MSR Spring 2003
Features:Michael Wurster
Interviewed by Mike JamesSouthern Fried Fiction
An essay by Kathryn Bright GurkinFiction by Stepan Chapman and Donna Vitucci.
Reviews by John Birkbeck, Sally Buckner, Jen Hirt, Todd Hester, Jarrett Keene, Pat MacEnulty of the following work:
A New Film About A Woman in Love With the Dead by Lyn Lifshin, Merry Christmas, Jewboy by Dayvid Figler and Pete Sickman-Garner, sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way by Charles Bukowski, The Gospel According to Frank by David Lloyd, Lost Joy by Camden Joy, Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, A Punk in Gallows America by P.W. Fox, Silver Rose Anthology, edited by Kevin Watson and Alexandra York
Poetry by Joe Benevento, Lillian Bertram, Brad Buchanan, Michael Casey, Alan Catlin, Cara Chamberlain, Basil Cleveland, Deborah H. Doolittle, William Doreski, Thomas Dorsett, Doug Draime, Okla Elliott, C. S. Fuqua, Kevin A. Gonzalez, Marie Griffin, Dylan Guisti, Todd Hester, Adam Houle, Alan Kellerman, Valerie Lawson, Stephen Malin, Amanda Marbais, Mary E. Martin, Catfish McDaris, Ronald Moran, Rodney J. Owen, Lesley Parker, Bill Roberts, Margaret A. Robinson, Daryl Rogers, Cheryl Stiles, J. Tarwood, Martin Vest, Gwen Williams, A. D. Winans, Mark Wisniewski, Michael Wurster, Jan Young, Anne Zahran, Fredrick Zydek.
Cover Art by David Chorlton.
Photographs by Clare Brown, Keary Liu, M. Scott Douglass,
THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
by Stepan ChapmanPart one: In Denial
Long ago, during the soupy sloshings of the Cambrian period, there was a beach. On the beach lay a pool of salty water. And in the warm silt at the bottom of this pool, there swarmed myriad Skidgy-Poms and other small reticuloids of that ilk.
Dwelling among them was a Strabismic Skidgy-Pom. He had crossed eye-slots, protractile tentapods, and an aloof demeanor. He strained rotifers from the brine all day long and slept soundly at night, secure in his conviction that reticuloids were the scum of the earth. Why would such a conviction be pleasing to this delucidated creature? For a very good reason.
The Strabismic Skidgy-Pom saw his pool and himself so poorly that he didn’t realize he was a reticuloid. He imagined himself as something far superior to such a sneezly little ball of carboglop as a reticuloid. Just what he was, he wasn’t certain. Perhaps an infusiform endoproct, or possibly an oscular prosopyle, or even a megadrial pilidium. Who could say?
Whenever another reticuloid would wander past, the Skidgy-Pom would ginch up his olfactorons and spit up an ickish green exudate, just to be unpleasant.
“Who do you think you are?” the passerby would demand. “You’re just a carboglop reticuloid like anyone else.”
Such an insult would enrage the Skidgy-Pom. He would seize the offensive reticuloid in his tentapods, strangle the life from it, and toss its carcass down a ditch in the silt. At the bottom of that ditch, its flesh would feed the unmentionable Creeby-Sporbs that whisked and snockered in the primeval muck. Then the murderous Skidgy-Pom would laugh like a crazed Spoopy-Goo. He was stronger and fiercer than any lowlife reticuloid. Or so he thought.
In time the Skidgy-Pom grew old and feeble and wheezed through the leaves of his gills. One morning he gazed into a puddle of purple organicules and beheld his own reflection. At last he saw that he was only an odious reticuloid like all the rest. His neighbors had tried to tell him. And they’d been right all along.
Fallen into excruciate upsetitude and paroxismic malfeaslement, the Strabismic Skidgy-Pom gurgled forth protracted epiphathets of self-disgust. Finally he ripped himself open, yanked out his brain, and threw himself down the ditch in the silt. He was quickly devoured by the unmentionable Creeby-Sporbs that whisked and snockered, as you may remember, in the primeval muck.
The Strabismic Skidgy-Pom’s miserable misspent life was utterly forgotten, except by me. And I am only exceptional in this because I, merely by chance, happen to be the Creeby-Sporb that congested his memorial ganglion.
Want the rest of the story?
