With the County

by on Nov 7, 2016

Somewhat to my surprise I discovered those who worked for the county in which I used to live were not government employees but members of a private club. One joined this club by filling out an application, taking a test and going to interviews. Once one was accepted (because “a slot opened up”) one received an employee number. I filled out the application and took the test because I needed money. I soon discovered, however, that even though I’d been accepted and had been given an employee number I was not yet a full-fledged member. Newcomers were regarded with suspicion, if not totally ignored.

Insiders called their club “the county.” The term, as they used it, had occult overtones. When speaking to newcomers, or outsiders, they would repeat, “The county issues warrants on Wednesdays…” or “The county does not loan heavy equipment…” or “the county charges .423 on a base rate of assessed value…” as though some secret inner spirit—of which they were the tangible extensions—breathed through everything that they did.

The longer one had “been with the county” I learned, the more one absorbed the county mystique. (Club members never said “I work for the county,” they said “I’m with the county” or “I’ve been with the county sixteen years” as though describing a marriage.) As a club member absorbed the secrets that defined his or her specific activity he or she became the sole authority on how that activity was to be performed. Although manuals and operating procedures were posted here and there they often were outdated or had been superseded by an authority’s ingenuity or experience.

A slot opening at a higher level triggered a game of musical chairs as lower level club members filled newly opened slots. For months—or even years—after these promotions the new slot-fillers were obliged to pry secrets of their position from its former possessors (who, in turn, were doing the same from those they’d replaced, thus creating a chain of dependency that remained unbroken except in cases of death or someone leaving the area). When that happened the new possessor simply was told, “Well, figure something out” and he or she usually did, even if what she or he figured out was inefficient, costly or illegal.

Most of the long-standing club members lived in the county seat, a debris strewn old industrial town that had waned economically as the agricultural towns surrounding it prospered. Although nepotism was discouraged many of those holding administrative and clerical jobs had fathers, wives, cousins and children who were “with the county.” Because hardly anyone ever was fired and only occasionally did someone retire or take a better job somewhere else turnover was slight.

The county complex typified what the club was about. It was built during my last year with the county on several acres of land across the river from the old downtown. The administration building, surrounded by parking lots, was partially hidden by a brick wall. The offices all faced an inner compound allowing the club members to turn their backs on the outside world. From the passageways one could look into offices where club members moved among identically styled cubicles but one had to give a password to guards (called receptionists) to gain admittance to the sacred territory.

I “was with the county” again briefly on a work-for-hire contract a few years after I left. I remember stepping outside the administration building, my brown-bag lunch in hand, only to discover that were no benches, no grass, no trees, no walkways, no paths, only the brick wall and the black-topped parking lots. A small sign warned against trespassing through the paupers’ cemetery on the other side of the entrance road. Past it I could see thistles sloping towards a swale where a few poplars stood and a road that curled past what once had been the county hospital towards juvenile hall and the jail. A rabbit burst from cover, raced down the road and veered into the underbrush again.

When I returned to work a long-time club member told me I could have come inside to the break room and eaten my lunch there. I thanked her and told  “next time” I would. But “next time” never came.

Like the rabbit, I ran.

 

—
Robert Joe Stout’s poems and stories have appeared in The Tishman Review, Emrys Journal, Existere, Two-Thirds North and many other magazines and journals. He lives in Oaxaca, Mexico.

We Sat Outside

by on Nov 4, 2016

We sat outside the café
stretched our legs

and soaked our feet
in the pool of sunshine

that dimpled and flickered
with the shifting

and whispering
of the sycamores overhead.

We forgot that tomorrow
the clocks go back

that wet leaves will plaster
the chairs and tables.

 

With thanks to Dave Bonta and the Via Negativa poetry blog, where this was posted in October 2015.

 

—
Jean Morris lives in London, takes photos, translates from French and Spanish, and surprised herself last year by seriously getting into poetry. She most recently had some micro-poems published in Otata.

One Dream Opening into Many

by on Nov 3, 2016

(Watch Marie Craven’s video “One Dream Opening into Many” on Vimeo)

Editor’s note: the text of the Kallie Falandays poem “One Dream Opening into Many” and her bio can be read at likewise folio. Full credits at Vimeo. Additionally, this video was selected for international poetry film competition, Festival Silencio 2016, Portugal and was an Official selection, O’Bheal Poetry Film Festival 2016, Ireland.

 

—
Marie Craven is a media maker and musician from the Gold Coast, Australia. She has been engaged in online collaboration since 2007 and has contributed to works with artists in many different parts of the world. Website: pixieguts.com

What If a Tree

by on Nov 2, 2016

examined its own rings like a farsighted proctologist? Would it recognize scars as memory, the tunneling tracks of bores, an endless winter of heaviness white on white

and again white; do the hammerings of woodpeckers continue to echo like an ache in its bark? Would the fat springs still overflow with green, swelling the air and challenging

its roots to go deeper, deeper still, filling and holding fast to the heavy damp earth.
Or would the small boy’s awkward axe its biting sting and sudden absence

hold fast? And what of the sun stalking across its limbs and leaves, pulling and pulsing and conspiring with the wind to topple while promising endlessness remain?

