Music
by John Mancini
image by author

Before he discovered drugs, my brother’s favorite after school activity was spinning around in circles. He would hold his arms straight out so that the blood ran to his fingertips and gave him the sensation that they might suddenly fly off, and he would spin around like that until eventually he couldn’t spin anymore and he would collapse on the lawn, and the sky above him would continue to spin, and his vision would tremble at the edges, and the ground beneath him would feel like it was moving in rhythmic circles, as if he were lying on a giant turntable—as if he were the music being played.

 

Kiwi
by Bebe Ashley
image by author

 

 

 

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John Mancini has published a variety of prose and poetry online and in print. He records music as John Mancini Band, and his songs can be heard at all the usual places.

Bebe Ashley is currently completing an MA in Poetry at Queen’s University Belfast. Recent poems have been published in The Tangerine, The Open Ear, The Stony Thursday Book and are forthcoming with Fallow Media.