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White Editor's Note: This poem first appeared in Aphros as "White Static." She and her spun-cycled soul have been worn By God like gloves, worn down like whittled wood: or now And then she wears God on her sleeve (he matches all Occasions). How then could she let him slide off, chemise, fall To the floor; off toes, cold, slip him off and step away to stand Naked, Naked, out? Though hell doesn’t fit some threads have clung. #Unreal #Poem #Poetry #White #God #Hell #Laundry #Naked #Spirit #CreativeWriting #AltLit Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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PilgrimageVideo: Riverside Here, bones hang from tree branches. Sing the road we walk to the cathedral. I carry my mother’s parables in my pockets. The stories say the good must suffer to enter the Kingdom. She who hides from suffering is one who suffers the most. That a bear named death is sent to sweep her away with its giant paw of stars. There’s no stained glass left in the nave, we’re told. Saint-robbers pried head reliquaries and hammered angels’ faces, offering holy fragments to enter the underworld. Happiness is given in return for choosing death. Fill your coat with stones and walk into the river. Along the way, I dreamed of a monk on an unlighted path, who prayed, Teach me, Lord, all that you know. He put my fingers through his blood-dazzled wounds. Walk all night, he bids me, lit by torch and dust. If you believe you’ll be unharmed, monk’s-blood will make you invisible. The cathedral will be empty: Kneel before the empty saints’ heads. Their uplifted eyes know a God whose mind is passing through the mind of woman. In the beginning, the saints were named, begat of stars, stars begat of light, and the Word rupturing the sky, commanding wind to destroy all other spells. Just, This is my body. These are my falling bones. #Unreal #Poetry #NicoleRollender #Religion #Imagery #Fear #Relics #Sacrifice #Video #Collaboration #Riverside 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.
Formerly Known as Big Lick #Unreal #PhotoCollage #PhotoMedia #RoanokeStar #BigLick #RoanokeArt #VirginiaArtists #ChristineStoddardArt 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.
Love IsLove sews the rain that quenches Earth, And the eternal thirst for breath, Which ignites your veins upon birth, And keeps them kindled after death. Love is the spine of iron ore, That keeps upright, the greatest whole, Lanterns worlds with a golden core, And bends only to flames of soul. Love is a gift that keeps on giving, In all its omnipresent prime, A moment of oneness which keeps on living, Beyond all space, matter, and time. Therefore, Love is the reason why, Neither of us shall ever die. Dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Ryan and Laken Boyle (Married on October 11, 2014) #Unreal #Poetry #Love #Marriage #Dedication #Romance #HappilyEverAfter #Valentine #Dickinsonian #Adorable
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Sinner's FaceEditor's Note: This story first appeared in Wild Quarterly and was republished with permission here. Catholics have two options: enter the confessional that allows you to confess your sins to the priest face-to-face, or enter the confessional that allows you to hide your sinner’s face behind a metal lattice. My aunt preferred the lesser-known third option: call your priest once a week on the day that works best for you.
Aunt Loretta had been doing this for years. When she babysat me after school, I enjoyed eavesdropping on her confessions even more than I enjoyed playing on the playground a block away and eating her delicious homemade pasta that fit so neatly onto my favorite silver spoon. “Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was last Thursday.” After she made a rapid Sign of the Cross, she would confess how she lied to her boss and often wished that she could pour bleach into his favorite coffee mug. The two words she seemed to use most during her cellular confessions were “a-hole,” and “jag-off.” I appreciated that she was trying to keep it clean for the priest, who was probably on the other end of the line drying his dishes and rolling his eyes. “But I don’t think I mean it when I think it,” I remember her confessing one evening in early June. I was about a week away from advancing to the fifth grade. “Father, I am so very sorry for these and all my sins.” Next came her penance assignment, which she always had to write down on a scrap of notebook paper so that she wouldn’t forget. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Nobody's Fool By Isaac Swift QuailBellMagazine.com Laurel Francis Swaw caught the first available train back to Birmingham on June 12th, 1942. The world had been at war for almost two years at this point and things overseas were getting ugly. She left with her and Lucky’s baby girl just five days before Lucky’s twenty fifth birthday. They had been married just under a year at this point. The year had been tumultuous and full of pain.
She had experienced enough. Before leaving with their baby Frankie, who was just a few months old at the time, Laurel left Lucky with harsh words that his mind would not soon let pass. “Lucky, you are the worst thing that’s happened to me,” She had said to him. “You’re just a punk kid, a boy that needs to grow up. You don’t know what it means to be a man, Lucky. I really don’t think you ever will. Just think about that when you’re here alone trying to figure out why I’m not here anymore.” Lucky could recall shouting and flipping their kitchen table over in their small East Nashville apartment that was located on the second floor. He couldn’t recall what he had said to her before she left for the last time, as much as he tried to remember. Her parting words would however be burned into his memory. He remembered baby Frankie fussing loudly. The littlest things stick out in a person’s mind when they’re trying to grasp their memory for the whole picture. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Home for Summer By Laura Steadham Smith QuailBellMagazine.com My daughter Joan was having a hard time. She broke up with her boyfriend, was kind of down and sulky. They’d been together a couple years. But she came home for summer and was hard to be around. Moping like she wanted me to feel sorry for her. Quit wearing makeup, sleeping odd hours. At first I tolerated it, but after a couple weeks I’d had about enough of that.
So I thought, I’ll take her out, give her something fun to do. So I took her to get ice cream. Vanilla with white chocolate and raspberry chunks in a chocolate dipped cone. Just gorgeous stuff. We sat out on the porch and watched the cars, this cute, cute puppy—long-haired, with big ole paws, you know—some kids come get ice cream, and the whole time I’m trying to make conversation. Joan, you excited about going back to Auburn? You have any plans to meet up with old friends? And she’s not totally unresponsive, but she doesn’t say any more than she has to. Just a yes ma’am, I don’t know, maybe kind of thing. Polite, but not all there. So the next day, I thought—I know. We’ll get her a new pair of shoes. My mama always told me, you have a bad day, feel like you can’t get through it, you go treat yourself. Wear those new shoes, feel like a million bucks. Now, my mother had her share of bad days, drank herself to sleep nights. My dad, you know. She loved him dearly, but he was a charmer. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Made of Moon Pulls i am made of moon pulls— stardust at my feet and venus far, far away. jupiter in my handbag, bellybutton earth, baby mars, saturn's rings on my necklace, blue neptune in my heart. #Unreal #Poetry #CreativeWriting #LiterarySubmissions #MoonPulls #BlueNeptune #SaturnsRings #AltLit #QuailBellPoetry 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 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. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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. |