Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Exangel

Mermaids.

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by Barry Vitcov.

I’d like to believe in mermaids
any myth actually
comforting thoughts and desires
requires imagination
and a willingness to forgive
rationality and lust

When you emerged from the sea
shimmering with hope and possibility
my willingness washed away
like temporary sand castles
absorbed back into former memories

Which aren’t really what they once were
body surfing and tumbling
swallowing salty water
and feeling untangled
among mermaids and other myths

 

Harbor.

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by Frederick Pollack. Spent half the voyage throwing up. May even have lost weight. The face reluctantly seen bending over the sink in my cabin had lost all hue but that of rosacea. However, by the time we docked I had gotten my sea legs, and stood on deck in sweaters and backpack with the […]

Seascape Questions.

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by Ron Singer. 1. If an offshore rock is washed by a wave, and the wave, outgoing, like a hand, scoops sand over the rock, sure, water and sand (and salt, sun, and wind) over a time, concertedly, turn rock to sand. II. If a cloud sails past out toward the sea, and people on […]

The Imperfect is a Pal to Evolution.

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It’s an imperfect world, and we just live in it. But there is imperfect and imperfect. Perfection, as I never tire of saying, is the enemy of the Good—the end of all life, of all change. The Good is life changing for the betterment of all, and when I say ‘all’, I mean the entire […]

Elsa (from “My Life With Dogs”).

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by Tod Davies. Life moved on. We did too—from the working class Irish neighborhood where we’d outgrown our small bungalow to a rambling old house set in a row of other rambling old houses. These once were inexpensive homes for the working class. My father had lived two doors down as a teenager. Now he […]

Primer.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli. Let’s begin here. The books have pictures. The grainy paper has lanes. The pencils are sharp. Who minds if some letters are backwards? Once in a while. The jaded bend with distraction, seeking surprise where others look forward to familiar. Pink erasers. Washable glue. The future holds what we imagine. Let’s […]

Garden Ethic.

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by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman. I planted tomato and pepper seeds yesterday and put them out in the cold frame on heat mats to germinate. I have a little greenhouse space, but, um, I’ve turned it into a writing room. This is an experiment this year, putting them out right away. I hung one of the […]

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by Chris Farago. There’s a lot of mental pacing going on with this science fiction business, trying to suss out the proper changes to make to this world to make it different enough to be attention-grabbing for whatever audience one presumes to present it to. There are full universes where the air is solid and […]

Mama Ndolo’s Women.

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by Brian Griffith. “Mama” Benedetta Ndolo led a village women’s group in the Iveti hills of Machakos district, in Kenya. From the top of the hill in her village you could see for miles to the northwest, over the dusty countryside stretching towards Somalia. For a whole afternoon she took me around her village, showing […]

Fermata.

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by Chris Farago. We endure, as do the Idaho pines, as does the call from crow to crow to crow. We endure because we must, if we are to see the season out, if we are to see the season in.