The Taylor Trust: Poetry & Prose by Excellence Enterprises

THE TAYLOR TRUST POETRY & PROSE

EXCELLENCE ENTERPRISES

Copyright ÂŠ 2009 by Excellence Enterprises All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, without prior written permission of the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. Poetry and prose published on a one-time only use basis, within the print publication (and possible future reprints) and with placement on the Internet. After that the rights revert to the authors.

ISBN: 978-0-9627735-6-3 ISSN: 1948-2086 (print) ISSN: 1948-2086 (online) First Printing September 2009 13 12 11 10 09

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Thank you to the staff: Editor: Jaime Pickell and Graphics Editor: Timothy Wang & Roger & Ron at AV Printing for priceless advice and help Published quarterly: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall The Taylor Trust: Poetry & Prose Poetry by the People, for the People Published by Excellence Enterprises PO Box 903456 Palmdale, California 93550-3456 lavonne.taylor@sbcglobal.net thetaylortrust.wordpress.com issuu.com/the-taylor-trust/docs/

TABLE OF CONTENTS ANNOUNCEMENTS Publishing, Angels, Voting, How to Advertise, How to Subscribe 4 STILL NIGHT THOUGHTS Editor’s Letter 5 SPECIAL DELIVERY Letters to the Editor 6

POETRY Jack Lorts 9 Abraham Linik 11 Richard Lighthouse 13 Lyn Lifshin 15 Charles Kray 19 Syd Knowlton 22 Mahdy Y. Khaiyat 25 Michael Lee Johnson 27 Emmanuel Jakpa 30 Gerald Heyder 32 Jonathan Harrington 34 Ray Greenblatt 35 Frances Gerard 38 Raymond John Flory 39 John Fitzpatrick 40 Michael Estabrook 42 Kaytlyn Eidal 44 Renata Dawidowicz 48 S. del Dardano Turann 50 Larry Crist 51 Marc Carver 53 Shelly Bryant 56 Gerald Bosacker 57 Tom Mirabile 58

George Moore 61 B.Z. Niditch 64 Don Peyer 65 Mary L. Ports 68 E.B. Reed 70 Ruth Glean Rosing 72 Penny Skillman 74 János Szentmártoni translation by Paul Sohar 75 Rick Spuler 78 Kimberly K. Thompson 81 Mary Blei Vandever 83 Wanda Weiskopf 84 PROSE Paul Sohar 87 Charles Kray 88 Raymond John Flory 90 Syed Afzal Haider 92 CYBERCONNECTIONS Networking 97 AND THE WINNER IS ... Ballot Results 98 CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE Art Credits 99

WRITERS’ GUIDE/SUBMISSIONS COVER FORM 100

CLASSIFIEDS

102

ANNOUNCEMENTS PUBLISHING POSSIBILITIES Excellence Enterprises offers publishing support for all authors, whether you have a twenty-page chapbook or a novel to publish. We can put together a custom package just right for you that includes editing, designing, and printing. Send us an e-mail lavonne.taylor@sbcglobal.net or leave us a message at 661-267-2220.

ANGELS

Syd Knowlton Tim Wang Wanda Weiskopf

VOTING

In each issue you will find an enclosed ballot slip so that you can list the names of the top ten poems you find most successful. You can mail the ballot back with your next submittals or e-mail the list. The winning poems will be announced in the following issue.

ADVERTISING

Advertising is welcome See page 102 for further information.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE

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Send checks to: The Taylor Trust PO Box 903456 Palmdale, CA 93550-3456

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Take advantage of two-year sign-up now! Rates will go up in 2010.

STILL NIGHT THOUGHTS I LOVE WHAT I DO

I’m really a very fortunate individual. I get to invest my time and energy in a project that is very dear to my heart, The Taylor Trust: Poetry & Prose. I come in contact with some wonderful, creative people whose association I hold in high esteem … namely all of you. I receive wonderful e-mails, letters, and manuscripts from all around the world, and I am allowed the privilege of reading many outstanding poems and short prose. I read works from people to whom English is not a native language, yet they are forthcoming with words that move me to my core. In the summer issue, we cover topics that are important to me, such as animal rescue and trans-species psychology (see www.vonnieshealthspot.com, click on Animal Rights in the sidebar). I support organizations that have people “in the trenches” doing the hands-on work of rescuing the innocent. And in my own small way I do try to raise the sensitivity level of the Homo sapiens around me who consider themselves at the top of the mammalian evolutionary heap. I was delighted when George Moore submitted his poems, “My Ghost” and “Bears and Wolves” on pages 61 and 62. Moore’s lines “talking without words/ wild one to wild others” resonated with me. Animals rule when it comes to reading body language, whether it is my Chihuahua who sleeps at my feet, wagging her tail each time I look in her direction or the wolf and the bear assessing each other on a hillside outside a lonely cabin. Poetry does not speak only to the serious side of life either, as in Michael Lee Johnson’s “Manic is the Dark Night,” on page 27, but sometimes to the lighter side as in Charles Kray’s “Apologies to Kipling” on page 19 and Ruth Rosing’s “Bien Entendu” and “My Fetish” on pages 72 and 73. And in “Remembering Mátranovák” Hungarian poet János Szentmártoni as translated by Paul Sohar on page 76 leaves us with feelings of poignancy and nostalgia. INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER We here at The Taylor Trust have decided to make each volume a standalone book with it’s own ISBN (International Standard Book Number). This will effectively facilitate marketing and distribution. And for those of you who have not yet discovered us on the Web site called Issuu, check us out by going to http://issuu.com/the-taylor-trust/docs/ and clicking on the image of the cover to go to the issue you want to read. The summer edition will be placed on the site at the end of October. We are proud to be bringing this third volume to you and hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed producing it. My best to you, LaVonne Taylor

SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I cannot thank you enough. Holding a copy of the April-June issue, I feel a sense of elation that many writers wish for, but few ever find. I am amazed by the time and effort you put into the production of this excellent publication. You even researched John Ennis and Jones Very, the subjects of my poems, “Writing, For John Ennis” and “In Support of Jones Very,” respectively [The Taylor Trust, Volume 2]. You quenched any questions a reader might have had. Thanks for this. Throughout, the selection of poems was great and I was sorry to reach the end. All the poems fit together like a finely polished table. Emmanuel Jakpa Waterford, Ireland Thank you so much for having my poems in The Taylor Trust. It’s a splendid issue all around. I’m subscribing because I enjoy supporting the good things in life. Michael Estabrook Acton, Massachusetts I am impressed. Excellence Enterprises was not misnamed. The Taylor Trust has proven better than forty or fifty journals encountered earlier. You don’t stint: the paper, the type, layout, and surely, the quality of submissions, and the illustrations, some of which I identify as your art work, are all top-notch. I’m glad I have chosen Excellence to publish my upcoming book of poetry. Syd Knowlton Arroyo Grande, California I’m pleased that you liked my poem “A Senior’s Wish” enough to publish it. I read it at a senior luncheon recently and it was received enthusiastically. I guess the old-timers identified with it. On another note, I very much liked your story “Dying With Dignity” in the April 2009 issue of Views newsletter. [http://issuu.com/the-taylor-trust/docs/views_april_ 2009]. It hit very close to home and many of my friends thought so too. It was very touching and astute, I’m sure it affected many readers. Charles Kray Carson, California

Thank you for your interest in Ephram Pratt. Feel free to use any of the poems about him as you see fit. I would like to mention that I spent several days at the Fishtrap Gathering of writers up in Joseph, Oregon. It was a great few days. Writers like John Daniel and Elise Paschen were there, reading. If you don’t know Fishtrap, you might like to check it out at www.fishtrap.org. Jack Lorts Fossil, Oregon Glad you’re on the scene with The Taylor Trust.

Penny Skillman San Francisco, California

Writing to tell you how swell The Taylor Trust looks, and express my appreciation for the quick turnaround and publication. Sounds like you have some good support and hopefully this will keep you from burning out too quickly as so many magazines do. I like the multishade tone layout as well as the names and bios and poems on the same page. Larry Crist Seattle, Washington What a gift to the poetry world, your exquisite The Taylor Trust. I’m thrilled that you picked some of my favorite poems I’ve recently written. I’ve been writing short stories and poetry for over fifty years, but the thrill never goes away, seeing my work in print. I shared your magazine with my haiku class at the Forever Learning Institute in South Bend ... Good reviews! Raymond Flory South Bend, Indiana Warm greetings. I’m enjoying and sharing each issue and encouraging others to find your magazine. When I recently read a paper by a student of mine from Cambodia who wrote about how she had to carry her mother in her arms during the war, I was reminded of how everyone needs to speak for peace, civil rights, and human dignity. I have a manuscript that I would like you and your press, who care about people and justice, to publish. B.Z. Niditch Brookline, Massachusetts

JACK LORTS

EPHRAM PRATT IN THE MORNING The winter morning was more like baseball, like lunch in the park, leaning against a lamppost. The water outside the door, reflecting the green of the sky, green as the boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes, had a voice frozen like the night wind. Why that was, only the priest in the gray cassock knew. His wisdom was like penny wishes made frozen as the night air, blind as winter morning, nothing like spring, softer than brown buffalo melting into the snow of Eastern Oregon.

THE 2ND SONG OF EPHRAM PRATT Ephram Pratt is a silent, inexpressible individual, a dragonfly maybe, or a praying mantis. He has set his sights on hunting water buffalo on the African Savanna, visiting Iceland during Lent. His voice is soft raisins in a small box on the dresser, kissed by an overdose of whatever he wants. Why does he want to sing to the winter apples, bought on a Jewish holiday between visits to his therapist? These are the questions he poses when he prays, when he visits the tenants of his blind boarding house.

Retired educator Jack Lorts says, “Ephram Pratt is not a ‘real’ person, but I’ve known and been writing about him for a year or so. Whether he is my alter ego, I’m not sure. Probably not, but maybe partially so. He really just happened in the poem published in the winter issue of The Taylor Trust. Like most of my poems, I don’t know where they or he comes from, even his name. However, for the past year, he’s provided me with rich insight into myself.” During his forty-plus years of writing, Lorts has been widely published in such venues as Arizona Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, Oregon English Journal. In January 2008, Puddinghouse Press published his chapbook, The Daughters Poems & Others ...

