Born at Durgapur, West Bengal, Deeya Bhattacharya - a PG in English Literature and a Graduate in Education from the University of Burdwan. Her poems and articles have appeared in several National and International journals, websites, E-zine, besides several anthologies. Member of Poets International, Life Member of Tagore’s Nikhil Bharat Bangya Sahitya Sanmelan and CONTEMPORARY VIBES (CHANDIGARH). She has read her poetry at quite a few fests. She teaches English and Poetry at a State Government High School. An Ekphrasis She sleeps in Autumnal beauty oh look! Her hairs a toast to the plumage her skin a chiseled golden honey she sleeps in a valley of morbidness her slip, trance a mystery against a backdrop of neutral tones she harbours innocence a glance in a once, she stole She sleeps in what hidden passion one not knows beneath her chin, a little bit the colour ashen grows She sleeps intense her ochre hairs encircle the womb of earth cherubian beauty engraved upon her livid pallors constitute the Fall in dearth Baby birds nestle against her lucid skin the tawny moon, a pale orb illuminates the backdrop and a cluster of stars decked in a string of pearls in refulgence crop Unmindfully, the Diana sleeps; halo encircled ……………… while the hunter stalks his prey the stag, hyena, cheetah in array, she knows not ‘ coz her sleep easeful as the strokes petite……… of a painter prowess testifies. An Intriguing Face For how many hundreds of centuries have I not seen the image of your face nor searched for it The search for the face by the dust-settled window panes in the gold rimmed orb of the scorching sun, went on the flittering gaze of a blue-bottle fly like from here to there The aroma in those lost tragedies, over-arched in rainbow-hued glass panes surprisingly, short lived raw mangoes in oil like sharp and salty with a twang Those memories never rested from toil-sauntering in the brisk sun-adding to the plight of an incessant thirst. Hunger in the Night The night in our garden is intense but fragile the misty moon atop the dew ceaselessly flows into each other The night in our garden is full of longing sucking up the vortex of thoughts flowing like river The river in our garden is full of silky fragrance severed like cubes of ice perch on our hunger The hunger of the wind on moss, ferns and potted plants the hunger in tales of lost love On hungry nights like these in our lit-up porches we cook consciousness which bind our thoughts to skin and sylvan pitfalls. Midnight Blues The circles under your eyes burn like midnight blues under water currents check the flow of dunes shifting in your eyes long black lashes so poignant, at times brush strokes of a maddening hand guileless now but discreet; like the midnight strokes of a prolific act. Shaping a Poem Words inky spelt all over the diaphanous page of a crumbled notebook signs in blue , black, red cryptic gestures like creeping, crawling wilted like a withered shrub the shrubs of ignorance which I try to bury under my pillows of many insomniac nights they haunt on me still till I rearrange them into an essay of quietitude.
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DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing, was placed second in the 2015 Data Dump Award for Genre Poetry, and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, including issues ofCyaegha, Carillon, Frostfire Worlds, Handshake, Illumen, The Pen, Scifaikuest, Sirens Call, Tigershark and Anthology 29, and online on Staxtes English Wednesdays, Poetry Bulawayo, Poetry Pacific, and The Muse, as well as releasing several chapbooks, including the critically acclaimed Our Story. DJ Tyrer's website is at http://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/ The Atlantean Publishing website is at http://atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/ Crime Scene Crime scene: Blood splattered and bone fragmented Crime Scene Investigators act blasé As the victim sleeps the sleep of the dead They listen to what she has to say No words spoken by victim or killer Yet a dialogue of clues proceeds Revealing who it was who killed her Each crime scene a record of his deeds The hunt closes in, the killer is sought A fortune in the manhunt invested It’s inevitable he will be caught Surrounded, apprehended, arrested There are no loved ones to weep him goodbye Convicted, he is destined to die Espionage Smoke and mirrors False identities Working in silence There must be an easier way To keep an eye on your spouse Estuary, Sunlight The formerly-grey waters glitter As wave-crests catch the sunlight Bringing the estuary waters alive With an intense beauty Like a blazing mirror Reflecting the glories of Heaven Thorns Sharp outgrowths from plant Gouging and slicing your skin Crimson blood berries Yellowed Thoughts The world itself is so unkind Such is the truth that one can find Then there is the truth that lurks behind A truth