They’re blowing up bombs outside of my parents’ house. Lucky for them, the dog is deaf. It is some sort of dance, a play of sorts with gunpowder and no balls. I don’t need their civil war reenactments. But hark, what is that? It is a glimmer of hope in a Southern state’s reading curriculum, courtesy of my favorite subject — e-books. Next question: Did this guy kill paper? Of course, Bartleby sayeth no. I found my undergraduate thesis abstract online the other day. Did I ask the right questions? Did I answer them correctly? I don’t know. The paper used a lot of terms like “collaborative narrative voices,” “patriarchy,” “hegemonic,” etc. Christ, I probably should’ve just become a professional revolutionary. Or taken an economics course or two and restarted Hogarth Press myself.  Don’t forget, taxes are due tomorrow! Damn gub’mint.

The Confabulators

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Sunrise at Morning

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Satan in Heaven

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– Listen to more poems from Trees of the Twentieth Century and buy the book here.

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Trees of the Twentieth Century is Stephen Sturgeon’s first collection of poetry. He is the editor of Fulcrum: an Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics.

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Meg Pokrass is a fiction writer who lives in San Francisco where truth is questionable. She has published over one hundred stories and poems. You can see more of her animations at pokrasstinations.com.

Maloney sings thunder, ropes wind. Maloney’s prayers are truth plus jazz. Maloney rides a horse named Forever. Forever is lightning with a saddle. Forever loves to lie down in hot grass. Together they travel with a hypochondriacal princess. She is beautiful with the certainty of death. They seek the glow of the Electric City. Maloney loves his teacher, Mrs. Kelly, and her daughter loves Maloney. Her daughter’s first name is the same as her last. There is also Dugan, her brother, who is good at being himself. Here there are rodeos and discos, trains through the dunes. There is Charlie West, a broken hippie big on heart. There is the Commodore, a shamed dentist, forgetting his longings with laughing gas. Maloney spies with tiny cameras, Maloney is lost in every war. And all are dreaming of a day when there is a funeral for Fear, a funeral for Death. Humbly, they ask of you to sing this hymn: Round the canyons toward the warm water and join it with joy, let it overtake you, become it. Become ocean then rain then river then ocean again.

– Get more Maloney here.

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Michael Bible is the author of the chapbooks Gorilla Math and My Second Best Bear Rug. His work can be seen in FlatmanCrooked, Artifice, Oxford American and he was winner of the ESPN: the Magazine/Stymie fiction prize. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi where he edits Kitty Snacks.

If you’re in these parts, stop by Seattle’s Richard Hugo House on Saturday for Recto Verso: A Small Press Expo. We’ll be there with books, magazines, and (we promise) a sunny disposition.