Michael Young walk. early evening.

crash! ambition dreams but it cannot match the webs of lightning unfolding above

the power lines. as the daylight leaves the brick and the stone, electricity floods the

interior world, peeking out at the interstate through windows. each would tempt me,

call me inside, if it weren’t for the scattered appeal of all the others. a wealth of riches,

lightbulbs, filaments. two sides in a war of roses, glowing either amber, for comfort,

or fluorescent bright, for a night of clear thoughts, textbooks, and venn diagrams. i’m

walking. breathing in. the sky, with its misty watercolors spilling out onto the streets.

the radio towers in the distance. the birds chirping thunder to one another. a storm

has passed, a new storm gathers its forces against us, on a cold day, when the future

rises from inside of you like steam. i drown, briefly, in the wind, in possibility. when

i return, my thoughts make for better friends. they feel. new, crisp, like bright leaves

floating in the gutter. and the sky, so empty and boring the day before, is now com-

plicated with cirrus and nimbostratus. my thoughts reach up, and out of this place.

complicated like the heavens.

Claire Payne Hammers and Nails

Yeah.

I see you all on that hill.

Crucified.

Crying out in agony.

Calling on God

As if you were martyrs.

Well.

I don’t pretend compassion.

You make me sick.

You put each other up there.

You crucified yourselves.

Forging by night

Hammers and nails.

Spinning our words into nets

To throw over you.

Yeah. Well.

I hope you writhe and die.

You viruses.

You are not welcome.

Suncerae Smith I Never Knew

I never knew,

those things I always liked about you,

those things that made you different

from everyone else,

that if you had the chance,

you’d change them

so you could be like everyone else.

Suncerae Smith We Followed Them

The bus stopped at Speedway and Dean Keaton.

All of us whose destination was campus

Unloaded and walked to the intersection.

The light was red.

The orange hand cautioned us not to cross.

One man looked both ways, saw no cars,

And walked across the street.

What a deviant!

Two more men subsequently followed.

I was in no hurry to cross the street.

I had no reason to run to work.

So I waited. And I looked around.

Every person patiently waiting

Was a woman.

All the men had already crossed.

When the light turned,

We followed them.

Suncerae Smith Gods of My Age

God is not a woman.

He abandoned us at birth.

We grew up alone.

Unprotected.

Hating him for it.

Then, before my eyes,

You were inspired.

And began to create.

But you were not satisfied

With one story

So you wrote another.

And another.

Until one day

You couldn’t remember

The name of the first story

You wrote, so long ago.

I am amongst the gods of my age.

They fight for meaning

In stories and songs

That they will inevitably forget.

Suncerae Smith Transported

This morning I caught a whiff

Of a passing smoker

And my mind drifted to a place

Where strong seasoned men

With big arms

Talk about the weather.

If that’s not romantic

I don’t know what is.

Dustin Stonecipher Words Words

It’s 5:38 in the afternoon

and the back of my neck is ripe

from the blisteringly beautiful sun

that makes everyone glow

like we’re in heaven

and makes the grass so bright

that it’s not really green.

It’s something better than green.

I love words.

Words are the whores of

everything beautiful.

Cheap imitations of the things

that make you sit back

and catch your breath.

Speechless.

Words can’t help me tell you

about my father’s funeral

when I stared at his five by seven portrait

and wished

that I didn’t have his clear blue eyes

or his button nose

that you find so adorable.

Words won’t even let me tell you

how much I hate your lip gloss

but how badly I want to kiss you anyway

because when my face

is in your face

and I breathe in

when you breath out

you keep me alive.

Dustin Stonecipher How to Build a Universe That Falls Apart Two Days Later

Get trapped in a dream.

Make sure that when you wake up

you don’t wake up.

That is the most important part.

Sit in your fortress,

you man in the high castle,

and wait for what’s coming.

Don’t mind the vultures that hover

like black thoughts

across blacker skies.

Don’t mind the confusion

of knowing or not knowing

whether you are authentic.

Find some form of understanding

to be your constant,

to pull you through a cosmic slit

and to make you real.

Real enough.

But, if you don’t like this world

then just make another.

Dustin Stonecipher Blues Blossoms at the Elephant Lounge

Bump.

My backbone bounced

to the bass beat.

Breathless, every heart

in the tobacco-charred

liquor-soaked club

matches rhythms with the

a caustic cadence.

Bump bump.

The bass man’s calloused fingers

sculpt reverberating

notes

while the nicotine fog

smoke tendrils

caress my cheeks

and fill my lungs

with second-hand sparks,

and cigarette ghost fingers

pick their way into

my brain

diffusing the

soft, strange lights of the stage

until all I see are

translucent specters

swaying to the pull of the bass man

whose fingers

slick with sweat

and rough from years of the

pluck slap strum

slide down the strings banded backs

until they scream.