of a very different kind A truth that is so seldom signed Unless yellowed thoughts should fill your mind "Claudine Nash's poetry collections include her full-length book Parts per Trillion (Aldrich Press, 2016) and her chapbook The Problem with Loving Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her poems have won prizes from Avalon Literary Review and Eye on Life Magazine and have appeared in numerous publications including Asimov's Science Fiction, Cloudbank, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Yellow Chair Review amongst others. She also has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. Website: www.claudinenashpoetry.com." “Fine Print” Warning: This memory may be habit forming. Abrupt discontinuation may lead to blunt appraisals of current life circumstances and a rebound of empty mood states. Prolonged exposure to this memory may result in rumination and habitual efforts at reenactment. Do not attempt complex mental operations while contemplating this memory as it has been known to twist once linear thought processes into spinning loops and circles. This memory may leave you washed in infinite need. Listlessness and aimless daydreams are common side effects of this recollection. Seek immediate medical attention should you experience persistent swelling of the heart lasting longer than reasonably expected for an otherwise rational being who indulges in reminiscence. In rare but serious cases sadly warped perceptions of reality have occurred after replaying this memory. Pursue distraction until you can taper yourself from this memory and tuck it back into a less intrusive or entirely overlooked recess. “Core” Allow me to wash this day from your skin; with my fingers and soapy palms wipe away the moment you were so wrongfully misplaced, swap out the doubt that leaks into the murky bath for promise. Take this spot where I kneel and note the exquisite arcs and angles of your mind. I would spill this notion sloppily onto the floor ten thousand times over, watch those who subdued the spark in you slip by as you bound brightly off the curve. Let me empty cup by cup this false concept of you, pour it into a moonless field, onto a heap of stones waiting to be scattered. “How to Come Full Circle in Five Steps, More or Less” 1. Return to the place where you started and feel hope rise again like heat. 2. Though this spot seemed so lost to you, slip back seamlessly into its loop. See how its arc suits you, how it fits and fills the gaps and breaks, all the empty inches within you. 3. Now summon the day the wind blew the musts and shoulds, the can’ts and won’ts away from you. This is the moment that marks your re-beginning. 4. Lean forward and draw on the past. Make sure to send yourself this message over and again, on a rolled slip affixed to tired carrier pigeon or through the mint leaves that swirl through your cup. 5. Spin three sixty and soak in the stunning cuts of light that bound about this sight. Throw open your eyes and find yourself in this open aired-space changed, the same, gloriously reclaimed. “To the Moon” May these second thoughts be launched into deep space then ditched in a pocket of pure silence. There, where nothing vibrates, their babble will finally fall mute, they will stop tying my mind in circles. Let them drift towards a band of unnamed stars, be lost between celestial bodies. May they find their tanks emptied of oxygen before they finish their last sentence. “A Kinder Suit” This year I want for nothing but fabric, a kinder cloth to shield me against these blistering doubts. I wish to shed the thoughts I wear as hair shirts, toss on layers of linen and soft knits, silks and lenient fibers, run my fingers along each thread then feel my mind breathe freely. By next season I will allow the wind to loosen the beliefs that limit my movement, I will reach, feel forgiveness wrap around me like skin. Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologies Good Poems, American Places, Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. It has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net. He is the author of two full-length collections, Lent 1999 (Leaf Garden Press) and Soren Kierkegaard Witnesses an Execution (Local Gems) and two chapbooks, Three Visitors (Negative Capability Press) and Artifacts and Relics, (Folded Word). His novel, Knight Prisoner, is available from Vagabondage Press and two more novels are forthcoming: A Book of Lost Songs (Wild Child Publishing) and The Magic War (Loose Leaves). He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster. OZYMANDIAS SMILES I woke from seeing long and level sands stretched taut over fragments of stone almost grains themselves. A forgotten face is lost to light: Nose, eyes, beard, crown—gone. What began in ruin has gone past ruin: Cool dune ghost under footnoted moonlight. A thin trail of commentary leads me past three failed exams. Answers