A Magazine of Many Arts

He heard it again this time
louder than before. Sleep
was a luxury he did not have.
It has been almost two weeks
since he last had a nights sleep.

The phone would ring at odd hours,
but he would never answer it. He knew
who was calling. It was always the same.
It would ring three times then silence.

He never left the apartment for fear
he would not hear the phone. The ringing
is what he waited for.

He knew he could never answer it not on the
first, second or third ring. He also knew why.

He would one day admit his guilt, but till then
the phone would ring. The spirit would always
leave on the third ring.

The self-made prison where time was
consumed by a phone that only he heard.

3 Steps Telephone Paintings, 2014, shared with creative commons license

after neuro-chemical stabilization
and glycerol embalming
I cut off Tammy’s head below the chin
and laid this part of her to rest
on dry ice

afraid to look at the diagnostics report
to see if I’d made the window and she yet lived (if there can be life
below -130°C)
when the promise of her “resurrection” could be broken
by tripping on a power cord

she’d come to depend on me
and I on her
as if the rest of the world had dropped out from under us
and now I wanted only to hold onto what I could
with all of the energy
and know-how and hope that remained

Votive female head, Roman, 200 BCE to 100 CE

By http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/9e/4e/0633401796ccb9016821cbf4944a.jpgGallery: http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0058446.html, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36210189

I am someone whom they wish to destroy.
I sleep on my spaceship. At night, plaintive
cries keep me awake, won’t let me finish
my book of revelations. Claire, do wash
carefully: restrooms conceal a virus.
The radio messages are unclear.

I had a high security clearance;
this all began with a blocked artery.
In surgery, a thought-sensing device—
how, I don’t know—they managed to implant,
with a camera, too. Now, Claire, they watch
each infra-red pulse. This plot’s infinite.

Pretend you don’t see them, or they vanish.
Aliens attacked me—with nuclear
capabilities, Claire! They’ll never catch
me; the safety’s off. I’ll take this story
public: call Washington; file a complaint.
Citizenship entitles to service,

not government surveillance vis-à-vis
TV, betrayed by scratches in varnish
But those thugs won’t find me compliant:
I’ll hole up on the moon’s dark side, declare
I’m bankrupt, up a famed estuary.
Claire, don’t reveal my source of tainted cash.

Others—Claire, I know we’re not alone—check
for signs in heaven, listen for voices.
I’ll show them the conclusive site of Troy.
My manuscript, although it’s unfinished,
proves all. I’m editing for clarity.
Time is spun by a sundial on a plinth.

They’ve traced us to another planet,
a duplicate of ours, Claire—with a catch:
everything they don’t know about you, Claire
(illegitimate daughter of the Vice-
President, with a sweet affinity
for violence); your altered history.

Claire, don’t self-destruct. She who is Not-Claire, doppelgänger, plant,
kills slowly—a fine art. Try, Claire, to safeguard our secret cache
of toxic jewels. Are you there, Claire? Me again. Please advise.

Study of Two Warriors’ Heads for The Battle of Anghiari (c. 1504–5), by Leonardo da Vinci. Black chalk or charcoal, some traces of red chalk on paper, 19.1 × 18.8 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Dog created matter, and energy,
igneous rock, that maketh all new,
sedimentary rock, yea,
and that which has metamorphosed,
dog put into motion the geochemical cycles,
and created the microscopic organic spheres,
dog allowed environmental parameters to wax and to wane,
and lo, there was selection (naturally),
and much time passed,
and things were primordial,
and it was good,
and yet more time rolled by,
like unto a mighty river,
like unto the Mighty Mississip,
which did not yet exist,
and dog made a note,
and saw that it was good,
and dog saw further that there were plants,
and invertebrates aplenty,
a veritable smorgasbord of them,
but no vertebrates,
not even Amphioxus, their flaccid cousin,
and so the world was sadly lacking
in the bone department.

“Woof,” dog said,
and there were bones,
and it was good.

Picture is Detail from wall painting with allegory of the three kings in Skibby Church, Hornsherred, Zealand