Jeff Smajstrla Solitaire

Jeff Smajstrla Budding Beauty

Mark Twombly Untitled 1

it hums.

behind this. all thoughts.

humming.

else look. everywhere else.

behind thoughts humming.

there always. here I mean.

it hums.

i think it is.

humming.

Mark Twombly Head Explodes

head explodes/too much to take.

idea-ology. rewind. mind all over.

colors. (red) colors. loud.

thoughts leaking out. all over the floor.

screaming.

scatter-brained.

Mark Twombly Untitled 2

Unsure Upon the whetted edge

of apprehension Without

the dignity of comfort Searching

for hope of certitude Trembling

Mark Twombly Untitled 3

how-should-we-carry-on bent-memory-recurse-off-course

insight-inside-motion-and-repose

remembering-of-course-we-cannot-forget

this-was-is-still-in-the-fading-silence-of-the-past

i-was-am-someone-else-than-right-now-before

changing-the-same-way

Mark Twombly The Night Watch

When you wind me up

I’m a stopwatchman

a nighttimepeice

tick-tock-tick-tock-ticked off

‘cause I still can’t sleep

(Be)cause and effect

THIS is lucid waking:

aware of my predictament

following the dotted line of my ellipses

and looking for the last one

the one that puts a period on my day

and ends this long period of wakefulness

I just keep clockworking away the hours

my pen-dulum swings back and forth across the page

the gear and cog-nition process keeps going

I wish I could (verb-) brain my (noun-) brain

chronic chronometric insomnambulism

Mayapriya Long A few weeks of pain—and after—September, 1991

It’s an early fall Carolina morning. There’s a chill in the air and the dew hangs heavy above the pond. With a disdainful

glance, a houndog slowly raises his tired old body from the middle of the gravel road and lumbers to the side as I pass

him, road-dust billowing behind my silver, Mazda pickup. I’m heading to my first day back to work.

Life, on the surface, has returned to normal.

This is rural North Carolina. Here a girl marries her high school boyfriend and moves into a trailer across the road from

his mamma on land that has been divided and passed down for generations. And her children will likely not wander

much further than a country road or two from her.

I have experienced a spark of envy on a few 4ths of July, or Labor Days, when driving by their houses, I see yards full of

pick-up trucks (though they all surely could have walked) and family sitting under a shade tree, talking and laughing.

Today I wonder, “Why did we all move so far from our home?” I miss my childhood—my extended family. I think about

our family reunions, the security of life as a youth.

I don’t know what security feels like anymore. My world is not the world it was even a few short weeks ago. I’ve lost my

strongest advocate and it makes me feel like a small boat whose rope to shore has been cut. I’m driving to work, but I’m

slowly drifting out to sea.

Andrew Davidson A Lasting Peace

There was a small checkered

puzzle in my grandmother’s

table drawer.

When I was a young child,

I used to love kneeling down

on that plush lime green carpet

to start that checkered puzzle.

My grandmother would sit

whistling through her teeth

and watching with delight

that the genes

she had passed down were

engaged in a piece of her life.

It was a lasting peace.

Sadhu Sadher My Close Relatives

I woke up by my bed site with day dream like heaven

and red angry sea,

ignored the natural call to forget,

and thought, played the backward walk in memory,

on the pages I grew up in my early days.

The backward walk in memory of many dreams

brings back to mind the childhood images of my

human-misery

(and how wonderful my relatives have been).

Back at the exile house,

I often feel amazed the emptiness created by their

absence,

hanging mirror, welcome photographs opposite the

doorway,

expressing respect and mutual understanding.

I care for them both.

Luke Langsjoen The Uberpsyche

The wind brought me a reminder.

The world bends to our will.

As creatures of creation,

we possess the power

to round 0.5 up to 1.

If done consistently,

you may operate the world

by your own rules.

I remember this clearly

from when I sat at our computer

beside my parents’ bedroom.

I saw that the inexplicability

of the Universe

may be overcome

by a kind of counterfeit.

Jens Langsjoen A Desperate Moment

another catastrophe.

logic destroyed, ignorance extrapolated, beauty buried,

self indulgent degradation,

almost to the point of having nothing left to lose.

a world that doesn’t speak your tongue.

a voice that doesn’t trust itself.

a wretching that leaves you empty inside.

b efore this ends I must construct a planet.

b etray the tendency to fall apart without a form.

b ecome the life embodied force of nod.

c ontain me, I am rampant.

c oerce me, I am yours.

c ontain me, the seeping sap of god.

