It's after hours, both the time and the radio program, coming through the stereo.The smoky jazz is an inspiration to start working on this new issue.
    It's a good thing I don't drink, otherwise, I'd be downing a Jack Daniels right now and waiting for a blonde to come through the door.  Instead, the stereo is on, the cat's asleep on the floor, and I sit here with my notepad open.  I suspect the cat is waiting for someone to trip over his sleeping form, that's a cat for you.
    What's with the issue?  It's a continuation of Avant Garde #5

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Review

    If you should ever read Maclean's Magazine, you have probably made a habit of turning to the very back of the magazine.  There you will find, as has been the case for over 20 years, the latest missive from Alan Fotheringham.  The "Foth" has been commenting on Canadian and international affairs for all that time.  He has done so by entertaining, infuriating and raising the hackles and blood pressure of Canadians of all opinions and political stripes.  He is probably now a Canadian icon;  although I think he would rather throw things at one then be one.  Perhaps a better phrase is " A Canadian Institution"  How much of an institution, well, I have in my possession an article of his, autographed by Peter Gzotky, and that's as Canadian as you can get!!!
    Last year, Mr. Fotheringham decided to sit down and go through the vast mount of articles and choose his best.  So what we have in the book "Last Page First", is an opinionated history of Canada at the end of the 20th century.  What an opinion, you learn that his home town of Hearn Saskatchewan was so small that everyone had to take a turn as the village idiot.  In an article, not published, he mentioned that his departure from Saskatchewan to BC led to the increase in the average IQ in both provinces.  What we also learn from his book is that Winnipeg is a survivor, Toront has no soul, and Brian Mulroney is the candidate from Whimsey.
    You also learn of his many lawsuits and his advertures as a globe trotter.  On most of those trips he realizes the problems of Canada are, for the most part, inconsequential.
    As this is a book of favourites, you may think he missed some columns that should have been added, well, that's his right as a writer.  If you do decide to read the book you will discover the phenomenum that is Fotheringham and his interesting view of life.  As you read, you may discover that, the beaver is truly a proud and noble creature, and Canada is the second largest country on the planet, the first nation of hockey and the best part of North America.

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Poetry

  This month's issue features some more new poets, at least to these pages.  Enjoy their work and their expression of freedom.
 
 

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Short Stories

It been a time since I've had a short story submission. I am pleased to present this story by Carl Schultz.  If anyone would like to submit a story, e-mail it, and perhaps it would best be in the form of an attachment.
 
 

