Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

EAP: The Magazine Archive

SO WHAT IF THERE IS THE OCCASIONAL ACCIDENT.

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by John Grey.

Broken dishes –
are they a good laugh or grief?

I love a woman who promised both
and kept her word.

So how do I adore the fragrance she wears today
and yet despise tomorrow’s?
I just accept them,
good or bad.
Same with the gifts.
Same with her family.
And all that’s happened.
And all that hasn’t.
How comforting it is
to never have to choose.

Dead flowers in a vase.
Clothes tossed recklessly across the floor.
But then there’s the feeling I get sometimes,
light and flowing,
like having wings.

I marvel at the passage of the years,
how none of it was rehearsal,
and everything that’s passed between us
could be kneaded, massaged,
until shaped like a heart –
a joy outside of reason.

It all comes down to
what I’m looking at now,
a floor full of shattered plates,
busted cups,
all knowing, all glowing,
with silken threads of sun.
No laugh. No grief.
Something else again.

 

 

Grandeval.

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by Cliff Beck. When the Hittites took Babylon I was not there nor did I fight in Iraq for Bush and Blair. I refused the cross, was never on crusade and bought no penance, yet still paid all my dues. I wasn’t seen when the great witch hunts were made and was never one to […]

The sookies.

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by DS Maolalai. my uncle had hands strong as wood, sawn from an old cork tree. knuckles and tufts stiff as knots on a riverboat siding and children as tough as him, gristly and growing as strong. it must have been strange for him, showing this city child animals which he kept for nothing but […]

Grandfathered In.

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by Katherine Olsen. The alcohol running through my veins started in my grandfather’s. Who said that my inheritance would only come from grandma’s side? I never understood why my father would never watch us playing catch, I couldn’t understand why mom sent me off to grandpa, made me ask. My skinned knees trophies of athleticism, […]

Small Game.

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by Robert Estes. I only shot at an animal once It was a lucky shot Not for the rabbit who was disabled by it, lay there giving out with that distress cry I’d only heard as a blown fox-hunters’ call before: now seen as authentic My friend finished it off with the gun butt Good […]

Pop Song.

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by Virginia Bell. after Diane Seuss I met my father again in The Pleasure Chest on North Milwaukee, in the garden center on Clarke called Gethsemane, in a nightclub in Spain back when everyone was playing The Police on repeat, and he said to me, is that you, little chickadee, he said, like a monk […]

Aside.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli. Field of infinite whispers. Supple blades of pale sage,
the color of cat eyes. How they widen / wink in sunlight. It’s not always clear what is real. The past is ever present / now slips out from under us. Day at the shore, look out for the horizon. Memory traces a […]

Profile.

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by Joel Glover. There’s a lot to know about Gwen Leonhard. For example, this is a woman who really loves a footnote[1]. Another thing about her is that she is laugh-out-loud funny, adding beats of wry humour[2] or pure silliness which bring a depth and vibrancy to her characters. As an emerging author, Gwen isn’t […]

The Magician’s Wife.

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by Tod Davies. When it finally happened, I wasn’t sure what went wrong. I knew there were other wives before me. After many years of a marriage that made it through the hard times, now it was going to go belly up on success. I couldn’t be the first woman who, then, hears her husband […]

e-station.

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by Tom Ball. E-station was a space station orbiting Earth. The population was 1000 of the richest and most famous and 20 000 clever servants. And typically 1000 tourists. All sorts of celebrities: geo-architects, Virtual Reality (VR) actors/actresses, VR designers, various magnates, famous escorts and so on. Gravity through a gravitron/centrifuge. Powered by the sun […]