Anita G. Gorman grew up in New York City and now lives in northeast Ohio. Since 2014 she has had twenty-seven short stories and eleven essays accepted for publication. Her one-act play, Astrid: or, My Swedish Mama, produced at Youngstown Ohio's Hopewell Theatre in March 2018, starred Anita and her daughter Ingrid. Farfar and WarOn the day Abraham Lincoln was shot, April 14, 1865, August Malmqvist, my father’s father, was born in Sweden. The news about Lincoln would reach Sweden by telegraph, and in the years to come August would know that his birthday had some significance beyond Ösebo, his birthplace. August’s mother, Anna Elisabeth Jacobsdotter, born in Ulrika, Östergötland in 1825, would have been a few months shy of her 40th birthday when August was born. August’s father was Sven Jacob Isaksson, born in Ösebo in 1822. August should have used the name August Svensson, since in those days names changed with each generation. August put a stop to that as an adult, having decided that there were too many Svenssons in Sweden. He took the name Malmqvist, which would give him more individuality.
I never met my grandfather, or any of my grandparents. August was the only one of my grandparents still living when I was born, but I lived 3,000 miles away. I regret that I never met him. Nevertheless, I feel close to him, because he was a musician, and I play his violin. I own violin music copied in his own hand perhaps one hundred years ago. I have photographs of him. He looks at the camera, and he seems kind. I once asked my father, “Daddy, what is the first public event that you remember?” My father said, “The war between Japan and Russia that began in 1904. Papa worked at the telegraph office in the railroad station in Karlskoga. The news came over the telegraph and when he came home he told us about it.” I imagine this event. It is February 8, 1904. My father, August Harald Malmqvist, the oldest son in the family, is five. Rambunctious and naughty, he plays in the parlor of the family’s two-storey home, hiding under furniture, grabbing doilies and putting them on his head, pretending a block of wood is a gun, and torturing his younger brother, Karl Gunnar, who will be four years old on March 4. Karl Gunnar cries to his mother. “Harald is hitting me!” My grandmother, Augusta Josefina Johansson Malmqvist, runs into the room. “Harald, stop that! You are too much for my nerves. Gunnar, stop crying; be a little man!” Augusta turns and walks back to the kitchen where she is preparing dinner. Tonight it will be kroppkakor, potato dumplings filled with salt pork. Harald already has a taste for this Swedish delicacy that he will keep for another 91 years, in Sweden, in Canada, and in the United States. Gunnar snivels some more and wipes his face on the doily Harald left on the floor. The front door opens. Papa is home. Papa is proud of his two boys, and secretly pleased with their liveliness, a sentiment not shared by his wife. He stops to greet them, and tousles their hair with affection. “Have you been good boys today?” Ja, Papa, ja, Papa, always yes. August frowns as he thinks about other boys in faraway lands putting on uniforms and fighting for or against someone else’s cause. Augusta comes into the room, a worried look on her face. “August, is everything all right?” “Ja, of course. But something came over the telegraph today—Russia is at war with Japan.” The Russo-Japanese War was the first significant war of the twentieth century, the result of rivalry between Russia and Japan over the status of Korea and Manchuria. Russia was looking for a port on the Pacific Ocean, for trade and for military reasons. True, they had Vladivostok, but that port froze during the winter. They wanted Port Arthur in China. Japan had earlier offered to recognize Manchuria as a Russian sphere of influence if Russia were to recognize Korea as Japan’s sphere of influence. Russia refused, and Japan attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. The rest of the world was surprised when Japan won this war that lasted almost nineteen months. Both countries would cause more carnage before the new century was over. My grandfather worked in the telegraph office, but he also worked in the Bofors factory. Bofors started as a hammer mill in 1646, produced steel in the nineteenth century, and made weapons for use outside of neutral Sweden. