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Quills & Quails By QB Quill QuailBellMagazine.com the touch was gentle
just a whisper of fingers trailing down her back the moment is lost silence slipping in, the end of passion and heat The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Conversation with Your Imagination By Tessa Sawyers QuailBellMagazine.com Witching hour, the color of a blackberry saturated with the heaviness of trepidation. Sweet, almost sickening scents cloud the summer breeze. Don’t be afraid of the dark, my friend. The voice of the sky stands vacant, vanished. The stars, the moon. Tacit. You’re the needle in the hayfield. Solitary, desolate, alone. It licks at your heels, casting vibrant sensations of anticipation. Longing. A voice? Or is it? No. The soft whir of a June bug. Perhaps… or… I think it is. The unnerving hoot of a mother owl sends shivers down your already chilled spine. Obscurity conquers your sight. The haunting footsteps, you hear. You stop. It’s just a scurrying chipmunk, my dear. The swish of the grass, you hear. Your muscles are taut. It’s just the wind, my darling. The muffled cry reverberating from your own throat, you hear. You stifle it. Now hush, my child. The soft, cackling laughter, you hear. You choke on your tears, burning. It’s me, my precious. The moist breath on your neck, you feel. You bite your tongue, pain blossoms like a flower. It’s too late, my pretty. The crimson bitterness, you taste. You battle your conscience. Now listen, my beauty. The cool, cruel blade of meditation on your throat, you fear. It beckons your dying breath. This is the end, my sweetheart. Darkness will swallow you whole, my dove. You see, it’s not the black you should be wary of, my love. It’s what hides in the shadows, my pet. And I’m the worst thing you could have met. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Toriel By Niko Sheffield QuailBellMagazine.com Torry sat next to Azriel, the angel of death, and kept silent. He wasn’t afraid to speak, it’s just that he was stoned out of his mind and couldn’t gather up any words to say. This was the best weed anyone had ever given him, and it was from the angel of death himself. “Thought about my offer yet?” Azriel asked him. “Why me though?” Torry asked. The worn out burgundy Chevrolet that they were in was completely filled with smoke. If someone was looking on the inside they wouldn’t be able to see that there were two figures in there and that one had somewhat of a silent glow around his punk-rock attired body. “You’re the only one with the right mindset, bro,” the angel said. “I’ve been alive a very long time. I haven’t met anybody who is just as chill about everything as I am, that is until you were born.” “So you want me to be the next you?” “Yep, and let me tell you, my job can be awesome bro. But you won’t fully take the job ‘til you turn eighteen. Until then, your body will be developing into…well…what I am.” “This is sooo frickin’ cool man,” Torry said with a smile. “So in three years I’ll be the angel of death. I can’t wait man. Yeah dude, I’m totally in.” Azriel took another puff on the vanilla swisher roll and then looked at the young half black half Argentinian hippie beside him. “I do have to warn you though,” he started, “you’re not the only one getting chosen to take on a new role. It’s basically like…everything is starting over. But then again, it’s really just repeating. You follow?” “I guess so,” Torry said. “So this is like my becoming then, right?” “Right,” the current angel of death said, handing the joint back to the boy. “This is your becoming.” Torry took one last puff and then tilted his head back as he fell asleep without dreaming. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Crow MoonBy Blobina QuailBellMagazine.com The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Customer Copy By Claire Ledoyen
QuailBellMagazine.com the other night at work i wrote foot-long receipts of cashed-out poetry proudly sticking each tip in my journal, saving for later. a regular losing at pool told his opponent that patience was a virtue. the semi-regular said “patience is a virtue, but don’t wait too long because once I get warmed up…! when i woke up that day I felt (re)wired, stone limbs with an electric charge. The goal was to douse the flames, soothe the burn, and grow into the new skin: let it rain by candlelight, seated in the hearth of my heart (but was i not to put out the fire…?) waiting so frantically for the next movement my cheap symphony is tacky with no forward progress. The first player said “ya gotta make the best of it, if you don’t it’s your own fault.” look busy. when all else fails wrap silverware. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Silly ThingsBy John Cappello
