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FemBy Kristen Rebelo QuailBellMagazine.com Recently sent to The Sketchbook Project to become a permanent member of The Brooklyn Art Library. It will also be a participant in the Pacific Northwest 2014 Sketchbook Tour, so keep an eye out if you are in Seattle, Portland, or Vancouver (or hey, just download it here!)
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Lynyrd Gives Haiku That Southern Social Justice Flare You've Been Wanting to Share Somehow the mayor has decided it's racist to not build on slaves Institutional racism means that even Jones can be racist Sports stadiums are not profitable even with good hush puppies Medical care is losing funding in V-A Stock up on band aids Speaking of AIDS, though, Richmond's HIV rate is scarily high now #HIV #AIDS #Racism #SocialJustice #Poetry #Poem #Haiku The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Gay and Happily Unholy MatrimonyFenty let the fags get hitched, the KKK sympathizers spat. They of tobacco kings and fancy European estate rings. wearing the uniform of a farmer with a straw hat. Or so you'd think the homophobe may appear, easier to spot than a walrus in a cornfield. But some sport suits and college degrees. They forget it's 2014, not 1614 at all. And that it's not okay to say "squaw." Or hee and haw at the men in pink, the ones whose love waited years and could've waited even longer on any law by the City of D.C. #Quail #QuailLove #LGBTQ #Illustration #GayMarriage
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Arlington/AnacostiaLet’s play a game of similarities: Tell me what’s the same between Arlington and Anacostia. Their names both begin with ‘A,’ ‘A’ for angst—bourgeois in one and EBT in the other. A {different} river flanks each one: The Potomac The Anacostia You can see the U.S. Capitol reigning over Washington from either jurisdiction. And that’s where they can shed their skins of sameness, and swaddle themselves in wool, blind to the other’s existence. Here, wolfy, oh wolfy. #Poetry #Poem #WMATA #DCMetro #Arlington #Anacostia #DCCommunities The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Age of Anxiety#AgeOfAnxiety #VictoriaBorges #Illustration #Art #Arrow #Tattoos #MarieAntoinetteHair #Woman
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Iron PaulBy Robert Mitchell QuailBellMagazine.com Cold air and diesel fumes rushed into the warehouse as the loading dock door rolled up. Two men put down their coffee cups and tugged on their gloves. Jim, the larger and older of the two, watched the sunlight stream across the floor, waited for the truck to finish easing up to the rubber bumpers. He put his hand on his partner's arm.
"Hold on George," he said. "Ain't got no paperwork yet. No sense pullin' it off the truck and then havin' to put it right back on if it’s wrong." "Gotcha," George said, but went and fetched his pallet jack just the same. There was a knock at the side door. Jim stepped over and opened it for the driver, accepted the bill of lading through the crack. "This can't be right," Jim said. "No way we ordered this." "Says Rigby & Fogg Baseball Bat Company right there on top," the driver said. "Maybe so, but..." "You gonna let me in or not? Toledo's mighty cold in February," the driver said. "Sorry bud, come on in." Jim stepped back and let the man inside. He turned to George and leaned in. "Run fetch Carl, will ya?" "Sure," George said. He trotted off across the warehouse, scanning the aisles until he spotted the General Manager counting corrugated boxes on a steel shelf. "Mr. Young," George said, "Jim needs you at the dock." Carl looked up from his clipboard. "What's the problem?" "Don't know sir, something about the shipment that just came in." Carl followed George back to the dock. His battered Hushpuppies and crunching knees encouraged him to let the younger man pull away. It was impossible to keep up with youth. "What's up Jim?" he asked. "Take a look at this. Has to be a mistake," Jim said. Carl took the papers, glanced at them, and handed them back. "No mistake—one hundred and forty-four bamboo blanks. Go ahead and unload them. Put them over in the corner, you know, where we keep the overstock." "Bamboo? What the hell." "The times they are a-changing," Carl said. "That was a good call though. Way to watch." "Thanks, will do," Jim said. "C'mon George, get to steppin'. Be right back.” Jim trotted off and began to spread the news. It took only a few minutes for Jim to plant his seeds around the warehouse and wander over the shop as well. Paul was just about to put on his hearing protection when Jim walked up and gave him the word. Paul's face went red. He hung his ear cups on the lathe and marched across the floor, chewing on a sprig of hairs from his yellow-gray beard, swinging his arms like mad. Jim smiled in anticipation and followed a safe distance behind. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
UnbirthBy Jee-Shaun Wang QuailBellMagazine.com #Illustraion #JeeShaunWang #Unbirth #BlackAndWhite #Flora #Surreal #PenAndInk