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, owned the factory from 1894 until 1896, the year of his death. Under Nobel’s direction cannons became a major product of the Bofors factory. Augusta turns to her husband. “The war does not concern us, does it?” “Nej, except that sooner or later everything concerns us. Sweden may be neutral, but can that last forever? And we make weapons, good ones.” August takes his violin out of its case, tightens the bow, and starts to play an old dance tune. August Harald and Karl Gunnar wave their hands and prance around the room. August looks at his wife. “Come, Augusta, play a tune on the piano,” “August, I’m trying to finish preparing dinner. Later, maybe.” A century later I am puzzled by Alfred Nobel, the man who hated war yet made money making weapons. A book on my bookshelf--Alfred Nobel: The Man and his Work by Erik Bergengren—tells me that “From the end of the 1880s and as a direct result of ballistite research, Nobel interested himself more and more in the technical side of firearms. According to what he repeatedly declared to Sohlman and others, this particular field attracted him chiefly as a mental problem. At the same time, with his innate, intense aversion to war and violence, he became, paradoxically enough, an increasingly strong opponent of the practical use of such inventions. ‘For my part, I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is the proper place for their exhibition and use’, he wrote at this time.” Nobel’s dynamite was to be used originally for mining operations and other peaceful purposes, but it led to maiming, death, and massive destruction. Karl Gunnar Malmqvist would later be known as Gunnar; August Harald would become Harald August, and then, in America, Harold August. On this night in 1904 the boys eat their kroppkakor and listen to their parents’ conversation. “Ja, Augusta,” my farfar says, taking a sip of beer, “I think we do have something to worry about. We are a neutral country, but how long will that last?” “August, look at these little ones; I do not want them to have to fight in a war. And I do not want them to make cannons or guns or dynamite.” “It is not such a bad way to make a living. I do it.” “I want more for my boys.” “Mama, I want to fight in a war,” says August Harald. “Bang, bang!” “Nej, that is not what you want to do, little one.” “Why not?” “August Harald, war is a bad thing.” “Then why do we make guns? Boom! Boom! We make guns! We make dynamite!” August looks at his sons. He wants to pick up his trombone and find the other six factory workers in the Björkborns Musikkår and play into the night. He wants to tune his violin and play the waltz by Offenbach that he has just copied in ink from a score owned by his friend Ericsson, the trumpeter. August wants to play the violin while his wife plays the piano and his sons dance and clap their hands. He does not want to make weapons. He does not want to hear about Russians and Japanese fighting each other. He wants to talk to Alfred Nobel and ask him how he managed to make weapons in a neutral country while at the same time passionately hating war. But Alfred Nobel had died eight years earlier in Italy, surrounded by servants who could not understand what he was saying. In his final illness all he could remember were the words of his first language: Swedish.
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Leanne Neill is a creative director of fashion, mother of three, and a self-professed ‘composer of words.’ She has over twenty years of experience in public libraries and local government. In 2016, she started her poetry and art inspired Facebook page : LUST for WORDS, and has since been published in many ezines and pages including Spillwords , Bymepoetry, including their WOMb anthology, The Scarlet Leaf Review, Blue Nib, Raven Cage, Husk Magazine, and US anthologies, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses and Warriors With Wings. Her poem “Transition” was highly commended at the 11TH annual Coal Creek Literary Festival in 2018. Her first collection, Fine Lines and Unpolished Pieces of Me was published by The Australia Times in 2017. Her second poetry collection, Blue Lotus was released in June, 2018. Leanne lives in Melbourne, Australia. Find her at : Facebook.com/LUST-for-WORDS Instagram : lust_for_words_by_leanne_neill Twitter : Leanne Neill@LeanneNeill2 The OneOne stays with you as life spirals by, visits in technicolor; rapid eye movements. Beats your heart, right out of your chest. Comes to the fore of every thought, tucked in back. Turns you on, when all has expired. Elevates above any, floating in your peripheral. Smack bang center The love of your life. Growing PainAlways