Jens Langsjoen Jellyfish

Jens Langsjoen Red Sky

Frederic J. Greenall Look Up

I look towards a starry sky

The vessel of a million lights

And with my inner eye perceive

A multitude of silver threads

They join each diamond sparkling bright

In place on that black velvet cloth

And with a sudden trembling awe

I see the hand that set them all

How much like a jewel-encrusted sword

It would appear to those who saw

His needle stitch light to the stars

And hang this shroud above our fathers

Sandy Benitez Old

Grandma's nerves

are an aging fault line;

thirty years

her spinal column

a bungalow of bones

that rattle

whenever buses or trucks

drive by.

Squatting on a hill,

her brain, a Victorian Manor.

The wiring tangled up

like twisted barb-wire.

If you look in her eyes,

you can see lights

blinking on and off.

The switch never to be found.

Hidden somewhere

in the trembling walls

of her memory.

Shane Greb You Are Wiser Than I

You are wiser than I.

Your eyes see further than mine.

You cast your will to the winds,

And they carry you further away

From me,

But closer to happiness.

I envy your spark.

Your course is uncharted,

Whilst I sit here,

Apart and away,

Charting a map in murky waters,

Bogged down by pride and greed.

I am chained

And you are free.

For you to touch me

The same fate falls on you.

I must become the stuff of dust

Or become the winds.

Dane Langsjoen I Inhaled Chloroform But That Doesn’t Explain the Dreams

I

a state of paralysis

the senses made me ill

and the faceless men would not tolerate interference

lucid enough to feel and struggle but not to control

i watched his limbs snap and heard him howl

the captor was hate for he had been wronged

treachery too awful, even for a dream

a demon in the shadow, bloody sneakers in the crack of a closet door

i vomited in the dark

he was dead

II

the storm was coming and we armed ourselves

the sun died and great sick eyes were outside the door

i was stabbing downward trying to save kin

but i was the only one

the rest had transcended and the horde existed only for me

i felt peace when i woke

Dane Langsjoen Untitled

the jealous watchmen is duty bound and his madam’s lips are dry

Dane Langsjoen Ad Nauseum

it is incessant

a shadow that knows its own name

it follows the sun

meekest at the highest

second to the soul

and tallest at the fall

at dusk they share hands

and lay claim to the land

no longer prisoners of flesh and light

the pallid earth can no longer amuse

inward and upward

the mind is ripe

and the furrows are deep

impossible to defend

a nightmare is born

Steve Meador Pinus Palustris

The longleaf is shedding

its needles, weaving a soft

bed for me to sneak up

on you. Something I could

never have done before,

even while you slept. Soon

the tired bark will blister

like baklava, spread confetti

to let you know when I am

near.

Steve Meador The Brown Anole

For several months

he has guarded our postal

bastion. At first, either darting

through a slot, to be buried

by the bills and take a happy

crap on the junk mail,

or, courage dismantled,

jumping to the nearby tree.

The gargoyle now remains on top,

even when I open and close the lid.

Tan to dark brown to a blotchy

in-between, depending on his views,

the quirky anole tests me

by doing his jerky pushups

and tilting his head slightly

to read my mood. I move, his eyes move,

I blink, he blinks - a macho Morse code.

Defiantly he hangs and flashes

his bright red dewlap. If I could only

trust him,

train him,

I would never have to raise the flag.

Steve Meador Chasing Tails

There was nothing you could do but pack up the dog and leave.

Was there nothing? You could do nothing. Could you leave?

Nothing could leave you, but you could leave. Could

you pack up nothing? Could the dog leave there?

Could you? Do you? Nothing there. Pack and

do leave. The dog could leave you there

but pack you up. You do, do you? Do

pack up the dog and leave nothing

up there, could you? Nothing but

the dog. You? There was the

dog, but there was you

and nothing. Pack up.

Leave the dog.

Lauren Langsjoen For Kent

Brother you walk a dusty trail,

On either side snared by thorns.

Brother you walk a fiery trail,

The sun beats down upon your head.

Brother you walk a lonely trail,

With no one in sight ahead of you.

But Brother remember, remember these things:

You have your boots, which oppose those thorns.

You have your hat, which blocks those rays.

But above all else, that which protects your way

Are the ones behind you, we who will defend you.

We who will always be there to run, to fight,

To love you forever, always near to your sight.

You can cross this ravine.

You can climb this mountain.

You can thwart this day of suffering and pain.

You can look up to the stars and find the truth,

The truth that has always been there, waiting for you.

You can meet this challenge with determination of mind.

You can conquer the end with a power untold.

You can hail the dawn with a purity of angels.

Because, you have felt more than any of us can imagine,

And you have walked further than we can fathom,

And you have seen deeper down into the valley of death.

Yet in the end you arose, cleaner and wiser.

So I praise you for that, your labor, your hardship.

And I love you for you, my steadfast Brother.

