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Welcome to April's edition of Mocha Memoirs. We're so pleased to be with you this month as April is National Poetry Month.
To honor this month, Mocha Memoirs is running a contest Mocha Muse. Check out the details in this
issue. Deadline is April 20th 2001. Look out for more contests opportunities coming in the near future. To be kept updated on
the latest happenings at Mocha Memoirs, don't forget to sign up to our newsletter with the convient link below.
Mocha is proud to announce an expansion both of its pages and its staff. This month, we bring aboard Corrine Thomas, our
new Marketing Editor. In addition, we're working to expand Mocha to bring you more. We've just revamped the
Bookshelves section to honor authors who have published here at MochaMemoirs and have a book out.
If you're one of them, please consider visiting the Bookshelves page and filling out the form.
As always, we've got a great selection of short stories and poems to fill that Mocha moment for you. So sit back, relax and enjoy this edition of Mocha Memoirs!
The Staff of Mocha Memoirs
She stepped to the window to find a breeze; any hint of surcease from the heavy humid air. A gas lamp in the street and a full moon provided the only illumination to a room filled with the mysteries of women's things. Crickets chirped when they found the energy.
She turned from the window gasping for breath, clutching at the jet buttons on her high-necked gown. The heat was pushing in, pulsing from the street. Her fingers trembled as they loosened the dress from neck to bodice to waist. She tore at the stays that trapped her body in their suffocating cage, then stepped out of the sweaty coffin of her small clothes.
Now the heat pulsed in her blood, driving, demanding. The light from the lamp reflected on her glistening body as she ran her hands through her upswept hair, raining jewel-tipped pins and tortoiseshell combs onto the Persian carpet. Her hair tumbled about her body, sticking in inky rivulets to her buttocks and breasts.
She inhaled. A pungent scent wafted on the languid air waxing and waning with the pounding of her blood. She searched the room, eyes darting from marble vanity to porcelain bowls to silk pillows. She spied the object of her desire lying quiescent, half hidden by the shadows of the canopy on her snowy bed.
She swayed across the room, not noticing the pricks from the sharp pins or the bruises from the jet buttons. She circled the bed and stretched across the crisp, white cover, reaching for her release. The heat crested like a wave. She ran her moist hand lovingly over cool, pebbly skin. Her scarlet-tinted nail traced diminutive circles around an indented navel then moved slowly to strip away the barriers keeping her from her luscious target. She peeled clingy, white material from plump-moist lobes, rolling the satiny stuff between her fingers then dropping it, forgotten, to the silk sheets.
Eyes closed, she sniffed the musky aroma of the revealed fruit. She rubbed gently at the erect node, savoring the firm flesh. Suddenly she plunged her finger into the sweet dark core. Juice burst from the skin and she slowly withdrew her finger to lick it. Her lissome tongue wrapped around her finger, letting no trace of the sticky moisture escape; catching even the small drop glistening by the corner of her rouged mouth. Her lips pursed in a moue of pleasure.
Becoming impatient, she plunged her finger into the nectar again; eyes wide in anticipation. She curled a razor nail and burst the lobes apart. Digging out a pulpy section, she raised it to her lips, sucking on the meat, letting the sticky moisture dribble down her chin as she shuddered.
Slowly, she sucked piece after piece of juicy flesh. The heat subsided. A fresh breeze moved the lace curtains in the window, drying sticky remnants of orange-red moisture on her body. The moonlight revealed an abandoned husk scattered on the carpet. Sated, a slow smile dawned over her face. She flashed sharp pearly teeth between full red lips.
© 2001 Faith L. Justice Faith L. Justice can be reached at: FLJUSTICE@prodigy.net. Check out her website here.
Father Jones was a black priest adored by many in South Side Chicago. He was getting on in years and his hair was graying, but he continued to tend to his flock, which included addicts, the incarcerated, and the otherwise forsaken. He did this even after a drunk driver rear-ended his car and projected him through the windshield and onto the inclement asphalt of Stony Island Boulevard. He lost thereby the use of his legs and most of his mind, and gained a debilitating stutter.
He did most of his work thereafter from the confines of his luxurious apartment, nestled between the university to the south and the ghetto to the north. Unfortunately, the thinking part of his mind had been spared, so that he soon grew restless wheeling his chair around his apartment and receiving visitors and chatting on the telephone with prisoners in need of a short-term loan.
So he bought a computer and committed himself to its study. But he was too old and his mind too out-of-whack to do this by himself. He called the tutoring agency employing me. For a while a colleague of mine versed in such things taught the father how to negotiate bewildering directories. Being the only other computer expert at the agency, I got the nod when the commute became impractical for her.
