Dig Deep XV: Winter by NY Writers Coalition

Dig Deep ISSUE XV Winter 2014

Editors: Juan Rodriguez Layout: Juan Rodriguez Cover Image: Juan Rodriguez Interior Images: Juan Rodriguez, Jianna Garcia, Tina Cacciola About NY Writers Coalition NY Writers Coalition is a nonprofit organization that provides free, unique, and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in society. These groups include at-risk and disconnected youth, the homeless and formerly homeless, the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, war veterans, people with disabilities, cancer and major illness, immigrants, seniors and others.

NY Writers Coalition Inc. 80 Hanson Place, Suite #604 Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 398-2883 www.nywriterscoalition.org

CONTENTS ABOUT NY WRITERS COALITION

P R OS E "Home in the Fall" by Elizabeth Shell Carr

“Fragmented Act" by Suzanne Lapka

"Done and Dusted" by Deborah Spicciatie

“Whom Do You Love the Most “by Louise Alexander

"Bird in the Nest" by Brenda L. Gill

"Lost Wife" by Janet Seth

"Guess Who’s Coming to Bedrock" by Allan Yashin

"Memories" by Marvin Corb

“The Ravell’d Sleeve of Care” by Mark J. Schuyler

“Poor Boy” by Andetrie Smith

“Information, Disinformation and Government Secrecy” by Donald Lortie

"Daddy’s Victory" by Eugene Carrington

“The Abduction" by Lujira Cooper

"Common Ground For Humanity" by Amethyst Nemzoff

"High Tea at the Plaza" by Fred Quintiliani

"Star Fever" by Michelle Baker

"Sign Language" by Bob Rosen

"The Christmas Cookies" by Fran Kotkov

POETRY "So you think you Can Tell a Smile from a veil "by Bill Larmer

"Blessings" by Chelsea Dreher

"Trees” by Jane Scharfman

"I Want To Be Famous" by Tania Carty

"Useful Information" by Jacob Cribbs

“Girl on Fire" by Angela Kingland

"24-Hour Marathon" by Amy Richards

"Story Time" by Amy Richards

"Blank Verse, Oooooo Words" by Ralph Gray

"Gratitude" by Jason Johnson

"A Child’s Anguish" by Inell Tolliver

"My Freedom" by Inell Tolliver

"Listen to the Voice" by Syd Lazarus

"Dance" by Syd Lazarus

PROSE

Photo Juan G Rodriguez

Home in the Fall Elizabeth Shell Carr Fall has always been my favorite season of the year. I can close my eyes right now and hear the crackle of warm fire burning in the wood stove, see the flames dart around as if it was dancing for us, the children who sat as close to the stove as we could get, holding out our hands to warm the fingertips. When I was a young girl, the beginning of fall was signaled by the ringing of school bells and the industrious attention to the 3 R’s-reading,’riting and ‘rithmetic, which had been pushed aside in the summertime. Fall was a time when the moon was fuller and brighter in the sky. At times it hung so low I felt as if I could reach out and touch its cold surface. Of course, I also imagined I could see the man in the moon and that was years before Neil Armstrong took his stroll on the moon! One of my favorite pastimes was to watch the sky and pick out the Big dipper, the Little Dipper and the Little Bear, formed by the stars and illuminated by the moon. There were few distractions-no roaring jets, no neon lights flashing-just a vast sky and an awareness of myself as a small speck in the vast universe. The low hanging harvest moon almost orange in color , coupled with the indispensable Farmer’s Almanac also guided my grandpa in reaping what he had planted: corn, sweet potatoes, etc. which we all devoured hot with butter. Fall, with its warm breezes extended the long, long days of summer. We called it “Indian Summer” My 2 older sisters and I. We wore feathers in our hair and linked it somehow to the supposed romance between Princess Pocahontas and the Englishman, John Smith who sailed to Virginia. It was in the fall that his life was saved by Pocahontas’ intervention and later she fed him from their harvested crops to prevent Smith from starving. Perhaps they walked together in the woods, crunching rustic leaves underfoot as they trod, just as I did in my solitary walks. For me, the best of fall was always October when the county fair came to town. Even now, the area in Columbia is still known as The Fairground. My family and my friends waited impatiently, talking excitedly about the fair enlisting my sister’s fiancé to drive us there at least twice during the week. We would get new clothes to wear, eat things we were normally forbidden to eat: Swirls of pink cotton candy spun on a cone, red candied apples, every kind of candy. We would see the fat, bearded lady the blue ribbon prize pigs all shiny & clean; there would be pony rides and the Ferris wheel. I can still remember the burnt orange 2 –piece corduroy outfit –skirt and vest-My MOTHER bought for me to wear to the Fair when I was 14 years old, and I actually liked it ! I had no inkling in my girlhood that the low-hanging harvest moon of fall would fade from my consciousness, replaced by bright artificial lights that held no mystery. Few of us can see what’s ahead in the road that stretches out before us. All of us can dig into our cache of memories and for brief moments, return home.

Fragmented Act Suzanne Lapka Don't tell anyone. They can't help, so why subject them to this ugliness? I knew it was coming. I had so many symptoms, but I waited. I didn't want to know. It was childish, but if the diagnosis is not spoken, perhaps it doesn't exist. Aware that my crying level is low, and my tolerance for stupidity has evaporated. Pain overtakes my world. Thank God Matthew is on tour for six months. He would see in a moment the gravity of the situation. Julie and Gerard want me to join them in East Hampton. Here Matthew and Gerard were like little kids battling the monstrous waves. I loved to photograph the water's force. The scene was majestic. Usually Julie and I would sit under the umbrella discussing books and plays. Actually, there was little dialogue. Her monologues were unending. She was the "queen of dirt". "Did you know that Dara just found out David is gay? She caught him in the act with Reed," she informed me. Why did I listen? I could care less about this soap opera garbage. "You just have to go to the playhouse," she insisted. "There's this emerging young playwright. He's a genius and he's gorgeous. There's talk that the show is Broadway bound. And afterwards, there's this new Italian restaurant. Gerard knows the chef, and we will be treated royally." I refused. "I don't have the time." Now quiet, and alone, I begin. I give winter clothes to the thrift shop. Design an album. Photos, cards, drawings, playbills, and even theater ticket stubs. All precious moments in our early life, and Emily and Steven's world with our grandkids. Seeing my photos of the Greek family vacation makes me sob. That time held so many extraordinary memories, especially the unconventional family portrait surrounding our enormous sand castle, and storming it in ridiculous and unusual poses. Make a new will. Leave anything of value to the kids, except the ruby necklace that Julie covets. Letter to Matthew, my Beloved. Remember the space between my birthdate and the day of my death. That space represents my life. Celebrate it, and then move into the next phase of your life. Don't let death rob you of your life. Then that bastard would really win. Start a journal. Record the final act. Perhaps I will destroy it when the time appears to destroy me. Until that time, I will willingly go it alone. I will use the smoke and mirrors technique when it is absolutely necessary to open the door.

