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Long YearsBy Jennifer Gordon QuailBellMagazine.com Long years Pass idly Without wounded And battered Eyes Always finding their way To me… As I brush my hair Everyone was ill and tired My mind returns Alone Without The people we knew I take the time To dance the tango With a mirror And share a moment with Your faded smile Jennifer was born a strange, pale, and quiet child, a ghost scared of ghosts....Originally from new Hampshire, she studied acting at The New Hampshire Institute of Art. She grew up to become an actress, magician's assistant, artist, writer, dancer, and muse. She currently haunts lonely places in Ohio, though she is not dead.
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Of Worlds SmallHe threw her down a flight of stairs, into the belly of the house, where the furnace roared with Dickensian furor—flames alive-- and her only company, hiding in a cubbyhole, was a mouse who twitched his whiskers and swayed his tail for conversation. The door slammed; the lock clicked; dust dropped from the ceiling. She fell, hit her head, and bled all over the mouse's habitation. The mouse scurried to patch her up, then said his salutations. But she did not wish to talk and, despite trying, she could not. So the mouse slipped away, never to appear again, now folklore. She built worlds, gathering string and cigarette butts and sand, making piles and sculptures and characters and stories and friends. Her husband-turned-kidnapper had forced her to become God of all the odd sets she would forever craft in the basement. Until, after one year of imprisonment, he deigned to release her.
The moon was full and blushing, not blue, despite the freak event. He opened the dungeon door in silence, eyes averted, hair wild. She stared up from her place on the floor and grabbed one set before heading up the stairs, barely brushing past him, and out into a land of sunshine and rain and clouds and many, many mice. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
AislinBy C.M. Wolfram QuailBellMagazine.com 1. seven In the forest there is a path. It is thin and wild, but the ground is soft and when she walks on it she does not wear shoes. On either side of the path, saplings are growing and they are as tall as she is. They seem weak but their green trunks are fertile and bend easy. Their leaves are soft and covered in herbaceous fur. The air is a well-lit ether, thick and damp with the smell, but the path below her is a river of dirt and owns no source or cessation. Beyond and above there are dark evergreens. They are tall as buildings, and together they form a blackgreen wall that is heavy but distant. The needles cut sheer shapes into themselves. Their oppression above is so total that she cannot see the sky, if there is even sky to see. But on the pathway, all is light, and she follows it further. Her dress hangs loosely around her thin body like so many willow branches. Soon she arrives at a pond. Crossing over the pond are two wooden bridges. One connects to the path she is walking and when she stands on it and looks back, she sees that the other connects to a path that winds back into the forest at a similar but inverse angle to her own. Beneath the bridges the water is unnaturally still, mirrored. When she looks into it her face is reflected back to her in perfect opposition. There is no movement but her own, and though her footsteps are not light the water remains silent. She herself does not make a sound, but the air begins to vibrate and her ears begin to ring louder until she is forced to cover them.
2. sixteen In front of her, there is a table where two women are talking. It is obvious they are friends. She can sense that Naomi is walking behind her. It is dark in here, and loud. Not a singular loudness, but the loudness of many people speaking at once. There is a lamp hanging low over the table that illuminates the women as if they are actors and this is just play. She can see little beyond them. There is an empty seat there, and she sits down, though any reason to escapes her. The woman quit speaking as soon as she sits. “Hello,” she says to them. “Aislin,” Naomi says. Her name is lucid, but when she turns Naomi has gone. Chairs quietly scrape as the women get up to leave. “Please,” she says to them. “Don't.” She stands up from her chair, but all she sees are the backs of the women as they melt into the crowded dark. She follows them. She sees only shapes and hears only noise, and she uses her hands to feel the walls of a hallway. It is difficult to tell if they are hand-built or human. The thickness of the air clings to her back now, and soon she is outside. The crowd is still there, but they are dancing. They form a large, swollen circle and they are dancing in rhythm. The crowd is noisy still, and their figures seem to bleed into one another, forming a single gray-brown mass. She listens closer for a moment but hears no music. She feels the rhythm of their dance in her fingers and then her feet but resists the temptation to move. She looks down and sees that her feet are bare. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
[Your Art and Writing Here.]Dear fledglings,
Would you believe us if we said we have recovered from our escapades? With our Brooklyn and Richmond events behind us, we want to get to posting again. Please check out our submission guidelines and send us your art and writing. Feel free to ask questions about the process by sending us a message. We can't wait to see what you send us. Remember—if it can't be "good," make it funny. Feathery hugs, The Quail Bell Crew The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Santificado por su nombreA bleeding heart soaking the sleeve upon which it's sewn 'til that sleeve drips puddles worth of blood on the floor and that puddle widens into a sea and that sea breathes of starfish and seaweed and love love for the tiniest bubble to an island of foam and all the creatures above and below the surface from the sand to the sun waves and waves and waves of love boundless, boundless, boundless love love without anchor a love that can set sail any ship Helen or no Helen, Troy or no Troy The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Scottish YouthsBy Helen Georgia Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Do you like this photo? Vote for it in the VCU Study Abroad Photography Contest through October 27th.