a strangeness; soul that defied its time, grappling to conform, frivolity of youth. A deeper sense than just being, melancholy love for all that hurt; as though pain was worth living, all grown up. Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles. we'll dream the night and day waking the rage to skate the plain trembling spite and sleet agony invited dour saints dripping housewives the split and the straight of the town buried miles in the deep I'll take you, if you want to go underneath gear me to weep no better now than before no better trained not ready for the tryst of a woman not weary enough for the course of true love not able to see the horizon take me into the sea either one: above or below the tears remember how to sip their grog and I remember how to bury the future with daggers charmcackles rock and rake the sailor in me to know the breeze and cut slack stalwart wax enlisting facts and acts into the graduated castilian mile we've been tracing round your eyes; no one but spies can see the dead inside, waiting to know how far we've come; drinking the light like prize champagne to truck the nectar down to town with you; grab and still the monkey juice to tell the number of the truth; two hours till I'm inside the inner district, explosives strapped to cheeks, and one week till we'll reprogram the minarets to blast the Rolling Stones: it's seventeen dollars to go to France, and fifteen for candlewax over your sleeve, for the midnight ceremony on the porch of all the Eastern Elephants who've been sunning on the courtship summer riverfront: ten to go underground into the catacombs and five for eggs; shake out your hands; I have a fever for the rocks, each one inside its own color; piling to mark the way home (some place we've never been) except in imagination, the divination of the spirit cords the mice inside my hat to shriek and bat away the dreams; I have all of that in spades; each hour and each name in fragrances exact and incorruptible; I have it mapped and laced and wrapped for your regard alone, under miles and miles of life, culling us into a comb for spelling old homes and disaster: name the spell and wrap it closer for the first view of the ocean (one we've never seen): I can see it in your eyes, like a dragon sleeping. rum the fun and drum the scowled wastes scouring the countryside in haste to find enlightenment and jewels (or at least more rum) the gun is loaded and the rickshaw tents are standing in the air like egg white peaks ready for the oven: rage and nourishment spite and silk standing towers over the tilt of the continent spill over the edge into my mouth: the liquor of the gods is miles and ages striated universes in your eye igniting family sucks the tide out
brainchild braintree codpiece shining god sucks the life out trauma police we cry over the funerals quiet to tame the stark and mad to bring the garrulous tin-man into the street so we can bash him dead I'll bash you dead it's my name and I have all night to make it mean whatever I want in America in America I am mad A shining spit falling slow onto the asphalt cut gravel and dirt to see it suck in the earth Adrienne Stevenson is a retired forensic scientist living in Ottawa, who writes poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Her poems have been published in the Ottawa Poets' Pathway “Lampman Challenge” chapbook, Time and Again Poetry Anthology, Quills magazine, on Geist.com and on PoetsAgainstTheWar.org. Her stories and articles have been published in Byline and Anglo-Celtic Roots. Deliberate GraceMy chamber fills drop by drop pressure builds magma expands like a giant boil finally bursts through the crust rains fire down Elsewhere, I sit on high peaks apparently mute shining in spots dirt-laden elsewhere in wrinkled valleys far below, where I meet another surface slickness of meltwater slowly grinds – I move I am a planet I breathe almost imperceptibly in melting moments DetritusI am flotsam, or possibly jetsam wreckage of the storm, deposited on your shore by wave and wind, surge and breakwater, plastic bottles and bags mix with kelp fronds and broken shells of unnamed sea-life refuse from distant lands combines with river effluent in chaotic currents oil slicks eddy around dense flotillas of muck that mar once pristine seas will people last long enough to mine these endless dumps; rake in and refine the components we so carelessly scatter? will our refuse finally choke the planet suffocate the surface and clog the deeps? while humanity lasts, who knows what questions our descendants will ask when we ourselves pile up on some distant beach rubbish and debris Ephemerasurfaces glisten in starlight
