Chronoscope 2004
by
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Come take the measure of Chronoscope...
From Burn, Baby, by Joan Kruger
At first,
you started burning me with matchsticks
& the hot match-heads hardly hurt at all
& you could barely see the spots —
a black moon, a dead star,
that’s what it looked like, one
by one dead stars gathered
a black galaxy
& you were pleased to see me
slowly getting darker.
(Are you black yet?)...
From The Bluesmann’s Confession, by Reg Noland...
You tells more about white folks by what
they leaves behind than what they takes along:
filter butts and ashes, baseball caps, Bic
felt tips, parsley, chew gum, ...change they drops —
''Tweren''t none of mine what ever left thei'' cents
behind — I done works too hard, too long,
me and Edna (rest her) — they knowed better! ...
From The Death of Robyn Hood, by Janet P. Reedman
The Abbess there names me cousin;
She’s not, we were far closer once;
She leads me with a milk-white hand
To the herbal garden of the nuns
And bleeds my poisoned blood
Into a silvered bowl,
While I lay my head in her black lap
Shivering though it is not cold...
From Could You Tell Us Where You Get Your Ideas From? by Cliff Burns
The show of bravado lasted until he turned on the typewriter. He felt the same moment of panic he always felt as he started a new story. Would this be the day he heard the gurgle of his last reserves of creativity drained away?
NO.
Listen, his muse said. I have something to tell you. A deep, dark secret. Ready?
Halfway through the story, he shuddered. Some of the imagery embossed his heart with an indelible script of fear.
When he finished the story, his typewriter was almost too hot to touch...
From Matthew, by M. Bradley Davis
“Why can’t you stay out of trouble?” his teacher asked. Before he could reply, she spoke again, her face settling into a mask of stern disapproval. “I just don’t understand why you must always pick on the other children. If you don’t want to learn, that’s fine with me, but I will not allow you to keep others from learning, too.” He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that he liked learning, too, but didn’t get the chance. “You’ve already been paddled this week,” she said as he hung his head in defeat. That was last week, and if he told her, it would only make matters worse. “So, I think it’s time for you to work in the office until you can behave in class. Get your books, and come with me.” She opened the door, motioning him to go back inside and gather his things.
Matthew slunk back into the room, his attitude going from defeated to sullen. Taking me outside does no good, he thought as he angrily took books, paper, and pencils from his desk. The rest of the class can hear what she says, and they listen to her more when she’s outside with me than they do when she’s in the room, teaching us...
From The Scarlet Blanket of
Eddie was a good twenty years older than Florence Ida and had aches and pains to show for it. He decided that Florence Ida had drained him, he couldn’t know how much time he had left, but however much it was, he didn’t care to spend any more of it with her. He was in fact in such a hell-fire hurry to get disentangled from her that he slipped a good look over his shoulder just in case she was coming after him. And that last look set just enough twist to the wheel that he swerved in behind an empty automobile carrier that had stalled to the side with its loading platform down.
With Eddie holding on tight, the GMC hit the bottom of the ramp chugging and rode it smooth as up a marble up a slide. When it ran out of ramp, it kept climbing in a half circle as pretty as any yellow pickup could make flying along with its tires spinning and grabbing nothing but autumn air.
To Florence Ida Little Shay, standing in front of the sign telling where to walk the dog, the GMC looked like a pot of gold trying to ride a rainbow. She stood still for a minute, admiring it as it reached what looked like the top of the climb. And in that minute, time stretched out
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About the Book
In 1986, a handful of authors challenged each other to write new works every month, to be reproduced and shared for mutual criticism. Enter a graphic artist with a sophisticated reproduction equipment, and before they knew it, the literary magazine Chronoscope was born.
Although producing only 14 issues over its two-and-a-half year run, Chronoscope had readers and contributors from a dozen countries around the world. Here are poems of love, terror, contemplation, merriment and sorrow. There is teasing of sacred cows, and a French town full of escaped chickens. From the tenderness of passion to the endless dull travel of a couple locked in an empty marriage, from the terror of the opening of a doorway into Hell to a riotously naughty look at the nature of statistics, Chronoscope always entertained, touched, tickled, and tore at the imaginations of its readers.
Welcome to this, the anthology of the best that Chronoscope had to offer during its initial run, and the inauguration of the annual competition for other new, passionate voices to be heard. Come enjoy a time of creation, a time of expression, a time of the mind taking flight...
Come take the measure of Chronoscope.
About the Author
TRISTAN MacAVERY was the editor and publisher of the literary magazine Chronoscope (1986-88). The magazine received manuscripts from the