October 2021 Issue (Fall) – Sparked Literary Magazine

Contents

Editors Note

“Trying to Get Back to You” by Cheryl Walker
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“Liquor” by Raquel Morris
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“DAEDALUS’ QUILL” by Julian Matthews
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“Pulled” by Lisa Molina
(The Ekphrastic Review—Poetry)
“Death Still Walks In” by D.R. James
(Notebooking Daily—Poetry)
“Crush” by Adele Evershed
(Notebooking Daily—Poetry)
“Praise Song for the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water” by Dick Westheimer
(Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge—Poetry)
“I, Astronaut” by Dick Westheimer
(Rattlecast—Poetry)
“When Sleep Comes Easy” by Dick Westheimer
(Rattlecast—Poetry)
“THE OLD BLACK CLOUD” by Bernardo Villela
(Furious Fiction—Fiction)
“THE PHONE BOX” by Bernardo Villela
(Furious Fiction—Fiction)

But wait… THAT’S NOT ALL!

Our First Ekphrastic Contest: Cherynobl

Winner
“Civil War” by Michael Prihoda

Honorable Mention
“it’s just like you to pair death with a star” by Seth Leeper
Honorable Mention
“that time we cast ourselves as leads in our own lives, then the bomb” by Seth Leeper
Honorable Mention
“Alexander Nevsky” by Carson Pytell
Honorable Mention
“Восход-2” by Kate Strong Stadt

“Trying to Get Back to You” by Cheryl Walker

Trying to Get Back to You

It isn’t ~~fair~~ right
that my body reacts
to your symptoms
as if it’s a choice
as if you know
that you’re whispering
beyond what I can hear,
excluding me from your
~~imagination~~ reality.

But—
you are—
and it hurts to
feel so pushed away
when I wish I could
pull you close and
reason with you—
say it’s not real
(only I can see what is)
that this world you’re in
is made of dreams
and—.
I used to be better.
More understanding.

Until that year when
every day got louder and
the police kept getting called
because there was no one else
and because you wouldn’t
sleep.

Instead, you would
drive across the country
seeing shapes and figures
that we couldn’t imagine
but worried constantly about.

You didn’t recognize me that year.
The visions too vibrant,
too impressive, I suppose.

When you looked past me,
screamed past me,
that was when I’d sobbed,
begging on my knees,
hoping that the clichéd pose
would register, that
suddenly you’d see—.

I’ll never forget how
we hurled our voices
at each other,
both of us hoping
that the volume would
help the words to land.
But the words were
like carrier pigeons
flying messages
through monsoons.

Only the pills worked.

And I still feel guilty
for how relieved I felt,
for the weight I let
drop from my shoulders
when mom called and said
“he remembers us again
he drew our names in a heart”
because I should have trusted
that you would come back,
you had always come back—

And when I hadn’t
believed that you would,
it’s like I snipped a string
somewhere inside,
pulled a trail from the
map of myself,
so that now, when the symptoms come,
I don’t know how to get to you—
don’t even know where to
look.

by Cheryl Walker
Cheryl Walker (she/her) is a ghostwriter turned high school English teacher living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Between grading and lesson planning, she carves a sliver of time to write creatively, often touching on mental health and mental illness. Her poems have been published in smaller journals, including The Mangrove Journal and Pioneertown.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “Liquor” by Raquel Morris

On this piece:

“Trying to Get Back to You” was sparked by the image “Leaping Crane” by Kim Sosin which was the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge for November 2020.

If you would like to nominate one of these pieces for our year-end Reader’s Choice Award click here and donate. $1 = nomination. Please do not forget to mention the piece you’re nominating. To learn more about the award click here, but in short, the piece with the most $1 nominations at the end of the year will get half of the donated money, receive 20 copies of a limited edition broadside designed for their piece and have their post pinned to the front of the website for all of December. This is one of the only ways we raise money for the magazine in order to pay all of our wonderful writers and keep this lights on here at Sparked.

Did you enjoy “Trying to Get Back to You” by Cheryl Walker?

If you would like to show the writer your gratitude for putting this piece into the world you can ‘buy the writer a coffee’ and send them a suggested $3 donation here. Be sure to mention that it’s for writing the awesome piece in your note. Writers very rarely hear that people like their writing, so tell them!