ABRAHAM LINIK THAT MOMENT The seat of pleasure embraces the visitor welcomes the guest into her boudoir Violent passion flows like a river intoxicates Nothing consumes like that moment ~ the moment of utter rapture.

THE SEA I was late. I stood on the shore, alone. Then, she came into my life, came and went. The world, like the sea, started to recede. Life began to fade, grow dim. How the beginning seized us! But love ~ always fickle and bittersweet ~ deceives.

THE SHADOW DAVID To visit his brothers Went up The lad And saw A giant Taunting his people With a surge Of courage He toppled Goliath Turned shame Into Pride Stopped The feud Between evil and good But only ~ Only For a moment.

The landscape is soaked with light. A shadow trails along a passing woman whose shadow embraces a child playing on the sidewalk. Vulnerable, in constant fear of extinction is the shadow, with no eulogy, as if it never existed.

ENIGMA Love permeates world literature, breaks the heart in two. Hate poisons the mind sinuously like a snake.

Former school principal Abraham Linik has been published in Pudding, Georgetown Review, Edgz, Midstream, Nimrod International Journal, Art Times, and Black Buzzard Review, among many others. He lives and writes in Newton, Massachusetts.

RICHARD LIGHTHOUSE

THE LONG PAUSE the way she said hello told me she would not ever see me again. and dammit, there i was. hello could be a desolation of words waiting for capture lingering in suspense emptying air between us. hello could be a held breath filling more time than lung hoping nothing changed since we were last naked together. but that wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yesterday. and now we have this space holding us apart wondering

HOLDING AIR missing you is easy. iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve rehearsed it well.

who will go first.

missing the ease that un closes your smile, missing the spell in your eyes, missing the air where you leave. tonight, i will practice misplacing you again. moving empty hands thru air and holding open where you should be.

SHARDS OF SILENCE shards of silence fall around us, yet we never gather them. there is blue silence and a red silence by her feet. we are reck less.

here

in noise less gestures absence, they fill our house slowly, like objects.

of sacred

growing larger. heavier. until .no longer. can we move them. their sharp edges cut at our being. we polish these silences. dance around them, consuming our transparent lives until we no longer care. even in old age we refuse their image forgetting they ever appeared.

Richard Lighthouse is a contemporary writer, artist, and poet. His work has been published in numerous journals and magazines worldwide. Lighthouse hails from Pasadena, Texas.

LYN LIFSHIN MARTHA GRAHAM IN LETTER TO THE WORLD Barbara Morgan: Letter to the World, 1940. Gelatin silver print. “You have so little time,” she writes, “each instant is so exciting. At first in the early days I was made fun of. I was in my long underwear. I took off my bangles. We took women off pointe shoes I wanted life the way it is.” Her long neck, her lips dark, like a young girl’s. “Only dance if you have to. If you think you want a family, a home, don’t.” Her words, a swirl of her body, hair pulled back, her face wide open Early in her career as a photographer, Barbara Morgan (1900-1992) arrived in New York in the mid-1930s, just as dancer Martha Graham (1894-1991) was beginning to establish her importance in modern dance. When the curtain went down on the first Graham performance Morgan had ever seen, the photographer went to introduce herself to the dancer and that same day the two decided to embark upon a collaborative effort. Morgan began photographing Graham and her company in 1935 in the controlled setting of her studio, each picture designed to capture “the most profound and most crucial moment” of the dance. A collection of the photographs was published in 1941 in the book Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photos. “Martha Graham: Letter to the World,” alternatively titled “The Kick,” was made in 1940 with a 4×5 Speed Graphic camera and required Graham to repeat a single kicking sequence until Morgan decided she had captured the image she wanted. The movement depicted is part of Graham’s dramatic ballet, Letter to the World, based on the love life of American poet Emily Dickinson.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S RAMS HEAD WITH HOLLYHOCKS She could see shapes it’s as if her mind created spaces some repeat themselves sand pink hills a mountain sun bleached skull of a ram beautiful as black iris she wanted the bones to make you feel what she was feeling our eyes pulled to its center

GEORGIA O’KEEFE’S HILLS AND MESA she loved Texas light coming on the plains huge dust storms sometimes she’d come in and couldn’t tell it was herself except for her shape she’d be the color of the road

MOONRISE, HERNANDEZ, NEW MEXICO, 1944 Ansel Adams waiting for rain, for wind to blow the leaves white, the dust from adobe, from graves men wait in front of their houses twist leather and sage brush chili peppers dry even at night, crosses gleam the men dream of cool moist places women soothe babies in a wind of pinyon and Joshua tree remember stories of a great grandmother who walked naked through the corn to make it grow, the moonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lips on her belly, hair

THE YOUNG GIRL IN A PINK COAT her sad eyes, how she left the ballroom early. Not his last dance partner, not the last waltz of the night. Not the one he swirls into a dip that with the lights off could end with lips touching. She’s not the one whose pelvis he grinds, he’s got a new pet, another young Asian beauty, his weakness it seems. His own Japanese wife at home with a tiny son. What can he tell her about work when he gets home at midnight? How can’t that exquisite charm wear thin plopping on the sofa and taking off his worn shoes? How could they dance together with the baby squalling, her beauty lost in a baby-stained shirt? And what of the sad girl in pink? Going home to a lonely room, dreaming someday she won’t, as his dark curls blur.

Lyn Lifshin lives and writes in Virginia.

CHARLES KRAY APOLOGIES TO KIPLING In the land of the scorching midday sun It takes hutzpah to ride in the sand. A night at the pass will freeze your ass, While morn turns your cheek bones bland. Each eve of dawn and up at the crack, The Hamir’s son, Hakim did ride, On his trusty steed of an Afghan breed, With his whompgun at his side. “Those heather Scots, with their dickey kilts,” said his old and trusted sire, “Will lop your head and steal your bread, and water you in the mire.” “No way, Da,” the young sheik said, “I ride where I damn well please.” And he hoisted himself on his Afghan red, and settled in the saddle with ease. The red’s rear wagged as he rode off in a cloud of desert sand. He rode as fast as the lightning flies Throughout the amber land. The Scots were up as they washed their kilts, and spied the mushrooming dust. “It’s the Hamir’s son,” the corporal cried, “Mount up, give chase, and kill him if you must.” They chased him over the barren slopes and across the windswept dunes. They bayed and howled like a pack of hounds, some keened the moan of loons. “Up yours,” cried Hakim, as he goaded the red, “Before you catch me, you infidel whites, I’ll see the lot of you dead.” He rode the red to the City of Woe where no white man had ever trod. The Scots came in, and to a man, wept and cried, “Oh, my God!”

The parapet teemed with a thousand guns and the Saracens licked their fat lips. “The officers first,” the Hakim cried, “Get them between the pips.” All hell broke loose as the guns rang out, the panicked Scots ran pell mell. “If one Scot flees,” the Hakim cried, “I’ll see you all roast in hell.” A desert wind beclouded the yard, and Scots escaped by their pluck. “Oh, woe is me,” the Hakim wailed, “I never have any luck!” I warned you, boy,” the sire said, “Of the Scots and their trusty lances. But you never listen, you little shit, you’re always taking chances. Now ride to the East to beg forgiveness, and stay the day on your knees.” “No way, Da,” the young sheik said, “I ride where I damn well please.” He rode the red to the devil dune, where no man had ridden till then. He reached the dune and cried, “Allah ~” and never was heard from again.

THE WHEEZE From a sleep, as deep as sleep can be a mournful cry, a plaintive wail awakened me Roused in fear in the black of night my bed reeked with scent of fright The sultry voice, a woman’s, was beckoning, a temptress to lead me to my reckoning. “Come!” she cried, again, and yet again for life, I clutched my pillow, then, the voice was there, inside my pillow calling, muffled as soft as willow. What demon’s curse in my waning years to torment me with unknown fears? Again the wail, but gentler now as if to soothe my tortured brow. Was it a Lorelei to lure me away and will I see another day? Or the Valkyrie to Valhalla’s chamber? I was a hero once, as I remember. A tinkling piano harmonized the scream. I knew then this was no dream. On my back I turned to lie accepting that I was to die. I turned to God with fervent plea, suddenly my lungs were free. My breath returned, a life reprieve. Yes, Dear Lord, I do believe! The moan was faint within my chest I wheezed it gone with all the rest. In my chest it was no more and all the fears I did abhor. I vowed then to sleep in ease upon my back with straightened knees. I thanked the Lord and prayed, “Oh, please let me keep my life-saving wheeze.”

Charles Kray is a veteran of many years in the editorial chair. He is now retired and writes poetry and short prose for his own enjoyment. Although a native of Cleveland, Ohio, he has lived in Carson, California, for a number of years. Kray has a short story collection due to come out early next year. See his story, “Earning My Stripes,” on page 88.

SYD KNOWLTON

THE VIOLIN The violin, a long escalloped box was configured to sigmoidal fruition by carpentry and intuition ~ and the tones it owns ~ the sound it yields can tear oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart or tear the eye; its very much like praises sung by god to man or man to god but sung to all as if perhaps resonated divinely in a log or somewhat muffled by a bog but then again, as if vaulted from the tall all-embracing sky: So, were you now to ask why God you have taskâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ed us this invention ~ He may be heard to chortle ~ are you not that lineage created in my image?

WHO EXACTLY ARE YOU? Lady: in the strident cerise dress and the black embroidered vest embellished with a rhinestone collar that volleys glitter to my eyeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s distress. Who exactly are you? Lady: your visorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ed cap, brimmed with little-bitty pearls and your ears adorned with swirls of wooden wind chimes softly singing. Is this you? Lady: with wrists adorned by bracelets in multiples, why have you scorned simplicity? and why am I so much put to couplets inquiring this absence of felicity ~ Where is the real-true you? Lady: your daring manicure, your too well-comported hair ~ reflects what ~ ? Naught but egregious longing for elusive fame. Are you rewarded by a stare searching for this well-hidden you?

SNAPSHOTS OF ELEANOR My sister when a child of five had flesh as mild and perfect as a peach ~ and it just ached for your finger’s reach. That young woman whom you see arrayed with cousins: She’s the tall one with a world-class bosom displayed in profile at the wall. And here at ninety-one she has tottered to her kitchen, to stand mulling things forgotted, like this can opener’s mechanics ~ what antics does one ask of it for lunch?