The weekly two-hour sessions were held for the two months before I left Chicago. I got to know the father quite well. He had a big heart and an equally big fondness for praline cakes. Whenever we pulled up a picture of one on the screen he would say, "Mmm, yeah," and nod and lick his lips and wag his finger at it approvingly. We must have ordered four or five of them over the Internet and he made sure to learn how to order them on his own. A few times we sat grinning at each other and eating slices of the cakes. It was a good job sometimes.
At other times I hated working with him. While I was away, he fiddled with the computer and complicated directories beyond comprehension. He had six or seven copies each of a score of letters saved in different places. The disorder in his mind was reflected perfectly in his new toy. He was easily frustrated by the complexity of simple tasks and couldn't help but direct some of his frustration at me, the simplifier-for-hire. I walked the teacher's inevitably fine line. If I showed him all the intermediate steps he would be bored and stymied; if I didn't, he would be helpless without me.
I was just as frustrated. Not too long before I met the father, I had banished computers from my life. I had learned to despise them. I never checked my university e-mail account, sent all my letters by post, and was then writing a novel using pencil and, spitefully, a ream of computer paper.
But the father wanted to learn how to use e-mail so I had to teach him. He sent me test messages to which I never replied. Every time I left, he told me to check my e-mail so that he could verify transmission. I always promised him that I would, but I never did. I thought it unnecessary. He was already e-mailing with the nuns.
When it came time for me to leave town I handed the father over to a new colleague and moved back east. This colleague occasionally called with reports of the father's progress.
In the winter, some months after I had heard anything about him, I received a phone call from my former employer at the agency. She asked me whether I had heard about the father. No, I told her, I hadn't. She reported that two of the men who looked after him in the apartment turned out to have been crack addicts. One night they were trying to steal some of his money. He woke up, and because he could not get out of bed by himself, he started hollering, presumably for his other, female caretakers. The two men smothered him with a pillow and he suffocated.
I had long been disillusioned with education in Chicago. It seemed the last thing the city needed. I had stopped trying to figure out what it did need. Besides love. The kind of love embodied by this old man, still trying to forge a humane world, by trying to save the drunks and crackheads who crippled and then killed him.
That said, when spring came I became homesick for Chicago, as I do now and again to this day. I missed old friends. Somehow I managed to access my old -- I thought defunct -- university e-mail account, and among the messages was one from Father Jones.
"I got the cake," it said. "P.S. Write me."
Now I have.
© 2001 Kenneth Champeon Kenneth A. Champeon (kchampeon@yahoo.com, http://www.geocities.com/kchampeon) graduated with honors from the University of Chicago in 1995. He is a freelance teacher and writer, currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
September 25th, 9 p.m. Officer Delaney took out his small, black notebook and said to the man, "Tell me again what you saw."
Delaney had been canvassing the area after a series of frantic phone calls hit the station switchboard earlier that evening. Before returning to the office, he'd noticed lights from a home on the old highway, and he'd stopped and rang the doorbell.
"My mind's kinda hazy, from the shock and all," the man said, then took a long drag on his cigarette.
"I understand," said Delaney, "but we need all the information we can get. Just tell me what you remember."
"We were sitting out on the porch, my wife and me, after dinner." The man stopped and pointed behind him to a small house, one of the many abandoned looking shacks spread out on the edge of the desert, like damaged tokens on a Monopoly board. The porch light illuminated an old wooden swing and a hanging plant in great need of watering. "It's been so nice in the evenings we decided to stay outside."
"Yes," Delaney interrupted his voice more demanding now, impatient. "Go on with what you saw."
"A sudden burst in the sky," the man said. "At first I thought a shooting star or meteor, but Anna didn't think so. Then we heard the explosion."
"Whatever it was," his wife said, pointing to the east, "it went down over there behind those mountains." She looked back at Delaney, giving him a nervous smile.
"Anything more?" Delaney asked.
"That's about it,"said the man.
"I'll need your names and address for the record."
"Surely, Officer." The man pulled his wife closer to his side, his arm around her narrow waist. "Brett and Anna Woburn. Never seen anything like this. Suppose it'll be in all the big papers."
"Can you spell the last name?"
"W-o-b-u-r-n, Woburn. It's English, goes way back to the time of . . ."
"Yes, your address?"
"30659 East 66. This old highway used to be real famous. Had a TV series about it. Remember the song back in the fifties?"
