Dan Souder's Literary Journal

Hello and welcome to the 20th issue of The Brasilia Review. After five years we have surely moved house and home. Saudade, Brasil. We are now publishing from almost directly atop the San Andreas Fault, so good luck.

I’m this guy in California, out in San Mateo with the men and women selling bottled water and begonias at intersections. I’m selling a product, canned spasm. First time I cracked one open, I felt it ricochet in my belly and out the bellybutton like light shot from a conical flower if a flower shot light. Really it just made a funny sound. Canned spasm, making me ham it up loudly. You do big, you do, I explained it as, at a respectful distance from their car windows. Like watching, or… And then they checked out, like people often do when they sense some thing about me.

Past contributor, poet Darren C. Demaree has a new book out, A Fire Without Light. And he has another one called Two Towns Over coming later this year. Well done.

And now we present:

Fiction

The Chinese at Pearl Harbor by Craig Loomis

    “as if to demonstrate: this is what you do before putting your head underwater”

Non-Fiction

Old Taverns of New York by W. Harrison Bayles

    “This they refused to do and forbade the whipper”

Poetry

Silent Comedy by Matthew James Friday

    “felt-tip side burns”

Old Loves by Henri Murger

    “and, well-a-day!”

Birth of a Housing Estate by Chris Palmer

    “A mob of kangaroos takes to the air”

One Choice by Terese Pierre

    “at the loge of / the world”

Emily Dickinson’s Dog by J.R. Solonche

Issue 19 of The Brasilia Review, November 2017

For when you shop: regular red-eye remover drops mildly sting after application. Get the kind with moisture. Regular red-eye remover drops aren’t silica or other base elements. They are liquids and ipso facto have moisture. But this word on the outer box of differentiating red-eye remover drops means the post facto hardly sting isn’t there at all. Set the atoms of a million base elements, that when combined form red-eye remover drops, in a petri dish. Introduce the chemical process that will join all the atoms into red-eye remover drop molecules at the same time. Is there a nanosecond at the instant of combination where the molecules exist, and thus voila c’est! red-eye remover drops, but the petri dish is not yet wet?

Rob Cook lives with someone who almost isn’t there. Matthew James Friday continues his sharp series of Europea quotidiana. Margaryta Golovchenko lives where the sound in the air melds with its hearer. Sandeep Kumar Mishra thinks his way out of a trap. And Joel Schueler has enough heart left to generate disgust — a feat in our drug-evened world.

Kleist is our first of three excerpts this issue. His prose is like walking on old leaves that have never seen the rain. Musset is more philosophical, a frequent claimant as quick witted as a comedian. Johnson in all his non-fiction pens prose as he would lecture. Here his eye turns critical in a manner we bardolators do not often hear.

Check out cover artist Guy Benjamin Brookshire’s stunning podcast, The Republic of Sin.

–ed.

Fiction

The Roommate by Rob Cook

    “like the steady breath of insects that lived in the walls”

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist

    “he was almost sorry he had sent a messenger to annihilate the prophecy”

The Confession of a Child of the Century by Alfred de Musset

    “Are you passionate? Take care of your face.”

Non-Fiction

Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson

    “the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the learned see that they are compleat.”

Poetry

A Different Toy; Dog Walking in Krakow by Matthew James Friday

    “his owner wrapped in age”

The Marsh by Margaryta Golovchenko

    “My lazy minnow self lives here”

Descending into the Earth by Sandeep Kumar Mishra

    “in the mirror of vitality”

I’ve Seen You About by Joel Schueler

Welcome to the 17th issue of The Brasilia Review.

Our cover as always is by the talented Guy Benjamin Brookshire. He has begun a wonderful new project, a podcast, a sort of sound-designed audiobook hybrid. It is unique among its colleagues. It tells the story of an imaginary world with thoughtful, sometimes disturbing allusions to our own. Each episode is headed with a new piece of GBB art. Check it out, The Republic of Sin.

Our next issue will be in July. Submissions are open!

Erstwhile here is some fine reading.

Non-Fiction

Rivers of Norfolk: River Thurne by Tor Falcon

    ” …if you keep your dykes full, all the blessings of the natural world will be yours.”

Poetry

The Magistrates by Peter McCann Ashton

    “a native of mauritius we are told until / his investments all went south”

Faustus and Helen by Grace Babcock

    “Just to fill his eyes / With someone”

Romance by Natalie Crick

    “Soft little bloody mouths”

The Legion of Demons by Charley Foster

    “I fold my beautiful arms and say: Bring it”

Carefully Cutting; The Goat Knows by Matthew James Friday

    “its legs speak of living / stubbornly sticking out into the gutter”

Ufos Pretend America Is Good and Clean; Sickly Yoga Dumpster Called Humanity by J.E. Gibbs

    “for the machine is sickly”

|| Airbags || by Jacob L. Peterson

    “antibiotics scattered across the back seat”

Flag Girl by Eliana Rebecca Wong

Gershwin song, 1941, ukulele instrumental

Hello and welcome to the new issue of The Brasilia Review. We are now on Twitter. Join us via our editor @DanSouder_. Alla y’all.

In this issue, Stephen Brockbank continues to show he’s one of the best contemporary experimental writers. Justin Fenech pens a gripping mise-en-scène, part travelogue, part drama. Bethany Mangle wrings emotion from memory. And Jupiter Reed finds a martyr carrying on.

In our Poetry section, Matthew James Friday turns his penetrating eye to ceremony. Londzo’s kinetic prose defines a piece of life. Lucy Ryan sees a microcosm in a campfire. And Courtney Turley breaks our hearts with what we have in common.

Cover artist Guy Benjamin Brookshire crushes it again. Visit his site asap.

The next issue will be March 2017 and submissions are open. Thank you.

Fiction

I Remember by Stephen Brockbank

    “they were about to fall round the circumference of the earth”

A Couple and a City by Justin Fenech

    “I should make a clean break and stay here.”

Mother by Bethany Mangle

    “brow slick with the sweat of her labor, body marred by giving life”

chaos theory by Jupiter Reed

    “fifty holes in my socks from all the mice kisses”

Poetry

Trashy Wedding by Matthew Friday

    “a hundred or so lime-green wishes / of everlasting love”

Close to Joy by Londzo

    “Man, I wanna be a mighty legacy.”

burning clothes in a backyard by Lucy Ryan

    “three boys spilling language”

Defining Moment by Courtney Turley