Gleaming chrome hemostats++Bright lights
Cold lights++Brilliant lights++Lots of sheets

Why do some lipsticks
Have the color of blood
Or the claw marks of a stray animal?

I stood at the window staring at shadows
On concrete++Thinking shivery slivers
Of thought++Inventing things
Like the++throwaway paper thermometer

Or a beautiful nurse’s breasts
The sleet outside went perfectly
With the hissing oxygen
My slouch was familiar
My silence an armada of silent consonants

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John McKernan is now a retired comma herder. He lives — mostly — in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is RESURRECTION OF THE DUST. He specializes in depleted semicolons and the repair and recovery of derelict exclamation points.

When making decisions, the first question we always ask is, “are you sure Hank done it this way?” Well, in the world of new media, we have some questions and possible answers regarding words, journalism and otherwise. We start with the explanation of a non-journalist. Then we have the unsuprising view of Fox News’s words from President Obama. 3 Quarks Daily asks if we’re sure James Joyce done it this way. Are you sure Gutenburg would’ve gone digital? How much do digital words really accomplish? Where do we take it from here? – Andrew Geer

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Meg Pokrass is a fiction writer who lives in San Francisco where truth is questionable. Her debut collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” will be published in 2011 by Press 53. Meg’s work was selected for Wigleaf’s Top 50 Flash Fiction 2009. She has published over one hundred stories and poems. You can see more of her animations here at http://pokrasstinations.com/

When I was little (cue creepy Wu Tang music) my father bought a Betamax. Que? You say. I shall splain. A Betamax was a precursor to the VHS — two years the more popular machine’s senior. Being a child who owned a Betamax (which most folks referred to strictly as a beta) was traumatic. Not every store carried beta tapes, and, when they did, the selection of the smaller format cassettes was spare. Usually the beta corner was a lonely place inhabited by gray-covered movies, abused and dusty things, often Not Rated, and from countries with marginal film industries, like Australia. The first movie I remember owning on Beta was Old Yeller. That shit made me cry. It was set in Texas (where I’m from) and in the end the dog dies. I watched that movie so many times the corners of the TV screen looked like cobwebs — oftentimes dripping odd discolorations across the faces and bodies of the characters.

My father loved that beta, and, in the early 80′s, at the height of the Betamax/VHS wars, my father stayed true to his initial purchase. He didn’t jump ship until the last movie rental store (the one 20 miles away from our home) finally threw in the towel, and let the VHS movies force the betas off the shelf.

See, this is why I hate updated products.

(more…)

Travelling home he saw in neon paint the inscription “pussy shit” written in near perfect handwriting on a vertical subway beam covered in chewing gum. The man stopped walking; couldn’t say why. The combination of words and the seemingly careful construction of the letters upon the post caught him in such a way that he was simply forced to give pause. Were these three syllables referring to the downsizing of an assumed act of manliness he wondered? For example, two men in conversation:

Man #1 “I’m going mountain climbing this weekend. Are you interested?”

Man #2. “Mountain climbing, are you kidding? That’s pussy shit. Try skydiving”.

Or was the message etched with literal purpose? Such as the emission of fecal matter from the vagina?

He moved on, the corridor ahead his passage to the next train. Halfway in he saw the same neon script, the impeccable spacing, the ruler straight balance of the words, and the precise curl of each quotation mark like plutonium coated centipedes in mid leap from a springboard. Once again he froze; a new message. The man focused; “right in the ass” it read. And no more. A serious retraction from the impact of “pussy shit”. Upon viewing this he thought perhaps the author had as little knowledge of what the sayings meant as he did. The man then wondered if possibly their work was less driven by the combination of letters and meant instead as a sort of literary branding iron, hence the choice of neon, the mind of those who lay eyes upon it acting as the cattle’s hindquarters. And that’s just how it went down. He arrived home, fed the cat, washed the dishes and put his tired thighs to the couch. A slight wind hit the shutters, he closed his eyes and there it was, “pussy shit” like a summer blockbuster title on a grand marquis. And burning below, hardly top billing but just as bright was the corridor quote, “right in the ass”. He yawned and began to drift bearing distant thoughts of this paint can Zorro with a tremendous ability in the art of penmanship. Whoever they are, he thought, for the time being their mark has certainly been branded on the flanks of my subconscious livestock. And there would be others, of that he was sure. Other words and endless droves of travelers to look upon them. The rains came and the man fell asleep.

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Eric J. Bandel is a grocery store manager in New York City where he lives with several animals and his future wife.   He was born in New Jersey where the mass of his fiction takes place.  “The Corridor Ahead” is his first published story.