sparky ice crusts car windows stalactites of frozen snowmelt drip away wisps of fog caress budding branches mayflies’ fragile wings emerge pastels stripe early dawn hills dress up in an infinity of greens moisture hastens change humidity stifles breath overheated air ripples visibly lush, rampant, darkening greens abound berries explode with fragrant juice corn stubble rows mark harvest’s end sky darkens with emigrating geese shivering trees shed leaves arthritic joints renew complaints incremental changes remind us of impermanence Ergene Kim is a 17-year old teenager, who aspires to become a published author one day. She fell in love with classics at a young age and has been writing since then. Her works have been published in the New Jersey Live Poets Society, and are set to be published in the Plum Tree Tavern and the America Library of Poetry. Anna Real “It’s not very realistic, is it?” Anna turns her head slightly. “What’s not very realistic?” “The painting.” He jerks his chin at the display on the wall, the wine in his glass sloshing slightly from the movement. “It’s not realistic.” She smiles and shakes her head. “Of course it’s not real, it’s a painting.” “Ah.” He looks down at her, bemused and annoyed. “There is a very distinct difference, my dear, between what is real and what is realistic.” He taps Anna on the head and bares his teeth. He smiles like a tiger, Anna thinks with distaste, but proceeds to produce her own dazzling smile, because one has to be dazzling at dazzling exhibitions like this. The noise from the crowd is subdued tonight, as if for once, it appreciates the art more than the atmosphere. “Say,” continues the man, his profile distinct and regal in the artificial lights on the ceiling, “have you been to this place before? You look like a newcomer.” Anna blinks. “What gave me away?” The man laughs, the sound pleasant and unfriendly, like the seductive growl of a predator. “Well, you’re not exactly dressed in an evening gown, my sweet.” She looks down at herself, and sees the flowing skirts of a dark blue dress, the little white jewels embedded in the satin glowing and shimmering. Anna purposefully pulls one off and holds it up to her eye. The jewel is the size of her palm, and in the reflection she can see her easel and her paints. “I suppose not,” returns Anna easily, bowing her head graciously and moving away, away from the man and his strange little smile. Why does he stare so? Belle Take Belle is on her hands and knees, scrubbing at the perfect squares of marble set into the floor, when he comes gliding through the double doors, his presence unmistakable. Belle calculates, then decides to allow herself a quarter of a moment to stare at Master Anna’s beautiful blue evening gown. It’s a quarter of a moment because not all moments are the same. You have to pay for them, Belle thinks, it’s a type of currency. Give or take. I’ll take a quarter. She remembers her father, and her childhood. They had long moments together, categorized into careful little mental slots in Belle’s head. She can count three moments, but only when she hasn’t had time to think of all of them, for surely they had more. The first moment was when her mother died. That had been a painful time, filled with tears and anguish and mostly a heavy deafening silence that hurt her ears. Her father bought her earmuffs for Christmas to help stop the bleeding. The second moment came years later. She fell in love with a boy who loved to paint. She would chase him through the sand, the rocks scratching her heels and making them bleed. It had been a blissful moment, born of the naivety of youth and love. It ended when the sea reached its foamy hands a little too close to the cove where he painted his sheep. Belle dips her hands into the bucket of water and lye, ignoring the sharp stinging sensation that attacks the skin on her palms. The train of the dress is black, the edges furled and disappearing into a trail of ash on the floor. Belle watches as Master Anna himself disappears into the next room, the door shutting behind him with a loud clang. Then she cranes her neck to look at the ceiling. The smoke is floating there, uncertainly, fogging up the glass and distorting her perfect reflection. The glass holds its ground. A glint of metal catches her eye. It’s a sapphire, an opal, a diamond of light, glowing and pulsing with the need for attention that all beautiful things tend to possess. It shines from just underneath the door, the door that clangs, and its presence is consuming. It begins to suffocate Belle, and she shields her eyes so she can breathe as she begins to crawl across the marble floor with the perfect marble squares. The jewel from Master Anna’s dress grows bigger as Belle gets closer, and she begins to see stars from exertion and excitement. She hasn’t taken in a while. When she reaches the jewel, the glow fades. Belle picks it up and examines it at eye level, twisting it this way and that, instinctively