“Liquor” by Raquel Morris

Liquor

Walking through the city
on a wintery night
where everything feels
icy sharp
and more alone.
The barren trees
can’t shield me
from this mortal pain.
The brown stones remind me
of all that I’ll never have
inherited wealth
advantages of inherent sin.
The liquor store
shining bright
Emanating its warmth
of cheap companionship
found inside.
It creates a thirst
so pervasive
it can eat men alive.
My tribes barely survived.
Men can get lost in a bottle.
My Ancestors would say,
it’s because we’re already lost.
We’ve barricaded ourselves
from the natural earth
with concrete and brick
creating coffins
to keep ourselves
from feeling
our connection
to all, to keep us from going back
to the Earth.
Insulates us from the truth
of our cannibalistic ways
called civilization.
What is civilized anyway?
It’s Christmas consumerism
when we’re buried in debt.
Eating sushi with chopsticks
as we kill the rainforest for its wood.
A love for oil and coal
when our world is burning,
our dependency is swallowing us whole.
The goal is to rise above,
in the penthouse suite of a sky-rise.
The further you get from the ground,
the more God-like you become
delusions of grandeur
until you fall.
The liquor store light flickers
then you find yourself
walking towards it,
another fly towards the flame.

by Raquel Morris
(Author’s Statement)
“I have previous poetry published in Headline Poetry & Press, Nine Muses Poetry, and The Purpled Nail from Underwood Press. I also has a new piece being featured in iO Literary Journal July 2021. I enjoy articulating and expressing my experience as a Native American, woman of color, mother, and social worker. I am a story teller and activist, this June 2021 I was a Presenter at the Health Equity Conference in California among other activists such as, Dr. Stacey Abrams and Indigenous Activist, Corrina Gould. I have my Master’s in Social Work (MSW) and work as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. For more of my poetry and photography, check out elegantexistentialist.blogspot.com.”

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “DAEDALUS’ QUILL” by Julian Matthews

On this piece:

“My process is to study the art and let words start to flow like Freudian free association. In the painting, you see one shadowy person walking along a snowy street towards a liquor store so I felt could feel lonely desperation looking at it. Like watching a moth to a flame. I am also Native American (Choctaw, Navajo, Paiute) and alcoholism is something that impacts my community as well as my own family history, so that came through in writing this poem as well.”

“Liquor” was sparked by the image “Open All Night” by Kate Peper which was the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge for January 2020.

“DAEDALUS’ QUILL” by Julian Matthews

DAEDALUS’ QUILL

The fast cars you invented sit in unmanned garages,
fossilizing, just like the fuels they fed on.
The great ships you built are adrift in the ocean,
silent arks with no flood coming.
Your jets lie in formation on cold tarmacs,
deplaned and pilotless.

Perhaps, it is never too late to learn the lesson of Icarus.
We are all mere passengers
that flew too close to the sun
not respecting its mighty benevolence.

Yet the rivers still flow.
The mountains still stand tall.
The trees still reach out and grow.
The seas will constant waves to the shore.

And yet you wonder—
as the ghost ship of a million souls
leaves this broken harbour,
as the birds take wing outside your window,
as the weeds grow under your feet,
why you are still alive?

Even Daedalus kept on inventing
and reinventing after the burial.
The wax, still warm on his weathered hands,
filled up a lone feather with his inky tears
and turned it into a quill.

by Julian Matthews
Julian Matthews is a former journalist finding new ways to express himself in the pandemic through poetry, short stories and essays. He is published in Nine Cloud Journal, Poor Yorick Journal, Borderless Journal, Second Chance Lit, Poetry and Covid, the anthology Unmasked: Reflections on Virus-time (curated by Shamini Flint) and forthcoming in the American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and cc&d magazine, a Scars Publication. He is based in Malaysia. Link: linktr.ee/julianmatthews

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “Pulled” by Lisa Molina

On this piece:

“DAEDALUS’ QUILL” was sparked by the image “Contradictions of Being” by Neena Sethia’s which was the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge for May 2021.

Did you enjoy “DAEDALUS’ QUILL” by Julian Matthews?

