your
disappointments in the whistle
between the gap
of your
yellow
teeth
Alone is as simple as the car ride to and fro listening to music and singing at the top of my lungs without anyone to hear and without anyone to judge. Alone is a long hot shower. Alone is a walk, brisk or plodding, to plot the next course for later – in the day, the month or forever.
Johnny canted his neck to the side, then flung his muscled shoulders back, his vertebrae crackling. A black bandana circled his mane of corn-silk hair. He turned to Daniel, a sly, lopsided grin tilting his thin lips. Daniel flinched, retreating a step. He couldn’t believe it. In thirty years, Johnny hadn’t changed, not a wrinkle creasing his boyish face, not a gray hair on his head.
Poetesses write & dream:
puncture, skin, ruby,
Moringa plant, wood,
gone. Their friend’s
piano; the pages
for a friend
Your brain can only be Oxygen deprived for so long. I felt like those helpless victims in Jaws. What would be worse? Getting ripped apart by that giant sea monster or not being able to get to the surface for a breath? One time in high school a jock had cold-cocked me upside the head for calling his sister a tramp. Afterwards I couldn’t stand straight or stop the ringing in my ears. This was no different, although that was a smidge more enjoyable.
Gabriel Ricard talks travel, Shyamalan, and more in his latest Captain Canada column.
100 WORD FILM REVIEWS / Glass
Unbreakable was phenomenal; Split was clever (and that "twist"!), and now we have Glass, the third installment of a trilogy spanning 20 years. Yes, Sarah Paulson is tiresome, and yes, there seems to be a few things that don't quite stick, but forget what you've read: Glass is a worthwhile use of two of your precious hours. I was delighted to see Spencer Treat Clark reprise his role as Dunn's faithful and proud son, and Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlayne Woodard are always amazing. Don't wait for that Shyamalan twist: just enjoy the conclusion of a story of three people who are extraordinary.
FILM / Once Upon a Time in Film Scoring / Inside Llewyn Davis / Sean Woodard
“If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” Sean Woodard breaks down the themes and songs of the Coen Brother’s masterful Inside Llewyn Davis.
COMICS / Mr. Butterchips / January 2019 / Alex Schumacher
Hard times for the happiness industry in Alex Schumacher’s latest Mr. Butterchips!
These days, I have to peep on humanity
if I want in, like doing my best impression
of the conference table at the secret
corporate powwow to reintroduce
lead and Xanax into the public water
supply.
Gabriel Ricard returns for a new year of old classics and new favorites in his Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo column.
A body needs
to be fed: bread,
water, skin upon skin,
nails trailing hair line
from breastbone to belly.
You are leaving then -
never the 'Salvatore Mundi',
more a sgraffito grey,
not sumptuary black;
offertory gondola on oil canvas -
in sympathetic cassetta patina.
Depression is a colony of termites laboring so silently and ardently until your dwelling is unlivable. Unlivable. They crawl over me while I like your posts about your vacation and the hilarious thing your toddler said. Unlivable. They creep inside of me as I listen for the tenth time about your tenth lover, and what size U-Haul you should rent. I am genuinely excited for you. Unlivable.
With matching beards and weight, Fisherman and mom had a special tag-team wrestling clown act. She died. He’s been reduced in stature to a common roustabout. Once a star; he’s no longer billed as The Mad Greek Fisherman.
Within minutes, I discovered the artifact. It was a pistol, mostly intact I assumed. Tarnish and rust flourished upon the graymetal. I held it close to me like a newborn babe whilst scanning the area with my widened eyes. My heart pounded in my chest, awaiting the wayward voice shouting to disarm myself at once; to seize their rightful property from my wavering hands.
Suddenly, a silence enveloped us
Something fell, and something began
A light was extinguished, a sob was repressed, and a coin was lost
But at least your fountain came to life again
By noon I want a healing bath
haunted by angels, a place to baptize
broken wings, untwist rivers
mapping hand and legs.
Ma Lieberman had been a turning point, not only for the Jew Strangler project, but for Rivka’s mother too. They’d never met, except through Rivka’s anecdotes about one mother to another. Now Rivka’s mother speaks to Rivka again. She serves Rivka’s dinners hot. They eat together. They discuss the Liebermans.