measuring its potential value. A bud of disappointment blossoms in her chest. It’s not shiny anymore. It doesn’t look precious. It’s useless. But it’s warm, and the steady heat reminds her of the sun that shone down on her head when she found his body in the cove. And so she cradles the loot in her hand as it grows warmer and warmer, hotter and hotter, until it becomes something else entirely. When she unfurls her fingers and looks down at her open palm, the object that lies there tugs uncomfortably at a string of memory lodged somewhere in the depths of her mind. Something I had to find. A key. Carlisle Twist He paints with a pointed brush. Carlisle turns away from the atrocity in robes, this woman who calls herself Anna, and begins to walk down the hallway to his room, where he will be away from all this. The wine in his glass storms back and forth, a drop of the red liquid spilling from the mouth onto the pristine marble floor. It’s like a drop of his paint, Carlisle thinks with amusement, his lips twisting into an ironic smile. His paint. Paint, but not really. The moment stretches and morphs and solidifies into the time it takes to walk to one’s safe haven. Click-clack, says his shoes, which have left behind murky footprints. For a moment he’s confused. Had he painted this evening? Certainly not. He parts the white curtains that separate his room from the rest of the world and steps inside, breathing in that familiar scent of iron. Carlisle puts down the mirror he’s been carrying in his hand, and stretches his fingers, approaching her easel and his paints with barely contained eagerness. The subject is there, too, of course. Sculpted and carved into a humanoid form, beautiful and splendid in its raw, genuine ugliness. He will paint today. Every artist must paint a painting with a frame. His brush, the one with the pointed tip, fits perfectly in his hand as he begins. The first slash is gentle, and it’s perfect, he thinks, as the brush leaves behind a graceful line of deep dark red. This is real art--the intentions, the motions, the execution. He paints and paints, oblivious to all. He doesn’t hear when his metal door is locked shut, he does not see when his hand begins to add the twist, all on its own, and he doesn’t think when the floor is a mess of red, red, bloody paint. Carlisle steps back to view his work, and is filled with an unexplainable rush of guilt. It’s something he never feels, and shouldn’t feel. Perhaps it was that little added motion, the subtle flick of his wrist, the quick rush of red. Simply drawing his brush across the canvas was an innocent act, devoid of malevolence and a true desire to inflict pain. Adding a swirl, a deep hole, by twisting his dagger, is a sin. Yet perhaps that is the point of things. To sin. He is an artist, after all. The Man Prisoner His flashlight and keys bump against each other as he makes his way down the stairs to his post. It’s a miserable little place he works at, and it’s absolutely detestable. Is that a word? “De-tes-ta-ble,” he says out loud, testing out the syllables on his tongue when he reaches the bottom. It sounds about right. “Clever little thing you are, my sweet,” gurgles the first one, his eyes and hands red from the artificial light that covers the ceiling. The man can’t suppress a shudder as he quickly opens and shuts the door to the cell with a clang, testing out the hinges. What a lunatic. His second one is more subdued. She is kneeling on the floor of the cell, her eyes boring a hole into the wall and fingernails scraping pitifully at a scrap of metal, most likely a hidden piece of tinfoil from her last meal. He shakes his head, silently clucking his tongue. Thievery seems to be its own drug, then. When he goes to check on his third one, his heart feels the smallest bit of sympathy it can in this place. She’s talking, like always, talking about the most obscure oddities. He spares a soft smile in her direction, which she doesn’t see, and backs out quietly, the metal door shutting with a loud clang. As he’s walking back upstairs, his hands clenched tightly on the rail to steady his sanity, she calls out, the cry desperate and hoarse, like a piano that hasn’t been played in years. “My painting,” she screams, “it’s burning! Save it, save it, save it! What are you doing?” Unbidden, a cold shiver rips through him, and he has to wipe a hand over his face to clear the fog. For a moment, a single moment, a quarter of a moment, he had seen smoke. No smoke without fire. “Crazy bastards,” he says instead, as he climbs the last stair and steps out into the hallway. Originally from Texas, Shannon Lise spent twelve years in Turkey and her writing