“Pulled” by Lisa Molina

Pulled

We
fall
as
rain
into
wells,

and

down
we are
pulled
by the
gravity
of the
situation
until

(we hide the truth from ourselves)

and become dripping

azure/violet/magenta/indigo/black
hearts standing beneath it all,

claiming the signature of
this
art
of
our
descent.

by Lisa Molina
Lisa Molina is a writer/educator in Austin, Texas. She has two chapbooks forthcoming in 2022 with Fahmidan Publishing & Co., and Sledgehammer Literary Journal. Her writing has been published in both print and online publications, including Beyond Words Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Trouvaille Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Amethyst Review. You can find her writing at: lisalitgeek.wordpress.com; Instagram: @lisabookgeek; Twitter: @lisabmolina1

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “Death Still Walks In” by D.R. James

On this piece:

Typically, when I write an ekphrastic piece, especially a work that is very abstract like “You Are Here” by Lorette C. Luzajic, I look at the work first as a whole, and then my eyes will tend to find an area that I’m drawn to for some reason. I try not to think too much as I free write and allow the words to emerge from my subconscious. In this case, my eyes were drawn to the lower right area of the painting, and the dripping colors that seemed to fall into the area where I would expect to find the artist’s signature. The word “gravity” came to me, which led to “gravity of the situation,” and I felt like that became the soul of the poem.

Since I tend to be an overthinker in general, writing poetry in this way is very liberating to my tired brain, allowing it to recede in the background, while ideas and images from beneath the surface can percolate and come forth.

I then chose the vertical format to represent the pulling of the gravity, with a slight parenthetical break, to indicate hidden truths from the self, and continued to the “signature” at the end.

It feels strange to analyze this piece, because it came quite organically to me at the time I was writing it. The process of creation is mysterious and wondrous, and for me, it can be very meditative and relaxing if I allow myself to let go of analysis and expectations.

“Pulled” was sparked by the image “You Are Here” by Lorette C Luzajic which was one of the prompt images for The Ekphrastic Review‘s Women Artists Contest this past summer.

Did you enjoy “Pulled” by Lisa Molina?

“Death Still Walks In” by D.R. James

Death Still Walks In

In the old days news of it traveled by foot.
—Billy Collins, “Death”

Here’s how to miss the death
of a friend whose house
you glide by every day:

To start, be sure to catch
the first prognosis, then some
of the subsequent progress,

till her remission gets you briefly
off the hook, lets you breathe
and ease back into feeling

you’re as free as seeing her
walk again along the street.
Then, when her husband’s

standing over what will become
your listening shock
in a coffee shop, go on to ask him—

now only five months too late—
“And how are things going
for your wife these days?”

so that his bewildered eyes
can sweat the guilty glistening
from your own, and so that

all day and all the next
this old news can circumvent
then crisscross the cracked and

hard-packed terrain of comprehension,
turning up undeniably during meetings,
conversations, the trip into work,

and in your dreams. “Only three
weeks before,” he’ll marvel,
“she’d hiked ten miles in Alaska

with our kids”—which will make
his next vacation all the odder and
all the more alone. Here’s hoping

he’ll know how to freely comb
that moonlit Mexican beach,
lace his long and worthy fingers

around her Sunday birthday,
retrace the I-Am-Woman spring
that was in her stride and sprightly hair,

face how she was nobody’s fool,
the warm-witted epitome
of Baby, don’t tread on me.

by D.R. James
D. R. James’s latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres, 2021, 2020), His micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is free, fun, and printable-for-folding at Origami Poems Project. He lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “Crush” by Adele Evershed

On this piece:

I like writing to prompts now and then. Sometimes they help me bust out of a slump, and sometimes they help me break a tendency to keep doing the same thing. I’ve written quite a few ekphrastic poems, for example, for both reasons, and the resulting work has often been quite unique, for me anyway, such as abstract or surreal instead of readily accessible. Often, sonic and image moves will lead those rather than narrative or theme, though that’s not the case with “Death Still Walks In.” In any case, however, I always love the surprises.

“Death Still Walks In” was sparked by the Notebooking Daily prompt “2021 Writing Exercise Series #216: How to… 15 (How to prune your friendships).

“Crush” by Adele Evershed

Crush

You rise from the sofa rumbling from both ends
we have bookended this space since I was ripe

with hope but later I was ripe with something else
that smelt vaguely like disappointment

on the over-dusted shelf a hand colored photo
of us—delicate and bright on our wedding day

thrown rice caught like an echo of sleet
and the ground dangerous under foot

I didn’t know it could maybe kill the birds
hard, dry grains absorbing moisture

in their tiny tummies so they exploded
it seemed like an omen to me

but it was just another myth
for you to deride like love at first sight or heaven

yet at our daughter’s wedding
you threw rose petals and prayed

so the air was rife with spicy scent
and the cries of hungry birds

and a long standing love
at last sight

by Adele Evershed
Adele Evershed is an early years educator. She was born in Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her prose and poetry appears in Every Day Fiction, Free Flash Fiction, Ab Terra Flash Fiction Magazine, Sparked Lit Mag, Grey Sparrow Journal, High Shelf, bee house Journal, Tofu Ink Arts Press, The Fib Review, Sad Girls Club and Green Ink Poetry.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “Praise Song to the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water” by Dick Westheimer

On this piece:

“Crush” was sparked by the Notebooking Daily prompt 2021 Writing Exercise Series “#253: ‘Wedding’ Multi-Prompt 12 (Something New: Six Word Shootout).