erased themselves. Uncrossed eyes and teacups circle a past tense smile. There are no creatures patrolling these grounds. My hand escapes the sheets, groping around for nothing at all. Do I make a sound? Space is deserted. A broken line stands Behind a statue’s tooth. It won’t be found. TRANSPORTED ANGELS They don’t get used to this sky: Blue as a pregnant virgin-- Heavy with reluctant moisture-- Where sparks snap off street cars And birds forget how to fly. They file onto buses-- without paying their fare-- just to hide from it. DAILY REPORT It’s simple to forget morning already absent from rear-view mirrors. Afternoons have no voice, unless baseball is played below the sun. A littered table is all that’s left this evening—names escape lightly as butterflies. Dreams are scattered like pennies from a child’s broken bank. SHADOW SONNET Because I’ve missed you so long I won’t say I miss you. Whenever I see my face refracted through whisky—then I miss you. I’ll tune my guitar and miss you. Through years without you—I miss you. I can’t undo anything now. Lent passes. Easter nears and I remember white nights and pub crawls. I see your small shape through a long shadow when the spring sun rises and the moon falls. I remember you crowing while you show me some new-drawn myth (ignoring my small victories with a smile). And we would do the great dance of drinking, of drugs and lies and collapse and laugh and oh, I miss you. FIRE She says her husband smelled smoke and left. She never knew what kind of smoke—tobacco, sulfur oak or hickory-- just that he smelled it and went out like a candle. Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He's had over a hundred thirty poems and stories published so far, and two books.
Things Our clothes tatter, our shoes smell, our wood decays, our paper brittles, our marble chips, our silver tarnishes, our drives corrupt, our food rots, our steel rusts, our wine sours. Flawed and failed Some things are nice, some necessary Some liked, some lusted after Some longer lived, some longer liked. Some adored, some abused, Some displayed, some defaced. Donated and discarded Yet some things of no value are close, are comfort, are talismans, are touchstones, are emblems, are ensigns, are memorials, are monuments. Kindred and kept. These we will not part with, these we have no buyers for, these we touch with reverence, these we hide from other eyes, these we see ourselves in, honored and haunted. A bronze medallion faces me, a fat man perched on sacks. a god of prosperity, a promise of well being, a wish in my decline. Tarnished and treasured The scuffed wallet rests in my drawer, the lone dollar enfolded. His estate, the day he killed himself. The leather urn holds friendship, lost but lingering. Marking Time Two legged beings, floating until birth, bed-bound for sleep, legless for eating and work, prone again for sex, littered for sickness, kneeling for defeat, death-bedded for departure. And in between standing around marking time. The Predators My fears crouch in hiding just beyond my senses. Creeping through the thicket in slow and certain stalks. No use to run and hide, or propose another victim. The prey has been selected and they'll charge as I falter. To deny them is a folly, to embrace them is a sin. So I wait for them to pounce, And know my listless grazing just incites the beasts. Vigils Faces blur, dates are forgotten, and stories grow fabulous, but names abide, and feelings Emotions hold true about those who were, about their absence. Memories flicker and decorate our beings like votive lights. By Default A life is not things chosen, it is the things declined. The paths not trod, the partners not pursued, the help not given, the toil not done. A life is burnt in by omissions whose only traces are ash. Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Her poem 'A Rose For Gaza' was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition 2014. This and many other poems, have recently been published in anthologies including - Stacey Savage’s ‘We Are Poetry, an Anthology of Love poems’; Community Arts Ink’s ‘Reclaiming Our Voices’; Vagabond Press’s, ‘The Border Crossed Us’; ‘Degenerates - Voices For Peace’, ‘Civilised Beasts’ and ‘Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones’ from Weasel Press; ‘Alice In Wonderland’ by Silver Birch Press, and a number of rather excellent on line and print journals. