Ramshackle Review

Karen de la Bald photographed this cottage on the moors of Yorkshire, England. Her photo In The Graveyard also appears in this issue. See more of her artwork and photography here.

Between Us
by Meredith Weiers

Between us
there is where
should not be

Meredith Weiers graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and currently lives in southern Maryland. This is her first publication.

1991

by Jen Knox

Her hair was high and stiff, her body small and slight, and she wore press-on nails that made her helpless to an itch. She could still pile lies then like neat blocks, hide behind them without regret. The shade could dissolve her shadow but when nights grew longer, colder, she’d wake shivering. It was twenty years ago, rubbing her hands, urging blood into numb fingertips, that I realized it was up to me to keep her warm.

Jen Knox earned her MFA from Bennington's Writing Seminars. She works as a creative writing professor at San Antonio College. Jen is the author of Musical Chairs and To Begin Again. Some of her short stories and essays have been published or are forthcoming in Annalemma Magazine, Bananafish, Bartleby Snopes, Eclectic Flash, Flashquake, Foundling Review, The Houston Literary Journal, Metazen, Midwest Literary Magazine, Narrative Magazine, Short Story America, Slow Trains, SLAB, Superstition Review and elsewhere. Visit her website.

Helene Fjell:

Two Photographs

After the Fire 5 photo by Helene Fjell

Harmony photo by Helene Fjell

Helene Fjell: "Life itself is a project that contains a lot of wonders and mysteries I know nothing about. My main goal is to reach the place where I can feel totally safe and at home in my soul. But on my way I wish to be open for the small moments and the misunderstandings that push me over the edge. In every corner of my way there may be someone or something I can learn from. So I try to stop, as often that I can, and take that with me."

Helene Fjell is a freelance photographer and photo artist living in Oslo, Norway. Educated in press photography, she now works mostly with Fine Art photograhpy and personal projects. She also makes drawings and is exploring graphic techniques including silkskreen, photopolymer and lithography. Visit her website.

Gabrielle In Arrears
by Bill Yarrow

It’s 10:46 in Shreveport on New Year’s Eve.
You’re rushing to the Ramada ballroom
for an evening of kisses, hors d’oeuvres,
and darkened drinks. Someone honks.
Unnerved, you swerve to the right, side-
swipe a Buick, slide back across the lane,
flip into a ditch. Doctor Claussen warned you
more than once about the consequences of
being distracted. Well, it’s too late to resuscitate
advice now. You should be calling 911, waving
at headlights, flagging down trucks, pulling
your bleeding husband from the car. Instead,
you’re just staring at your hands, as if, somehow,
they were imperious tools capable of magic.

Bill Yarrow is the author of WRENCH (erbacce-press, 2009) and "Wound Jewelry" (new aesthetic, 2010). His poems have recently appeared in Ramshackle Review, Istanbul Literary Review, Used Furniture Review, THIS Literary Magazine, BLIP, PANK, DIAGRAM, Negative Suck, Now Culture, Right Hand Pointing, Whale Sound, and Metazen. He lives in Illinois.

The Statue

by Nicolette Wong

We have arrived at a shaft of blindness. In the backyard where the birds split and sing, in a thousand directions, against the chalkboard of a dark sky. When the wind burns and embers fall, you reach for the nylon strings to stop my silence.

Tie me up and leave me here, you say. The stone will grow and lose its color in the sun.

No one would see the hanging statue as it fades. Only the scars around your wrists would drift, dark waves of music circling the air. Houses of love; houses of hatred; houses of icicles melting in places you have never belonged.

I tie the knots around your hands. This is how we let it die.

Nicolette Wong is a fiction writer from Hong Kong. Her writing finds its way around the world and she blogs at Meditations in an Emergency. She is in the editorial teams of Negative Suck and Dark Chaos.

Perhaps A Second Sun
by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

i.
There was no poetry today.
I had dog-eared pages in Autumn Journal
to read to you but you chose wine.
You insisted on telling me its aroma – lemon and berries.
I asked: If you don't have the words,
can you smell the scents?

ii.
I take note of your wise words:
the small liquor details one learnt
must not be rote-memorised and departed as eternal,
universal truths.