Done and Dusted Deborah Spicciatie This is an account of an indentured slave. She broke free eventually but this is not a heroine’s story. At least not heroine with an E, but her relationship with the heroin that doesn’t end with an E. Her devil was in the detail of the absence of that E which booked her passage on a junket to junk. The big “H,” horse, scag, smack, doojee, and dope were tour guides for her servility and some of it’s capricious behaviors. For the addicted an altered universe is the new normal. She got good at accepting the negative as the positive. Her middle-class paradigms were turned upside down and for sixteen years remained inside out for the duration of the solipsistic futility of trying to find herself in the reflection of glassine envelope. Her “friends” were dealers, greedy for her money but dubious of her status. They were suspicious that she might be an undercover posing as a druggie. Instead she was an undercover druggie. Out as a lesbian, but closeted as an addict. She began to live and die for that astonishing quietude and comfort born of excessive panic when she feared the mixture in her syringe wasn’t of a life threatening potency. Then luckily she would see that stream of beautiful red enter the syringe and as it flowered out she would send it in. Her entire being was sucked into that hushed moment where she was suspended between the best rush of her life or the last breath of her life. Her heart will either soar to new heights or burst and just give out where she finally just gave it all away. After years of this converse roller coaster she was getting tired of always feeling skinned and lashed, and decided she was done and dusted, with this culture where being white and having front teeth were the ultimate deficits, and where these shortfalls defined the zeitgeist of those trapped in this helotry. She was exhausted from living in the wreckage of her future which sure took the joy out of her present. She now lives in a neighborhood where drinking yourself insensate is the norm, but no longer her normal. She no longer lives in the kind of pain that hurts clear as god and is grateful to awake each morning to the holy trinity that is her life: an active job, an apartment, an appetite. She doesn’t count the items in her deficit column, because she’s learned from Leonard Cohen that there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. At one time she always had her eyes peeled for law enforcement, now she works for the law and lives her life at a full peel. Back then she scored her drugs in Alphabet City, now she draws a paycheck in Alphabet City. Ultimately, she could admit that becoming an addict doesn’t change you, you remain who you are, only more so. In other words if you never broke the law before your habit, then you most likely won’t break it after. Her persona became colored as a law abiding, non-confrontational, virtuous, moral, and compliant criminal. While nursing a habit she was petulant and splenetic, when clean she learned to be exactly who she was, maybe because everyone else was taken.

Whom Do You Love The Most Louise Alexander Formal teaching in the educational process of enabling learners may result in unexpected outcomes. One such outcome happened with me. At the time of its occurrence I was the clinical instructor for Morris High Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s practical nursing for male students. We were on assignment at the Poly Clinic Hospital in New York City providing the Morris High School male practical nursing teenage boys with their clinical experience in Obstetrical nursing. Another role in my assignment was to be a bridge between the hospital and Morris High School in the management of our nursing students. This resulted in my delegating my time between the hospitalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management and the Morris students. So in order to facilitate smooth functioning I advised my students to enter the classroom on time and be prepared for the ensuing lesson upon my arrival as management and elevator travel may somewhat keep me a short while overtime. On my arrival for the class lesson one day, the management held me over my allotted time. I rushed up to my class which I expected to be quietly sitting with notebooks prepared for the ensuing lesson. Instead, when I arrived, I saw students in their white uniforms outside the classroom door in a loud and heated discussion! I was aggravated by management making me late and seeing ten aggravated young men actively arguing something. We entered the classroom when they saw me but it was hard to get them settled down. So I focused on their issue by asking them the point of the argument. Their argument was about which one of them I loved the best! Well, thank God I studied psychiatric nursing at Bellevue Hospital. So I focused on their need, and as I focused I noticed that each one was looking at me with great expectations. Each sitting in their seat looking at me as though I was the one telling him he won the lottery. So I looked at my quietest one and his strong points flowed into my mind and out my mouth. It set the pattern for me as I went from one to another affirming them. Such wonderful young men, and for me to see each show acceptance to what I said by quietly relaxing and ready to learn the lesson which time wise couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t occur. But I felt that from that moment on manhood was setting in before the end of the period bell rang. Somehow they grew and really became men. Affirming them, and for each student I affirmed his positive attributes. To God be the Glory.

Photo by Jianna Garcia

Bird in the Nest Brenda L. Gill I was a young chick sparsely covered with down, dreaming of flying free without a care in the world. Secure in the knowledge that somehow someone in the world would protect me and support me with wind beneath my wings. The parents, the significant other, the society and its social contract- all an interconnecting sphere supporting my flight my ascent through the sky. I had a dream-like sensation of flight. Like those dreams where you’re flying. You know how when you wake you can almost get a sense of what it feels like to fly. Spreading your wings and

leaping off the building, leaping into life surrounded by aerodynamic forces of flight and wind and wings and desire. When we are young we are all hatchlings in the nest hovered over by father bird nurtured by mother bird; yearning to become fledglings- carefully instructed in flight patterns and processes as we develop our “flight feathers.” Young bird fly, urged out of the nest. Crash! Ow! What happened? I was brutally kicked out of the nest. You didn’t tell me about the glass and the shards of invisible pain that I had to navigate. You did not properly prepare me, warn me, teach me, support me, nurture me. Now here I lay crest-fallen wings clipped lost my balance my equanimity and my way. The sky is not always as calm

and peaceful as it is on those clear days when you can see forever. Sometimes it is dark and foreboding as it ushers in the coming storm and the windows of opportunity close. There are windows erected by those keeping things out or luring things in. Those with questionable motives guarded hearts too timid to fly. Those who you trusted to raise the window to clear your path; or at least warn you about the blind spot in that window that sits between you and achievement where you see reflection instead of danger. Maybe I can recover. Maybe I can fly again Soar with Flight unbounded and unrestrained. But for now I am a bird who crashed into the window of lifegiving me a window into life.

