The Furious Gazelle

Literary as hell.

Category: Writing (Page 9 of 50)

“Eight Times Rob Left the Toilet Seat Up This Year” By Linnea Cooley

January 3, 2020 /

1. February 3rd. The first time I was introduced to the sniveling, drooling, troglodyte that is my sister’s boyfriend Rob. Really, Ashley? You couldn’t do better than a middle-aged branch manager who loves ranch dressing and thinks that Justin Timberlake is an underrated artist? I went into the bathroom to reapply my neck blush, and that’s when I saw it. Rob had used the bathroom, and when he was done he hadn’t put the toilet seat down! 

2. July 15th. In the spirit of good will, I tried to forget about the incident on February 3rd. I gave Rob the benefit of the doubt and assumed that his behavior had been an unfortunate blip. Boy was I wrong. On July 15th, after my entire family came back from the Michael Jackson Memorial 5K, I was horrified to discover that Rob left the toilet seat up again. It is truly unfortunate to see my sister paired up with such a primitive companion.  Continue reading

Poetry by Richard Weaver

December 28, 2019 /

Wolf Moon

Freezing in the gray light, the wind
at our backs like an anchor,
our boat steadies itself against the moon
and the captain’s hand. We tack across the sound
where the scallops are hidden.

We’ve prepared the nets again, patched
and mended our traps,
coiled the thick, sea—green ropes.
Our tongues are still raw from coffee.
We watch the wolf moon, still red, Continue reading

“First Flakes” by Kurt Luchs

December 11, 2019 /

 

The day kept trying to dawn

and finally gave up, as if to say

today has been cancelled

due to lack of photons.

Nothing but wind and cold all

afternoon in the deepening gray

lashing us poor souls below.

At the hour of not quite twilight

the first flakes come down

slantwise like drunken

debutantes descending

a spiral staircase to

the bargain basement.

They giggle and collapse on

each other, beginning to pile up.

It may be months before we can

scrape away their costume jewelry.

 

Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Antiphon, The American Journal of Poetry and The Sun Magazine. He placed second for the 2019 Fischer Poetry Prize, and won the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television and radio. His books include a humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017 Sagging Meniscus Press), and a poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (2019 Finishing Line Press). More of his work, both poetry and humor, is at kurtluchs.com.

This poem was first published in Crosswinds Poetry Journal.

“The Found” by Boris Kokotov

November 8, 2019 /

Archeologists found a fossil that captured
ancient insects having sex. It reveals
the mating position customary among froghoppers
about two hundred million years ago. In fact,
the particular sub-species, whose emissaries
had been caught in action, went extinct
but descendants of  their close relatives
are still around diligently doing the same thing
in the same way. It’s exciting to learn
how persistent the insectual orientation is!
While its efficacy ought to be respected,
such a strict commitment to a single arrangement
betrays a lack of inventiveness and initiative.

Continue reading

Halloween Contest Winner: Various Ways of Looking at Halloween by Nancy Slavin

October 31, 2019 /

“Stay with us, stay with us,” the swarm of ghouls yelled at me just after dawn on Halloween morning. 

Witches had snatched my three-hour-old baby, taking her so I could not see her. Her cries from being torn away from my breast tore through me, but the ghouls told my husband, who now held our newborn child, to get the hell out of the room. 

The doctor who’d cut me open just a few hours before to birth our baby, now pressed with the heels of both hands on my newly stapled belly, which was bleeding out. A gush of blood, blood pressure dropping to thirty over forty. When the numbers match up, the body is dead. 

The rest of the goblins, I remember, discussed a machine, some machine they wanted to arrive to help me survive. The nurse was a minute away, they said. The drug she would give me would cause bloating, and they had to give me someone else’s blood. “I’m just tired,” I complained. I did not know I was dying. When she arrived, she wore a Nurse Ratchet costume, with a tight white tunic, bright white leggings and a small blue-and-white striped paper hat bobby-pinned in her coiffed blond hair.

Continue reading

Halloween Finalist: “Hallowe’en, 1933” by Tylor James

October 31, 2019 /

Gordo, Alabama, USA. 

October 31st, 1933.

Charlie Wannemaker and Eddie Brackett spent the afternoon making the exemplary scarecrow. First they’d dragged the ragged old scarecrow off its stake down on ol’ Henderson’s corn field. They folded its straw-filled limbs up nice and tight and toted him in a red wagon all the way to Charlie’s barn. Henderson’s scarecrow was okay, but it wouldn’t do for the great stunt they had in mind for the night. Not without a touch of restoration.

“If we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it right,” Charlie instructed. Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

Archives

Categories

Subscribe to The Furious Gazelle via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

© 2024 The Furious Gazelle

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