Still, remember:
This will all pass, like alcohol eventually evaporates.
You are not that good; you aren't that romantic.
You stole my ripped stockings for souvenirs.
Your bed sheet, every time, is the same blue.

…. You are now the only proper noun I care.

iii.
Morally speaking, one woman's boyfriend
can only be another's nobody. And so I've now returned
to my own home after an afternoon
in your cocoon-shaped room.

When staring at my bookshelves,
I know: my books and yours, with or without inscriptions,
will not bookend together, will never form a conversation.

vi.
The rain outside was peanut-heavy and bright.
We heard it, didn't we, this afternoon? Splashing on the ground.
We weren't imagining. How absurd, I thought
every time there must be a weather event.
Perhaps a second sun will appear in the sky,
if I go to your place again. I can better see your face,
flustered between my stiffened knees.

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London, UK. She is a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. More at www.sighming.com.

Your Ironic Haircuts

by Lucinda Beeman

All my bad men

belong to each other.

My friends light cigarettes

at the windowsill, say

Not Him Again, but I am curious

mostly as to whether you would ride

your bike to me through the rain-

I want to towel you off after. He would

never, not unless I offered to buy him

breakfast and blue eye shadow. Anyway

I like those awful words in ink across

your chest. It was nice and sort of

sexy when you wondered aloud if I wanted

to hit you on the elevator and

in answer I did, hard. That short

sharp sound, your smile. My love you are

nothing if not a good kitten. But he

is a better kitten, blue eyed, and

darling you’re never going to want

me the way he did, or even as much

as you ache for Daisy Buchanan but

that’s okay- I’m happy to call you

Jay if you can manage to make me

die in my way, twice. I’m won’t

to root against you. I also won’t

believe a word you say.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Lucinda Beeman is currently an undergraduate at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She studies Literature and Publishing.

Barricada

photography by Ana Moreno

Barricada photo by Ana Moreno

Formed in 1982 in the Txantrea Pamplona neighborhood of Navarra, Spain, Barricada has played over 1000 concerts and become one of the biggest rock and roll bands in Spanish territory. The band is: Alfredo Piedrafita (guitar), Ibi Sagarna (drums), Fco. Javier Hernández "Boni" (guitar and vocals) and Enrique Villareal "the Drug" (bass and vocals). See more of photographer Ana Moreno's work on her blog and flickr.

Al Ortolani:

Two Poems

The Gift

The old man had this car jacked up in the back yard.

I have no idea where he got it, maybe payment

For some black market job with Uncle Frank.

It was a 1935 Dodge without wheels. One day

Out of nowhere he gave it to me.

He said do whatever.

I couldn’t believe my luck,

So I bought some jet-black paint and brushed it

Carefully under the trees. You really had to look

To see the marks. Then I went down to the junkyard

And worked out a deal with Tommy. I lugged home four wheels

And four bald white walls.

One morning the old man

Took a look at what I’d done, and decided that he

Needed the car after all.

So that was that. But sometimes in the afternoon

When he was asleep after the nightshift,

Mom would help me push it

Out of the driveway into the street. Before supper,

She would follow me back in with a rake, smoothing the gravel

Over the tire tracks.

Performing the High Wire

Before Easter a teacher sent you to the office

where the lady from the Children’s Fund

presented you with a brown package of clothes.

Walking back to the classroom, you hid

the embarrassment of carrying your

New Start in a meat wrapper. You learned early

that a joke at your own expense

put you in command of effacement. As class clown

you assumed a persona, the package like a chair

on the tip of your nose, tight roping an imaginary high wire

to your desk. You swayed above the eyes

of your classmates, teetering

like nothing mattered but the circus.