"Get your kicks on Route 66," said the pretty blonde. She looked up at Delaney, her head resting on the man's shoulder.
"Thank you both," he told them as he shut the door of the patrol car. "I'll be in touch if we need more information."
The man reached out and shook his hand through the open window, a cold and clammy handshake. Delaney wondered if the man had told him everything, but then shrugged off his doubts. With all the excitement, he figured it was understandable.
Driving off, Delaney glanced back in the rearview mirror. The porch was dark now, the only light a small dot from the man's cigarette, growing dim as Delaney accelerated onto the main highway toward town.
When Delaney arrived, the small station house was a flurry of activity, unusual for the late hour. The Captain had called in his entire staff of six: four officers, a dispatcher and a secretary.
"Just heard from Victorville," the Captain told Delaney. "They've confirmed a DC-10 en route to LA went down over the Calico Mountains. A direct flight from Ireland via JFK. Over 200 passengers on board."
"What about the search for survivors?" Delaney asked.
"The NTSB and FBI are on the way, arrival time within the hour. Not much to do till then but answer phones, keep down the local hysteria. Wait."
Delaney poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at his computer to transcribe the interview notes. As he began the final entry, a shadow fell over his screen, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of Shalimar.
"These phones are going crazy," Beth said, then as she scanned his report, "Odd."
"What?"
"That address on old 66."
"A couple who witnessed the explosion," Delaney said. "What about the address?"
"Didn't think anyone lived out there anymore," Beth said. "Used to be homesteaders, though most of those shacks were vacated or torn down after I graduated."
Delaney shrugged then went back to his typing.
"I knew a girl from a poor family who lived on 66," she was saying, "took accounting with her. I remember our teacher Miss Abbott . . . "
Delaney liked Beth, thought she was an excellent secretary, but he'd learned to tune out most of her incessant chatter.
"Such lovely blonde hair, too," Beth said. "She later married her high school sweetheart, but that was . . . what? . . . at least ten years before you transferred here from Vegas."
Not a whole lot of information, thought Delaney, but he might as well get it down before the Feds marched in and took over. Beth said something about another crash that caught his attention.
"They were both killed in the late 80's. Their plane came down in the Atlantic shortly after take-off. The Feds assumed it was an IRA terrorist attack. Never any definite proof, though. The investigation dragged on for weeks. Over 300 killed in that one."
Delaney walked over to the printer and was about to reach for his report when something else Beth said unsettled him.
"What did you just say?"
"Her mother and mine stayed close friends until she finally moved away. Too many sad memories, I guess."
"No, before that."
"It was a special trip," Beth said, "anniversary I think, somewhere around this time of year, end of September. Anna and Brett were visiting relatives in England."
Delaney grabbed his keys and ran for the door. As he drove southeast to the far edge of town, to the deserted shack on the old highway, Beth's puzzled look and her final words traveled with him.
"Woburn," she'd said. "Funny name, isn't it?"
© 2001 Paul Alan Fahey Paul Alan Fahey is a learning specialist at Allan Hancock College in California. He has written in special education and has had short stories published in small literary magazines. Paul is editor of "Mindprints, A Literary Journal" created as a forum for writers and artists with disabilities.
I am drawn to my own warm smile
though not reflected on my face
but, on the face of another.
Inviting, yet lacking in color.
Young and innocent of years
the girl grins from the aged photograph.
Voices I have never known seem to draw closer
and I wonder in that moment, alone,
with only the young image of my mother
what the old ones would say?
Is there pride for me, the heir of their blood,
even as I have passed it on to others?
The answer is revealed in another pair of eyes
similar to the first and yet unique unto herself.
Her smile warms me
and assures me as certainly as if her hand could grace my shoulder
that she is indeed pleased,
and honored.
Even as I carry her name.
© 2001 Shawen A. Greer
Time is a cricket
w/ mechanic appendages
marching in place
on the cold side of the sun
so punch my ticket-
this one is for the ages
and all of space
a wind’s song for when I’m gone
© 2001 Okechukwu Mbachu
you avoid meeting my harsh
words. skin graffiti
encrusted you, signatures
endorsed you and I
banked your shy pulsings
under a thin scrim
tap tap needles you’re inked by
time and I’m your tic,
moving nerves, muscles under
yielding skin that no
blood can flush. your blue-veined wrists
open, my doll of dolls,
wink open-eyed. night sweats
leave you broken like
bread, sheened skin brushed with shellac
except for your feet,
lacklustrous, chilled blood. and I
let drop a pill, to
yellow your tongue, drag you down
© 2001 Ivy Alvarez
Kenneth Patchen was born in Niles, Ohio, in 1911. From the age of twelve years old, he maintained a diary. He read the works of Dante, Homer and Melville and was particularly fond of Shakespeare. He studied these writings and when he began to write, elements of their style and themes were present in his work.