Did you enjoy “Crush” by Adele Evershed?

“Praise Song to the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water” by Dick Westheimer

Praise Song to the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water

Here, there is no line between heraldry
and laundry hung like great flags of the little nations
inhabited by people whose rank is measured
by how soft the folds of their robes,
how harmonious the patterns of their clothes,
how kindly they treat their washer-men,
how clear the river-water they bathe in,
how comfortable they are in their own skins
of olive and obsidian and alabaster –
bare and sleek, they lounge around
as their gowns dry.

When they arise, each in turn picks a banner
of some other small state, dons new colors,
sings a new anthem, prays to a new god
and dances with the others to the songs
of the spinner, the dyer, and the weaver –
those who made them all so beautiful
whichever pattern they wear,
each so plainly naked under
these flowering garments, all
so much the same as their neighbor,
each so gloriously unique.

by Dick Westheimer
Dick Westheimer has – in the company of his wife Debbie – lived, gardened and raised five children on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio. He has taken up with poets and the writing of poetry to make sense of the world. In the past year he has been a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist and his poems have appeared in Rattle, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Rise Up Review, Sheila Na-Gig, The New Verse News, and upcoming in Aethlon Journal and Pendemics Journal, among others.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “I, Astronaut” by Dick Westheimer

On this piece:

The challenge I face when writing an ekphrastic poem: Can I write a poem that stands on its own, without either the visual reference to the artwork or even describing the artwork in my poem – that still honors and speaks to the art?

“Praise Song to the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water” was sparked by the image “Color / Off-Color” by Emily Pease which was the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge for June 2021.

Did you enjoy “Praise Song to the Weavers, the Wearers and the Water” by Dick Westheimer?

“I, Astronaut” by Dick Westheimer

I, Astronaut

If I could don the blue suit
be weightless in the place
between sound and silence,
where dark and light embrace
swarms of ions,
fusion-illuminated behind
a pin-pricked veil,

I’d clear the exosphere
and feel like I’m falling, descend
on some old world, new to humans,
an Eden without apples, with no tales
of gods who choose
to turn good fruit into evil,
to turn good women into pillars of salt.

I’d land there, remove
my blue suit, stretch my arms skyward,
listen to the breeze sweep etherial,
gaze through smogless skies, awaken
to news of my home-lands healed –
and then die – it would be enough.

But on the radio I hear mission control
remind me that the only reason to go
is to return, to tell of what I’ve seen,
to burn bright
upon my homecoming, to cry
grateful for all I left behind.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “When Sleep Comes Easy” by Dick Westheimer

On this piece:

The Rattlecast prompt, “to write a poem titled Astronaut without the words spaceship, stars, moon, rocket, planet,” took me to an unexpected place, an Eden, devoid of all of human-made desolation, but also not home. Writing the poem reminded me, we travel away to learn more about where we’re from – and perhaps bring back a renewed commitment to making our home places better.

“I, Astronaut” was sparked by the prompt from Rattle‘s weekly podcast Rattlecast #72 (Write a poem titled “Astronaut.” Avoid using the words space, spaceship, stars, moon, rocket, planet.)

Did you enjoy “I, Astronaut” by Dick Westheimer?

“When sleep comes easy” by Dick Westheimer

“…all colours will agree in the dark…”
Francis Bacon, Essay III., Of Unity in Religion

When sleep comes easy

all colors agree in the dark
and when the sun creeps up to the horizon
and light peaks through our bedroom window
   do you find that the hue of you–
us lying next to each other – vibrates, psychedelic,
   us together, like oil paints smeared with fingertips,
or does it shine with new light, mine added to yours
   before we move to our day?

