guest series

Beautiful Ashes: C.L. Bledsoe

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Presented by Jen Michalski, for PANK. For a description of this guest series, click here.

 
 
“Wrong Turn in Hard Times”

July 3

OMG you won’t believe this, diary, but Luke tied Daddy up in the shed and tried to eat his liver. Again! He waited till Daddy fell asleep (I think Luke put something in his water cause Daddy said he wouldn’t sleep again until we were back home) and dragged him out to the shed. He was sharpening his knife when Papa Gumbo came and let Daddy out. Boy was Papa Gumbo sore. He whipped Luke till his back was all bloody. (I saw it! Euw!!). The whole time, Daddy was trying to tell him to stop, and he finally did. Daddy said boys will be boys. I still think Luke is kind of weird.

July 4

Mary Bob came and let me out of the cage so I could play dollies with her. It’s weird how she doesn’t talk, but she makes these noises sometimes that sound like she’s talking. And she can talk to the dog. And I’m pretty sure squirrels. Daddy said it’s because she was locked up and never went to school, even though she’s old now. He said I shouldn’t make fun of her for being different. There but for the grace of God, whatever that means. I think it’s kind of cool how she can growl and whine and bark at the dog and it will do stuff. And the squirrels. She convinced a squirrel to bring us some nuts. They were a lot better than the food we usually eat, which I’m pretty sure is made from the dead bodies in the cemetery next door. Dad says I shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that. He said he used to live in a neighborhood where there was a Chinese restaurant and people always said there weren’t any stray animals in the neighborhood, but that was because there were really good animal control people. But I found a finger bone in my sandwich yesterday. There was a ring on it with an inscription that said, “Love Everlasting, Barbara.” I asked Daddy, and he said we don’t have a cousin Barbara. Continue reading →

Beautiful Ashes: Travis Kurowski

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Presented by Jen Michalski, for PANK. For a description of this guest series, click here.
 
 

Three Poems
by Travis Kurowski
 
 

Amid the chaos, there comes a costume 
        Lines taken from famous superhero comics 
 
 

as you all know, I’ve been working on a synthetic man, a man so fast that he not only outraced his shadow

                                           this secret base in the magic sphere, the young lady behind the rubber mask in her silent, invisible plane where once there was so much sound

                  this deserted barn should do nicely. I’ll set my robot control pilot and let down the ladder. Activate the Aura of Negativism! Apply your protective helmet! You see, I was trapped in a ship’s hull not long ago. It drove me mad

                                                                                                              meanwhile, in the chambers of the enchantress: the parachutist fires point-blank, the astonished men enter to find a surprisingly modern laboratory, the fortress of doom rises

                   something went wrong with my figuring. Who are these people? Where did they come from? I wonder if Captain America has problems like

                                                                    and these are but two of Earth’s possible futures: a towering skyscraper becomes empty, a highly-concentrated light beam strikes

             don’t hurt me and I’ll make everything clear: The figure is a wall of fire. This devil is done for. This is a horse of a different color. Cosmic rays mutated four American adventurers. Into your battle suit, Captain! I am The

                                                                                                       when Vanessa wakes, you begin Continue reading →

Beautiful Ashes: Michael Landweber

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Presented by Jen Michalski, for PANK. For a description of this guest series, click here.

 
“Bruise”
 

Shhhh. Hush now.

The child’s laughter echoes from the kitchen, down the hallway and into the bathroom where Marjorie stands. She grips the edge of the sink and stares at herself in the mirror. The bags under her eyes are fresh; they come and go. The rest never changes.

Please stop laughing.

But the squealing grows louder. That is Kylie, Marjorie’s granddaughter, the girl that she first met about an hour ago. Her grandson, Timothy, is making his sister laugh.

Quiet. Before he hears.

The edge of the sink is sharp. The metal digs into her left hand clenched around it. Her right hand doesn’t have the strength to hold on, hasn’t for years. Marjorie long ago trained herself to pick important things up with her left hand.

This house is cold. Industrial. This sink, large and steel, looks like a place you might wash the blood off your arms.

Marjorie sucks in a short, sharp breath when he knocks on the door. She doesn’t flinch. Not visibly.

“Mom?” Richard knocks twice more. She hears the door handle rattle. Marjorie always locks doors when she’s allowed to. “Are you OK?” Continue reading →

Beautiful Ashes: Liz Hazen

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Presented by Jen Michalski, for PANK. For a description of this guest series, click here.
 
Four Poems
~by Liz Hazen

Chaos Theory

You’d think disorder, anarchy, but chaotic
systems twist into something like control:
patterns algorithmic, self-replicating,

infinite. All it takes for things to turn
is a blip, a shift minute as the flutter of wings,
the opening of a door, a telephone

unanswered, the clap of voices shouting Wait!
My rage comes out of nowhere— the glass explodes
when it hits the wall, as physics says it must,

but who knew I was capable of this?
I wake each day to an alarm. Each night
I watch the neon time tick by. A person

can disappear from this equation, swift
as the click of a pawnshop trigger. The effect
is vast as tectonic shifts, mountains spewing

ash clouds, a newborn’s blue-faced breath, but how
can we isolate the cause of his departure?
Chaos gives us endless bifurcations,

the path of time from next to next, no chance
of turning back. Instabilities overwhelm
the earth: addiction, population growth,

disease, storms, earthquakes, infidelities,
and a simple pendulum with its routine
tick-tock, tick-tock. Even this sorry heart,

aperiodic after all, pounds wildly
at entrances, exits, the memory of his touch,
try as it will to keep a steady beat. Continue reading →

Beautiful Ashes: Jen Grow

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Presented by Jen Michalski for [PANK]

 
 
“Lawrence Loves Somebody on Pratt Street”
~by Jen Grow

When I come to the door, Aunt Gloria’s got her rosary in one hand, thumbing through it like she’s shelling beans. She says she saw it on the T.V. about Lawrence’s unit. “They been hit over there in that big sand pit,” she says. Then she wipes at her eyes with a tissue. She rocks forward in her chair for momentum and leans all her weight on her cane to lift herself up. She hobbles over to the T.V.

“Aunt Gloria, don’t you get up. Make JJ switch the channel for you. He’s sitting right there.”

Aunt Gloria don’t say nothing. She changes the channel and waits for the next news to say something different. She wants the first news to be a mistake. I stand there in the doorway and watch the news with her. We don’t speculate much out loud but inside I know we’re both wondering about Lawrence and if he’s still alive. But we’re quiet with JJ in the room. JJ sits in the corner on the floor looking at his car magazines and telling stories to hisself. He can’t read except a few words and his mind’s not right on account of huffin shoe polish when he was little. Now he’s thirty-six but that don’t mean nothing. Continue reading →