betty's room, I say, "Hi, Betty."Betty is petite, an elf with a permanent smear of red lipstick and black black black black black hair. How can you get hair that black? I mean, without paint. And who could be painting it? Not Betty. And definitely not that pompous puffy male nursing-home attendant, the one who, I'm sure, starts the day by inflating himself with a bicycle pump. There's a valve somewhere on him. With a little stopper that he has to close in a hurry, or else pffft.I recall, with relief, that my mother did not kill Betty. She could have, that time when she decided that tiny Betty was her dog. (My mother's dog died years ago.) The Betty-dog, wearing its blotch of lipstick, was misbehaving. So, my mother grabbed Betty's sweater. They tussled. My mother fell. Betty remained upright. The staff put my mother in restraints."May God look upon me sideways." Betty utters her usual litany. "May God look upon me sideways. What is the world coming to? I beg of you, oh, help me. What is the world coming to? I beg of you, oh, help me. May God look upon me sideways. I beg of you, oh, help me. What is the world coming to? May God look upon me sideways."I couldn't agree more.My mother signals me closer, indicates Betty, and, murmurs, "That lady has that sickness that makes her fingers hurt all the time. I have that hurt, too, in my shoulder. What do they call the thing she has?""Arthritis, Mom. Betty has arthritis." I add a mutter, "And that's the least of it."I swivel my mother back to her room and open her mail."You have a note here from Esther and Ira.""From who?""From your old friends Esther and Ira.""From who?""From Esther and Ira!""Oh. That son of a bitch."She doesn't mean Ira; she means my father. He was a heel and a womanizer. Until the day he died he retained a boyish face -- weak chinned, smooth, and untroubled. At their 50th anniversary celebration, my mother had given my father a watch. Engraved on the back were the words, "Fifty fucking years." All the guests laughed. So did my father.After the guests leave the anniversary party, and my father has gone to bed, I sit with my mother. She has her skinny legs (odd for such a chunk of a body) up on a hassock."That's a funny thing to engrave on a watch," I say."I don't think it's funny," she says. "I mean it.""Nevertheless, congratulations to you. Fifty years of marriage, that's something, huh?""Yes, it's something. It's been pure hell."I've been staring, unseeing, at Esther and Ira's note, when my mother says, "Zsa Zsa, Zsa Zsa, I'll pay you handsomely if you wheel me back to my room.""Mom, I'm not Zsa Zsa, I'm Connie, your daughter, Connie. And this isyour room."That night, in a dream, I see a German word. I, who have never studied German and do not speak, read, or understand it. The word I dream is w-i-e-g-e. In the morning, I look it up. It is the German word for cradle.Someone from the nursing home calls to remind me that I am scheduled to accompany my mother to the hospital for her bone scan. At the hospital, I sit near the scanning tube that covers my mother's body. The technician has left the room. Slowly, slowly, starting at the head and moving down, the scanner's computer screen produces a piece of art. An image of my mother's skeleton. Eye orbits. Cervical vertebrae. Rib cage. The pelvic basin that I once curled in, using her breath for my oxygen, her blood for my heartbeat. In the beginning I was a water in her, an ache, a shifting moistness. To go down her passageway and out to the world, I had ducked my soft-fontanel head and crouched on my belly. The walls around me had twitched.I look away from the screen and toward my mother's thinning face -- the beginning of the cadaver, the skull emerging from under the skin. Soon Death will finish crawling into her head, his scythe swishing.Half of me is my mother's DNA. I revisit the worry that my brain, too, will one day turn to flab. I've seen the pictures in medical books -- the cerebral-cortex walnut sitting in its bony snack dish.Post-scan, as I dress my mother for her return to Rose Grove Senior Facility, she says, "The dog talks to me. Yesterday he said 'bye-bye.'"Back at Rose Grove, the inflated attendant helps me get my mother back into the building. As he bends down, I take the opportunity to check the nape of his neck for the presence of the air valve. Nope. He must keep it elsewhere. I probably don't want to know.Drawing my attention to the facility grounds, my mother says, "There's a little train that rides around the building."I look at the lawn, where no train has ever circled. It is a lawn my mother can no longer enjoy. She has arrived at a state where it's always too sunny, too wet, too hot, too cold, too many trees, too many bugs, too much grass, too much wind, too early, too late, too much life. She has lost the muscle for living."There's going to be entertainment in the sunroom in 15 minutes," I say. "Let's go there."My mother stares up at me and says, "Where's my daughter? She doesn't come to see me. I call and call and call her on the phone and I get the goddamn machine.""Mom," I say. "I'm right here, Mom.""Where's my daughter?" she says.It occurs to me that I could rent my mother out as a torture device to -- let's say -- a military dictatorship in a minor Latin American country."I'm tired," my mother says.She's tired? So am I. Here I am again. Different day. Same torture. For both of us, I suppose. Tired? My lethargy is a sack of concrete that has replaced my internal organs. I spend hours in this nursing home, learning that presence is a two-way street that I've been trying to walk alone, slow motion, through treacle.The sunroom and its entertainment are upstairs. Half brainless myself, I push the wheelchair past the bank of elevators, and my mind goes on an improvisational riff, just to prove it can. Ooops, I missed the elevators, I say to myself. I need to back up. I could back up. I could throw up. I could buck up. I could cheer up. I could give up. Ante up. Cuddle up. I could act up. Live it up. Liven up. I could bear up. Mess up. Most certainly, I could mess up! I probably am messing up. I could buckle up. Pay up. I could hang up. I could jump up. I could hold up. Shut up. Pack it up. Grow up. Pucker up. Listen up. I could rack 'em up. Speak up. Show up. I could tear up.My body chooses to tear up. I begin crying.In a burst of clarity, my mother says, "I don't know who had the bright idea of calling these the golden years."I laugh. I wipe my tears. My hand smells like my mother. Before I push the button for the fourth floor, my mother-smell hand hovers over the elevator's red emergency button. If I pushed it, would help come?My mother says, "Are we going to the what-do-you-call-it?""Sunroom?""No, to the . . . the?""Mall?" I am guessing."Yes, mall.""No, we're going to the sunroom."Except for the bone scan, she hasn't been out of the assisted-living facility for at least five weeks. She asks to go, but, as soon as we exit the front door, she becomes agitated and demands to be brought back in.The sunroom is occupied by larval people sagged in recliners and wheelchairs. Some large insect has wrapped them in a sticky grayness drawn from its abdomen and is now harvesting their body fluids. There can't be much left.A buoyant volunteer, who is distributing musical instruments, addresses one of the larvae, "Here's a harmonica for you, Mr. Tomaszevski. I know you like to play the harmonica."Mr. Tomaszevski gives the harmonica an emphysemal blat."Where's my daughter?" my mother asks. "Mom!" I snap, "I'm your daughter! Connie. Connie. Your daughter, Connie. I come here every day. Every damn day."I'm a bad person. Impatient. Cranky. A churl. But Alzheimer's aside, this is not an entirely new pattern for my mother. It's one she has played out her entire life. She's always needed people to be annoyed with her. My father. Her sister, Valerie. My mother would push and prod and poke and demand and persist, until she elicited irritation. Then she could walk around, wounded and satisfied. My mother could even get the family cat -- an obese pasha who might have been willing to hurt a fly, if only he could have summoned the necessary feline speed -- to scratch her. He scratched no one else. Only my mother. Repeatedly. And the dog, the dog who is now Betty, the dog bit her. More than once.I still haven't found a new job. I'm in a financial Scylla and Charybdis. I avoided being devoured by the rabid bite of home care only to be mashed on the nursing home's fiscal rocks. There's nothing my mother can do about this. Unless . . . hmmmm . . . she does have pronounced tremors in her hands. Could I get her a part-time job mixing martinis at a local bar? She'd be good at it.Like I said, I'm a bad person.The volunteer sets up an electric piano console upon which she plays and chirps, "The autumn leaves drift by my window. The autumn leaves of red and gold. I see your lips. Those summer kisses. The sunburned hands I used to hold. . ."I'm seven, and my mother sews us matching summer dresses. Butterflies and crickets and ladybugs on a field of white cotton. We wear these dresses almost every day, unless -- instead -- in our bathing suits, we prance Ouch! Ouch! barefoot over the beach's parking-lot surface. We spread our big towel out on the sand. We spend so many hours on the beach, while our daily washed matching dresses hang from the clothesline at home, that we also have matching deep-brown suntans. We take a photograph."Are you done yet? I'm getting a headache," my mother yells to the nursing-home volunteer.The volunteer isdone. She is on to a new activity. She begins covering the walls with travel posters. Hawaii. France. Ireland. Italy. She turns her fluorescent smile in my direction and explains that she encourages the nursing home residents to take imaginary vacations. After the residents pick their destinations, she decorates accordingly. A frond plant represents Hawaii. A paper Eiffel Tower stands in for France. A large paper shamrock signifies Ireland. The volunteer's party hat has "Kiss me, I'm Irish" written on it. Its elastic band has left an impression on her happy cheek."Is this a cruise ship?" my mother asks."Yes," I say. (Why fight it?)"What ship are you on?""Same ship as yours, Mom. But the next cruise.""Zsa Zsa?" my mother says.I don't answer. I'm on my cruise. I'm remembering.My mother and I, in our matching summer dresses, are walking on the beach at night, after a hurricane. And we almost step on the jellyfish. Thousands of them. They are Portuguese man-of-wars (I learn later), not true jellyfish. They are a luminous indigo, translucent at their white scalloped lip. Their delicate tentacles are melting in the sand. They are being driven ashore by the tide's response to an electrical storm. Seeing is all there is to an electrical storm; there is no sound. With each flare in the sky, the land and ocean are, for an instant, visible. Light staggers above the waves, which are dark and freckled with foam. Under a rainy sky -- post-hurricane color -- funnels of wetness spit on the houses, miles away. The ocean chews away at the shore. The jellyfish are mute. Or do they make a sound, a high-pitched scream up and beyond the place my ear can hear?What I can hear, now, near me, is my mother saying, "Zsa Zsa! I'll give you $1,000 if you help me put on my brassiere."But me, I'm still miles and years away.Except now, those matching summer dresses long gone, I walk the beach solo. The moon casts its magic, and I watch as the tongues of the waves brush more and more jellyfish onto the sand. The creatures are mere sacs, the surge and ooze of first substance. The dead ones are dull colored. No pulse sways in their see-through guts. The living ones barely move. Within their bodies a non-blood liquid heaves, sluggish as lymph. The creatures cup their bodies upward. Their ameboid snouts lift, left and right, yearning toward the water. Farther out, at the horizon, an indifferent rhythm croons. It has already sung to my husband, Ray. One day it will suck my mother toward it, there, where an uncharted sea swims peaceful and big.