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Second SemesterBy Starling Root QuailBellMagazine.com Pack the sweater you wore the day you lost (gave?) your virginity to that boy from SPAN 101. It was the dark calico one Grandma had fashioned from patches she'd hoarded over the years. You were studying irregular -er verbs when he told you to “relax” and gave you a few beers. His dorm smelled of licorice, old coffee, new textbooks, and soon the saltiness of your tears. But you quieted yourself with the thought that this is what you are supposed to do in college: Let the whole campus enter your inner sanctum, worship at your temple, fuck you senseless. You had missed your tween chance to be Lolita and Anna Karenina's fate was still years off. So you let Gwen Stefani serenade you as SPAN 101 guy made his pitifully crooked thrusts. That was not a moment of girl power, and despite No Doubt on the radio, you were doubtful that this was how you imagined sex a decade ago when you first began considering doll busts and Ken's questionable downstairs anatomy—and where did you develop that strange cough? The one you made each time he pulled out, like you were trying desperately to breath, Stop. Because you hated the way he stabbed you with his tongue. Because it was far, far from fun. Because you remembered Grandma whispering how she fell in love with Grandpa and slept with him for the first time the night before their wedding because they did not want to wait. They collapsed into each other's arms and then woke up three hours late for their big day-- flushed, giddy, overwhelmed with a mischievous air because God had not struck them dead. But winter break has ended now and you will be taking SPAN 102, you realize with dread. You must avoid the guy by pretending not to see or hear him; say your phone was stolen. You've closed your inner sanctum and hung a sign on the door: “Reserved for the devout.” #College #Uni #Awk #GrossBoys #Virginity #Sex #GrowingUp #ComingOfAge #YoungAdult #Poetry #Poem The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Fly in the OintmentBy Michael C. Keith QuailBellMagazine.com They are other than the loud and troublesome insects of the hour. –– Edmund Burke As cardiac surgeon Niles Bellamy was about to make an incision into his patient’s left ventricle, a fly buzzed by his face and landed on the anesthetized man’s mitral valve. Dr. Bellamy’s knee-jerk reaction was to shoo away the insect. As he did, the scalpel in his right hand inadvertently severed his patient’s atrium and pulmonary veins. Attempts were made to save the patient, but he had quickly succumbed to the doctor’s terrible mistake. But as no one in the operating room had apparently seen Bellamy slice into the patient’s heart, the surgeon acted as if the death was an unfortunate but natural turn of events. It was not uncommon for people undergoing such delicate surgery to die during the process.
“Let’s close him up. Ring the morgue. Sorry people, Mr. Jennings was beyond our powers, I’m afraid,” said the surgeon, quickly exiting the operating room. Fucking fly! How the hell did it get in here? wondered Bellamy, as he removed his blood-covered latex gloves and blockade gown. For the balance of the day as well as the week that followed, the doctor was full of self-recrimination. He was glad he had the next few days off but unhappy that his wife was out of town on business. He desperately needed her presence to help him get through the upheaval he was in. Jesus, I killed the guy. He probably would have been fine. Do no harm, right? Well, you sure as hell did harm, Dr. Bellamy. When Madeline Bellamy returned from her trip to the West Coast at the end of the week, her husband was feeling a little better. Shit happens in the operating room, he kept telling himself in an attempt to mitigate his sense of culpability. Every day patients die under the knife for all sorts of reasons. Yet, he had to fight hard to keep from lapsing back into his sense of guilt. Why was that fly in there? There are never supposed to be insects in the operating room! It wasn’t my imagination. I’m sure it wasn’t. I know what I saw. That’s why I tried to flick it away. Oh God, how stupid was that? You killed a man shooing away a fucking fly. What if someone had seen you do that? You’d be done as a surgeon. Maybe you should be. You let a fly break your concentration and it resulted in the death of the person you were to save. Yeah, maybe you should really be doing something else. Though the idea of returning to work disturbed Bellamy, a slew of commitments forced him back to the hospital––and the operating theater. As a consequence of his absence, he had four difficult surgeries to perform on his first day back. Gird your loins and get back in the saddle, Niles. For Christ’s sake, this is your life. It was an unfortunate accident. They happen, man. It wasn’t deliberate. Stop persecuting yourself! The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Dream Home#DreamHome #Installation #EmilyGannon #HomePlans #Drawing #Architecture #House
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