He attended Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College and also the University of Wisconsin. After college, Patchen took a series of odd jobs. These included a position as a migrant worker.
On April 10, 1932 Patchen's poem, Permanence, was published by the New York Times. In his life he would complete and publish more than forty collections of poetry and prose. He was also an accomplished dramatist who wrote the works Before the Brave and First Will and Testament, both in the late 1930's. In the early 1940's Patchen published the Dark Kingdom. This was a limited run of seventy-five copies and he took the time to hand paint each cover.
For over thirty years, Patchen lived with a severe spinal ailment that caused him almost constant physical pain. He also struggled with a personal battle over the issues of humanity. Being a poet during the Great Wars made him sensitive to the value of human life. In his work we see this struggle brought to life on the page. He was deeply troubled by the seemingly immoral behavior and damage that war causes humanity and his writing expounded upon the horrors of war as he perceived them.
Perhaps Patchen's greatest literary achievement was allowing his readers to enter a world where characters were not engrossed in selfishness and the destruction of mankind, but in their benevolence and loving natures. He allowed people the chance to see life the way it was meant to be through his writing. Patchen used dynamic imagery to lift the reader out of the real world and into the world he created, where the value of brotherhood was not forgotten and was freely embraced and personified.
Patchen's work is mighty testament to one man's ability to supercede the obstacles that were in his way and to eliminate those obstacles that the world had placed upon its occupants. Patchen is one poet who often gets ignored in the shuffle when we attempt to find a great writer. His work is definitely worth the time to examine when we seem to be moving away from the virtues of friendship and the beauty of human life and need to be regrounded in them.
Kenneth Patchen died in 1972.
This month, imagine a place where only you and your loved ones exist. Attempt to capture the reasons the place is important in a poem of twenty lines or less, then expand upon each part of the poem and rewrite it so that it is at least a page long.
C.K. Williams' book of selected poems presents work from thirty years of writing and includes not only early poems, but also some new poems, which are equally as vital and creative as his more well-known pieces.
The book begins with poems written in 1969 and ends with his newer work. Throughout the book, Williams' poems remind us what it is to live and that he is one of the most gifted poets of our time. His work has long focused on problems that we deal with everyday and the way to solve those problems. His long poetic lines lead into his inventiveness of language and establish a collection that, though contemporary, is timeless.
Other works by Williams, who most recently won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, include Flesh and Blood. He currently teaches at Princeton University.
Jane shrugged. "I don't know. I'm still having too much trouble with dialogue. It doesn't feel natural to me."
"Well," sighed Joe, "I can give you an exercise to help practice writing it."
Jane listened eagerly. What would he suggest? Perhaps he'd ask her on a date?
"Come over to my place tomorrow night," Joe said. "I'll rent a couple of movies. You bring the popcorn, and don't forget your notebook."
Jane blushed, and nodded. "All right," she said. "If you think it'll help my writing."
"Well, I'm going to be late to class," said Joe, standing up. He picked up his backpack. "See you tomorrow." He reached for her notebook, wrote his address, and left the room.
Jane grinned and clapped her hands with anticipation. Was this a date, or merely a tutoring session? It didn't matter. She'd make it count, either way.
Finally, the evening approached. Jane had spent an hour carefully applying makeup and curling her hair in anticipation of her private encounter with Joe. He was so handsome! Such lovely blue eyes, and most importantly, he was a terrific writer. Joe saw promise in Jane's work, and that was quite an aphrodisiac. She'd read some of his pieces and nearly swooned at the talent he possessed.
Jane nervously knocked on the door. Joe answered, dressed in a tight gray T-shirt and blue jeans.
"Come on in," he said with a grin.
"I brought popcorn," she said.
"Great," said Joe. "I'll put it in the microwave now."
Jane sat on Joe's fuzzy green sofa and studied the room. It was nearly bare, but for the large TV and a few framed movie posters.
"You're a movie buff?" she asked.
"Kind of," he answered. "I like to study them. See how the plot and dialogue are structured. I want to try my hand at screenwriting someday."
"What are we watching tonight?"
"The Little Mermaid," he answered.
"You're kidding!"
"Nope." He popped in the tape, and handed her a bowl of popcorn. "Get out your notebook. You're going to write."
