Al17

Aberration Labyrinth

Aberration

Labyrinth ISSN 2179-8805

November 2015 Issue #17

SHRUNKEN HEADS Jeffrey Park With a rather bitter if not altogether unexpected sense of disappointment, one realizes that, reconstituted, they may in fact regain their original size and shape, but something in the texture is never quite right. "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?" Neil Fulwood Not the rhetorical or theoretical fuck. Not the imaginary, ethereal or fictitious fuck. Not the alleged or rumored fuck, the fuck that is speculated upon. Nor is it the invisible or phantom fuck, the fuck of the spirit world, planchette scuttling across the Ouija board, starting at “f” and ending at “k”. Neither is the fuck in question unreal, mythic or chimerical. It is not the fuck of grotesquerie or fantasia, the wingéd or hornéd fuck of legend. Not the celestial or angelic fuck, the fuck that shines from the firmament. The fuck that feeds on faith and fervor, the eternal promise of the fuck to come. Not the fuck of the bard or balladeer with a fa-la-laa and a hey-nonny-fuck. Nor the fuck of the campfire tale, a friend-of-a-friend whose luck is fucked. No, this the actual fuck. The 100% according-to-Hoyle genuine fuck. The unstoppable fuck heading full-speed towards the immovable fuck-you-too.

BROOKLYN DECEMBER Carl Boon Lorimer Street was awash in rain about to snow. I drank my beer from the Polish bodega and waited to make the sauce. The man downstairs whose name I couldn't pronounce sang to a Christmas special on CBS. On the G train that afternoon the girl I loved told me she didn't, that she'd be minding the tables at St. Stanislaus till ten with her mother. I imagined the snow on her gray suede boots, her dark braids and mysticism. A blue glow, uninvited, came through the window. It was full dark, nothing to do, so I washed and sliced the mushrooms, opened a second beer, and recalled our weekend on the water. She'd told me she'd wait forever. She'd told me I was different, but that was June, the month of forgetting what might happen, the month nothing matters. Channel 12 said snow, snow, snow— and there it was, big flakes on the sill, and I cried. My sister had left a stack of Canadian coins on the table and I touched each one, wishing to be away from Greenpoint, wishing to be a different man.

© This work is the property of the individual authors within.

Aberration



SIGN OF THE TIMES

Jeffrey Park In the last desperate scramble for resources, man finally turns his attention to the heavens. Engineers flex their technological muscles and crack open the moon. And what they find is a great pair of dusty, dried-out lungs and the fossilized remains of a monstrous heart.

GENERATIONS Carl Boon Take Maria, 39, a lover of fruit and leather jackets, a New Yorker whose father watched All in the Family Saturday nights in his kitchen in Brooklyn, laughing while she needed her diaper changed. Now he's dead and she bounces through Manhattan in blue jeans, a Mets cap, New Balance sneakers. I ask myself where four decades have gone. I'm 47—I remember Michael Stivic, my father bounding to the kitchen at commercial break for coffee, an ash tray, a slice of apple cake. It was not canned laughter. It was a point we grew up suddenly and grew equal— Maria and I—with the groans of our fathers calling our mothers for help.

Creating Dust Tonya Overstreet

I have a few phantom words for the disturbed Agonizing thoughts that infest my head A callus chorus for decaying children to sing I have a thesis on how to be a dead human being I create horror alone in the shower The water cleansing with chilling bile I can write lullabies that will make you devour the heart of the kindest innocent child I composed a symphony of haunting rhythms melodies mesmerizing to any mortal beast Directing a play where the audience stars as the sacrifice at an unholy feast I have etched evil in picture frames and painted death on the wall I have choreographed movements for a sociopath and then danced in his wrath as it landed in pools of blood on the floor I have stabbed my pen in a festering sore and wrote with the yellowish puss of disgust The sickening things that turn us to dust

ex-con conversation on the L Train Joe Donnelly They got on the L a few stops from 14th street Switching there to the NQR “My girl calls me on my shit,” His goatee pointed at his Hispanic friend Head shaved They both wore new, white tee shirts and blue jeans Something about a fifteen year old gets passed back and forth The conversations sways between relationships and parole They’re uniform of ex-convicts bounces over the crowded car When they leave, the Hispanic guy speaks in a loud voice “If you just stepped off the train, it would be easier for everyone to get off,” Correct in a pugnacious way Fighting for a little slice of life Trying not to make the same mistakes all over again


Aberration



WITH CARMEN Carl Boon That summer I sat on the couch reading Lolita, alone except for Joseph's mother calling "Joseph, Joseph, where are you?" from the third-floor balcony all afternoon. It was hot. I had a choice: to go to the river or stay with Carmen, who climbed my shoulders, my life, needing sex, a way out the window. The girl I loved had gone to Spain or Portugal, had gone because she said Brooklyn swallows girls, so I had the cat, the heat, the tampons she'd left on the bathroom counter. This girl who'd no doubt fall for a Spaniard called Ignacio or Alejandro had left me with her broken-legged cat, and in bed, Bedford Avenue a furnace, I hated her but missed the way she touched me— like a girl and like a woman, swimming the river in a purple bikini. We argued, made love, ate omelets at the Garden City Diner and decided to drink a thousand beers at Jerry's and make love again. I recall her yellow panties, but Carmen, Carmen was always there, cat-kissing and meowing past Nabokov and my solitude like a tiny girl who hadn't touched the world. It's only now I know I was happy then, racing through Montana and California, lost in admonitions, thighs, her eyeliner next to the tampons, the novel balanced on the toilet basin precariously.