Suzanne Field-Rabb The Day and Night of the Healing Heart

The darkness and stillness of the night moves slowly and purposefully

into my heart

I watch as she effortlessly and gracefully penetrates the boundaries of

my soul

She erases the world with gentle movements and pulls me

into her silence

She and I are one; emptying into one another

we heal

The brightness and fullness of the day moves joyfully and purposefully

into my heart

I watch as she effortlessly and gracefully extends the boundaries of

my soul

She sketches the day with blissful movements and draws me

into her song

The pleasure, and joy, the promise and faith, speak

of love

She and I are one; filling one another

we heal

Daniel Payne Montalto Tour

Keith Prather Perhaps Tomorrow

My heart

has enough lead

to fill the chambers

of a thousand guns.

Perhaps tomorrow

it will go back

to being a heart again.

Just simple.

Keith Prather Untitled

Michael Young what follows is an experiment.

i twist a bloody knife through the ribs of anyone who’s ever kicked an

animal, through the neck of every schoolyard bully, and through the

predatory balls of any man downtown who’s taller than me or less of a

gentleman. i’m a suicide bomber. i come strapped with screws in every

wrist and knee. my mouth is full of tin, and my pockets are a gnashed

up mess of aluminum cans. you want some of me? i don’t need to be

six feet tall to exact my revenge. i’ll come at you like a drunk man. i

rattle like a can of spray paint on my approach. my sudden sobriety

will ferment into a sour mash of softspoken hurt. modern violence is

the skillful administration of the least amount of metal into the softest

and most unexpected facet of the human body. a face will materialize

from the crowd. who was that? i have come to ease your passage into

the next world. your gin and tonic suddenly tastes suspiciously like

blood from your own mouth. a fistful of razorblades, skillfully applied.

the other hand comes packed with sand, a southpaw explosion, a deft

cloud in your vision, a red streak of paint across your neck. unngh.

why you lying on the floor? awwww, why ain’t you gonna fuck with

no one no more? face down on the canvas. i left your dead fish wanna

be corpse in my wake, slicked up with oil from my greaser blade. you

paid. then we both left that scene in a state of grace. you into outer

space. me to some place, a dirty room, where the cops can’t find me,

with a tv and a bed. watching the ten o’clock news for your last words,

the last thing your girl heard from your lips. the reporter always

sounds happy when someone dies. i never know how to pronounce

the names of foreign leaders until they get assassinated. i keep spray

painting the back of my throat, to help me forget that some things just

happen. i was reading just a few days ago about this little girl who got

a bike for christmas, and took it out into the street for the first time,

bright smile smiling. and she was gonna grow up and be a wonder-

ful person, a doctor. or no, she was gonna go to work for a non profit,

and get married twice, lovingly, and she was gonna love animals and

jazz, and have all these beautiful friends, who will never get to call

her because she got hit by a fucking pickup truck. the mother’s heart,

swelling with pride at her little baby, look how happy she is! look

how happy i made her! it’s like she’s flying, look at her, she’s HONEY

NOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BABY, NO! CALL AN

AMBULANCE! AHHHHHHHHH! and that is what christmas is like

for this one family, who will never be happy again. you need to pause

when you come to a sentence like that. it’s a death sentence. never.

be happy. again. there are sirens outside my window all the time,

and they roll for me, but one day, everyone will know what it’s like to

be ripped from your bedroom forever, strapped into restraints with

a fucking plastic tube going down the back of your throat. whatever

good deeds i do, i just hope they’re enough so that when i die, it won’t

be through suffocation. i don’t care. i will shoot myself before i can’t

breathe. if my last breath is the one that pulls the trigger, then my

lungs have done their job. so ask not for whom the sirens roll. they

roll for thee, down a street you used to live on, when you were in your

twenties and your masterpiece could wait, a least a few months cos

i need to pick up some extra shifts, and me and her and you and the

whole crew are gonna go see a movie later, it’ll be a time, i don’t want

to get to the end of my life without watching a whole fucking bunch of

movies, so that when my life flashes before me, it won’t be painful to

watch because it won’t be mine. paint contains dust. it’s time for me to

make preparations. i have a crazy drunk pianist phase to go through.

the one where i never change my shirt, figure out what my greasy

head is capable of, don’t wear pants, and wander around in the park

at five in the morning, making adjustments to a theme. chewing pills.

making myself and my work fucking ill. when the drunk man yells at

me, my heart switches from 3/4 into 45 rpm. is it fight? is it flight? it

is what it is. whatever it takes to paint the picture. to immolate life.

paint. paint. paint. out of breath. done. sleep.

© Rust and Moth Autumn 2008

Layout and Design by Josiah Spence

Edited by Matthew Payne, Michael Young, Suncerae Smith, and Josiah Spence

All contributers maintain individual rights to their work upon publication.

Thank you to all of our contributors and all of our readers.

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