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The Fox and the Three Bears By Cynthia Shearer Forbes QuailBellMagazine.com There once was a beautiful and wealthy heiress who wanted to find a husband. She posted her photo and a profile on an international dating site and chose “The Fox” as her username, but everyone knew who she really was. Within a few minutes, she had more than one thousand messages in her inbox.
The heiress ran a search for common interests and reduced the field to one hundred. Although many of the men simply parroted her phrases—“indigenous crafts,” “handmade antiques,” “ending homelessness”—at least they had noticed something about her besides her famous and beautiful face. Next, she studied the photos of the one hundred and picked the ten she liked best. The heiress did not reply to any of the messages. Instead, she carefully researched the lives of each of the ten men. She discovered that three were the Bearfield brothers—an entrepreneurial trio with business interests ranging from a brewery to an online store for indigenous arts, and they were the founders of a private foundation dedicated to reducing poverty and homelessness. The youngest brother’s handle was Big Bear. His profile photo was a shirtless, full body shot that looked like it had been lifted from the cover of a romance novel. The heiress felt a tingle of desire as she gazed at it, while at the same time, she wondered if there was anything of substance under his perfect head of hair. The eldest brother, Phillip Bearfield Junior, who called himself Bear II, looked like a typical businessman in an expensive suit, only sexier than most. He had a five o’clock shadow and full lips that she imagined kissing. Intriguing, she thought…and a little frightening.
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The Paranoid Husband By Rebecca Harrison QuailBellMagazine.com At the end of a narrow pathway, a husband and wife lived in a squat cottage. The husband sat through night hours watching his wife dream. He wished to keep her from the world outside their door. While she weaved tapestries in the village, he walked fields, snatching her reflection from puddles and coins. He hid shells in corners and gloom to capture the words she spoke in the streets. Every morning, she crept her hushed path to the village workshop. The walls trembled with gossip, but she only listened for her husband's footsteps. Her fingers flurried bright scenes, but her eyes only watched windows for her husband's shadow. She weaved until lamplight. Then she trudged home. Every dusk, her husband met her on the narrow path.
As a child, the wife had sewed fast and neat. She had watched her mother thread and embroider and had given the stitches new names. She had stuffed her pockets with blooms and sewed petals into her mother’s scenes. She had said that when she was grown, she would weave a castle of tapestries. As a young woman, she had roamed waterfalls and hilltops, and told stories to winds. Her village days had been a hurry of cobblestones and chatter. She had weaved into late hours until the night clattered with her stitches. The villagers had gawped and sighed at her tapestries. They had said, one day she would sew for cathedrals and queens. One spring, the husband had been journeying through the village night, when he saw the workshop light. He had lingered from his travels, and they had sat together in woodland tangles. He had no longer wished to seek faraway views. They had wed below bells and swallows. When she had said she wanted to weave for kings, he had wished her tapestries would only hang in their home for him. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
(Spill-O's Easychair in the Lotus) By Colin Dodds QuailBellMagazine.com Spill-O’s heart became an easy chair. It made the hour that every hour stares through unfold itself sensibly, surely. It was a damned marshy predicament he’d gotten himself into. The jump into nothingness and the jump into everythingness were not as advertised. After years trying to cut the rope in his throat so the easy chair in his chest could blossom, Spill-O doesn’t know how he does it. But he leans back and the easy chair in the lotus unfolds to catch his cringing injury of a body. And the small centuries finally run through him unimpeded. #Unreal #Poetry #ColinDodds #AdventuresOfSpillO #Love #ComfortZone #Poem Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Isle Like an enraged wind of the tempest she resides in, she has blown all away. Isolated, they lay in her wake, sinking in the sea, reborn from the sanded floor. She stands alone—an isle. Her shores are silent and still, have been so for quite a while, ever since they stopped arriving. But one lonely sailor wanders aimlessly, lost and disconcerted, with no desire to escape. #Unreal #Poetry #ChariceCejas #Photography #ToureWeaver #Love #ProtectYourSolitude #Nature Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Projected LivesProjection is usually a misstep—an assumption too far from reality that we are chastened to avoid. In this collaboration between siblings, we embrace projection to see a fleeting sense of a life. The person constructed between the drawing and poem is thus burdened—those poor models!—with an imagined, hybrid life. Needful Thing