Philip Kobylarz
Four Poems
“stealtherfuge”
“fezzes ”
“known gnosis”
“fata morgana”
Glenn Frantz
Three Poems
“Patchwork Island”
Patchwork Island hosts a new design effort:
A semi-edible plant concept combining kombu and kudzu.
But they took the prize with a bamboo molasses,
leading to the French annexation of the island
by attaching it to the forehead using adhesive film.
(So far, only small areas; 8mm or 16mm.)Summer brings fires, whitewash,
and the familiar commune
in the Arrondissement of Chameleons,
the whole population on two occasions
being airlifted out of remote areas of brain activity.In the race to memorize the island,
parabolic antennas broadcast amphibians
using the biggest magnetron in Africa,
from an arboretum resembling Oxford deforested.
“Burning Granite”
The curved canyons of ice
feel alive with stacks of electrons,
soaking every structure with intimations of number.
Aquamarine batteries driven by solar turbines
and Fijian ant populations.People here fear the smallest insects:
Invertebrate insights
and threatening perspectives.The shimmering marshland so far
has narrowly missed incineration by the future.We are braided around the salty pines,
more familiar with waterfalls
plunging into the valley,
like the marsh in reverse.The slopes leading down to extinctions
are rocky, not slippery,
but lead downward nonetheless.
“Ghost Woodlands”
The family trees of trees
as a game of biomorphic geometry:
We call these memories ghost woodlands.
They suggest the compact edges of human language.They collaborate over this seesaw of speech,
herding characters into a system of writing
that reflects the tree, flattened.To streamline spindly growth,
and to standardize the use of bracken;
this reform has made an unreliable bridgehead
to give these treeless units a meaning.Ten simplified buses were provided
to take accredited persons
to the one-stop shop for symbols:
Unicode as an Olympic Village of biodiversity.
r.s.mason
Two Poems
“Anthropology”
Maybe it's our ability to
move into what's near:like next week's forecast
today, or tomorrow's
sense of openness.Take yesterday for example.As soon as i entered the
garden store, my head
became a succulent.(what a refreshing sense
i thought, as patrons
fussed about the pots)And so i asked out loud --'How could anybody
have predicted this?How could anybody
not understand it?'
“The Luxpro 7000”
unfolds then folds in
perpetual motion that
slowly never endsthe folding action
reverses its plane
to gather itself
to a cube again !the very expression
of innovation made
from titanium steelfolding and unfolding --
the best of what is real.
.
.
...........................(recit)
Steven Dampf
“Rat Tongue”
I bit my tongue on the subway after a rat scurried and startled me. I bit down hard, and it came right off, and I kept it in my mouth a few minutes. Sucked and gnawed it like a lozenge or gum. Tried to blow a bubble but it didn't work. Spit it in my hand when no one was looking and clasped it. Kept one hand on the subway pole and the other held my tongue. I squished it and rolled it around and then it got drier. Some went under my fingernails. I moved my tongue around and pretended my palm was a pallet, and I simulated speaking. Vowels: A, E, I, O, U, and an S too, against the teethy cage of my fingers. Moved and smushed my hand quickly so the air compressed and vibrated, and it actually made a sound; and then I didn't know the difference between my mouth and mouth-hand-hand-mouth. Reached my stop on the subway. Dropped my tongue between the train car and platform, and it slipped right through. I didn't go for it. I mouthed "rats." The rats said "It's my lucky day." They could finally talk.
Salvatore Difalco
“The Rooster Ruggerio”
One day out of the blue as they say, the butcher Caruba's beautiful seventeen year-old daughter Carolina proclaimed her love for a local rooster named Ruggerio, who lived with the old lady Fazoletta and serviced her many chickens. Villagers recognized Ruggerio -- a bold red cock with a formidable breast and imposing glare -- as perhaps the most handsome rooster in the village if not the province. It was understandable that a young woman would take a fancy to such a model of avian masculinity, such a perfectly formed and composed creature.Indeed, Carolina was not the first young woman to fall in love with Ruggerio. A year ago 'Nchilina, the seventeen year-old daughter of Mussoblanco, a local merchant, broke things off with her fiancé Attilo to pursue Ruggerio. Ruggerio had reciprocated interest in the girl and it looked like the two were headed on the road to romance.Unfortunately, Attilo was a jealous man and reacted poorly to the news that 'Nchilina had taken up with the rooster. His first move was to try to kill Ruggerio. But Ruggerio proved difficult to corner and savagely fierce once he did have his back to the wall. When Attilo grew frustrated trying to kill Ruggerio, his turned his jealous rage on 'Nchilina. He broke into her bedroom one night and slit her throat. Then, distraught by what he had done to his beloved, he took his own life, slitting his wrists and thighs and bleeding out in his mother's bathtub.There was also the story of the widow Filipa who kidnapped Ruggerio from the old lady one night and conveyed him under cover of dark to her home. Rumour has it that she had her way with the rooster for she returned him the next day in a wooden crate with his feathers in disarray and his eyes bloodshot and he was too enervated to perform for the old lady Fazoletta's chickens. Since nothing could be proven, the only repercussions for the widow Filipa were sidelong glances and snickers by the villagers. Were Ruggerio not as handsome and popular as he was, perhaps she would have faced harsher scrutiny.“It's understandable,” the village gossips would say. “Ruggerio's handsomeness is hard to resist.” Certainly, the bird wore his sex appeal on his chest as it were, striding around the village like the veritable cock of the walk. He was accorded almost limitless freedom in the village by the old lady Fazoletta provided he satisfactorily serviced her chickens, which he did without fail. And certainly some village men were jealous of the attention Ruggerio received, but proved too cowardly or uncertain of their own masculinity to challenge the rooster, who was not known to back down from menacing birds or men.When asked directly about his ambivalent status in the village -- on the one hand deeply desirable and pursued and on the other loathed and envied -- Ruggerio responded with shrugs and sighs, as if to say, This is my lot in life, what am I to do? I am a beautiful, virile cock, and while I am somewhat embarrassed by all the squawking and attention, I'll not be gainsaid, nor will my true purpose in this life. Indeed, Ruggerio's resigned but confident posture likely kept the axes aimed at his throat in suspension for the time being. When not polluted by cockiness, confidence can be a potent shield against adversarial forces.Carolina kept her feelings for Ruggiero, which had been stirring for months, concealed from her father, until she returned late one evening after a stroll with the rooster, wearing her favourite yellow silk dress. When her father asked why she was so late, she decided at that moment to let the truth of her heart be known to him.“Papa, please don't be angry, but I am love with Ruggerio,” she said with tears welling in her eyes and her hands clasped as if in supplication.Caruba, a thoughtful if phlegmatic widower -- his wife Micuzza had hemorrhaged to death giving birth to Carolina -- who had struggled mightily raising his daughter on his own, did not know what to say to her at first. He knew how to slaughter beasts, gut them, and chop them up for consumption, not how to advise a young woman in the mysteries and pratfalls of love. Was it a good thing, this liaison with a rooster? Caruba had no clue. It was times like this that Micuzza, who was wise beyond her years, would have likely had the answers. Caruba mulled it over. Ruggerio was a handsome rooster, no disputing this. But was Carolina too young to be falling in love? And what guarantees did she have that a rooster as desirable as Ruggerio would be true to her? At the same time, Caruba did not wish to crush his daughter's dreams. She had grown up without the nurturing and guidance of a mother. She had to figure out many things on her own. For instance, when she experienced her first menses, a horrified Caruba fled the house and camped out in the hills for a week. He too had to figure out many things on his own.“Sweetheart, I don't know what to tell you,” he said in his most soothing voice. “While I think you're too young for a serious relationship, I want to hear why you think you are not.”Carolina wiped her tears away from her emerald green eyes. “Papa, I truly love Ruggerio. And he loves me. We complete each other.”Caruba swallowed upon hearing this. “What do you plan to do about it?” he asked.“Ruggerio thinks we should get engaged and then plan for a wedding next June. I also think that June would be a beautiful month to get married. Didn't you marry my mother in June? And wasn't she seventeen?”Caruba inwardly convulsed. “Look, my dear, my little flower, haven't any young men in the village shown you interest? Or for that matter, any older men? From other villages?”“Of course they have!” she shouted. “They don't leave me alone! Old, young, and everyone in the middle, they don't leave me alone. They hound me everywhere I go. They are all lascivious boors! At least Ruggerio treats me with respect. He is a gentleman.”Caruba could not disagree with his daughter about the village men and the men in the surrounding villages, that they were all nothing short of dogs. But realistically, it was difficult to ignore Ruggerio's reputation. Good looks and half-assed manners go far in the world of courtship. Moreover, who would service the old lady Fazoletta's chickens after Ruggerio departed, presuming he and Carolina planned to live together somewhere other than Caruba's house or Fazoletta's chicken coop? It would likely be incumbent on Caruba to buy the old lady a new rooster, that is if she was prepared to let Ruggerio go, even if the bird was in love.