Three Stories
Ike Takes A Holiday
Anger cloaked him. Draped in folds. You could see it. Smell it. Hear air quivering. Like hornets. Like cymbals. Terrifying. Sensual. On the day the world ended Ike Steel scoffed from his penthouse. Glaring down. Like God. As chaos consumed streets. He was still. But for the ever-trembling rage. Scotch in hand. Despising it all. Then came the wave. Majestic. Roaring. For a moment Love gripped him. A lifetime too late.
Untitled (3 December 2009 - 3:35pm)
Get the water hot. Searing hot. So it cooks dry skin to bonito flakes. Caught in the drain. 1 part yours, 2 part mine, 3 parts the commingled slough of our frenetic prayer. Steam rising in a flock. Me hiding in wings. You hiding on TV. The anchor prattles. Sexting. Climate change. A tremble morphed into a half moon laugh. I know the laugh. It smirks. Says despising the world makes me love you more. But it doesn't.
War (Mistakenly Titled Kitchen Scene)
Call it bird watching. That's what Jimmy calls it. Same idea. The lucky glimpse something rare. Haunting. With a voice like a glitter-dipped sledgehammer. Or call it surgery. That's what Joe calls it. Fingers don't tremble. Plies flesh from bone as if wielding a scalpel. So call it pissing steel. That's Tony. Odd. But one hell of a mothafucka. Yeah. Call it anything really. Anything but that. That might spoil dinner.
Joseph A. W. Quintela writes. Poems. Stories. On Post-it-notes. Walls. Envelopes. Cocktail napkins. Anything he gets his hands on, really. He writes poetry on Twitter. Some people think that's cool. But, whatever. His work will (has) appear(ed) in Right Hand Pointing, ABJECTIVE, Blink-Ink, Writer's Bloc (Rutgers), Niteblade, Ghostlight, Breadcrumb Scabs, Rose & Thorn, and lines written with a razor. Actually, he wrote those lines with a battle axe. But, whatever. He got bored. So he started editing Short, Fast, and Deadly. Which is funny. Because he's none of these things.