The conclusion can be read in the Spring 2003 issue which is still available direct from MSR for $7 at The Main Street Rag Bookstore.BACK TO TOP
ONE MAN’S COMMENT*
Michael Wurster, Pittsburgh, PA
Because we tell our history
to ourselves in images.Because Time and Newsweek
come out with pictorial editions
at the end of the year.Because we watch electronic boxes
in the evening, in our living rooms.Because of this a man
denied assistance in Pittsburgh
after a long wait, in February,
drops his trousers upon leaving
the welfare office and goes running
around the schoolyard across the street.This is one man’s comment
on the state of our economy.Later he is seen
in a doorway
up Carson Street.He is sobbing, and his bare buttocks
are cold on the hard step.
*Reprinted with permission from
The Snake Charmer’s Daughter
WALKING
Ron Moran, Clemson, SC
I was taking my usual walk
on Chapman Hill Road,
between the cemetery and
a field of rotting bales of hay,
when a rusted-out Ford Pinto
pulled up next to me, keeping
pace with my uncertain stride.A woman with straight hair
lowered the window, asking,
Have you accepted Christ?
I wasn’t ready for that, needed
time, so I smiled like an oaf
and fixed my eyes straight ahead
toward the road’s dead end.When I turned back toward her,
I said, We are on good terms.
She stepped on the gas, releasing
a bank of blue exhaust, turned
at the end of the road, gunned
the Pinto past me, and shot
me the bird, three quick times.
THE DOG HEARD HIM COMING FROM A HALF MILE AWAY
Gwen Williams, Bloomington, IL
His tires spinning gravel into the drive
and flooring the gas three times in park means
thirty bucks dropped at the tavern
on ice cold longnecks and the jukebox;
a box of fried chicken livers
and rocky mountain oysters to reheat;
his harmonica accompanying
country western songs
she wishes she didn’t know the words to.When the headlights vanish and the truck door slams,
the woman and dog move toward their places:
he sits on the pile of shoes at the front door;
she empties all the ashtrays
and rifles through cassettes
for the best of George Jones and Hank Williams.
She and the dog have plenty of time to settle
their rumps on plaid and wayward laces,
buckets and buckets of timebefore he stumbles, whistling,
into the front porch light to greet them,
cold greasy food cradled in the crook of his arm,
knowing as they do how much he enjoys
pissing on the bushes.
Burning The Complete Works of Sylvia Plath
Doug Draime, Ashland, OR
The suicidal Muse ran up and
down my walls screaming for
Sylvia Plath. It wasn’t my
Muse; it came with her. She warned
me about something like this
happening if my writing
became too positive or
encouraging. So, I called her
up.
“Look,” I said, “it’s running up and
down my walls screaming for
Sylvia Plath.”
“Calm down,” she said, “just turn the typewriter
off and it’ll stop.”“What?” I said.
“Turn the Corona off and it’ll stop.” she said
The Smith Corona was a gift from her when my ancient
Remington bit the dust. I told her to hold on a minute and
went over and turned off the machine. She was right, the
thing just disappeared with a puff of smoke. Back on the
phone, I told her it worked. She was silent for a moment.“What are you going to do now,” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I said
“Well, I mean, you got the thing stirred up
somehow and now every time you turn
the typewriter on the Muse is going to get
out and cause havoc. Each time it gets
worse.”“No shit?” I said, shocked.
“No shit!” she replied.
I thought for a moment. “Will burning the
Complete Works Of Sylvia Plath work?”
She was thinking now. “Well, you could give that
a try, probably wouldn’t hurt to burn all the Ted
Hughes stuff while you’re at it.”“Thanks I appreciate the help,” I said and hung up.
I didn’t have the Complete Works Of Sylvia Plath
and nothing by Hughes, so I went out and bought
them. When I got home I went outside, threw them
in an empty trash can and was about to torch them
when something like a spiritual revelation hit me.
I grabbed the Complete Works Of Sylvia
Plath out of the trash can and ran inside, turned on
my oven and baked her with the oven door open for
an hour. Then I gingerly took the smoldering books,
holding them with a pot holder, outside and threw them
in the trash can with her former old man, and torched
them good. I watched the books burn to ashes, then
emptied the ashes in my septic tank. I felt something
lifting from me and I knew it was over.I went in and turned on the machine. It purred
like a kitten. I waited for a moment and then
typed my first line: The Suicidal Muse ran up
and down my walls screaming for Sylvia Plath.
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