FICTION 01

DANIEL J. CALFO

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It’s where all my big ideas come from, dreaming.

Their heads were slightly bowed but not so much as to hide their eyes. All the feelings of fog and rain but nothing of the weather. No setting; it’s not missing, just pale in comparison, frightened with the weight of it all. They knew that I knew. I was getting up from something. I’d been fighting something the way somebody fights something quietly, sitting, in clothes clean and pressed and they remain that way through the dirt and scraping and that eventual first breath, which happened to be, for me, this dream.

They kept knowing, growing with it, knowing I wanted them to know desperately we were friends and they knew; us, copies of each other discovering the fact. They became more me, I more them, the result a balance, symmetry, precision.

It was looking into a dozen mirrors, it’s all one person, he’s a stranger, blink, she’s the quiet girl with the glasses in the back of English class blink he’s the pastor you admired as a man, hated as a theology blink she’s mom blink the first dead person you ever saw blink she says I Love You, you say nothing and the back of your eyelids are no longer black; they called it seeing the light.

They stare back. Think about how well you have been able to go through the motions of living until this point, the audacity of the love it took for these versions of you to watch you kick around, so blind. How they waited for you to look around, living with you, so closely.

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Daniel Calfo writes out of Portland, OR.  Daniel was a member of The Sparrow Ghost Collective’s first Slam Poetry Team of 2011and competed with the team in Portland’s Northwest Regional Slam. In the coming months, Daniel will help represent Lewis and Clark College at both the ACUI Regional Slam in Portland, OR, as well as at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, this year held in Los Angles, CA.Daniel has been a featured poet in the Portland Poetry Slam’s Encyclopedia Show and in Portland’s staple poetry open-mic, Word Out! A Poetry Open Mic. Some of his work is published in print in The Sparrow Ghost Collective’s first anthology of poetry and digitally via Pipe Dream Publishing. Some of the author’s other work, including original photographs, appear at (http://danielcalfo.tumblr.com), while the majority will be available in his first collection to be printed in the coming months. For questions or comments, address notes to DanielCalfo@Lclark.edu. 

ATTENTION WRITERS AND ARTISTS,

I have been receiving a plethora of lovely submissions from all of you and I am so grateful for your time. I wanted to add a little reminder that submissions should be sent to this link: http://pipedream.submishmash.com/submit.

If submissions are simply emailed to me, there is the possibility of them being accidentally overlooked. 

Thank you,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

Hey, remember that time…

I said PD was accepting submissions? Well, it’s true. I have gotten a handful of lovely pieces and need more for the Spring author/artist roster. Please send your works over so people can drool all over them.

^^^Depiction of someone appreciating your work.

Xoxo,

L.R. Dalby

Writers and Artistes,

PIPE DREAM is accepting submissions for the Springtime, lovelies! Send your brain babies to the PD Nursery!

Simply click on the “submissions” link to the left!

XXX,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

THE OTHER SIDE OF DISTANCE

ROY COUGHLIN

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We drove through most of the night, through most of Texas, through eight CDs and a mixtape you made for an ex, but you couldn’t remember which. We drove through hunger, fatigue, amphetamines, fatigue, hunger. We drove through a Carl’s Jr. at 6 AM, it was hot and cheap. We drove over cliffs but they were mirages, the heat making lines on the pavement, we drove over lines. We drove in the light of the day, unbidden in the light of the day, unbridled but broken, harmless but hopeful. On Wednesday we drove 14 hours. On Thursday we drove longer. On Friday, on Saturday. On Sunday we rested by driving in circles in the dirt of a parking lot at the edge of something, it did not matter. Before us we drove the past like cattle, like snow, like dirt, like great piles of the earth we drove it before us, wishing it were air, wishing it would slip and spill and sail away in long, unknowable, unseen waves around us, over us, behind us, through us, from us, beyond us. We drove ourselves crazy. We drove until the ocean.

God damn it, the ocean.

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Roy Coughlin repairs washers and dryers for a living. In his spare time he lies about being a writer. Supposedly, he has contributed flash fiction to Smalldoggies Magazine, PIPE DREAM Magazine, and HOUSEFIRE. He does his best lying at expatdepot.blogspot.com.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT,

Smalldoggies Press is having a bitchin’ competition to win a FREE copy of their new book! Aggh! Excite! Excite!