“And if you're worried about his reputation,” Carolina blurted as if reading her father's mind, “he has promised to stop cavorting, and he will only have to service Fazoletta's chickens until we get married, and then she promises to release him. Does that mollify your concerns, Papa?”This information did not mollify Caruba's concerns, perhaps to be expected from fathers of beautiful daughters. Beauty can be a curse, Caruba thought. Beauty has driven my daughter to make a decision she might regret in the future.“Well, if it makes you happy,” he said, hating himself at that moment with a burning intensity, “it makes me happy.”Carolina wept with joy upon hearing these words, which Caruba uttered without conviction.Time passed and Carolina and Ruggerio's courtship continued apace. They were often seen strolling around the village or promenading by the river, and cut quite a figure. They had even started attending church services on Sundays. Everyone agreed they were possibly the handsomest couple in the village, if not beyond. And they really seemed to love each other, neither falsified by pretense or performative posturing. People wished them well for the most part. Even enviers and contrarians kept their mouths shut about the couple. Everything looked rosy and headed for the sort of uplifting conclusion romance novels favour.The timbre of things changed profoundly one afternoon, when Carolina burst into her father's butcher shop in tears. Wiping his bloody hands on his apron, and pushing aside the sheep's head he was manicuring, Caruba asked his daughter what was troubling her. She wept with such anguish she could not articulate her grievance. She gibbered and drooled but said nothing comprehensible. But upon noticing a red scratch on her cheek, still moist with blood, Corrado's stomach dropped as he suspected the worst.“Did Ruggerio hurt you?” he asked softly, though his blood percolated and his hands trembled.Carolina would not say. Tears spilled from her eyes and her chest heaved. The poor thing looked shattered. This could not stand. That a despicable and licentious rooster was responsible for her misery made it all the more galling. Corrado felt the need to act immediately. All Carolina had to do was say the word. All she had to do was point to the red feather clinging to her blouse, or the bird dropping splotching her black shoe. But she said nothing and stared at nothing and nowhere retired to her bedroom where she spent the next twenty four hours sobbing, refusing food and water, and shaking as though stricken with palsy. She was inconsolable. It broke Corrado's heart to see her like this. But it also ignited his anger in a way nothing ever had.They say a blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it. They also say that everything that happens in this life happens as it should. And while one may accept or find fault with either or both of these formulations, Corrado, a simple butcher who had never stepped beyond the confines of his county, saw things more plainly. At cockcrow next morning, after a sleepless and excruciating night, when the sobs of his beloved Carolina stabbed at his heart like a dagger and a beam of moonlight shone in his face like a sign from God, Corrado headed out to the old lady Fazoletta's place brandishing a shiny cleaver.
Stuart Rose
“Furies In His Blood”
On a barren rocky hillside in the golden and arid territory of middle Montana, the sky so blue and over-arching it threatened to swallow the land, close enough to the town of Paradox that you could hear its clatter if the wind was right, a dozen weary men huddled around a sunken mine shaft abandoned long ago. Three of the stoutest men were lowering a fourth on a rigged harness, a wooden tripod placed over the five-foot-wide hole. The others watched as the harnessed man began his descent. Some held fearful expressions. Others could not hide their lust. The rope-and-tackle rigging creaked in the dead afternoon air. The harnessed man, hanging just below the meeting of the three wooden beams, gazed down at the inky blackness of the shaft."Goddamn, boys. I ain't too sure about this," spoke the man being lowered, whose name was Jeremiah Callopswater.A steady creak as the rope ran through the pulley. All eyes turned to the foreman (known to the men as Mr. Foreman) kneeling stiffly at the edge of the hole. Mr. Foreman turned to the man behind him, a taller, older, cleaner-dressed man standing apart. Mr. Longbeaux, owner and proprietor of Mamba Mining Co. The boss of this and many of the operations to be had in and around Paradox. Mr. Longbeaux was standing at the edge of a drop-off, his back to the men, taking in the enormous blue sky. He gave a slight shake of his head. Mr. Foreman twitched his long, bushy brown mustache at the three stout men lowering the rope. Jeremiah continued to be lowered.The neck, head, and hat of Jeremiah poked above the ground, then just his head, then all was below, a strange, dopey smile frozen on Jeremiah's face as he disappeared. Like this was all a misunderstanding soon to be remedied.The sound of scraping boots welled up from the shaft. Jeremiah was trying to halt his descent. More scraping as pebbles loosened and fell."Boys, did you hear me?" called Jeremiah Callopswater. Only a few feet below the men, Jeremiah's voice was starting to magnify and echo. "I know I said I would graciously go, but I'm having my doubts. Pull me up, boys. Can you pull me up?"The pulley continued to creak. A hand appeared out of the hole and tried to grasp one of the wooden legs of the tripod. Mr. Foreman smashed it with his fist. Jeremiah Callopswater was new, and the new ones were always given the most dangerous jobs. Or at least, so saith the older fellas. The men crowding around the hole leaned in, fighting each other's stink. These were working men, tough men, their shirts, canvas jeans, and mustaches stained with the dirt and sweat of hard labor. Their sunburned faces and hands spoke of long days in the punishing summer heat. The older men had a well-worn posture of broken defiance, their arms crossed, leaning on whichever leg gave them the least trouble. The younger men, those with unbroken bodies and peach-fuzz mustaches, did their best to imitate the stance."Oh, so that's the way of it, you goddamned cocksuckers?" spoke Jeremiah, who was immersed in the dark again. An Irish lilt came into his words: this did not help to ingratiate him with the men. "Well, when I get through down here, I'm gonna lick each and every one of ye, sure as my name is Jeremiah Callopswater. Keep lowering, boys! Let's get this taste of hell over with."As Jeremiah was lowered, the men shifted their eyes to the rope-and-tackle pulley as it creaked. Sweat dripped into their moustaches and beards. Some waved their hats to generate a bit of coolness. Mr. Foreman, still kneeling at the edge of the hole, eyed the bundle of rope on the ground. It uncoiled steadily behind the three stout men, shooting up dust as it did. The men watched and they waited. At last, there was noise from below."OK, boys!" hollered Jeremiah. "My feet hath found the ground. Give me a moment and I shall do my duty."A tiny point of light appeared in the darkness of the shaft. The men leaned in. Some of them were chewing. Many were sorely tempted to empty the dregs of their chew into the hole."Looks like a well-done tunnel," spoke Jeremiah from below. "Just old. Good timber support. Give me some slack and I shall explore further."The three stout men looked at Mr. Foreman. After a glance to Mr. Longbeaux, Mr. Foreman nodded his head.The men did not hear from Jeremiah Callopswater for some time. The bundle of rope uncoiled and, guided by the three stout men, hit the pulley and disappeared downward with a steady creak. The bundle of rope lessened. Always the three stout men held a bit of tension on their end, both hands on the rope and leaning back, so that Jeremiah could be pulled up at a moment's notice.Mr. Foreman's mustache frowned further and further down, watching the rope uncoil. Finally, when there were only a few feet left, there came a shuffling of steps below, and an excited, panting voice echoed up to them."Goddamn, boys! It's true, what hath been whispered. There's a vein down here. Igneous rock so soft I can run my hand through and it crumbles. And silver nuggets just lying on the ground. Why, it's the El Dorado of old down here! Those dumb conquistadores must of missed it by a few thousand miles! Hot damn!"The older men kept their arms crossed and spit their chew to the side of the hole, unmoved. The younger ones leaned further out, a gleam to their eyes. As though they could see the silver if they squinted just right. Mr. Foreman glanced behind him. Mr. Longbeaux was busy watching a hawk ride the thermals."Now lookey here, Jeremiah," spoke the foreman, leaning out over the hole. "Is that his name? Jeremiah?"A few of the men shrugged. There was a muttered yes."Now lookey here, you," said the foreman, a forced edge to his voice. "You ain't down there for the color. We prepped you on this.""Yessir I know, Mr. Foreman, but you told me to report anything unusual, and I think the richest vein these eyes have seen does qualify. Why, if I spent an hour down here, I wouldn't have to work another day in my life. Two hours, and y'all would be working for me! Ha, I'm just kidding, boys. I'll be sure to share the wealth!"Some of the older men eyed their foreman. Others glanced at Mr. Longbeaux, who lit a match, lowered his head to light a brown-paper cigarette, and returned his gaze to the sky."Oh lord, medicine for my daughter and a billiard table for me, all in one reach of the hand. Thank you, Mr. Foreman, for the opportunity! And you as well, Mr. Longbeaux! I know I'm not supposed to talk to you, I just wanted to convey my most humble regard. Oh. But of course. No. In my excitement it has only just dawned. This wealth ain't for me. If only I could … I was just … you know what occurs to me, boys …""Goddamn it, Jeremiah, I can hear your pea-brain working up here," barked Mr. Foreman. "It is offending my ears. Listen, you ain't sharp enough to lie your way out of this. And God knows we'll check your pockets and even your bung-hole as soon as you're outta there. Now do your job, and don't try to truss it up.""Alright, Mr. Foreman," echoed up Jeremiah. "I have always been a great follower of direction."There was a gagging and a coughing from below."And don't swallow the silver, neither," barked the foreman. "That's how our last man died.""Well what'll happen if I just do a little pebbly one?""Tell me what you're seeing down there, Jeremiah.""Beyond the vein? The