J. J. Steinfeld Canadian fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives hidden away on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot's arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published two novels, Our Hero in the Cradle of Confederation (Pottersfield Press) and Word Burials (Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink), nine short story collections, the previous three by Gaspereau Press - Should the Word Hell Be Capitalized?, Anton Chekhov Was Never in Charlottetown, and Would You Hide Me? - and two poetry collections, An Affection for Precipices (Serengeti Press) and Misshapenness (Ekstasis Editions). His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals internationally, and over forty of his one-act plays and a handful of his full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States.
Too Many Candles (March 20, 2011. Issue 26. The SLAM & FLASH Issue!)
No one present could remember the dining room of the nursing home decorated quite so lavishly. And such a large, beautiful cake, with the words “YOU ARE AGEING LIKE A FINE WINE” in dark-blue block letters. All the candles are bright red and had been lit by one of the staff members, a young woman who playfully complained afterward that she should get overtime for the candle-lighting. Nearly everyone from the nursing home had come or been brought to the dining room before Raymond walked in, tapping his cane loudly against the floor, a long-time staff member walking alongside him, as if ready to catch him if he fell. When she reached for his arm, he pushed her hand away.
“Too many candles,” Raymond argues, his usually soft voice angry and firm. “Someone shut off the damn lights,” a childish old voice yells, but the lights have 
already been turned off. “Make a wish,” an even older voice says. Raymond wheezes ineffectually two, three, four times, then a few obliging old-timers, an auxiliary of candle blowers, finish off the task, celebrate a triumph of extinguishment, laughing like mischievous teenagers.
“Too many candles,” Raymond argues again, not recalling his first assertion; the darkness confuses him, as do small, misplaced things, as do memories that return without concern for remorse or mending, perhaps with scolding or reassurance, he is unsure. Who says the dead aren’t as articulate as the living? Raymond thinks, then says the words “dead…articulate…” in his usually soft voice. The long-time staff member pats him consolingly on the shoulder, but he barely feels her touch this time. He had once tried to kiss this woman on the lips, but she had thought he was merely imitating some hurt animal. That is how she views some of the residents of the home, as hurt or frail animals. But he had been thinking so strongly of kissing then, as he does now. Just as the woman was attempting to get everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” for Raymond, he turned and again tried to kiss the long-time staff member, and she hugged him briefly, a birthday hug, not interrupting her singing. He called her a name that wasn’t hers.
Yes, the darkness confuses Raymond in the way amusement-park rides did when he was too young to appreciate the exploratory kissing of a girl a little bit too precarious, or is the word precocious? Raymond actually thinks the two words together precarious-precocious—her voice even then defying time: Touch me there… Hold me closer… We won’t tell a soul—the voice of his dear mother breaking through the sorting out of words and memories: Did you ever visit that older girl across the street? No, he lied like an expert on love and deceit, and thinks of the amusement-park rides, wanting to see her again at that moment and at this moment. She was taken away to make her whole, healthy, and beautiful, his mother said, his father nodding verification, Raymond saying she is already beautiful and he wanting to verify that with a description of her breasts and the way she kissed and touched: it was the first time he felt prayers could be answered even if he asked for only half of what she bestowed on him with an ardour he could never define but sensed that even a portion of the truth would confine him in his room, to make him whole and healthy; he knew, even then, he would never be beautiful, not like her.
More voices disrupt Raymond’s thoughts: “Turn on the lights…” “Let’s have some cake…” “Too many candles,” Raymond says yet another time, an orator bewildered by oratory. “How does it feel to be ninety-five?” a voice only eighty asks and Raymond says as the returning light hurts his eyes, “She’d be a hundred had she lived…had she lived she’d be a hundred.”
Two Poems (May 20, 2010. Issue 17.)
Congratulations
Congratulations,
you have been randomly selected
from several billion entries and are now
the most famous person in the world
a big boisterous hurray to you.
On their way are the harbingers of your fame:
the grammar-proficient biographers
slick-haired, small-eyed paparazzi
dollar-encrusted financial advisers
cosmetic magicians dissolving years
hangers-on holy and unholy
young and old and ageless
will be beating a path to your door
before the next full moon
be sure you are wearing something fashionable
unique and difficult to describe but not eccentric
have at the ready some morsels
of wisdom and enchantment
oh yes, refreshments,
perhaps some tea or coffee
or a stronger beverage
(a much stronger beverage)
when they all arrive
and break down your door.
if you have to choose only one phobia
if you could be saddled with only one mania
if you could to descend into only one hell
if you could visit only one distant galaxy
if you could avoid only one tiresome bore
if you could live only one lifetime
if you could have sex with only one celebrity
if you could to be reshaped into only one animal
if you could sing only one love song
if you could be forgiven only one sin
if you could repeat one terrible mistake
you thought I was going to fool you
trick you like some unscrupulous magician
who cannot tell the difference between
words and rabbits and an amazingly sharp saw
for cutting psyches and synapses
in halves or quarters or even smaller
nope, in this letter to you I’m forthright
and humble and willing to ask questions
that are exactly what they appear to be