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by Gary Beck
Our tomorrow may perish
while we, sinned against, or sinning,
sleep our fleeting days away.
This sorriest creation clot,
blighted city,
where we whimper longings,
yet consume the future
in bloated feastings
couched and dreamy,
lost in expectations
that make us wait and wait and wait,
until our moment fades.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater.
by Jason Fialkovich
Bitter-Blue Red
This semi-bitter red table wine goes great with red meats and pastas. Enjoy it with a romantic, home-made dinner for two. The flowery aromas will make you feel the warmth of passion and desire. When that special someone tells you to stop rubbing against her, she has a headache and she’s just not in the mood tonight, finish the rest of the bottle alone. The vines that these grapes grow from are hand-picked and enhance the sensations in the hands and loins. While your loved-one sleeps soundly, the wine arouses and motivates you to please yourself. Masturbate under the sheets but be sure to aim at your partner’s backside. In the morning, when the sheets are stuck to her ass, tell Cynthia you don’t remember a thing about last night. Blame it on this incredibly delicious wine. She’s a cocktease anyway, and you can’t do much better. You’ll have to try again later in the week with another one of our remarkable wines!
Warning Welcome Chardonnay
This sweet Chardonnay makes a great welcoming gift for any new neighbor! Pair it with brie or goat cheeses. When you find out your new neighbor is a young man—a few years older than your high school daughter—tell him to never look or lay a finger on your baby girl. When that bold new neighbor drinks this wine, gets extremely intoxicated and begins smooth talking your daughter, take this bottle out of his recycling bin. The glass is thick and heavy, hand-blown by some of the most skilled and vicious hands in the country. Hit the son of a bitch over the head—he’ll more than likely be knocked unconscious after just one blow. That’ll teach him. This Chardonnay offers a proper welcoming. Check his frig and take back your fine cheese—you’re entitled to it.
Deceitfully Sweet Riesling
Our vineyards in the lower Adirondacks have the richest soil to provide our grapes with the most robust and sweetest flavors for any wine. We select only the ripest grapes to put into our wine, which make Deceitfully Sweet Riesling ripe for pranks as well. Convince your friends it’s fruit juice, especially Timothy Chasten. Ever since he’s been going to A.A. he acts like he’s some sort of martyr and gets everyone’s attention and sympathy, while you’re still stuck with forty-three more hours of community service even though it was his idea for the two of you to get drunk before coaching your son’s tee ball game.
Deceitfully Sweet Riesling gets its name from is unbelievably sweet flavor and smoothness, Timothy will have no idea that once he’s a few glasses in, he’s relapsing. Be sure to call his sponsor when he’s pants-less and on his way to the zoo to hug a giraffe. Also try it with tart desserts like lemon cheesecake or Granny Smith apple pie!
Jason Fialkovich has dreams of becoming a food and wine critic, not a "hungry alcoholic."
by Dan Kelty
I dreamt I was Neruda’s scribe
copying his final poems, the day the black-
shirted soldiers came for him.
Neruda didn’t blink when they arrived.
He just stood up smoothing his jacket and asked
them to excuse his untidy apartment.
I dreamt you were one of them, smiling
wryly beneath your cap and mustache.
I knew that you had dreamed of blood,
wine-dark and redolent, frothing halfway
up your boots. You eat it with your oatmeal,
you swine. Only deep conviction of
one’s own loss can produce such a prodigious
appetite. I’m not proud of you, or
of myself, sitting at the table
in the room now empty, even of shadows
and echoes, while the old man’s
shoes still sit there next to the sofa,
as the smell of gladioli wafts inward
from the garden.
(Real Titles of Real Books)
by Jeff Klooger
Some books should never have been written; others
are indispensible. Some demand to be read by all who pretend
to taste and culture; some can be faked
with only the briefest acquaintance, condensed
to a meagre phrase or word. Some books are lost forever;
only their titles remain: like Archimedes’ On Sphere-Making
or Suetonius’ Lives Of Famous Whores. Some titles live on
long after their books are remaindered, pulped, forgotten; and some
deserve a life of their own, whatever the merits
of the wisdom they once served to herald.
Take Howson’s Handbook For The Limbless: a title
at once profound and cruel; or Derek’s Memorable Balls:
crude but delightful. Luccock’s Living Without Gloves
would seem essential, and How To Be Happy Though Human
is surely needed today more than ever.
What’s Wrong With My Iguana? seems designed
for a limited audience, but What To Talk About
is a lesson all could learn. How I Lived
On 4 ¾ d. A Day. By A Woman Who Now Realizes
That She Has Hitherto Eaten Too Much
is a salutary tale, without need for further elaboration,
and How To Make An Atomic Bomb In Your Own Kitchen
– Well, Practically! is exciting and frightening at the same time.
The maritime trilogy – How To Avoid Huge Ships,
How To Save A Big Ship From Sinking, Even Though Torpedoed
and How To Abandon Ship – would be perfect reading
for that ocean cruise, and Rappole’s Birds Of The Mid-Atlantic,
And Where To Find Them could offer some amusement
on the way. Intriguing is the word for Montague’s
Troubles We Don’t Talk About, and Bell’s Sex And Death
In Protozoa: History Of An Obsession promises a lively read
about things that really matter – well, to Bell, at least.
Pritchard’s The Abuse Of Elderly People: A Handbook For Professionals
might prove too tempting to those without the right credentials,
but The Development Of A Procedure
For Eliciting From Boys About The Nature And Extent
Of Their Stealing belongs on every parent’s shelves.
1587, A Year Of No Significance might be passed over
but Wright’s A Three-Foot Stool draws our attention
as well as admiration. Charlie And His Dog Shag
might just be silly as well as depraved,
but de Windt’s monumental Moles And Their Meaning.
With Regard To The Mind, Morals And Astral Indications
In Both Sexes, Being A Modernised And Easy Guide
To The Ancient Science Of Divination By The Moles
Of The Human Body (Founded On The Works And Researches
Of One Richard Sanders, A.D. 1653, And Other Eminent Astrologers
Of About The Same Period) is clearly as undeniably earnest
as it is preposterous. When Hawkins wrote his treatise
Mathematical Principles Of Theology; Or,
The Existence Of God Geometrically Demonstrated
did he expect us to remember it two centuries on?
Yes. I’m sure he did. As do all authors,
who love their books enough to lavish
titles that sing and holler and creak
and make us readers wonder what’s inside
an author’s head. I mean, A Kiss For A Blow
we can all understand, and How To Cook Husbands
has a ready-made audience, but Sex After Death
seems optimistic, if not perverse.
There Must Be A Reason is a plea,
not an argument, and Not Worth Reading
is self-deprecating to the point of madness.
Elizabeth Ross, author of How To Write
While You Sleep, may have the right idea.
How else to explain Planet Of The Knob Heads
or Kinky Finds The Clue? Give up,
you bibliographers and bibliophiles!
Watch out for those exploding spiders!
Beware The Glands Of Destiny!
Read at your peril. Write at your reputation’s expense.
Jeff Klooger listens, thinks and writes, not necessarily in
that order.
