From: +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Volume #5 December 1st, 1998 Issue #4 Established January, 1994 http://morpo.com/ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ CONTENTS FOR VOLUME 5, ISSUE 4 Editor's Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. D. Rummel Editor's Notes : Chesire . . . . . . . . . . Kris Kalil Fulkerson Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lori K. Ciulla Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lori K. Ciulla After the Honeymoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holly Day Ireland is the Size of West Virginia . . . . . . . . . Rolf Potts Desert Drip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noel Ace Pattern Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . William C. Burns, Jr. Slide Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William C. Burns, Jr. The Orchard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Durler Bird Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Durler Game Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Burn My Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marie Kazalia Wisdom/reincarnation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marie Kazalia The Woman and the Dog . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard K. Weems About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors In Their Own Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor + Poetry Editor Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Staff Kris Kalil Fulkerson rfulk@morpo.com + kalil@morpo.com Submissions Editor Fiction Editor Amy Krobot J.D. Rummel amyk@morpo.com rummel@morpo.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ _The Morpo Review_. Volume 5, Issue 4. _The Morpo Review_ is published electronically on a quarterly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1998, The Morpo Review. _The Morpo Review_ is published in ASCII and World Wide Web formats. All literary and artistic works are Copyright 1998 by their respective authors and artists. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor's Notes Kris Kalil Fulkerson Poetry Editor CHESIRE "Your first project is always a special one," one of my coworkers said knowingly, with the wait-and-see smile of one whose first project lies years behind them. I had just finished explaining, rather breathlessly, that I had just received the first chapter of my first real editorial project--the second volume of a US history book. In that first hour with those twelve pages, I sat at my big, bare desk, reading through them, trying to suppress the grin that kept surfacing to threaten the professional demeanor I assumed an editor should exhibit. Whenever someone would stop by my office, however, I couldn't help it. "My first chapter arrived!" I would exclaim, my grin always answered by that same wait-and-see smile. I didn't mind. Two weeks later, my desk is overwhelmed by an uneven strata of reference books, encyclopedias on CD-ROM, and sheets of paper covered with pencil and yellow sticky notes; my eyes are red and dry, with the right eye developing a twitch; my brain is fogged with facts and a blur of stern faces staring at me from the pages of textbooks. When people stop by to say hello, I blink myopically at them and, disoriented to be emerging abruptly from the nineteenth century, greet them brilliantly with "Huh?" or, sometimes more eloquently, "What? What time is it?" I'm still grinning, though. I grin because it's all still wonderfully unreal to me. When I was younger and in the Distressed Teenager stage of my life, I used to stare in the mirror and press my hand against that of my reflection, wishing to be pulled into that parallel universe of opposites where all my gauches would become graces. Now it feels as if, without knowing it, I accidentally stumbled over that threshold. Instead of shelving and reshelving unending cartloads of books, I am a part of the process that creates those books. Instead of paying the university to evaluate the quality of my research and writing, I am being paid to evaluate the research and writing of others. All of the diverse interests that plagued me with their seeming arbitrariness suddenly have become my greatest strengths. It's no wonder that I feel disoriented at times. But as I contemplate losing myself in those layers of papers and words at work tomorrow, I can't help but smile. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Film Lori K. Ciulla The last time I saw the naked picture of me, it was on fire in a bathtub. The photograph was dark, patterns of the wall paper were hazy, a lamp in the picture blurred, my body was indistinct, no detail to my shoulders, hips legs, my face covered by hair caught in motion I watched the picture burn. The white basin near the drain became smoky, smudged. Soon I washed away ash with cold water turned on as hard as it could go - a coolness could be felt above the tub - as some sort of self proclaimed mist. The last time I saw the naked picture of me, I left the man who had taken it - the unseen presence who caught my life in motion - in its young haze. I left him for good - forever - but after I returned the lighter to his kitchen drawer. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Next Lori K. Ciulla The Next time I see him I will picture him naked - but I won’t approach him. All the night long I will undress him with my eyes and caress him with my memory without saying a word. I will choose a spot far away - I will converse with others - but as I sip my wine, or check my watch, I will roll my eyes to the corner and look and unbutton and unzip and kiss his back madly and taste his wrists with my mouth. His jokes will make others laugh, his friends will tell loud stories, but I will keep half my mind occupied with his thighs, his past sighs. The Next time I see him I will stifle his attempts to converse with me. I won’t let him in, I will walk away and smile mildly, dismiss him. If I let him back in, he would be shocked, he would be happy to see what I still feel and how strong he stands in my memory and how the taste of his gaze means more to me than air. The Next time I see him will be the time I let go. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ After the Honeymoon Holly Day razor-sharp spiderwebs crisscross rays of white moonlight, broken glass windowpanes and stained glass skin-mommy listen listen when I tell you he has a temper, he has quite a temper. razor-sharp porcelain fragments on bloodstained linoleum, purple skin fading to dark red, under ice-oh mommy listen listen to me when I tell you I have to get out of here, I have to get out +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Ireland is the Size of West Virginia Rolf Potts Reyes is sitting on the couch. It's maybe three in the morning. I don't know where he found the globe, but he keeps spinning it back and forth. "Hey Turner," he says. "Greece is the size of Arkansas." Most everyone has gone home, and the house has that sour post-party smell. Like air from an old basketball. I feel like I might puke. "Reyes, put that globe down and go home," I say. "France is the size of Texas," he tells me. _________________________________________________________________ Earlier, the kitchen had been full of girls. "What about