SOUNDING Jeffrey Park Your boudoir, darker than a beast’s lair – even with the curtains opened wide the interior is proof against moon or star or streetlight. I concentrate, inch my way forward into the darkness, hands outstretched, heart pounding, hoping the echoes will guide me to your bed.

The Other JD DeHart I heard a soft rumble upstairs, so went looking (wouldn't you?) I found him creeping in the back corner of the closet and yelled, Who are you? I'm you, he said, so I let him go. Sick and tired of people picking on me.


Aberration



The Funnel JD Dehart ontology, epistemology and all the rest Foucault and I recline except he's gone now Derrida has gone too my ideas are too big to fit into a single page so I squeeze them down refined like cognac.

Unspoken Requests JD DeHart the measure of their minds comes quite short as they sort through language sifting like so many drifters in the parking lot standing my the on-ramp of discourse, displaying pitiful help me signs in the room, they mouth the words but seem to be speaking a Babel of languages.

Between The Sheets

Kathleen Coutley

Get down with me: we’ll wrestle between the sheets. Come use your imagination. We’ll play make-believe. Take me, bring me into your bed I’ll teach you all my wild ways. Pull me open, peel me apart, let your fingers hold me spread between the sheets. Tell your friends all about me. We’ll put “Shades” to shame. Remember all the places I took you. Close my cover, and return me to my shelf.


Aberration



Shells

Derrick Paulson

"I'll have some coffee with my eggs ‘n toast,” Ed used to mumble when he’d stumble in on Sunday morning, half-past two. He’d come up to the diner’s double doors and pause and sigh before he’d try to come inside. Sometimes, with bloodshot eyes, he’d pound the glass, then sway about out there ‘til someone’d run to let him in. Oh Ed! Look at him now, dragging his feet and staring empty-eyed. There was a time I had my sights on him. He’s not the man, I know, he used to be— these past few weeks have not been fun for us. So, ‘cause there’s no more eggs, just lots of shells, I’ll blast that bastard zombie back to Hell.

The cum stains on God’s robe Ashley Naftule The angels wash His robes and never speak of It. When they find new universes growing inside the washing machine and dryer, they toss them out with the lint without a second thought. He needs His robes cleaned every single day. The angels don’t ask what inspires their Lord. They remember what happened to Lucifer when he got curious.

PORTHOLE Mithuna Nath Boogied up in the air On my surge over silver steps, In an atypical qualm, I dived far, I squeezed My hand, calling upon hallows To let me sense And bear out it is but Not the land of nod. The steps stretched out As a condensed sea, Trees poured carroty, Then evaporated to the skies, Fire was cool and swept My skin with ruby hue, I was all eyes and naught else. A dream within a dream Within another sweet dream, I crossed the brinks of inner dreams Tagging along one another To fasten my bod up In the deepest dream, Remote from reality, Flinging the keys away Through a porthole ear. My ear decodes The clinging slump Of elfin keys And urges me To wake up, Come round the bed.


Aberration



Wisdom

Lex Kogan

Upon the new year’s sunward turn I buried myself deep under the copper colored ground while anticipating the harshest drought of the century surfacing occasionally for air and light I slept in ferns and dirt, resting as my most hated opponents spidered radio signals across the whitewashed toxic atmosphere Living humbly amongst the garden fauns I lost track of my authorized itinerary while dying and battering down the muse in the minefield I reached for leaves and stars through sharp blades of palm and thought to myself that nothing lasts forever anymore finally, after having had quite enough of all of this I forced myself to brush the rust off the blood encrusted misery camp and migrate on I took with me the horn of the oldest faun without permission of course swinging the thing violently through the tropical trees hoping to scratch up the flesh of whoever might be awaiting my return at the pipeline’s edge on the other side of town

Dreamcatcher

Kyla Larkin

A dreamcatcher hangs in my bedroom. It looks so innocent, Just hanging there. Dreamcatchers catch nightmares right? Not this one. It catches my dreams And I wake in a cold sweat Two or Three times a night But the nightmares don’t stop They follow me In my waking hours They don’t stop harassing me Ever But They’re worse when I sleep So I’ve stopped sleeping But my nightmares are becoming more And more real Blades Guns Pills Ropes Poisons Drugs Alcohol They won’t Go away What scares me most though Is that I die In my nightmares By my own hand Maybe These nightmares Aren’t nightmares at all Maybe They’re visions