tunnel goes far. Farther than the rope'll allow. Opens up toward the end, but I can only just glimpse it. Now who would go to the trouble of sinking a shaft like this only to abandon it?""Listen here, Jeremiah," said the foreman. "I got a question for you. Have you seen anything the shade of green down there?""Green, Mr. Foreman?""That's right, Jeremiah. Green. Glowing green.""No sir, I have not."The foreman turned. "What say you, Mr. Longbeaux? Shall we reel this fool in?"Mr. Longbeaux took a puff, his eyes on the hawk. His voice was calm and controlled. "You wouldn't make for much of a fisherman, Mr. Foreman. Take him through the proper steps."The foreman sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow, and grasped the rope just below the pulley. "Now Jeremiah," barked Mr. Foreman into the darkness, "Lookey here. I got another query for you. Why don't you tell me and all the men how you're feeling?""How I'm feeling?" yelped Jeremiah. "Gosh I don't know, Mr. Foreman. Until recently I felt thrilled about all the silver around me. But now I feel sad about all the silver around me. Also, I feel scared of the dark.""Goddamn it, Jeremiah. Picture the core of you. Your very innermost feeling. Tell me what it is.""I am closing my eyes and concentrating, Mr. Foreman. Well. I gotta tell you, boys. The deepest feeling I got is greed. I feel it all over my chest, like an itch. Not love for my daughter or goodwill for all mankind, but greed. Y'all don't know what it's like down here. I'll admit, if you'd allowed me a knife I'd cut this rope and bathe in the silver. Grab a nugget and make a run for it down the shaft. Something's calling to me down there, boys. Like a siren's song."The sweat from the foreman's face dripped down into the darkness. "Don't you move a muscle, Jeremiah. You won't get your hazard pay.""By my left foot is a chunk of silver the size of my fist, Mr. Foreman. I get the itch just looking at it. Can't I pick it up? I'll give you and Mr. Longbeaux the wealth, I'm just hoping for a generous tip. For me and all the men. Let's not have this fortune go to waste, gents.""Whatever keeps him busy, and talking," rumbled Mr. Longbeaux, his eyes still on the blue above."Gentlemen," spoke Jeremiah, "I am just able to hear your palaver down here, and I enthusiastically agree. Mr. Longbeaux, you are a great and compassionate man. You hear that, boys? We'll be eatin' fancy dinners tonight! Oh lord, this might be the most blissful moment in all my life. The feeling in my chest positively purrs. Here I go!"The older men spit their chew and wiped their mustaches. But the younger men were aroused, rubbing their hands together and grasping each other's shoulders. Jeremiah kept up his end of the palaver, giving the size and description of each nugget he put in his pocket. Eventually he stated his intention to take off his shirt and make a bundle.An army of clouds marched steadily toward the westering sun. The three stout men held steady, keeping only a little slack in the rope, taking turns wiping the sweat from their hands. The younger men found ways to push and shove forward. The older men fanned themselves with their hats, listening to Jeremiah's constant echoing voice. The men knew something was amiss when the steady stream of braggadocio ceased."Hey, you down there," barked Mr. Foreman, "You still among us? What's wrong, something shut yer yapper?""Yessir, I'm here. I'm just trying to perk up my ears. I believe I heard something."The older men tensed."Well, what do you hear then?" asked the foreman."Something coming from further down the tunnel. Something that don't care about hiding what it is. Something big."The older men stepped back."Keep talking," barked Mr. Foreman."Boys, I think there's a body down here with me."Mr. Foreman whipped his head to Mr. Longbeaux, who sighed. "We need to see how this plays out, Mr. Foreman. Gain some intelligence. Just like the others.""Jeremiah?" murmured the foreman, who covered up the tenderness in his voice by coughing and barking, "Goddamn it, do your job and tell us what you see, son.""Yessir, I'm here. I'm just busy gazing upon the queerest sight these old eyes have seen.""Well, what is it?""It's a woman."The greed from the young men's faces vanished, turned to grim fear. Some of the older men put their hats to their breast."Now look here, Jeremiah," spat the foreman. "Best just get right below us and we'll pull you up.""Now boys," spoke Jeremiah, "what kind of Christian would I be if I were to let this poor woman go? She is in dire need of help. Goodness, when I first heard her growling, I thought she was a sick cougar or a ghost. She's got these eyes like an animal's. They're shining at me, green-gold in the dark. Right peculiar. She's just coming into the light of my lamp proper now. Oh lord, she's old and she's naked … must be sick. Still coming toward me. Ma'am, may I offer some assistance?""Goddamn it, Jeremiah! We damned well talked about this! Do not touch her, do not go near her. I'm pulling you up. You got your harness secured?""Now there's no need for cussing, Mr. Foreman. I feel quite well-off with this silver in my pockets, and a well-off fellow who isn't charitable ain't worth a spit of dust come the Rapture, or so my mama would say. The woman is almost upon me now. From whence did you come, ma'am? Lord, she's quite revolting, boys."Calmly, quietly, Mr. Longbeaux stepped away from the cliff to kneel beside the foreman. He pulled a knife from his belt. "Do not worry, Mr. Foreman. All will be well. Could you kindly take out your pocket watch?""Yap," spoke the voice from below, "Musta found her way into a shaft and gotten lost, lots of abandoned placers around here. And what's the name of that two-horse town nearby? Paradox? She's just a few feet away from me now. I shall grab her, and you can pull both of us up. I'm gonna let her come, she looks quite intent on it. Yes, she is reaching for me now with open arms …"Sounds of clatter and a choked-off yelp, then silence. Still holding tight to the rope, the foreman's sweat dripped."Jeremiah, what's --"
The pulley creaked above Mr. Foreman's head. The rope grew as taut as a wire. The foreman retreated just in time, as the rope gave such a violent pull that the three stout men were knocked to the ground. Two of the younger men almost fell into the hole, pulled back with their suspenders by their compatriots. The bundle of rope started unspooling with maniacal rapidity."We need that rope, boys!" yelled Mr. Longbeaux.The three stout men scrambled to get ahold of the unspooling rope. Each let go as their hands came away burnt and raw.The pulley gave off a little smoke and a high-pitched squeak. The men watched dumbly as the tail-end of the rope flew into the air, headed for the pulley and down. Just as it was about to reach the rigging, the squeaking ceased, and the rope went limp."Grab the tail-end," said Mr. Longbeaux, his eyes flashing at the tallest of the three stout men.The tallest man did so. From a safe distance, all eyes turned to the hole. The sound of frantic echoing footsteps."Boys, it's me, Jeremiah! Pull me up! That woman is a devil. She took a chunk outta my neck! Tried to take me back to her lair … I only just escaped!""Mr. Foreman," said Mr. Longbeaux, "I thought I directed you to take out your pocket watch? You may start your timer now.""She'll come for me again, boys! What you waitin' on? Get me outta here!""I wonder if we should add some time, given the probable arterial bleeding," muttered Mr. Longbeaux."Oh lord, she hath appeared before me," moaned Jeremiah. "I can see her unholy eyes. And God help me, she's smiling. By all that is good in the world, pull me up, boys!""Let's bring our man up, boys!" bellowed Mr. Foreman.The men did not move. Mr. Longbeaux gave Mr. Foreman a hard stare before saying, "Well, you heard the man, and he's the foreman. Pull that rope up."There was a full bundle of slack to bring up before the men could get to Jeremiah. Each man hopped over to the rope and began hauling on it, including the foreman."Oh, thank you, boys! You don't know what it's like down here. I smashed her with a nugget and it hardly slowed her. She's got my blood dripping down her sagging breasts. Fortunately, she seems to be savoring the moment. Say boys, while there is strength in me, why don't I just grab the rope that is being drawn up now? No need to wait for its end. I shall reach for it now …""You stop it right there!" yelled Mr. Longbeaux. "Don't you be getting any bright ideas, boy. You do as you're told and you wait."Silence from the hole. The men grunted and the pulley creaked and the rope moved upward."Yessir, Mr. Longbeaux. I'm just nervous as hell that she'll get to me before the boys can pull me up. But I shall trust to your vision. I have always been a great follower of direction. Perhaps I can use this opportunity to secure the silver nuggets I have. Please pull faster, boys."There was still half the bundle of slack to pull up."Boys, did you hear me? Please pull faster. I'll give you half my share of the plunder."The rope picked up speed."Mr. Foreman, what time do you have?" asked Mr. Longbeaux."Two minutes plus an extra ten seconds, Mr. Longbeaux.""Oh lord," spoke Jeremiah, "The she-devil calmly approaches. How evil she is!""Thank you, Mr. Foreman," said Mr. Longbeaux. Grunts and bellows from the men as they pulled."OK, boys, I'll share all my plunder. She is hissing at me, and from less than a horse-length's away!"The rope grew heavy as Jeremiah was lifted."Oh, thank you, boys! I had to kick at her, but I am free and being pulled heavenward, and not a moment too soon. She don't weigh no more than a sick dog, but goddamn, she is tenacious. I am letting her know my feelings through a hand gesture recently taught me. You see that, you damned devil? It'll take more than that to defeat Jeremiah Callopswater! Oh lord boys, I seem to be losing some blood.""Could you kindly describe for me your state of mind, Mr. Callopswater?" called Mr. Longbeaux.Jeremiah's voice was getting clearer. "Well, beyond an enormous sense of relief … and the stinging pain from my wound … and the disappointment of not grabbing more nuggets … I do feel kind of funny.""Do you feel anything unusual in your upper thorax?" asked Mr. Longbeaux.The men continued to pull. Jeremiah was about halfway to them now."In your chest, Mr. Callopswater.""Oh. No. But … maybe … why yessir, I believe I do.""Describe