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynn-White-Poetry/1603675983213077?fref=ts lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com My Father’s Son I never knew my father’s son. Even though I met him once, or maybe twice, I never knew him. And then I met his son. Caught him miraculously in a net. Held on to him tightly. And, I found that he hadn’t left early, my father’s son. He’d waited for me, wondering, for a long time. And so I found him, my father’s son. When he was just ninety six, I found him. But I was too late to know him. At ninety five, he was already dead. So I never knew him, my father’s son. Jacko I saw him flapping around in the grass, one wing at an improbable angle. I chased him, caught him, wrapped him carefully in my cerise and navy school scarf. Jack, jack, jacko.. Then it was a bus ride to the charity vet who set the broken wing, wrapped it carefully in plaster, a heavy pot. He was subdued on the bus home, but still managed to greet my mother, Jack, jack, jacko. He perked up later after tea and explored the living room placing bits of straw artistically and decorating them with pooh. Which was why he had to live at school, home only for weekends. Jack, jack jacko! But he enjoyed bus journeys now and greeted all the passengers, hopping from shoulder to shoulder, waking them up with a wang from his pot, nibbling an ear here and a nostril there. Most were charmed, but some were not. He was close to becoming the only jackdaw to be banned from public transport. Jack, jack, jacko!! And then disaster! the wing had not healed. There was decay and gangrene amputation and the trimming of his lovely long feathers to balance him. No more hopping from shoulder to shoulder, well, maybe later with practice! But no more prospects of a wild life for Jacko Jack, jack, jacko... And no more home with me said my mum as the school holidays loomed threateningly. Jack, jack, jacko..... But nearby the vet, a budgie had died and it’s owner, bereaved, had a need and it was love at first sight for both her and Jacko. Jack, jack, jacko!! There were photos in the press. He was famous! A local hero! Jack, jack, jacko!!! Barcelona Sandals Standing in the Andorra snow shivering in our Barcelona sandals. Glad of a lift down to Foix as darkness was falling. And the driver knew a hotel, Hotel du Centre. Very grand and full of people looking down long noses. But the driver knew the owner who was a kind man, a nice man. So we shouldn't worry about the cost, he said. A lovely room and in the morning, breakfast! We must eat the owner said. Warm bread and jam. Coffee with hot milk which tasted sour. But I don't like the taste of milk, anyway, so most likely it was sweet. And then the bill. But there was no bill. Save it for the journey, the owner said. A kind man, a nice man, who believed the driver's story, whatever it was. A few years later, we returned to Foix and went to find Hotel du Centre. But it wasn't there. No one knew it. It didn't exist. Did it ever exist? Did any of it happen? Or did we somehow share a memory from our imaginations. Ripples Ripples of time gathering pace. Working up to the wave that crashed into me, propelled me forward and now sucks me back. Thirteen decades. Back. To a place beyond my imagining, so tidy now after the crash. Gentrified now. Rippling gently. But before, in my father’s time. There was beer mixed mud and crowding children. And smells of horses and metal. Working. Fire and metal work. Children who would leave behind the mud, and country smells, for the dust and smog. For the city grime. Streets and factories. More fire and metal. Bigger. Grander. And what then? Still poor. What then? What secrets lie in those ripples of time washing over me now. After The End The sideboard was full of magazines. Not whole magazines but pages torn from them. Pages of recipes. Meals never eaten. Exotic desserts never attempted. Guest never invited or entertained. At least the furniture had been used, had had many years of use. The clothes had been worn, the pictures admired and enjoyed. But the recipes were the saddest thing. So many of them for so many people who never came. Sean Lynch is a poet who lives along the Delaware River in Camden, NJ. He is the editor of Whirlwind Magazine. You can find more of his work on www.swlynch.com "Multitudes of Lost" Think about the underground. All the bodies. Not just human beings different kinds of bones different kinds of dirt, rocks, roots, and remains. Think about the underground. All the lost thoughts. Reclaim life and non-existence ̶ individuality melts into collective memory through forgotten principalities of shared pain. Think about the underground. All the missing water. Life giving liquid running beneath the living in streams. All the lost thoughts. Dr. Piatt has had poems nominated for Pushcart and Best of Web awards, and published in The 100 Best Poems Anthologies. He has published 3 poetry books “The Silent Pond” (2012), “Ancient Rhythms,” (2014), and “LIGHT” (2016), 3 novels, 35 short stories, 7 essays, and over 865 poems. He earned his BS and MA from California Polytechnic University and his doctorate from BYU. His poetry books are available on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Darkness Into Light In the winter’s icy wind… My mind struggled Against Obscurity, Obliqueness, and Vagueness, Darkness invaded my complacency: I traveled across a