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 ::
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 |