   Before we moved to our day
   did we shine with new light, yours added to mine
   together like oil paint smeared with fingertips?
Lying next to each other, vibrating, psychedelic
   did you find the hue of you,
as light peaked through our bedroom window
as the sun crept up to the horizon–
recalled all our colors agreed in the dark
when sleep came easy.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “THE OLD BLACK CLOUD” by Bernardo Villela

On this piece:

I took on the Rattlecast prompt – to write a “reverse poem” – around the same time I was reading about Francis Bacon’s development of empiricism as an antidote to sectarian fundamentalism. I was taken by all of the implications of his assertion: “There be also two false peaces, or unities: the one, when the peace is grounded upon an implicit ignorance; for all colours will agree in the dark…” While he was saying that light illuminates differences, my mind went to the melding when two bodies awaken into daylight together.

“When sleep comes easy” was sparked by the prompt from Rattle‘s weekly podcast Rattlecast #92 (Write a reverse poem—a poem with lines that can be read both forward and backward.)

Did you enjoy “When sleep comes easy” by Dick Westheimer?

“THE OLD BLACK CLOUD” by Bernardo Villela

THE OLD BLACK CLOUD

The Old Black Cloud descended upon us so often during The Depression it felt like the storm never stopped raging. Part of the reason why is that even when the sight of the looming maelstrom ended our game of catch, and sent my brother and me running inside with our arms covered in gooseflesh, our parents fought.
It started as it almost always did: over nothing.
“Hank, you didn’t go to the grocer yesterday,” Mother said when she saw I took the last apple out of the fruit bowl as my dessert.
Dad looked at her in disbelief. I was only a little surprised, but didn’t show it. Mother would try to get us to pick sides in fights, but sitting on the fence was safest. Dad, to his credit, didn’t want to escalate things.
“Sorry, but I don’t want to buy anything else on credit.”
“Credit or not, the kids need fruit.”
The view out our window was obliterated by the dust cloud blowing right through us, blacking out the world. Though I held my brother’s hand in mine, I still heard the small sniffles as he started crying. Inhaling deep, I knew I couldn’t panic.
“MAGGIE, DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE OUT THERE?” He asked testing if it was obliviousness or indifference keeping her focus on the apple.
The wind intensified. Our baby sister Darla cried.
“Maybe that’ll convince you we should’ve moved.”
“Money’s coming in next week, Ray said so.”
Grit, gravel, and rocks played a cacophonous overture on our windowpane. Then a poor crow slammed into our window, blown to its death. It slid down the glass. My brother screeched. Tears loosed from his eyes. As Mother went over to Darla, she still chewed Dad out over her shoulder.
“Oh, Ray! If you could find work with someone else maybe we’d have one red cent to our name.”
“Maggie, he’s never gypped me.”
“It’s been months.”
“There’s no jobs.”
A crash punctuated this sentence. Across the street the Johnson’s window imploded. I still don’t know what hit it. Darla wailed. Mother lifted her over her shoulder and burped her. I consoled my brother.
“There are for men who want them,” she said, unrelenting.
He ran at her and raised his hand. Dad was like a lot of men in town. We knew he hit her, but never in front of us. He was prepared to do so right then. Only Darla being draped over Mother’s shoulder stopped him. Tears fell from my eyes. I could no longer be strong for my brother. The dust continued down Main Street and blew through town, but the storm raged on for years.

by Bernardo Villela
Bernardo Villela has short fiction included in periodicals such as Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, Constraint 280 and forthcoming in Rivet. He’s had stories included in anthologies such as 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, From the Yonder II, and forthcoming in Disturbed and 42 Stories among others. He has had poetry published by Entropy, Zoetic Press, and Bluepepper and others. Website: http://www.miller-villela.com

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE: “THE PHONE BOX” by Bernardo Villela

On this piece:

“THE OLD BLACK CLOUD” was sparked by the prompt for the Furious Fiction, May 2021 prompt (which required the following: Your story had to be set during a storm. Your story had to include the words MOTHER, APPLE, YESTERDAY. Your story had to include the phrase: SIT/SITTING ON THE FENCE)

Did you enjoy “THE OLD BLACK CLOUD” by Bernardo Villela?

