They push, push, push me, like that horrid boss in the Twilight Zone episode about Willoughby. The one with the poor ad executive. He’s a moneymaker, not a shape, a human form. I don’t blame him for jumping off a train, hallucinating about a dream community.
Continue reading “Push, Push, Push by Yash Seyedbagheri”
Prefatory Remarks
Defining the Tippleganger:
The Spirit half of this little drama
Has a second bottle of wine ever convinced you to cut your own hair? Did that darn vodka make you “overshare” sex fantasies you have about your sister’s husband with a mutual friend who cannot keep a secret? How much Budweiser does it take to get you to call your ex at three a.m.?–in spite of what it says about that sort of thing in the restraining order.
Continue reading “Tippleganger and Dozzle: A Feeble Fable of the Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison”
I’m in the changing room of a high-end boutique when Oscar calls me back.
‘What’s up?’ he says. He is at home. I can hear the whir of the washing machine behind his voice.
‘I’m trying on a dress.’ It is red with white polka dots and hangs just below my knees.
‘You never wear dresses.’
Continue reading “A Controlled Moment of Light by Jo Robson”
Tommy owned an ‘all you can drink’ restaurant. For one dollar, you could imbibe all night; beer, wine, mixed drinks or straight liquor, it made no difference. That was the hook. His buffet was expensive for the quality of food served, but profits have to come from somewhere. Tommy’s was alive, crowded and happening. It was not a date night destination. If you expected a quiet, romantic dinner, you had a better chance at McDonald’s.
Continue reading “Tuesdays at Tommy’s by Ed McConnell”
Gram and I used to watch Jeopardy together almost every weeknight. Our little “must see” TV date began at the dawn of my memory and ended with Gram’s death shortly after my twenty-second birthday; it’s already ten years gone by.
Continue reading “A True Daily Double by Leila Allison”
I outline payment schedules. Credit card bills, student loans, power, utilities. I draw up grocery budgets and lists, in my elegant cursive, something I’ve relearned in recent months. More onions, less TV dinners, and Diet-Pepsi, containing more late-night sleeplessness. A tomato or two, if possible. Some granola bars, even.
No beer, save for the occasional six-pack of Coors Light.
Continue reading “American Nightmare by Yash Seyedbagheri”
I fucked up. I did. I admit it. I messed up bad. Some have even accused me of child abuse, and those accusations have come from members of my own family. You might have heard something about this mess already. Now, what I’m asking you to do is set aside whatever you heard and listen to what I have to say. I did mess up, but I wasn’t alone, and if you get the backstory, it might help you understand what went down.
Continue reading “The Name of the Game by Frederick K Foote”
In the still of night, I sneak into Dad’s Chevy Bel-Air. Slide into the front seat, the seat that was Mom’s. A seat that Dad has proclaimed will remain empty.
Continue reading “Front Seat by Yash Seyedbagheri”
Brenda Beal, “Worth a feel,” she’d said a thousand times since Jack had dumped her and two kids, without a car, without a washing machine, without a refrigerator that worked, without all the money from her bank account, owing two months’ rent and the electricity and heating bills including the A/C bill (but he took the A/C because it was new and worked better than he did on his best day): all of this too soon revealed in their marriage. Little Jackie was her reminder of the night in the back seat of Jack’s father’s car, at the lake, under the moon, in a soft breeze the Atlantic sent in over Nahant and Lynn beaches. And Jenny carried the memory of a three-week hiatus after Jackie was born.
Continue reading “Temporarily Unemployed by Tom Sheehan”
Hey, Saugus, get off my back! Get off my back, Saugus. Yes, you who preaches from Appleton’s Pulpit, ranter and raver, extraordinary tongue wielder, who yells in chorus from Stackpole Field when wind brings from banks of the lost pond voices forgotten except by you, a chorus of faces and spirited one shows many times fallow for quick generation of yells.
Take back your yelling, Saugus, and your cries. Get off my back, Saugus! Saugus, get off my back!
You who hastily harangue from the Town Hall floor, a bending of principles and fundamental yields your seeded and spirited politics have given the ages; or your echoes, oh echoes of told timbre and tonic Riverside throws up for grabs the one-day trumpets cut to the quick of small arguments advancing outward, when one falling leaf, nurtured by one, old friend, comes, October’s breath and daring, to my footed path, saying his name to me, her name to me, saying we to me.
Get off my back, Saugus! Saugus, get off my back!
That trail over there, pond-sided, that a boy once knew; new here, that boy, brought to duck and carp and fox, summer’s sweet immersion, winter’s scissored ice, brought to this place out of all places, brought to you, to be layered on, to be imposed, scribed and etched, by what makes you what you are, and that boy, that boy lured here to the burned edge of the pond, which lingers in the mind one second longer than all.
Get off my back, Saugus! Saugus, get off my back!
You do not come at me softly except night-shaded where the wetted, youthful, endless kiss ends sixty years later when her last picture is delivered to New Jersey, to another, an older flaming moth who knows you inside so deeply the ache is read; who knew your waters blessed us, pond, stream, river bend by bridge, marshy pools’ awesome pair wearing summer’s threatening horseshoe crabs down back of Sims’ arms-wide spread of glass, and sticks for miles and miles of reeds promising fire, and antennae-slick worms marsh-dug for a nickel apiece, for Atlantic bait, bye the bye.
Get off my back, Saugus! Saugus, get off my back!
You take me past the good lady of iron who talks from under granite these days of settled touch, who, landing here from Cork’s land and loving this place of yours, stays now forever.
Get off my back, Saugus! Saugus, get off my back.
Today, trekking all the trails on you, I thought of Philadelphia’s Athletics and local Cornet’s old-time catcher, Sam Parker, next-door neighbor, fiendish gardener, tomato and corn supplier for our hungry table, who died on Sir John Harrington’s hopper (1592), the master-piece device, sat there alone for a full day.
Every day you take me back, grasping, clutching, your claws wrenching my soul, letting me know you’re on Pirates’ Hill, Standpipe Hill, Catamount Cove, where Charley’s Pond was, where our river runs dim and crooked to the sea, and on all artifacts of being, illustrious bones, tossing them up, oh one by one, tossing them up.
Ah, Saugus, will you never let go?
View of Saugus Massachusetts USA center rotary and town hall.}} |Source ={{own}} |Author =Anthony92931 |Date =2008-10-12 |Permission = |other_versions = }} [[Ca
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