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NEW: Update for Tuesday, May 13, 2008.
Male Model by Phil Doran
"Naomi... my credibility as a man largely depends on your good faith. My credibility with the world at large depends on a suspension of disbelief, which quite frankly, I find incredible."
Set to Replay by Willie Smith
"In came Mike the Sailor – five-feet six-inch warhead of 160 pounds of incoming, me the sole soul awake in a hippie house of nine pelvises."
Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis
"Back when I thought I loved you, I was like a completely different person."
Tree by G. David Schwartz
"The logical tree achieves plausibility, credibility, and rigidity not because logicians speak about it but because human beings typically think in terms of the logical tree. Logicians speak about the logical tree because it is descriptive."
PLEASE NOTE: We are currently changing management. There may be a longer delay than usual in the review of new submissions during this transition. Thank you for your patience.
E-mail all submissions to submissions@cerebralcatalyst.com.
Read the F.A.Q.
before submitting.
Next Update: To Be Announced.
Other Recent Updates:
May 5, 2008:
Disintegration by Don Hucks
"It was just like him, crumbling to dust in a pile on his chair. Really. It was just the sort of thing he would do."
Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord
"Molly was smart enough. Which is to say, she stood proud and had a small idea and the ability to direct it toward a profit. She had the confidence to gather people that depended on her."
Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse
"In your new dream, I am a new me. Shiny, polished, & packaged. Selling on the discount aisle."
Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi
"Those were the days when whiskey did what pictures of distant stars promise in primrose books about pumpkin wars."
April 29, 2008:
Lookalikes by Phil Doran
"My budget would now stretch to a celebrity sibling lookalike romance. As Alfredo Maradona, I was to meet and fall in love with Valentina Travolta."
Dinner by Brandi Wells
"Then he unlocked his door and shoved me into the door frame. I guess he was trying to shove me outside. I slapped him in the face while he was shoving me."
The Modern Convenant by Daniel E. Wilcox
"Bad rituals, lost religion of disengaged couples uncoupling on rail lines that never join, not a traveling union, scabbed and only repeating ing ing."
Death by Onions by Michael Frissore
"Why do you think he’s the King? Because of some delusion of grandeur? No, because he’s the King Friday the XIII of Burgerland, and you’re Miss Henrietta Pussycat. Now, kiss me."
April 21, 2008:
Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser
"Just think. The population was overcrowding our resources. Medicine could cure just about everything, but at the same time was driving the cost of healthcare to a level that we just couldn't maintain. What they've done! Implanting humans with tracking chips from birth."
Identity Theft by George Anderson
"I first caught him rummaging through my garbage bin, his head thrust inwards, his feet dangling he emerges clutching a fist full of rough drafts of poems & stories & autobiographical notes."
The Datists by Adam Engel
"The Office Women, the 'Datists,' convert raw numeric to 'actionable' info. Datists sit smartly at squat machines. Squarish, sleek machines. Explosion of words, images, connections; algorithms of deception."
A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde
"But try telling that to a schizophrenic Inuit named Two-dogs while sitting on five-gallon buckets in the homeless camp behind gray's lake."
April 14, 2008:
Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem
"Mr. Papaya was walking home from the club one rainy evening. He had a ventriloquism act with his one-armed plastic dummy, Dale. Dale had not been cooperating tonight."
California by Caroline Imreibe
"I dreamt we were in California. We had just arrived, by El Camino, after 30 hours and pulled off the road. You said hurry come look from the railing along the expressway and I did."
Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis
"It's like the shower rod that keeps falling down. You just keep putting up with it; you don't fix it or replace it."
Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson
"Inside the fog, gods unroll their holy tongues across the Hudson lapping Manhattan and eventually it will rain."
April 7, 2008:
The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch
"Nietzsche as a philosopher who sees the questions that will shape the world to come, and thus as a thinker in the spirit of Burckhardt, is quite different from Nietzsche as a philosopher who advocates a certain ontology."
Slideshow by Miles J. Bell
"The trombone was a fingerprint-smeared gold but had a new case. I liked to carry it around pretending I had a machine gun."
Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen
"Guess I don't expect to write without incident, but those guys stole my bicycle!"
Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin
"Powerless, fearful, she walked, held in place firmly by pride, self-loathing and the ideology of love."
March 24, 2008:
The Streak by Jeremy Hendrix
"He decided he’d be the “`” key, lying unused above the Tab, interacted with only when bumped by fingers on their way to the Esc key. Like “Q” and “Z” he would be pristine in his unimportance, so shiny he may well have been replaced every night by invisible administrators from another time zone."
Grab Your Butts by Emme Hor
"Going against the grain, the razor cut that shaves the face, the mind, the set way."
Far Away by Ashok Niyogi
"These coffee dregs or apple juice to water my bathroom plant."
Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer
"Small town factories put the hard line on faces. All of them in a vertical destruction of youth, skin hanging there a wrinkle of time."
March 17, 2008:
The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy
"Calvin Cumberland swaggered up the brick steps to Maureen’s apartment with the positive test results from the lab in one pocket of his yellow slacks. A hairbrush pressed against his thigh in the other."
Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley
"What's this? Someone beside myself breaking Marshal Law. God, maybe there's hope after all. Someone with a spine. And a dog, too. I slam on the breaks and come to a skidding stop in the parking lot of a drive-in movie theater."
Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson
"Don't bring the rosary beads, it’s too damn late for doing repetitions. Eucharist, I can handle the crackers and wine; I love the Lord just like you."
Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney
"I guess the heat excited him. The little twigs he still had for bangs were getting wet. The way we were positioned, I got a good view of his memories and achievements."
March 10, 2008:
Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
"They tell you lies. They feed you come-ons. They drop a penny into a jar and tell you it will turn into a drum full of quarters."
Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson
"Here's to the Steel Pig of the Court! Butter of moist pig (makin' wishes)."
I'm Quiet in Bed by Moctezuma Johnson
"There she is on the bed, legs spread wide yelling, 'you're the best!'"
Tequila Shakes by Richard Lighthouse
"Mix 2 parts anxiety, 1 heap ice cream, 4 ounces tequila."
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