Photo Juan G. Rodriguez

black to me. She had a short blonde pony tail. She served Lost Wife Kiran’s salad and my mushroom barley soup. We Janet Seth began enjoying our food. An older gentleman wearing My daughter Kiran and I sky blue pants and a white polo were celebrating Thanksgiving shirt shuffled in carrying a at the Chalet Alpina. We were menu. I imagined him flying up seated at a table in the back from Florida to spend the section. A red rose in a bud holiday with family. He was vase adorned the table. Blue followed by a taller fortyish napkins complemented the man with brown hair, his son? yellow and blue rim on the They were seated at a table just white china. Servers and bus behind me. The son wanted a boys hurried from table to side order of potato dumplings; table, taking orders; bringing he was going to give his beer, wine or other drinks. vegetables to the old man. As They brought soup or salad; the waitress took their order I picked up used dishes then didn’t pay much attention. I served entrees. A cheerful heard the old man say, “I lost bustle pervaded the room. Our my wife.” The waitress said, waitress wore black pants and a “I’m sorry.” “She worked eight blue shirt so dark it seemed floors above where the plane

hit the tower,” he continued. ”I’ve never met anyone who had someone die there,” she said. They cleared away our soup and salad dishes and brought Kiran her turkey with stuffing and sweet potatoes. I had my lamb shanks and spaetzle. We talked and enjoyed our meal. Our coffee and dessert finished a memorable evening. The old man, with his truly lost wife, lurks in memory, the sense of his intolerable loss undiminished by eleven years.

Guess Who’s Coming to Bedrock Allan Yashin In which our favorite Flintstone’s are visited by someone who’s really out of this world. Wilma, would you please stop all that running around the cave, you’re making me a nervous wreck. Well, Fred, I can’t help it. I want to make sure everything is just perfect when Pebbles shows up with her fiancé. You know, Wilma, I’m no Cro-Magnon; I try to be progressive. When Pebbles was old enough to drive, I let her take Dino out for a spin. And when she goes out I don’t mind her wearing that skimpy two-piece leopard skin outfit…and believe me, I thought that leopard was going to be wearing me until I hit him with my club. But this is too much for me. Well, Fred, this isn’t the Ice Age anymore. You’ve got to keep up with the times. I know, I know, but with all the eligible hunters and gatherers out there, she has to be coming home with a black man. Fred, I can’t believe you said that! But shh! I can hear them outside the cave door now. Let them in. And be nice! Oh, my God, I can see them out there, and he’s even darker than I imagined. This isn’t going to be easy. Ah hum, welcome home Pebbles and your…your friend. Oh, Mommy and Daddy, let me give you both a big hug…and introduce you to my fiancé, Darth, Darth Vader. Well, hello there Darth, nice to meet you. Yow! That’s quite a handshake you’ve got with those gigantic gloves. Can I take your cape and hang it up? What? What you say? Can’t quite understand you with that mask on. I mean, it is a mask, isn’t it? Ah, Pebbles, does your…your friend have asthma? What’s with the heavy breathing? Or maybe he’s allergic to the new wooly mammoth rug in the foyer. So, Darth, could I ask you to take off those boots? I don’t want you tracking dinosaur doo all over the cave. What’s that? I can’t understand a damn word with that…But anyway, looks like the T-Rex steaks won’t be ready for another two hours. That’s one tough piece of reptile. What’d you say, Darth? You can cook the steak in only ten seconds with your laser ray gun? You can? That’s amazing! Welcome to the family, my boy!

Memories Marvin Corb Growing up in New York City, some of the best memories I have, are that of, going to places, or doing things that New York has to offer. I remember growing up in Brooklyn and having a Charlotte Ruse., which was nothing more than shortcake in a cardboard cup, with lots of whipped cream on the top. Really nothing, but simply delicious and the whipped cream, was real cream and to a six year old, amazing. I remember taking the trolley across the Williamsburg Bridge to Delaney Street going to the Essex Market with my parents for shopping; getting things you couldn’t get a department store at a discount. I remember going to dinner on Sundays at Grandma‘s House, my whole family, Schlepping by Public Transportation from Queens, to enjoy the best food in the world, except my mom’s I remember going to the Christmas show at the Radio City Music Hall, with my mother. At that time, which was too many years, waiting on a line that ran from 6th Ave. to 5th Ave, there were no reserved seating, but there was even a movie, which were a Disney Feature and all this for $1.99. I remember, being told that in 1947, some things I can’t remember without being told. While shoveling, the stoop after the big snowstorm, a giant boxer, well to a 3 year old anything that big would be a giant, jumped over the fence and scared the wits out of me. Nothing happened, but I really ran as fast as I can into the house. Nobody knows where the dog came from. Seemed scary at the time, but as time went on, it became funny. As the years have gone by, too quickly I also remember leaving at home for the first time, to go to Norfolk Virginia, aboard a destroyer, USS Bache, DD470. Among my other memories of growing up was the Assassination of President Kenney, the resignation of President and of course Sept. 11, 2001. There were so many more memories, all too numerous to write about here, but the ones that sticks in my mind, although all the memories I had were important to me , are all the gatherings that I had with my family. Now, sadly most of them are gone, but as long I have all the wonderful memories, I still get a smile on my face, thinking of all those memories growing up in NYC.

The Ravell’d Sleeve Of Care Mark J. Schuyler My time is often spent traveling on buses and subways in New York City. These days, the vacant stares of riders into the vastness of unfocused space beyond the subway car windows has been replaced by…electronica. no more subway ads and fashion victims to distract the eye. Electronica envelopes the bustling horde. Eyes glued to small screens, smaller buttons. None for me, thank you. I cannot navigate the tiny buttons of electronica. Hammy hands. Touch screens do not respond well to fisticuffs. Marquess of Queensberry rules creates kilobyte chaos. So I choose other acquired tastes on my travels. What is my underground Fortress of Solitude, you might ask? Knitting. In public. With no fear. The same qualities that defeat electronica rises victorious in hand knitting. The smirk of selfrighteousness in pop culture, like some poorly written G.I. Joe escapade, all too often attempts to unlink knitting from masculine androcentrism, to remove any whiff of testosterone from the fleece at hand. Except…well, there are always exceptions. I recently was broadsided by a snot-nosed idiot on the #6 subway train in the Bronx as I knit a sweater. Complex, in-the round, top-down, shaped, traveling stitches and sideways construction… my sweater as my life, in small lap-sized scale. I was killing the boredom of a 20-stop train ride back to my home Borough of Brooklyn…250 stitches per mile. Looming by my seat, he dressed like Lenny Kravitz, albeit with Lower Level Kmart economy. The sneer leaked out like an acid drip. ”Ain't that a girly thang you do?”, loud enough for assembled riders to hear. "No, it's not girly. I do it so my anti-violence psychotropic drugs kick in. Wanna help?" The doors of the subway opened, the jerk left the ride clearly earlier than he intended, the crowd applauded, I sat down and continued to knit…performed, as if written by some Shakespearian hand. The ride and the knowing smiles of the audience thereafter were quite pleasant.

