2011-My year in publishing.

Here's the count: A total of 53. 26 Flash, 25 Poems and 2 works of Non-Fiction plus 50,000 words for "An Angry Therapist's Thursday Appointments" . Here's a chance to read them all and comment on the ones you like. Oh, yeah, the Bruins won the cup. Fear the beard!

FICTION 

"Aspirations" ,  "Action Figures"  Unshod Quills

"Becoming a Couple" ,  Metazen

"Things About Callie" ,  Blue Lake Review

"I Don't Know Who You Are" ,  In Between Altered States

"Home Invasion" ,  Fried Chicken and Coffee

"Fireworks" , Squawk Back #31

"Multiplicity" ,  Midway Journal

"Shooting Them Out" ,  U.M.Ph.!

"Last Call" ,  Curbside Splendor

"Channeling" , "Bipolar"  Red Fez

"A Little Slice Of" ,  not from here, are you?

"A New Life" ,  "What's in the Clouds", "Some Sort of Anonymous Meeting" Thunderclap V 
 
 "Every Day There Is So Much about Elephants" ,  Smokelong Quarterly 31

"Bonfire" ,Prick of the Spindle

"The Recital" ,  "Divided" The Legendary
   

"Not the Stuff of Fairy Tales" ,  RE: Telling
 

"The Things We Have" , In Between Altered States

"They Covered all the Rust Spots with Bumper Stickers" , 1 AM Project Zine  

"The Soul Must Go On" ,  Metazen

"Entertaining Just An Option" , Monkeybicycle

"How to Give Dating Advice as a State Social Worker" ,  JMWW V

POETRY

"often they fall from the sky"
"Exposed"
"Salmon Fishing in Alaska "
Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

"Back In Boston"
"Her Car is Officially Dead"
U.M.Ph.!

" In A Jam"
Truck

" Seasonal Affective Disorder"
Durable Goods 2009-2010 Anthology

" What do Men Want (in response to Kim A)"
Poor Mojos Almanac, #540

"Forgiveness"
"Wait-You Can't Hide It"
 Istanbul Literary Review

"When I'm Drunk I Think About Phoenix"
The Endicott Review Vol. 28, Issue 1.

"An Ocean Inn"
 Bagels with the Bards 6

" Falling For An Attached Woman"
 Referential Magazine

" When you live by yourself"
 Muddy River Poetry Review

"I take my date and her Kid to the Zoo"
"A Circus Memory"
"All That We Ate"
"A Fifth of Scotch"
"Like Moths in the Night"
Curbside Splendor, Volume 1

" When it is Still Winter"
riverbabble 18

"the girl this weekend"
"An Angry Mel Gibson Gets a Dog"
Howls and Pushycats

" The rain is like the Things You Couldn't Stop"
 Wilderness House Literary Review

"The Enabler"
"starting a poem with "sometimes" is really weak"
 Gutter Eloquence

ESSAY AND NON-FICTION

"Dire Series Memories"

 February 9, 2011, The Somerville News: Lyrical Somerville

"My Personal Catelog of Dating Drinkers and Non-Drinkers"
January 31, 2011, Drinking Diaries

Quite a line-up at Unshod Quills: "You're gonna need a bigger sandwich"

The list of contributors and work in December's Unshod Quills is really fantastic (see below). I love a good themed issue, especially when there are many themes. Dena Rash Guzman and Wendy Ellis  set up this issue with the following themes: Love--Coffee--David Bowie--Joan of Arc--Enough Rope--Childhood--Dancing About Architecture.

I have two new pieces in this issue, "Aspirations" and "Action Figures". In "Aspirations" the story involves a struggling individual reflecting on collectables offered at fast food restaurants. Let's not forget my favorite, "He-Man" Cups.

The line, "You're going to need a bigger sandwich" vamps off this.

The second piece, "Action Figures" is a vamp about bendable figurines modeled after literary figures--but, it's really not about that. Check out what the issue's other writers came up with on these themes!

