FAT BOY Shane Allison I’m barely awake checking emails And social media messages When my mother asks me If I want anything from the store. She does this sometimes, As if she’s some kind of space Martian From Mars who is new to planet Earth And doesn’t know her way around a supermarket. With sleep seeds still in my eyes, I tell her to get yogurt, Turkey cold cuts, and chicken pot pies. I tell her to throw waffles in the cart, Plums and green grapes without the seeds. I know she’ll forget most of what I ask For, like kiwi and dragon fruit. Raisin bread instead of Cherry plums. I don’t want to clutter the corners of her mind With things like blackberries and almond milk. Needed ingredients for smoothies To lower my blood pressure. She will come home armed With an arsenal of bags Filled with turkey wings, Ham hocks, Neck bones and frozen okra. Finger cookies for dad And canned vegetables pickled in some soupy, Salty concoction. She’ll come with chocolate milk, Sugar Pops and Frosted Flakes, Zero sugar root beer for Dad’s bad blood And her kidney disease, which was News she broke to me in the lobby at the cancer center Minutes before her CAT scan. The calories I burn at Planet Fitness Will only be regained under her reign Where everything must be cooked With butter, bacon, or grease. She doesn’t know that it takes more than push‑ups To flatten a belly like this. A thousand thigh crunches to keep them from rubbing together. My friend Chuck lost 90 pounds on Noom. I would give both my nuts To shed 90 pounds of fried food flesh, Suck out the midnight cravings with a vacuum hose. My mother doesn’t know what it’s like to look down And not be able to see your dick without having To hold your belly in. “You look fat sitting on the sofa,” she told me once. “Are you still going to the gym?” she asked when she Saw me coming out of the bathroom with my shirt off. Tonight I’ll write out a grocery list on the back of this poem: Pork loin Salmon Beet and pomegranate juice Almond milk, Yogurt, Blackberries and whiskey, A little something extra for the smoothies. Shane Allison Shane Allison was bit by the writing bug at the age of fourteen. He spent a majority of his high school life shying away in the library behind desk cubicles writing bad love poems about boys he had crushes on. He has since gone on to publish several chapbooks of poetry, Black Fag , Ceiling of Mirrors , Cock and Balls , I Want to Fuck a Redneck , Remembered Men , and Live Nude Guys , as well as four full-length poetry collections, I Remember (Future Tense), Slut Machine (Rebel Satori), Sweet Sweat (Hysterical), and I Want to Eat Chinese Food off Your Ass (Dumpster Fire). He has edited twenty-five anthologies of gay erotica and has written two novels, You’re the One I Want and Harm Done (Simon & Schuster). Allison’s collage work has graced the pages of Shampoo , Unlikely Stories , Pnpplzine.com , Palavar Arts Magazine , Southeast Review , and a plethora of others. He is at work on a new novel and is always at work making a collage here and there.

PAYING FOR THAT FREE CUP OF COFFEE Dean Wilson Eking out this road trip Scrimping, saving, surviving Somewhere between a frugal gourmet And a dumpster diver. Not quite changing from A can of House Red to A bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Not quite ready, not quite yet. I chose cafés that Honored senior citizens 55 and older while pondering Unaccepted offers from AARP. Free refills are a blessing in disguise, Like the toss of a coin: Never knowing the outcome Until it’s too late. Driving faster to pay For time spent drinking That needed extra cup of caffeine; My drug of choice. “No Services Next 90 Miles” The sign revealed. I had plenty of fuel to go That extra mile. The next corner revealed a line Of 10 MPH, of bumper to bumper. That extra cup doesn’t seem Like a good deal after all. Dean Wilson Born in Oregon, our family moved around a lot. I used my first camera, a 126-roll film from the 1960s, very infrequently. Progressing through the Instamatic days of the 1970s, I bought my first SLT in 1976. This eventually led to a DSLR in 2015 and mirrorless from 2019. Photography is a passion for me that allows me to capture a feeling, mood, or a moment in time that tells a story. I capture landscapes with a creative eye of a place that may have existed for thousands of years or in the blink of an eye, which may suddenly disappear tomorrow. Instagram ~ @DeanWilsonCanby Facebook ~ Dean Wilson Photography