Al Ortolani is a secondary English teacher in the Kansas City area. His poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, The Laurel Review, The Midwest Quarterly, The English Journal and others. His next volume of poetry, Finding the Edge, is due for publication from Woodley Press at Washburn University this spring. Presently, he is a co-editor for The Little Balkans Review, a small regional journal in southeast Kansas.

Tony Brewer:

Three Poems

The Cremation of Voices

You’ll wish you had it all back, they say.

But wishing is for wells.

I had a fireplace, and I

reached in and yanked open

the coughing sooty flue.

Men have a history of building big dumb fires.

Driving everyone away from the warmth with heat.

Setting a forest on fire to rebirth it.

Burning Man. Or Hiroshima.

I made mine small, out of history

gone cold: heart-dotted i’s

and decadent initial caps in folded

grade school correspondence,

postcards dense with longing posed as brevity,

hate speeches, Dear Johns.

Birthday cards signed Dad

beneath where Mom had written love.

The taste of blue-tip sulfur behind

my two front teeth washed

down with wine.

The pyre caught and rushed

up the chimney of itself to escape

a box of me I would never see again.

Voices plumed into January stratosphere.

Cinders liberated from storage units of memory.

Attics of denial echoing

like an empty cathedral collapsing.

It’s a miracle no one was hurt.

A shame no one was inside.

The Things That Stick

Dad sits across from me.

His bruised hands hesitate.

Before the tremors

his fingers manipulated pocketknives

and chewing gum wrappers

and drywall tape and mud.

We are waiting for ribs

as he prepares a syringe and insulin.

Rolls the bottle between his hands to warm it

clicking against his wedding band.

He plunges the needle into his stomach.

Quick and practiced like a sniper

assembling a rifle blindfolded.

I was the only one who saw.

It is bearable because he remains

calm as it happens.

We even laugh at how frail he has become.

I don’t have to try anymore

to make my voice sound like his

when he says you just plain fall

apart when you get old.

The silence after the laughter dies

is broken by our waitress carrying platters.

The meat so tender

it slides right off the bones.

Whatever else happens

is happening to us all the time.

Wine Country

A hundred miles on snake-colored roads

clogged with black socks and sandals

trout print Hawaiian shirts

trophy wives riding shotgun

convertibles fast for no guard rail

life by the sip with cracker

palette cleansing chasers.

I was a tourist passing through her

spilling my guts in gravel parking lots

about how my ex-wife done me wrong.

Worrying a buzz down to drivable.

Vultures pin-wheeled in a cloudless sky.

An entire ecosystem devoted to giving

a little taste to entice then off

down sinuous curves of savannah

freckled with Mexicans

bent toward irrigated earth.

We developed a language for enjoying

something more than it deserves:

Take a swig but don’t swallow.

Suck it through purpling teeth.

Swirl it around like Listerine.

Then tilt the head toward rustic

hand-hewn tasting room beams

and pronounce Ah, Tuscany

certain we would never make it there.

Tony Brewer is a poet and sound effects artist from Bloomington, Indiana. He has work forthcoming in Plain Spoke and the anthology And Know This Place: Poetry of Indiana (Indiana Historical Society Press). His first book of poems is The Great American Scapegoat (2006); his latest chapbook is Little Glove in a Big Hand (Plan B Press, 2010); and he is one-quarter of the performance ensemble Reservoir Dogwoods. More at www.IndianaPoetryTour.com.

Motel Row

by Byron Matthews

Check in, never check out!

No laugh's too cheap

for roaches, none

too darkly bought

For any but an eye that looks

out that cabin at the end,

peers through a slit

in humor's shade.

My father fought unpacific isles,

mustered lucky home intact,

but even so could not evade

a last indecency

Of chance, a stray decree: Go

swaddled into deepening night,

dark slump descend to suckling

vacancy.

Defilement disallowed a pet

who fails her perch, lost his wheel,

foul slow burlesque, exits nailed,

piano falling out of tune,

of dignity, of grace.

Where were the heroes striding

from the seats to cry Enough?

Voices mislaid? Forgot, again,

to bring our pillows? A foot to kick

a plug out of its socket?