river and into the woods, Down to a meadow and across a Stream, I floated in golden dreams hidden in my fading mind… Swam fearfully in the rip tides Of my finiteness: Light faded into my Obscure senses As I escaped into the woodland, Then… I heard the silence of granite stones Sitting on pebbly paths… Discovered a calmness In beautiful images Of trees and flowers: My soul emerged To a place Where a translucent pond Quietly covered dark memories, Where crickets Played songs On violin legs of tin In metallic chords Accompanied by basso voices Of bullfrogs croaking Melodious mating songs: Before my eyes Downy birds appeared, Singing in soprano voices, Songs of serenity And happiness… and I found my soul at ease. Do You Hear It? Do you hear it? The sad movement of refugees, Scratching in the souls of negligent nations… Do you hear it? The iron-fixed notions of ideologists, Scratching in the pages of absurd texts… Do you hear it? The retching tears of sad children Scratching in the bellies of the homeless… Do you hear it? The grating of plastic cards In wallets of those who don’t give a damn… Do you hear it? The scratching of the sharp talons of death Waiting for us all… Please Do Not Tell Me Please do not tell me… That the pomegranate sun Will not paint the hills with a pink haze In the early hours of each morn, Or the wrinkled ocean’s waves Will not drift happy memories onto the Heated sand, on sunny afternoons, Or the crinkled shell of the conch Will not echo tales into my ears, of Lost ships, and ancient journeys, Or the aroma of a red, red rose Will not reach my yearning senses, And, bring a calm to my daily hours, Or the rhythmic songs of birds, Will not paint the sky with happy music, To erase the darkness in my heart, Or the balmy breeze, Will not waft poems into my mind, Which, will rejuvenate my day, Or the sand on the seashore, Will not tell me briny stories and Restore long forgotten memories, Or the flowing brook Will not refresh my mind, and Bring a new serenity to my life, Or my love, Will not be there when I awake In the early morning of each day, For these beliefs are all that Sustain my life. Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school teacher (remember the hormonally-challenged?) living in Southern California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com. Weekend Houris Gamboling in a breeze as if before the caliph, caparisoned with numbers and foreign names, gambling to be first among the many at the start, A seraglio of sloops vie for favor on the bay, from which I wish that I could choose the homeliest among them for my own. (But I am left alone on shore with only dreams to fill the day and stay my melancholy memories.) From mark to mark they tack for best position, each houri displays herself to best advantage, then they round the weather mark to dance, Erotically swaying downwind with parti-colored spinnakers set, snapped open like the oriental fans of tremulous virgins fluttering in aromatic zephyrs. (Yet I am left alone on shore with only dreams to fill the day and stay my melancholy memories.) The committee boat lies alee at anchor and like the chief eunuch of the chamber selects one maiden for the honors of the night. After this day’s decision all the sloops run for shore to undress and bathe and with naked limbs lie naked in the yard awaiting next weekend to tantalize again. (I am left alone again to fill weekdays with melancholy memories of the houris’ dance.) Sand Sentinels Hurricanes, cyclones, tornados bring Death, cataclysm and annihilation in High skies, deep seas, feeding ravenously. Desert dust devils arise in dead calm, Scoot across high plateaus until swallowed Into themselves, disappear to emerge miles away. Hard to comprehend births from nothingness, Fed, like yeast rising, with the heat randomly Spread through yucca, sage, sand – dull yellows. Small whirlwinds, short lives borne to travel, then Expire: entropic universe, from nothingness to nullity, Reappearing randomly, bursting from unexpectedness. Sand pyres geneses, autobiographies of formidable lives, Silently disappearing like Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat, To appear elsewhere with whispered possibilities. Admonition El Niño, La Niña, tornados in Florida and California, too; calendar turned topsy-turvy, hurricanes in January in both oceans, temperatures reversed across the continent. Heated thunderheads congeal above the peaks, chemical reaction overflowing its beaker; wrong season, wrong direction, inversion layers subverted, creating out of sequence, manmade cataclysms. And still arguments rage like caged animals snarling at each other while responsibility continues to be debated irresponsibly; you’d think storm deaths should be deemed civil action lawsuits, yet how do you sue yourself? Climate damages are irrefutable, change is inevitable, and yet Gaia groans under stresses. Her self-healing may take