Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

EAP: The Magazine Archive

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 shore
look up from lunch,
from projects in sand,
castles and sketches,
someone will say,
“An amoeba, a turtle,
the nose of a giant!”
Yes, someone will certainly
claim that they see
a meaningful shape
or congruency.

III.
When thecloud has sailed
far out to sea,
sooner or later
it comes down as rain,
enters a wave
that rolls back in,
even to the rock
(which does, after all,
look like a turtle),
washes it clean,
speckles its top,
or even, by now,
turns it to sand.

 

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.

The Tenth Circle.

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by Ron Singer.                                 -1- Since Dante’s day, sinners had poured into Hell, mirroring the overcrowding above. So many misdemeanors, felonies, fell, that the nine circles, for money or love, could not hold a killer or sneak thief more (though palm-greasers and -greased worked hand-in-glove). To ferrying, Charon had added realty, but, like the rest […]

The Dragon & The Phoenix.

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by Rose Jermusyk. Once it was known by persons all, dragons were noble and answered a call; showing each phoenix the best place to shine out, esteem as theirs should live throughout. But came a time that would not end filled with the questions that no one could rend, doubtings abounding in need of a […]

The Price of Fish and the Value of Nothing.

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by David Selzer. When I was a boy I was often taken to the aquarium on the promenade by the Palace Pier, Brighton – a resort and commuter town on England’s south east coast. It was an hour’s train journey from London on the Pullman Brighton Belle – with its curtains and its table lamps […]