Syd Knowlton is a founding father of the National Writers Association Los Angeles and served as its first president. He writes fiction and nonfiction with an emphasis on the historical. He also writes poetry and contributes regularly to Views, the monthly publication of the above-mentioned organization. He lives and writes in Arroyo Grande, California.

MAHDY Y. KHAIYAT VISION OF TRANSCENDENCE

LET ME DRINK

In the cosmic hierarchy, We were but motes or levels Beneath, Whirling in a void of impertinence.

I drink and drink. I must drink. I must drink now.

Millenniums sauntered; We shed our amoeboid garb, Left our Sargasso beds,

The world is flooded With blood. The vultures are too Fat to fly.

Outgrew Our Neanderthal lineage,

The odor thickens And thickens.

Swilled juices from Our mental crucibles,

Close the windows And lock the door.

And, in spatial argosies, ascended Beyond The ambit of the blue vault.

Let me have that drink. Let me drink.

SYLLOGISM If life is Truthful fiction, And poetry Fictive truth, Then The twain shall Inseparably be twined.

TRAPPED This is how My mind works; Open yours and Accept it or Leave it alone; Cruel is the Game we play, Forlorn is the Name of the bed We sleep in. You may slam the Door behind you, Or break the flower Vase; our frayed Nerves will soon Boil over, and When the lid blows Off, the pieces Will scatter far And wide.

BABY BIRD In the swaddling security of a nest High on a tree branch, A wingless baby bird waits for Mother to bring back food. The nest is illumined by the full moon And the tiny bird is lulled To peace and comfort by a gentle breeze.

Tears and regrets Are too weak To clear our way.

Suddenly a fierce robber, In a burst of power, encroaches. The bird, thinking it is Mother, Opens its mouth. The robber snatches it And disappears into the dark.

Mahdy Y. Khaiyat lives and writes in Goleta, California.

MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON

MANIC IS THE DARK NIGHT Deep into the forest the trees have turned black, and the sun has disappeared in the distance beneath the earth line, leaving the sky a palette of grays sheltering the pine trees with pitch-tar shadows. It is here in this black and gray sky the mind turns psycho tosses norms and pathos into a ground cellar of hell, tosses words out through the teeth. “Don’t smile or act funny, try to be cute with me; how can I help you today out of your depression?” I feel jubilant, I feel over the moon with euphoric gaiety. Damn, I just feel happy! Back into the wood of somberness, back into the twigs, sedated the psychiatrist scribbles, notes, nonsense on a pad of yellow paper: “Mania, oh yes, mania, I prescribe lithium, do I need to call the police?” No sir, back into the dark woods I go. controlled, to get my meds. I twist and rearrange my smile, crooked, to fit the immediate need. Deep in my forest the trees have turned black again, to satisfy the conveyer ~ the Lord of the dark wood.

I BREW IN BROTH When the silence of my life tickles in darkness delves into my daily routine caught in my melancholy music at times, not exact; then exuberant auto racing playing at times, not exact ~ a new poem published or a kick in the ass ~ kick smacks like tornado alley in the tomato can leftover paste of my emotions at times, not exact; I realize the split of legacy, of loyalty on its knees fractured like a comma or sentence fragment, naked like a broken egg between friendship and hatred, I stew like beef broth simmering sort of liked, sort of hated, not exact.

POEM FROM MY GRAVE Don’t bring the rosary beads it’s too damn late for doing repetitions. Eucharist, I can handle the crackers and wine; I love the Lord just like you. Catholicism circles itself with rituals ~ groundhogs and squirrels dancing with rosary beads, naked in the sun and the night, eating the pearls and feeling comfortable about it. Rituals and rosary beads are indigestible even the butterflies go coughing in the farmer’s cornfields. Cardinal George, Chicago, would choke on the damn things; some of his priests would have thought it a gay orgasm or piece remote found in scripture from Sodom & Gomorrah. But my bones in ginger dust lie near a farm in DeKalb, Illinois, where sunset meshes corn with a yellow gold glow like rich teeth. My tent is with friends where we said prayers privately like silent moonlight. Farmers touch the face of God each morning after just one cup of Folgers coffee Columbian blend, or pancakes made with water and batter, sparse on the sugar. Sometimes I would urinate on dry matted pine needles, near the tent, late at night, before the hayride, speak to the earth and birds like gods. Never did I pull the rosary beads from my pocket. It’s too late, damn it, for rosary beads and repetitions.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. His latest chapbook is From Which Place the Morning Rises. He also has two previous chapbooks. Johnson is also the author of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom and has been published in more than 280 publications worldwide in countries that include the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fiji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Israel, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, and Finland. His work also has been read on Poland Internet radio. For more information on Johnson’s work, see his link on page 97.

EMMANUEL JAKPA PORTRAIT AT MID-DANCE The hide-rimmed drum obedient to the skilled-drummer’s hand in rapid rhythmic throb … The dancers dance … hasty leaps, turns, bends brief durations of rapid shocks of chest’s palpitation, intricate twist of hands and feet meander through the invisible maze of the music, makes lyrical their bodies moving in trance of delight, shed animated shadows of musical patterns on the dusty ground, dust astir in slow rippling, rhythmic ascension. The dancers danced …

LINES IN EXTREMIS I venerate Master, and no other, never, those words-made-gods. their books I burnt from eyes, who pant after sweetness of tongue. We must beware of the pedantic wolves, Professor sharks and wise hawks, those who dress with sequins but their hearts, spider webs. I, disciple to the core, live by the law Master had taught. I saw the vision, did what the world needed, to know Master and no other. Any moment from now, Master will come riding on the cloud, with host of fanfare shouting His arrival. It will be me, who Master shall delight to honor. He will stop in the glorious shouts of the new day and beckon me to ride with Him. We shall ride through the streets strewn with all sorts of petals and palm leaves.

Nigerian Emmanuel Jakpa lives in Ireland. His poetry has been published in a number of online and print journals and the Echoing Years: â&#x20AC;&#x160;Anthology of Irish-Canadian Poetry. He is a Yeats Pierce Loughran Scholar.

GERALD HEYDER

WINDY WATERS

“And the meek shall inherit the earth!” Windy Waters comes to town everybody calls him a clown wearing baggy pants, he’s in the general store, for a pocket full of candy he comes in kinda handy to carry boxes out ‘n’ sweep the floor. He can’t help he’s so simple tho’ cute with deep cleft dimple how his blue eyes twinkle with a shine, because he had no schoolin’ people keep on foolin’ him with tricks they play upon his mind! “Windy Waters you’re a clown ‘cuz you don’t know up from down,” town folks always seem to say; if the truth be known a bright light surely shows above Windy’s head each time he prays! They trick him when in town a few will bring him down to childlike level just to have some fun. His father and his mother along with baby brother perished and his mind just came undone! Tho’ his thinking is quite simple his heart holds love quite ample to keep his blue eyes twinklin’ with a shine, I know he keeps on prayin’

those prayers he keeps on sayin’ for folks ‘n’ baby brother all the time. The fire was burning wild inside was trapped a child Windy ran out through the raging flames, with infant in his arms he saved her from all harm I wonder, will they still call Windy names? Windy Waters ain’t no clown because a narrow-minded town doesn’t know heartaches dues that Windy pays, but when the truth is known that bright light surely shows above ol’ Windy’s head each time he prays. “Is there a village idiot or a village full of idiots who sit in judgment?”

After a stint in the US Army as a Communication Center Specialist and Cryptographer, Gerald Heyder has had an eclectic professional life. He was recovering from a broken wrist when he submitted the above poem. Heyder has published in many venues, among them Bell’s Letters Poet, Poetic Expressions, Poetry Protocol, Lone Star Magazine, Art With Words, Poetic Speak Digest and numerous anthologies. Heyder is a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

JONATHAN HARRINGTON JUDAH ISCARIOT Matthew 26:14-16

I’m the guy who tried to save Your ass now everybody wants to hang it all on me. I told them then, I tell You now: It’s crap. They would have gotten to You anyway. Yosef Caiaphas controlled the Temple cops, and Pilate simply washed his bloody hands. I tried to spare You all the agony of waiting for the dime to drop; besides I gave them back their f***ing thirty bucks. You were okay, You just went kind of wild. And to think I’ll be remembered as a rat. Christ! I was the only friend You really had. The rest were hangers-on, all starry-eyed believing all Your hocus-pocus crap.

In addition to eight books, Jonathan Harrington has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in venues from the New York Times to the Texas Review. He received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1983. Six years later, he edited New Visions: Fiction by Florida Writers. In 1990 his column “Tropical Son” appeared monthly in Metro Magazine and won the coveted Gold “Charlie” Award for best column of the year from the Florida Magazine Association. During the following two years, twenty-six of these essays were collected in Tropical Son: Essays on the Nature of Florida, and published to critical acclaim. Harrington lives on the Hacienda San Antonio Xpakay near Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

RAY GREENBLATT

BUTTONS Poke into motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wooden button box shoved into a shadowed drawer to find an ivory shield that snugly fits our navel. Dip further for a slightly larger ebony one that can serve as a monocle squinched into either ocular orbit as a partial sunglass Do not let an errant baby stuff a button into nose or ear let alone savor one as a misled mint. Hold up shiny button after button in gaudiest hues to the bright light seeing faces of family sewn proudly on our fronts.

ORIGINS In the beginning was the word which turned inward into a personal hum a poem of intensity in the darkness of a cave almost afraid to breathe on the small fire of life lest it might extinguish and the spirit with it or changed into a tale that spread across fields to follow the contours and terrain of human pathways to cite trees as markers of each living phase each blossoming moment climbing hills of challenge to grow ever larger until conclusion in watery depths of meaning or the vast mystical air.

EPIPHANY A Hollywood man comes through the desert in a leased Infiniti toward Las Vegas, modern Sodom where his girlfriend will overdose on what she thinks is salt. Winds blow out of bare mountains like commands of God. He, as the aging world must undergo challenges of conscience, is still ready to learn new things as a man would interact with a book. Trees shake their heads with violent noâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a river turns tail sneeringly pools squinch eyes in concern. One more time a man sweeps away cobwebs of superstition, which streak the sun with shadows and asks himself ~ god in the mirror ~ for so self-knowledge seems, what am I able to do freely?