Poor Boy Andetrie Smith The boy had known days of only having a small allowance for school. He was black and poor and it was the 1930â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. He had grown up in Louisiana, but his family had moved to Texas, looking for better prospects. Then the Great Depression hit, it turned out that he was the only one in his family who found steady work. He quit school and got a full-time job working in a bakery. He was only fourteen. He worked a 14-hour day, six days a week. His mother was able to take in laundry and care for children and make a little money. However, he was the main support of his mother, step-father, and younger brother. He eventually had a little money left over. He enjoyed the feel of paper money in his pocket. He also liked the feel of change in his other pocket. By and by he had money to hide away in a jar in a secret place under the house. Soon he had a little nest-egg. He brought bread home every day, and sometimes he would also bring home sweets: a cake, a pie, or some cookies, or doughnuts. He bought his little brother his first communion suit. How proud he felt! One day he took the bakery money to deposit in the bank, but Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow came in and held up the bank. They gave directions that nobody should leave the bank for a half hour or else they would get themselves killed. Everyone obeyed. When the boy returned to the bakery, all the bread had burned up in the ovens. When his boss arrived, he was very angry until the boy told him the story of what had happened. Then his boss was filled with compassionate concern. This same story my father told me some thirty years later. He was apprenticed to the baker and he managed to learn a trade. He learned to bake everything: French, Danish, and Italian pastry. He was called a Master Baker. He could make gigantic cakes, one of which I remember was sculpted into the shape of an ocean liner. They made the pages of the black newspapers. Later he opened his own bakery and restaurant on West Dallas Street in the heart of the black community of Houston, Texas. He dressed well. He got regular manicures. He bought a Cadillac car. He lived pretty well. Some years later he would know relative poverty again. Not like the Great Depression, but having to sell his bakery and go to work for another man again. With a wife and child and a mortgage, he would live again from paycheck to paycheck. Still until the day he died he had the pride of his skills honed to perfection throughout his life.

Information, Disinformation and Government Secrecy Donald Lortie This is truly an information age we live in. Young people today have access to orders of magnitude of information we didn’t have in our youth—information on every conceivable topic and then some. The World Wide Web gives us access to everything from how to make a bomb or how to cut a pineapple to the most esoteric subjects that one can think of. You can learn almost anything by using the Internet from how to solve a Rubik cube to rocket science and it’s mostly free. School children all over the world can learn using hundreds of free videos from www.kahnacademy.org. Teachers are using these videos in the classroom. This system may revolutionize education around the world. Children can learn at their own pace. Teachers can spend most of their time with students without lecturing. Millions of people around the world are using these videos now. What about information from government, newspapers, TV, radio, books, corporations, politicians, lobbyists, etc. Can we trust information from these and other sources? I submit that much of our media information today is filled with disinformation, partially true and partially false. Most information has the bias of the source, usually a financial bias, or a political or other bias. Getting to the truth takes a lot of work, a lot of research. There is another kind of information that we don’t hear about. It is secret, kept from us by the laws of national security and government classification, but some of this is available through books, whistleblowers, WikiLeaks, You Tube, and Internet research. Most of us are content with what we see and hear in the media about this information without further examination, but I say there is a world of information about these classified subjects that the government doesn’t want us to know and which the media will not touch for many reasons. Currently there is an offer from Gary Null on WBAI radio called “We Know Who Killed JFK.” If we really want to know the truth about what is going on in the world and in our own country, we need to do our homework and research. In our youth it was very difficult. Today using the Internet it is easy. In my work in the military with the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA), having a top secret clearance, I came to realize the necessity of government secrecy. Later I came to dislike the idea of using national security as an excuse for covering up information that would embarrass our government if known by the public. After the military, I worked for IBM in New York and for Advanced Computer Techniques in Iran, a New York company, on a computer project for the Shah of Iran. I have been very much against decades of government secrecy about UFOs and the secret science that has kept us bound to our oil economy when very cheap or nearly free energy could be made available soon if this secrecy were ended. I believe this kind of secrecy is against the spirit of our constitution. The reasons for it are many, complicated and convoluted. To understand the cover up of this complex subject, please google Dr. Steven Greer, an emergency room physician who has given up his lucrative career and dedicated his life to the Disclosure Project—disclosing the truth about the realities of UFOs and extraterrestrials. Dr. Greer is the best speaker in the world on the topic. Please watch his speech: www.Youtube.com. You will be amazed. I guarantee it. For more information please visit the website of Dr. Michael Salla, www.exopolitics.org. There is a new documentary movie just made available on DVD called Sirius (pun intended) based on the work of Dr. Steven Greer. Don’t miss it.

Daddy’s Victory Eugene Carrington It’s Thursday evening, Paul Roberts is going to visit his good friend Edwin Brown. Paul is six-foot, portly, walks with a slight limp, and has deep set eyes. Edwin and Paul met at an alcoholic’s workshop, at the Valley Stream Community Center. Tonight, Is warm with light breeze, it’s just a three block walk to West Merrick Bld., where Edwin lives. Paul Steps into the yard, it’s seven o’clock. He rings the ground floor bell, then cracks open the screen door. He hears his friend’s foot-steps coming his way. Edwin opens the front door, hugs his buddy smiles then remarks, “Let me smell your breath.” “Sure,” Paul answers. “What do you know; I can’t smell any booze, congratulations Paul.” “Thanks Edwin, it’s been four long months, and I only relapsed once.” “Goodman, please take a seat.” Paul Steps towards an old Castro-convertible and sits down. He opens his shoulder bag and removes a pack of Winston. Edwin walks slowly into the kitchen and returns with a one liter Pepsi, ice cream, cookies and then turns on the TV. “Listen, try these Goya cookies, they’re real good on ice cream, Paul.” “Thanks, now I won’t have to cook. These cookies are fantastic.” “Do you want a cigarette Eddie?” “No Thanks, I’m quitting that too.” “Smoking isn’t so bad,” Paul sighs. “You got to do something.” “How’s junior, are you going to visit him this weekend?” “He’s fine. Yeah, I’m going to Brooklyn to pick him up.” “Paul, where you guys going?” “I don’t know yet, but we’ll probably hang out in Brooklyn, because he doesn’t like the Island anymore.” “So he won’t be spending the night.” “No way, Edwin, he prefers his new neighborhood.” “How’s he doing in school?” “Eddie, he’s a smart kid, he gets 85s and 95s all the time. Junior, has helped me put down the bottle, I’m so proud of him.” “I envy you kid, I wish I had a child, but fifty is too late.” “Come on Eddie, it’s never too late.” “I think it is.” “Oh yeah,” Edwin says. “Well, you know I’m so proud of my boy, if it wasn’t for him I’d probably be in some bar drunk right now.” “Paul, you know my old lady Claire doesn’t want kids and it’s not easy dealing with her. Look I got my nice car: this apartment, the cat and her on weekends that’s enough for now, if I was thirty that would be different.” “I hear you Eddie. Listen, it’s getting late so I’m going to push on home.” “Okay, Paul thanks for the company.” “Thank you.” Paul stands up, hugs Edwin, says” You’re doing good that wine rack is empty.”