many millions of years – and billions of lives. Howard Richard Debs is a poet, writer, photographer, sometime artist, musician, singer/songwriter. At age 19 he received a University of Colorado Poetry Prize; after some 50 years in the field of communications with recognitions including a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, he resumed his creative pursuits. A finalist and recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards, his latest work appears in Yellow Chair Review, Crack The Spine, Syzygy Poetry Journal, Silver Birch Press, InkStain Press, Clear Poetry Magazine 2015 Anthology, among others, and On Being online in which appears his ekphrastic Holocaust poetry series “Terezin: Trilogy Of Names” and also in On Being online his essay "The Poetry of Bearing Witness." His background in photography goes back many years, both creative and technical, and his photography will be found in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor. Born and bred in Chicago, he now lives in sunny South Florida with his wife of 50 years Sheila, where they spend considerable time spoiling their four grandchildren. Listing in Poets & Writers Directory: https://www.pw.org/content/howard_debs Website: http://communicatorsandcommunications.com/muse-ings/ The Dead In Me, A Dirge When I go I want to go suddenly. They will say he lived ‘til the end. Today the news reports a 38 year old zookeeper named Stacey was killed by a tiger, not her own species. Not one of the 1300 statistics say will be killed today in this world by someone who walks upright. Visitation My life has been wrenched from my own hands by the horror of it, I brood constantly especially at those times of year I say the Yizkor prayers of remembrance for so many murdered souls: my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins all perished during the Holocaust. I feel them in my heart, but have an urging to hear even just a word from any of them, all the more to have the privilege of a question or two perhaps, with their presence gracing what would be such a special moment. My nephew was just six during my visit almost ten years ago, when I came into his room as he was talking, so it appeared, to himself. He could not say who was there. Then just the other day my own precious little tyke was found in conversation with no one in the living room. A few weeks went by, when sorting through a stack of old photos, while looking at one of grandpa Samuel, in whose memory I am named, my son said, “we talk.” How significant would be at least some sign for his namesake. Perhaps it is a matter of merit. I will work harder. Dear Daughter Mine I know you now live near Washington D.C. far away from me. I know we keep in touch with phone texts and such sharing on Facebook virtually. I’m really writing to say we had a great time, mom and I when you spent a few days with your husband and the twins who had their seventh birthday just a while back yet seem so much older now than when last you came. I asked them what they liked best, having left here where they were born, for a more northern clime. They answered that after it snows and they go sledding mommy makes hot cocoa. Anyway, the weather here in Florida is not like there of course this time of year, you’ve had your first taste of winter that’s for sure. I know you thought that part of visiting was fine even on the very breezy day we all went to the beach to play in the sand, to squish our toes and feet in the ocean’s foaming surf, the water aquamarine like Key West you said, the most special thing was flying those kites; first time for the kids, what a sight, they holding the lines so tight, the flapping flimsy frames taking the torment of the swirling seaside winds the news said 20 miles an hour with gusts of more. So we triumphed there to say the least and I became grandpa hero once again. Our hootenanny was lots of fun. One playing a slide whistle the other the kazoo dancing and prancing around while I plucked out a banjo tune to Five Foot Two and Muffin Man before the big finale surprising mom with Burl Ives’ Big Rock Candy Mountain which her father sang to her when she was young. I never learned the song before that night, It was like my gift to her, I hope she thought so too. Then the morning that you left, heading back to life from nine to five, I clicked the PBS website and played Mr. Rodgers’ You Are Special for the twins; they never heard it before if you didn’t know so I gave them copies to practice for our next big show and I’m really writing to say: “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever” which is a quote from Winnie the Pooh, love you, dad. A More Perfect Union: Excerpts From A Summer Journal* (Reading a book in which appear Lincoln’s words given at Gettysburg. That the new nation was brought forth and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. He said: “We