Ray Greenblatt lives and writes in Exton, Pennsylvania.

FRANCES GERARD

FOREVER ... I remember Little things About you Which no one Else ever knew

Our time Together was All too brief But then Who knew?

I’m sure If I asked You would Have forgotten Them too

I’m grateful They lasted Through the Passing years

Now I hold On to these Memories So vivid And so few

And for that Very reason I hold them So very dear

Frances Gerard says, “I have been published in Bell’s Letters Poet quite often as well as local New York City newspapers. I am currently working on a collection of poems about the value of memories. I reside in New York City and am a big Bronte fan.”

RAYMOND JOHN FLORY THE EMPTY CHAIR The empty chair ... it’s always there. I hear your name in the wind and rain. I remember your face and I begin to pace. My heart cries so much for your smile and touch. The empty chair ... it’s always there.

NELLIE 1901-1997 Her love was like a soft summer breeze touching lives with angelic gentleness.

LOVING HANDS Raymond John Flory has been writing and contributing inspirational works for many years. His poetry and prose have appeared frequently in The Christian Writer’s Pen, Cottage Connections, Conquistador, and Writer’s Gazette among many others. He has established an award program for fellow poets called The Explorer Award. Formerly a longtime publisher of a poetry and short prose periodical called Explorer Magazine, he lives and writes in South Bend, Indiana. See his story, “Interlude,” on page 90.

God is not done with me. ... He is patiently and tirelessly gathering up the fabric of my life ... ... and then, lovingly repairing the tapestry ... reweaving, when necessary.

TANKA The meadow sleeps in the misty moonlight the blue heron dreams of heroic deeds of long ago.

JOHN FITZPATRICK

NIGHT CRAVINGS After Carl Martin I The cry of diviners: A log raft crosses the Mississippi lounging past shadows of swaying cattails. Here in baleful saloon swollen tongues waffle: There’s a smattering of curses, a cauldron of simmering toads. I’ll be more distinct than a Persian caliph, so shrill he’s like the desire of porn in Nippon, which clamors in the hearts of young men ready to buy the latest edition of comic amid towers of Pachinko. I’m ready, waiting for the crowd to quiet down and the voyager to step on shore. II Across choke-filled room a muscular man saunters. Saloon hours near over. Food all gone except that guzzled and burped, puffed and exhaled. I gather courage to bump into someone, deliberately. I yearn to be noticed, to be wanted, for the evening, at least. It is beyond thought of contemplation, the third-eye opens and bellies out a dragon, fire-tongued on biceps that coil around my shoulder.

ROAD MAP If I desire above all else to desire If I come to the center rummage around, talk to myself, peer through an opening to find another center, still and peaceful, then I know there is nowhere else to travel except maybe behind that wall there is some other place I might want to go someday, somehow The thought occurred to me my thought in someone else’s thought in someone else’s desire to go to the center of the center of that yearning to go somewhere Tickets I bought the other day said nothing about extending my stay just returning to the previous center I started from, to that wall permanent and solid in depth If the wall was a window would I be able to travel around the world and return like Phileas Fogg to the same place I started only to find that I wanted endless more than I desired home John Fitzpatrick has received Vermont Studio Center poetry residencies, the Hackney Poetry Literary Award from Birmingham-Southern College, honors in City Works, Mad Poets Review, Confluence, Taproot Literary Review, and Clark College Writers, with other poems published or forthcoming in Yalobusha Review, The Mid-America Poetry Review, California Quarterly, Luna Negra, The Cape Rock, Plainsongs, SLAB, Out of Line, Snow Monkey, The Rock River Times, ICON, Common Ground Review, Willard & Maple, Chronogram & others. His 2000 New York University’s Doctoral dissertation treated the poet as writer and reader of poetry, with poets Barbara Unger and Michael Burkard participating in his research.

MICHAEL ESTABROOK

HOW COULD I NOT? If I didn’t know you yet saw you today, on the street or in a store, in a classroom or on the dance floor, I would fall in love with you all over again, I know I would. I’d fall in love with you as I did all those many years ago. How could I not? How could any man not? Just look at you! I’d fall in love with your smile and your shining mink-coat brown eyes. I’d fall in love with your laugh and your legs, your delicate hands and precious feet. I’d fall in love with you, with all of you. How in the world could I not? And more than anything in the whole world I would want you to be mine, would want you to let me love you, to have and to hold you, to pamper and to worship you, until the breath left my body for good.

SOUL I’d drive her down the Belt Parkway leave her off at college, then return alone making that long slow drive back home feeling empty, hollow, like I’m made of cardboard, like I had left part of my soul behind. I’m not all that certain what a soul is, all I know is what it feels like to have a piece of it missing.

Michael Estabrook says, “Over the years I’ve published a few chapbooks and appeared in some terrific poetry magazines, but you are only as good as your next poem and, like a surfer searching for that perfect wave, I’m a poet prowling for that next perfect poem. Right now I am looking for that perfect poem in my wife, who just happens to be the most beautiful woman I have ever known. If I find inspiration anywhere, I’ll find it in her.”

KAYTLYN EIDAL BREAKING THE SILENCE It was dark and silent. The ride was bumpy The raging thought flowed through my mind like a freshly melted stream giving life to my curiosity. My eyes turned glossy and I curled into a ball. Here goes nothing “Mom who am I?” words were never so piercing “Why ... You’re you. My daughter ... That’s who you are.” Misty eyes and tightened grip. She knew I knew. “Who’s my dad?” It’s not the person who made you ... It’s the peron who raised you.” One solitary tear rolled down her cheek Her eyes now red, mine filled with pain Alone My mother and I What am I to do? As each tear fell, it felt like it was grasping a piece of my heart. Reddened. Who is he?

FIRE THROUGH MY VEINS Would there be hugs? Would there be shoulder turns and doors slamming? Heart racing. Looking at the dog he gave me as a baby, wondering where he is. My dad ... The one whose blood is running, burning like fire through my veins. Did he love me? Am I not pretty? Am I not smart? Why would he love me? Tears I am not special enough

THE BLAME GAME Staring into the mirror Sitting on the cold linoleum floor of the bathroom Harsh thoughts surge through my head Maybe he didn’t want me because no one should want a girl like me. All I want to do is go. No one will care if I am gone. My own dad didn’t want me. But my mom ... What would she do if I was gone? The pain started as I realized I deserved to live. He is missing out on someone he can hold and laugh with. I want to go to the swing sets and feel my pigtails blowing in the wind. I want to feel his hand pushing me. I want to run around playing hide and go seek. I want him to pick me up and swing me in his arms. I want to have a childhood with him.

GHOSTLY IMAGE My room Where all the thoughts take place My bed A warm place where I feel confident enough to look inside myself Embracing hands pulling me in A recognizable smile Eyes like needles that pierce a spot in my heart Nose identical to mine Looking at the picture. Shopping for school clothes Waking up to his voice Seeing him after school Imagining him as a father His voice His heart His genes A vision of what might be towers over me Will it be bliss or shame? Knowing him would drastically change my life, right? Swish The picture gets tossed in the trash just like my ... Hopes

LOVE? The kitchen I surround my mom and stepdad I see the pots and pans on the stove bubbling The scent of cooking spaghetti Will they be mad because I want to know him? How have they decided to treat me? Why does life have to be so confusing? “Mom do you guys still love me?” “Of course we do, Sweetie. No matter what, we will love you.” Reassurance. “Kaytlyn, I know you think I don’t love you. Although I am not your real dad, I consider you ... mine.” Tears welling in his eyes, I knew I finally belonged. “Thank you guys for putting up with me through the confusion.” I stand straight Shoulders relaxed At last I can freely breathe without feeling the weight of my insecurity. Glancing at myself in pictures or in the mirror is no longer questionable I know who I am. Gazing at the people who raised me ... I stood, jumped into my Dad. I pulled him down to me, almost choking him, giving him the best hug I could possibly give. His face turning colors Not wanting to let go What had always been there My dad.

AT LAST Dad woke me up I smiled, today was our day. Our day to share Me and him Him and I My choice ~ The Lord of the Rings. Jumping up, picking my outfit and rushing into Mom’s room, wanting her to put up my hair. I was ready Teeth brushed Shoes laced Coat zipped Skipping down the steps One By One The car unlocks, we get in. My dad and I We pull out like we have done a thousand times before. I look at him, this time it’s different I grinned I found him Not by blood but by his smile. My father.

Kaytlyn Eidal is an extraordinarily talented high-school student who writes from the heart. She hopes that by relating her own inner odyssey of self-discovery and finding she is worthy of love and acceptance she will help others who are struggling through a similar quest. She lives in Missouri.

RENATA DAWIDOWICZ FOURTH OF JULY Girl on a bicycle with an American-flag shirt on Caught my full attention The red white and blue on a two-lane road With not much traffic in Iowa Huge, fabulous grayish bins ready for thier corn crop are scattered Among acres and acres of neatly grown farmland An old rusty colored dog peacefully entertains himself Brown and black horses relax in the pasture on this sunny day The white foamy clouds bounce off the blueish sky With some gray clouds trying to steal the scenery extending to the beyond Shiny brown cows caught my attention A home is a home is a home for everyone We thank all who came before us and gave us a home

SHARPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Sharps ~ Molson ~ Excell Kaliber ~ Signs lighted up Make me recollect The closing time To bring it back Only makes sense To those that know I sat down A lot of thoughts came To me Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life passing To another dimension Takes me only where I can go Another time Another phase Another end

ALONG I followed the hot, sandy beach by the water And watched this amusing sight A fabulous black butterfly Sprinkled with shades of sky blue and white dots Feathered in appearance embellished with sharp orange stripes Followed his shadow in the sand Trying to catch up to it Stopping in the sand And trying to touch the shadow This beautiful creature wanted companionship He was not alone He danced with his shadow in the sand Fluttering happily along

TATTERED I saw him standing by a corner In tattered clothes The look? Probably catching the bus home from work A solitary figure standing all alone His eyes gazing into space The jacket torn, which caught my attention I wondered about him His life? From there to where? I can only guess.