“Listen, it’s going to stay that way.” “I got one Bud home that’s for tomorrow after work—I’m down to two or three small Buds a week.” “Great.” Edwin answers, smiles extends his right hand, Paul shakes it, then turns for the front door. He opens it steps outside, waves goodbye to Edwin. The air is fresh; the sky is dark with a full moon. Paul watches a Long Island Railroad train arrive at Valley Stream Station. He thinks, it’s so nice visiting him and not having wine and Bacardi on the table. I’m happy that he quit and I definitely plan to stay sober. He continues walking towards Sunrise Highway, the streets are empty an occasional car passes by, a couple of families sit on lawn chairs in front of their homes. Their cigarettes glow in the distance. He arrives at his block whispers, “Man, am I beat. I’m going straight to bed.” Paul reaches his house pulls out his key ring, and then opens his door. Step inside, turns on the lights and the stereo, and walks into his bathroom. He washes up, dries his face, turns off the stereo and lights then lumbers into his bedroom, and lifts his blanket. Finally he has reached his goal for today, he arrived home in a sober state.

envelope appeared under the door. She walked over and picked it up. Written in old English it said, “I have bad news for you. You’ve been kidnapped.” She dropped the envelope just as the door opened. Her hooded abductor in all black threw her an outfit. “Put this on wench,” the rough voice demanded. “Where am I,” the woman asked. “Please let me go.” Photo by Juan G. Rodriguez The voice chuckled. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” “What if I don’t put it on?” The Abduction “Then you’ll stay lock in here without dinner.” She put on the dress amazed it Lujira Cooper fit her perfectly and matched the cream stationery . The boat glided on Fifteen minutes later the Jamaica Bay as wind whistled hooded figure returned. “Turn through the night and a full around wench so I can cinch moon glistened. The woman your corset.” walked around a large cabin She did. wondering where she was and The hooded figure why. She had been grabbed blindfolded her and led her from the office parking lot upstairs. “Watch your step.” head covered, hands tied and Entering another cabin, she thrown her into a car. trembled. The sandalwood “Can you see anything,” incense relaxed her a little. her abductor whispered. Maybe it’s not so bad. But She shook her head. who would go to such lengths “Good.” to kidnap me. She started to Now her abductor undid the speak but the hood snapped, restraints, removed the “Silence, you don’t speak blindfold and pushed her into unless spoken to.” the cabin. She nodded and someone “Let me out,” she pushed her onto the sofa. So screamed and banged on the there’s another person. What door being locked. the hell is going on? She knew even if escape were “You want a Remy,” a new possible she couldn’t swim to voice whispered from the shore. A cream colored shadows.

She nodded accepting the glass handed to her. She started to take a sip but stopped. May be this was a trick to drug her. The new voice chuckled. She couldn’t place it. Suddenly, Roberta Flack’s Oasis flooded the cabin. She felt the lights go off. The voice walked up to her. She smelled Youth Dew. The voice pulled her close and whispered, “Happy Birthday, I love you.” Lauren ripped off the blindfold as the lights came on and saw the birthday feast. She jumped into Moore’s arms. “I love you also. Ri, damn, you’re sneaky.” “My love, it’s so hard to surprise you. You look delectable as a medieval wench.” “As do you, m’lord dressed in satin and velvet.” Moore fed the love of her life strawberries and cream while thinking of feasting on her body.

Common Ground For Humanity Amethyst Nemzoff

We live in an isolationist society, where our differences are emphasized, instead of our commonalities and our common human needs; the ways we are like; and the ways that because, if we did, the populace would become too powerful and topple the existing Power Structure. It’s the House Divided Theory that employs with us, to keep us weak and unempowered, so THEY can remain in power. We have our work cut out for us! Empowerment is a process—a difficult process to put and keep in motion. Some of us have begun the process, and we have made definite strides; but we have a way to go yet. The first step, I believe, would be to enable the next person to fully understand what each of us goes through-- demystifying our thinking, actions and way of life. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Once one has understanding, one is not so frightened of the “other” person, and can then show compassion and tolerance. And barriers that once existed between people can then be broken down. Of course, at times, we have to let go of our egos a bit, to consider the other person. Some high schools around the nation have begun employing workshops involving the entire school populations to promote understandings of the “other” among the various students, which workshops serve to build a stronger student body, and also serves to stop violence among the various groups in school. I saw an example of this process on TV last year. They depicted a high school in the Midwest applying a process to break down alienation among, and understanding of, the students in the school. I was particularly impressed with some of the male students who were otherwise homophobic; and, after experiencing this process, actually hugged some gay male students! It was incredible!! It had me teary-eyed. Whenever I see two straight men hugging each other (not particularly those who are “closeted” or bi-curious), I feel there’s hope for the world!!!

Photo by Fred Quintiliani

High Tea at the Plaza Fred Quintiliani Last winter I went to the Plaza Hotel for tea accompanied by my two sisters Linda and Carol Lynn. The afternoon tea required a reservation and consisted of finger sandwiches filled with watercress, salmon, caviar, various cheeses, fruit and various other delicacies. After we enjoyed the savory sandwiches, a three tier tray containing delectable miniature pastries was placed on our fancy table which was adorned with lavish silverware and table linens. Throughout the meal exotic teas were served by an elegant waiter with a European accent. During the tea, my sisters and I discussed severe damage caused by Hurricane Sandy on our family Jersey shore vacation house. Luckily the house was covered by flood insurance but four feet of water had devastated the first floor of the two story house. The sheet rock walls, all the furniture including beds, and appliances were all ruined and needed replacement. "We are lucky we had insurance" Linda said. "We must find a reliable contractor to do the repairs will call our friend Janice who lives there year round and maybe she can recommend someone honest and dependable hope the $40,000 we received from the insurance will cover the cost of repairs." my elder sister Carol Lynn responded in her usual take charge way. "Fortunately the house is not our primary residence. I pity the people that live there year round and are now homeless. Where do those poor people go?" I said compassionately. The conversation continued with a background of violin music, first class waiter service, and the luxurious setting of the Plaza Hotel. After tea, we ventured to the Oak Room in the Plaza for drinks. The hostess there informed me that Lady Gaga had performed with the piano the previous evening. It was an impromptu visit by Gaga and I was very disappointed that we had missed her performance. Well, at least the martini that I sipped felt soothing after the discussion about Hurricane Sandy wreaking havoc on our summer getaway, a house that had been in our family for fifty years. The house or the "bungalow” as we called it had been purchased by my late mother, Camille for a mere $11,000 in 1967. It was an integral part of our family history. My mother treasured the house because it was an escape from her dreary apartment in Queens. Our fun summers there were filled with trips to the beautiful beach on Long Beach Island, my mother's great Italian cooking ( crabs and spaghetti was one of her specialties) and competitive card games. It was my mother’s “Tara" from "Gone with the Wind."

