Author: joeltagert

Surf’s Up at Apocalypse Beach

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Surf’s Up At Apocalypse Beach by Joel Tagert | Art by Caitlyn Grabenstein

“Surf’s Up at Apocalypse Beach” appears in Birdy #104, Aug. 2022, with art by Caitlyn Grabenstein. Don’t let the end of the world ruin your day, dude.

Something wet slaps onto the windshield. “Shit,” I cough, since I got a hit in me, then cough a lot more, til I wonder if I’m hallucinating.

It looks like a frog. A freaky, slimy, gray-green frog the size of a mandarin orange, except it must be some kind of mutant cause it’s got a membrane between its arms and legs, like a flying squirrel. It’s not even dead. It hops away.

Then another hits the windshield. And another. It’s raining frogs.

“What was in that joint, dude?”

No Escape From the Storm

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No Escape From the Storm by Joel Tagert | Art by Caitlyn Grabenstein

“No Escape From the Storm” appears in Birdy #102, June 2022, with art by Caitlyn Grabenstein (@cult.class). Like Thelma & Louise, but interdimensional.

So she pulled out of the line and flipped around in the parking lot to head back toward the on-ramp. As she did, she saw a funnel start to descend toward the low scrub hills. Suddenly Aliya’s reaction didn’t seem so unreasonable. “Holy shit.” Her foot stomped on the gas like she was wearing concrete boots. She’d never been more grateful for a twenty-year-old V6. 

The Sword That Kills: Spiritual Warriorship and the Middle Way

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From a talk delivered at the Zen Center of Denver on Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022. Listen on the ZCD’s website at https://zencenterofdenver.org/the-sword-that-kills/.

Harada Daiun Sogaku, a teacher in our lineage whose name we recite in our Ancestral Teachers chant, wrote in 1934:

The spirit of Japan is the Great Way of the [Shinto] gods. It is the substance of the universe, the essence of the Truth. The Japanese people are a chosen people whose mission is to control the world. The sword [that] kills is also the sword [that] gives life. Comments opposing war are the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things and not the whole.

Politics conducted on the basis of a constitution are premature, and therefore fascist politics should be implemented for the next ten years…. Similarly, education makes for shallow, cosmopolitan persons. All the people of this country should do Zen. That is to say, they should all awake to the Great Way of the Gods. This is Mahayana Zen. (qtd. in Victoria 137)

“The sword that kills is the sword that gives life.” Few phrases in Zen have been so abused. Here a master in our own lineage—praised by Philip Kapleau and Taizan Maezumi, among others—used it to defend fascism and Japanese imperialism. If the central insight of Zen is that form is emptiness and emptiness form, and everything else amounts to “the foolish opinions of those who can only see one aspect of things,” then it seems Zen can be twisted to any purpose whatsoever. What then are we to make of Zen training and realization?

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The Temple of Duma Veil

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The Temple of Duma Veil By Joel Tagert | Art by Ali Hoff

“The Temple of Duma Veil” appears in Birdy #97, January 2022, with art by Ali Hoff. A pandemic story if ever there was.

When the mages finished, Haverna was a blazing ruin. It had been the greatest city on the continent, home to a million souls. In the bazaar, merchants had hawked everything from steel spearheads to aromatic spices, women in bright silk dresses walked with baskets full of fish and fruit, child beggars pulled at your tunic as you sampled chewy candies. It was a place to overwhelm the senses, full of riotous life and color.

Now it was an inferno, the flames hundreds of feet high, the smoke blacking out the sun. It was, we were told, the only option, and this was hard to argue, considering the trouble we had containing the infected.

The Dexter Fox

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Dexter Fox by Joel Tagert | Art by Ali Hoff

“The Dexter Fox” appears in Birdy #96, Nov. 2021, with art by Ali Hoff.

The fae were huge fans of cryptic verses. They passed them around like joints at a reggae show. Frankly he hated them. Why couldn’t they draw a decent map, or at least write some straightforward directions? Never once had he consulted a fae augur and had them say, Turn right at the big oak tree, walk six miles along the stream, and there you go.

JANG! SANG THE KANGAROO

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JANG! SANG THE KANGAROO by Joel Tagert w/ art by Jonny DeStefano

“JANG! SANG THE KANGAROO” appears in Birdy #94, with art by Jonny Destefano. Naoko needs to find the blue monk Aobozu and rescue the boy he’s kidnapped. All that’s in the way is the bloodrot, the war between the Lords of Hell, and an Australian mind parasite:

JANG! JANG! JANG! RANG THE HAMMERS IN THE RAIN.

JANG! JANG! JANG! CLANGED THE LINKS OF BLOODY CHAIN.

JANG! BANGED THE BOOMERANG BOUNCING IN HER BRAIN.

JANG! SANG THE KANGAROO –

Her Lonely Work

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Her Lonely Work: Joel Tagert w/ art by Jason White

“Her Lonely Work” appears September 2021 in Birdy #93, inspired by art by Jason White:

The Hive is doing its work and its workers are happy.

The three present hum together faintly as they turn on the paralyzer. The eyes of the human child in the bed flutter open as she wakes. This is an occasional side effect of the paralyzer, and while it is not desirable, it will not affect the subsequent procedures. He is likely to forget it by morning anyway. It does not occur to them to consider the utter terror he must be experiencing, though they will administer another sedative in a moment.

Fortunately the child has not worn a shirt to bed. This makes placing the torso mantle easy. As the probes pierce his flesh they simultaneously administer a healing agent; they will leave no scars, or minimal scars, tiny dots easily dismissed. A pneumatic syringe administers the sedative, and the boy’s eyes close again.