Reyes?" one of them had said. Girls are always saying this. They all like him because he's funny and smart as hell. But he doesn't understand. Early on in the night, he went into the kitchen and started drawing pictures. He handed a picture to one of the girls. "This is what your vagina looks like," he said. The girl thought this was really funny. She pointed at the picture. "What's this?" "That's called a pudenda," he said. So that was the big joke. "How's your pudenda?" the girls would say to each other. They were really drunk. One of the girls found some watercolors and painted the picture orange. The girls went home later. One of them went home with that moron Stanton. I was there on the porch when he started talking to her. "You have the most amazing eyes," he had said. She acted like this was some special secret. She said: "Really?" _________________________________________________________________ Reyes never takes girls home, because he doesn't understand them. Girls never sit in the kitchen and say "What about Turner?" but still sometimes I get lucky. Reyes needs to understand this. But he just keeps spinning that globe. "Ireland is the size of West Virginia." "Reyes, the party died a long time ago." He pretends he doesn't hear me, that globe still cradled in his lap. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Desert Drip Noel Ace I don't mind if it rains through me. Drips like ice cubes streaming down my back keep me looking straight ahead and beyond the downtown traffic. My future's out there, beyond the cars, drivers fast streaming it down the highway-their eyes pinned to the rearview mirror, minds wondering if they left something behind. My eyes stretch beyond the slow cars, the traffic lights saying, "Go, no stay," beyond the honking horns, babies crying for something more to eat, a man screaming at no one through pinched lips while I sit on a bench sucking on raindrops. Girl, move on, I say to myself when I get a moment. Sixteen is soon enough to start a life beyond the shit ass streets. I'm not made up of big dreams-just a desert, packed with sand and alive with winds that circle through you. My desert will dry this ice on my back in no time. Move on. Once the light turns green, I'll be up, and the car passengers will shake their heads, unable to understand how I walk in these shoes-like sponges, soaked into my skin. They will only see my soles are bared in the rain. Poor girl, they comment to car-poolers who do not care enough to look out the rain streamed car windows. I'm the person people look through: girl on the street, up to no good. They don't look into my eyes burning like the desert sun, my eyes looking beyond the streetlights, following in the same direction as their own. The streets run through me as if I am the passage in time you must drive through to get beyond the black clouds sucking out the saneness in your mind, these streets nothing but potholes, deep enough to bury secrets. "Do you need a ride?" asks, Jim, a familiar man in a Mustang GT-decked out cherry red, silver sparkling rims-as if he knows where I want to go. I look for his eyes behind his black shades, but they are just black holes, ready to suck me into some empty vacuum. Not again, I tell myself. Not even if you're hungry. Squealing to the curb a little ahead of my bench, he jumps out, all smiles and beer breath, flipping off the people now stuck in traffic all because he wants me. Streetlights reflect off his sunglasses like alien eyes, his shiny black suit shaking rain as he opens the passenger door. "I'm a gentleman, don't you know that yet?" His smile is a flash of gold and black holes he talks through. He stretches out his arm and bows in my direction, like some sick knight offering to take me from myself. "I'm all right tonight. I'll just get your car soaking wet," I yell out, putting on my own street smile, using my tongue as I laugh in Jim's direction. "I'll take you somewhere beyond that park bench. Find you some action." Jim and men like him, I'll leave behind once I leave this place-men who see a girl alone on the street, staring into the downpour, showing skin in torn jeans, sucking on matted hair, knees scabbed, muttering love songs, men compelled to pull over on a Friday afternoon and become something more than a salesman traveling the rain puddled streets looking for love. "No thanks, Jim. I like it in the rain today." I can sleep in the rain, have sex in the rain, forget most things in the rain. "I'm having desert dreams." My flesh painted golden orange, body swimming underneath sand. Jim speeds off, cramped in the traffic jam, alone. Who isn't? I am alone-by choice. Not lonely, only a lone person, with a need to move on and beyond the wet skies of Seattle, the love pushin' Jims. Give me a trailer in the sand, skies burning it into place, yucca trees raising their arms to a God who is blinded by unceasing sunlight. Can he see me through this rain? I've tried to let God know I'm coming home to him soon. Every chance I get, I spray my street name to show God I'm here. CHAKKA is the name I spray on the store fronts that block out trespassers with steel bars on the windows and sensor alarms. Everywhere, I've gone in this town, CHAKKA's also been there-fairy boats that crawl through the bay, taking tourists on trips to Vancouver, taking CHAKKA with them. I move on in my own way. Tagger, cops call me, chasing me down, cuffing my hands behind my back and throwing me in their car, sirens off, just for carving my name on the skyscrapers growing above these streets. No compensation for my time having to listen to them first scream morality into my face and then give me a number I can call for homeless girls like myself. "You'll die this way," they say, taking the cuffs off and leaving me at my park bench-still hungry, still on the streets without enough money to even think about a phone call. The cops know they can't hold me down; they can only imprison my body with their blindness while my name lives on in bold blood red oils-CHAKKA traveling with the speed of freight trains while I sleep in parks at night. I gave myself the name CHAKKA when I was five. Cave girl, my friends called me, looking more prehistoric as my front teeth pushed forward, teeth the size of an adult's. I am the bridge between animal and civilized human. My words were grunts because no one was home to listen to complete sentences. I cut off a girl's hair in school for trying to talk like me-animal nature; brought home old men from the playground who needed a bath-civilized human. Unpredictable calling. CHAKKA's the privileged one. She lives beyond me, on fairy boats traveling the bay, swimming deep in the ocean with migrating whales, free to see the world with her beauty. I see her wave to me sometimes from the park as I cross the street, smoking a cigarette. I watch her dance on the grass mounds, between couples napping, enjoying the sunshine that rarely visits Seattle. CHAKKA laughs like a child in the wind as I make my midnight plans with street men, corporate bosses, and female tourists wanting to get to know me better. I sometimes follow her to railroad yards and watch her work her magic. CHAKKA drips paint in my hair as she uses oil colors to spread her rose colored scrawl on Amtraks that travel around the country. I follow