Star Fever Michelle Baker Influenza got its name because people believed in the evil influence of stars. I will influenz yua and believe me, you won’t thank me for it. I learned it from the stars. I meet up with them in my backyard when I'm itching with boredom and need a change. Celebrities every one of them. There's Orion and Cassiopeia and even the Dipper twins. They all show up on those nights and splatter me with stardust. It comes raining out of the sky looking like that confetti stuff that you see in little snowfall scenes in plastic bubbles filled with liquid, except it sparkles just like you'd expect from star debris. The only problem is that it gets inside your ears and your butt and under your fingernails and it’s a bitch to try to get clean again. But to tell you the truth, I like the way it makes me feel.....big and important, shining and stellar, like I'm a celebrity myself. And I don’t even care about the evil influence. In fact there's a certain satisfaction in knowing you're just evil and it’s not your fault and you can just go around and enjoy watching people suffer and cry. Confusion is best. That's my specialty. I know how to get them all tied up thinking one thing and then another and then the opposite until they're just spinning and ready to agree with anything I say. Then I ask them their opinion like I really want to know it and they don’t know how to answer. That’s when you know just who you're dealing with. The careful thoughtful ones will kind of clam up with a hangdog look about them like they know they're dumber than a post.. Then there are the brash fools who'll take whatever was the last little factoid you mentioned and announce it with all this confident bluster. Those idiots really believe whatever it is they've glommed on too and it's a giddy delight to take them down bit by bit, showing them the fallacy of anything they say and of course they're so confused to start that it doesn’t take much to tear them down. They end up muttering things like, "I never did care for politics anyway. Don’t pay much attention to it," and other inanities to try to give an excuse to their ignorance. And I'll tell you it's the influx of star light and celebrity and all that shiny stuff that opens this flu of mine, stimulates mental robustness, and makes possible the evil gymnastics of my mind. It’s a febrile influenza that the stars bring. And who would turn their back on that. Purity of mind and spirit. Dull as antiseptic if you ask me. So just ask and I'll sprinkle you with stardust and give you influenza of the stars.

Sign Language Bob Rosen How great is this Thomas said looking at my library registration card that showed my birth month, you’re a December baby and so am I. Not a lot in common to share with him except that we are both Sagittarians and come in all colors, sizes and shapes. He is a tall cultured light skinned black man eager and willing to help me when my new laptop refused to obey my commands. I’m not a tall or light skinned black man and have to work on getting a tan so two out of three differences aside because I insist that I’m also cultured, we have become friends. Sagittarians have a lot of patience he said one of our many traits so if you need help just come over to my desk and ask. He was a library assistant and for the past few afternoons had spent several hours sometimes neglecting his duties to sit next to me and go over my new Word Document writing and seemed to enjoy reading it. It was a memoir a sort of remembrance of the old Brooklyn neighborhood where I was born and raised. The characters the street life the poverty the crime but not the drug scene, not yet. It wasn’t really bad until the late nineteen sixties and by then I had moved far from my old home. You know what I said to Thomas I’m going to treat you to lunch tomorrow if it’s okay with you. No you don’t have to do that he replied but I insisted and the next afternoon we were sitting opposite each other at a local Bean’s and Green’s having some great soup. Mushroom barley for me and Thomas a hearty chili bean dish. I wanted to tell you something about myself he said and I already knew that he was divorced for ten years or so. You know I’m sixty divorced and still trying to get used to it. My ex lives in New Orleans with my married son and I have an eight year old granddaughter. I try to go down there once a year for a visit and you can believe it that we get along better me and my ex than when we were together. What happened Thomas I asked hoping that even though we were now friends that I wouldn’t want to offended him. A lot of arguing and misunderstandings at first and on my part, a search I was putting myself through. A search, what kind of search and he said at first it was a religious quest for some meaning to what he was feeling inside. So I looked to Islam he said and found it simple, easier in fact than the Southern Baptist faith that my wife practiced. When I slowly revealed my religious journey she treated me as if I was running a fever and that a few pills could cure it. Later when my new faith became sinful to her we lived under the same roof but as strangers. But my sin became more evil to her shortly after my move to my new Islamic beliefs. We were finishing our lunch when Thomas leaned close to me and asked if he could tell me something more in the greatest confidence. I consider you a friend I told him and your religion makes absolutely no difference. I listened and he began; I got caught by her red handed. You see I’m gay and was having a relationship with a young man practically in front of her. The homosexual feelings I had I tried to keep secret but they grew stronger each year. That conflict was what started my search for a crutch to lean on. I was naïve not realizing that the hell a Muslim goes to is hotter

Continued

than the burning inferno of the Catholic Church. He looked at me and said thank you. Thank me for what and he said for not flinching at my words. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not here to judge you or anyone else for that matter my friend. He went on to say that the teachings of Islam that first attracted him were becoming more radicalized day by day. My search is not over to find the real me. I held myself back not saying that some of my best friends are either this or that, the usual clichĂŠ. The truth is that most of my friends arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t gay or Muslim. Few of my friends have been as helpful as Thomas has been and I treasure the trust he has in me.

The Christmas Cookies Fran Kotkov “Bring

me the figs next. We can’t start till we get the figs ready.” “The figs? You can’t start with the figs, Sadie. You have to grind the nuts first. The figs will gum up the grinder…make it all sticky.” This is my mother and my aunt. Each of them holds a different recollection of the steps their own mother took in making these festive holiday cookies when they were children.” The kitchen is warm from the stove being preheated. They are both wearing aprons over their house dresses to protect them from the flour that will soon be clouding the spice filled atmosphere. The children are cluttering the room, impatiently waiting for the process to begin. “When we start to grind the nuts, everybody else has their turn first. Then you can go,” my brother tells me. “You’re the youngest...and the weakest,” he adds. I sidle up to my mother. I know she will make sure I get my turn, and she will fend off anybody who tries to rush me. The grinder, big and silver and heavy, with its crank, so seductive to all the children, is screwed on to the table. My aunt tests its stability by grabbing it and pushing it back and forth. I watch the muscles in her strong arms, arms that have never been to a gym, become defined as she clutches the grinder. Satisfied, she begins to gather the figs and dates and nuts while my mother unscrews a little cone shaped knob from the front of the grinder and places a metal circle with holes onto it. “Put the disc with the bigger holes on, Sadie. We don’t want the nuts to be too small.” That’s my aunt again. My mother obeys. Impatience among the children reaches a new height as the nuts are tumbled into an opening on top of the grinder. A wooden block is placed into it after them. My sisters are no where in sight. It is they who have cracked all the walnuts and picked them out of the shells. Their job is done till the fig and nut filling is ready. “Sadie, put it all in together. That will work too.” The grinding process begins. Each child is allowed to hold the wooden handle of the crank and turn it and watch the ground up figs and nuts come out and fall into a bowl. Finally it is my turn. It is hard to make a full circle. My little arm strains to complete the job. My mother guides my hand inside her rough floured one and instructs me gently, “Go easy,” she says, “little by little. We use this block to push the food through so we don’t hurt our fingers.” She is warm from the work and smells sweet from the mixing, and her attention is more delicious than the promise of the cookies.