    Driving out of the tunnel with the hope that he gets the company command after leave, he
downshifts from fourth gear. Then trying to unbutton his dress blues jacket, he shakes his head
thinking that Italian operas are still a tad much. Too, that same conscience wildly
swings in the bare fist fight with what a gentleman ought to do for a wondrous scream.
                "She's so beautiful," floats and lands his mind. Her screaming glances and delicious grins make him slow to get on the near forsaken causeway. Her aromas with the whisper-smile in her eyes cause him to ignore the rain in this muggy, dog-day Okatibbee Bay evening.
                In the try to stay proper, he changes his concern to the search of smutty mud-ducks
who jostle in the smell range of those paper mills. Mills that pump-out a reek so spoiled that the
taste of toilet paper might be there. Despite Okatibbee's share of cleansing hurricanes the stench comes back, tho the ducks surely moved-on to gray-brown water somewhere
else. He also thinks that he needs an automatic transmission after the gunnery to come.
                 Seeming fruitless, the want to hold a hand returns rather than shift of gears in the
drizzling end. Thus he slowly puts down his espresso to look at the ball that holds her breath. He thinks that if he opens its air valve, the rest of her will go.
                Then at Caf‚ Brunhilde he sees a pretty lady order an au lait or an ol‚. He doen't know
much anymore. Tho when she sits with her oh hell it takes alot but he doen't fall out of his seat.
She doen't have long silky black hair, but it's so long and fragrant that she holds her golden
blonde sequence back to take a sip. She smells so good especially when some stud muffin holds
her from behind. The move that gives him a chance to nose behind an ear remarking and hinting, "Tu as trop magnifique que je ne t'aime jamais une petite."  If he
figures that stuff anymore. Now it's about as useful as the sounds that drip and screech her mumbles from holes in the wall. Holes that dust lock her box.
                 When a lady who tidies his house asks him what to do with her blown-up beach ball,
he gravely sloughs it off. Saying that in a li'l while the rest of her will go for sure. He guesses
that dreary speak is one of Freud's slips taught in one of those psycho classes. The type where
some think that they'll learn sumn but in the end, they judge themselves. Other cases really get
off when they see it. They finally found somebody else who they think has a cocked thirty-eight
special.
                 Never that weak or maybe that strong he's so naive but sad that it's unreal. In a person there's maybe only a fine line between the two. Tho others who keep their jobs holy don't make it easy to understand, that gives them a chance to preach a vague strife's
not there without the other getting bigger.
                With his coma start way-away so needs of life support yet inhale of a few pints of
vomit nevertheless, his gear was left to wilt. All his stereo stuff, wine, and a no-good bumper car. Some stuff that didn't come back might be in the same junkyard. The
place where they sell blowup beach balls, roses, coffee smells, and the ground she walks on.
On the other hand she probably got care the same way living folks were did with other times.
Yet the beach ball that she blew-up tricks fate to miss the ovens, so it can make it here.
                 Guessing not to think that way he can only hope that it didn't happen. His only worry
ought to be not to drown in a pool. A pool where he tries to swim so he can shirk worries in the
abyss again. Shirking the worries that cause him to feel as if he's in some kind of a cold lonely
dark pool, not moving. The dark that changes all things from bright eyes and delicious smiles,
coffee smells and chocolate tastes to blood stain patches and toothless grins, burnt sulfur and
steel bitter.
                 All the like are so gray with looks on this liquid abysmal texture thru open-eyes. Eyes
that feel gray thru so from the dark nesses of the day. The dark causes many looks at first in the
search for some guide. There has to be sumn frequent  somewhere. Still eyes fuse fast since all is
gray. After the gray gets detected tho it changes costumes so it can pound-out the skull. The same gray that causes the cicada who coolly murmurs in hot air to get the cold windshield surprise.
                "It's the pulse in my head. Beethoven had Beethoven has it right after all. It's the pulse in my head," he assures himself with no mind like all things do.
                Those crispy mud clods that sound and flounder like they dully whack, quiver and
cover, quit. Minutes grow to years while decades inflate seconds as more days dye black. The
black gets a bit more dim with hints by gray groping. Those gray fumbles allow time to fleet
past creepily as Mars pleads its case in the inbred dance that no mortal man knows.
                 When he wakes finally if he ever went to sleep its still hard and easy. He ought to be
the average peculiar but no.  He tries to conquer himself. That's really easy at first.
                 "Sit-up's sit-up's no pushups or running read read I got a mind I got a mind. A couple
months, a break's a break. I ought to read a li'l more Sun Tzu and get my dress blues out."
                Then years start to sum in an endless cycle of forgotten months, a couple months, a
couple more months.
                The Venus babe must have some bad stink stuck on him. First it was nobody then it
was somebody who he thought would keep him. Then it was nobody, anybody, somebody, her,
but he just doen't know now . She gets him to think that he thinks toobad. The bad are so bad
that he thinks that he can't go on to think at all.
                As things go the storm deep roars, and with the stormweak-tit too, down its road
brings those multiple visions along. Those multiple visions might behappy but they get twisted.
Grim twists that get figured-out so as a last-ditch effort his mindforms a suicided fecula.
                The supposed friend, Cue, pleads with him. Saying thathe left this land that made
some think from this maudlin globe, to go soul-search.
                "Let's go and do something."
                "I'm sure you saw the movie.  Dead men don't walk.Neither do I now."
                "I would really enjoy going up in those mountains. Youwere always fond of talking
about them back in California."
                "If I could I would . . ."
                "Oh come on."
                "As I was just about to say before your rude-assinterrupts, that if I could I'd take you
on a heartfelt trot. The kind of stroll when we have climbing ropes and all, that your butt woen't
survive. I guess I'd see if your ass can commit suicide twice."
                 "Just look at it on the good side. You may get your chance how does one say,
maintenant?"
                "It's too bad that you didn't bring an A.K.-47. You'd finally see one of those bad assault weapons in action."
                "Why do you think I brought my duffle bag and called up Fed-X earlier? My stuff
finally made it here."
                "I don't believe it. You brought one?"
                "That Russian Tommy-Gun stays in the shop."
                "In place of the tease like everybody else, I hope you brought at least a real
Tommy-Gun. You're the one who likes to listen to Gershwin so much."
                "Ira not George but how does that concern anything?"
                "Well every time I hear the name Gershwin for some reason I think of you and Jimmy
Cagney. The music where you hear the rap of mobster Tommy-Guns...sorry that might be the
Clash who does that. Hendrix did a machine-gun.  Anyhow you'd see thegray mush that bullets
bring-out outside making you fall in fits and bleed."
                "You or me?"

