Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

EAP: The Magazine Archive

when the stars align chaos reigns.

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by JW James.

even with your eyes wide open you
will take the wrong road

this is the road of blizzards and fandom
your eyes are bloodshot you sing
anthems tonight that seem endless this

is the wrong road at the right time
you lose car keys and fall in love this
is the uncheckered or swirling road

take dramamine swallow honey &
a wrist watch under chaos stars
you never give up even when

all that you once held as true fails you

road of hens teeth and purslane
light your lantern raise it high
spread your light until chaos is lit

this is the wrong road if you still think life
could be otherwise you only find the right
road in the wrong time

the road is a river that brings you to
sea of urchins and sea pines
of sea otters and angelfish

in a time of misophonia and gurgle
airlifts dragnets travel alerts
all is miscues blunders mischance

swallow chaos stars
until you become stronger
until you can fly

 

Countervailing Forces.

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by Sean Murphy. An email, an angry thought, a meditation, a prayer; ill-will directed toward those who thrive on the perpetuated misery of those accommodating it. A severed friendship, letters to the editor, a withholding of affection, a refusal to smile mutely while the usual suspects recite talking points from pundits. Do you ponder that […]

Before you know it you’re pretty much dead.

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by Gale Acuff. and in the Afterlife, Heaven or Hell or a third place if there is one and if there isn’t then that doesn’t seem very fair or democratic but what do I know, I’m only ten years old, Eternity gets left to the grownups, I guess, but one day I’ll be one, a […]

Out of Sight Out of Mind.

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by David Griffith. In 2002, the Austin city government passed a resolution to clear out homeless camps. Basically, all this accomplished was to run them into woods. I had a homeless patient who was a heroin addict. I would stay in touch with her by calling on my cell phone. She would tell me where […]

Letters to Will, A.D. 2108.

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by Tom Ball. And so, it was I was a famous imaginative writer and I set up an advice column for peoples’ problems. Like, “Dear Will, I wish to become a Superwoman. Please advise.” I replied, “It’s a long process and you need to be very clever to begin with. The process involves growing a […]

How “Mother Persia” Got Made.

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by Zhinia Noorian. I was working on my PhD dissertation on the Persian female poet Parvin E’tesami, when Brian Griffith asked me to help him with his book project on the history of Iran’s women. Brian is an independent thinker and historian who is interested in women and their roles in shaping different cultures. The […]

A Blessing of Tears.

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by D. A. Hosek. They smell it before they see it: the reek of the monkey house mingled with the stench of death. They glimpse emaciated bodies of the barely distinguishable living and dead, yellow-grey skin in dirty blue and white striped unforms before the order comes down from Lieutenant Perry: The squad is to […]

A Field Trip to the Dark Woods.

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by Nick Engelfried. There is a mountain range in the far northwest corner of Montana, just below the Canadian border, where trees of assorted sizes and species grow jumbled together in dense stands and the fungi and strange, pale flowers living on the forest floor exist in perpetual shade. It is a dank, twiggy forest, […]

The New Garden.

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by Charles Holdefer. Outskirts of Pskov, 1569   In a clearing beside a stand of birch trees, Ivan the Terrible surveyed a bubbling cauldron of rabbits and waited for his son, Fyodor the Not So Bad, to stop talking. When would he shut up? “You see, Father, a man in your position needs a pastime. […]

What I Left Behind.

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by Lana Hechtman Ayers. What I left behind was the night sea, sand cool as glass on my bare feet, the sweet smell of cedar trees ashore, a short stroll to the place I called home, the last room where you still loved me.