Fiction The Fool Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez The Red's Death Matt Smith

THE FOOL Gigi-Giangiobbe-Rodriguez The man on the bicycle’s name is Tony, short for Antonio. Antonio was his father’s name, sour on his tongue like spoiled milk. He ditched Antonio and he goes by Tony, hoping he can pass as an Anthony. He had always thought Anthony sounded like someone who graduated from high school, maybe even from college. Someone with a dad who didn’t punch on his mom every night and whose mom didn’t have two separate personalities on a good day. Tony could have been the guy who graduated college if he had kept pedaling, but as it was, he hopped off his bike and wandered, often. Tony had one hand on his ruby red bicycle and one hand on his cherry red gasoline drum that he just filled to the brim. Tony is as red as they come. His nose and ears are crimson from the gout. His eyes are bloodshot from years of drinking, smoking, and crying. That, and he doesn’t get much sleep. He’s been called a commie, socialist, anti-capitalist, revolutionary, Rudolph, bashful, flaming, angry—and he was most of these things. Even his bank account inched closer to being in the red every day. It wasn’t that he had spent more money than he’d made; the real problem was that he hadn’t had a job in decades, and that was just fine with him. He was pedaling through the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, where he had lived for twenty‑five years. He had seen more grown men’s pricks and backsides last year in the Tenderloin than he did in his whole tour in Germany. Very often, the noise and smells of this neighborhood brought his mind traveling back to the barracks, to a time when he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring and it scared him, but at least he hadn’t completely given up yet. His mp3 player broke last week, so today while he rides he hums “Killing Yourself to Live” by Black Sabbath. He has a beautiful voice, though no one ever hears it. Tony was well aware as he wandered through the streets that people assumed he was homeless, and that comforted him. The average person with their life together doesn’t bother to look at homeless people, to really see them or ask how they’re doing. He doesn’t want eyes on him, or questions directed at him. Today, as he made his commute in obscurity, he was bringing his full gasoline drum to his fire engine red Buick Skylark, which had been sitting in the same spot for months, on one of the only streets in San Francisco that remained unmetered and unpermitted. He had only received two street-sweeping tickets the whole time his car had been there, and that’s because it is an insanely steep and zigzaggy hill that most street- sweeping drivers conveniently “forget” to go up on their weekly route. *** He pedals past the weirdos he feels kinship with in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, nodding at the few that make eye contact, keeps riding past Buena Vista Park, and hops off when he hits Belvedere Street. He squints through his sweat and scans the middle of the block for his rusty Buick, where he knows he left it. It takes him several seconds longer than it should to realize his car has been towed, or stolen, it really doesn’t matter which. Lungs burning with exercise and rage mingling with humiliation, he throws the gas drum and hears it thud and crack. Angry tears burn his eyes and he hopes someone lights a cigarette right now right this very moment and blows it all to fucking hell. Tony wishes he had a lighter or cigarettes on him because he is starting to get some sick thoughts and wants to do some sick things, and then the corner of the letter in his shirt pocket pokes him and snaps him out of his fury. He starts to walk his red bike over to the park, leaving the leaking red drum and the memory of his red car behind. He is drawn to a grove of towering eucalyptus trees, their bark torn and falling apart. He walks for a while as his anger turns to sadness and self-pity, the emotion he is most comfortable with. After about an hour, Tony finally sits on a large tree stump and feels for the contents of his breast pocket. Avoiding the piece of paper, he grabs the doobie next to it instead. Shit, he thinks, I don’t have a goddamn light. He walks up to a homeless man and offers a couple hits for a spark. *** By the time he returned to his stump, Tony had calmed considerably, and the breeze filtering through the grove was tepid like his mood. He took off his shoes and felt the grass with his toes. There was a letter from his son in his pocket that he hadn’t found the courage to read yet. His son had not contacted him for years, and considering Tony’s absence and behavior he more than understood this choice. Seeing the envelope in his mail slot made Tony feel both excited and ashamed. He took the letter out of his pocket and stared at his name on the envelope, inches away from a little red stamp, and was hit by a wave of nausea and jitters. Maybe after this smoke I’ll read it. But probably not. Most likely not. Where he sits, the salty ocean air is veiled by an herbaceous, arboreal smell. The eucalyptus trees and sweet bay laurels commanded his attention, and so while he sat and smoked he stared up at their peeling trunks. Every day it gets a bit harder to breathe, and the joint is probably hurting more than helping him, but he doesn’t care. Tomorrow, he will read the letter. Tomorrow. Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez Gigi Giangiobbe-Rodriguez is a writer based in Portland, Oregon but was raised in Oakland, California. She’s never met a tree she didn’t like and has what some would call an acute addiction to tea. When Gigi is not amassing books faster than she can read them, she’s writing, snacking, or scream-singing karaoke at a dive bar with her husband and their friends. Her current works include her chapbook: I’m Okay, I Promise . Gigi writes personal essays, memoir, prose poetry, poetry, fiction, and occasionally takes a stab at other genres. Her research essay on Indigenous voter disenfranchisement was showcased at PCC’s 2023 Groundswell Conference. Gigi is on the President’s List at PCC and is an All-Oregon Academic Team scholar. She is an editor for the literary magazine The Pointed Circle .

