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| "Tracings" by Sandy Beach "The Seer on the Wooden Pillar" by Paul Belz "The World Made from Cacophany" by Paul Belz "Unrequited" by John Birkbeck "Silence" by Curtis Church "In Paradise" by Rosemarie Crisafi "Just a Walk in the Park" by F. Anthony D'Alessandro "Columbus Circle Crooner" by F. Anthony D'Alessandro "Lobster Duck" by F. Anthony D'Alessandro "Sloppy Hair in Sunset Years" by F. Anthony D'Alessandro "Logarithms" by Tony D'Arpino "Lila" by Adriana DiGennaro "A Year of Mourning" by Ruth Dombrow "Conversations with a Naked Ascetic" by Alison Eastley "The Book of Scorpio" by Alison Eastley "Cloud Formations" by Rich Ives "Infancy" by Edith Kur "Hunt, 1831" by Joanne Lowery "Cold Turkey" by Joanne Lowery "Clark Gable as Muse" by Joanne Lowery "Accident in 16 Parts" by Joanne Lowery "Little Pears" by Joanne Lowery "After We Bought a Computer in 1996" by Shawn McLain "Seven Blind Men and the Elephant" by Ram Mehta "What I Want" by Corey Mesler "Stagnation" by Samia Ouederni "On The Walls:" by Marissa Ranello "Urban Cycle" by Marissa Ranello "Midnight Shift" by Cortny Riblett "Thief" by Cortny Riblett "When the Beach is Mine Alone" by Harding Stedler "Enter Stage Left" by Harding Stedler "Superman and Darlene Smith" by Deborah Stinson "Per-millennial Skyline" by Elizabeth Kate Switaj "Under the Umbrella" by Sara Toruno |
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| Cloud Formations |
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| Bruno is a mestizo and he is studying the weather. He has learned that it is more interesting near the earth because the air here has more dust, smoke, moisture, passion, sickness and confusion in it. This blanket is thicker than the one at the top of a mountain.
When you see a father on the road here, he is often carrying a big bundle. If the bundle is too heavy, he ties it to the backs of his children. Such a father is held in place by a long invisible strap the mother wears across her pelvic region. These fathers wear embroidered anger and colorful shawls with small animals woven into them and are proud of their fine thick necks. The mothers wear long leather lace and as many silver eyeglass holders as they can afford. The children wear tall stovepipe hats. Now if you really think about it, wouldn’t this make a fine pasture for someplace besides heaven? Suppose Bruno is herding his llamas and a dangerous wolf appears with a bloody baby in its mouth. The smart herdsman will know then that his children are as nutritious as llamas, but will it help him to appreciate their value? But if a mestizo is studying this kind of weather, he has two ways to approach his problem. He can become a father and tie strings to his children to keep them from wandering away like clouds until they have enough worries to alter their flavor, or he can live alone and attach small slivers of ice to his thoughts to keep them from breeding. Perhaps the great white clouds drifting high above the earth’s dirty blanket can be made into the rain that makes mestizos grow by refreshing their tired blankets. Perhaps this is done by the beautiful silky cloth that looks just like water and combs and combs the air while it instigates an appearance of new life whether it is a new life or it is not. And perhaps this keeps the life inside the weather from stagnating. And this keeps Bruno from placing his anger in unfortunate receptacles. And if Bruno looks long enough, he can see this transformation appear in the last great blanket of fear that is falling so slowly, so slowly, from the fathers and the mothers of our great, confused land. |
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