The Zine

This will unfortunately be the last edition of LiteralMinded.  Between the recession climate and a sudden computer failure, fate has dealt this little mag a hard blow; but we will be going out on a high note.  I asked for experimental, edgy and unusual contributions, and our authors came through.  Here is the best of what we received for the final edition.

Salvation vs. Spirit
M.E. Purfield
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

PART 1

I had love, support, and salvation. They were all I needed. But I was unemployed. Money could make things go easier.

I applied for a job at a big company. They...

...considered, waited, laughed, ate, laughed harder, cried, and then decided to hire me.

I socialized, but I preferred to work. They talked to me, complained about their jobs. They had egos. They were...

...underpaid and tortured and over-worked and...

...unhappy.

I responded and didn't share their delusion.

"Wait and see," they said.

I waited. I saw nothing.

I hid in my cubicle and worked. I was...

...happy. I went home to salvation and love. Life was fine.

One day, they wrote a letter of complaint and mailed it. They signed it Anonymous. The Vice President read the letter

and...

...declared change. But he needed their help and input.

They formed committees.

Velveeta
David Erlewine
Friday, April 3, 2009

Our little mutt Velveeta followed Mom's boyfriend Max out the back door a few minutes after Max knocked the kitchen table over, kicked my ankle after I blocked the front door, and stormed out the back. Max stood by the fence seemingly pleading with Velveeta. Finally he picked her up, dropped her lightly over the short chain-link fence, then vaulted over it himself. Mom sighed. “Well, track star, go catch him.” My running shoes weren’t by the back door so I threw on some flip-flops and headed out. I ran past Ms. Jenkins’ saggy fence. My right ankle flared as I passed the Indian couple's rancher, so I slowed to what my track coach called a whore’s strut.

Velveeta’s whines led me to the unfilled spa in Mr. Reynolds’ open backyard. “Shh!” Max whispered in her ear as I approached. The deck’s floodlights sprayed vision. I extended my purplish ankle, and Max touched it with his index finger. “Sorry, Tim, hope you can run tomorrow. Who you guys got anyway?”

Fruit Bowl Sestina

Dan Gee
Saturday, March 14, 2009

Banana: My curvy phallus looks upon the world
But not for long as soon I will be eaten
With teeth I will die, an axe through my body
Yellow is my colour; does that differ to you?
To consume my sister is to kill me
Forgoing the rules of human society.

Apple: My friend is wrong! Rosy is society
I am the seed and the shape of the world
But still people want to sauceify me
So that, with dead pigs, I may be eaten
And I have never met my wife or even you
But still I can exist as a core in your body.

Pineapple: My oval Daim or Dime Bar marketing tool body
Is a reflecting pool on society!
And that, my homo, includes the mighty you
For the tectonic parallel of a world
Like the destruction of small ideas, are eaten
To find a precious juice that can help fuel me.

Kiwi Fruit: Your skin is hairy and mouldy like me
Like Nash-Foundation socks we have the same body
And in ways we are both to be eaten;
Whereas I have teeth you have society.
The conspiracy of seeds in the world
Also chooses to subsist within you

Grape: Our world is a school of fish unlike you
But still you seek acceptance to be like me
And that is the sorry ball and chain of the world
That you want to be like everybody
But you are a unique group of society
The fashion movements just must be eaten

Tomato: I am out of place so I might not be eaten
By the swampy Dominican teeth of you
Or the molar mountains of an enamel world
Whatever you call them they are not me
For I am just a infinitesimal body
Forgoing the rules of human society.

All: There is a chance we may become eaten
Perhaps by the glistening hand of you
The consuming of a fruit bowl is your world

Perilous Clime

Gary Beck
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Unlike plagues of eld,
or nomadic hordes
that temporarily destroyed
tribes, cities, nations
that may not have recovered,
but still allowed continuation
of civilization elsewhere,
the consistent devouring
of the fruits of the earth
and the outpouring
of unnatural elements
poisoning the finite supply
of air, water, food,
will combine to prevent
sufficient resources
for arks of survival.

What Stays
Ethel Rohan
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I answered the ad in the Chronicle for a live-in nanny job in the Marina, a picturesque, upscale neighborhood by the Bay. I'd just immigrated from Ireland, needed money and somewhere to live, and fast. I was chasing-up just about any ad for any job, except sex: a fifteen-year-old on Craig's List had advertized his body for a hundred bucks an hour.

