His noise is everywhere. This teen, exploding with energy,

pondering his future and unearthing life’s options.

Blasting sunshine and hammering rainstorms precede

the crack of a grand slam ahead on his horizon.

He moves with anticipation and unending optimism

in his seemingly unrestricted chaos of existence.

Day’s rally, colliding with weeks. Years

supersede, one, five, now eighteen?

His images, activities and smiles, captured and cherished

in photographs. Collected to record progress and achievements.

History and connections with family and friends reflected

in tinted windows, equally reminiscent in life’s inept mirror.

Growth creates challenges, tears arrive, dropping by

unannounced at inopportune times, bringing truth of his

inevitable move forward, and our yearning for a reality

that was a universal continuation of tomorrow’s

noise, tomorrow’s everything.

::

Youths Congregate Around the Front Steps of a Home in New Ulm, Minnesota, to Decide What to Do on a Summer Day. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives

Editor’s Note:  This is the third installment in an experimental narrative.  Normally, as readers, we glaze over things we can’t understand, unless there is some sort of reward involved, such as power, grades, or pay.  In entertainment time however, we tend to want captions below exotic photos, and artist statements beside abstract paintings.  We want to hear the artist talk about what he meant to convey, and what his thought was before he created a seemingly cryptic piece.   Throughout the history of literature, pieces like this, such as Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, for example, have been appreciated mostly only once some sort of non-coded message accompanies them.  So, we asked Mr. Sønju for a sort of prelude to Paralogia, which includes a variety of intentional fonts and colors, and this was his reply.

Image by AT Sønju. Click to view detail.

This might be helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand. There is nothing here that is necessary to ‘solve’; one might look at the page as you would any other piece art; there is does not necessarily have to be anything to clue you directly to the meaning of events or images before you, your experience is determined by how you choose to perceive a piece and the associations you make between the symbols presented.  An experience outside one’s own direct senses is by nature elliptic; the process of recollection is not necessarily linear. Any story you come across has ended, or is in the midst of things. I write this as it comes to me, then refine; I only know as much as the character(s).

So, without further adieu, take a break from Cuevana, turn your phone off, then try your hand at:

Paralogia; Mobile Patrol Experiment.

You won’t be disappointed.  (If you need Adobe Reader, go ahead and cruise here.)

::

Alyosha Tristan Sønju is a regular contributor to High Contrast Review.  He is a student at the Center for Digital Media in Vancouver, BC.  To see more of his work, check out his website.

Stark black oak on wet green grass,
there is no sky here,
only gray fog forever.

::

Pete live is Paradise, California.

The gray fog extends even as far from Paradise as Resurrection Bay, across which Mount Alice is seen here, peeking through the blankets above the state prison. - Photo: SK

Maintenance

As I’m sitting in my living room reading in the afternoon light
a ladder, then footsteps up to my porch.
“Again?” I close my book.

Photo: Marlo Crocifisso

My apartment’s being painted.
They need access,
But not to me.
I’ve snuck into my bedroom
while he grunts and adjusts.
A polite avoidance,
not an invitation, sir.

The porch door is wide open,
The edge of a foot is angled in my house.
I left the television on:
America’s Funniest Home Videos.
I promise I do not watch shitty TV.
I simply forgot to turn it off
when I ran away.

But he seems kind enough,
like somebody else’s husband,
gently moving my potted plants
and kneeling gracefully before the trim.
The ladder, though, makes this strange.
I have a door.

My tea is getting cold on the coffee table.
Is this worse than yesterday?
When I was shut inside my house,
Trapped by tape and plastic sheeting?
All for morose green paint
not yet dry everywhere I look.

- – -

Photo: Sarah Kulla

Getting Close

First, your father will explain the humor
in his childhood comics
and I will guide you in the rocker
back a century to aged now.

We will eat the seasons,
show you our orange tricks
rolling and flipping up our arms
and one-peel phenomenon.

I speak to you
at myself
mumbling about this and that
looking nowhere.