POETRY

“Children” illustration by Tina Cacciola

So You Think You Can Tell A Smile From A Veil Bill Larmer Do I question my sense of humor as a cover up from a penetrating form of sadness? Do I try to cover up the discomfort of the uncomfortableness I feel so often? Do I veil my true feelings in order that you my readers do not become aware of the—pain--fear— sadness that I feel so often? Do I at times try to place a smile so that you do not uncover my veil and let my realness expose me for who I really am-----? Why would I even tell you the truth for it is hidden from myself as I wear a veil of self protection. Aren’t I the clever one for you truly never get to know me but do you really care what I put behind my veil when all you do is hide behind yours as well----Yes you do—what----you think you are hiding from your truth----but what than is truth but a form of hiding from oneself .There you had to think about that one didn’t you---Yes ---you did. Do we even know the truth other than a veil we hide behind questioning if we really show who we are would we really be accepted? I’ll put down my veil if you put down yours----no---you go first. Ok but you have to promise not to laugh---you might----please don’t laugh---you promise---ok----here goes.

Blessings Chelsea Dreher The day was amazing The cows were a grazing I walked to the barn Where my old man was lazing I asked "husband dear What ya doing out her?" He replied with a smirk (Which was one of his quirks) "I've been hoeing and mowing And gathering eggs And I just built a fence With a whole lot of pegs. So now I'm a restin' Get out of my face" And that was the day that I got my own place I've been happily living here Two score and ten Me, Little Pee Wee And great big son Ben Now I went into town `Fer to go to a dance And who did I meet Just by chance, just by chance Rosie the Dyke From Sandy Claus High And we drank and we danced "Til the moon in the sky Was over the mountain And so dear was I Rosie sleeps in my bed right next to the stove And Pee Wee and Ben Are in the alcove We're so happy, so happy

And needless to say I thank my old man Every day, every day `Fer speaking so fresh Why he made it okay For me to just leave him A lazing in hay While I live a life that's So gay, oh so gay We count our blessings each day In our way Rosie and me holding hands as we say Thanks for the dance That brought us together And thanks for the corn That grew in good weather So that's my story And I'm stickin' to it Oh, we're gettin' married By the Reverend Pruitt She's not religious And neither are we But we both have a crush on the cute Rev you see.

Trees Jane Scharfman TREES...how do they grow so strong for so long...seems like maybe forever. How do they get enough nurturing? Is it just from the sun, the rain, the snow, the wind, even the pollution...does that contribute? They seem to strive without the help of human intervention...they are just there...like Buddhists...Do they know something humans don't know????.....I guess so...unlike humans, they have no judgments, they are just There...while us humans have all kinds of requirements. For one another...ex: we have nothing in common, he or she is not my type etc etc etc.............why don't we let others just be...like the song goes. Burt Baccaratâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s standard, 'don't make me over"...Isn't that what the trees do...trees are happy, no matter what...I get it:::??? Their egos were eradicated by God. Yes humans when there's a problem we think we can't handle â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;look up at a tree any tree and "breath

I Want To Be Famous Tania Carty I want to be famous for being a helpful soul to stop those fallen tears to help conquer peoplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fears to mend those broken hearts to help create positive thoughts to help people heal from a life of self-destruction to help put the pieces of their lives back together forever. For those who are lost to help them find their way to win.

Usefull Information Jacob Cribbs There is no answer to the question of birth; a conundrum sine qua non. The Big Bang is only a theory not a motel room. Death happens…what more? In this corner of academia we see the physiologist with her brain studying the brain to understand the brain. In this café we see the waitress serving customers to pay her taxes. In the Royal House of Saudi Arabia we see ten thousand princes and princesses. In the oceans of the world the ejaculate of creatures more shapely than our nightmares settles over small eggs in the sand. And, as the caricature stencils the cathedrals, castles, hospitals, etchings over gravestones, the comic strip reads again and again: the stairwell is leading to the stairwell. The hand which works to pry off its own handcuff, is, for all eternity, drawings its own hand. And so we see The Book of Love, The Book of Everything, The Book of Fucking Nothing Fooled You Ha-Ha, writing itself out with syzygies and hardships, erasing itself on the first days of transmitting the narrative of reason, using up the fox’s brush, throwing in a regicide, making of our harmless enemies sudden and powerful kings. And here

is where your brother made a notch on the doorframe in pencil. A baby giraffe is about six feet tall at birth. And oh, if we all could have lived like the Kennedy’s but without any suffering or misfortune. Armadillos have four babies and they are all the same sex when born. And oh the love we lost which became another’s and the words we wanted to say but Time did its samba across the backyard and like the wild crickets down near the lake made you rub you naval on a stranger who became better than any consolation prize in any sort of spelling bee. Perhaps, then, life is a practice of funambulating, presitidigitating; forty two days for an ostrich egg to hatch. Or perhaps it is horology, a hen house full of capons, a dinner at a Medieval table where you’d better have brought your own knife. All this talk of Higgs-Boson, all this Christianity, all this Ancient Greek capitulated and recapitulated over the café tables of Paris, and the young, the young, paying to understand… The Americans will go on eating ten million pounds of turkey each Thanksgiving Day, and, in 1938 Hitler was Time Magazine’s best man. There is no answer to the question of birth: let every step be your fiesta and your dirt-mound your dactylogram.