her to the railroad tracks and ask, "Where are we going?" Carefully outlining her letters with deep black, she turns and smiles at me, all teeth and long curly hair. Mexico, where it's wild desert. She leaves her work wet and dripping in the rain, not waiting for her name to dry. Just writing the name makes the travel real for me. She makes the future seem like something possible. Mexico-tanned plated sand dunes and landscapes painted in rusted deserted car shells; people who became lost on their journey south, dry land with sun to crack wrinkles on my face. Jim pulls up to the curb and shines his brights on me. Mexico fades into headlights. Can't see beyond the drops of rain falling before my eyes. Jim tries to pin me down this way. Shine a spotlight, and she's all yours. I don't even blink. "Come on, Shirley. Let me buy you dinner. Here, take my coat." His fake leather trench coat smothers me with its cigarette smell. "I don't wear nothing that ain't mine," I say, pulling the coat tighter. And my name's not Shirley a voice screams out in my sudden silence, but Jim has already ushered his Shirley into his car, pulling into the traffic with his hand on her thigh. "I'm getting your car seat wet." "Just the way I like it." He might have smiled as he turned to look below my neckline, the car rushing forward, hitting its brakes as it closes in on the nearest bumper. "Where we going?" I ask, wanting him to say down south, where the Aztecs once wore gold on their naked bodies. "To the Space Needle," Jim says. "Make me feel like a god with you up there," Jim says. "500 feet higher than I've ever been. The elevator shoots us into the sky; I smile as my feet quickly leaving the ground. Jim presses his back against the elevator wall although we're the only two in the canister. Eyes closed, he smiles and sweats, muttering a prayer. I pull out my paint brush and sweep CHAKKA's tag onto the carpeted walls, the oils dripping against the pressure of our rise to the top. I want to bring her with me, to help me fly from here. "You should thank me for scaring that tour guide out of here," Jimmy says, reaching out to pull me closer to him. "Why do you have to paint yourself tonight?" I turn and look at him, this man who calls me a woman. "Can't forget who I am." "Let me remind you," he whispers, as his hand strokes my lower back. "You're a goddess to me, sweetheart. I could give you more in life than that street bench." His hands move up my back, fingers slightly grazing my spine. "That bench is my home." The place I sleep, the place I dream. "There's more to life than a street home." He pulls me against his chest and kisses my neck, his hands caressing my shoulders. "Just come with me," the request he makes every time he takes me out. Wine her, dine her, bind her and she's yours, Jim seems to think. If you come home with Jim, and meet the twenty or so other street girls younger than me, he'll give you enough heroin to forget your fragile identity and abuse you often enough to scare you into staying with him. I always tell him, "I've got my own dreams. Thanks, anyway," and say it polite enough so he's not offended. The man has his own animal style that can turn on you in a second of indiscretion. He's accepted my answer for a few weeks now; but time will one day run out on his offer or his sweet temper used to keep me interested. A smell of lavender slowly fills the elevator, circling around my head, and I know CHAKKA's here, helping me to keep my mind straight for the next hour. "God, you smell so good, Shirley." He smells CHAKKA, caresses her, wants her to come home with him and make him rich. As the elevator doors open, I run out into the gift store lobby and head for the platform surrounding the view of the city. Jim runs to catch up, thinking I'm running from him for good. If I were smart, I would, but I still have to eat tonight. CHAKKA flies through the mist that falls on the city and smiles at me. Come with me, into the sky, she taunts, taking my hand, gently pulling me to the railing. To the clouds. As Jim catches up to me, cigarette dangling from his lips, I want to ask him if he sees her in the sunset-a floating apparition in the clouds, but he is too busy searching me out-the girl he called Bella in front of the tourists. He now wants me as an older Southern belle, not Shirley, a young girl's name.I put on the southern accent like a change in lipstick. Through the Plexiglas used to block suicide missions or homicides, CHAKKA floats in her freedom above the ground. "Where you going, CHAKKA?" I call to her, aloud, running along the glass, trying to keep up with her flight. The desert over these mountains Come with me. CHAKKA melts through the glass and into my body, her heart beating quickly, speeding up the rhythm of my own lagging beat. I'm always a step behind. But, he is there-pulling on me, holding me tightly by the arm, and she disappears quickly, my spirit wanderer too strong to hold back. Disgusted, I turn to the man who holds both my wrists and look him full in the eye. "What do you really want, Jim? Just look at me." He laughs. His eyes trace my dreadlock hair, soiled flannel shirt, and follow the buttons down to my jeans-torn at the knees, muddied from wear-white slip-ons with my big toe poking out: I am just a young girl he found on the street. "You know, kid, it's your charm. You have a glow about you, like you're going places," Jim says, putting his index finger through my beltloop. Like CHAKKA. Going places beyond rain drenched streets and unpredictable tempers from men who see through you. "It's not me you see, Jim. It's her. It's the name in red." He gently grabs me by the back of the neck and puts my cheek next to his and looks at our reflection in the glass. "Ah, yeah, it's CHAKKA. I know the name. I know who you are." Jim turns and looks at my reflection in the glass and laughs softly to himself while turning back to look in my eyes. "I see you." Jim must be blinded by CHAKKA. He can only see her long flowing hair and almond shaped eyes delving into his, laughter crawling sweetly into his ear like a goddess' whisper. "It's your essence," Jim says, his exclamation sounding like a snake's hiss. "It's that spirit that captures my full attention." I look into the blackness of the night and smell lavender, feel CHAKKA's body move through mine, her legs pumping with the will to move on. I'm still here, CHAKKA says, her voice like sugar in my thoughts. Let's go back to those desert dreams. "Take me home," I yell, pushing Jim away before he completely has me bared in public. Stumbling backwards, Jim's face spreads hatred. "Back to the park bench?" He laughs. "Is that your home?" "Home is where I call it." I button up my blouse and throw his jacket to the ground, hearing its fake crunch as I use it as my welcome mat home. I push Jim aside as the elevator doors open and let me in. "I know where to find you. This doesn't end just because you say it does," Jim says, moving closer to the elevator doors now closing on his face like a metal curtain. I am alone. As I feel the elevator drop back down to the street, I smile at the tag I made, the name that is always within me, the spirit I've been able to hold onto. Rain continues to pound into my ears and soaks me to the bone as I sit on the bench, but I don't care. I can again feel the sun as the desert drips into my veins and makes me smile. Someday, I'll go there and dance in the sun. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Pattern Recognition William C. Burns, Jr. Tell me what you think you see And I'll tell you what is really there To you a dust devil But can you see it The thing inside A whorl of eyes and fingers and hearts To you a cloud But look just at the edge A wind shark Feeding on rainbow seeds A tree Covered with veins and arteries Tiny coagulated clumps of luminous life parna Breaking off Snaking up the trunk Heading for the leaves +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Slide Show William C. Burns, Jr. In this slide we see her Wrapped around an ashtray We speculate that she is deriving some kind of nourishment from the decaying remains Next slide please . . . Yes Notice the bizarre growth just medial of the transverse section Very vascular And all those spiny quills God that looks uncomfortable Next . . . Oh yeah Here she is being eaten by the chair Can't really tell if she is resisting +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Orchard John Durler The long hill road too high, muddy ruts packed in wet leaves, lead to orchard apples and foxfire among evergreens. Our brook feeds hungry roots vaulting its rushing water, sometimes to appear as huge arches, bent and twisted, animals use to cross, as I sometimes, to the other side, whose hollow holds wild things of the wood. It beckons in the chill sweet ripple of a robin singing. Yet I hold to the road, apples in mind, swing from saplings along the way, as their sweet scent draws me, singing "apple pan dowdies make your eyes light up. Gimme some more of that wonderful stuff." I walk through swarms of bees, flies, gnats. Worms crawl or drop on silken threads I brush away as I fill coat and shirt, head back down the hill burdened by the light roll of apples against my skin, dreaming of buzzing insects, furry worms, communal in heady contentment. Light plays on trees. Songs of the forest ring subtle and pure as church chimes. I am in awe as I hurry, apples bobbing, back home. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Bird Song John Durler I look to me to find my way to who I am, I do not like what I find. I dream of candlesticks not yet burning, see great furious fires in ice. I feel a chill in a bird's song, plug ears, look out my open doorway, drop crumbs, inviting the bird in. Eventually, pecking my kitchen floor, I grab it by the throat, feeling wing bones, hollow, fragile, feathers, soft as dandelion puffs, able to fly free, as I never could. I look into black bulging eyes, feel the rapid heartbeat, and say "Never trust mankind." I know my power, open my hand and It blinks, shrugs, peeps E sharp, and flies out the doorway. Later that night, ears unplugged the bird's song cuts through the night, shatters my windows, tears down walls and roof, and I stand in the sky--- falling, falling. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Game Day David Burn You only see your son once a year. Always on the same day. It's the only day she'll let you. The day after Thanksgiving — "Game Day" in Nebraska. Huskers/Sooners. It's a time-honored tradition. You grew up with this game. And if it was good enough for you, it was good enough for Jude. But, last year the "powers that be" threw a monkey-wrench, and created a new league with a bunch of Texas teams. The Big Twelve, they call it. Today's game is against Colorado, not Oklahoma. You guess it's okay since Oklahoma isn't what they used to be under coach Barry Switzer. He doesn't get much respect in Dallas, but he'd ruined a lot of holidays for you, and for the whole state really. Of course, Nebraska, despite the recent championships, isn't what they used to be either. Tom Osborne is no Bob Devaney. Devaney never had the players pray, nor hold hands, that's for sure. Jude doesn't look a thing like you. You wonder if he really is your son. And seriously, why'd you ever consent to that name? You wanted him to be named "Johnny." Not after you, but for Johnny Rogers, the Heisman winning return-man who helped bring back-to-back National Championships home to Lincoln. Lydia, your former old lady, pulls up out front in a new car. Some Jap thing. Figures. She's done real well for herself. It's good for Jude, but you grimace at the sight of her and her dark suits and long, fancy scarves. She waves to you, but stays in the car. Good for her, you don't want to talk to her anyway. Jude gets out and looks around like he doesn't want anyone to see him. Shit, no one he knows is gonna come down here in this ‘hood. It used to be nice back when Pops was at North High, but now it's a ghetto. All black, except you and that freak up the street. You know that guy is up to something. Probably got body parts in the basement from the looks of him. Course, he might be saying the same about you. But how would he know? How would any of these people know what you've had to go through? When you and Jude settle in for the game, your new wife, Elaine, brings turkey sandwiches into the den and places them on TV trays in front of you. Jude is courteous and says, "Thank you." "Can I bring you some Tang dear?" she asks him. "OK," he says, un-enthused. "How about you honey? Do you want some Tang?" What the hell does she think she's doing? So Jude's over. Does that mean you can't have a beer? It's Game Day, for Christ's sake. "Bring me a beer," you say with authority. Jude asks you, "John, can I have one too?" The kid's only twelve. But, he's never asked you for anything in his life. You keep waiting for him to ask you for all sorts of things, but he never does. He just sits there and watches the game and when it's over his mother comes and takes him away. So you say, "Sure." You yell down the hall toward Elaine, "Bring two." Elaine brings two cans of Bud into the den and sets them down on your tray. You pop yours, then hand one over to the kid. Elaine says, "John, what do you think you're doing? Aren't you in enough trouble?" "I'm his father, and I say he can have a beer during the Nebraska game." Jude pops his open and adroitly guzzles it, draining it on one fell swoop. He burps and smiles then jumps straight up into the air, and yells, "Touchdown!" Nebraska had intercepted and run it back for a score, but you did not see it because you were watching Jude. You look at Elaine and give her the "get out" signal. "This is a man's thing," you told her how many times before? "John, what's jail like?" Jude asks you. "It's no place you want to be. It's the worst stink-hole on earth." "Why does Lydia send you there every weekend?" "I wish I knew Jude. It's about money I owe her." "You mean child support, for me?" "Yeah, for you." "I don't need it John. Lydia doesn't either. She's got plenty of boyfriends to buy her stuff. And I don't need new stuff all the time. My friend from school — Jeremy — he has to have Air Jordan's, but I don't care about shoes." You wonder what he does care about. You don't think he cares much for you. But he did say he didn't want you to keep going to jail every weekend. Still, how could he care about you, when his mother pumps him full of her side of the story all the time? This one afternoon a year isn't adequate for you to fight