Dear Reader,

Welcome to Issue Twelve.

StepAway Magazine is three years old – a maturing toddler in human years, and yet, a sure-footed young urbanite given the short lifespan of many online magazines.

Literary e-zines come and go rapidly. Readers lose interest, the flow of submissions dries up, editors move on. I am all too aware of the manner in which even the best magazines and journals are swept away and forever lost in the unforgiving e-tides.

It is therefore with a great deal of joy that I watch StepAway Magazine continue to grow. We are proud to have encouraged and inspired a dedicated readership. Our writers continue to submit engaging and enthralling material that allows the magazine to evolve. Our volunteers help us to work through an ever increasing volume of submissions and our artists kindly donate their work to provide us with an array of striking cover art.

As we enter our forth year, we look forward to working with the University of Westminster on its Fitzrovia Atlas project. As part of the project, StepAway Magazine will publish its third special issue entitled Fitzrovia. I would like to invite all writers, and in particular those based in London, to explore the streets of Fitzrovia and then reflect upon their walk in poetry or prose. Further information and submission details can be found here or by clicking on the link in the menu above.

With the moody winter months behind us, Issue Twelve inspires us to explore the springtime city. Our cover art comes courtesy of Ronya Galka, a photographer who was born and raised in Germany but moved to England in the 1990s. Much of her portfolio is of an urban nature, and StepAway readers will undoubtedly enjoy her street photography and photo essays.

Our spring issue showcases a startlingly talented set of writers, including: Jevin Lee Albuquerque, Joan Byrne, Michael Estabrook, Greg Jensen, Antony Owen, Rudy Ravindra, Tony Rickaby, John Stocks, P.W. Trethaway, and Kate Wise.

It is always a pleasure to publish the work of established writers alongside those who are only beginning to see their work in print. I was particularly taken by the manner in which each of the pieces published in this issue succeed in speaking to one another. They describe disparate urban experiences, yet read in succession capture  the collective tension and cohesion of all city life.

I hope that you enjoy reading, this, our twelfth issue.

Yours faithfully,

Darren Richard Carlaw
editor@stepawaymagazine.com

An hour or so later, a child called Eliza, pushing a toy stroller with her baby doll strapped in, dislodged the conker from its resting place. Her daddy thought about picking it up and pocketing it for good luck; something his grandmother used to do.

Light was beginning to fade when a crow, from its vantage point on the black poplar tree, spied something shiny, a ripped crisp packet. It dropped down and strode around the silvery bag, assessing the best way to peck at its contents. In doing so its wing, like Batman’s cape, shifted the conker.

Darkness fell suddenly, uncannily, as Ulysses, pedalling his 20-speed bike, sped towards the pub where he worked. He was humming a piece of music as the first crash of thunder erupted. Next thing his front wheel hit the conker forcing him to swerve towards a woman in a colourful coat.

Mary was dashing to buy the cheese she’d forgotten. But when hailstones cascaded from the blackness, she turned for home.

Ulysses sailed on.

Joan Byrne

Fold canvas over and over. Stamp flat with right foot. Put arms above head and stretch back. Look around.

Shift from foot to foot. Spit into drain and walk up alleyway, swaying from side to side.

Bend over rail, holding stomach. Spew up. Wipe mouth with forearm. Spit and wipe mouth again.

Pick up cigarette end from gutter. Cross square. Pause in front of supermarket and ask men for money.

Slide zigzagging along deck. Grab and hold rail. Pick splinter from palm.

Stop outside off-licence, jingling coins in pocket. Take out coins and look at them.

Lick wound. Take rag from pocket and dab at blood. Throw rag into sea. Go below.

Enter off-licence and come out carrying can of beer. Cross road, drinking from can.

Ease line through fingers, counting. Curse loudly and jump to one side.

Sit down in doorway. Take packet of biscuits from carrier-bag and eat one after the other, chewing hard.

Untie knot. Wrap twine round and round thumb and forefinger. Drop down onto right knee.

Get up from doorway, waving stick at pigeons. Walk round in circles on pavement, picking at teeth.

Climb up ladder, rung by rung. Pause and brush spray from front of jacket. Continue ascent.

Take cigarette packet from litter-bin and drop it back in again. Walk through square, looking into every bin.

Tug at bits of old rope, slowly untangling. Look up at sky. Blow into clenched fists.

Pull newspaper from litter-bin. Glance at headlines and read back page. Fold and put into coat pocket.

Haul on rope, hand over hand. Stagger against wind. Trip over plank and fall down. Lie groaning.

Stand staring in middle of road. Hitch up trousers. Scratch inside shirt. Shake head up and down.

Run down steps. Empty contents of bucket over rail. Look down at waves. Walk astern.

Place carrier-bag against bus stop. Hold out hand to passer-by. Shout out something.

Scrape at deck, back and forth. Sit back on heels and rub sweat from forehead.

Look into shop window and stamp foot. Talk to woman sweeping steps. Walk away, laughing.

Stand on tiptoes, holding hand up before face. Screw up eyes. Point at horizon. Run to starboard.