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is this happinessBy Jennifer Gordon QuailBellMagazine.com Ghost lines Pale white against skin Still holding its color From days in the sun My scars are different Pink new skin Waiting to open again Times moves differently now Too slow, then all at once Only you see my face A thousand different ways And you never stop looking Every photo, dance, cut We fade more from the world Two ghosts sad eye and opposite scars We spend our days With painful smiles and senseless chatter We read each other like a favorite work of fiction Jennifer was born a strange, pale, and quiet child, a ghost scared of ghosts....Originally from new Hampshire, she studied acting at The New Hampshire Institute of Art. She grew up to become an actress, magician's assistant, artist, writer, dancer, and muse.She currently haunts lonely places in Ohio, though she is not dead.
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Love us like you do in real time.As much as we adore connecting with y'all online, let's not forget how magical it is to be in the right person's company. Not chatting over Facebook or Twitter. Not exchanging emails or even conversing over Skype. We're talking about face-to-face magic. Right there, like in the olden days when everyone still made eye contact and enunciated their words. Presence.
If you're craving that kind of company from The Quail Bell Crew (nudge, nudge) then you should meet us either in Brooklyn or Richmond this weekend. You might even make new friends amongst other QB fans. Lit & film lovers can't miss EGGSTRAVANZA! at Molasses Books in Brooklyn, while fashion fiends will feel more at home at "Timeless Zeitgeist" at Selba in Richmond. Scroll down and check out Facebook for details: The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Drunken Rant, For Fuck's Sake, Wednesday Nighti taught the swedes now to dance to latin american music whilst they incessantly played their swedish hits and i walked home through the meadows and survived the rape rumours and made it to my flat safe and am througouly still so pissed and have resorted to eating haribo tangfastic gummiest cos they are my death and all i can do is eat them so there you go i will eat sour gummies until i leave the uk so if you cannot deal with it somehow you should ignore my drunken rants and go on with your merry lives cos it isn’t my fault if i am a huge fan of haribo gummies, with tangfastic being in the lead. for fucks sake i have to go back and edit my typing way too often so bear with me, as i try and spell correctly cos grammar is so crucial to me. fuck all of you. i am going to make tea and eat digestives and fall alspeep. for rucks’ sake goddamnit i with i could tyep rgiht. see now i am getting too lazy to correct a thing. if i fuck up that’s your issue, cos you should follow as best you can. like if youre truly interetsted you will pay attention. see, even nw im stillf cukin g up and you can read this foc fucks sake i am going to just not correct anything nymore fucp fucks sake i still am and if you an follow this good or you cos i am no tmaking a single effort anmore mo fuck you amiercnis i am trying so gard to e coo and i am fucking fdrunk and i dma goo fucking lazy to amek an efoort an corret aything am i am still tryina dn this is felling quite fum co seben still am am correctin ahat i am saying and i wdont ant to so fucking hells fucneveryonth if you cannot undrsangd what i am saying then that i your roblem iall i want to do is talkning fucking talinf druunkinlgy an d if yo ucannot accept tah hen you can go fuck off cos i am helen adh helen is me and i for fucks dakw e cannot wite anyo reo i think y finger sare unnacttached to teh keyarod cos i cannot udertand s half o fwhat im saying naymore. in fatct i cam not even paying ateino to the scfreen anymore no rma i really apuingin attehinon to the key abrard. i am just letting flwo and good for tucking you if you can undrstand what i am saing for fucks sake if i am druk nothign makes esnese but if you can bear with me then for fuckins sake good job to you you are magnificent The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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