Memories Of San Blas – James Brantingham
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 13:24 — 5 Comments
I first hitchhiked to San Blas, on the west coast of Mexico, in December of 1964. At that time it was a quiet village with no paved streets—though I remember some cobblestones. There were Mexican tourists getting away from the Americans, a few Americans trying to get away from America, and there were a few ex-pats, usually ex-military. I do remember an ex-air force sergeant who was most delighted to see an English speaking human, so beers were on him. That worked well for our poverty struck wallets. We stayed at a little hotel on the beach that had barely […]
Open – Paul Hostovsky
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 13:13 — 0 Comments
I’m open to god but I don’t like capitalizing
Strays – William Falo
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 13:03 — 1 Comment
Blood trickled down my arm when I added another name with a jagged piece of glass. It was the fifth family that gave me back to the system since I entered it when my parents disappeared, but this time I wasn’t going back to foster care. Even going back wouldn’t help since I would be eighteen in a month and put on the streets. Night fell like a curtain dropping on a bad act and I reconsidered going back to my last home, but the foster mother said she was terminally ill and couldn’t care for me anymore. Lies. Nobody […]
Acrostic: Idioglossia – Danny Earl Simmons
Monday, January 16, 2012 13:20 — 1 Comment
I said, Did you hear me?
My Famous Dead Person – Stefani Zellmer
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 12:20 — 4 Comments
Charles Bukowski reaches into his pocket, because the first thing you want to do when you wake from the dead is smoke. Instead of cigarettes, he finds my note and manages to uncrumple it with his calloused hands. He reads 2137 Whitley Avenue, Los Angeles, written in big loopy letters, then the summons—“Come to Dinner?â€â€”that I’d written underneath.
Façade: Paintings by Andrew D. Moeller
Monday, January 9, 2012 20:31 — 1 Comment
Who doesn’t love staring at a brick wall? I do it every day as I’m trying to write. I look out my window at the apartment building across the street, which is laughably similar to a couple of Andrew Moeller’s paintings below. The ubiquity of mid-level, block apartments in my neighborhood in Seattle drew me to these paintings, which at first seem like a stark presentation of conventionality, an updated version of the white picket fence, etc. But then I got to thinking about the characters who populate the bland buildings in my neighborhood: hoarders, students, bros, barflies, creeps, debutantes. […]
PARKING LOT SONNET – Sierra Nelson
Monday, January 9, 2012 11:49 — 1 Comment
(Or: Timothy Tries to Give Me His Number While the Lady He Came with Grows Impatient)
Inn Of The Flying Plates – Sheila MacAvoy
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 13:29 — 3 Comments
She sat in the front seat of the Volvo and opened the L.A. Times as he inched down the driveway and avoided the branches of the pittosporum that needed pruning. She looked up once to admire the sleek lawn and the planting of daffodils that made their house look like an English cottage. Then she heard his intake of breath, as if he were about to comment on those offending shrubs, but thought better of it because they were officially not speaking. It had started last week. An argument over the replacement of the broken television in the family room. […]
The Turning Point – James Brantingham
Monday, January 2, 2012 13:53 — 2 Comments
At the still point of the turning world.
What am I?
Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies
Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;
Scientists can't find me.
Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—
Remind me:
The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…
Tick, Tock: Divine me.
-- Richard Kenney
Book Release and Reading Feb. 6
January 6th, 2016
Hello fellow readers, travelers and Monarchians! Our first book, Traveling Light, written by Seattle author, Jim Brantingham, is now for sale! And we will be throwing a release party for it Feb. 6 at 6pm in Ravenna Third Place Books (on the corner of 65th and 20th NE). Jim will be reading from the book and there will be guest readers accompanying him. Space is limited, so we suggest you come early. Books can be bought through this link here or at Ravenna Third Place Books (which just ordered it’s second wave of books). We are super excited for this release and […]