“THE PHONE BOX” by Bernardo Villela

THE PHONE BOX

No, I did not believe the telephone box was real. How could it be when it sat so pristine abutting an inlet on a perfectly lovely day? Marshmallow clouds filled the vernal sky; a marvellous day all around. So no I did not believe it was real. What I thought when I saw that phone box was what my American cousin told me about vanishing phone booths (as they call them there). He relayed the kind of lore that was utterly ridiculous until you sighted something so off-kilter as this seemed to me that upon seeing it you were chilled in parts of your anatomy you didn’t know could feel fear.
All these thoughts came to me in an instant. One moment I was on my merry way to the market, enjoying the fresh air, the next I was so transfixed that should someone see me they should think me daft at the least or at worst an escapee from an asylum.
A jarring, jangling sound came from within the phone box. It rang. My heart plunged, my stomach cartwheeled, they threatened to trade places.
Why would I answer it? What a perfectly ridiculous thing to do. Who knew I was here? Who rang a phone box’s number save an operator perhaps? All my cynical logic didn’t stop my feet moving.
Pulling the door open, I stepped inside into another world. All about me the vistas were the same; yet, I felt somewhere else trapped in the box.
The phone’s raucous clamouring roused me out of my newfound reverie. My heart fit to burst I lifted the receiver to shut the blasted thing up.
“Operator,” said a distinctly American voice.
“Joe?” My aforementioned cousin, it had to be. I was disoriented by joy.
“Nigel, please don’t make my job difficult.”
The brusque manner he said that in let me flabbergasted.
“Work?”
“If you’d like me to help you place a call, please insert one cat’s-eye marble as payment.”
“What?”
“Like we used to play when I visited jolly old England,” he said as if this was a logical request.
“I’ve not got one.”
“Check the coin return.”
I pushed the flap back with my forefinger and sure enough—
“I’ll be buggered.”
“Into the slot, Nigel,” he said.
“It won’t—”
“It’ll fit.”
I did as he said. Neither the marble nor the slot changed shape, but in it went.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he said.
Fear returned to me, and I didn’t understand why. “What do you mean?”
“You knew to answer, Nigel. So you know what happened to me last week and what’s happening to you now.”
The world outside the phone box darkened. The marshmallow clouds toasted, then burned. It went so black it ceased to be a world at all, and the phone box ceased to exist. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Nigel.”

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE, Fall Ekphrastic Contest winner: “Civil War” by Michael Prihoda

On this piece:

“THE PHONE BOX” was sparked by the prompt for the Furious Fiction, March 2021 prompt (which required the following: Each story had to include the pictured setting (a phone booth by the coast) at some point. Each story had to include the following “MAR-” words: MARKET, MARBLE, MARVELLOUS, MARSHMALLOW. Each story’s final sentence had to contain dialogue – i.e. someone speaking.)

Did you enjoy “THE PHONE BOX” by Bernardo Villela?

About the Inaugural Sparked Ekphrastic Contest:

I was especially struck by a number of images shot in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone while I’d been putting together the previous issues of Sparked, and I decided it was time to have a bona fide Sparked prompt contest. As we want to allow every writer out there, regardless of their financial status to have a shot, we opted for an ‘optional entry fee’, which allowed the vast majority of submitters to send in work for no cost to themselves, and for those awesome individuals who opted to include a payment, the money almost entirely to boosting the prize fund for the winner which allowed us to more than double the prize we’d set out to award (we’re a shoestring budget journal with free submissions and no payment given to anyone aside from our authors).

While I was extremely busy over this fall and didn’t promote the contest as much as I would have liked to, some friends of the journal really stepped up and helped spread the word. Big shout out to Pareidolia for both hitting up their social media/contributors and sending in a donation, and Roanoke Review who, unprompted (eh, see what I did there?) designed a promotional flyer which was friggan awesome.

There were a number of really, really good submissions so I’ve selected 4 honorable mentions alongside the winner. The winner, “Civil War” by Michael Prihoda, really caught my attention from the jump, and even though it’s a pretty short piece, I wouldn’t miss a single word of it.

I hope you enjoy reading them, I sure did! Stay tuned for our next contest which will likely be for the Summer of 2022, which sounds like the future (even more than it actually is).

CONTEST WINNER:
“Civil War” by Michael Prihoda

Civil War

my adolescent certainty is this: all men believe their lives are destined for heroism or villainy.

& all this time, a mediocrity of purpose, maybe call it normalcy, is where most arrive by dint of angles. a downward trend. an economics of pointing your finger in any but the right direction.

so we grip what we can, aim to breathe a few more lungs than our neighbor, say we did our best. say we knew no other way. claim we are heroes in the credits, the footnotes, even the goddamn text of it all.if we call the graveyard a memorial, we just might believe we won the war.

by Michael Prihoda
Michael Prihoda lives in central Indiana. He is the founding editor of After the Pause, an experimental literary magazine. His work has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net Anthology; he is the author of nine poetry collections and the flash fiction collection The Hypochondriac Society (Weasel Press, 2021).