I have a collection of fears
hoarding my space to breathe.
You permanently too tender
for loose arms.

And then you will be here
your name
undeniable existence
everything shattered and beginning.

- – -

by Sarah Kulla

When we arrived to the desert, Black Star was waiting for us.

The way I see it, there are two options:

He is either a poor desert dog, running with an old limp, chasing rabbits and baking his old body in dust day after day.

Or, he is a brujo and he came to protect us–

What do you think???

Either way, we were well recieved. I love you, Black Star.

::

Sarah Kulla is a traveler, teacher, and yogi who lives in Mexico and Montana.  She is also the poetry editor of this magazine.

Such a memory, my dear, just words, though, floating. Wove you a net of silver strings that you had left me but now, gone, I pluck them like chords and compose your silence. But I do not sulk. No, no, you would not want me to sulk, instead I come into the space you drew for me out of your nightmares, and sweetly mouth your name to animals who do not answer. What happened when you screamed my name out to echo, did I not return, mirror into mirror? I held your gaze too long and now I see it is interminable, figures endlessly repeating themselves into infinity. You are not brave, you are not brave at all, finitude is what you seek, and so finitude you will find, thinking manufactured gestures until you have none left and I, invisible, will finally find shape but will be already dream’s own. Out of your despair I found fearful solace and gently rocked myself into dreaming, dreaming becoming wishing, wishing becoming living, living becoming dying. Surely you must have hoped for less, shook off my excess, burned doors down with your might. It is though your house you have ashed- I, having no body, remain. I have long before now known you, who do not wish to be seen. Time from now you will recognize my face in your middle sleep and, losing breath, reach for it, desperately feeling, desperately loving, waking up forgetting what you did not wish to remember

::

M. Hengen is an agent based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a flawless performance record.  Her writings have appeared in High Contrast Review before both online and in our print edition.  As always, correspondence for the author may be addressed to the editors of the review.

After years of digging my own grave with a dull rusty shovel, I give it most of my all, possibly accidentally severing my right big toe with the tainted orange metal edge. Already leading an off kilter life, the mild amputation seems to supply the balance I have been searching for, at least enough so I can stop leaning on the tired, angry shovel. I cast the tool or weapon or savior aside and waltz down the walk whistling something by Journey then “Once in a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads then something else by Journey, spritzing the would be sacred ground with deep red wet, almost wanting to ignore the rusty infection crawling through my foot, up my leg, festering under spotted skin, reminding me that this is the grave and I tossed aside my only means of escape.

The winner of the “Prisoners” contest will choose the topic of the next contest. Also, the authors of
each story will not be revealed until a winning story is chosen, to minimize bias!

Sculpture by David Manzanares

Mad Tom’s Reel

If you don’t think this is about bein’ a prisoner,
You’re kiddin’ yerself.
The British are Damned.
The Amerikan Dream died long ago.
{Breakfast Panic}

I was suddenly not welcome on that island anymore.
I came a long way to see you.
Now I wish I were dead.
My city is full of madness.
Restless rage in the dark.

I am a hangman
At the end of his rope.

Life is fleeting;
You think today’s been long?
Yesterday was whole twenty-four hours.

Everything happens for a reason.
Game theory,
Orchestrated plays,
Spreading blood,
Class warfare,
Sudden comes a flood.

Rejoice, come what may.
We’re born again, sinners.

-A.T. Sonju

by Sarah Kulla

Poem by Sam Kulla and Patrick Terra de Menezes

Skeleton photo by Sarah Kulla

A typo.

Walking with beauty and grace
A dandelion puff dancing gently in the breeze
How quickly that pretty façade can fly apart
Living by one breath, one road
That’s all you know how to do
But you’ll do it with style
So many mistakes but the best choices
Desires have welled up and been fulfilled
Yet you still long
Needing vibrancy, a sweeter taste
You look for a new start, a new town
Of broken dreams and unforeseen pleasure

Ana Fatturi is, among other things, a poet and photographer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.