HISTORY OF THE BELLWETHER REVIEW The Bellwether Review had its conception in 1996, originally dubbed The Rock Creek Review , staffed by PCC Rock Creek faculty members. The Rock Creek Review was renamed The Bellwether Review in 2011, with the inception of the Advanced Creative Writing, Editing & Publishing course. The Bellwether Review was chosen to symbolize the artistic drive of writers and artists, by drawing on the significance of a “bellwether” being the leader in a flock of sheep, who wears a bell to signal the best direction for the entire herd. Today, the term “bellwether” more commonly refers to any person who takes initiative and sets trends, as those whose work is published in The Bellwether Review do in leading the way for artistic expression.

AUNT BOBBIE IS MY FAVORITE ON MY DAD'S SIDE Shane Allison Aunt Bobbie put in 16 years at Extended Care. She gossips with her friend Elenore on picnic benches during lunch breaks. They say she’s doing crack again. She sells television sets and wholesale outfits to gold tooth drug dealers. She takes care of babies of girls who party all night with golden boyfriends. Aunt Bobbie doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t want anybody to see her this way. Her sisters have given up, thrown their hands up like white flags. Her brothers have had enough. Shawn, her only son, is ashamed and doesn’t want her for a roommate. Aunt Earline, who creates magic in the kitchen, who makes the best jelly cake, doesn’t want Aunt Bobbie in the house. She gave her clothes, soap to wash herself and three square meals on the good plates from her china cabinet. Aunt Alice didn’t have room in her heart for a drug addict grown up. Bodies pack in every crack and crevice of a three-bedroom house. Aunt Norris doesn’t trust her. She could run off with my jewelry and sell it for drugs. Anyway, my son is coming home from the army and she can’t be here. “If only you knew how hard she worked,” Mama said. Aunt Bobbie is my favorite on my dad’s side. Third cousins talk about her like a legend. She used to laugh loudly at family reunions. She used to be pretty. Will someone help her? Help her like Uncle Howard, like Uncle Weed falling down drunk on the living room floor. Shane Allison Shane Allison was bit by the writing bug at the age of fourteen. He spent a majority of his high school life shying away in the library behind desk cubicles writing bad love poems about boys he had crushes on. He has since gone on to publish several chapbooks of poetry, Black Fag , Ceiling of Mirrors , Cock and Balls , I Want to Fuck a Redneck , Remembered Men , and Live Nude Guys , as well as four full-length poetry collections, I Remember (Future Tense), Slut Machine (Rebel Satori), Sweet Sweat (Hysterical), and I Want to Eat Chinese Food off Your Ass (Dumpster Fire). He has edited twenty-five anthologies of gay erotica and has written two novels, You’re the One I Want and Harm Done (Simon & Schuster). Allison’s collage work has graced the pages of Shampoo , Unlikely Stories , Pnpplzine.com , Palavar Arts Magazine , Southeast Review , and a plethora of others. He is at work on a new novel and is always at work making a collage here and there.