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE, Fall Ekphrastic Contest honorable mention: “it’s just like you to pair death with a star” by Seth Leeper

On this piece:

I approach poetry as a process of discovery. Beginning with an image is both liberating and constraining. I say constraining because the infinity of imagination is now constrained to just what appears, or what is hinted at, in the image in question. And yet liberating too because the mind no longer needs an entry point. The language door is cracked open. Then it’s a matter of finding what’s in this picture’s room. Picking things up, turning them over, coloring them with what I bring to the creative process. Until something is discovered and the conversation begins as I, the author, say, “Here, this is what I saw.” And then wait for the reader to enter the room next.

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Honorable Mention:
“it’s just like you to pair death with a star” by Seth Leeper

it’s just like you to pair death with a star

like familiar strangers destined to dance,
destined for dust, shooting your last hope

across a dreary speckled background,
you are the end tangoing with the bestower

of beginnings, chasing forgiveness down
a trail of dead stars that fell to earth to be kicked

like tin cans, to the sides of hazy borders
no one bothered to fill in, a last gasp for glory

fizzled in the dirt, the forgotten cigarette tossed
to die that births a fire hungry for a forest.

by Seth Leeper
Seth Leeper is a queer poet. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in River Styx, Salamander, Anti-Heroin Chic, Always Crashing, The Summerset Review, The Lickety-Split, and others. He holds an M.A. in Special Education from Pace University and B.A. in Creative Writing and Fashion Journalism from San Francisco State University. He lives and teaches in Brooklyn, NY. He tweets @sethwleeper and is online at sethleeper.com.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE, Fall Ekphrastic Contest honorable mention: “that time we cast ourselves as leads in our own lives, then the bomb” by Seth Leeper

On this piece:

I don’t have a whole lot to say about the process for these pieces beyond being pleasantly surprised by what emerged in response to both photographs. They kind of took on a life of their own and were wonderful companions to have emerged from the exercise.

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Honorable Mention:
“that time we cast ourselves as leads in our own lives, then the bomb” by Seth Leeper

that time we cast ourselves as leads in our own lives, then the bomb

if we hunch down low enough, we can step through the ghost
of this tv screen, cast ourselves as stars in our own nuclear sitcom,
laugh at all that death brings to our kitchen table, ignore sludge
slipping through cracks in the porch door, covering linoleum tiles
with fallout debris, chuckle in rhythm with the gregarious rumbles
shaking the frame, detonating the first waves of static, disrupting
our permanence, painted faces flicker red, flicker black and white,
flicker green, silhouettes project like funhouse mirrors, bending
high, low, stretching horizontal athwart our primetime slot, echoes
of long dead guffaws bouncing beyond the perimeter of this box,
mocking wraithlike fingers pulling at our hems, desperate to persuade
us this is the end, but the screen flickers red, flickers black and white,
the screen flickers off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on the screen flickers

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE, Fall Ekphrastic Contest honorable mention: “Alexander Nevsky” by Carson Pytell

On this piece:

Did you enjoy “it’s just like you to pair death with that time we cast ourselves as leads in our own lives, then the bomb” by Seth Leeper?

Honorable Mention:
“Alexander Nevsky” by Carson Pytell

Alexander Nevsky

shoulda gone with the Golden Horde.
That way there couldn’t have been a
Chernobyl. At least by name.

Rus would’ve avoided the Teutons
if they never were Rus’ in the first place
and just joined that world’s eminent empire.

Mongolia sounds good even now; horses, sky,
tradition, pride, religious liberty, but bare in bullets.
If anything, the Great Wall is long abrogated.

So, yeah, Alexander should’ve looked out then
for his whole people like now – awful pride.
No Chernobyl. No gulags. Novgorod? No.

Russia would never have been blamed
for bombs since the Teutons would’ve folded
to the Mongols. But, then, what of history

besides that there’s always about to be
Chernobyls – always have been – no matter
the name of the catastrophe’s locale.

by Carson Pytell
Carson Pytell is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated writer living outside Albany, NY whose work has appeared widely in such venues as Sheila-Na-Gig, The Adirondack Review, Perceptions Magazine, Rabid Oak, Backchannels and White Wall Review, among others. His first four chapbooks; First-Year (Alien Buddha Press, 2020), Trail (Guerrilla Genesis Press, 2020), The Gold That Stays (Cyberwit, 2021) and Sketching (Impspired, 2021), are now available.