All you have to do is write a false/true story about a fight between brothers/siblings and post it to their wall @ http://www.facebook.com/smalldoggiespress 

I posted one just now that ya’ll can read: “ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO”.  I forgot to do that whole “editing” thing, so it is riddled with errors. Now is the time to strike!

That being said, I want this book. Bring it, folks. Blood in the water! Mutherfuckin’ thunderdome!

Also, “like” their page. They host an awesome reading series and their writers are talented and creative.

XXX,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

PIPE DREAM

FLOURISHES OF HALF DOLLAR RENOWN

RON KOPPELBERGER

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The sole resemblance of chance and need, wont and waiting freedom, was a struggle in scarlet battles of wine and snakes that shorn confederate passages allow. He considered the wisdom of promise and pose, able arts and existence.

The half dollar fell to the concrete and the wind sang, tiny tempests swirled in the rain tinctured sunshine spears of light. The coin spun on the edge of a grain of sand as the seconds passed. He saw the design of dust and the savor of oaths in ash and dew, in sovereign applause and ether, in affirmed delight and amazing, absolutely amazing taboo. The coin fell still and random wills sighed in relief as the sun whispered and the world continued to revolve. He had half dollar renown and a distant love of life.

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Dear reader,

Ron is a poet, a short story writer and an artist. He has written 102 books of poetry over the past several years and 18 novels: He has been submitting his work for the past two and a half years. He is thrilled by acceptance. He is always looking for an audience. He has published 642 poems, 600 short stories and 115 pieces of art in over 212 periodicals, books, anthologies and 9 radio Broadcasts. He has been accepted in England, Australia, Canada, Japan, India, Mauritius and Thailand. He loves to write and offer an experience to the reader. He is a member of The American Poet’s Society as well as The Isles Poetry Association and The Dark Fiction Guild. His art is viewable on Facebook under will806095@bellsouth.net, you just click on the profile and look under photo albums. He hopes you enjoy His work.

Website- Ronnie.Weebly.com

 (Swamplit)

Website- Shadowsatnighttide.weebly.com

Website- WolfFray.blogspot.com

Website- RavensWont.blogspot.com

Website- E-zine Ethrealsouls.blogspot.com

Website- E-zine Fathermostdream.blogspot.com

Website- Mirageinblame.blogspot.com

Sincerely Yours,

Ron Koppelberger

BEGGING FOR INTERRUPTION

D.N.A. MORRIS

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“I’m all right,” she heard herself say abruptly, surprised by the calmness of her voice.

No one could look at her after that.

They looked at the ceiling, the bendable desk lamp, the painting of a distant sailboat hanging slightly askew, the flower and triangle patterned linoleum, the stainless steel tray, the uneaten mash-potatoes that were too-white, the electric socket occupied by thick cords heading either direction, the small black television attached to the ceiling that seemed to be watching them, the cloth window shade that let in a dull yellow glow, and the heart-breaking almond wallpaper—but not at her. She’d thought silence would’ve been better than incessant solemn pleasantries.

She was wrong.

Rooms like hers were never really quiet, anyway. Outside, an industrial A/C roared carelessly. The noise didn’t bother her; the incessant whirring helped her keep it together. In a loud, mechanical world, somehow this all made sense. Everything made sense if you didn’t think too hard about it. Ironically, her room was always a little too warm. The almond wallpaper made sure of it.

“Everything’ll be fine,” she said again, looking at the faces hovering around her.

Their eyes still avoided her.

No one was breathing.

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D.N.A Morris is a writer from Houston, Texas. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Word Riot, Monkeybicycle, Crack the Spine, The Newer York, twenty20 Journal, Stymie, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Birmingham Arts Journal, and Nanoism.

Read more weirdness at: orage.tumblr.com

KNOCK KNOCK

Q: Who’s there?

A: Submissions.

Q: Submissions who?

A: I want more January.

Q: I want more January Submissions?

A: Yep.

You read me folks. It is time to clicketty clack away on that dusty keyboard of yours and submit some brainchildren to the PIPE DREAM nursery where they can grow big and strong and learn how to properly use scissors and keep their underwear on. Eh, maybe not the last one. But not in a weird pedophile way. Wait, what? Get your mind OUT of the gutter.

Did I just digress?

Yep.

Write. Draw. Photograph. MAKE SOME FORM OF ART. That isn’t crap (not that any of you make crap). Then submit it. Okay? Okay.

Love,

L.R. Dalby

Founder

PIPE DREAM