BACKSTAB IN FRENCH AMBASSADOR Slava Konoval The Nigerian junta backstabs the French ambassador. Partisans remind him subtly that their country is not a colony of Paris. The ambassador is crying, he has a legitimate agrément laments the old man desperately. The demand is brought by the rebel outwardly dirty and disgusting. “I don’t want to,” says the ambassador. “I’m worried a legion of 1.5 thousand stands here, Niger is my country.” Wagner musicians visit Niger, they’re laughing, looking hideous, Moscow is driving its ideas hybridly. Am I the only one ashamed? Am I the only one so confused? Measuring the force of direction it will wipe the despotism of the bourgeoisie into dust. The entire French rear dances on the bones of the Russians. You, Macron, weakened France, she is no longer a thunderstorm. Russia dictates rules to Africans, there is no strength on the continent from now on. Slava Konoval My creative works are dedicated to the central themes of modernity, and the main one is the exposure of the concepts of “good” and “evil” and their transformation into a gray shade. Poetry is a weapon against consciousness, which feeds on cheap informational garbage, cultivating a consumerist attitude and civic indifference for the future of the society in which individuals live. Since I am a lawyer by profession, poetry is my additional tool that allows me to fight where politics mercilessly and maliciously defeats the law. I am an active member of civil society and perform the functions of the Commissioner for Prevention and Counteraction of Corruption on public grounds. I adore the poetic satire. I have never attached much importance to the naming of my poetry, as I believe that poetry should be devoid of advertising content. The heart of poetry is the power of words. That’s the main thing. Ideologically, my works are in the canvas of a poetry group called Voices from Ukraine.

WANT TO SEE YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN THE BELLWETHER REVIEW? The Bellwether Review primarily seeks to promote the work of Portland Community College students, but we also consider a limited number of submissions from the general public. Any individual can submit up to 5 poems, 2 short stories, 2 scripts, 2 creative nonfiction essays, and/or 4 pieces of visual artwork. We generally do not publish research essays or works over 5,000 words. All works submitted will be reviewed and taken into consideration by our editorial team! Submit your work(s) via e-mail to bellwetherreview@gmail.com . Written works should be submitted as a .docx file, and visual artwork as a print quality .jpeg or .png file. All submissions must be titled. Include your name, list of titles submitted, and phone number in the submission email, which should be sent from your PCC email address, if you have one. Submission files should not have your name or identifying information within the file itself. All contributors will receive a copy of The Bellwether Review . Send your work to bellwetherreview@gmail.com by April 6, 2025 to be considered for our next edition.

NO RELIEF David P. Sterner Endless tears I shed in vain, though my eyes are cleansed the world still looks the same. I want to die and not exist, but this thing called life somehow persists. Though my friends reach out to understand, I can’t seem to grasp a helping hand. So I return to myself in sorrow, in grief, for this pain that I feel comes no relief. David Sterner I was born in the small town of Grants Pass, Oregon. I have attended 22 different schools in Oregon, Montana, and Northern California—including PCC—which all exposed me to various cultures. My passions are art and science. I express my inner feelings by drawing, painting, sculpting, and writing. I study science to understand life and emotions, which I find very intriguing. Some of my achievements include winning blue ribbons for my artworks, being the lead singer of the Dave Everest Band, and receiving U.S. Patent #4,572,622 for a photographic lens. I have also authored a book titled DOR: The Missing Geometric Link . My hobbies include rock and fossil hunting, and I am proud to own the largest carnelian agate ever to be discovered in the Vernonia, Oregon region: it weighs a whopping 65 lbs.

