This is the story of the only real pleasure that exists. It is the truest lie I can share about Meg. Don’t get all upset. I know, You think you hate lies, but you’re lying to yourself.

The best lies are the ones that trickle out slowly, all covered in truey litte bits. They look delicious, they’re a bit salty, a bit sweet, a bit scary to look at if you know, but they’re perfect in their own way.

So, I’ll tell my story like that. Slowly, and let the all that nasty truth back up behind a dam full of words, until a gooey delicious believable lie can form.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already told you, I’m lying. You won’t believe me. So, I’ll let you figure out what’s true and what’s not. The truth is usually so crazy no one would believe it anyways.

She was out in the woods, I think Muir, maybe, it’s hard to tell, I can’t see so well anymore. And the trees there we so fucking big. So big.

She was swinging a whisky bottle around her left hand, like some trampy bartender in a 90s movie. I guess she’s better than them, she at least used an empty one. No point in wasting some drunken point she might find inside.

“Meg, I didn’t drive all the way here from hell-cross country to watch you whittle away some brain cells, so tell me what’s going on?”

She laughed. She laughed and put down the empty bottle on a picnic table. Sat there, started to sculpt her nails.

“Stephan, you know, I’ve been married a long time. He’s a good guy. I think it might last a bit longer,” she got out some solvent and knocked the cap on the table to loosen it.

“Ok? Um… great?”

“Aww, dammit,” she shook her hand when the remover got into a hangnail and stung her a bit. “I’m not a vain woman you know. I’m not. But sometimes, I just like to feel beautiful. To feel.. sexy. Wanted. Do you understand?”

I nodded, clipped a cigar and started to chew it. No point in smoking it really.

“You know Meg, a few years back, I was in Arizona, driving along some godforsaken noplace road full of dust and that idea of imminent death. I saw this cactus springing out of the desolation. It was huge and alive, and just there in front of me. It was beautiful.”

Meg raised her eyebrow, “So…. how is this related?”

I watched her sharpen her little pink claws.

“It’s all bound up in the truth of things, you know? Beauty. It’s about where you are and what your’e doing and who you’re with.. and who you are. I think maybe who you are .. that’s the hardest part of the whole fucking thing.”

“Darling, I do love you,” she mouthed the words, but didn’t say them.

I forgave her instantly, “It’s ok. I love you too.”

“There’s no shame in doubt you know, just in a bad passport phone really. That’s what shame is.”

We didn’t say much more. We just walked back to the parking lot. She stashed her lovely little ass back into her tiny little put-put car and drove off. She never looked back. She just looked forward to her old man, and the things that love gives you when your body starts to break beneath the weight of years.

I stood there basking in my own ugliness. Understanding that I’m just a man. I’m just flesh.

I folded myself back behind the wheel, let out a long slow yawn and tried not to think of the 3,219 miles I had to drive to get home.

I tried not to think of the 3,219 reasons I’ll never be loved like that again.

I was crying before I could even hit the gas.

1. Set your font to 12pnt Courier.
2. Write your surname vertically
3. Write a single verb for each letter of your last name
4. Reorder the words by character length longest to shortest
5. First word must be in your title
6. Last word must be the last word in the piece.
7. All other words must be used in order

e.g.
A
N
S
T
E
Y

Anticipate
Nudge
Stifle
Trudge
Eavesdrop
Yell

Yell
Nudge
Stifle
Trudge
Eavesdrop
Anticipate

The Fisherman's Yell

The old man sat in silence on the pier, watching the wave's nudge 
a piece of driftwood toward the rocks. It'd been hours since he'd 
had a bite, and it was all he could do to stifle a yawn as the sun 
drew towards its noontime apex. The thought of the long trudge back
to the car without anything to eat gnawed at him even more than 
the boredom. So he sat there and tried to eavesdrop on a couple of 
little boys pretending they wanted to catch something like a shark.
It wasn't that long ago when he was a boy. He remembered those long
summer days when he dreamed of the big fish. Not because he was 
hungry, but because it seemed so exciting. They were so loud as 
they squished their little boy voices into happy shouts. It took 
everything for him to hold on to his voice. It took everything 
in him to love them. It took every bit of strength to be the 
old man who held his anger. "They're boys," he thought. 
"They're boys, and everything is exciting when you still have all 
your fingers." Later, when you don't, it's hard to remember what 
it's like to hope. Eventually, when you've lost everything, you 
give up the childish notion of the joy you felt when you were 
still happy to anticipate.

For love of wine, I whine of love
For hate of bear, I bare my hate
though I dare not give a shove
to the twisted monster that is fate

I wield the most gruesome iron rod
and beat away the thought of God

For love of profits, I proffer love
For hate of him, I sing a hymn
though I dare not dream or speak of
the saintly sin of eternal whim

I lay down the beauty of the feathered crook
in hopes of finding some truer book

Alas, such philosophy as that
lays curled into his tail upon my mat.