it, if you please.""It's like a hot liquid running through me, headed for my heart. This might sound strange given my present circumstances, but I feel … good.""Three minutes thirty-five seconds, Mr. Longbeaux," stated the foreman."Interesting. That's the fastest yet. She must indeed have hit an artery," said Mr. Longbeaux."Yessir, I feel wonderful. Don't know why. It's like, if that greed I felt earlier was an itch then this right here is the scratch. Perhaps it's the silver in my pockets. Speaking of which, I know I said I would graciously give my share of the plunder to you boys, but you must understand that I have a daughter who's sick. And I have indeed taken all the risk for this operation. How about you boys get me to a sawbones and I'll buy you a round of drinks and we'll call it even?"The rope hesitated for a moment, then went an inch or two downward. But after a brief glare from Mr. Longbeaux the men went back to work."Yessir, I feel grand, no pain at all. What a glorious day to be alive! It's funny, I … yes, I … ughhhhhhh."Jeremiah went quiet. The men displayed varying levels of concern."Jeremiah, you alright down there?" asked the foreman.Silence from the hole.All but the three stout men stepped to the edge, trying to discern their man in the darkness."Jeremiah? You hearing me?" the foreman asked.The three stout men pulled. "Nearly there, boss," said one.From the darkness of the shaft, a hand appeared. A pale, bloody hand with veins of sparkling green. Then arms, bruised and bloodied. When Jeremiah's lolling head and naked chest showed, all the men, young and old, choked on their chew and gasped like cheap stage thespians. A couple of them, tough-as-nails men who could ride through snowstorms and fight off grizzlies, fainted outright.Jeremiah had been bitten in the place where his neck met his shoulder. The wound was deep. His torso was covered in blood, and underneath, his veins glowed a sickly pale green. All that glow was headed toward his heart. Jeremiah hung limply in the harness with his arms just grasping the rope. The men took turns gawking and gasping and retreating, then coming forward again. Only the three stout men held steady. Jeremiah hovered a few feet below ground level, his legs still in darkness.Mr. Longbeaux knelt calmly and studied his man.There was a moaning, and the creature that had previously been Jeremiah opened its eyes. They were shining green and gold. The creature smiled. An ear-to-ear smile as it took in its surroundings. It reached for the men, bloody green-veined fingers grasping. Only Mr. Longbeaux remained steadfast. He smiled back at the creature."Well, I'm pleased there will be another one of you down there. Hopefully, she can show you the way."And locking eyes with Mr. Foreman, who was huddled with a crowd of men well away from the hole, Mr. Longbeaux cut the rope with a flick of his knife. The creature fell without a sound. After a few heartbeats there was a sickening, echoing thud."Let's proceed," said Mr. Longbeaux, standing. "Get the boards and a boulder and seal 'er up."After blinking away the shock, the men complied with downcast eyes, eager for something to do. Mr. Longbeaux beckoned his foreman forward, who approached warily. A distant sound of moaning emanated up."You hear that?" said Mr. Longbeaux. "That's a male's voice. It's extraordinary how resilient they are. A fall like that would have killed an ordinary man two times over. Another advantage to using them. Don't you agree, Mr. Foreman?"The foreman shook his head, facing the hole. "Was it so necessary, Mr. Longbeaux?""Oh, it was necessary, Mr. Foreman. We gained intelligence on how extensive their wanderings are down there. We saw how quickly they can transform, given the right bite location. We received a new worker for the night shift, provided he landed with limbs intact. We got most of our rope back, which is rapidly becoming quite an expense. And most importantly, I got to test your mettle, Mr. Foreman. You are displaying more and more empathy, good sir."The foreman looked long and hard at Mr. Longbeaux before answering. "Thank you, Mr. Longbeaux.""I have no use for empathy," said Mr. Longbeaux, and he shoved his foreman into the hole.This time, there was a scream."Make that two workers for the night shift," muttered Mr. Longbeaux.There was a dull crunching thud, and the sounds of ripping and gnashing. A male and a female moaned in what seemed like extreme ecstasy."Sustenance for those two, at least," said Mr. Longbeaux. "Now why aren't you boys working? Snap to it. Lots more holes to check out and seal up."The men did not move. They had their tools slung on their shoulders, the picks and shovels and rock bars necessary to move the boulder down. They were as far from Mr. Longbeaux as could be allowed on the plateau, huddled near the edge of the drop-off. Mr. Longbeaux let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose."It is a shame," he began, "that the distinguished Mr. Foreman, a man so concerned with the safety of others, should meet his end by failing to look out for the safety of himself. One must retain the utmost caution around these holes, gents. And if you feel as though you've sufficiently learned this lesson, then I shall double your wages by the end of this day."The men stayed huddled."Alright, I'll triple them, and that will be my final offer."The younger men wiped the sweat from their brows and watched their older compatriots. Mr. Longbeaux turned his back on the men, looked behind and above him, and waved."Don't worry, Leroy! I think they're coming around!"A man appeared on the boulder above, a rifle resting on his thigh, his finger on the trigger.A snarl came to Mr. Longbeaux's face, when the men looked back at him. Framed by his white beard and ice-blue eyes. A look of pure, unadulterated hatred, there and gone in a moment. Mr. Longbeaux wanted them to see it and register it before it disappeared."Oh, and I suppose we need to elect a new foreman," said Mr. Longbeaux, smiling innocuously now, a smile that did not reach his eyes. "And as you all seem equal to the task, I shall allow you to pick one amongst yourselves. Now let's get to work. Lots more holes to plug up."The men complied. Once they had the boulder in place they wouldn't have to hear the wet sucking sounds and moans of ecstasy still emanating from below.
Barry Foy
Two Poems
“A Tour”
Let me die in many countries.
Let me be waked and grieved,
feared, quaked at, and revered,
per the custom of each place.
So I might compare.Let them burn my body; let them
chop it up for raptors; let them
bury me whole, in a hole; let them
wash and anoint me, swaddle me in
whitest, whitest cloth; let them
crate me in lead-lined oak that our
menfolk can barely carry.Let them moderate their speech
in my family’s presence; let them
resort to euphemism; let them
leave the lights on day and night,
so I’m not a stranger in my own home.Let them look to the sky
and envision me there; let them
see a passing bird and call it me,
or the shadow of a cat; let them
feel the flutter of my presence
during the rites; let them
turn their head at the sound of
my voice, then blame it, with a shrug,
on their distress.Let them wear their best black,
or best white, their newest nicest
robes or most desolated old rags;
let them dress in sackcloth tunics
as forlorn and shapeless as they feel
themselves. Let them untend their
hair and whiskers, in token of their
unfitness to carry on.Let them bring flowers, bring ghee,
bring fried chicken and berry pies;
let them bring strong drink and cigars,
bring flowers, bring photos of me in
my ablest times, bring my favorite
hat, bring flowers, bring musicians, bring
incense, bring candles and prayer beads
for prayer, clergy for prayer and solace—
let them bring flowers! Bring my children,
grandchildren, the neighbors’ children.
Make songs for me, make chants,
make moans and snuffles, make
shrieks and wild wails,
and tears by the bowlful. Pound my
coffin with your fists, pound my
burying ground, pound your chest and your
walls in despair. Make jokes, make
mischief, make reminiscences, utter
platitudes, make stunned silence and
reverent silence, puzzled silence and
the silence of dread; make vows and
resolutions, scrutinize the newborns
for my return, limit your travels
and associations for the prescribed period.
Make love -- make it in my own bed!Make a fuss. Fuss over me in my
parlor, in a church, in a hut built
expressly for that purpose; fuss over me
around a forest catafalque -- say
the word catafalque!—or in a temple
with a concrete courtyard, or
on a sea cliff, tipping my ash urn
into the breeze. Fuss over me
in the field I tilled, or beneath my guardian
baobab; fuss over me in a place of
business, whose business is just that
sort of fuss. Fuss in a reverberant
hall ringed by well-kept lawns;
fuss over me in an insalubrious tavern.Let me die in many countries.
Let me sample from them all --
not the dying part, which could be
unpleasant, but the being-dead part.
Which is bound to be very interesting.
“Sainthood”
We were to cultivate celestial attachments,
we fledgling Catholics,
lifelong pious commerce with
the agents known as saints, those beings
with one foot -- that’s no metaphor --
in the human world, the other planted
on a broad fairway in the Savior’s
radiant, skyborne estate.Intrepid saints, opportunists par excellence!
When their heads were cut off,
they called it thy-will-be-done;
when their eyes were gouged out,
they called it blinding-by-the-heavenly-effulgence;
when their pelts sloughed away in boiling oil,
they called themselves cicadas,
winging newly supple toward salvation.And we were to love the saints,
.............-- and I recall loving them --
and to thirst for a glimpse or a touch
of that mummified foot in its golden casket,
or that fawn chip of ulna under glass,
or other such remnant reverently scavenged
.............in a less squeamish age.And we were to know that
even if that personage accelerated long ago
into the Glorious Presence, the link remained,
a wire bridging saint and artifact, a wire to put
a tingle in the hand that clasped it
.............with devout intent.And we crafted a calendar out of their
births and deaths: saintly tales, generally brutal,
for each day of the year, so that
Agnes’s lily-white neck took the blade
anew each winter, and each September
noble Jean de Brébeuf kept an appointment
with the Iroquois, to have his fingers bitten off.