is infused with the layered historico-religious consciousness of the Black Sea region and informed by Middle Eastern mythology and mysticism. Her poetry has won several awards and recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Sunlight Press, Ink in Thirds, Eunoia Review and Red Eft Review. Holding degrees in psychology, philosophy and literature, she is interested in exploring how authentic interdisciplinary dialogue transforms contemporary cultural discourse. She also writes epic fantasy realism (Keeper of Nimrah, 2014). She currently lives in Québec. ANTICIPATED Remember when those broken bedroom doors laid you waste every night, a scream years expired choking out in your throat – you woke to the smell of your sweat on my skin, dissolved on my lips. Remember how you’d shiver on the phone, all your words oxidized, corroding the scaffolding trembling between us – you were so sure we’d crash through the cracks of your mind, but I never hung up. Go back to the driving salt in your nose surf gathered for the kill, the smash of your reckless body – recall how it felt, finding the sand. Now imagine you already know I’m not going to cry – but I do. ON RECONCILING ONESELF TO BEING HANGED IN WARTIME Hold onto your sorrow – perennial fungus coating the rotten underside of your mind – harvest it and mold it into an unsung sonnet, the bodily shape of you, gift-wrapped in white paper and tied up with ribbons, with scraps of scissor-curled colors keeping you from a thirteen-storey crash, holding you in a hangman’s noose, spastic corpse suspended in soot and smog above the crawling streets while nobody ever looks up and oh God how long? But it is better than splashed blood on the cobbles and the blasphemous bursting of forsaken flesh, better than screams of faceless crowds coming and going and forever remaining the same, collectively conserving their screams for worthier causes, like the attack just before dawn. THREE DIMENSIONAL MORNING Side by side, we watch the road unravel beaded street lights going out to greet the dawn relaxing their grip on the patched night like a girl undressed wiping makeup away like a long sigh quivered in the lingering dark the day of the Annunciation Or like a half drowned woman numbly gripping the cages of her lovers fingers flickering stiff lashes at last to understand she can let go now because he is already dead. THE WORLD, OF COURSE, TOOK A SEAT “This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be rememberèd—“ ~William Shakespeare, Henry V but we few, we few who happy faced expanding edges of our own souls’ falling, beyond which no hurtling star ever dared who slept three hundred lives of old men who forget in the prison of our own evolving brains and yet were not forgotten who kissed through frozen fairy glass the fingers of our long dead lovers, freshly remembered in flow of unsterilized needles who took our crowns for convoy and walked three days with bound hands to find a phthalo flower we well knew wasn’t there who saw the sky fade into sand and lived three years on crickets, honeycomb and our own cheap manhoods who three times stripped our sleeves and slit our scars and bled ourselves into an ICU to glimpse once more a certain eyelash curve who raided our own sacred sanctuary of dreams to discover the well at the world’s end and who had never intended to worship – it was enough to know that children we'd never have would have boasted to their friends it was enough to know our mortgaged lives, familiar in the mouth as household names, were not for rent. it was enough to walk the ridge of an unfinishing dune and cast no shadow. We stood as one, respectfully requested the only holiday worth having, to celebrate the feast of Crispin’s day, and were of course denied. We showed ourselves out. DAY IN THE LIFEMy body is an animal
that feeds on motion – pulse of unborn dawn in my veins echo of flying bleachers underfoot throb of concrete beneath the rain-dark shimmer of blackbird wings and the dance swelling through naked heels pressed in unwithered grass through shivering tension of globed dew balancing the light in me the light in you. Maybe one day I will reel in my horizon and drape it over my shoulders your shoulders stop straining at the edges searching patterns of the stars. Last night I dreamed Jesus Christ came through the white front door with all the cheap gold, kissed me on the mouth. Maybe one day I will send my body back through needles of sunrise spiking runaway threads of unshowered hair before my eyes. Maybe one day I will wish I had saved them, webbed strands of burnished bronze wrapped in silk and willed to you at my death but all our life is beyond photographs. Left knee for the woman, right knee for God – should I talk about the night I cried until I threw up? One day I come home to the missing trees; there was so much I could have told you. One day I will meet a stranger with an Eastern European accent who will wish he knew why he was hurt so much and I will not know what to say. I buy apple juice once a year and take three months to drink it. Marianne Szlyk is a professor of English and Reading at Montgomery College. She also edits The Song Is... a blog-zine for poetry and prose inspired by music (especially jazz). Her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking up at Trees of Heaven, is available online at Kind of a Hurricane Press. Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, is available on Amazon. Her poems have appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, of/with, bird's thumb, Cactifur, Mad Swirl, Setu, Solidago, Red Bird Chapbook's Weekly Read, and Resurrection of a Sunflower, an anthology of work responding to Vincent Van Gogh's art. Poems are upcoming in Loch Raven Review. Her full-length book, On the Other Side of the Window, is now available from Pski's Porch. She invites you to stop by her blog-zine and perhaps even submit some poems: http://thesongis.blogspot.com Waiting for Silence The balding man, the rock and roll recluse cradling his coffee-stained cup, glares at the street far from downtown. During the day, no one can see in. At night, no one looks up. Salsa from muscle cars rattles the windows. Girls in candy-colored satin strut for those men, their trumpets, not him. His daughter watches las hermositas splash through the strings and voices, through the Spanish she speaks with friends. His wife and children bring him coffee, cigarettes, chocolate, papers, but also the jazz he does not want. He refuses guitar strings and a new radio. The old ones, now broken, will do. The telephone has stopped ringing for him. On the street below in the shuttered restaurant’s doorway, his older son plays trumpet. Coins, sometimes cash, falls in his white bucket because he plays Latin jazz, songs his father hates, as if the past twenty years had never been. When I Dreamed of Living Alone On the other side of a stained-glass window, dust would dance in the parlor. Ceiling fans stirred the air. A tepid lemonade, ice long melted, would occupy an empty bookcase. It wouldn’t matter that I lived alone in only one room. I would sit on a love seat, reading Bertrand Russell’s history of philosophy. I pictured myself on Sundays sitting in the backyard, reading beneath a canopy of maple trees. It wouldn’t matter that the leaves were turning or that the cold trickled in like water, lapping at my bare feet. In reality, I remember standing at the bus stop, steeling myself to return home, realizing that I had barely read a paragraph. Instead, I read the buildings along the bus route, imagining my life in them, the rowhouses near work, the apartments over the cinema, the three-deckers in Brighton. It wouldn’t matter that in all of these places I lived alone. Congressional Village One year I lived in an apartment with a balcony that I sat on only once. My husband and I preferred to sprawl on the couch, inside, out of the glare. From there we could see our stained-glass pane that we had hung outside. Its red and blue birds were pausing on their way south. Fleeing a winter that would never come, they kept us company until we, like migrating birds, moved on. Home After Do Ho Suh’s Almost HomeThe artist envisions home as an empty space
with transparent, bluebird-colored walls; elaborate, minutely carved doorknobs with handles that will come off given too much pressure; triple-locks; and, of course, light switches. I think of home as cluttered, a moment in time, with a certain configuration of furniture, pictures, and people. My home is my husband, my cats, the kitchen I stand in, the chair I sit in, the couch piled high with papers, the unmade bed. But our first and last glimpse of most of our homes is of an empty space with only doorknobs and light- switches visible. Eventually you fill this space; beneath it the emptiness remains. NGOZI OLIVIA OSUOHA is a Nigerian poet/writer/thinker, a graduate of Estate management with experience in Banking and Broadcasting. She has published over one hundred and eighty poems in over thirteen countries and featured in over twenty five international anthologies. Her three poetry books and a coauthored poetry book are available on Amazon. They are THE TRANSFORMATION TRAIN, LETTER TO MY UNBORN, SENSATION and TROPICAL ESCAPE respectively. She writes hymns, Psalms and has numerous words on the marble. She is a one time