The Emergency Almanac

BIRD FIGURE AND THE LIKE

by Scott Zieher

Mixed media

CONSTANT TENSION DEVICE

by Scott Zieher

Mixed media

DESIGN FOR A DOLL HEAD

by Scott Zieher 

 Mixed media  

The Emergency Press is pleased to announce the release of Touched by Lightning by Ernest Loesser. It’s currently available in paperback for $15 at Powell’s, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or direct from Emergency Press.

We’re also anticipating these future releases:

September, 2009

Impatience by Scott Zieher

Early 2010

American Junkie by Tom Hansen

Various Men Who Knew Us As Girls by Cris Mazza

Emergency Press International Book Contest

We’re currently accepting submissions for our annual international contest for book-length manuscripts of an interdisciplinary, cross-genre, and/or multimedia nature. The winner will receive a prize of $1,000 and publication of their book by Emergency Press. Entry fee: $20. Submission info.

AWP Conference, Chicago, IL
February 11th–14th, 2009

If you’re in Chicago for AWP, be sure to see us at the bookfair in the Hilton and join us for a reading on Friday night:

Emergency Press Reading & Book Launch Party
Friday, February 13th, 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Kavi Gupta Gallery
835 W. Washington
Chicago, IL 60607

ROMANTIC ERA

by Ed Taylor

I hold in my hand a phone white and fair Shelley we hardly knew ye so this is the best I can do compare you to a day without sun indeed poetry is a Wonder Bra for the world (how many pushups should a man do anyway Shelley managed a thousand a day on Devil’s Island not enough to stave off the heavy barrel morning still steamrollered him where he lay) NOW flower of British womanhood Percy you gave and gave when your unit shipped out Keats found a bar drank pink squirrels till his pale high forehead leapt o’er the dales and hills chasing anything rhyming with orange but alas he passed out in the grass caught cold and slipped into something more comfortable it seems objects in history are closer than you think but everything then was small like a doll house Henry the 8th was just 5 ¾ and to visit your house Perce I duck and get troubled I thought you were taller but the gift shop girl says there’s a sale and nothing on earth is better than a bargain

ESL DREAM

by Ed Taylor

          In class the phrase is a fence. Chalk’s a finger bone. Gag on a new tongue in your mouth. Your lips burn. Bend over and learn.

          Over rows of class the blades whisper, taking names. I am, we are, he she it is, they are: you are not.

          There is a final test, one question: Who do you think you are? Prove it.

HOSTILE TAKEOVER

by Ed Taylor

I am here to tell you we mean business. We are not afraid of the oubliette, the leveraged buyout, green mail, the stiletto stashed in the leather tie, or low ratings. We have established a rump government seated in a deep vault at an undisclosed lending institution, and created a Ministry of Reptiles to deal with the security question. We have studied Picasso’s scarred apocrypha on ugliness and taken them into battle as bibles. Our technology allows us to ignore the mind, maneuver around the heart, and head straight for the stomach, where the true emotions crouch like toads. While we are indeed cubists we are not amused by your antic character; however, we possess a sense of humor and a flute carved from an arm bone, on which I will play corporate anthems of the world and other martial tunes. You abandon your casualties; we follow quietly with the night and offer them computer literacy and mustaches―you may recognize the man who cuts your throat as the one who rocked the boat.

You doubt our efficiency? We have placed an explosive device in your suggestion box: soon the walls will run red with your own naked ambition. You doubt our seriousness? Our catapults will soon fling angry babies over your walls―children born while we wandered in the desert who resent the sand in their diapers. We will see how you handle foster parenthood. You doubt our support? Look around―you see your best childhood friends, your elementary school teachers, your first sweetheart. They are our stealth weapons. Look again―they are spelling defeat with their bodies, fired up like the world’s most passionate cheerleading squad. You may as well know―your mother pilots our lead helicopter. However, she feels guilty, tears glaze her vision, her sight is clouded, her hand trembles on the stick, accidents happen. . . . We await your decision.

We are pleased to welcome Ed Taylor to the Emergency Collective. Check back soon to read his work.

ON DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

by Joseph Wood

Beware of mass voice. Of church bells tolling. Of guilt-driven parents, of snot-jammed children. Arson their porch decks. Arson their strip malls. Arson their Capitol, but save the interstates. Steal a horse. Make love to no one. Steal a river boat. Cruise the Mississipp’. The carp, in schools, stir up silt; The silt, in globs, smothers your soul. What is a soul? An antiquated map? A ripped page of algebra? A red dwarf burning, fading, breathing? Let no law snuff you. Let no law dress you. Go for a jog. Erupt your skin.