Girl on Fire Angela Kingland Sandy came to America with full force. She was expected to visit by nightfall. We were told to be prepared secure home and family. Some people ignored her intended visit, acting like they don’t care. Some started shopping for necessities. They bought food, water, flashlights, candles and more. Some were told to expect flood, they need to get to higher ground. Some were thinking about their homes and family. They refused to leave, they thought sandy won’t be that bad anyhow. Of course they had to be rescued because, they did not listened. Well Sandy came with fire, water, wind flood, death and more. Sandy, Sandy you are a violent, destructive girl. Don’t you know we have homes and families here? Sandy you have no mercy or conscience you don’t care. You took power and prosperity, lives and other things. Sandy you need to leave, get out and don’t comeback. You hit is in every form, every area and everyway. You took our home and family. Look what you did to the young and old, the rich and poor. You destroyed the environment and its inhabitants. Sandy, Sandy we have home and family. You took some families away, you should be ashamed. You send some homes off into the ocean what were you thinking. Sending Yolanda to the Philippines was heartless. Sandy you and Yolanda are birds of a feather. Yolanda destroyed everything; she took many, many lives. She was on a mission of destruction she took it all. She like you didn’t think of home and family. The people of the Philippines didn’t have much, now they are left without anything. Sandy you and Yolanda are from Dangerous families. Stay away from people’s home and family. With little warning Yolanda arrived the people didn’t have anywhere to hide. They were stuck, couldn’t go north, south, east or west Sandy you and Yolanda don’t need to visit with behavior like that stay away. The both of you are terrible, destructive, violent monsters. Another member of your family you sent to Ohio.

Did you give any thought to home and family? The people of Ohio suffered also lost homes and families, they were devastated. What destruction, vengeance, furry and force yet again. Girl you gave us a bitter pill to swallow, or is this a wakeup call? Well whatever, the lesson was loud and clear we will take heed. Sandy there wasn’t a girl who visited like you, you are bold and bad. Nature called and you delivered with full force. What in the world were you thinking girl? Coming to us with so much furry and hate. Don’t you know what home and family means? Without homes and family we will be broken. Here is not the place for you to visit we are a close knit Family. We cannot even get mad at you, girl you gave us food for Thought. Anyhow sandy, no matter what, we will survive we will move on as a family. Obviously sandy you got your family and any home you want to destroy. On the other hand you left us with a costly situation separated family and destroyed homes. But Sandy we will always have home and family. You Sandy and Yolanda can’t take away our dignity. Next time we will be more prepared. For any of your family visits over here. However, it’s best if none of you ever return leave us Alone we have home and family, don’t come.

24-Hour Marathon Amy Richards News 12 leaks into my grandma’s bedroom she’s curled small beneath down covers one-legged and insulated insulin injections in her stomach plied from birthing three children fifty years ago. My sister complains there’s too much clutter in the kitchen and my grandma anxiety-reels asks for a tranquilizer the small ones that look like little footballs says my mom on the phone. She wants to be tranquil not overdosed. She sits folded over her knee on the bed-edge chin on her hands hunched forward like a preschooler during story hour but she’s just waiting and my sister’s in the kitchen complaining and my mom is on the phone telling me about football and drugs and my dad is snoring in the backroom and A Christmas Story is playing over and over filling the air in the living rooms of a thousand other homes.

Story Time Amy Richards My cousins called Grandpa Popeye, like the sailorman but he wasn’t like a cartoon he was real life, angry they didn’t have to live with him downstairs beating people up all the time Grandpa used to sit in the big rocking chair in the den and watch “Sound of Music” liked to imagine virgin Julie Andrews once he drove halfway to Florida and the police found him at the Naval Academy picture of himself with hair and boxing gloves Grandpa’s head was shiny like a speckled egg could smell it just by looking he and my dad would box put Grandpa’s head through the wall once: plaster breaks easy we had a playroom until grandpa moved in but after his long drive, he went to the nursing home tried to beat up the people there, too my dad said Grandpa loved Grandma very much I never met her Grandpa didn’t know who we were, my sister and I buried Grandpa next to a rock named Heidi my sister, Heidi, was named after the ashes and Grandpa didn’t know which Heidi was who, but my dad said he loved them, very much now that he’s just ashes in the ground next to the Heidi rock they tell Popeye stories as if he remembers.

Blank Verse, Oooooo Words Ralph Gray Chiming, rhyming, vines a-climbing - tumbling Multiplying, fructifying, stupefying - glomming Minds Wordiferous – a-crumbling Tongues bounced on, rolled, Words clop-hopping Blank as turds. Testimony, acrimony, alimony – Ravenous the maws fiduciary, judiciary, medicinary Hoodwinking the sheep. God trusting, flag jabbing Egos babble, squabble, strut Prick ‘em, prick! Oh hero, oh wonder, oh genius Honors befall you, medals See the muck below? The moon’s full o cheese The sky full-chock with pies Watching, the viper’s eyes.. Merry the Windsor women Stalwart Verona’s gentlemen, Still, Paradise’s lost.

Gratitude Jason Johnson My family is more than those who connected in blood. They are the men who I would stand with, that I would fight alongside and trust with my life They are the woman that who I will always love, honor, and protect Whether by blood or by God’s spirit, my family is large, they are many of them. They give me strength, they give me love, and they feed my soul My home is not just where I lay my head, It is where I create, It is where I worship, it is where I can find safety and peace. So to my family, friends who have become my extended family but most importantly to my mother and father, thank you. They say “it takes a village to raise a child” and that holds true. Any good in part came from you. Whenever I am with you, I am home.

A Childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anguish Inell Tolliver A child needing a loving embrace Never understanding why there is no one to hold her Sadness is in the eyes of this child Tears falling into a torn faded dress Wondering who will come thru the door next, to put hands upon her that should not be there. The emptiness she feels in her heart will never be full. For she feels there is no escape from this room she calls her prison. Bruises upon her body never fading Despair is in the heart of this child The cry of her for voice no one hears. Wishing the door will open one day And a person with a heart full of compassion will rescue her from the misery she is in. Behind the door, in the room of Sorrow.

My Freedom Inell Tolliver Freedom the longing to not be bound to any-one to be on my own, to think my own thoughts to feel my heart beating for me. Feeling the way, I want to feel not letting any-one get in my way. Knowing this is my space. Not letting any-one make me feel the way I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to. This is my life. Eager to learn to take my own steps knowing my mistakes, and learning from them. So I can keep going to reach my destination, to understand of how deep my Soul can be. For I have earned my freedom.

Listen to the Voice Syd Lazarus The voice is telling you no why don't you listen It is usually right Why don't you listen? Why don't you listen Don't be so stubborn Don't ignore the voice You will be wrong. Don't be so stubborn you're not right you know You can't always know Be smart this time. You're not right you know Listen - please listen The voice is telling you no It is usually right.

Dance Syd Lazarus I think every little girl is given dance lessons. Ballet, tap, and toe. I had them and think I did quite well so why am I such a klutz now? I loved to dance I danced every chance I had when I was younger. I went to all of the discos and Latin clubs shaking my bootie with the rest and the best. I hate to admit it but times and my body have changed. The knees hurt the hips ache. But sometimes when I close my eyes I can see that little girl in her tutu standing on pointe she is so graceful and nothing hurts.