Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Exangel

once.

by

by Brendan McBreen.

once

 

people would gather food
and store it in little towers
these little towers dotted the landscape
and all was plentiful

after a time
some of these towers
were combined
into one big tower
and it kept gobbling up the other towers
until it was the only one left

no one had enough to eat
no new clothes
houses crumbled
but soon enough
the big tower fell
and everyone had enough again
and went back to making many little towers

however
in time
the little towers were merged again
and people suffered
then
as before
this tower fell
and people prospered

then later
the little towers
were once more
merged into a single tower
this time
reaching higher
than anyone had seen before
again
people were without
they cried and whaled
but the tower
would not fall
soon
the people were
so hungry
they all turned to salt
and the land
turned to salt
and there was no one left
except
one angry little boy
on top of the crumbling tower
one mean little boy
throwing rocks
at birds

Teaching’s Tightrope.

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by David D. Horowitz. I entered my mother’s apartment, as I often visited her to share dinner, chat, or help with errands. She sat on the edge of her bed. Whispering, she confided she was having a nervous breakdown, couldn’t teach or work, and would be in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks. She asked […]

Last Words of a Deteriorating Planet.

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by Jim Meirose. This cassette contains the only recoverable part of that final transmission. Fine tooth comb it viz the usual protocols, and place a report on my desk by close of business today. You heard the boss, run this out, let’s get started. Okay; push play hear r’ rainy all came grain-wokin ‘n rollan […]

The Once and Future Conundrum.

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by Bruce E. R. Thompson. “If…then…” statements—or conditional statements—are made up of two component statements. The full conditional statement asserts that the truth of one component statement (called the antecedent) is a sufficient condition for the truth of the other component statement (called the consequent). For example, clouds are necessary for rain, so, if we […]

Shrink, A.D. 2075.

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by Tom Ball. I said to him, “Your pretence to be a normal human, was flawed. There are no longer any normal humans. Everyone was crazy and most were freaks.’” Of course, the law required everyone visit a psychiatrist once a month. And I was one of the more expensive shrinks, so I got to […]

The Magician & the Goose Girl.

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by Rose Jermusyk. A magician once sunk their hands into their chest, eagerly removed their own heart, and held it out as an offering. But now that same magician sinks those same hands into the earth to dig a grave or prepare a planting, they don’t know which. Piece by piece the heart once offered […]

Pick Yourself Up.

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by Tamra Lucid. When my band Lucid Nation first started out, almost every event we attended, music or zine, was in East L.A.. West Hollywood was full of progressive gay people, but the riot grrrl revolution had not yet infiltrated, except as parody costumes during the annual Halloween promenade. We decided we wanted to do […]

Blocked.

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by B.E. Nugent. It proved to be a welcome distraction. One thirty five in the afternoon of Holy Thursday 2022, winding down for the extra-long weekend and a quick check on the news headlines. That was a bad idea. War raging in Ukraine. Environmental collapse nearing irreversible. And then the gruesome murders in Sligo. Christ. […]

Shadow (from “My Life with Dogs”)

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by Tod Davies.   Shadow told me her name before we ever saw her. It was her real name, too. Not the name they’d given her in the shelter where she’d done so badly that they sent her to the dog orphanage in the Arizona desert—Fedwell Farms, run by Carrie Wright, who is close to […]

Female Icons of Medieval Persia.

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by Brian Griffith and Zhinia Noorian.   It’s widely assumed that women in medieval Persia were powerless, illiterate, and cloistered, and some of them were. But accounts from those times also show a host of bold, brilliant, or powerful women who made their marks on the country’s history and folklore. Here we give four brief […]