PASSING The moonlit night Serenaded by the deep dark waters Softly caressing the shoreline Dreams of yesterday Entwined with today As passing with venture To unknown heights Beauty of suspense Where destiny leads us Peace

CHANGES Nestled by warm sandy beaches Erect and prominently situated among the straggles of greenish grass Intermingled with withered grayish strands Time eclipsed away and remnants still stand Being restored for posterity The lighthouse is a warm invitation To follow the old steel narrow swirling steps to inspect a time past The lightkeeperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dwelling is cozy with a huge remarkable stone fireplace To keep the winter chills away. The lighthouse was well-fortified Lonely and solitary on winter nights as the snow bundled the landscape No exit out as the wide stretches of the lake were incapacitated with ice Time has erupted to conquer all life and the magic of existence continues All secrets have been dispersed and only the wild whispering of the wind is heard now

The prolific Renata Dawidowicz has published more than three hundred poems in many venues, among them Bellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letters Poet, The Poet, The Sounds of Poetry, Poets at Work, Lone Star Magazine, and Silver Wings. She is a member of The International Academy of Poets, Cambridge, and has won many awards. Her book, 20th Century Now, is available from Plowman. Dawidowicz lives and works in Michigan.

SANTIAGO DEL DARDANO TURANN

MARTIAN HORIZON With fuel of thought my mind was sent Traversing space in half a moment To touch the ruby Martian horizon And see a dusty vermilion dawn. Untouched by weaker gravity Nor blown by solar winds I’m free To flow on strands of slanting light Or plunge in seas beyond man’s sight, Those vast and solid waves of sand Spread stagnant on an alien land. I’ll find what lay beneath the pink And scarlet quicksand eddies, sink To layers of ice hid from the sun. Solidified when life had run Its far-off course they hold a secret From days when plants had ruled our planet. Dedicated to Coast to Coast AM

Santiago del Dardano Turran says, “The basic facts of my biography are rather straightforward. I was born in April of 1968 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in rural Butler County. I have worked blue-collar and retail jobs my whole adult life and do not have a college degree, yet since beginning to submit poetry in August of 2007, my work has been accepted by thirty-nine journals.”

LARRY CRIST PROGRESS On our walks around the city this girl i used to date would recall what went where: That used to be a dog kennel. That was once a record store. Over there used to be a Thai restaurant. I wasn’t as fascinated by the history as with her ability to remember She was still in her 20s but her recall was that of an ancient elephant. I thought of her just today seeing a fresh empty lot something just destroyed its pieces piled up in a green dumpster erased from the corner and ready for the next thing. Last week something stood there and i had walked by as i walked by now what it had been was already lost to me. Whatsherface would have remembered.

EMPATHY AFTER THE TRAIN WRECK That train wreck, she said was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That’s good, lady good for you. It wouldn’t make my top 100 but good for you if that’s as bad as it gets.

SUNBATHING They were sitting there talking or rather, she was talking he was trying to read

DIVINE RITUAL

In the beginning god created coffee and tea He cleaned out the old grounds She said poured in fresh water I hate the sun I wish it were hot without the sun. hit the switch that began the gurgle Meanwhile the teapot began to churn Go to Houston, he said grew to a slight ... worse place i ever lived. god removed it immediately the sound of the whistle hurt his head The shade was moving in Having selected mugs He slid over to stay in the sun he poured hot water onto a tea bag She stayed where she was let it steep four minutes letting the shadow overtake her removed bag as the gulf between them added honey grew stirred while still swirling added cream watched as the gallactical universe expanded reaching and integrating itself till becoming a smooth golden brown He poured the coffee black, strong no funny business here took them brimming upstairs placed the tea on mrs. godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bedstead the coffee upon his own climbed back into bed resumed where he had left off reading a mystery

Hailing from Seattle, Washington, the often-published Larry Crist lists in his poetry credits such prestigious houses as California Quarterly, Red Rock Review, Phantasmagoria, and Touched by Eros. His stories have appeared in Permafrost, Words of Wisdom, and the Dos Passos Review among many others. He was also a winner in the Toyon short story contest. In addition, Crist has two short films to his credit, both as writer and narrator, Tidal Wave and Everybody i Have Ever Known, produced by Salise Hughes, Northwest Film Forum.

MARC CARVER LOST LOVE I sit and think, think of what to write. The times, the places, the laughter and the tears. The women that I have loved and the women that have loved me. Where are they now? Loving other men? Leaving them? Do they ever think of me, when thoughts are all that they have? When time is slow and they are alone. With only memories for old friends. Do they want to reach out to me? So that we can laugh together again. Look into each othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; eyes and smile. Smile, one last time.

THIEF I went into the cheap bookshop. Looked at the girl behind the counter and she noticed me. I picked up a book on the costa del sol. It was reduced to 20 odd pence. I took it to the counter and gave the girl a pound. She shortchanged me and walked away quickly. It gave me the feeling that I have had many times. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care about the money. The twenty pence I can live without, it is the taking that bothers me. It always makes me feel the same way. Will twenty pence make any difference to her life? It will do her no good. Hey, you have shortchanged me, I could shout across the shop. Maybe everybody would look at her for a second, her and her shame. But I know that I will not and so does she. So, I take comfort in the fact that I have made her a thief. When I walk out I thank her very much. She does not look at me as I pass her and I smile and walk away.

MANCHILD I go to the supermarket to get what I need. A place I have been to a thousand times before. I know where everything is. Every aisle, every jar. I get what I really need, what I have come for and head for the checkout. I like to look in other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s baskets. The woman behind me has a bottle of whisky and a cucumber. I never wish to be a woman. I see no way that I could. I could not look into a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes with love in my own. Feel my unfertilized eggs drop into the toilet. You have to be hard, to be a woman. To carry life. Yea, let me be a man every time. Or better still a boy. A naughty boy, who will never grow up. How can I still be a naughty boy? I am forty-two years old.

HEI HEI Uneasy, that is how i feel now. Before my poetry was published I could go to bed or have a little drink and know that nobody really understood me. Now, it is different. I still do not think that they know me: Maybe, they just think that they do. Christ, i do not even know me. I have spent most days of my life wanting to be someone or something different. But it is always that guy staring back at me through the mirror. I had a deep desire to run at the mirror and dive into it. Prove something to myself. I now have a deep desire to give up writing but i would have nothing else. Would I? So I must go on. Go on with the words. We will walk into the darkness together.

AN OFFER I walked into the bar with the big screens on the wall. The girl came over and asked me how I was, as I ordered a beer. I said that I was okay and asked her how she was. She said that she was very tired. I thought about that and asked her if there was any chance of an early night. She said no very quickly and went to the other end of the bar. About five minutes later it dawned on me that she thought I was asking her if she wanted an early night with me. I considered telling her that I did not mean it that way, but she never seemed to make it to my end of the bar. So I drank my pint and moved to another bar.

IT IS I I get out of the car and sit on the bench at the train station. There are no women today, not that I would know what to do with them. I look down at my feet and notice that I have only one sock on. The sun comes out of the clouds to say hello just for a while. I know today will not get any better. Last night the words dragged me out of bed, ripped me from the dirty sheets. Some days I look at the words on the page and I do not recognize them. They look like they have been written by five different people. I wonder which one I am.

United Kingdom denizen Marc Carver has published in Skyline, Candelabrum Poetry Magazine, and in the online Black Shark Press as well as Nigel Corbettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Blue Yonder. Carver says his literary training comes mostly from devouring the words of the great masters, American and English, for ten years. He has been writing poetry for about one year only, and he says the most important thing to him is to continue to write and watch his own work evolve. He lives and writes in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England.

SHELLY BRYANT

LIGHTS TURNED DOWN her seductive smile unnoticed again tonight a long day draws to an end infidelity drifting into routine’s realm expanding boredom’s domain

REUNION, THE MORNING AFTER At last night’s dinner table Still sitting at dawn A teapot of water And soggy-leafed pulp Three-voiced laughter lingers Reunion, the morning after Awakens the remnant Of an old, old smile

Bryant splits her time between Singapore and Shanghai, sometimes teaching English literature, sometimes studying Chinese language, and always writing. She loves to read, write, travel, and cycle. Her work has appeared in many online and print magazines and journals in many different countries. See the link to her Web site on page 97.

GERALD BOSACKER

CONVERSATIONS

Some people really love to speak, and they just ramble on and full. All the listeners that they seek, soon wish that they were gone. If they posed questions while they spoke good conversations would begin. When others talk or tell their joke, these bores think, to listen is a sin.

NASAL NOES

It’s never nice to pick your nose, You can pick a wife or a rose, and then quite sensibly the right card, your teeth or new clothes, a guitar, a friend or your foes, and often, quite privately that icky stuff between your toes. Pick garden weed that stubborn grows and winning numbers I suppose or your butt when no one knows but mothers and teachers agree it’s never nice to pick your nose. AUTHOR’S NOTE: Pick is one of those inexact words, with many shades of meaning, and I began this verse to demonstrate that vagary. I try to avoid such confusing words in my poetry, unless I want to broaden my point or message. With the broad vocabulary English affords, a poet can choose (or pick) words that narrowly define exactly what he means. My dictionary has fifty meanings for pick, so reading the word pick, one must slow down and study the context to see what meaning of pick the author intended. For instance, choose, designate, vote, prefer, finest, appoint, and scratch are some of the verb synonyms of pick, and their meanings are vastly different. Like the “f-word,” pick is used as verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition, expletive, and conjunction. I propose we always say what we really mean, and that includes poets!

Early retirement provided Gerald Bosacker opportunity for his first love of weaving words into meaningful poetry, and stories with surprise endings. Bosacker writes incessantly and displays his words pro-bono, hoping for acclamation or bare acceptance, while he is still mortal. A member of the Friends Society, Bosacker says, “An author cannot escape revealing his spirituality in everything he writes. I am a Quaker and my membership is a motive force in everything I write.” Find a link for The Best and Worst of Bosacker on page 97.

