Issue No. 2: Sting

By Jack Short

Sting

On the street down there people are yelling, eating ice cream, and gathering on benches under the lamps. They stay close to the falling light for fear of homosexuals lurking just beyond. South, at Caspersen’s beach they would proposition each other boldly so the people, being offended—worked into a frenzy of righteousness—complained to the city council; and the council responded by building a children’s park in that spot. The centerpiece is a fleet of plastic galleons the largest of which is forty feet long, half-submerged in the sand.

 

A general update …

It’s time to get going again. We’ve been on hiatus for a few years and there is a ton of great material waiting to go into issue number 3. Keep checking back over the next few weeks for updates.

More fiction from upcoming issue #3 …

A Sunny Place for Shady People

by Victoria Shawaga

“Bombay,” she says with a nod of absolute certainty. A shiny snake earring dangling from one lobe sways. She’s talking mangoes, not Mumbai. I had expected something more commonly grown in South Florida when I asked what kind of mangoes the tree bore. “Yes, child! Bom-bay. Dat tree a hundred an’ fifty years old, ya see. Me had one back a yard…not as big, though.”

 

Formication

By Jack Short

 

Escape. Charlie and I met at night under shivering palms. We watched the roads, stretched from horizon to horizon in red and white. The chrome and glass glimmered. Bodies wavered in the seats hands outstretched, screaming in the artificial light. Charlie and I want desperately to settle into that dream (fingertips lightly touching the wheel) sailing down the freeway, fading out of consciousness.

“You have to get me out of Oceanside,” Charlie said.

Poem from upcoming issue …

Here is a poem from the upcoming Issue #3. 
Chanda submitted to us through Margo, a grad student at USF.

Ethel and Leone
by chanda Briggs

Mothers of mud
dirty hands digging

planting, propagating
rhubarb suckled on
      so sour, so sweet
yams mashed
      into glorious submission
yields pickled for future days
      and sticky fingers tomorrow

in between crops
the children come
they come into the field
both pink and black
neck and back
with dirty hands, digging

gourds hung
     ‘til nothin’ but a shell
long-labored greens
      gnashed between the teeth
corn shucked, beans snapped
      beneath the blinding Sun

moons and moons and moves
and still the hands
dig, dig, dirty
with bent backs
blinded eyes
limbs lost
needles needed
‘til hands, clean underground
now fallow fields
black and white
newly born
daughters of dirt

Some music …

I’ve embedded a player from soundcloud.com and it works very well. If anyone has original music like this (one of mine) I’ll be happy to include it in the online version of Umbrage as I have here. Please send any submissions to cyrano138@gmail.com

Isssue No. 2 – “Rise and Fall” by Ashton Goggans

“The Rise and the Fall”

by Ashton Goggans

Dashed lines racing to the horizon.

Sun setting on crisp autumn air

Flatlands blur together

As you drift to sleep, uninterested.

Against the bronze, bleeding sky

Bubbles are carrying the brave

Do I wake you?

Would you care?

This life, beautiful and full

is passing you by and I cant stop it for you

So I stop, for me, and follow them.

Abandoned fire-tower stretched to heaven

I open the door–the fall

Tickles your skin awake with a shudder

“Look,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”

But you see balloons through the eyes,

those hazy hazel eyes, of the dead.

It is done. I know. And I am scratching over the fence

Before your eyes close

Climbing towards the sky, I can smell the sea

But all you see is dusk, never dawn, and broken me,

out the window (always out the window)

of the passenger seat.

Issue No.2 – Dead Dog by Brad Fries

Dead Dog

by Brad Fries

I came home from work today and went straight to my mailbox: nothing exciting. Turning to the front door, I spotted a puppy dog which appeared to be napping on the other side of my hedge. I said hello and simultaneously realized that the dog was dead. She wasn’t there at lunch; I think I would have noticed.