Tony Rickaby

But we are not there now.
In the fading day of a
wolfwhistle summer
my feet strike the highwalk alone,
amongst brontosaural cranes, beneath
the geraniumed pigeon-coops of the Barbican.
A cello strains not-grey but still
nostalgia from a practice room.

Here is bruised purple. There was always,
in the yews, the possibility of an owl.

Kate Wise

*

The walking habit, a habit borne out of the sheer necessity to regain peace and tranquility, to seek solitude, to walk away from the mayhem at my parents’ house, stayed with me for all these five decades. However busy I was, even after I moved to America, I always made time for my daily walk of three miles. I walked around the antebellum architecture of the deep South; the lovely park near lake Michigan; the walkway around the river in the beautiful Iowa University campus; the hilly streets of Moscow, Idaho; the nature preserve in the State University of New York at Binghamton; Wrightsville beach in Wilmington, North Carolina. No matter where I went, I walked. To maintain my sanity, to enjoy the fresh air, to smell the roses, and in later years to boost my waning metabolism. As beautiful as all these places are, my mind always went to back to my walks around Bangalore streets.

Like most of my peers who came to America, leaving behind their ageing parents, I went back to Bangalore periodically, to do my filial duty, spend time with my parents and siblings. Of course I never failed to take my morning walk. However, as the years went by, there were changes in the landscape, an old house torn down here, a multistory apartment complex sprouting up there, more vehicles, more people, more noise. My sister who lived couple blocks away from my parents’ house, dropped in every day, she and my mother continued their deafening discourse, as before. But now I wasn’t able to escape to the streets, as they too became extremely inhospitable, noisy and pedestrian unfriendly. It was almost impossible to cross the Margosa and Sampige roads, the relentless traffic, the blaring horns, the smoke, the heat, the dust. Even ten policemen couldn’t direct the chaotic traffic. The once salubrious city now became unhealthy. I couldn’t enjoy my walks anymore. I had to go to the neighborhood gym to trudge on a treadmill. The gradual but disgusting deterioration of the beautiful Bangalore streets, where pedestrians could once walk freely, is now complete. Many centuries-old trees were felled in the name of progress, the city reduced to a garbage dump.

As time went by my visits to Bangalore became sporadic, particularly after my parents passed away, one after another as if they couldn’t bear to be apart. Although my body is in America, my soul is still in Bangalore, the memory of the aroma of those warm, salty peanuts, spicy bondas and bajjis are still with me even after all these years.

Rudy Ravindra

And I decided it was time to forgive myself
for not being more
or less than hung up
by my own wrung neck
by my own two hands
in a display window blazing
with electrified heat,
as I sweat out the last
of my borrowed juices.
How can I not be
in the middle of it?

I am like a white handkerchief
peeking out of the pocket
of the man who strides
through streets and alleys
and jumps on subways and buses,
late for everything.
He bumps up against whatever
is in his way,
places himself in between destinations
that never arrive,
until he is settled in a seat finally
where there is no more space
to be negotiated around him.
And he sits down
next to the smiling, chattering version of himself
whom he tries to ignore
but who takes me
out of his pocket,
opens me up on his lap,
and out hops
a small bird.

Greg Jensen

~

Rashmi picked up a fare,
two lovers going all the way
he wiped away their clouds,

~

sprayed moonlight from a pothole,
thought of Mumbai slums
and skins of monsoon gold.

~

He warned the lovers of the soil fee,
they morphed to spray tanned racists.
‘Whatever coon’ she said.

Antony Owen

Then we continued climbing the steep hills
rising like pythons up to Mason Street
to the Cable Car Museum:
amazing watching these huge
whirring spinning wheels still powering
ancient cable cars like they did 130 years ago.
Outside, one of the cable cars
becomes stuck at the corner
so we climb on, pay our $5,
sit down as it gets push-started
and we ride the fattened coils
of the giant undulating python hills
back down to the bottom
where we enjoy a lovely lunch
at the Boudin Cafe (as I waited for
my pain pills to kick in)
then took the N-Train back to Dave’s.

“I need to lie down,” she said,
her eyelids heavy as hens.
When I went in later to check on her
she was sprawled out languidly
across the bed on her tummy,
one leg bent at the knee,
one arm stretched out above her head
like she’s picking apples off a tree.

Michael Estabrook

Dodge the man in the shadows -
stumbles – mumbles – stumbles.
I step into the bare boxed tree bed
just to hear the deciduous crunch,
sounds of my autumnal youth.

Heat clings to the inside of my wool trousers.
So much beastie boys
from darkened lounges and heavy bars.
Car tires hum rum as they pass
on the rocks.

I like to play asteroids
with sidewalk trash cans,
one hand shoved into a pocket,
the other swinging by my side
to break my fall.

P.W. Trethaway

It is so much the place but more
The dusk and twilight, the narrow streets
My own inverted soul embracing
Some terrible beauty deep within
A reptilian indifference
A resonance of ancient horrors.

Once half pissed alone
I felt possessed by something
A gross transcendence of space and time
Manifest by a palpitation of old stones
A quivering then shivering of shadows
Dissembling; pulping the marrow in my bones
Until I knew for sure, that evil was not just a word
But something that was part of me.

John Stocks