#sam martone

[the-end-of-art]

Adventure log

An Object You Cannot Lose by Sam Martone

Cartridge Lit's second chapbook. Create an adventure log, visit Coburg Castle, try to remember your father. http://cartridgelit.com/an-object-you-cannot-lose/

[englishistheartofbullshit]

All you need is nostalgia for games no one ever actually played. All you need is a night late enough and an empty bottle. Finish what you’re drinking, hold the bottle in the air. All you need is a hardwood floor. All you need are friends who will sit in a circle. All you need are fingers that can twirl, a flick of the wrist. You will kiss people. You will see people kiss people. Your face will itch when you kiss men with beards and you will wonder how anyone does this for fun, how anyone does it without a bottle deciding, when no one else is watching. Your turn will not come often enough. The kiss will always end too soon. The bottle will never point to the girl you’ve imagined naked, or worse: it will do so only once. Still, you’ll like this game you never played in junior high. You will like remembering a time when a kiss didn’t have to mean something, even though such a time has never existed in the history of time, in the history of bottles, in the history of lips. Do not try to judge the slant of the floor. Do not switch spots in the circle. It will not work out the way you plan. Soon, the quick pecks will turn into open-mouths. Hands held behind backs will find their way to hips, to necks, to hair. “Seven minutes in heaven!” someone will shout, or “Three-way kiss!” Soon, there will only be one person you’re hoping to kiss, only one something you’re hoping the kiss might mean. But what you’ll really be hoping is that someone is hoping her spin will land on you before the game ends, before the circle breaks and the morning comes and all of this is never spoken of again.

300 word review #112- Spin the Bottle Sam Martone

[napmag]

SAM MARTONE

THE CAVE BEHIND THE WATERFALL

Return to the ship and sail north. The girl with the yellow ribbon in her hair, your childhood friend, will unlock a passageway through the levee. You think this might be it, you’re finally in open water, but no, you are in a huge lake, the rest of the world still inaccessible. Follow a river inland, where a cave is tucked behind a waterfall. Anchor the ship and enter the cave. The air is heavy and damp. Goosebumps rise up on your skin, though you’re not sure if it’s the coolness of the cave or her standing next to you. She talks about how pretty it is in here, the light from openings in the ceiling rainbowing as it refracts through waterfalls falling all around you. She hasn’t had much time to explore the world since her mother died. Descend deeper into the cave. Drop through holes in the ground, remembering floors you fell through when you went ghost hunting with her. Find the robe that will protect its wearer if she falls asleep or becomes paralyzed. Think of the stoned circles you made on lazy rivers. Think of when you learned to waterski, all that water rushing by beneath you, standing up for small wet seconds on wobbly legs. At the bottommost cavern, there is only a treasure chest with an elixir in it. No magic ring. There must be something you missed. Backtrack, retrace your steps. Walk through a waterfall into another cavern. There, the ring of water, perched on a pedestal, glowing blue. You expect water monsters to splash up from puddles, but there is nothing that stops you from taking this ring. She says she is so happy for you, that now you will be able to marry the wealthy man’s daughter, acquire the legendary shield, but she doesn’t meet your eyes. This ring, unlike the ring of fire, you cannot equip. Some unseen force prevents you sliding it onto your finger. But transfer it to her inventory, see that she can. Slip it onto her finger, like you would an engagement ring. This ring is meant for something else, but you want her to have it, you never want her to take it off. You can hear the tide turning. Soon the cavern will flood. 'I feel like I can breathe underwater,' she says, 'My lungs feel like lochs.' Think of a river winding like a liquid tongue through the desert, a sun that burned your ankles. You wanted her, wherever she was, to be with you, to take your hand as you both drifted ashore, back to solid ground.

sammartone.com

[sadchimpson]

Issue 36 of the venerable SmokeLong Quarterly went live earlier this week, and it includes a pretty excellent piece by my pal and former student Sam Martone. A teaser sentence: "They are tiny images of disaster: a flood, a fire, a highway accident on an icy road, all rendered in the smallest brushstrokes of watercolor."