QuailBellMagazine.com Hunting a rabbit with an elephant gun Could not be more silly an idea'r. The irrevocable size of the bullet Would surely disintegrate the bunny. So no trophy. Throwing eggs instead of hand-grenades Leaves a very facetious mess of the enemy. So if, perchance, we had a baker's conundrum? There're ticks- Invisible ticks no less- causing me an itch. There's an ad for that. EXPLOSION CONTRACEPTIVE!!! IT'S THE MOST WILDLY OUTDATED FORM OF SEXUAL PROTECTION! WOW!!!!!! All bad things must come to an end as well! But DEAR GOD there are so many aches In a room full of anvils. Oh Giddy, To think I am confused of paltry and poultry. And if the room tilts, the anvils don't slide. If the room shakes, the anvils obliviously tenderize. But if you give an eye to the beasts, those damned things STILL sit there!!! What we've got here is a failure to communicate. I yell at the anvils. I try stabbing the anvils. But the anvils, Uncollege, cantankerous repose in these side-down dinner plates, in some abstract way, or resembling a crooked nose, They remit! I have triumphed! Sardine'd!!! Gak! Nope. That one in tilted-scape just furled her compromisings. Yet one things still remains. WHY THE HELL AM I STILL STANDING IN THIS ROOM WITH SORDID ANVILS FOR RARE GLEAM OF CARTOONISH DANCE?!!! It's elementary, really. I've got one sitting on my leg. A mallard’s mandible hinged underneath that red. His generous constitution kept him long enamored For he was heartily generous in his own mind. Fetched for an Antithesis -that common currency- Which bleated under a sternum seldom. O that prize. But not enough. So with precious sovereignty and –in prospect- a mutable merit badge He skipped him. Homeward. Still a worthless scop. At his chamber he stayed, with hasted soppiness in a mood. Never could he give himself that ugly fondling that soon made his name. This obvious parody of a selfish artiste. By habit made of counting chickens; farr bizarre. And then I should find a cottage to nest my tempers~ Though windowless it was~ It seemed to have been deliberately built without a roof, Which shoulders my irksome query- The Sobriety of the architect. I took upon the road on a moose with no name Who didn't take me far -had a bad ear infection he did- So he didn't know whether to go or stop at any sign In the deaf pantry settings of a hook-note forest. I raised him under the belief that he triumphed the dinosaurs so as to reign supreme. Patterson, as he was doubtfully named, had that air about him. And hence he became undignified. Who should praise a deaf, nonsense, stupid king of the forest? Who so viciously withholds any and all temperate climates? Besides, he is gone. Trampled by a quieting thunder Beneath a tall Hickory that could stand no more When it thought of making a sound when no one was around. But Sappy, as I affectionately call him, heard every tremor in each broken inner chamber of his now resonating corpse. Finally, the art of tattooing is a useless trade If the subject falls into a vat of acid. So in order to step around this procurement One should take up whaling sport. Because if the whale is sucked into a typhoon and thus you- There, right there, is an easy victory. But none so needless a trade as hair cutting- Which is an easy bill to skip. Hair? What hair? The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Garbage Fairy By Christine Stoddard Starring Maggie Mayhem QuailBellMagazine.com She was the goddess of urban ruin—a dumpster diva in a kingdom of stray hubcaps and shattered glass, where sun only shone on welfare check day. Somehow she saw the glamour in grit. She could dredge a tire or lone shoe from the gutter and re-purpose it into a wishing well or birdhouse. With the flick of her wrist, she removed crushed beer cans and old cigarette boxes from the pavement. She'd whisper a magic word or two and a trash bag would simply appear in her hand. Nobody else saw the beauty in her neighborhood, but that never kept her from preserving the shreds of beauty invisible to all other passersby. She was a woman of pride and ingenuity.
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sprite and wine By Claire LeDoyen QuailBellMagazine.com into the damp dark deep i swim and i sleep it's the only place left in which i can speak. sixteen and looking vapid in a plastic mirror, been drinking since i threw that rock at you (but no one noticed until my hiccups got disruptive three hours later) and now i'm smashing cities, pulling off the legs of spiders in a single stone gaze. what's the point in breaking down forever? life will go on with or without you. |