can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow,” those who struggled here have.) Charleston, June 28th Arrived on Friday with church bells ringing for Carolina Day sponsored by the Palmetto Society first celebrated in 1777 they say to a year and six days removed from the Declaration. The guide, Miss Sara, in her long cotton dress, a true southern belle. Her auburn hair tied up inside her wide brimmed hat with its yellow ribbon trailing behind sitting in wicker on the veranda of the plantation house drinking sweet tea a concoction laden with enough sugar to ensure no bitter taste from a bygone era. Walked Slave Street, euphemistically named compared to the row of nine original ramshackle brick shanties where lived in squalor the great house servants. Later the United Daughters of the Confederacy will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at White Point Gardens honoring the fallen from a fateful day in not the Civil but Revolutionary War. New York, July 22nd Arrived on Saturday. Across from the hotel in Manhattan workers are loading a big red van with the mover’s name Moishe’s Worldwide Moving emblazoned proudly on the side in billboard size white letters for all the world to see. The message on hotel stationery lay on the nightstand in the room: From Concierge, Vladimir – I was informed that the majority of the shops on Orchard Street will be open on Sunday. The Lower East Side: A.W. Kaufman lingerie; Ziontalis, Judaica Department Store since 1920; Kadouri Import, Israeli produce; Gertel’s Bakery; and there at 97 Orchard Street, as mentioned in the guidebook, The Tenement Museum. The docent was of Italian descent, with thick Brooklyn accent, and black olive eyes. He told of his ancestors as so many now inscribed on the Wall Of Honor erected there, enduring steerage, and the gauntlet of the gateway, Ellis Island. He told of Nathalie Gumpertz a German Jewish seamstress, in 1874 she became the sole support of her four young children after her husband disappeared. He told of the hunger, the sweatshops, the firebrand labor organizers, rabble-rousers some say, they took to the street, many were struck down but they won hard fought victories on that battleground. Washington D.C., August 30th Arrived on Sunday. Staying in Georgetown. It is all very quaint. Walked along the towpath of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, like much before and since the water highway no longer the new way replaced by the rise of the railway. Visited the National Gallery of Art, saw the American Collection, The White House, the Washington Monument. There adjacent to the National Mall, stands the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Somber faced people go in and come out chastened. Identification Cards given at the entrance tell the stories of victims; on each cover the statement, apt for all time, “For the dead and the living we must bear witness.” Across from the Lincoln Memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a long, slow-rising wall bearing the names of almost 60,000 Americans who died or remain missing. It is all chronological, from the first listed casualty in 1959 to the last in 1975. The visitors’ grim faces reflect in the shiny black granite. Many look for their loved ones’ names-- summer days end amid such sad searches urging in pleas unvoiced for a more perfect Union. *in homage to Pete Seeger (1919-2014) Awakening Epigraph: The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, darts awakening rays about me-- Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass, 1860 ed. Prologue: Turning, staring out the window the light in the room shows its reflection in the glass, blades of light, so the view is a blend of what’s inside and outside at the same time. What is outside? A man on a stroll walks by the window A woman pulling a dog on a leash two young children running past it all happened so fast the revolving red lights spinning around, the sirens making an awful sound, the police cars all showing up, the one with the jacket and tie must be a detective pointing across the street where the body lie. Denouement: Then the girl appeared like a ghost in white, she opened the door of her toppled car crawled out and tottered over to the officers in blue who waved at her with hard fists, and other officers, as the crowd gathered, motioning them away the crime scene tape macabrely festooned the roadway from side to side where skid marks tellingly showed the braking and the speed. The mother of the child on the ground cried. It was a sad scene, an awakening, far too late. Epilogue: The Buddhists have an awakening in their view, the way to the end of suffering, achieved by overturning false belief, not a vehicle would that the tragedy witnessed itself be false not true, follow the Eightfold Path to Nirvana it is urged, but surely the path leads not down this highway. |
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