Electric RatherA Literary MagazineIssue 04 August 2014

Letter from the Editor

Electric Rather is a fledgling literary magazine with a vibrant spirit. We publish original poetry, prose, art, and photography. We publish new and innovative writers that challenge the boundaries of what is considered good art. We seek raw, intense, and emotional pieces that give us hope for the future of art and literature. Were passionate about this magazine and want to see it continue to grow. Our goal is to provide a publishing outlet for new and unknown authors and artists. This issue is divided into two separate poetry and prose sections. This issue features poetry by Emily Smith, Sean Schemelia, John Grey, Neila Mezynski, Duane Locke, Barbara Lightner, Walter Ruhlmann, Kathy Buckert, Nikki Rae, Elizabeth Theriot, Judith Skillman, and Felino A. Soriano; as well as artwork by Anne Bengard, Jack Savage, John Markowski, Laura Grant, Aaron Kaminsky, and Sean Schemelia.

Please visit electricrather.tumblr.com for more information about our wonderful contributors. Submissions are always welcome. Please email them to electricrather@gmail.com. If you wish to contact us, you can also use this email. Visit our website at electricrather.tumblr.com or look us up on Duotrope.com. Thank you for reading!

The poetry in this issue is very emotional and introspective. These poets naturally discuss childhood trauma with wisdom and grace. Other poets exercise intense creativity, emphasizing only specific words or phrases in order for readers to ascertain meanings. These poems detail the struggles and triumphs experienced throughout life. The art in this issue portrays realistic emotions like pain and fear in a cold, unique way. The artwork in this issue ranges from canvas art, digital art, photography, and water color paintings. The range of these designs compliment each poem uniquely. The passion these artists have is plainly obvious in their work. I love that I am able to publish such a variety of work in this magazine. As always, I am immensely proud to be able to publish so many talented writers and artists. I am still in awe that this magazine has become as successful as it has. I hope that readers are as elated as I am to see this issue published.

-Barbi Moroz

Table of ContentsPoetryEmily Smith: Home ........................................................................................................... P. 2

Sean Schemelia: two:two four//sleepless waiting for the witching hour ..................... P. 3 and an Untitled Piece .............................................................................................. P. 35

John Grey: Up Before Sunrise and Taking Stock ................................................. P. 6, 34

Neila Mezynski: Truthful Girl and Eyes................................................................. P. 7, 20

Duane Locke: Terrestrial Illumination No. 277 ........................................................... P. 10

Barbara Lightner: Dancing in the Dark ........................................................................ P. 13

Walter Ruhlmann: Im Still Alive - Concrete Stairs Revisited .................................... P. 16

Kathy Buckert: Missing Childhood and A Sonnet of Bipolar Woes ................. P. 17, 21

Nikki Rae: Bambi .............................................................................................................P. 24

Elizabeth Theriot: Visitation and Rattlebones .....................................................P. 25, 30

Felino A. Soriano: Depiction ..........................................................................................P. 31

Judith Skillman: The Holding Place ............................................................................. P.. 38

Photography and ArtAnne Bengard: Tonis Daughter, Serious Business, and Sweet Tooth ........ P. 1, 14, 22

W. Jack Savage: A Trick of the Light, Sentinels, House Pet, ..........................P. 4, 11, 15 and The Final Days ...............................................................................................P. 33

Laura Grant: Round and Round, Untitled, and Dream House ...................P. 8, 19, 26

Aaron Kaminsky .......................................................................................P. 5, 9, 18, 23, 29, 32

John Markowski: Moon Man ..........................................................................................P. 27

Sean Schemelia ....................................................................................................................P. 36

Cover design by John Markowski.Graphic design and all other photography by Barbi Moroz.

HomeEmily Smith

your internal readeris a broken meteryour clocks are setto times of rewardand slouchesof demiseexternal forceswither newborn kindnesswhen child laughteris loves fortressthe weather is badso many go insidebut what if the homelacks regular heatingand central air?what ifyour family is goneand strangerskeep leavingcryptic messages?passers by complain ofthe deteriorating paint joband how each time they walk through thelawn, the grassgives them ticks

Tonis DaughterAnne Bengard

2

two:two four//sleepless waiting Sean Schemelia

with your yes yes, no are as none such touch known, see?feeds feed on Jesus and Mary (electricity : magnetism)

like maddogs chasser la femme.

all is wont to come to pass like mass atrophic masterpiece. where you were then, brother? Om? the vassals vessel wassnuck but under yr feet. dont look at me; look at primogeniture from the desk of Old Scratch! here he is, that enemy.