In the dead floral air in this

last dim room,

truth clicks like a hammer

pulling back, clear

as vodka shimmered over ice:

I toast the inn at the edge of light,

mini-bar, spa tub, amenities galore,

and reliable, ready, oily bright,

your valet there

in the right-hand drawer.

Byron Matthews left Iowa for graduate school in North Carolina, later gave up a tenured faculty position in Maryland to make furniture for ten years in Santa Fe. He lives now in the mountains east of Albuquerque with his wife, a cellist.

Famille

photography by Quervel Sébastien

Famille photo by Quervel Sébastien

Quervel Sébastien is an experimental photographer from Normandy, France. For more of his work, visit his deviantart and flickr.

Jennifer Wineke:
Three Poems

how to eat a grapefruit

in the passenger seat sitting
cross-legged. take a bite
to make a tear and then unravel
slowly, carefully, make sure
to keep it all in one piece round
and full so you can use it as
a bowl for the thick white skin
you’ve got to use your fingernails
really dig into it try to get it all
tender-bare, smooth and delicate
stick your thumb in it, pry the rosy
pink in half and make your choice,
peel off the plumpest little juice pillow

and then
when he is speaking his most
passionately

stuff it—hard
into his mouth
so that he cries
out and lets go
of the wheel to
catch the liquid running
down his chin and sticking
to his fingers and the smell
he can’t wash off and though
he’ll make a fuss,
he loves it,
you can
be sure
of that.

remember that time

you leaned
over the couch
to give me
a kiss from
behind as I
was eating my
ice cream and right
when your lips
warm and soft
met my sloppy
mouth
the spoon
jabbed
quick--
into
your
ear
cold and metal,
well,
I did that
on purpose.
I’m sorry it’s just
I get a kick
out of
hearing
you
yelp.

ladybugs

our love motif. flickering like half moons
above our tangled bodies in the park,
landed on my blue-jeaned thigh, you picked one
from my hair. peering slyly from their seats
along the telephone pole as we dug
up the ring, notebooks, you and your shovel
and me in your hat but my boots. and then,
finally, resting on bayou lampshades,
drinking beers in cabins with sam cooke. on
the drive home i found one on your collar.

Jennifer Wineke grew up in Louisiana, was educated in California, and currently lives in Prague, where she works as a copywriter. For more of her poetry, please visit her website.

By Tongues

by Jessica Bell

My friends adored you.

When you’d pick me up

from school they’d stare

at your eyebrows—logos

of gothism—fake lesbianism.

You were a like a big sister;

rock ‘n’ roll baby!—the woman

they all wanted to be.

You’d invite them over

for afternoon tea.

You’d coax them into talking

about sex, masturbation,

homosexuals; you’d express

insight—laissez-faire

toward the boy who

tried on my school dress.

You’d trick them into

betraying my secrets—the girl

I pashed behind the shelter

shed; the one with epilepsy

who liked to lie and got

pregnant from my tongue.

My friends never knew

what happened after they left.

Jessica Bell is an Australian who lives in Athens, Greece. She's a literary women's fiction author and poet whose debut poetry collection, Twisted Velvet Chains, has just been released this May. Her debut novel String Bridge is scheduled to be published by Lucky Press LLC in November, 2011. A list of published works can be seen on her website, www.jessicacbell.com. She also posts four days a week on her blog.

Night

photography by Beatrice Belguiral

Night photo by Beatrice Belguiral

Beatrice Belguiral is from Paris, and currently lives in Barcelona. See more of her work on her website and flickr.

Laura Grafham:

Three Poems

To the Person in the Doorway

Tonight you look lovely,

your stance by the door,
ringlets walking round unsuspecting freckles
that didn't know but to attach to your face.

Structure you have,
the iambic lines of your body
carry you up and firm,

straight and strong
the shutters to your blue

eyes close their blinds sometimes;
open for a few

close shut
the curl upwards of a brown lash or two,
the brow rippling sand dunes,
making the dotted waves of your ginger skin
unsettling, earth shattering. Quaking, though

I just said hello.

