Speak One Way
Collin Blair Grabarek


Tolstoy told me in Russian, which I do not speak:

“A broken telephone is not an inconvenience to one stranded in the Himalayas or the Urals. What I mean is, I tell my grandchildren stories I would never set to paper. What I mean is, stories and children are not Jesus, yet I pay attention to them. What I mean is, you speak one way in sleep, another in robes and yes, here lies clarity at last, a blue cat owns the Hermitage. The museum will not open until the cat returns from his morning stroll and laps dry a chill saucer of milk.

“I spoke once with that cat when he still caught mice, before he fattened on milk and privilege. Or rather I spoke at him. The cat would not respond to me. I followed him and his pendulum belly as he wandered Hermitage corridors. I read to him my finest works and the scriptures I love best.

“Alas, he did not hear me. In place of that he prowled the echo halls and cried for mislaid milk that try as I might I could not convince him had certainly dried to crust.”


COLLIN BLAIR GRABAREK writes in Virginia.  He received his MFA from George Mason University, where he was the fiction editor of Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art.

:: ABOUT :: ISSUES :: SUBMISSIONS :: NEWS ::

ISSUE :: 4 ::


Collin Blair Grabarek :: Speak One Way
   
Karen Greenbaum-Maya :: Raksasa: The Deer-Pig
   
Amanda Ackerman :: Human Time: Poem Eight, Self-Pity
   
Kyle Hemmings :: Miss tHing, I Think I Love You
   
Tammy Ho
Lai-Ming
::
How Can You Understand?
   
Suzanne Marie
Hopcroft
::
If You Can(’t) Take the Heat, Get Out of the Sit-In
  Rocket Man
   
Peter Schwartz :: Uncle Shorty
   
Davy Carren :: Picture of a Postcard
   
Misti
Rainwater-Lites
::
Primordial Pudding
   
F.J. Bergmann :: Instant Affirmative
   
Matthew Burnside :: YUL BRYNNER DOESN’T GIVE A MOTHERFUCK
  NO ORGASM WILL EVER MAKE ME FEEL THE WAY MORGAN FREEMAN'S VOICE SOUNDS
  TRAPPED IN GARY BUSEY'S HOUSE, ONE TEXT LEFT
   
Matt Robinson :: The Oppressionist
   
Nick Narbutas :: Enchanted, I’m Sure
   
Eleanore Leonne
Bennet
::
Two photographs
   
Alexis Pope :: Tired, Hungry, Dirty
   
Meghan Lamb :: It’s A Party!
   

Homage to the Strange Spirits

Kathy Acker ::  The Killers