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A Planh for Bob Schrader.

April 30, 2014 by Exangel

by Charles S. Kraszewski.

When the springtime rolled around,
and the Little League season began,
you were always there to cheer on your little Billy,
your pale face smeared in Coppertone
(SPF-45, melanoma terrified you)
beneath your frayed Notre Dame baseball cap.
I remember once, how you ran to the hot dog stand
for isopropyl alcohol or at least hydrogen peroxide
barely disguising the frenzy that gripped you
after scratching your forearm
on the chain-link fence we leant on, in left field.
Lockjaw! Who wants lockjaw?

You took a flu-shot every year,
and when the weather report called for high winds
(super-cells, severe thunder storms)
you set up cots in the basement for Liz and Billy,
and drowsed there all night
among the mousy smells and spooky rustlings,
even though you lived in the mountains,
your lot enclosed on three sides by oak and pine.
The fourth side’s always open, you would say,
with a self-deprecating grin.

And that’s the side she finally came at you from, I guess,
Death, riding shotgun in a Ford F-150.
Did the driver have a plate with “Death is my co-Pilot” on the front bumper?
You wouldn’t have seen it anyway as you waited at the crossroads
that summer morning at 7:35,
at the crossroads of Destiny and Route 118,
for it was foggy in those hollows; even the hawks were grounded,
rustling the dew impatiently from their burly shoulders
on the naked branches of the incongruous cypress swamp
(to the right), above which the mist was just lifting,
burned off slowly by a sluggish red sun.
You looked that way, and nothing;
across the way: nothing.
No one pushed you from behind as you drove out onto the macadam,
hearing (for the last time) the careful crunch of gravel
as your tires left the country lane for eternity.

Did you take your vitamins that morning?
Did you scald your oral cavity with Listerine
in preparation for that sale, on which would depend
your bonus, and Ocean City in July?
Did you promise yourself to get up early, tomorrow,
and run, before work, as you strained to button your polyester pants?

Fool, saith the unforgiving parable, knowest thou not,
that today thy soul will be required of thee?
But I call you no fool, as no one knows the hour or the day,
and now that Harold Camping’s been proven wrong (again),
that leaves only the Father in Heaven Himself knowing the hour, and the day,
when the majestic hammer will fall from the open fourth side,
and all the colors of the world explode into a brilliant black.

The bills from the water company will continue to arrive,
addressed to Robert Schrader;
The envelope from Publishers Clearing House
with your name misspelled again;
but you fear no more the heat of the sun
or the warming of the colors on the Terrorist Threat Index;
turns out you didn’t have to give up your vices after all,
whatever peccadillos you allowed yourself;
and when the receptionist calls to confirm the appointment
for the colonoscopy you so fretted over,
her voice will falter in embarrassment when Liz breaks down and tells her,
after which, she’ll delete your information from her screen,
and call her own husband to Get them damn brakes checked already.

I thought of you today, walking through the woods you feared
When the deer scrape up against the firs,
they leave their ticks there;
have you never heard of Lyme disease?
I will make no mournful apostrophe to fountain or to rill;
They knew you not, animated as they are by a different life,
subject to a more refulgent demise that often smells of mint;
it is a classical trope, and insincere.

But as I walked through the prehistoric ferns,
the solitary mullein performed a gentle exorcism,
placing a green furry leaf upon my unquiet heart.

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Natural and Un., Spring 2014: Disasters

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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