SKIP TO NEXT PIECE, Fall Ekphrastic Contest honorable mention: “Восход-2 ” by Kate Strong Stadt

On this piece:

Honorable Mention:
” Восход-2 ” by Kate Strong Stadt

Восход-2
After a photo by Viktor Karlashkin

turn the dial
please
turn the dial

i see through a tv
from a store
named for a spacewalk
called sunrise

to a space where someone might sit
and see through to me

there is nothing in that space
and in the nothingness,

everything

turn the dial
i am begging

anyone

by Kate Strong Stadt
Kate Strong Stadt is a former children’s librarian turned knowledge worker. Recently, her poems have been published in Iron Horse Review and The Collidescope. Her latest obsession is blacksmithing.

SKIP TO: Editor’s Note

On this piece:

I try to sit with the prompt until I adjust to what wants to be followed. It’s like turning off the lights and letting your eyes adjust. What you follow is gradations of dimness or your hand on a wall or what your memory constructs must be around you. I draw lines out of me in just such a way, from an out-of-focus extra set of senses working within the boundaries of the prompt. Then, I use available material from the prompt to shade in details, to create some ligaments. And what I usually end up with is something true I would have wanted to have said anyways but in a mode or language that I’ve borrowed. I find the whole exercise tremendously generative.

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Editor’s Note

I’m continually amazed by what writers come up with in response to prompts! I’ve long been a fan of the process, in using some external stimuli as a site of nucleation for creative writing. Using a prompt as a seed crystal around which your piece organically, and often in a huge rush of inspiration, forms. Like when you have a bottle of water in the freezer and it manages to supercool, remaining liquid until that first jostle starts the process—and then it’s a chain reaction until you have a nearly fully formed piece of writing in front of you. No tyranny of the blank page keeping your thoughts from being converted into words, no plumbing the depths of your brain for ‘what to write about now’.

I did a little looking behind the scenes at Notebooking Daily, and by the end of the year I’ll have over 1500 prompts posted there—I’ve managed to not miss a single day so far this year in the 2021 Writing Exercise Series (well, aside from a couple minor oversights which resulted in 2 prompts being posted the same day instead, but you get the idea). And that’s just one source of prompts—there’re all our amazing (unofficial) prompting partners, hundreds of books, twitter feeds, subreddits, Tumblr accounts, and hundreds (if not thousands) of additional resources I’ve yet to locate. Shameless plug buried in the middle here, if you could spread the word about Notebooking Daily to anyone that you think might be interested in creative writing prompts and articles about writing and literary magazines (I’m slacking a little on non-prompt posts, but once I get settled into my new job I’ll be back at the “Spy in the Slushpile” editor interview series and additional explications and non-prompting articles, I promise) I would really appreciate you sharing the link, helping to spread the good word. I’d like to get more eyes on the site/prompts in the selfish pursuit of getting more writers writing and submitting to literary magazines and reading (especially poetry!).

It’s been quite crazy trying to adapt to a new, much more demanding occupation while maintaining both Sparked and Coastal Shelf (and Notebooking Daily and The Submission Wizard), as well as trying to keep writing myself, keep sending out submissions, and mentoring a few young writers as they begin their writing journey (I’ve started a Young Creative Writer’s Club at my new school and I’m leading the Poetry Out Loud competition there as well). And I’ve been doing that all out of extended stay motels for the past three months as I’m trying to get my living situation squared away in a new state—but, all that said, I think this is the best issue of Sparked yet, it’s definitely the longest, and the contest resulted in some truly inspiring pieces being created where they may not have been written without it existing. I want to thank all of the contributors both who are in the journal, and whose pieces didn’t quite make it in, and I want to thank the writers who contributed to the contest voluntarily (some without even submitting pieces, just being awesome people!) including Rebecca Dempsey, Frank Modica, and Pareidolia (an awesome journal, check them out!). Additionally I wanted to thank the number of people and journals helped us promote the contest, with a special enthusiastic thank you to Roanoke Review who unprompted designed an awesome promo flyer for us as well as posting about it. And finally I wanted to give a random shout out to Timothy Green at Rattle who is an absolute superhuman and a treasure in the literary community. And now I must sleep, at long last.