Here I Am.

for the witching hour

Some

One please to say to sleep on it.

anyone?

A Trick of the LightW. Jack Savage

4

Up Before Sunrise

After its confessionthat its just another day,beauty of dawn

perceives red eyes,blood, buckets of milk,burden of burned out farmers.

But only the churchescomplain of lifeand it is mostly sin

that flutters their calendars.For who dares to chatterwhen there are eggs to be gathered,

water to be dragged upfrom the deep well,pigs to be near-drowned in slop.

Beyond the ridge liesa graveyard of deserted farms,but here, the hard back

of the dinosaurbends to the hours ardor,cheeks red-leathered,

head vague and dream-less,in lieu of whiskers,a fine colorless dew on his chin.

John Grey

Aaron Kaminsky 6

Truthful GirlNeila Mezynski

Hard to hide inside out. Cant keep in a box, put. Longtime coming that truth, not ready for prime time truth. Hibernate a bit longer bare, ugly. See. You can awake the pretty in time, a second long. Easy. Look. Get to the bone of that before. Some only do. Worthwhile.

Laura GrantRound and Round 8

Terrestrial Illumination No. 277Duane Locke

Strange how, this ownerof a Bentleythought his banalitywas charm.He wore tight clothes.Spoke bad grammarto be fashionable,and slurred his sentenceto the status of a mumbleso what he said could onlybe guessed at, and never understood.His speech mannerismsmade him very popular,and soon doctoral candidateswere writing dissertationson this not being understoodas a new sociological innovation,meme or more, that unitedcommunities to cohere by not communicating.He bragged how he taughthis young nephew to seduce women.His nephew entered a monastery.His niece became a nun.

She was a school teacher,and had a tenth grade football playeras a lover, a straight A student.His father is now in an insane asylum,and believes himself to be Casanova.But the Bentley ownersmost charming actwas imitating a whirling dervish.He was invited to all parties.All the women who loved spinning menwould constantly kiss him.He was raped five times,but he never stopped spinning.He became a candidatefor the state legislature,and won by the largest majority in history.To celebrate his victory,to become a leader of the people,he divorced his blonde-wigged wifeand her turquoise-tinted contact lensthat covered her brown eyes, and hireda failed starlet as his secretary.She also wore a blonde wig,but had her contact lens tinted azure,and she was sixteen years old.He would let her drive his Bentley.They would spent Sundays togetherpolishing its hood.

Aaron Kaminsky 10

SentinelsW. Jack Savage

12

Dancing in the DarkBarbara Lightner

Come dance with me in the graveyard, Ravennna,pick the Words bones to clean;peck the Summoner of mausoleummaneuvers berserk among clowns at hump to a trampoline trumpet;

this year of our corvine-complicit,accursed, fierce bestiarywell-being cursed.

Serious BusinessAnne Bengard

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Im Still Alive - Concrete Stairs RevisitedWalter RuhlmannSmoking inside again, sitting on the red carpet flattening under my weight,thinking of dad again, the grey clouds covering the sky invading my sight, suffering the cold and damp weather in the mountain village, this jailI am burying myself into for the years to come.

I watch the dust covering the room, the weeping eye opposite me,I hear the red-haired muse singing her wonderful chants like the ones I used to listen tositting on a short stool in another bedroom, far-north, a cream bedroom that turned togrey for the dog pissed and weed, ruining the carpet, the cushions,I remember the shaggy boy too, the dark painter.

These memories will be the end of me, the final step taken before I fall into madness,complete, total, absolute, inevitable.

The first fall occurred some thirty-five years ago:a toddler was I, just ready to discover the world.I could have died the day I fell from the top to the bottom of these stairs;a bump as big as an egg growing on my forehead.This must have left me bad scars, bruises,incorrigible but imperceptible mental inabilities.

Prior to thatthey had almost blinded me with forceps malignancythey had dumped me on the bare bedroom floor overtirednessthey had left me in the sharp claws of a drunkard nanny naivetythey had almost smashed my head against the garage door absent-mindednesstheir dog had nearly wolved me jealousy.

