Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

Fall 2026: Emerging Doubt.

Spinning Yarn.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli.

 

I have wished myself a weaver.
Kept scraps, cottons and wools,
lines from old notebooks,
letters, dream whisps,
Images I could fit in
to turn out something fresh.
Is it stealing to take from ourselves?
Or is it preserving, persevering?
Does everything have a breaking point?
We’ll be overrun if we keep it all.
Tighten the yarn, hold the line.
Hem and haw, avoid eye-contact.
A question can offer closure
or an opening. Transformation
is one answer. It seems to go
like this with emerging doubt:
like pulling a loose end, until—

The Foolish Frogs.

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by Matias Travieso-Diaz.      Deeming this king unworthy of them, [the frogs] sent messengers to Zeus, asking him to change their king, because the first one was too lazy. Zeus was irritated by this, so he sent them a snake as king, by whom they were all snatched up and eaten. Aesop, Fable 44 Once […]

excerpt from “ChatEntropy.”

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by T.C. Eisele. The homepage of ChatEntropy is surprisingly non-descript. All that’s there is the word “ChatEntropy” in a large, stylized font and “Enter” in a smaller typeface underneath. When he clicks “Enter,” Marsh is presented with a pop-up box that asks him to type in a username. After he types in the nickname “Seraph” […]

Some Hidden Fire.

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by James C. Clar.   “Under the pretense of administering wholesome medicines, the physician had been cherishing the hidden fire of the disease.” ~ The Scarlet Letter     Some years ago, while perusing a little-known library that had once belonged to an early nineteenth-century Unitarian society in Providence, I encountered an object that defied […]

Keep Turning the Kaleidoscope.

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by David D. Horowitz. Doubt engenders tolerance, which motivates many to consider diverse viewpoints despite feeling weary of indecision. Yet, many extremist and charismatic leaders fear doubt; they crave worship instead. Their followers are expected to accept canned answers provided by sycophantic acolytes charged with keeping order in the ranks, so the leader can continue […]

On the Silence of Women.

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by Tod Davies. Some years ago, I was a guest at a dinner party given in honor of the gallery opening of an artist friend of mine. There were a number of people there I didn’t know, although I did recognize two older women I had talked to at the show’s opening. They had been […]

The Life of Pythagoras.

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by Bruce E. R. Thompson. Historians sometimes make mistakes. (Don’t we all?) A notable mistake occurs in a document from the 3rd Century C. E. in the writings of a philosopher/mathematician named Iamblichus. Iamblichus himself is of no great importance, so this essay is not about him. However, he was a member of the Pythagorean […]

A Leaf of Discovery.

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by Benjamin White. Despair wanders and stumbles Into Truth With proof challenging The given, The taken, And the acceptable While changing certainty Into a leaf falling Saddened by The circumstance of seasons When chance analyzes The reasons why Honesty has chosen To distance itself From the face And facts Of reality As a paradox Of […]

My Encounter with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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by Yahia Lababidi. The phrase is meant to humiliate. “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” as the president called it last December, is a way of converting moral objection into pathology, of dismissing concern by diagnosing it as hysteria. Yet after what I encountered, personally, from those who bandy about this diagnosis to silence valid criticism, the term […]

WHO ARE YOU.

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by John Grey.   I’m barely in the shop and the girl behind the Starbucks counter is already filling my order, me being predictable and she, only eighteen or so, with a gift of knowing who gets what, an instinct to match a migrating bird’s. I drink my latte alone at a table in a […]