Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

poetry

Dead Moose In The Road.

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by John Grey.

Cars in both directions stop.

All drivers share the same helplessness.

A deep ditch stands guard on both sides.

There’s no getting around the corpse.

 

There are not enough of us to move the thing.

A few lean over the unfortunate beast.

Some turn their heads out of respect

One suggests a call to the nearest town.

 

The creature’s eyes are wide open.

Even in death, it takes man’s measure.

“You are angry, You are frustrated.

You are sorrowful. You are weak of stomach.”

 

Reinforcements arrive,

lift and drag the carcass out of the road.

“You really do need one another.”

The jolt of a rock slams the moose’s eyes shut.

 

 

 

Colas Breugnon.

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by Jerzy Liebert. (translated by Charles S. Kraszewski.)   The angels drive from Eden bold Men, birds, and deer trembling with dread. No more ambrosia, sweet and gold. They’ve given us cow milk, and black bread. God thought that quartering black bread, We’d wring our hands in anger rank But — bread tastes better than […]

Waterfront, Memorial Day ’88.

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by Stephen Mead. “Good Morning Vietnam” the theatre marquee read. I could see it between these porch beams & our neighbors roofs. It takes awhile to sink in, twenty years or more back then, to bring the war home, let the unmentionable surface for what it was, was not & will forever more be: both. […]

Since you asked.

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by Diana Morley. what two weeks in a hospital bed was like— my mouth so dry I’m careful— I fear losing tongue cells on opening doc explains, my intestine dry as a Lowe’s outdoor plant—adding too much water at first could simply drown it scooping last bit of ice from a paper cup with a […]

Forgetting.

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by Caitlin O’Halloran. I once lost my hairbrush and spent an entire evening looking for it. My mother always said I’d never get anywhere in life if I couldn’t keep track of my things. “You’re just like your father,” she’d tell me. My father could never remember anyone’s name. On the rare occasions when we […]

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 […]

Bottom of the Heap.

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by David Griffith. The working class has always been considered the bottom of the social heap. While working as a carpet-layer in Houston, I used to live with several other people in the back of a mechanic garage on the west side. We used to play guitars at night, and there was always lots of […]

For an Acquaintance and His Wife with Alzheimer’s.

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by Barry Vitcov. Who are you to say I would not be there? After all these years, you still have some doubt that in the end, when the world seems unfair, you would be abandoned and left without someone knowing well your questions and fears. Although we’ve often talked of the unknown, with worry in […]

Straight.

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by Holly Day. There is a stretch of highway in Kansas where the guy who was responsible for painting the line down the middle of the road fell asleep and drove into a field instead. It’s not usually a problem to pass this spot in the daytime, although if you’ve been following that white line […]

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 […]