We slather the paint a hair thick, let the snowstorm in for air and fall on the bed where I lodge a condom under its leg. I can see none of it —where your mother’s bedpans hid, hair spilled and blood seeped from diapers, which knife in the drawer you clutched as haulers ran too late and you cut the bed into reeking squares, sundered as milkweed silk. The sheets are fresh and old, and our bodies we count on —the nape, the sacrum to unlock just enough-- for what? Give us death in digestible stories, give us the real that clears away our bodies and reveals what is behind them, but give us now our bodies. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Quill Dip me into your pool of black, into the depths of your well. I'll tap once on the rim, and let this landscape begin. The page before me waits, white and dry, as I think of what line to draw. A curve, a squiggle, or even a dot, is how I'll paint your pain, your fight. Another dip, another tap, the rhythm is all mine and the well runs dry and the black cracks on the page that is your map. Let me take your pain and sketch deep rivers with no end. For your eyes fill too quickly, my love. I'll catch each drop and paint. I'll catch each drop and paint. #Unreal #Poetry #DenizZeynep #Love #Savior #Sacrificial #NegativeSpace Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Choices Matter Something Significant
9:10 AM and here I am At a desk of wood in a class of stone The board is black and walls are white Dark red purple vomit colored carpet Designed to hide unwanted stains Yellow wire still hanging Dangling near fluorescent lights Humming under the drumming ventilation Then there’s me The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Perfect Day “Echo, do you copy? Echo, do you copy?”
I slowly open my eyes and stir in place. I still can't get used to sleeping in a chair, but I need to stay near the radio. I slowly move my hand and press the respond button. “Mission control, this is Echo. Copy,” I say, my voice weak. I haven't done a lot of talking lately. “Echo, we have found your shuttle. Rescue will be there momentarily. Just remain where you are and wait for further instructions.” “Roger that,” I respond. Just like that, it's silent again. I guess I should be used to the silence at this point. There was that old movie tagline about how no one can hear you scream in space. I never realized how true that was until I came out on this mission. I still heard screams, though, so I don't think it's entirely accurate. If they're finally coming to rescue me, I guess I should enjoy the view one last time. I've been looking at this view for the last few weeks, in between periods of crying and lamenting my situation. It's...pretty nice. For the most part. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
(Spill-O Started Out) He started out toward the blue, Looking for the light. But Spill-O didn’t go straight, He took a left and a right. Now he’s out in the streets, Dressed like a slob. Crying out that the fall of man Was an inside job. He started out running, Then he started to plod. He overheard you sighing, “There but for the grace of god.” Spill-O kept nice and quiet; Stuck to the world’s diet. His shoes were leather, or so he’s told. His jacket didn’t help against the cold. He started out playing hooky, But ended up an exile. Spill-O rent the veil and scorched the earth, Just to see you smile. All the while, he was looking For his big opportunity To be human, With impunity. #Unreal #Poetry #ColinDodds #AdventuresOfSpillO #Existentialism #HumanCondition #Rhyme Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Death of Private Dicey By Patrick Michael Clark QuailBellMagazine.com The corner store at Broad and First was a claustrophobic place. The faded signs plastered on the walls and windows were cheerful, with smiling faces pushing yams, cigarettes, and ice creams. Because these things sold themselves there was no reason to take them down after half a decade.
Behind the counter a round man with a Polish face chewed a cigar and wheezed when his giant chest breathed up and down. He was more content than most people when he was lording over his racks of mints and shelves of canned vegetables. It was a warm afternoon and the thousands of city clerks and office typists had come out of their cubicles for lunch, either at a cheap diner or from a brown sack on a bench somewhere. The shopkeep reached over his shoulder and clicked on the little radio he kept behind the counter. Bing was crooning through the static. “He’s a lyin' sonofabitch!” The front door blew open and shopkeep eased up in his chair. A man in uniform was fuming like a boiler, his broad shoulders were tense and the face behind his thick glasses was sweaty. His friend came in behind him, also in Army green, but leaner and placative. “You need to calm the hell down,” the second man said in a heavy drawl from somewhere below St. Louis. “I ain’t calmin down till I taken care of this,” retorted the first one, who sounded like a Virginian. “So what are you gonna do?” |