Category: Cento

Head Space

I want you out of my head.
Trapped between two armies without an exit.
All sorts of forces floating around out there.

You want to see behind the curtain.
I want you out of my head.
No net to catch me.

The struggle to find something.
Shot through me all the way to my childhood self.
Another coded judgement of that California living.
Yesterday, you were just some nice man with a car.

And I said fine one more time just to be sure I won.
And in complete and self-sustained aloneness, I felt more like myself than I ever had.

Author Bio

Andrea Gabel is returning English student at Palomar College. Her day job is as a CPA, and her daydreaming is consumed by thoughts of reading and writing.

From the Back Row

Did you know that black coffee can mold? 
Her words somehow became my memory.  

She left us sweat, she left visions, she left blood. 
Blamed the wind; claimed sinus pressure.
So the story goes. 

There I am, ass over tea kettle, 
tracing with my thumbs the cracks in the binding,
preventing the paralysis of learned helplessness. 

I spit when you cross to keep off bad luck.

Author Bio

Dr. Mary K. Stewart is an Associate Professor of Literature & Writing Studies and the General Education Writing Coordinator at California State University San Marcos.

Cento

A ROBOT MAY NOT 
INJURE A HUMAN BEING 
OR, THROUGH INACTION,
ALLOW A HUMAN BEING
TO COME TO HARM.

Terence told me that despite my present good luck my basic stability my contentedness with myself alongside these images, I have the image obsession I'm scum. (26)

Unfolding shadow
or color
what I notice
might be different
every time (37)

nothing runs more beautifully than instinct (46)

Translation, which is always writing, is impossible because there are no equivalences, only counterparts and digressions, and necessary because there are no equivalences, only counterparts and digressions. (35)

The marble signifies a mark out of context: a person looking for change might be surprised (and possibly annoyed) to find a marble instead of a quarter. (287)

Dear Son, the affection naturally due your father
               is like the wind naturally consumed by windmills (48-49)

A ROBOT MUST OBEY
ORDERS GIVEN TO IT BY
HUMAN BEINGS, EXCEPT
WHERE SUCH ORDERS
WOULD CONFLICT WITH THE
FIRST LAW.

Susan is walking on air and looking for people to hug. (312)
	the instant stretches into lateness (318)

A ROBOT MUST PROTECT ITS OWN
EXISTENCE, AS LONG AS SUCH PROTECTION DOES NOT CONFLICT WITH
THE FIRST OR SECOND LAW. (294)

We could not shatter better, yet, or acquiesce (34)

the house comes crowding round
to seduce us with
not quite oriental rugs (321)

They are arranged so neatly that one wonders if there are small children
beneath them, holding hands so as to keep the rows intact and the columns
true, in spite of whatever kind of weather may come. (396)

Tract the treasons
throw down (376)
in this tactical handshake
we are "friends" (45)

compassion piece
be nice to people
who annoy or upset you (157)

everywhere, everywhere, everywhere:
the same temperature. (28)

vanishing flatness. (168)

My English is…no English. (54)

eventually and 
most important completion
carried out blindly (156)

I love you too dear--count your chickens carefully. (205)

How many dead?
Who is dead?
	Dearer, dearest
	Too dear (211)
	
But they couldn't find the switch
+ they stomped off.
So mourning never came
+ the reader was not illuminated… (215)

Once upon a time there was (217)

of local language (223)

Author Bio

Taen is a first year student in the CSUSM LTWR MA program. Taen enjoys reading and listening to stories, and hopes to share her stories with others, too.