Lise Larsen

Frog Species

I liked my studies in ecology and was writing a thesis about a frog species, but at the time I felt that university hindered my growth so I dropped out. I was thirty years old. My long lasting partner had just left me. This was when a strange sort of jubilant feeling started visiting me at occasions, deep down in my stomach. I had felt dejected for as long as I could remember so this was something new to me. I got a job at a snack bar before leaving my studies and leased a room in the Carlsberg district.

The new job turned out to be atrocious. I ran around like a haunted chicken while waiting on angry customers until I got fired for some wrongdoing with a canister of water. I think they looked for an excuse to fire me.

My first impulse was to call the university, but they refused to take me back at the time. I had never been able to save money so I would soon be broke. I got down to my favourite bar and ordered a beer while trying to think about something to do. I did not have time to make formal job applications before my money would run out. And I did not know anybody who would employ me. So I decided to do the only reasonable thing a woman could do in this situation. I took to the streets.

I walked about two hours from my part of Copenhagen to Bispebjerg. It was autumn and dark. Bispebjerg was terrifying. This was where the authorities put immigrants and people on welfare in the vain hope that they would leave the city and look for something better. I knew this was my opportunity to get dough; the emergency social services were located here.

There was a huge queue in front of me, mostly immigrants who did not have a choice but to be here and also lots of men, young and old, with or without beards. None of them seemed to fit into the modern employer’s wish list. As I came eye to eye with the unemployment agent I could not help looking fixedly at her robust jawbone. I felt sorry for her.

“Yes?”

“I have been sacked and do not have union qualifications. My name is Lise...”

“ID please,” she rudely interrupted me. 

“Yes.” I opened my red purse and dug into it until I found my passport. She eyed it for a long time and looked at me again. “Do you have proof that you were fired?”

“Yes.” I found some gritty papers that I gave to her.

She looked at them but did not give them back. Instead she handed me a small card with a number and told me to sit down by the tables and wait for the interview.

“What interview?” I asked. She did not answer me and I stopped feeling sorry for her as I went to the tables.

I sat down and had a plastic cup of tea. Two academic looking men in their thirties sat next to me; they were eating sausages. I glanced at them; they were laughing constantly. There was a strange smell about them. At one point one of the men dropped his sausage on the floor and took it up and then continued eating. I drank six cups of tea before I was called up to room number twelve and went upstairs to a small office curtained by papier-mâché. The new staff person was considerably better looking than the previous one.

“Lise?”

How old was this person? Forty seven?

“Hi,” I began. Suddenly I remembered. “I will show you my identification card.”

“No, no, you have already showed everything to Alberta. We are just here to talk. My name is Kris.” Kris smiled and we shook hands. I relaxed, sat down in the opposite chair and waited for him to continue talking. “Tell me why you are here.” I talked and talked. After half an hour Kris asked if I wanted tea. I was afraid that he would find me dull, but I only heard encouraging sounds. “So, you studied drama and ecology?”

“Yes. I was thinking that maybe I could request some sort of degree and do something. Is there anything I would be qualified to do?”

“Well.” Kris looked unconvinced. “The thing is… It is an unusual combination.“ He seemed unhappy.   

I took another sip of tea. “I know. You know, I do not want a regular job. I have an allotment where I grow fresh vegetables. I would like to have my own eco-café.” I got excited. “It would not be expensive. I could grow vegetables instead of buying stuff.”

“But what would you do in winter?”

“Oh. Is there any grants?”

Kris smiled gloomily. His eyes were clear blue. “Lise, everyone wants the start-up allowances.”

“Oh.” My hopes sank.

Kris leaned over. “You would need more money than that. Can someone give you money?”

“No.”

He grinned. “My organization gives loans to a few unemployed people with good prospects to succeed.”

“I would succeed. I promise.” The feeling in my stomach increased.

Kris smiled sadly. “Everybody says that. I meant that you have to apply. I have hundreds of applicants.”

I suddenly hated him. “Well, forget it.” I stared at the cup and felt miserable when I suddenly imagined how it would be to own that café. I wanted it badly. I looked him in the eyes. “Let us meet at a pub somewhere. You will not regret it. Promise.”

Kris looked back at me in a surprised manner. His translucent eyes were round and his face red-looking. “I do not drink. Sorry.”

I smiled in a bitter sweet way and prepared to leave. “Can I leave?”

“Do you want one more cup?”

“No thanks. By the way, where is the toilet?

“I will show you, Lise.”

Lise Larsen lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is opportunistic and loves writing and growing spuds. 

Pamela Sayers

White Elephant Sale

On crumbled walls your paintings hang,

chips in plaster, cool and grey,

nestled in my vintage shop

where I have come to pray

Life became a travelogue

upon your hindered path,

enmeshed in tufts of lace,

now torn apart

On nether grounds you treaded,

sacred daylight in your hair,

flowing wild in lush sporadic gold

Textured in your purple gown

as tremors cursed seditious hands

and crowds swelled pledging loyalty

in stigma overcome …

by memory of your ruffled tear-stained blouse

Pamela Sayers is an artist by profession, ten years ago she moved out of her country to Mexico. She is now teaching English to foreign language students. She lives with her husband and six pets; 4 dogs, a cat and a bird. Pamela just started writing poetry about 2 years ago and she loves it.