• Contributors

  • A Letter From the Editor
  • Brian Tibbetts
  • Catherine Woodard – Featured Poet
  • David Tomaloff
  • Frank Reardon
  • Gray Brian Thomas
  • Holly Hinkle
  • James H. Duncan – Featured Poet
  • Jason Herzog
  • Jenny Forrester
  • Jenny Hayes
  • Jimmy Burns
  • Joey DAMMIT!
  • Kevin Sampsell
  • Kevin Shea
  • Khadija Anderson
  • M. Kline
  • Matty Byloos
  • Nancy Flynn
  • Robert Meyer
  • Rusty Barnes
  • Ryan Werner
  • Sugahtank John Roubanis – Featured Artist
  • Terry Faust
  • Timothy Gager
  • Valery Petrovsky
  • W.M. Butler
  • x. joloronde

New story in Metazen ---"Becoming a Couple"

I must say, I love Metazen. I think they "get me" and that's no small task.

Editor Christopher Allen selected, "Becoming A Couple", a story about caring, knowing and then
going out of your way for that woman. A fickle person can make something bad out of that, because  there is only one perfect algorithm for the creation of a beautiful relationship but infinite possibilities which can lead to failure. That fickle person doesn't have to look, or work to make up excuses, because any of them will do at the time they are needed.

Writing can be cathartic, at times, but also, at others, communicative. Last August, during a brief open window was when "Becoming A Couple" was produced.

Also of note, Jason Jordan from What to Wear During An Orange Alert was reading it too!

Me and The Circus

F. John Sharp from Right Hand Pointing noticed the circus often pops up in my stories and poems. He's correct, of course and what follows are examples of this :

The following quote is from the "Smoking with Timothy Gager" interview at Smokelong Quarterly

“The opening sentence also chains to the one that follows. I have many friends that champion causes and during the week this was written I'd heard from two about how I could change the life of an elephant by protesting the circus. The circus comes up often in my stories and poems, so off I went. “








Below you can click the links for pieces from where the circus calls me.


"A Wing, A Prayer and A Tall Man" 
 Word Riot

"People Find Comfort in Repetition" 
Poem Hunter 

"Falling For an Attached Woman"  
Referential Magazine

"Every Day There is So Much About Elephants" 
Smokelong Quarterly

"The Soul Must Go On" 
Metazen

"A Circus Memory"
Curbside Splendor

"The Best Interest of the Child"
 Thieves Jargon



From my unpublished novel An Angry Therapist’s Thursday Appointments

A clown cloud is juggling balls. There’s one for work, one for school, one for family. The 
clown drops a ball. Distention happens on its own. The clouds house more of the circus. I 
see Siegfriend and Roy with some white tigers. Is it a mirage because Roy is still whole. 
He was attacked, lived and spoke. “Don’t shoot the cat,” the cloud said. I find myself 
saying that to myself. Don’t shoot the messenger. No one listened to Roy. I’m listening to 
the clouds.

New Blue Lake Review story and A Pushcart Nomination

The Blue Lake Review published for your enjoyment, Things About Callie, one of those ditties that if I have to explain, it's just not funny.

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Across the continent "Back in Boston" was nominated by U.M.Ph.! for a Pushcart Prize.

 I totally appreciate the nomination from the hard working and talented, Mignon Ariel King. It tells the story of traveling to places and seeing people whom now seem to be as far away as one can possible be.

Back in Boston

 It’s been raining every day:
smacks down onto sidewalks,
roads that seem more curved
than before, falling loud
the run off has been brutal,
you’ve soaked me once more.

I hear bits of conversation
from the homeless
huddled in doorways
one turns to another,
“A standing poodle is a substantial dog.”

and the force of this storm
hits a woman’s plastic bag,
which covers a wedding dress,
like a snare drum,

and a man turns to his wife,
says, “I hope it stops soon,”
but she can’t hear him
say, I need you
in my life, I love you.
as a door is held open
for her,

and it falls even harder, for me,
the world washes away,
the weather, fine
over where you are--

the sun brightly shines.

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