Joe held the remote in his hand. "I'm going to play the tape for a while, then pause it. You're going to write the dialogue as it happens in the movie."
"I see," she said, incredulously. "Why this one?"
"It's simple. The dialogue is easy to follow. Later, we'll progress to another movie, ‘Sleeping With The Enemy.'"
"You want me to write everything that happens in the movie?"
"No," Joe said. "Just the dialogue. Don't worry about writing descriptions or narrative. You're already good at that."
For the rest of the evening, Jane wrote feverishly every word that Ariel, King Triton, Sebastian, Flounder, Ursula, and Prince Eric uttered. Later, she documented the speech of Julia Roberts. It was tiring, but she had to admit, the assignment was enlightening.
"Nice work," said Joe, sliding his arm around her.
"It's getting late," Jane said with a yawn.
"I know. Shall we write a story of our own?"
"Uh…what do you mean by that?"
"How are you," he whispered, "at writing love scenes?"
A writer and a prostitute have many things in common, aside from being creative business people.
Repeat Customers:
As an author you want people to keep coming back to
your work time and time again. You want those who
puruse your talents to also persue them. This is done
by doing quality work to begin with, and by making the
reader, editor or publisher want to come again and
again and again. Ideally you want them to want you
over anyone else with similar talents.
So, how do you get repeat customers? It isn’t by charging a small pittance for your services, or being whorish in your writing skills. It’s by providing quality and quantity and knowing just how much is needed to satisfy your customer and keep them titilated and wanting more.
Variety:
You do this by providing variety and being versatile
in your work. Learn a new subject, find a new form of
expression, pick up a few new tools now and then to
polish your work. Live an active life and experience
things and you will always have something new to write
about.
Specialties:
You do this by developing an expertise. Just as some
people have foot fetishes, others have a penchant for
full length feature articles on organic gardening.
Pick an area you love and explore it to it’s fullest
potential. Then create new tricks and twists on that
topic that others haven’t tackled before. Look for the
human angle in your area of expertise and nourish it.
Lastly you need to think about the look and feel of your work and those who partake of it. If you were shopping for a prostitute you would look for certain things that assured you this was a quality piece of work.
Cleanliness:
You need to learn the skills of economy in writing.
You need to learn effective use of words, punctuation
and grammar in order to keep the work neat, orderly
and accessable. You need to know the ins and outs of
copyright and what paraphrasing is as opposed to
plagarism. The more time you spend on making the
little thingsa natural part of you, the less time the
big one will take.
Aesthtic Appeal:
Your work must be eye catching. Words are visual when
printed on a page. Notice how they appear, if there
are any white rivers and what you can do to improve
readability through font choices. Remember, think like
a prostitute. This is especially true of online
writing. You have minutes to capture you audience and
sometimes if you’re too flashy you will get looked
over. Sometimes flashy comes off as cheap.
Recommendations:
Don’t forget the power of the mouth. Referrals from
other editors and publishers who have worked with you
may just get you a job with a new client. Take care of
those you work with like they are the most important
people in the world and it will pay off. I’m not
suggesting you merely brownose the pimp here. Actually
get to know those you work with, learn their secrets,
their histories, their needs and desires. However,
don’t let them know all there is to know about you.
Remember, you want repeat customers and that means
leaving a sense of mystery in your relationships.
Of course, one other thing writers and prostitutes have in common is that they like cash up front!
I bought the book Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra without even reading the back to see what it was about. I figured that if the book was good enough to be made into a movie, it was worth buying. My husband and I traveled to Toronto by train, which is four hours away. I brought Sleepers with me, thinking it would be a pleasant way to pass the long train ride.
I was wrong. This is not a pleasant book. It is disturbing. An excellently written book, it is simply not the kind of book to read on a nice relaxing vacation. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The author paints a vivid picture of the depravity of some of those with power, and it is because of his skillful story telling that this is one of the best books I have read.
Sleepers is the story of a boyhood prank gone terribly wrong. The four involved pay dearly for their mistake. They are sent to a home for boys, where they are brutalized and raped daily by the guards.
The boys are not all released at the same time, and only two of them remain friends. When those two have a chance encounter with one of the guards from the home, the other two join them in exacting sweet revenge on all the guards who brutalized them.
Sleepers is an excellent book, albeit quite disturbing. While reading, I would find myself disbelieving that it is non-fiction; only because of the ghastly way the guards treat the boys. Unfortunately, it is a true story.
This is definitely a good read, but not for a relaxing trip!