HOW MUCH IS 'MASS'? Randall Camden Stemple My feed is a travesty a real-day modern tragedy and amongst all the cute photos of cats and dogs and all my sports team’s losses exists a catalog of all gun violence, an epidemic that crosses across this nation, rich or poor, black or white, or any color under the sun so that when running an errand you might get gunned down by a person with a problem, against you, against the store, against the world, or something at their very core we don’t discuss it, we believe it a chore, and so when a bug becomes a feature all that’s left to argue is nomenclature; how many bodies need to be stacked for it to be considered ‘mass’? Do we just consider holes in the ground and piles of ashes or do we consider the masses of others? The wounded and the maimed the traumatized and frightened whose lives will never again be the same. How much does one need to limp to claim their lives irrevocably changed by someone with a gun and too much pain? What we need is a scale something one to ten, then take all your pain all your trauma all your shattered dreams crunch the numbers, run them through a machine, a formula, the bar is a seven anything below and you just have to pretend that everything is fine, that it’s normal, that you didn’t just go through something horrible. While seven through ten will be casualties for the purpose of statistics, we will take a holistic approach to categorizing the slaughter from major to minor to barely a bother with so many instances they smother your empathy and innocence till all that’s left is mechanical precision just the cost of doing business. This may seem insensitive or at least in poor taste but considering the waste of life and of futures, we should at least use their deaths to best inform and educate to illuminate the problem and the paths that branch into the gloom. But we don’t and we won’t, we would rather forget it. We scream about what is right and respecting the dead and scold all the vultures and carrion birds preventing any conversations from being heard. I would argue that my system and scale are truly important, truly transformative of the horrid discourse surrounding this plague. I can see the messages and thoughts and prayers you have amassed. Let's see how many remain after a month has passed. Randall Camden Stemple Randall is a PCC student who enjoys spending most of his free time reading, writing, and watching whatever slop YouTube recommends.

PROMISE RINGS Bailey Moore Butterflies on silver wings tie silver strings On our fingers Blue skies, dark eyes Do you remember? Long days. No life Asking what am I? A pebble among the thousands Another grain among the bunch A tree in the forest Something easily overseen. Out of touch? You know When it rains it pours When I cry it storms, Sunshine What I’d give to see from your eyes A vision An after-image A reason Wings fluttering and suns setting Through the clouds and fields of blue I will be there for you Bailey Moore Bailey Moore: I live in a small Halloween-loving town with my family, including two cats and a dog. I love reading, writing, and playing games. I’ve worked with a lot of different mediums, but I have enjoyed working with oils the most. I plan to transfer to a university and pursue my degree in fine arts.

Spring 2023 art poetry fiction Nonfiction Thank you for visiting our website. The Bellwether Review is a literary journal that hopes to promote and inspire creativity amongst those not only at PCC Rock Creek, but throughout the community. We hope you take the time to review these great pieces that were sent in to us and selected for publication by our editorial team. Visit our Submissions page if you are interested in having your work considered for publication. Email us at bellwetherreview@gmail.com with any questions. Letter from the Editors Dear Reader, This edition of The Bellwether Review is special in two ways from previous editions. It is the first print edition to be published after the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, and will be the first edition to be published alongside its online companion at bellwetherreview.com . Our editing team is honored and privileged to have witnessed the amazing levels of beauty, creativity, bravery, thought, and emotion infused by the Contributors into all of their submissions. Each piece was reviewed, discussed, and carefully selected by us with you, and a profound respect for the act of artistic creation, in mind. The Bellwether Review is created by the students of Portland Community College for the purpose of being enjoyed by all it can reach, and the editorial team would like to thank you for exploring and enjoying the contributions of our fellow students contained within these pages. With gratitude, The 2023 Editorial Team Copyright © 2023 Portland Community College Portland Community College reserves all rights to the material contained herein for the contributors’ protection. On publication, all rights revert to the respective authors and artists.