Figments

Night Hawks

by Shelley Tomlinson

i spent the night on my knees and I wasn’t praying.

My pet snake, almost as black as an anaconda, wanders around his cage,
               sneaks out of the fissure in the artificial plastic rock
               slips down the rock to the water pond

A newspaper clipping lines my baby’s cage:
               heralds some old Freudian theory
               carries a classic shot of Freud smoking a cigar

i spent the night on my knees and I wasn’t praying.

Shelley Tomlinson  works as a journalist in Grand Forks, British Columbia. She is also working on completing her Bachelor of Applied Journalism degree with a concentration in political science.

Lotus

by Charlie O’Brien

Wealthy industrialists see (never bothering to look)
A man above them (not worthy of their attention).

But so captivating, his peril
That they break their necks to stare.

The seventy-fifth floor (who owns the building
anyway?)
Is the only one with running water or carpeting,
Which, walked on appropriately, is quite an amenity

Who’s that man (wasting our time)
With his high-minded shenanigans?

Doesn’t he know there’s an empire to be built?

Doesn’t he know someone has to clean up
His blood? And file a report?

Doesn’t he know that no ones cares?
(Yes.) Then why doesn’t he jump?

Oh, there he goes.
Run along now.

Charlie O’Brien is a high-school sophomore in San Diego, California. He likes to imitate better writers.