I have escaped physical harm many times but do not seem to be able to avoid being slime.

House PetW. Jack Savage 16

Missing Childhood Kathy Buckert

Always too young to see past the unbalanced mind to the intangible butterfly fluttering in the garden of normalcy.

Hidden in white robes of the separation of reality while tantrums fight to the surface clutching a lost security.

Anxiety uncovered by the blanket of a missing childhood so vulnerable to terrors made by the lies of night.

No tools will fix the broken child or restore the crayons in a box of tattered dreams coloring the pattern of loss.

Aaron Kaminsky 18

EyesNeila Mezynski

Your eyes see but not me. Dont they. Only vacant see no one home see. When did it start this no see bit, later before. They went in there and found no one home except that taking over thing. You. In. When I come back next time will you be there still or will you go to a far far better place. Where is that. Ill be looking waiting for that, sweet. Smile with your cello beside you there. You see it.

Laura Grant 20

A Sonnet of Bipolar WoesKathy Buckert

Painted by the stroke of a manic handDelusions of grandeur fly through the mindStolen stars from skies with spears made of sandBlue days prove pessimism isnt blind

Drugs dismantle the emotions adoredEuphoric days of escalating bliss Weakness and depression often abhorredThe antithesis of my happiness

Thrills before the perilous winds of changeFlashes of anger and simmering criesAssumed paranoia often thought strangeEnlightens the spectrum of suicide

Fighting a state of grand ferocity Followed by times of pure fluidity

Sweet ToothAnne Bengard

22

BambiNikki Rae

It was the summer five years afterthe funeral,we played a gameswitching radio stations,trying to guesswhat would be next.You were always wrong

And holding on to sixteen as tightas I couldonly left permanent marks in my skin

You hit a baby deer,the cops cameand before it could stand on shaking legs,shot it between the eyes It would have been fine

I never saw a gun before,but Ive looked Death in the face,been closer thanthat animal.We picked the fur from your black bumper,fixed the dent good as new

My head ached,my knees throbbedwhile John Mellencamp was singing about howlife goes on.

Aaron Kaminsky 24

VisitationElizabeth Theriot

She told me it had all been the ghosts faultthe spilled sugar, the tears, the aborted fetus.That the ghost had come to her in the nightwith cold, powerful hips.

It wasnt that she didnt love David,she told me.But the ghost had shivered her spine from the inside,a thing not to be resisted.

(Her hair lies in greying curls against her neck, her blouse is slippery looking and blue)

She asks, have I ever seen a ghost?Once, I tell her, but we did not make love.

What did you make?

A way out, I said.

(David forgave her eventually; after all, he was no longer a young manhad thin hair and heavy eyes, A ghost of his former selftheyd say)

Dream HomeLaura Grant

26

Moon ManJohn Markowski

28

Rattle BonesElizabeth Theriot

In the dankly sweaty sweet darkness we hopped acrossbounded over notes that rattled like rib cages in a hurricane

sawdust noses and ears ringing, bells ringing bloody blisters bleeding through striped ny-lon hose

and then poured ourselves like spilled beerout into the humidly sticky syrupy darknesships made of smoke and rattlesnakes sliding down the sidewalk, the crooked teeth of the street.

Aaron Kaminsky 30

into this mirror a hand fades and findswing and what waves and undulates within a smilesalternating discovery

within this mirror, a hallucinationrespells reflectional clarity, the echobounce voice recalls and resemblesan earlier function of the bodysbending and interrelated frequentmelodies

juxtaposed with this mirrora rhythm of pianos curlinto the jazz exhale of improvisedintuition, where these words leap,from where they encounter thelisteners version of elated circumference,the rounded wellness of noons reachingapex, double-handed, and you, witheach of these aspects, find variedgradations of self, unobstructed

DepictionFelino A. Soriano

Aaron Kaminsky 32

The Final DaysW. Jack Savage

Taking StockJohn Grey

Allow me, world, to chew on a stick,the oaken serpent, willow amaranth,architecture of forgotten forests,at the base, nothing but wood.