that kind of deep conditioning. You just want to get through the game. But the Husker offense is struggling to put points on the board. Scott Frost, the quarterback involved in last year's famous Lawrence Phillips incident, leaves a lot to be desired. And Osborne bugs you. You don't know why. You don't have to know. You're not like those call-ins from the talk-shows who go on and on about how Osborne sold out for the rings he now wears. You could care less what the players do off the field. Jude says, "I could call a better play than that. Hasn't he heard of the pass?" You say, "He's a wuss," even though you realize how important it is to establish the ground game. Elaine pokes her head into the room and asks, "Can I bring you anything?" Jude says, "Two more beers." Elaine says, "Hold on just a minute, young man." You cut her off with, "He said, 'Two more beers.' Are you deaf?" "John, he's only twelve." During the commercial, you get up and find Elaine in the other room. "Don't back-talk me in front of my boy," you say. Elaine chokes back a laugh and says, "Your boy? You see him once a year. And how do you know this isn't some kind of trick? Huh?" "What trick?" you ask. "If that kid's drunk when his mother gets here, you might be put away for more than weekends. Honey, I'm worried." "He's not gonna get drunk Elaine. We're just having some beers during the ball game." "John, he's twelve years old." "So? When I was twelve I ...." "You what?" "Nothing. Elaine, look, just stay out of this. This isn't your business." "The hell it isn't. You're my man. You are my business." Jude yells from the den, "Colorado just scored a touchdown." The last thing you need today is a tight game. Aren't you upset enough already? You go to the kitchen and retrieve two more beers. Whiskey is what you need, but Elaine won't let you have it in the house. You have to go down to Sal's for a real drink. Elaine says, "No one can tell you a damn thing." That's what Jude's mother used to say. God damn them. Why do they do this? All you want is to watch the game with your boy, but no, they have to go and get smart. Well fuck that. You're not going down this path today. It's a holiday and you're free. You're home and will do what you want. "Shut your fucking lip," you say. "Like hell! I'm not going to stand here and take that." You're still standing there, but inside you've left the room. Your other personality is standing in. And he ain't gonna take any shit. Not from some woman who doesn't know when to shut up. No way. He's gonna take care of business. He's not gonna let you get trampled like before. Steamrolled. Sent to jail every fucking Saturday morning at 6:30 A.M. Your other personality, now fully surfaced, smacks her. She goes flying into the air and lands on the range, where a pot of water boils. Time slows. You see a hundred faces of Elaine as she gathers herself. You never hit her before. You hit Jude's mother pretty regular, but not Elaine. Elaine's a psycho. If you hit her, you better finish the job, because you'd never be safe again. She grabs the handle of the spilled pot and belts you across the face with it. You're stunned pretty good. Then she comes at you with a butcher knife. She lunges, but you turn away at the last second. Her momentum carries her forward and she lands in a heap on the floor. You pounce on her and get the knife away. Then you bash her head into the tile floor until she loses consciousness. You take her to the bedroom and hand-cuff her to the bed-post. "Jesus John, what happened to your face? And where've you been? Colorado scored again," says Jude as you sit down in the Lazy Boy recliner. "I uh, I burned myself on the turkey, trying to re-heat it." "Oh." You hand Jude his second beer. "Got any girl friends yet?" "Nope." Brent Musberger's voice and general lack of ability to call a game of this magnitude is starting to piss you off. What does some eastern asshole know about football? He sure as shit doesn't know about Nebraska football. To Jude you say, "Just as well, they're all bitches." Jude looks at you like you're from Mars. He says, "I like girls John. And I love Lydia." "Sure you do. That's natural," you say. "Where's Elaine?" he probes. "Oh, she's taking a nap. Don't worry about her?" At half-time you get up and put an ice bag on your face. You look in on Elaine. She's still out. The phone rings. Shit. You get it on the second ring. It's Jude's mother. She wants to talk to him. You tell him to pick up in the den, that it's for him. Then the blood curdling scream comes, "Help me!" Jude drops the receiver. He's petrified. He just stands there while the voice on the phone implores from the floor, "What's the matter? Jude? What's the matter baby?" You pick up the phone and say into it, "Everything's fine. Jude will call you right back." You hang it up, then disconnect the phone from the wall. "I want to go home," Jude cries. "Helllllllllllllllllllp." "Jude, everything's cool. Elaine and I are having a fight is all. I'm going to go in and talk to her. You just sit down and I'll be back in no time." "I wanna go home John. I don't care what you do. You can't keep me here." You say, "It's fine Jude, really. Relax. Elaine's pissed, but this stuff happens when you get married. Now, I'm going to go talk to her and work things out, so you just sit down and watch the game." He obeys. You go to the bedroom. Elaine is gyrating every which way in attempt to free herself from the head-board. But it's made from steel and isn't about to break. "Best stop your strugglin' girl, it's only gonna make things worse," you say. In the den, Jude plugs the phone back into the jack and dials 911. "You let me go, you filthy rotten son-of-a-bitch," Elaine implores. "I don't think so honey." "Juuuuuuuuuuuuuude," she yells. You put a sock in her mouth, then go to the den to check on Jude. He is ready for the third quarter to start. The phone, you notice, is still disconnected. "I think we're about to come to terms. I'll be right back to watch the rest of the game. OK Jude?" "Yeah, but I don't like the look of things. The Huskers should be way ahead in this game, but they keep letting the Buffs hang in." "Typical Osborne," you say. In the bedroom, you watch Elaine squirm. You might as well go ahead and give her the punishment she deserves. She's been a real bitch, throwing the pan at you, and all, not to mention the knife. She struggles, but what's the point, you think. She ain't goin' nowhere. She kicks at you like a wild horse before it's broken. You've been out to the ranch a time or two and you figure you've got a saddle for this here little problem. You enter her ass, with no lubricant. Jude peers in the door and says, "Holy shit." "Hey, get out of here," you yell. You make a deposit, then leave her and go back to the den. Jude's sitting there all balled up. He's got his arms wrapped around his knees and he rocks there in the cradle of his own making. "Hey, what's a matter?" you ask. "Nothing," he squeaks. "Listen, about what you saw ... Elaine's kind of kinky. She likes me to hand-cuff her, and stuff." "And stuff?" the kid asks. "Yeah, stuff. Don't pay it any mind." Then three solid knocks on the door. You eye Jude suspiciously. "Did you call your mother? You little prick. I'll get you for this." Jude cries and manages to