Freewrite

I haven't had a sip. I see steam.
Not yet. Until I do
I flirt at the wide eyed little girl,
hand in her pink mouth,
sneakers pointing up from the floor
and out the foggy windows.

Her sneakers have shark teeth on them.
She's cooler than I am.
I don't know why but
the american poetry I read
and the Neil Young they play
are better early in the day;

I read places I haven't been
into rolling scapes
invading the little shop,
crowding red-eye patrons against walls,
the breezy dry grasses doing their thing
in front of me.

The barista with his tribal tattoo
changes the CD and goodbye:
John Wayne and Neil Young vanish.
Now Bjork complains through the speakers.
Icelandic whining and piled high black
hairdos do music. The people grunt disgruntle.
I note the nearest exits.

___________________

I like my land made
not of fire and ice
but of rain and fog
made of misty fabric
that evaporates when it turns corners

A place with piles of wet paperbacks that can't sell
with old Norwegians and Swedes in sweaters
where I can kiss your chapped lower lip,
lick up the blood I made.

I like the land to eke outward,
expanding from the earth's core
up and in, out
eating us up because it can,
not because we want it to.

If I Could Inspire Jealousy

hey, up there, see that yellow light in the window;

it is he who tells the story

the story of the bear and kai-oat-ee

taking the grain at harvest time.

All of our friends came

to the fireside,

see, and they all gathered round,

told me how much they loved your ways

they loved the way your words made magic

at twilight, among the searchlights

and the birthday of your city.

I don't drink beer to escape

but to get it up, get the story up

get the grasses up and active, working.

If my hair were sage brush

damn, would it smell good,

and men would love me, and women would envy,

want my wampum bracelets and belts.

Laura Grafham is a senior English Literature major at Seattle Pacific University. She has published in her school's student-run arts journal Lingua, of which she now is a staff member. Currently, Laura is writing her senior thesis on Leslie Silko’s novel Ceremony. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest all her life, and having worked as a bartender and waitress on Orcas Island in the San Juans, she dreams of climbing mountains in the Rockies. Laura is currently applying to MA programs in the Mountain Time Zone. See graciethebum.blogspot.com for more poetry and nonfiction excerpts.

Wintersong
by David Tomaloff

to explain this
temptation as if
it were a must

set sail and return
emptier now than
is in fashion

lilac, and blue,
untied, and adrift

the quietest places
in our hearts

don't laugh
as they once did

David Tomaloff (b. 1972) | is a musician, writer, photographer, and all around-bad influence | likes: jazz | hates: jazz | photography: yes | his work has also appeared in publications such as: DOGZPLOT, HOUSEFIRE, the Sixteenth Letter, elimae, Phantom Kangaroo, Ditch Poetry, Otoliths, and BlazeVOX 2KX | see: davidtomaloff.com.

IIIIII

photography by Kirsten Thormann

IIIIII photo by Kirsten Thormann

Visit Kirsten Thormann's website.

Repeat After Me

by Rachel Mangini

How do I say how I feel in Portuguese?

English cannot amplify sad. We curl it

into a tiny space. Tuck it tight to contain it.

Give me a word. Make it mean ugly

and messy and ripping my heart out dripping with tears.

Make it mean my head is blown open. My nails feel

good scraping on my skin.

What is the word for full to bursting with regret?

What do you call the sum of this:

one day in Montreal when I smiled in photos, cried in between,

three police cars, one strong rope,

the digits of another man’s phone number dialed twice,

185 miles, me growing smaller in the rear view,

the slope of your back when you sleep alone?

The worst thing is: miraculous.

My body, so much soft flesh, goes on,

needs water, dresses, gets on a bus.

Opens its mouth and says “at the close of the third quarter.”

When what I really want to say is:

The rhythm of your breath is what I fasten mine to.

Rachel Mangini loves to travel, and to bake. Both her husband and her dog can attest to the fact that she is a great kisser. On her blog you'll find lots of things she likes.