TOM MIRABILE

ACCOMPANIED HOTEL DWELLINGS At the age of eight I was introduced to my first hotel, the then famous New Yorker with its colossal rooftop sign and ornate banquet halls, one of them the location of a never-to-beforgotten wedding reception for a beloved older cousin. It was a day of innocent marvel and endless discovery ~ the laughter, the gifts, the dancing, the Shirley Temple cocktail, and the nonstop delights to the senses ~ all combining with the shiny brass instruments of a Big Band playing Glen Miller. It was dreamlike, but suddenly disrupted by crushing bafflement when the bride and groom left so soon. Not long after, with the soothing harmonies of the Mills Brothers filling the family station wagon, in a remote and stunning section of the Adirondacks, we came across an abandoned north country hotel, its vacant sadness, sinking roof, and boarded windows concealing precious tales dying to be told. Our frozen glares made uttering the word “haunted” unnecessary. Next came the lucid inner images of “Heartbreak Hotel” from a portable radio, the shuddering voice of our newly crowned king so ominous. He was ours and the louder the jeers of the elders the more we embraced him.

A seedy Baltimore flophouse with its eerie vibes and shady desk clerk appeared in what seemed like a lifetime later. I flung whatever money I had in every direction during an uneventful liberty weekend, ship docked, just me and a fellow sailor, a seductive “Whiter Shade of Pale” and its sixteen vestal virgins arising from the saloon jukebox on the first floor and joined by cigarette smoke, unceasing clatter, and stale beer wafts. Later that night there would be unrelenting nightmares followed by the worst hangover in the history of the world. It was the mushrooming credit-card culture that suddenly brought with it the one hundred dollar-a-night stays. The Sheratons, the Hiltons, the Royal this or that. The cardboard keys, the security force, and the long pissed off lines joined by canned sounds of Streisand and Neil Diamond while waiting to register for the privilege. An overdue visit to the legendary Algonquin would follow, the lounge bartender sliding in a Lou Rawls cassette while I daydreamed of being shitfaced with Dorothy. They wouldn’t allow me in the dining room without a jacket and tie and I hated them for that. They still had an elevator operator and a bellboy straight out of an old Phillip Morris ad.

Another song, this one begins on a dark desert highway, a legendary hotel, and though it surely seemed like a lovely place, the burdened beauty of the voices and the brilliance of the lyrics fused into metaphor and a warning about the inescapable traps and fatal quicksand awaiting those seeking rock fame. And now there’s the clamor and glare of a Native-American industry, in a repeat performance of the Vegas palaces, the lucrative arrivals continuing to dot the landscape of corner after corner of the home of the brave. Fashionistas, semi-big spenders, chronic debtors, retired skinflints, and reborn losers play side by side. Find your game and step right up! And later it’s Mr. D reworking his gems like a complete unknown in one of the arena-sized music rooms. I view hotels as the start of chapters in my life. Could it be that eternity will be the final one? A stay of profound satisfaction and wish fulfillment, my suite a joy to behold and whose individual decor somehow matches my personality, sort of like the fantasy holodeck vacations for Star-Trek crew members. From the balconies of this idyllic hotel are perfect views of the planets, the stars, the universe, with the past, present and future rolled into one, each guest finally liberated from every pesky earthly annoyance and all the unrelenting human horseshit.

Mirabile lives in the Boston area and is currently seeking a publisher for his novel Bare Facts. His writing has appeared in a number of journals including First Intensity, Hypnos, and the Middle English Literary Journal. His short story “Going to the Devil” was a semi-finalist in the 2003 New Millennium Award.

GEORGE MOORE

MY GHOST You are the near invisible white shadow, ageless lupine, that transposes himself from here to there without moving a hair, over the ridge you trot, wolfish in your gait, but slow, and when I get there seconds later you are gone. When I call you home, you look at me like a stranger, like home was this ~ this great wide stretch of unbounded forest. When we get to the end of the trail you sense the shift, the turn back to the car, and disappear into the cradle of the wood. When we are alone, you scout the horizon as if the world were waiting there, the name I call you seems at times to fit and other times it slips off you like mud off that sleek, resilient fur. The wolf in you is never satisfied as the dog is, it searches the brush for anything that moves, and is happy to stand perfectly still for hours. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve grown comfortable as the dog in you has disappeared, and you have shown me the way to hunt the air, the trees, the suddenness of living, like it was all that we ever have, and more than we could ever need.

BEARS AND WOLVES Up in Zirkel Wilderness I could let you loose. Sometimes for days. Let you go your way and evening youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d swing in through the fire light, brush up against me and depart again for the night. I walked in the footprints of bears, one great one came down a long snowfield in May and its prints were big as a frying pan. But the one you finally saw was off the porch on a fall morning. I came upon the two of you like cats. You watched and she watched, each sidled sideways and ever so slowly. Not a sound. I finally knew what you were doing out there in the wilderness all day and night, talking without words wild one to wild others.

TRANSITIONS We started it by smoking in the vacant house across the street from mother’s birthplace,

The house had no number, nothing any longer sacred, but a neighbor across the street warned us to stay out.

that gray abandoned two-story wreck, paper curling like tendrils off the clammy walls.

It was on the day I left, the wagon packed to drive across the city to a new home, that our smoke lingered

Afraid of ourselves if our echoes should end, and the house silently come down around us.

in the rafters. I saw her step from her porch and walk straight for our car. But we drove off without

His face I can’t remember. But his girl watched too as he played with his knife, flicking it into the paper boards.

anyone else seeing. And I escaped that other life the one where I would be pitching a knife into flimsy

We smoked long cigars like the ones in the Westerns, and then punched out the weeping walls.

walls, dreaming of elsewhere, knowing I was idolized by smaller boys, wanting to set fire to the world.

George Moore has published poetry in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, North American Review, Orion, Colorado Review, Nimrod, Meridian, Chelsea, Southern Poetry Review, Southwest Review, Chariton Review, and, the online Penpoint View; and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times. In 2007, he was a finalist for the Richard Snyder Memorial Prize, from Ashland Poetry Press, and earlier for The National Poetry Series, The Brittingham Poetry Award, and the Anhinga Poetry Prize. His third collection in print is Headhunting (Edwin Mellen, 2002) a travelogue on ritual practices of love and possession; and he has two recent e-Books as well, All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time (Pulpbits, 2007) and a CD, Tree in the Wall, (CDchapbooks.com, 2006). He has collaborated with a number of artists internationally, both in Spain in 2007 where he did an installation at Can Serrat, outside Barcelona, with the French Canadian conceptual artist, Mireille Perron, and another with Hrafnhildur Sigurðardóttir, the Scandinavian textile artist, for Skagaströnd, Iceland, scheduled for this coming year. He teaches literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

B.Z. NIDITCH IT’S ABOUT TIME A millennium of years waiting on the word, millions of hours wishing for honors,

a thousand ill-suited days to try on love, a hundred minutes of painting madness, ten seconds to uncover death.

THE CAPE’S ULYSSES BLINDED You’re hating the color, go on eating, you always hated the color like you hated war, you fought against all the war colors on the writing table, arrested for being color blind and murdered for not being blinded by hating war, go on eating.

Airy crows and egrets reach a trembling dawn, in the yellow sun you gesture July daylight wanting a bronze oar, sweating and out of breath with the sparkle of your adventurous eyes like an exiled Ulysses scarring the surf, not expecting Minotaurs and wandering mermaids to follow the wind and sea combing the beach and shifting your spongy visor by lighthouse sounds, you collect shining sails shells and visions on the wings of swans.

B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and teacher, as well as founder and artistic director of The Original Theatre in Boston. His work is widely published throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; Hawaii Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Budapest); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among many others.

DON PEYER OVERHEARD IN LINE

A vignette Place: 47th and Broadway, Manhattan, half-price ticket line Time: 10:00 a.m. HAWKER: “Umbrellas! Umbrellas! Three dollars. Five dollars after the rain starts. HENRY: “Want an umbrella, Denise?” DENISE: “No. I’ll get under yours if it rains.” HENRY: “Be glad to get you one.” DENISE: “It’s my own fault, forgetting to put mine in my luggage. Besides, you’re going to give that old man one of your phony twenties.” HENRY: “He’ll just pass it off to someone else and I’ll have seventeen good dollars and you’ll have a new umbrella if it rains.” (looks up) “I think I felt a drop right now.” DENISE: (looking at her watch) “I hope the bus doesn’t come before we get to the ticket window. Oh, oh, I felt a drop too.” HENRY: (snapping his fingers) “Sir. An umbrella over here, the red one.” HAWKER: (holds out hand, takes the twenty from Henry, gives Henry fifteen dollars change and the red umbrella.) HENRY: “Huh? You said three dollars. You owe me two more.” HAWKER: (looking at the sky) “It’s raining, Mister. Umbrellas are five when it’s raining.” (turns away) “Umbrellas, five dollars. Don’t go home wet. Get your umbrella, only five dollars.” HENRY: (muttering) “Swindler!” DENISE: (opening the umbrella quickly to ward off the sudden downpour) “Don’t complain. He warned you. Now warn him about the phony twenty.” WINDOW ATTENDANT: “What show, Sir? Tickets for what show?” HENRY: “Two for My Libertine, close to the front.” (hands her three twenties) WINDOW ATTENDANT: (marks the twenties, pushes them back to Henry) “Do you realize these are counterfeits? Try returning them where you got them.” HENRY: “Yeah, I’ll do that.” (hurries off in the rain, Denise runs for her bus)

THE LAKE The lake is full of living things, from shallows to its murky deeps, and high above on sailing wings, the sea birds make their sweeps, relentless in their searching for the fish that flourish in its stores. The deeps reveal, if you should search, the walleyes, northern pike, while shallows teem with bass and perch or sunfish and the like who hide in rice and lily pads in overwhelming myriads. The surface of the lake reveals some predators who prowl the lake for life that it conceals from animal and fowl, the otter and the sly raccoon, the heron and the diving loon. I like to paddle on the lake and see its creatures coexist, a habitat so real, not fake, where primal forces still persist. (Inspired by Fifth Crow Wing Lake, Nevis, Minnesota)

FRIENDS COME ~ FRIENDS GO Friends will come ~ friends will go, Some, we never get to know. Before the friendship waxes stale, They wander off and hit the trail. Others come and stay and stay, They never seem to go away. They cling to us like balls of fuzz On a woolly sweater does. But I like friends with sense to know When the time has come to go, Are quick to be upon their way, And come again another day.

DISCIPLINES I never throw a thing away, But save it for another day, For if it is on hand, you see, I get it absolutely free. Now Sister is another story, With nothing in her inventory, Everything goes in the trash, If she needs it, she pays cash. Sister’s house is always neat Because she likes her house that way, But mine, a storehouse quite complete, Holds precious treasures on display. She thinks our different disciplines Belies the fact that we are twins.