               So, hungry thoughts cause her and me to go over the mountains and thru the woods to a bed and breakfast yum. To preface my hot-chow appetite that includes hot-cakes and biscuits I wine and dine her to an opera before the honky-tonk waltz and two-step of Strauss. She's so
beautiful
                The evil McCarthy wet nightmare burdens me tho. Oh wa. Both master ugly-bump
McCarthy and his nightmares break my warm heart. Cool Boris had an awake nightmare tho,
when it got a li'l no really hot. It won't figure things red with the sneak of a peek at us with its
supersonic Messerschmitt.
                 Monogram and Mitsubishi ought to update, well not Mitsubishi they make Zeros. It's
mean and gross to see Vladmeer eject from its vulture right into its buddy's chopper blades tho it helps us to keep-on. Vladmeer thought it'd be a first to do aerobic dominatrix-d half gainers with that chopping eggbeater. I ought not worry too much since that far-out purple one steams so red. It can't eject right, when it sees it's brothers froth-up and bight it. The magical turquoise star it has doen't help it see the hill. Too, it surprises me that they carry and maybe get hurt with that new  Kalishnikov one man assault ratta-tat. They're so far ahead of us that they can't use our bullets now if they ever could.
                Heck to be Mister Greenjeansian they no longer need to worry about turnips and brass tacks. More like brass ammo. In the more important worldly metric terms its ammo's an eleventh of a malemute smaller.
                "That's what we'll do! We'll have our bar-b-que out here. Pig-on-the-Border not our
annual Pig-in- the-Park except we got to ease in front of Ivan to get the charcoal. Heck, it'll be
hard sans Lion or Shriner chow and kosher dills."
                "Do what suh?"
                "We'll wait 'til the toe-jam leaves."
                "Why suh? We could have some real fun now. Damn suh I thawt yuh Missippi boys
kilt for fun! Back at home we run round twisting chickens heads off fer the laugh suh. We ought
to do the same here. All the troops need's to wear their masks and have a few more saws
nobody'd ever know suh. And too it'd be fun if we had brought our tracks up. We'd have our
flamethrowers then. It was fun to spray rabbits with gas up in the Ozarks.. I even got my zippo
suh."
                "I dunno about that Sergeant. Ivan doen't wear bulletproof undies this time or even lab jackets. At least that's the scuttlebutt that I scratch-up from Obi Wan in force Intel. So we need not fry them especially since we have no bacon."
                "The problem's that suh and the battle X.O. lead us round to tell our troops there's hot chow at Benning."
                "The executive officer just tells the truth. See if you put morale aside, he does worry
about unity of command and effort and all that other far-out stuff, doggy Oedipus and Freudian
style. Too all that he has are Vieener sausages. So just in case give me the clackers to the
Claymores so we can see a real fair show when the brethren cross the yellow brick road. The
mission does say, c'est la guerre, so may Siegfried be with you. Also, make sure Gray changes
the radio freaks.  It's about that time."
                "So much for the Greek and I'm miles in front of yuh as usual suh."
                "Spec make sure the cameras ready to go and I'm gonna use your saw."
                "Sir, the sixty's my weapon and you can't just snatch it away that easy sir. Anyhow
Ulrick's signed for a saw, sir."
                "No, the cutting saw not the shooting saw. I wonder if maggots start their fly out the
way they said they would."
                "Sorry sir this is the army but Ulrick told me that they're venom full on post. Tho out
here he says they won't mess with you if you wear a fez...sir"
                "Right, on the other hand we could cut with that gun saw.... a fine machine. If we add
the tripod to shoot straighter to our basic-load, we'll be near home free.. It'd still be a bit messier. I'd be a full twenty-five meters away tho using of the good ole three
to five round burst styles. They help splash all the bullets in tight groups, that's where all the
maggots ought to go anyhow."
                "Well heck we do want to cut with it."
                 "No, I got it! Just get my picture made while I sing. You brought your tape player? I
got my camera and the tape "He Sings with Barry."  I love "I Lust forCandy" and I wanna hear"Free Bird" on spoons again.

She's so beautiful encore et encore.

Carl D. Schultz was born in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1963. A
graduate of Meridian High School, Meridian, Mississippi in 1981 and
Mississippi State University in 1986. He entered the Army as an Infantry Officer
after receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and survived a
traumatic brain injury on 31 October 1987 in a car wreck near Bamberg,
West Germany. The injury produced a six-month coma that evolves thru
physical, occupational, and speech therapies. He resides in Meridian.
Illegitimus non Corundum

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Site of the Month
    This month's site celebrates the person and work of Jan Houston.  A regular in these pages, she has quite a history of poetry writing, and an interesting person to boot.  Visit her at:  http://www.languageofsouls.com/poetmonth.html
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I finish the month's issue with my final words.  If you wish to know what the theme is for next month, well, I don't really have one.  There was a change in plans and the issue I was hoping for will be delayed until September.  I should let you know that one issue I'm planning is an "Interview" issue.  I want to interview some of the poets whose works you read in this ezine.  Who will I get, I have a few names in mind, and those of you will be receiving a letter, so watch for it over the next couple of months.  I'm hoping to have about 4 or 5 interviews for the August issue.  Of course, July will be the 2nd anniversary issue.  Hard to believe.

    So, keep producing that work, and I'll keep reading, and enjoying it.

As always, the works in this publication are copyright by the various authors.  Respect their creativity. ©2000.  Produced by Paul, from his computer- at home and sometime late at night at work.( don't tell anyone). You can always email me at pabear_7@yahoo.com

 https://www.angelfire.com/on/abovegroundtesting/