BEST OF THE NET NOMINEE WEEPEvery time, I wonder I ponder on life, I think deep all over My spirit wanders off And my soul walks beyond, I search my heart And my heart searches, Trying to find reasons To find answers, But I just cannot. I weep and wail and cry I mourn and grieve and lament, I sorrow and agonize, Yes, my body shrinks from thinking From thinking and meditating, Meditating upon how we ended up here. How our world became beasts Monsters, apes, reptiles and dragons, How our world became hell, Filled with demons and darkness, I weep, I weep, I weep. Who bewitched us, What went wrong, Where are we heading to? CHOSENI am grateful That you chose me. Grateful that you are just, True, reliable, honest and sincere. If it were to be bought, I could not afford even the least. But you chose me, Freely gave me the talent, May I use it honourably To your glory and call. Many are called, But few are chosen, You called me And still chose me. I am grateful Grateful beyond words Far beyond gifts, Gifts that I cannot offer. Let this oil run deep And anoint the earth, Let this talent go wide And capture the earth, For the giver For His sole aim, Let it not be a curse Rather blessings upon blessings, From generations to generations World without end, amen. THE YOKE OF RAPEBless the land, all men Sing aloud in joy Dance and merry Eat and be happy Raise your voices And break the yoke of rape. Write it down Engrave it on your walls Bear it on your palms Teach your children Tell the unborn Cast away the yoke of rape. Be guided Be properly informed Be rightfully influenced Drink not from the gutters Dine not from the dustbins, For no man is dog. Dogs leak sores They go for the garbage Stand up like humans Live in one accord Break the yoke of rape, Let it off your neck And crush it from humanity. RELIGIONOf all the wonders of the world You are another. Of all the beauties of creation You are a wonder. Of all the wallow of man You are the cause. Of all the mysteries of beliefs You are a concern. Of all the troubles of man You are a trace. Religion, a mask A veil to unveil. PEACEWe cannot live in pieces We need peace, We are one Let us unite. Let us forget religion, Race, tribe, tradition and culture For man is nothing without man If we axe the world We would be at war, If we bury the world We be underneath, If we crush each other We be all gone, Give peace a chance. Peace is a foundation It is a bedrock, It is our quest For human conquest. We need peace to grow We need peace to sustain our growth, Let us be wise. WARAmidst lands and clime
Where lives dwell Amidst the planets And universe Where men live, We are the ones to support life. War is a beast We need not feast, War is a lion Tearing the world, We need not feed. War is a terror And a horror, We need both not. War is a tale of terrible tail It is a tale of horrible head, War is a crime against humanity. Rachael Lock hails from the Midwest, but travels often. She is a student at Arizona State University Online and is studying Psychology. During the day, she works in marketing. During the night, she is trying to catch up on movies considered to be cult classics. On her free days, she enjoys hiking at the local State Parks or bumming around with Dormy the cat. SMOKEThe glow from the city hurt my eyes
because I am used to the quiet. My lips drew in smoke because they only knew home. He held me tightly and I shivered because I am used to the cold. Pam Munter has authored several books including When Teens Were Keen: Freddie Stewart and The Teen Agers of Monogram (Nicholas Lawrence Press, 2005) and Almost Famous: In and Out of Show Biz (Westgate Press, 1986) and is a contributor to many others. She’s a retired clinical psychologist, former performer and film historian. Her many lengthy retrospectives on the lives of often-forgotten Hollywood performers and others have appeared in Classic Images and Films of the Golden Age. More recently, her essays and short stories have been published in more than 100 publications. Her play Life Without was produced by S2S2S, and nominated four times by the Desert Theatre League, including the Bill Groves Award for Outstanding Original Writing and Outstanding Play (staged reading). She’s a Pushcart nominee and has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. Her memoir, As Alone As I Want To Be, was published by Adelaide Books in 2018. PHANTOM AT THE TABLE Note: As with most historical fiction, the people in this story were real. The situations, however, are wholly imagined. This is one of the stories in a series that was inspired by the lives of early Hollywood legends. It is 1949.
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