The couple hiring looked young, tanned, and tall, with the teeth of stallions. They both struck me as typically Californian. Later, I found out that he was originally from Boston and she from Idaho. They had one baby, a chubby three-month-old boy, Billy, with a mass of black hair and ceaseless dribble. The mother, an accountant, wanted to return to work. They called me back for two more interviews.

The third interview, they told me how much they liked me, how they thought I'd make an excellent nanny.

Poetic essay of Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa (Visual)

Dan Gee
Saturday, March 14, 2009

Tattooed china like geisha dolls
and innocence of baby foals
Soft skin is scars on burning coals
That's why he wears gloves
To our innocent child like souls
They can fly above

Tossed to the sea like a fish dead
Scales glisten like words unsaid
Water smashes like hammered lead
My tears are just tears
Like a ten year child unfed
Through his fist and fears

Oh who will save my manikins
and who will hold my hand
and who will celebrate a goal
and send the bible from the land

My Gemetria I see in your teeth
My rose Untitled but I know its there
My geishas are back, wrapped up in a sheath

Foetus juice is cold and blue, but in glass
Running back and forth we kick the football
The sphere of a seed flies after the pass
My father hates my boy to boy kiss call

But, my soul still sings the songs we once wrote
As light as a kite we will one day float

Together, free from these hands of rage
and as manikins we will climb skyscrapers
Together, as a dream.

Sigur Ros

Dan Gee
Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Falsetto howlings of an Iceman
Becomes my quiet night
Black and white ivory ripples the air
Take hold of ears so tight
Glockenspiel magician smothered in moans
A tingle oh so light
Visions of skipping and gobledligook
The splendour I won't fight

The cries of boggled eyed benevolence
Becomes my quiet night
A distant shatter of cymbals and thuds
Paints the cold air in white
Jumping in puddles and mud and on clouds
Stops the wood boxes flight
That elevator from cold rocky shores
Tingles us, keeps us bright

The Information Age

Gary Beck
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

In days of old
access to communication
was restricted to oral
and tongues mostly had to be held,
because the wrong words
uttered the wrong way
could lead to the loss of heads.
There was limited chatter
restricted to exchanges
of vital information
useful for survival.
Now everywhere we go
people are attached
to hi-tech cell phones
and the endless flow of babble
dominates the airwaves,
ultimately threatening
the continued existence
of serious transmissions.

School Days
Gary Beck
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Each high school in America
has at least several loners
seething with resentment,
alienated for years
by their insensitive peers.

Each college in America
has multiple loners
transformed by rage
into creatures of hate,
ready to detonate.

When an individual
or group finally explodes
into extreme violence,
the survivors are dazed
and the public is amazed.

Yet this is what we allowed
building an insane system
that esteems brawn over brains,
where athletes get all the raves
and thinkers cower in caves.

So it shouldn't be a surprise
when the gunfire erupts
across a hallowed campus,
if the weak are striking back
for the attention they lack.

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Tell Me Lincoln, What You’re Thinking
Monique Hayes
Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Washington-bound wayfarer came direct from Chicago, history on his heels. The conductor shouted "all aboard" as the train set off, the wheels chugging along, the wheels in his head turning faster. Whistles screeched while the billows of smoke floated upward. Coal crackled in the furnace. The click-clack of the tracks echoed in his ears, a steady sound until the car finally halted. He exited with an energetic smile. There was no stovepipe hat, dusky beard, or stylish green bowtie as he stepped on the platform. He was clean-shaven, crisply dressed, and wearing elegant black. Spectators stretched their necks to get a glimpse anyway, at the young, idealistic man from Illinois who they saw promise in during the primary and who won a first-class ticket to Pennsylvania Avenue. They came to see Barack Obama.

The New Math
Michelle Reale
Monday, April 13, 2009

Bobbi married Sherman on one of those dull hot nights where you sweat even standing still. They hadn't known each other long and it was something to do. That's how it started, that very night. With a look. With Sherman crooking his finger: "Hey."

Bobbi shuffles around in wooden sandals because her feet are so wide. They are the kind used as house slippers in, of all places, Germany and Austria, according to Sherman. "How do you know that?" Bobbi asks her husband, not expecting an answer. "I know a lot of things," he winks. It is the only thing she owns with a brand name.

Sherman lost track of how many kids they have and what their names are, though he is pretty sure they all begin with a "K". "Seemed like a good idea at the time," is what Bobbi always says.

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