say, "I didn't call no one." "You better be telling the truth or so help me..." You peek out the window. A beige sedan. Shit. More knocks and a loud voice, "Mr. Hardman, this is the Omaha police. Open up. We want to talk to you." "What do you want?" "Sir, we just want to come in for a minute and see that everything is all right. Open the door, sir." Who do they think they're foolin', calling me, "Sir?" You open the door and two detectives, one of them rather agitated, stare back at you. You say, "Who called you?" The agitated one is a big man and he puts his bear sized paw on the door and forcibly enters your domicile. Your space. It isn't the weekend yet. No. You are free on Friday and by god, you're gonna defend what's yours. "Hey, you can't come bustin' in here. Where's your warrant?" The other one says, "We don't need a warrant Mr. Hardman. You're already a ward of the court and we had two calls indicating a disturbance here. Unless you want to go down to the station and..." "What do you want?" you say. "Like to have a look around is all." "Go ahead." The cops find Jude glued to the 27 inch Sony. The agitated one joins him, and asks, "What's the score?" Jude says, "17 to 12 us." The cop says, "These close games give me heart-burn." His partner finds Elaine still cuffed and gagged. He says, "Newt, better get over here." Elaine is naked on the bottom and the cops are fascinated by it. You figure fast, go in there and throw the sheet up over her, then begin fiddling for the hand-cuff keys you keep in the night-stand. You let her loose and she flips over and pulls the sock from her mouth and lunges full-force like a cat, but the big cop grabs her and puts a stop to it. "He raped me!" Elaine screams. You say, "Now honey, don't start that again." Then to the cops, "Fellas, this is my wife. Been married for years." The cops look at each other knowingly. Elaine says to them, "Before you even start to think, you go in there and ask Jude. He saw." The big cop lets go of Elaine's arm and just that quick she is on you, and before they get her off she bites into your burned cheek and takes a chunk, which she spits out onto the bed. The big cop gets Elaine back and says, "You're a feisty one." The other cop looks at you close and says, "That's going to require stitches.” You say, "Nah, no medical. It'll patch." Outside the house a car screeches to a halt and footsteps go clap clap clap on the pavement. Lydia bursts into the house and yells, "Jude! Jude where are you?" She finds him and smothers him with her body, as if to protect him, and shelter him from the cruel world. "Are you okay, baby? Did he hurt you?" "No." "Don't be afraid, baby. Mommy's here." "I'm not," says Jude. The big cop brings Elaine into the room with Jude and Lydia. "And who are you?" he asks Lydia. "I am his mother. I'm the one who called you. That man in there is sick. Twisted. Violent. A freaking menace. We're out of here. Let's go Jude." "Mom, are you crazy? We can't leave now. The game's on the line." Elaine, in shock, mumbles, "He raped me. The piece of shit I'm married to, raped me. Can anyone hear me?" "Jude I don't care if the world's coming to an end. We are out of here. The world can end in West Omaha." That did not move him, so she says, "Jesus Christ Jude, we'll listen to it on the radio in the car." Lydia pulls him up by the arms and drags him from the house. "Hey, Jerry get in here," the big cop says to his partner. "There's only two minutes left in the fourth." +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ My Power Marie Kazalia in 1972 I hitchhiked to St. Louis towering curved concrete walls wrapped around freeways an American hot rod stopped pulling up cantalevered at an odd angle on the concrete bank door handle broken I climbed in the passenger window feet first youngish middle-aged man hunched up shoulders at the wheel holding back trying to come-off as normal I kept the conversation friendly and sweet as possible he seemed frightened of my power pulled up at some barren exit to let me out--- I climbed back out the open window he leaning over looking up with searching eyes sniffed the seat beside him leering sick vibes shocked but didn't show it--- I waved smiled and said, have a nice day +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Wisdom/reincarnation Marie Kazalia at times-- like that ridiculous situation I put myself into no excess cash fear of taxi drivers 2 heavy bags packed with everything I owned clothes, notebooks, shoes Lugging to the Taipei bus station-- To get a bus to the airport for my flight back to Hong Kong Staggering straining under the weight of my luggage Muscles-full-out bags shoulder-strap-slung Lifting myself and everthing up 2 flights of metal stairs Along a concrete & metal overhead crosswalk--above several lanes of traffic--letting bags drop resting--Lifting them starting all over again, snagging my black tights on roughened corners of my bags--down more stairs--dragging hole in my tights working-way-up Thinking about EAST-INDIAN-NEO- HINDU-BRAHMANISM-REBIRTH-CYCLE-- repeating all this--every detail-- over & over into infinity-- That time I couldn't help thinking-- How ridiculous of me to live this again-- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Woman and the Dog Richard K. Weems Sometimes I just sit here, making up things. I have a company, "Writer, Ink." I don’t write until I got the sell: fantasy, mystery, etc. Fantasy mag wants a story with a unicorn, I write a story with a unicorn. Mystery rag: two bodies on a train? Two bodies on a train. Ditto for porn. The money is porn. I write forum letters. No real readers write those letters--at least, they’re not writing letters worth publishing. Sex in a glass elevator? No problem. Threesomes? Foursomes? Tensomes with more entering by the minute? Piece of cake. Midgets? Yup, we got midgets. My agent gives me the pitch, I put it together, drop it in the mail, soon comes the check. Cushy. Other times--most times, honestly--I’m on the couch in my robe, waiting on a pitch. I watch talkies and game shows, then the soaps, and on into the news. While my girlfriend is at work, I sit with Matilda under my arm. Matilda is our dog. She’s part pit bull, part other things. Mostly pit bull. Sometimes, Matilda chews on her rawhide while sitting with me. Sometimes, Matilda watches the talkies. Sometimes, I let her watch Sesame Street. My girlfriend waits tables at T.G.I. Friday’s. A shame, really, because she studied psychology and she’s good at it. For instance: She’s good at dropping hints about commitment. Every now and then, she’ll tell me out of the blue how long we’ve been living together, how many months now. She never counts in years--she always opts for the bigger number. "You know we’ve been living together twenty-six months?" she’ll say. She would probably count it in weeks, even days, if she took the time to do the math. Also, she calls Matilda our ‘baby.’ I’m Daddy, she’s Mummy. Sometimes, she makes like Matilda can talk. "Can we go out now, Daddy?" she’ll say, a childish lilt to her voice, when Matilda is standing by the back door. Or, "I’ve been a good girl, haven’t I, Daddy?" when Matilda stands expectantly by the cupboard where we keep her dried pig ears and rawhide bones. "Don’t good girls get treats?" Or, when Matilda is licking my face after my girlfriend kisses me: "It’s okay, Daddy, let me get Mummy's smell off you." My girlfriend probably thinks me dense for not getting her hints. She’s got a good case for it: only now do I realize just how many she drops. All this, and the only work she can find right now is Friday’s. I’d be humiliated. She has to wear all kinds of buttons on her work apron. Stupid buttons. Buttons with stupid things on them. Check these out: SMILE PATROL WHY BE NORMAL? BIBO ERGO SUM: I DRINK, THEREFORE I AM See? When she first got the job, they grilled her until she could recite the desserts and sing their birthday song at a moment’s notice. Sometimes, she hums the song without knowing it. Then I do, also without knowing it. Then she yells at me, "Stop," as if I’m teasing her. Then, my agent calls with a new pitch: ‘a woman and a dog.’ My girlfriend, smelling of burger grease and smoke, figures I’m already doing the research (that is, research on zoophilia), might as well get paid for the effort. My girlfriend thinks I’m fooling around with the dog. My retort: "Hey, they want a woman and a dog." Doesn’t faze her. Matilda sticks her face between ours, her tongue forcing its way between our lips, when me and my girlfriend kiss. If I give my girlfriend a kiss first when she comes home from work, the dog won’t touch her face. If it’s my girlfriend who kisses me first, Matilda launches on my face, licking all over. My girlfriend says it’s proof. I got plenty of opportunity...that’s her other proof. I’m around all day, so’s the dog, and with my girlfriend out working, what’s to stop us? With my girlfriend, it’s all cause and effect--the clear, rational and empirical breakdown of events in linear time, the effect being this aforementioned attraction the dog has for her daddy, the cause either nature (Elektra complex) or nurture (me). Also: My girlfriend says Matilda licks mostly the spot she just kissed. I can’t tell. All I know is, I got dog slobber everywhere: my glasses slimed, my beard sticky. "I think the dog’s too old for this kind of complex to be natural," she’ll conclude. The dog is eleven months old. So this is how I figure the woman and the dog story: She comes home, and the dog is all into the flour and the sugar and the cherry syrup. The dog is a bulldog with a penis like a lipstick tube, she’s seen it. He’s strong and protective of her, always checking out her latest man. Rarely approving. She’s always felt that the dog is looking out for her best interests, so when he doesn’t approve, she doesn’t put out. Hence, she’s gone without for months. Remember this--this is important. The dog is all dirty and sticky and syrupy. (Cherry syrup is a big thing in porn--for your average porn reader, cherry syrup let loose upon something, anything, male, female, animal or mineral, is almost guaranteed arousal.) She takes him upstairs and gives him a bath. She feels slight arousal at running her hands over his strong shoulders, burly chest and strong, wiry legs. His long, red penis appears, though it is not hard. Still, she notices. What a man this would be, she thinks...but no, she can’t, this is a dog after all. Suspense for the reader: she wants to, she wants to, but she’s not giving in yet. This is porn, after all, so what the readers expect is men wanting to, girls wanting to, hot and ready no matter what they say, so why delay it much? Bait. Everyone knows it’s going to happen, so what good porn does is delay it, keeps your average porn customer baited, waiting, the erection at half-mast, ready for the big plunge. That’s why you have long stints of a guy walking up the stairs, checking his shirt, smoothing his mustache in all the better movies, or a couple in bed, talking about nothing in particular (actor improvisation, I’ll bet) when you know you’d rather see them doing something else. But, you can’t hold it off too long... She can’t believe it! This canine penis mesmerizes her--so manly it is, so energetic. It would give her so much more than what she’s not been getting, she is sure. And, as if he knows what she’s thinking, the dog suddenly thrashes around in the water, drenching her to the skin, and she goes to her room, takes off her clothes, is about to put on a bathrobe, when... She’s aroused. Damn it to hell, but she is, and she knows what she wants and it doesn’t matter anymore if she’s not supposed to have it. She takes the peanut butter jar on the table by her bed (I’ll explain earlier that she likes to snack on peanut butter before going to sleep) and starts coating herself with it, an area sensitive to her touch right now, excitable. Here’s the lead in: "I can’t believe I’m doing this, but yet I can, and somehow I can’t believe I never did this before, because it seems so easy to me now, such an easy way to have what I really want, and I start back towards the bathroom, walking with my legs apart so the peanut butter will remain thickly coated over my hot, anxious, pulsating passion, and I call out, ‘Skippy, come get your peanut butter...’" My girlfriend has a few problems with my story. The main thing is that the peanut butter idea is stolen. Worse, it’s stolen from her, kind of. Before Friday’s, my girlfriend worked for the city courts, typing up transcripts. Once she transcribed a case where a newlywed husband and his family decided to throw a surprise party for his wife. They all hid in the basement with the lights off and took the dog as bait. Surely, she’d come looking for the dog down there, and the party would be sprung. So the wife comes home. They get the dog to bark a couple times. The wife makes some commotion, then comes down into the basement. "Fido" (or Spot, or whatever, I forget), she says, "come get your peanut butter." Then the lights fly on. She skipped town that night. The case was a divorce hearing in absentia--no one had heard from her in months. To this day, as far as I know. My girlfriend has trouble believing things happened that way. She thinks this is just a story the husband and his folks concocted to cover up something rather nasty. Who knows, she’ll muse sometimes, maybe even something sinister. What don’t let her buy it are the following: 1). Why would the party have only the husband and his relatives? None of her friends? Her own family? What kind of a party is that? 2). If the woman came home and heard the dog barking in the basement, she would probably think something’s wrong, and far be it from any woman to get naked and spread peanut butter on herself when there might be danger in the house. 