And why cant I play on the childs swing,soar up to these lofty metal towers?My feet touching the sky roof,steel chains incessant squeak,ravens black wings...why waste these days of light...why spend my blood on nothingbut the coming dome of silence?

I ask you, salt of the seashore,are you drowning the body,preserving the soul for its grave?Why cant I roll over in your foam,suck you up my nostrils,spit you from my lungs?

Ah but mirror mirror...why do I put yourself here?And man, where the hell did he go?Man of fast foods,brief breath stirring of the air,that carbon bubble, dragging moon of flesh.Reflection, a toast my blunders,my body, ticketed for the void.

Looking glass shows me the results...a model of dim nourishmentunholy man, blank responses, chest thin and flutteringlike barge flags.weak hands, sore feet, pathetic life,angered toothbrush, threatening hair-sprayyellow teeth, chilly water,bone-dust eyes, wilting from within.

But allow me, world, the strength to smash the mirror.

34

Sean Schemelia 36

The Holding PlaceJudith Skillman

They take the soulfrom its own images each tiny fistful of grass, blades serratedlike eyelashes.

They take the soul and give it a torso, that one they decided on over a caucus.

There galaxies thrust and gravitate toward one another in slow motionagainst the palette of deep space, gaseous clouds of color exhume dyes. They take the soul and its torso, add hinges for shoulder and pelvis, attach limbs.

The perfect fingers claw fabricfrom which, shell-like, nails growand fall into the voidlike freshwater pearls.

They put the newborn in a birds beak.It arrives marked by a bruise on the forehead.

We open the door that says verboten and clutch one another in wonder.

Is it a boy or a girl? Already the nursery is full of clothes for its special sex.

It will belong to us? It will be taken from us?Already the clutch has taken hold.

We massage its cries of vulture hunger, listen to the dove-murmur at breast and bottle,tiptoe around its sleep like those statues left forever standing on the earth, bereft of desire.

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About the Contributors Emily Smith: Home - Upper Township, NJ

Sean Schemelia: two:two four//sleepless waiting for the witching hour and Its More than Likely

- Philadelphia, PA

John Grey: Up Before Sunrise and Tak-ing Stock

- Johnston, RI

Neila Mezynski: Truthful Girl and Eyes - Campbell, CA

Duane Locke: Terrestrial Illumination No. 277

- Tampa, FL

Barbara Lightner: Dancing in the Dark - Milwaukee, WI

Walter Ruhlmann: Im Still Alive - Con-crete Stairs Revisited

- Le Reposoir, France

Kathy Buckert: Missing Childhood and A Sonnet of Bipolar Woes

- West Henrietta, NY

Judith Skillman: The Holding Place - New Castle, WA

Felino A. Soriano: Depiction - Santa Maria, CA

Anne Bengard: Tonis Daughter, Serious Business, and Sweet Tooth

- London, UK

W. Jack Savage: A Trick of the Light, Sentinels, House Pet, and The Final Days

- Monrovia, CA

Laura Grant: Round and Round, Untitled, and Dream House

- Gainseville, GA

Aaron Kaminsky: Untitled Pieces - Philadelphia, PA

John Markowski: Moon Man - Philadelphia, PA

Nikki Rae: Bambi - Tuckerton, NJ

Elizabeth Theriot: Visitation and Rattlebones

- New Orleans, LA

About the Editor Barbi Moroz was the recipient of the 2014 James Baldwin Fiction Award, as well as both the 2013 Joseph Courter Fiction Award and the 2013 Stephen Dunn Poetry Award, which are first place literary awards at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Her poetry has been published in the online magazines Untitled Publications, Misfits Miscellany and Leaves of Ink. Her poetry has also been published in the print magazines Creepy Gnome Magazine and Stockpot, Stocktons literary magazine, and Bank Heavy Press.

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Special Thanks Electric Rather would like to thank the talented writers and artists that contributed to this issue. We are very proud of the diversity of this issue and are honored to publish it. We received more than seventy submissions of fiction, poetry, and art. Sifting through these submissions was a labor of love and we cant wait to start the process all over again. We would like to thank everyone that submitted to our magazine and our wonderful readers. Submissions are always welcome! We would like to cite two sources that created some of the textures and patterns used in this issue: cgtextures.com and subtlepatterns.com. For more information about our contributors, please visit our website: electricrather.tumblr.com.