On my own birthday,
neurotic, unwashed Hilarion, hounded
from Gaza by pestering devotees,
wore out, once again, and died.We godly children
were to profit by the efficacy, the kindness,
the serene, capacious compass
of such perfected souls,
whether as models of a worthy life
.............or death,
or for recovery from illness,
or recovery of a misplaced key ring.
Each saint claimed a specialty,
a particular bane or boon
for dispensing to the suitably God-fearing.
Each saint wielded the power
to weave exceptions into unexceptional lives.Until one day they didn’t.
Until one day the saints themselves became relics,
taking their blessings with them,
and the relics, parts that used to represent the whole,
became the whole.
Contributors
B MYERS is an editor for a Chicago publishing company and writes pure barmy from a safe location in Michigan. Recent whoppers can be found in Perseid Prophecies, Propagule, Defenestration, Teleport Magazine, Collidescope, 96th of October, Archive of the Odd, and Cast of Wonders.BARRY FOY is the author of Field Guide to the Irish Music Session and The Devil’s Food Dictionary: A Pioneering Culinary Reference Work Consisting Entirely of Lies. His “Rabbit Story” was selected for Paul Auster’s anthology I Thought My Father Was God (which Auster read on NPR). “Pioneering the ‘Spread on Toast’ Concept” appears in Primal Picnics: Writers Invent Creation Myths for Their Favorite Foods, and Foy’s poetry and prose have appeared in various periodicals, including Tough Poets Review, The Offing, and Defenestration.GLENN FRANTZ is a native of southeastern Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared in numerous online journals, including Uut Poetry, Otoliths, Blackbox Manifold, Stride, BlazeVox, and 3by3by3. His e-books include Animals (Hiding Press), The Pocket Reference Library (Red Ceilings Press), and Collected Poems (Anopsony Press). His creations are indexed at glennrfrantz.com.JENNIFER MARYSIA LANDRETTI writes poetry and essays. Her themes are nature, place, spirit, and, in recent years, gender, which has served as a vector to explore the latter three. Over the years her work has appeared in various literary publications, most regularly Orion magazine. For additional info, please visit jenniferlandretti.com.PHILIP KOBYLARZ is an itinerant teacher of language arts and writer of fiction, poetry, book reviews, and essays. He has worked as a journalist, film critic, veterinarian's assistant, furniture deliverer, and ascetic; Philip Kobylarz has been fired from every job he has ever had. His writing appears in Paris Review, Poetry, The Best American Poetry series, Massachusetts Review, and Lalitamba. He published collections of poetry and short stories. He spends his time in the East Bay, Huntington Beach, and in the monastery in which he lives with his cat KatdawgRocket 99, his dog Chibi, and any woman who is able to temporarily love him. More at kobylarzauthor.wixsite.com/pkoby.r.s.mason debut book of poems, Nearer to Never, was published by SUNY Press in 2015. The text was a finalist in the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize. Poems have appeared in Chronogram, THEMA, Milk & Cake, AMP, and Sublimation. The poems in this issue of SORTES are from a tentative manuscript titled Outside Possibilities.RENÉ HOUTRIDES writes fiction, plays, and essays and has taught drama at Juilliard. Her short stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, New Ohio Review, Mississippi Review, Tishman Review, Carve Magazine, Crack the Spine, Kestrel, The Vincent Brothers Review, and other publications. She has published journalism in The New York Times and was staff writer for The Woodstock Times, where she received a New York Press Association Award. Her essays have aired on WAMC Public Radio and her play “Calamity Jane” was staged in New York City.SALVATORE DIFALCO is a Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller who lives in Toronto. Recent work appears in Heavy Feather Review, Bull Fiction, and E-ratio.STEVEN DAMPF is a writer and fashion designer from Manhattan. His work has appeared in scaffold and Eclectica). On Instagram, he’s @stevendampf.STUART ROSE is a writer and trails worker based out of Missoula, MT. His work has been published by Etchings Press, The Tomahawk Creek Review, and The Militant Grammarian. He holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop and is a proud new father.
Support ArtWell
SORTES supports local, charitable, and community-based groups. Here's one important organization that SORTES supports:
"ArtWell was founded in 2000 to respond to the chronic community violence in Philadelphia by introducing a preventive, educational, arts-oriented approach to reach underserved communities and youth facing discrimination, poverty, violence, and the everyday challenges of growing up. Our mission is to support young people and their communities through multidisciplinary arts expression, education, and creative reflection to celebrate their strengths, thrive while facing complex challenges, and awaken their dreams."Charity NavigatorThe people who have worked on this publication support this cause and we urge you to as well.
Thank you!
Submission & Contact
SORTES is the very model of a modern major journal
Find us here and there:
To submit contributions, comments, questions, or suggestions, please email
The Dashing SORTES Mailing List
Join our debonair mailing list for news about upcoming issues, in-person events, performances, and whatever else we dream up to make all our lives more complicated and exquisite:
SORTES is?
SORTES is a spinning collection of stories, poems, songs, and illustrations to help while away the wintery June nights. It’s an oddball grabbag wunderkammer mixtape offering distraction and refreshment.We have neither theme nor scene. Each issue is its own creature. We publish both the sufficiently strange and insufficiently boring: swart stories, hoity poetry, magical surrealism, beatnik travelogues, hard modern haiku, pulp, fantasia, antibiography, crooning balladeering, experimental sentimentalism, and grainy sideways photography.We also host online readings, old time radio performances, and other beloved gimmicks as they occur to us. Previous issues are available via the site’s Archive link.
Submitting
SORTES considers unsolicited submissions of poetry, prose, illustration, music, videos, and anything else you think may fit our format. Feel free to poke us; we’d love to find a way to publish dance, sculpture, puzzles, and other un-literary modalities.SORTES is published quarterly. Each issue includes approximately ten works of lit, visual, or performance art. We like a small number of works per issue: artists and readers should have a chance to get to know each other.SORTES, you’ll notice, is primarily a black-and-white publication, and we like to play with that (by featuring monochrome videos and photography, for example), but we’ll happily consider your polychrome submission.Submissions are ongoing throughout the year. We consider artists with both extensive and limited publishing experience. We accept simultaneous submissions but please inform us if your work has been accepted elsewhere. We publish translations and reprints on a case-by-case basis; please send us a note describing your interest. And while there's no restriction on the number of pieces you can submit, please have a heart.There’s no need for an extensive cover letter or publication history but please tell us who you are, what kind of writing or art you do, and a bit about what you’re sending us. There are no formatting requirements for text submissions. There is no fee to submit. Please send submissions as email attachments whenever possible; multimedia submissions may be sent as links.
Rights
You asked and we provide: what's up with publication rights and ownership?Simple: When you publish with us, you give SORTES one-time publication rights for your work. You retain all rights to your work after publication. Work published with SORTES will remain available via our online Archive.While SORTES retains the right to link to or excerpt your published work, we do not have the right to publish your work in new formats (including print). If we would like to pursue publication of your work in new formats, we'll ask you and hopefully agree to terms.
Mahoffs
SORTES was created by founding editor Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum and emeritus editor Kevin Travers. Current editors are listed in our masthead, Many of us live in Philadelphia, some luckily do not, but we invite writers and artists everywhere to live the SORTES fantasia.
Events
SORTES regularly offers readings and performances. For upcoming events, please check here and our Facebook page.
Coming Soon Enough
SORTES 25 Live
Sunday, April 12, 2026
7pm
Then SWING YOURSELF to the SORTES 25 LIVE happening where you’ll be misted by the vocal hoodoo of all / at least probably a few of our issue’s contributors, including:B Myers • Barry Foy • Glenn Frantz • Jennifer Marysia Landretti • Philip Kobylarz • r.s.mason • René Houtrides • Sal Difalco • Steven Dampf • and Stuart Rose.Host Jeremy Tenenbaum will carry you from your office to your house to your kitchen for a snack and up to your tv room where he will scoop you into your vintage barcalounger and even heat up the Zoom for you. The show will be free and heavensent.
Meeting ID: 844 4740 4094
Passcode: 724257
Radio SORTES
Archive
A Suspense-Full Halloween, October 29, 2023
On October 29, 2023, Radio SORTES presented A Suspense-Full Halloween -- live performance of two old time radio Suspense episodes -- "The Screaming Woman" and "Ghost Hunt" -- each dripping with period music and sound effects.From 1940 through 1962, Suspense, "radio's outstanding theater of thrills," terrified radio listeners with macabre true crime and supernatural horrors.Our production was reanimated by the electrifying Radio SORTES Players: Alyssa Shea, Betsy Herbert, Dan DiFranco, Demree McGhee, Eliot Duhan, Emily Zido, Fionna Farrell, Iris Johnston, Kelly Ralabate, Lino, and Nick Perilli. The performance was adapted by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum and Aria Braswell, with direction and sound by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum.
Scary SORTESies To Tell In The Dark, October 30, 2022
On October 30, 2022, Radio SORTES presented three ghastly and unnerving old time radio stories, including original adaptations of Arch Oboler's "The Dark," Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains," and Oscar Wilde's “The Canterville Ghost,” plus poetry from "Weird Tales" magazine.Our infernal Radio SORTES Players included Betsy Herbert • Brenna Dinon • Christina Rosso • Demree McGhee • Emily Zido • Evan Myers • Iris Johnston • Kelly Ralabate • Lino • Luke Condzal • and Rosanna Lee Byrnes. The performance was written, produced, and scored by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum.Radio SORTES is an unnatural extracurricular extension of SORTES magazine, whose events and readings are always free, open to all, and ideally less than two hours. See SORTES.co for inexpressibly brilliant literature, art, and upcoming events.
