Full Frontal Idiocy
I take full responsibility for depriving the world of Soon Rae Suks’ talents. True, she was certainly not in the pantheon of the cellists like Yo-Yo Ma, Pablo Casals or Jacqueline du Pre. Yet coming in second to those luminaries is nothing to be ashamed of. And that was the track she was on until I came into her life and imploded a promising career. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of what she might have been, had our paths not crossed. I was hired to escort Miss Suks’ four-week New England tour. I was a part-time culture critic for the Portland Press Herald. The...
Read MoreNameless Child
It’s a moment he must think on as he is secreted into safest sleep. The oboe descends from the lips, carrying itself from the body. When the principal violinist nods, a harmless bit of something vibrates out towards us. Its intention is to give the other musicians a block to sharpen their instruments against, a mostly forgotten progenitor of a note they chase to wear down. There is no name for this mournful song. It is not even a song, though it sounds the same each time they take it out—something before music. It holds to it the wires that reach the nerves. I close my eyes after the...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of March 2 (Religion)
In a time of religious strife, as global leaders call for worldwide unity, Wild Violet’s contributors challenge and celebrate religion. E.G. Catalano’s humorous fiction short, “The Truth About the Expulsion,” retells the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Deborah Ewing’s thoughtful short fiction piece, “Iqbal the Cat,” looks at reincarnation through the eyes of someone who never believed in it. In Gale Acuff’s poem, “Excruciatingly,” an adolescent boy contemplates heaven and unrequited love. Gale Acuff’s poem, “Living Water,”...
Read MoreAbd al Malik
The 14th arrondissement is proud of its Neuhof bro, the words like a double-major of classical literature and philosophy. Malik, “king,” the New African Poet transcending dyslexia, hypocrisy, moving from Christian to Muslim wishing Qu’Allah bénisse la France—may Allah bless France in a time of sorrow and sorry and hollow and now deep holes in today and, yes, even deeper hopes in...
Read MoreLiving Water
After Sunday School I threw up breakfast behind our portable classroom like it was sin, my breakfast I mean, Sugar Smacks and Tang, but at least I managed to keep it all in until we said Amen to the Lord’s Prayer. But Miss Hooker heard me outside the building, the walls are pretty thin, and watched me finish giving it up and didn’t say a word until I stopped, God bless her, because then it might’ve been tough for me to get the demons out. She’s my Sunday School teacher. If I’m ever going to marry her one day I can’t afford to be caught throwing up like...
Read MoreExcruciatingly
One day Miss Hooker will die and go to Heaven to live with the angels and God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost and all the good folks who never sinned, or not much, not enough to to go to Hell, and I wish I could say that I’m in that number but for ten years old I sin a damn-Hell of a lot, I mean everyday, if I didn’t know better I’d say I was cursed but I’m not blaming Adam and Eve though it’s probably their damn fault anyway but just myself, I guess I know the rules because Miss Hooker lays them down in class and warns us besides to take care of our eternal...
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