Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

EAP: The Magazine Archive

Springtime Walk.

by

by Marissa Bell Toffoli.

Your shadow catches
mine, stretches long
up the sidewalk,

plays hide and
seek in patchy
sunshine. You turn

a falling leaf
into a butterfly.
But you can’t

pick the neighbors’
spring gardens clean.
Look how young

flowers welcome sun
and rain. They
bend, heavy under

the water weight
until they feel
light again, lift.

You won’t wear
the raincoat, no,
thank you, please.

Learned to lean
on magic words
to get what

you want. This
is power – wielding
words. Dealing in

butterfly dreams. Imagination’s
half-magic makes things
feel real. Why

not embrace beginnings
like blossoms on
stormy days? Disbelief

dogs us. See
for yourself how
our shapes merge.

My jacket rustles,
shaking off raindrops.
Rusty wings spread

wide open. We
take flight, chase
joy’s fleeting light.

Control.

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by Barry Vitcov. The desire is to hold control and, once achieved, sustain control. It’s the moral dilemma facing those who wish to maintain control with the likes of an intelligence built by those who once defamed control. Building a thinking machine, the dream of making easy the chain of control may have unleashed the […]

Identity.

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by Barry Vitcov. reflections in a pond only half the story rippling, fluttering, mutations like the emergence of butterfly wings hearing a lullaby which sings half a story the other half standing projecting the captured image two halves make one a magician and his other half what is seen what he wants to be

The Final Act.

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by David Bolton. 1 I follow a shrouded goddess the sun is hollow, the ocean flat oh, to see her face… touch those velvet lips before she flows over that wall of sand. on the shore I lose her and I sense I cannot pass Not my time. 2 The spider spins its flower into […]

The Armor You Built.

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by Jonah Kruvant.  A symphony of the street and a universal smile The sun beats down on my head as I write at Pause Café in the Lower East Side on a New York City street. The people passing by my table are in their own individual worlds while simultaneously in mine. Thumbs bend, flex, […]

Compromise with the Air.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli. The edge of the world glows in the evening, enchants city buildings. Take in the view from on high. Gossamer bridges span dappled bay water, the skyline floats above foundations. You stand like a lighthouse, rigid with responsibility, signaling endlessly from your precipice. Watch as a crow swoops through the scene. […]

Foul weather (a parable).

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by Artur Grabowski. (Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski) He left the house and sat down on the seashore. Over there, far away, the navy-blue stripe beneath the uncovered sky. Past it broad fields, as cold as a fish-skin fur. Further on the greenish-yellow colour of life. On the smooth strand, transparent crescents outlined in foam. […]

San Diego Zoo.

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by James Croal Jackson. after our red leash became frantic unsure of what grip the wilderness had or which eyeline to focus on oh aquamarine jewels oh black-silk storks name the artist who decided traffic was a logjam in their brain all you must do (golden hour brown on the frizz of your hair) is […]

Kitten Dreams.

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by Bruce E.R. Thompson. Feel your whiskers! The garden calls, for it will soon be night. The time has come to breach the door and scuttle out of sight. No sound will vex the silence but the calling of a loon, as, on soft paws, we creep beside the shadows of the moon. Beside an […]

the blooming meadows.

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by Jakub Paczesniak. (translated by Charles S. Kraszewski) the blooming meadows spread wide just outside the door a stream of honey-coloured light fell from the sky the trees turned their green faces in our direction the valley filled with figures of air and we went along thinking that we’re going along alone