1950s Western / Sci-Fi Double-Feature, February 25, 2022
The talented Radio SORTES Players performed two old time radio episodes broadcast live via ethereal wireless right to our audience's home receivers.We galloped into the unknown with a 1950s western / sci-fi double-feature: The Six Shooter episode “Battle at Tower Rock” and the Dimension X episode “A Logic Named Joe” -- each with music and convincing sound effects.The all-star Radio SORTES players were: Abbey Minor • Betsy Herbert • Brenna Dinon • Brian Maloney • Britny Brooks • Daniel DiFranco • Dwight Evan Young • Emily Zido • Evan Myers • Iris Johnston • Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum • Kailey Tedesco • Kelly Ralabate • Kevin Travers • Luke Condzal • Nicholas Perilli • Rachel Specht • Rosanna Byrnes • and Victoria Mier.Radio SORTES -- an unnatural extracurricular extension of SORTES magazine -- was produced and directed by Kevin Travers and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum. Radio SORTES is always free, open to all, and less than two hours. See SORTES.co for upcoming events.
The 39 Steps, February 19, 2021
The Radio SORTES Players performed this classic adventure story, written by John Buchan and adapted by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum from Hitchcock's 1935 film and the 1937 Lux Radio production. It starred Brenna Dinon • Heather Bowlan • Rosanna Byrnes • Betsy Herbert • Iris Johnston • Warren Longmire • Brian Maloney • Britny Brooks • Nicholas Perilli • Kelly Ralabate • Dwight Evan Young • Emily Zido • Victoria Mier • Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum • and Kevin Travers.
Halloween Eve Special, October 30, 2020
Introduction
Suspense, "The House in Cypress Canyon"
Commercial
Inner Sanctum Mysteries, "Voice on the Wire"
The Radio SORTES players presented a live Halloween Eve special: two programs of classic old time radio horrors. The shows -- including dialogues, music, and sound effects -- were performed for a live Zoom audience.The Suspense episode “The House in Cypress Canyon” was originally broadcast December 5, 1946 and the Inner Sanctum Mysteries episode “Voice on the Wire” was originally broadcast November 29, 1944. Both programs were performed by Kevin Travers • Sean Finn • Britny Perilli • Don Deeley • Brian Maloney • Betsy Herbert • Kyle Brown Watson • Nicholas Perilli • Emma Pike • Susan Clarke • and Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum. Between episodes, we presented an original commercial in period style written and performed by Kevin Travers.
SORTES Expeditions
EXCITEMENT, ADVENTURE, AND REALLY MILD THINGS
SORTES Expeditions discovers places that are already there! We organize small teams to explore city streets, village squares, shopping malls, bus stations, downtowns, and byways with the mission of freshly seeing places we’re bored of seeing.And after the expedition, each team member produces field notes and one work of art in any medium for SORTES to publish.
Please select an Expedition listed below.
JOIN AN EXPEDITION OR MOUNT YOUR OWN EXPEDITION
If you live in the Philadelphia region or would pilgrimage to Philadelphia, consider joining us for a future Expedition. Ideal candidates include social scientists, public introverts, people who own reasonable walking shoes, and anyone who devotes the most passion to the least important. Please let us know if you're interested.Or maybe you're interested but live in a lesser non-Philadelphia location? Organize your own Expedition! SORTES would be delighted to collaborate with you. We would lend organizational expertise, templates for field reports, and other guidance -- and you can publish your field notes and art on SORTES. Please let us know if this sounds foxy.
#1: Philadelphia, Passyunk Avenue
Overview
The SORTES expedition team undertook a inaugural pedestrian exploration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between October 25, 2025 11:00 am ET and October 25, 2025 5:00 pm ET. Our primary territory spanned East Passyunk Avenue between South Street and Broad Street. This territory, while for generations known to cartographers and inhabited by populations both indigenous and nonnative, had never been systematically chartered and documented. Team members ranged from experienced to novice pedestrians. Activities included individual notation, photographic and videographic documentation, paper rubbings, pastry sampling, and participation in the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District’s East Passyunk Fall Fest, coincidentally occurring during our travel. While not all team members accomplished the summit, each voyager returned home safely.This expedition was made possible through the generous donations of our individual team members.Team field notes and media documentation follow.
Territory
Passyunk Avenue, South Street to Broad Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Date and Time
Saturday, October 25th, 2025
11:00 am to 5:00 pm ET (appx)
Team
Jeremy Tenenbaum: Chief
Kelly Ralabate: Archivist of Records / Cartographer
Alyssa Shea: Archivist of Media
Ellie Miller: Navigator / Sherpa and Medic
Daniel DiFranco: Camp and Equipage Manager
Len Davidson: Historian / Researcher
Judy Davidson: Communicator
Scheduled Itinerary
11:00am Assemble at base camp
11:15am Orientation, acclimatization, travel, operations
11:36am Mid-ascent camp: Triangle Tavern, Passyunk Avenue and 10th Street
12:23pm Summit camp: Passyunk Avenue and Broad Street
12:30pm Begin return trip
12:50pm Mid-descent camp: To be determined
1:15pm Famous Deli
1:45pm Base camp return / post-expedition debriefing: Tattooed Mom, 530 South Street
Post-expedition activities
Art
Jeremy Tenenbaum, Expedition Chief
"Mount Passyunk"
This sculpture represents the expedition course, mounting Philadelphia’s Passyunk Avenue from South Street to Broad Street. It's a simplified abstracted grid; in reality Passyunk, a noted diagonal, strikes Broad at a brazen angle and cross-streets intersect at angles as well. It also reorients the intuitive perception of the street, flipping north and south, and suggests a “climb” (despite the actual flat elevation).The sculpture is formed on a metal sheet, bent at the ends, encased in clay sheets. Due to my inexperience working with clay, the sculpture cracked as it dried. I considered repairing the cracks with fresh clay but worried this might cause additional harm. I also considered Photoshopping the cracks and lying to the world, as I usually do, but others convinced me to be true to the work and myself.
Kelly Ralabate: Archivist of Records / Cartographer
"The Ballad of Passyunk Ave"
A musical tribute to singing cowboy Marty Robbins
The day was bright and promising for seven traveling souls
On a journey through South Philly and the mysteries it holds
Typewriters and hardware, fresh cherry cheesecake,
Downing drinks outside of The Triangle for a break...But round Passyunk & 8th, we grinded to a halt,
Victims of a local man and his verbal assaultTurns out you cannot walk down Passyunk Avenue
without a Deadpool lifeguard stranger ranting at youWe had found ourselves outside of his family’s auto store,
His initial approach was jovial, but underneath lurked something more,
Deadpool mask pulled down with lifeguard shorts around his waist
As his tone turned sinister, the wary travelers braced.Talk of simulations and grand conspiracy,
Of how beings in the Matrix can never be truly free...The ranting and the raving was the opposite of brief
And to prove his final point he unplugged our chief.Over time the lecturing lost any sense of fun,
From a man with a rubber chicken holstered instead of a gun.
Eventually we all broke free and continued our hike,
Escaped conversation hostages from a man who’s not quite right.All the way to Broad Street our caravan pushed on,
Documenting wildlife and culture with abandon.But beware -- you cannot walk down Passyunk Avenue
without a Deadpool lifeguard stranger ranting at you.
Alyssa Shea: Archivist of Media
"soft coercion of highly constructed environments: east passyunk ave"
Inspired by not only the act of walking down Passyunk Avenue, I also turned to my library to process the experience and to frame the construction of my video: Rebecca Solnit's Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas ("...any significant place is in some sense infinite, because its stories are inexhaustible...a place is only an intersection between forces converging from various distances..."). A 1984 pamphlet from Schuylkill Valley Nature Center that was tucked inside an old book of Philadelphia walking tours, picked up from a Free Little Library on one of my daily walks about the city ("abiotic factors / adaptations / communities / energy flow / material cycling / populations"). Dolores Hayden's The Power of Place (where James Rojas is quoted, "...the central core of the enacted environment is motion."). And lastly, Chris Kraus's introduction to Jane Dickson in Times Square ("...a fascination with how human beings navigate the soft coercion of highly constructed environments."), from which my video derives its title. The audio is a breakbeat mélange of didgeridoo, flute, autoharp, and field recordings from the expedition to channel the intersection of forces at play along Passyunk.
Daniel DiFranco: Camp and Equipage Manager
"nowsitrightbackandhereataleofawalkingfourhourmile"
Passyunk, I learned, is a Lenape word for "in the valley." Now it's all concrete, blacktop, and signs. This earth shitten landscape wants to be dirt again. Everything seems to be in its last bloom, screaming to exist. Wouldn't it be nice if we, friends, could go hand in hand and fall into the sky already shadowbound on a perfect October day?
Judy Davidson: Communicator and Len Davidson: Historian / Researcher
I was inspired by our Day on Passyunk to go back and find some quotes I had saved while on a long journey with Lenny [Davidson] 20-some years ago.
| Author | Source | Quotation |
|---|---|---|
| Miles Morland | A Walk Across France | "There is a great peace at the start of a long journey. The end is so far away that all you see is the journey itself. You think of nothing else." |
| Tim Parks | Italian Neighbors | "As so often in Italy, the picturesque is combined with a sharp edge of danger." |
| Sign on a hotel room door | Levanto, Italy | "Dear Sirs we inform you that the room is to be vacated before 10 AM. On the contrary the room will be debit." |
| Frances Mayes | Under the Tuscan Sun | "Most trips have an underlying quest. We're looking for something. What? Fun, escape, adventure--but then what? ... Once in a place, that journey to the far interior of the psyche begins or it doesn't. Something must make it yours, that ineffable something no book can capture." |
| Cheryl Strayed | Wild | "I had arrived. I'd done it. It seemed like such a small thing and such a tremendous thing at once, like a secret I'd always tell myself, though I didn't know the meaning of it just yet." |
| Judy Davidson | Sabbatical Travels (unpublished notes) | "It's sunny up here over the North Atlantic. The trip was long enough that I got past the need to go home a while ago, but by yesterday we were tired... We couldn't enjoy another restaurant meal. Wonderful, wonderful as it is, Paris, too, is in the real world and I'll now return to mine." |
| Gertrude Stein | As seen in a daily cryptoquote puzzle | "You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don't dance. So you might as well dance." |
As Roy Rogers and Dale Evans sang so long ago, happy trails to you.