Curtis Ackie

Augury

Determined to capture

the cunning crook's continued climb

along the crippled canvas

we withdraw our hands,

no longer clasping

spinning keys

held over peeling scripture,

and ship a raging shawl.

Sui generis

Beyond the stone doorway,

buried beneath black apparatus,

white hooks

and squared circles,

I spied a feathery flurry

There it stood

lanky and lofty,

contemptible

in its looming emptiness;

a sloppy doll concealed behind

its overgrown twin stilts

And now I cannot hide my pride

at the show of forthright fortitude

which followed.

Curtis Ackie is a novelist, short-story writer, and poet, born in London, UK. He is currently based in Zagreb, Croatia.

Ray Succre

Little Ghost


Be the sentencer, you small ghost, come out and be the limiter.

You’re the soul, yes?

Tell me what comes, and in what cold dale I may brutalize,

or in which narrow court I may be nice enough.

Do you exist?  I’m asking you.

Sentence me as I have, in lines, sentenced else.

You might exist, ghost:  I have heard your first words. 

Please continue.

(Granted, I have dimmed the remainder to night,

and as a cretin with far sight, or else tonight blind,

I will still deny you)

I know the day has marketed us and admits it does not know how,

so ghost, mine, come out and make words.  Market.

Make my sentence curt and cold.

There we are.  Concision.  Good. 

The nausea settles.  Hallelujah. 

I have limits and sentences,

and a righteous, cocksure faculty,

but while the face dims,

while the remainders spin into servitude,

and as the days devour the Sun,

and as the soul begins to snow.

Out There


The unique artist is in direct contact with her madness

and has accomplished that rare, uncharted thing

of domesticating it.

It runs away with her,

but she comes back with it.

Out again and home again.

The leash is a strange and precious commodity,

a thick bleed.  She constantly recaptures this madness

from its escape, or else they merely go for walks.

Others sometimes uncover these maneuvers or walks

from a distance.  They squint and see

the artist or the madness but seldom both,

only that something would seem to be out there.

Perhaps she is lost?

Or else some minds arrive before they embark.

Ray Succre is an undergraduate currently living on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and son. He has had poems published in Aesthetica, Ditch, and Pank, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. His novels Tatterdemalion (2008) and Amphisbaena (2009), both through Cauliay, are widely available in print. Other Cruel Things (2009), an online collection of poetry, is available through Differentia Press. Homepage: Ray Succre

Jesse S. Mitchell

Goldfish Memory

This is all goldfish memory and piano fire, ratlines

And chicken wire.  Fiberglass heads with holes smashed in

And all sorts of metal swinging, pipe wielding, crow bar-demons

And the scissor-legged things…they will cut out your throat…

The jug-eared fiends and spider-lipped men

Who mean to rip us down like dead ships

In some dead bay.

Robotic robotic, 

metallic like dust

Static static, 

I can’t hear my own voice.

Numb numb

And I’m all thumbs,

Fumble with the latches, 

Deaf and dumb.

All of this burning, all of this burning, burning burning because of the flames

The air and the wild waving of arms.

All of these curses, red brick walls, road blocked traffic,

All of this is noise

Built out of virus.

All of this spiritualism and legend, mysticism and fable

All of this atheism, fascism, dualism, 

All of it platonic, of course

All of it, split

Turned over, leaking out, backwards and hanging

Upside down

Like dead spirits aloft like tissue,

Ripped ripped like Chittagong

Still floating with the shadow-tatters

Underneath the light.

Robotic robotic,  

metallic like dust

Static static, 

I can’t hear my own voice.

Bone sky dry, we will never see the rain.

Bone sky dry, we will never see the rain,

If we never see the rain

Then the rain never came

And the fire still burns

Bone sky dry, 

we will never see the rain, again.

Robotic robotic,  metallic like dust

Static static, I can’t hear my own voice.

Numb numb

And I’m all thumbs,

Fumble with the latches, 

Deaf and dumb.

Jesse S. Mitchell was born a lucky lump of clay with a full head of hair and was raised by a wild pack of televisions. Now, he writes pretty stories on the backs of old magazines and out of date bus schedules. Site: modern rage  

Wendy Boyd

The meek shall...

Philip Byron Oakes

Harkening the Day Away

As in a palindrome without recourse to retraction.

Rutted road to fame in silhouette. Ample fish in

the see. The Hapsburgers grilled with fries casting

grease at squeaky wheels, rolling past the meaning

less to evoke the more the merrier they fall. Sedated

scrum of elders in pose with a past that lost the race.

A conundrum squeezed to a limpid clarity of doffed

hats in the ring of fire, smoke signals sent as valentines

to the nether side of the coin’s realm. A fringe benefit

of being stuck in the middle, of the conveniently

amorphous shaping up as trouble. Putting test to

the gravity of sinking feelings. A retort to the calm

mustered in layers of amnesia, topping off the

ulterior in getting under the radar looking for

the end to rhyme.