3). Besides, my girlfriend will add, if they were in the basement and she was at the top of the stairs (there’s no way she could have gotten much past the first stair without noticing all these people in her basement), there’s no way they could have noticed peanut butter between her legs before she retreated. "On her breasts, maybe," she’ll add to that. Funniest thing, though--in all her logical arguments against the likeliness of such an occurrence, she never once dismissed it all in her knowledgeable, studied demeanor with a: "Besides, no woman would ever go and do a thing like that." What really bothers her, I gather, is that she suspects that I use us to write porn quite often. Even when I write love scenes for fantasy mags (often involving beautiful, seductive elfin women or dryads or passionate, desperate love right before a hopeless battle with Orcs), to me it’s me and my girlfriend there. Granted, the names are changed and the acts exaggerated, so it might not be all that obvious, but in my mind, there’s me and her, swapping with another couple after a party that’s gone a bit too far, or unbuckling our scabbards to reach unhinderedly at our quivering, excited flesh, etc. It’s so obvious to me, I get nervous when she goes reading my stuff. Most of the time, though, she doesn’t seem to make the connection. That, or she thinks my sex scenes are all being acted out with other women. Then again, maybe she does put it all together; she’s pretty smart, after all. Maybe what she’s trying to figure out is which came first. When we try something new in our relationship, is it because we are inspired on our own, and then I write about it, or is the reverse true? To tell the truth, I don’t have an answer. All I know is the woman and the dog story was a hit, and now I’ve got more offers--some dog, others others. One’s even for a scene with a bull: how cruel, how mythological. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ about the authors ** Noel Ace ( noelace@earthlink.net,http://home.earthlink.net/~noelace/ ) I write down the voices in my head. It keeps me sane. I also teach high school English, writing at night. I admire Melanie Rae Thon, Toni Morrison, and Kurt Vonnegut as writers. They inspire me to look beyond the ordinary and search for the inexplicable. ** David Burn ( dburn@integer.com ) David Burn is a native Nebraskan. He was educated at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. He's an advertising copywriter, currently working in Denver. This is his first published story. ** William C. Burns, Jr. ( sunhawk@greenville.infi.net ) William C. Burns, Jr. (Millennium Artist) phased into existence in Washington DC circa early 1950's putting him on the trailing edge to the beautiful people of the late sixties. Clearly he watched way too much Dobie Gillis and idolized Maynard (Shaggy from Scooby-Do for those under thirty). Bill is a strange confluence of degreed Electrical and Biomedical Engineer, graphic artist, actor, playwright, poet, father and husband, but his first love is poetry (OK, the kids are more important than poetry, but it runs a close second). "I am calling for a balance between a balance between Art and Engineering, Rhyme and Reason, Yin and Yang. Other than that I like to hike, do set design and act in plays (currently prepping the the performance art production of Alien Playground) and drive on the Blueridge Parkway." You can visit his personal web magazine at http://members.tripod.com/~Rukesayer/index.html. ** Lori K. Ciulla ( editors@morpo.com, will be forwarded to Lori Ciulla ) This is the first time she has been published. She sells books for a living. ** John Durler ( sanjon@erols.com ) John Durler is published in The Long Island Quarterly, and anthologies such as Live Poets of Long Island, and Performace Poets of Nassau and Suffolk's 1st Annual Anthology. He also edits and publishes Performance Poet's Anthologies. He also has a BA and MA in English Literature and loves writing poetry and short stories. ** Marie Kazalia ( makazalia@aol.com ) Marie Kazalia was born in Toledo, Ohio but has lived her adult life primarily in the San Francisco bay area, with the exception of four expatriate years in Japan, India, & Hong Kong. She has a BFA degree from California College of Arts and Crafts. ** Rolf Potts ( rolfpotts@hotmail.com ) Rolf Potts teaches English at Dong-Eui Technical College in Korea. He is a frequent contributor to Salon Magazine's Wanderlust department. ** Richard K. Weems ( weemsr@loki.stockton.edu ) Richard K. Weems lives in New Jersey, works in Philadelphia. Sometimes, the opposite is true. He has work appearing in Eclectica, StoryBytes, a couple issues of Mississippi Review and even more than that in Pif Magazine. He once went to the University of Florida, where Padgett Powell fed him red meat. You can visit Richard's website at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/9007/welcome.html. +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ in their own words ** Ireland is the Size of West Virginia by Rolf Potts "If I could explain this story, I wouldn't have had to write it." ** Desert Drip by Noel Ace "I found this story idea one rainy night as I sat in traffic and watched a homeless man sit on a park bench, letting it rain on him. I wondered how he could sit there--without shaking from the cold, without moving into shelter, without blinking. My questions led to trying to understand the blank stares I would see in other homeless people. I kept wondering what they saw beyond the horizon ..." ** Pattern Recognition by William C. Burns, Jr. ** Slide Show by William C. Burns, Jr. "Pattern Recognition" occurred on one of those really clear, sharp lucid spring sunsets where the carmine light cut slantwise through the leaves and you get those weird deja vu feelings. I would tell you where "Slide Show" struck me but then she would have to kill me. Both pieces are part of a larger collection of performance art pieces from "Alien Playground". ** The Orchard by John Durler "The way to the orchard, and it, was my playground as a child, my only friends school friends miles away. I remember the two miles up the hill, short cuts on animal paths through the woods, the road's high embankment on one side, saplings on the other, and the smell of apples long before sight of the orchard. Our cows and deer found it a favorite spot as I did." ** Bird Song by John Durler "I wrote Bird Song reminiscing about the farm outside Walton, a small town in upstate New York, where I spent my early childhood years. I once, when nine years old, shot a wren with a BB gun. I walked over to it and picked it up. Small drops of blood lay on the trail it made trying to crawl into the brush. I felt it's heart beat and knew I had killed it. It haunts me to this day at fifty eight years old. I never used that gun again. I broke it on a granite rock." ** The Woman and the Dog by Richard K. Weems "The Woman and the Dog was a story that came from a single sentence I wrote late one night, intending just to get this one idea down and get to bed. I stayed up another two hours getting together a first draft. I did have a girlfriend and the time, and I also had a dog. The dog's name, however, was LizziBeth." +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ SUBSCRIBE TO _THE MORPO REVIEW_ We offer two types of subscriptions to The Morpo Review: = ASCII subscription You will receive the full ASCII text of TMR delivered to your electronic mailbox when the issue is published. = Notification subscription You will receive only a small note in e-mail when the issue is published detailing where you can obtain a copy of the issue. If you are interested in the ASCII subscription, send a blank e-mail message to: morpo-subscribe@onelist.com If you are interested in the notification subscription, send a blank e-mail message to: morpo-notify-subscribe@onelist.com +--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -+ ADDRESSES FOR _THE MORPO REVIEW_ rfulk@morpo.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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