Field Notes
Jeremy Tenenbaum, Expedition Chief
| Time | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 11:17am | Passyunk Ave and Bainbridge St | Planter with LEGO interpolation. 6 bags of cedar chips. 2 Zagars within view. |
| [Untimed] | Philadelphia AIDS Thrift, Passyunk Ave & 5th St | [Cat Hanson Box] [notebook writing unclear] |
| [Untimed] | Passyunk Ave & Bainbridge St (appx) | 742 mural |
| [Untimed] | Passyunk Ave & Christian St | PoMo brick shutters. |
| [Untimed] | Passyunk Ave & 8th St | “Deadpool Lifeguard” encounter: L. Davidson engages, Shea engages, "Deadpool" "unplugs me" [from The Matrix]. |
| 12:37pm | Mid-ascent camp: Triangle Tavern, Passyunk Ave & 10th St | Note: 1 hour later than projected itinerary |
| [Untimed] | Lost sight of DiFranco and Miller | |
| [Untimed] | Statue of Joey Giardello (Legendary Philadelphia Boxer), Passyunk Ave & 13th St & Mifflin St | L. and J. Davidson diverged from team. Passerby asks Tenenbaum for location of “benches.” |
| [Untimed] | Passyunk Ave & Mifflin St. | Edit: K. Ralabate, Archivist: Mouse incident: Shea and Tenenbaum, kneeling to record crayon rubbing of local manhole cover, unintentionally trip human-sized Mickey Mouse afflicted with misfortune of being unable to look down. |
| [Untimed] | Summit camp: Passyunk Ave & Broad St | Team reduced to Tenenbaum, Ralabate, Shea. Note for posterity indicating team members and course buried in planter |
| [Untimed] | Statue of Joey Giardello (Legendary Philadelphia Boxer), Passyunk Ave & 13th St & Mifflin St | Rejoined L. and J. Davidson |
| [Untimed] | Fall Festival shop tables, Passyunk Ave | Rejoined DiFranco and Miller |
| 3:16pm | Philly Typewriter, 1735 E Passyunk Ave | Davidsons diverged from team. Stated intention to reach Broad Street, taxi home. |
| 3:35pm | ACME parking lot, Passyunk Ave & Dickenson St | Brief camp at corner. Team reduced to Tenenbaum, Ralabate, Shea. Note spiky seedpod [empty] and blackened bananas |
| [Untimed] | Shot Tower Coffee, 542 Christian St | Diverged course to briefly camp. Communication from DiFranco and Miller to meet “in 10 minutes” at Base Camp. |
| [Untimed] | Base camp: Passyunk Ave & South St | Rejoined DiFranco and Miller |
| Post-expedition: [Untimed] | Taco & Ramen, 615 South St | Dinner. Team minus Davidsons |
| Post-expedition: [Untimed] | Cry Baby, 627 S 3rd St | Drinks. Team minus Davidsons |
| Post-expedition: [Untimed] | Various | DiFranco and Miller stated intention to “get a nightcap” elsewhere nearby. Shea stated intention to meet husband at The Last Drop Coffeehouse. Tenenbaum and Ralabate return home. |
Kelly Ralabate: Archivist of Records / Cartographer
Fig 1. Expedition Points of Interest
Fig 2. Expedition Findings
Alyssa Shea: Archivist of Media
Photos
Videos
Rubbings
Sketches
Found
Ellie Miller: Navigator / Sherpa and Medic
Len Davidson: Historian / Researcher and Judy Davidson: Communicator
Odd Lots
A Proper Mast-Lashing
Philosophies and Phrases for Debased Phases
or Aphorisms for Schisms or Epigrams for Pigs and Rams
The first lie we're taught is existence of sin. The second is we shouldn't have it..
Drinking, like religion and suspicion, is only dangerous in excess or less.Sex and love are each admirable but together inconceivable.The problem with good taste is that there's too much of it. A surfeit of quality is the tedium of heaven.From birth I easily succeeded. Only through great effort have I failed, albeit not very well.Sobriety is the only impediment to intoxication.Poetry lies to make truth seem plausible.Don't deny yourself a fantasy because reality is flawed. Fiction is a valid form of fact.I derive from a long line of the dead. In fact, everyone I know comes from dead stock. All living people have survivor's guilt.I assume all interactions are loving and flirtatious except those that are.The body makes us human but adornment is denial of the body and denial of the body is civilization and civilization makes us human..
It's later than you drink.I'd like to die while I'm young enough to appreciate it. I may not have traveled much in life but I expect to travel reasonably far in death.La petit morte is more manageable and repeatable than la morte grande.Intellectual property fences in the ocean. Wit belongs to any qualified thief.A friend is just a stranger you've met.Morality says A is right and B is wrong. Ethics asks you to choose between C and D.A nickname given for not drinking is a soberquet.Marry the myopic and live beautiful forever.Decency is the most popular hypocrisy.Religion revealing the historic is a useful mooring. Religion revealing the mystic is abusively boring. Religion is only useful when unbelieved..
My only regret is having been born a man instead of a book.An epicurean, voluptuary, and hedonist walk into a baroque...My mistakes are my best and only qualities.It's best to be hated by the wrong people.We always knew the world was round. Through vast effort we taught ourselves it was flat. Then through much more effort we taught ourselves it was round. And we've never learned our lesson.Fear is not, and the only, convincing theological argument.Life exists to create life but death exists to create thought.I'm queer in every sense except the homosexual.I'm an atheist because I'm too moral not to be.Great minds kink alike..
All evil is caused by children or what they become.
.
.
.
Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum
Editor
June 13, 2025
Correspondence
SORTES invites readers and contributors to fight amongst themselves. Please talk with us! Comment on stories and poems, letters, and the SORTES demimonde in general by emailing
Title
“Text.”
Name, Date
SORTES Riposte
Archive
Shop
SORTES is a mostly online journal, as you know, but every so often we can't resist existing.
Spectral Annual 2024
Here are four ghastly cards celebrating the tradition of sharing ghost stories at the end of the year. Each card features original eerie illustrations and newly-commissioned horror stories:-- Irina Tall's illustrations
-- Kailey Tedesco's poetry
-- Luke Condzal's historical existential story
-- Nick Perilli's familial ghost warmer, and
-- Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum's fraternal horror.Keep them, mail them, trade them, resell them once supplies inevitably exhaust.
Annual 2023
The SORTES Spectral Winter Annual 2023 revives the tradition of haunted holiday fiction. This beautifully crafted 44-page paperback anthology features ghastly short stories showcasing a dead man’s special deliveries, a judgmental seaside specter, the pains of an aging table-rapper, the heartwarming war on the poor, and the electrifying end of the year / world, as well as poems celebrating the Jersey Devil's unsung siblings. Authors include Daniel DiFranco, Jean Zurbach, Kailey Tedesco, Max D. Stanton, Mordecai Martin, and Nick Perilli. The Annual makes an ideal holiday present for any dear friend or family member who loathes the living.
SORTES Sampler 2
A SORTES Sampler 2 is a slender tasty book collecting weird fiction by Max D. Stanton, surrealist collage art by Danielle Gatto Hirano, and a poetry cycle by Uri Rosenshine. It’s a handsomely designed but affordable little snack of a book. We have incredibly limited copies on hand, and every day they become incredibly more limited, so leap today.
SORTES Sampler 1
SOLD OUT
A SORTES Sampler 1 was our first attempt to make the ephemeral real. It contains a dystopian farmstead fantasy by Iris Johnston, paper cutout art by Abi Whitehead, and a Coney Island noir by Mordecai Martin.
Or delay your delicious fulfillment and
Buy In Person
When in Philadelphia, please gobble up your copies from:Brickbat Books, Head & Hand Books, A Novel Idea on PassyunkPlease note that not every publication is sold in each location. If these fine stores are sold out, march to the counter and sweetly demand more SORTES.
Subscribe
Subscribe and become a SORTES supporter through
Patreon
SORTES is dedicated to free: every online issue is lovingly brought to you for zero dollars while each Radio SORTES entertainment is beamed gratis to your Zoom dial. Our masochistic editors tell me they’re delighted to put in hundreds of hours for no money and paltry recognition.However, the rest of the chilly world is less dedicated to free and much the opposite: our website, our Zoom, our physical publications, and so many other digital nickels and dimes sap us more each year.We must fight back – and we need you to help us! Every dollar supporting SORTES goes to creating a strange literary world in which you’re a citizen. To delight you, we’re dancing in our red shoes down to our nubs.Why don’t we accept advertising? Because we hate it and it seems like too much work anyway. It blocks the bucolic view. It spoils the fine pleats in our website.So we turn to solicitation, which is much more up our alley. Patreon revives a tradition old as Roman poetry and frumpy chapel ceilings.
When you subscribe to SORTES for little as
you'll be rewarded with loot, publications, and even opportunities to chat with our sumptuous editors.