I do not shake my fist, or roll my eyes
I do not scream or whisper loudly
as I bang my elbows on my thighs
and swear in perfect meter proudly

I do not present a digit straightly
cast callous dispersions up the street
I only try to behave so stately
that even a nun might find me meet

So if my words come out as curses
or offend your senseless sensibilities
I’ll take a moment to craft some verses
accounting for your instabilities

Alas, It only takes a moment for me to swear
that you’re too much a fool me to bear

If by harlot you mean a bourbon swigging Thai ladyboy just in to the big city after years tending his father’s soybean crop, then yes, yes, she is a harlot.

But you don’t mean that, do you? You don’t mean much at all. You’re just watching. You are just sitting there eating your squid, watching a bus drive past with a giant ad for some sumo wrestler.

Our ladyboy friend is standing nearly-dressed in something akin to spandex. She looks at the sky and knows It’s about to rain. It’s about to rain, and you watch her for another second, hoping something will slip and prove your pointless point. She’s gone after a garbage truck drives by. You don’t see where she went.

Now you see a fat girl say, “toodles” to her mule-faced anyone as you push a sprig of parsley around your plate. He is dressed in filthy clothes and has just enough teeth to give the effect of silent braying.

She’s so fucking fat. He’s going to go on a bender, you can almost smell the alcohol and crack on his breath. You can see the glint in his eye. He will, steal cash from the tin over his mother’s fridge. He’ll be so high that maple syrup will be good enough for a meal.

The fat girl has gotten on a bus. He smiles as it pulls away.

You finish the last of your food and wonder if it is time for you to step out from the audience, and up to the platform. Instead you order another bourbon, perhaps it can lance, the soul-wound, and save you?

You slam it down, and feel the joy as it subtracts enough braincells to make the world a considerable deal less sticky. Now you are ready for the valley of the shadow of dish. The after-dinner nonsense of a man walking home. Becoming part of a world he only watches.

It is a thousand steps from the hole in the wall to the 8th floor of the building where he feigns a life. He can not think through the bourbon, so he feels pretty good. Pretty good.

She lives across the street.

Yes, she is a harlot. Yes, she hates you. Yes, you will find your binoculars and agonize as she yelps in the nearness of orgasmic bliss, while you masturbate in dark room full of molk and nothing more.

The fat girl walks by, looks up, and sees you with your binoculars. For a moment, she hates you too.

She shakes her head, and walks away, sad for you. Wiggling and jiggling and knowing you watch because that is your world.

The harlot lets out her secret, and another customer is happier than he ever imagined.

The ground approaches.

The bourbon is wearing off.

Adrenaline is like that.

A few minutes later a thin young cop with a crooked badge asks everyone he can find. Why?

There is a chorus of corn,
blue and thought of
only on bad days
when the neighbor’s techno is playing too loudly.

This is why I am laying
by the little pond covered in algae foam
trying to render a deft little poem

twelve dark lines about the precise moment
I turned into this god-awful, impulsive, cute, bastard

verse trying to prove to my farmer father,
that I can deliver.

I can come through
I can be
what he needs me to be
when he needs me.

He doesn’t believe that.

He is collecting bushels of long ears of corn.
He is glancing at me.
He is glancing at the foam on the pond.
He is kicking the root of the old oak tree where the swing was
that he pushed me on
when i was small.

He is unaware that i am pondering the word “oxidize”
as it relates to me
and him.

Later that evening, I tell him,
“The corn’s delicious Pa”

He rolls his eyes
and heads out to the porch to drink his lemonade
and look at the cornflowers
growing blue.

by the line, she watched him
writing. writing and writing
but never finishing
anything.

He wrote three lines to a 5 lines poem
and then, the inspiration was gone.

He wrote three chapters to his best selling novel
before he before being stretched too thin
before he began  realize his idea was terrible,
or a possibly that there were leprechauns waiting beside the door
to come in and steal this monsterpiece when it was finished
or likely, it should be written in ancient latin
but he wasn’t sure about the rules with the whole ‘i’ and ‘j’ thing.

She waits quite a while
but eventually she has to ask

Should you struggle, darling, ,or let it go.

He looks at her for the barest stub of a minute,
sighs, kisses her, and write
most of a sonnet for her.

It has to be enough, he hopes
she nods
it has to be
enough.

I am thinking of submitting something to this journal. It looks kind of interesting.

Printer’s Devil Review (ISSN 2160-2948) is an independent, open access journal of literary and visual art. We provide emerging writers and artists with access to publication and inquisitive readers with new voices and visions.

We’re currently seeking submissions of fiction (2,000 to 9,000 words), poetry, nonfiction, and visual art. Our reading period for Fall 2011 began May 1 and ends August 1.

You can find full guidelines for each section and access our online submission system at
http://pdrjournal.org/submit

a poem is a tool to weed out the fools
a rod to unspoil the kid
a poem is a road without any rules
an excuse for all that we did

a poem is a monkey rabid and fat
a beast and a moon and a scream
a poem is a path full of junkies and wrath
a statement beginning a dream

a poem scares the assholes away
but only a bit in the heat of the sun
a poem is a poem is a poem they say
but I say a poem is a gun

a poem is a tool to break small minds
a staff to lean on and cry
a poem is a tight rope without any signs
of a net as we sit here and sigh