Aberration



An Unashamed Liar Indunil Madhusankha “You are mine and I am yours.” That was our motto as a couple of lovers whose affection, as I think, is descended from uncountable births It comprised a staggering strength that could find no yardstick in the world to measure It was the day my fate was sealed We both were travelling by a bus Suddenly, a great crash of thunder exploded in my ears as if the sky was broken And, that is all my memory has stored I was at the hospital when I gained recovery I got to know from the stammering words uttered strenuously by one of my friends the occurrence of a bomb attack in the bus by a suicide bomber Even before he finished his speech I questioned him about her His downcast face was the only reply It was almost an insupportable shock providing enough room for an iron to melt away in my heart I felt as if a brood of wild elephants were screaming of anger within my head

Now the sole relief of mine is the nostalgia for the train of our days At the beach, we were the witnesses of the sunset The sun, half sunk in the boundless line where the orange sky springing to life in a reddish splendour kissed the magnificent ocean lady We drew an analogy you were the ocean and I, the sky But never saw the bad omen prominent in that union being placed in the unreachable horizon And now, I am already used to talk gibberish in sleep It has left an irremediable hole in my heart that I feel myself as an unashamed liar with the broken promise that I firmly gave you for the sake of our noble affair, “One day, if we happen to part from each other, we’ll let ourselves die together.” gibberish in sleep It has left an irremediable hole in my heart that I feel myself as an unashamed liar with the broken promise that I firmly gave you for the sake of our noble affair, “One day, if we happen to part from each other, we’ll let ourselves die together.”


Aberration



Pencils Emily Barth The sign reads “for sale” in black marker on faded purple paper. The booth is a a table with cheap checked piece of plastic in classic American picnic red and white. The man sitting at this little booth on the corner of 5th and Main looks up at me with a green hat, an orange clip on tie on a blue shirt. I look at his goods, which were only white colored pencils and I couldn’t help to laugh. He leaned in close I thought I smelled whiskey when he told me “they are for the color blind. Only they know how special these are.”

GAMER Neil Fulwood My wife is playing Final Fantasy and resisting my attempts to read her the first draft of a new poem. There are guys embroiled in the machismo of World of Warcraft who don’t glare through gimlet eyes in a haze of fevered determination or punch the air when an antagonist dies with such intense jubilation. The hookers-and-muscle-cars ethos evinced by frat boys hooked on Grand Theft Auto is dissed and pissed on and left in the dust by the finish-line sprint of a chocobo. Fire-breathing monsters die by the sword, side missions yield better materiel. Me, I’m battling recalcitrant swarms of words. Is the pen mightier? Is it hell!

Dancing Around the Round Table Cynthia Covington Dancing around the round table where magnet and electrode therapies transform into painful healings as they spill under foot. We therefore embrace the stench of yesterday and grapple with today. It crumbles like cake from the mouth. Like smiles from the lips pulled down. No need to kick me under the table. I’ll sweep up the crumbs later, like I always do. And throw them into an angry sea where ghosts wait to consume. They hide just left of the passageway back to us and make way for unwanted children. Stepping aside for the sounds of sliced and fashioned shadows fading into flashes of non existence. This is the childhood of choreographed steps replacing useless emotion and worthless administration… And we are left with ourselves.

NO EXIT Jo Taylor I wish someone would say to me Use the door with the yellow exit light. Get on outta here if you don't like this version of your life, if the setting feels threadbare, the plot takes a twisty turn. Move on to the next stage. I wish someone would say to me Follow the neon exit arrows out of this dark maze if you don't like your parking place. Back out of the straight and narrow, level down, round the pillar, pay the metered amount, get out. I wish someone would say to me Take exit 259 on the green highway sign, at the end of the ramp turn right, melt into a carnival night—cotton candy, rocking gondola on the ferris wheel, the calliope's happy sinister song.


Aberration



_for love_ Edward Canavan eyes brighter than the day we seek to touch and feel one with another too long away so deep an ache longing to breathe life again thru a different heart.

_the elsewhere mind_ Edward Canavan turning toward the sun the blind eyes behold the voices stammer and fade broken thru the last light of day brings the only truth that matters.

_all away_ Edward Canavan night roads veering off behind the eyes where love must go to quietly mourn as the buzzards circle the gallows and nothing dies in peace.

_further and farther_ Edward Canavan twisted to the bone and beyond mapless and lost reached from without and shown the light within crawling bloody and stumped from the wolven hordes into small rooms of serenity and solace we gather inside the eye of the surrounding storm laughing out loud and plotting our course.


All artwork for this issue has been provided by Ben Mohr

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