 

—
Richard Weaver resides in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. His publications include Crazy Horse, Vanderbilt Poetry Review, North American Review, Poetry, Black Warrior Review, 2River View, New England Review, and the ubiquitous elsewhere.

Two Years Ceased

by on Nov 1, 2016

She is seedpod, pinecone, nutshell,
unremarkable and legend:
windblown, dancing on dry grass,
recasting her space.

Every season is November:
pines bleed into flat light, sea stirs
as though something powerful
lies caged beneath.

Geese journey south, twin-edged
blades that slit the sky, pose
more questions than answers.
Her direction unclear.

Winds swirl through her house—
in and out its many windows.
The sky is thin, bruised,
first snow a laying on of hands.

 

—
Ann Howells of Carrollton, Texas, edits Illya’s Honey, recently taking it digital: IllyasHoney.com. Her publications are: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag),  Under a Lone Star (Village Books Press), Letters for My Daughter (Flutter Press), and Cattlemen & Cadillacs, an anthology of D/FW poets that she edited (Dallas Poets Community Press). Her poems appear widely; she has four Pushcart nominations.

Night of the Dead

by on Oct 31, 2016

night-of-the-dead

 

Photographer’s Note: This was taken at Thrillingham, a Halloween event in Bellingham WA. People dress as zombies, parade through town and then dance in a park to Michael Jackson’s Thriller music.

 

—
Annie Prevost studied art as well photography. She is a street photographer who embraces ambiguity, abstraction and the surreal. People stepping outside their everyday selves by donning costume are a favorite subject. Her photos have been shown at Allied Arts and the Whatcom Art Museum, both in Bellingham. WA. and in two calendars.

Jake Forgets It

by on Oct 27, 2016

His guardian consigned him to the Memory Unit,
though he wasn’t far gone as the other no-hopers
warehoused at the place. Someone must be the healthiest
of the afflicted. Jake sees in fellow residents
the route this one’s going. Rolling. He’s a run-off risk,
libel to duck out if the CNAs blink twice. If they’re blind
to motivation. Being spoon-fed soft food ‘til the Reaper
visits Geezer Manor? Not this man’s man’s way.
Forty-some years of vetting stories for explanatory power,
for flaws with their fabrication. And how much now smudged over,
out of order? Whose iris did he almost drown in? Which sins
did he work off since commission? Certainly not all of them
before they cashiered him to this Sleepy Acres situation.
There were some bad ones. Patience isn’t on the menu
where they send you when your city doesn’t need you
like it used to, but before they pray and set a stone.

 

—
Todd Mercer won the Dyer-Ives Kent County Prize for Poetry (2016), the National Writers Series Poetry Prize (2016) and the Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Award (2015). His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance, appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s recent poetry and fiction appear in 100 Word Story, Flash Fiction Magazine. Fried Chicken and Coffee, The Lake, Literary Orphans, Plum Tree Tavern, Split Lip Magazine and Star 82 Review.

still not yet done

by on Oct 26, 2016

 

still not yet done
with his youth
an old man
passing smoke
through his nose

 

—
Adjei Agyei-Baah is co-founder of the Africa Haiku Network and Poetry Foundation Ghana. He also serves as the co-editor of Mamba Journal, Africa’s first haiku periodical and champions an avant-garde type of haiku dubbed “Afriku,” which seeks to project the unique sights, sounds, and settings of Africa. His short Japanese poetry form has appeared in many international journals. He was picked for the Editors’ Choice Award at Cattails and The Heron’s Nest Journal and is the winner of The Heron’s Nest Award, March 2016 and the Akita Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Award of the 3rd Japan-Russia Haiku Contest, 2014. Adjei recently released his first haiku collection Afriku, published by Red Moon Press (2016) in the US and hopes to publish more collections as well of the other short forms of Japanese poetry.

Shaky Hands

by on Oct 25, 2016

deep lines
and dark spots
decorate his shaky hands
a pacemaker
pumps his heart

Sunday mornings
he passes the
gold collection plate
it shakes
in his grip
dollars, coins, and checks
dance

McDonald’s
he sits with his
styrofoam coffee cup
he raises it to his lip
trembling

every passing year
his shaking worsens
and I fear
soon

his coffee

will spill

 

—
Cheyenne Bilderback is a 20-year-old native of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She currently calls Nashville, Tennessee home while she studies at Belmont University. Her work is forthcoming in the Midwestern-based literary journal Twig. When she is not posting poetry to her blog, vinyl muse, she is often found writing songs or serving coffee.