MINUTE PHILOSOPHY A minute squandered soon is gone, You cannot ever call it back; It is like money that is bet upon A losing racehorse track;

COMMENTARY

So squander not the lowly minute, Lest you should wonder where it went. Like a money bet, there’s folly in it, No second chance on minutes spent.

When I arise, I’m like a bear, As thorny as a prickly pear. At noon I seem to mellow some, By suppertime I’m sort of numb. When I retire I’m like a lamb, So tired I just don’t give a damn.

Veteran journalist Don Peyer has published three short-story books and five poetry books. He writes an occasional column for the Daily Breeze a South Bay (California) newspaper. For seventeen years, he wrote a monthly column for United Amateur Press Association of America with the slug line of “Don’s Desk.” Publishing steadily throughout his long career, Peyer has had many poems and stories in magazines. He has a manuscript of sixty short stories and a collection of detective stories awaiting publication. In addition to writing, Peyer is also a visual artist who served as artistic chair of the Carson Art Association for nine years.

MARY L. PORTS

ENDINGS (Kryielle)

Out of the darkness into the light Day-by-day and night-by-night When the sun goes down, that is God’s plan. All things that end will begin again. Bright-colored blooms like the buds in May Will stay their time, and then fade away. When springtime’s gone they have lived their span. All things that end will begin again. The banquet’s over, the dishes done, We ate our fill and we’ve had our fun. Reach out for the food and cook in the pan. All things that end will begin again. From deepest sorrows to untold bliss From Cupid’s arrow there came no kiss. She lived her love but lost her man. All things that end will begin again. On past the grave where the light now shines Meet two dear hearts where their love entwines. Move out from the darkness, now they can. All things that end will begin again.

STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER (Monorhyme) Let’s not forget o’er field and grave red blood that bled from heroes brave whose precious lives to nation, gave, that dear Old Glory, long, might wave. As far as any eye can see the beauty and the majesty of this great country, sea to sea; wave Stars and Stripes for you and me. July the fourth, night skies will blaze with crepitant fireworks to raise all eyes toward heaven, giving praise; to honor heroes with our gaze. With flags unfurled and hearts so true each year we bless and give anew our dedication, as we view with pride, the Red, the White, the Blue. We think of Lady Liberty with torch held high for all to see. She welcomes to this grand country All souls who struggle to be free. Dedicated to Jayson Vandervort and his buddies in Iraq.

Mary L. Ports publishes frequently in Bell’s Letters Poet and has appeared in Rockford Review, Lucidity, Poetry for Thought, and Shadow Poets/Quill Magazine Poets at Work, among many others. Her poetry is also prominent on two Web sites, shadowpoetry.com and poetryforthought@yahoogroups.com. Ports published her first book of poetry, Kaleidoscope, through Shadows Ink Publications in 2003. Ports has a new chapbook, Pathways to the Pleiades, by the same publisher, that was released in August 2009.

E.B. REED

DISCOURSE ALOFT In the evening dusk’s reflections, with a line we break our bread, brush our teeth, then kneel by the bed, harmonious verses in mind, our hearts flowing freely with thanks, our own will brushed off to the side, joyously discourse begins, incomprehensibly aloft, linking rich unbound resources with our humble hopes well at hand.

UNFADING FAMILIES Families, “they” say, are failing, I do not believe this is so, Families built on hard work thrive, Families built on love remain, Family lines span centuries, their annals an eternity. We are not all timekeeping poets, drawing from what we know today, we glean from things learned yesterday, taking transforming words in, conveying life-filled verses, ever sending them outward, in search of eager poem readers. It becomes part of life’s legacy, from family to family throughout time.

LIFE’S 911s Days are multiplied, years of life increased, we declare our goals, discounting measures, doing what we will, disregarding risk, knowing well time & chance happen to all. Harsh struggles appear, mindblowing events, the wise and the poor encounter like shocks, skill matters little through unrivaled jolts, odds change in a flash, moment to moment, hearts are snared when change shifts suddenly, words of comfort are all we can cling to.

ABOVE/BENEATH Ever and Ever Life Moves Independently Above and Beneath ...

Beneath and Above Independently Moves Life Ever and Ever ...

Activist and poet E.B. Reed says, “I come from generations of carpenters, whose home ultimately became the Reed House & Historic Art Museum Interpretive Center.” Hurricane Katrina did disastrous damage to the Center, but Reed persevered. He says, “after seemingly unsolvable problems called ‘delays in funding’ and without libraries and community centers, someone had to step up. I’ve seen too much illiteracy across the globe in my travels as a Marine. A storm, flooding, and slow recovery process was not going to contribute to a loss of cultural expansion if I could do anything about it.” Finally, earlier this year at the restored Reed House Center, a symposium composed of historians and veterans hosted second-generation poet Natasha Trethewey, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for Native Guard, “a conceptually brilliant” work, according to reviewer John Deming in the June 13, 2007, edition of online coldfrontmag.com.

RUTH GLEAN ROSING

BIEN ENTENDU Impatient, I waited through a season of snow With fireplace lit and candles aglow. Tinkling glasses filled with wine Held expectancy in its prime. But snow gave way to pelting rain, And sunlight warmed the earth again. I bought a dress of shocking pink And thought to springtime we would drink. The foliage framed my cottage door, And birds returned to sing once more. In lingering light of longer day, I put the candles all away. The bathing suit I bought was brief, Revealed impatience and begged relief From games of waiting in changing scenes. The loss of springtime aged my dreams. The pink wool dress and the bathing suit, The wine, the candles, the cheese and the fruit Impoverished my meager financial state; I gave up hope and accepted fate. Limp from blistering summer heat, I built a monument to defeat With unwashed dishes. The mercury soared. He wired: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet plane; your love is aboard.â&#x20AC;?

MY FETISH Guest towels were made for wiping hands, so I was taught But guests of mine are a different kind; They wish to save me all the pain Of making guest towels clean again. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve even hid the bath towels to reduce The choices to be made, And still my guest towels hang serene ~ Untouched, folded, neat and clean. My daughter knows this rankles me, And when she comes to visit I always find a rumpled towel, My finest and most exquisite. It helps to know she understands, but still ~ I wonder where the others wipe their hands.

INDELIBLY MARKED You can take the steeple from my church And remove the band from my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand, And you can bleach the colors from the flag Of my beloved land. But these are things that will never depart From the defiant framework of my heart.

Ruth Glean Rosing, an opera and concert singer of longstanding, has had an illustrious career with the likes of Meredith Willson and Vladimir Rosing. She appeared as soloist in the centennial spectacular, The California Story. Rosing, the director, discovered her talent for writing and engaged her to write scripts for the Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona centennial pageants. She moved on to becoming associate director and producer and to eventually marrying Rosing. She has authored two other books, Val Rosing, Musical Genius and Planetary Push-Ups and Random Traffic. Her work also appears in the anthology LA My Way, published by Excellence Enterprises. The poetry appearing on these pages was excerpted from her book Poetic Global Rotations, courtesy of the author.

PENNY SKILLMAN GESTATION The hundred-and-first blow creates a break in the stone, while the many preceding blows go unnoticed; The sky opens ~ this Yosemite snow falling softly.

NO TREES THE WIND DOESNâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T REACH Small wind finding its way to leaves and stems of the indoor tree ~ ruffle of aspen branches

IN THE WIND Four balloons on a string knocking into each other until one explodes

MATERIAL CHOICES Learning to tie our shoelaces we fail often, persisting because shoes are made with laces ~ Gold in the poppies or gold in the ground?

Prolific author Penny Skillman wrote books titled The San Francisco Fatty Arbuckle-Past-and-Virginia Present, The Catâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Journal, has contributed to the anthologies Feeding the Hungry Heart, and Homeless, Not Helpless. She has a long credit list of short fiction as well as journalism. Three works in progress are titled One Olive Park Circle, a collection of four novellas; Californiation, a collection of short stories; and an anthology called Sex and the Writer, a collection of pieces dealing with the intersection of sex and writing that she is co-editing.

JÁNOS SZENTMÁRTONI & CHARLES BEAUDELAIRE as translated by PAUL SOHAR

THE WISHBONE SLING SHOT (A csuzli) by János Szentmártoni, translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar A bird-contraption born of diluvian fog, the purified framework of ancient myths, a V with its crotch stretched into high relief: a wishbone we still reach for and dig out from the remains of roasted flesh so that we can break it in half with one finger sharing it with a friend in hope of better luck in the future. Slender-wet, nothing-branch graphics. And yet we see the myths of shooting stars emerge from the thick of the soup ~ knowing only too well: in the cracking of the two-tined fork our hopes are breaking in half. I’d rather use it as a sling shot and shoot tiny pebbles with it.

REMEMBERING MÁTRANOVÁK (Mátranováki emlek) by János Szentmártoni, translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar

Visiting relatives. Mountains. Ducks. Picnic fires. Childhood. Air you can bite. Dreams. Aunt Anna’s breakfast: bread and butter, salami, milk. Uncle Karcsi a striking figure ~ after dinner he makes the violin sing. Summer. Well water. Palko gives me a ride on a tractor up into the mountains. Wild boar tracks. The gleam of antlers. Wings. The entrance hall is big enough to accommodate a pig slaughter in winter. There are two girls. One is too young yet. The other is always around. Always pestering me. A few years younger: an age gap not to be bridged. I tease her. Make fun of her country dialect. In the woodshed I whisper to her: I’ll be a writer. Wide open, glistening pair of eyes. Short summer dress. Dirty blond hair. Jewelry-fine feet bathing in sunshine. She rewards my secret with one of her own: the village boys are jealous of me. My indifferent shrug hurts. To keep from crying she digs up a cassette player. Dance. La Isla Bonita. Dance. Dance under the afternoon sun. Dance. She’s dancing. For me. For me alone. On the train going home, and then for years to come, I feel, yes: this is romance. And I often ask her to dance.

DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI (Out of the Depths I Cry to You) by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) translated from the French by Paul Sohar

I beg your pity, my only love’s delight, from a dark chasm that entombs my heart. Sealed by lead, it’s a world without a chart, horror and blasphemy dominate its night. For six long months it has a heatless sun, darkness rules over the rest of the year; the polar region is less barren than here; ~ no beasts, no forests, no rivers, none! The horror of the world cannot surpass the frigid coldness of this suns’s icy mass and the primordial Chaos of the endless night; I envy dumb animals locked up in pens for the peace they find in ther somnolence; time’s skein unwinds in the slowest rite! (“Out of the depths I cry out to you”; Psalm 130)

János Szentmártoni was born in 1975 in Budapest where he received his education and still works as the poetry editor of Magyar Napló, a leading Hungarian literary review, as well as the editor of a publishing house associated with the magazine, which puts out a yearly anthology of current poetry. He was already recognized for his unique voice as a university student and has been ever since at the forefront of contemporary Hungarian poetry. At age twenty-three, he was included in a selection of emerging Hungarian poets in Filling Station, a Canadian magazine of poetry, in Paul Sohar’s translation. See Sohar’s bio on “Welfare Island,”page 87.

RICK SPULER

HOW STUFF WORKS Are you a home design expert? Is the Nintendo Wii the new home gym? What do you know about buying a house? How does Viagra work? Day in and day out we are confronted with these and other burning questions about how stuff works. How does stuff work? I figure it must be important to know because someone keeps asking these questions. So many, many questions. Don’t get me wrong: I am a curious type. I have a few questions of my own, although I don’t know if they would be appropriate, given that they’re personal in nature. Putting that aside, I think I might like to be employed by somebody like How Stuff Works. It would keep me busy chasing questions. The biggest drawback would be revealing all those answers.

TOP 10 Here are some of my favorite Top 10: Unexpected garden decorations. Foods you should buy organic. Science experiments that changed the world. Weirdest prescription drug side-effects. Tips for saving money in college. I know those are only five tips, but I don’t want to tip my hand to someone who’s still a stranger, while I’m not (not any more). So I’m keeping half for me. But I’m hoping there’s a chance we might coincide. That would be both weird and unexpected, with the potential to change the world, organically of course, despite the side-effects that some might call weird and others life, all the while putting a penny in your pocket to remind you of your education.

TAKING LEAVE The time has come for me to pack up my belongings. I have no idea where I’ll be heading, so it doesn’t matter what I take along. I’ve considered the necessary and the unnecessary, weighed the practical against the impractical, measured what brings pleasure against what brings pain. Some of the choices have been easy, others not so. In every case I have found myself face-to-face with who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. In the end, I simply left with what belongs there and what belongs here. I placed the empty suitcases by the door and stepped out into the morning sun.

Spuler’s poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and poetry (Memorabilia and Other Assorted Forgettables). For nearly 20 years he has served as Senior Lecturer in German at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He enjoys music and reading.

KIMBERLY K. THOMPSON

TAPS We sat on stone benches you lay before us in your flag-draped box tears were flowing from your family even the sky opened up into drops your military comrades with their guns three times they shot the noise so loud it startled us ~ 21 shells they dropped then the bugle played its rendition of “Taps” so sad, clear, and sweet my dearest, dearest father, may you rest in peace. Dedicated to my father, Elmer Kann, who went to live in heaven, April 26, 2009

BLESSED I saw two doves necking it was a lovely sight Little did they know it brought me such delight. I saw the sun rising the clouds were a misty gray but all at once the sun burst forth and it did shine its rays. I heard the birds singing it brought such peace to my soul I felt the breeze upon me it made me feel refreshed and cool. I saw the spring’s new greenness with its grasses and its trees. It made me want to thank the Lord for all he’s given me.

AFRICA Slashing, rendering, gushing blood, the lioness tears at the antelope’s semi-still, live body. Sinking her teeth in hungrily, tearing apart sinew, flesh and bones. The black flies congregate, while the scavengers anticipate their turn. She rips into the jugular vein and the antelope is blessed with death ~ pain-filled, putrified death. Somewhere a hyena laughs, in a nearby village, the children play. While the sun beats down relentlessly on ... Africa.

ROSE Faded flowers, roses slightly brown, leaning, they kiss the ground. Broken petals, scattered o’re, I thought my love for you meant much more. My love for you as I planted them thus, in my garden and in my bust, but now they and your heart have turned to rust, particles of decay and dust. I guess you tried to tell and warn, roses also have their thorns.

Kimberly K. Thompson lives in Fairmont, West Virginia, with her husband Bill, a great supporter of her work, and three cats. Before appearing in the debut issue of The Taylor Trust, she had been published in numerous magazines and on the Internet. She just finished her second children’s book Tails Awaggin’. She lost her father on April 6, 2009, and wrote the poem “Taps” in his honor.

MARY BLEI VANDEVER HARD ROCK I’ve worked hard all my life putting in the overtime, covering the weekend work, going that extra mile, so that one day, I could sit on the porch in my old rocking chair, eating goodies and rocking away. That dream has evaporated! Gone up in smoke! The nutritionist says, “Forget flavor. Throw out the butter and eggs. Feast on tree bark and plastic foam.” The doctor says, “You need to walk.” “I do,” I say in my defense. “Walk more,” he says. “Get on the treadmill and go, go, go.” This has turned into the hard work I thought I was done with. I’m all worn out. I’m going to sit on the porch and rock and rock and rock and rock maybe sip some sassafras tea and rock. Mary Blei Vandever (1939-2009) wrote award-winning articles, short stories, and poetry published in various anthologies including Southwest Manuscripters; she published That’s TruckDrivin’ and Other Stuff n.o.s. (not otherwise specified), a collection of short stories gathered over her extended career as a long-haul truck driver; she also published a murder mystery titled Inventions of an Enigmatic Kind. She had a work in progress, the sequel to Inventions, when she succumbed to stomach cancer on May 29, 2009.

WANDA WEISKOPF

THE HUMMINGBIRD Busy little hummingbird in motion all day long ~ from flower to flower in ceaseless flight yet never with a song. Busy little hummingbird your eggs lie still and white so gather nectar all day long before the coming night.

Wanda Weiskopf has written poetry since her childhood in Missouri, where her “baseball” poems were regularly read over the statewide radio network for the St. Louis Cardinals. A retired opera singer and voice coach, she published a memoir of her marriage to conductor Herbert Weiskopf entitled On the Wings of Song: My Life with the Maestro. In addition, she has also published four poetry collections, All Is Not Winter, Listen to the River, The Little Brown Bear and Other Christmas Poems, and My Song. Weiskopf also submits poetry on a regular basis to Views and Bell’s Letters Poet. Although a Missouri native and longtime resident of Portland, Oregon, she now lives and writes in Southern California.

PROSE

PAUL SOHAR

WELFARE ISLAND The bentwood chairs I rescued from an abandoned

hospital on Welfare Island about four decades ago are beginning to show the infirmities of their age. They can hardly stand up on legs that buckle under them; I have to excuse them one by one and let them lie down in the basement, waiting for surgery or pending placement in an antique-loving home. After all, you cannot imagine fin-de-sciècle Paris sidewalk cafes without bentwood chairs, and a little later they were the handy props of silent movies, constantly kicked over or smashed over Charley Chaplin’s or Buster Keaton’s head. To me, bentwood chairs held in their curved lines the zeitgeist, the spirit of a Golden Age, the last flowering of Western Civilization just before the Great War. When I picked out my set of eight for rescue out of a mass grave of skeletal chair remains in a large hall, just past the operating theater, they looked sturdy enough and ready for another life. Some of them still had a faded Thonet label. I was hoping they would stay with me for this one and only life I have. A few days after my rescue mission the demolition crew found a dead man in a closet, it was reported in the Post and the New York Times. They didn’t call them homeless then; maybe just someone who wanted to die in a chair cemetery. The news item only redoubled my determination to keep alive at least the eight chairs I managed to rescue in my aging 1950 Dodge. No welfare for them. And no more bending either.

The prolific Paul Sohar was able to pursue his life-long interest in literature when he left his job in a chemistry lab. Published in many venues, he has seven books of translations from Hungarian. His latest work, True Tales of a Fictitious Spy, is creative nonfiction about a Stalinist gulag in Hungary.

CHARLES KRAY

EARNING MY STRIPES My first experience as a newspaper editor was by

default. After World War II, I was sent to the 82nd Airborne Division’s home base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Having had some journalism courses and experience in high school journalism, the Army figured I could be useful on their award-winning newspaper the Paraglide. The staff consisted of the editor, who was a former editor with the Denver Post; a cartoonist from the Chicago Tribune; a reporter from the Brooklyn Eagle, another from the Pittsburgh Press, and two Hollywood screen writers. They were all in their late twenties or thirties. I was 21. Prior to my joining the staff, a letter critical of the Army had been written by the current editor and signed by the staff members. The document was sent to Life magazine and it appeared in the next issue. My first assignment was to cover a wedding in an airplane from which the bride and groom parachuted to begin their honeymoon. The next day, I was called into the publisher’s office. He complimented me on my story and I thanked him. Then he asked, “Can you edit a newspaper?” “I guess I couId, if I had to,” I said. “Well, you have to,” he said,”you are the new editor of the Paraglide!” The current editor had been “promoted” out of his job. Then I was taken to the newsroom and introduced to the staff. “Here is your new editor,” the publisher said, and left. I stood there smiling while the staff members either glared or sneered at me. I ran to my barracks and got out my high school news writing and editing text book, studying and cramming the rest of the day and practically all night. Because the Paraglide was a weekly, the assignments were made on Monday and stories were to be on the editor’s desk by Wednesday for proofing and page layout. Then the pages were driven to Raleigh, some 50 miles away, for printing. The printer delivered the bundles of newspapers back to the Paraglide office for distribution on Friday. On the following Monday, I arrived at the newsroom bright and

early. On a large blackboard, called the slug sheet, I wrote down the story assignments, and the name of the person to cover the story. The staff all left, I presumed to get to work on their assignments. I sat in the newsroom all alone writing some headlines and miscellaneous stories. None of the staff came back that day, or the next, nor on Wednesday. There was not a single story on my desk. I feverishly wrote a bunch of stories, interviewed a number of people by phone, and added mailedin items to the finished pages, about eight in all. The next day, a jeep and driver was assigned to me and we drove to the printer in Raleigh and put the paper to bed. On my return, the staff was still absent and the newsroom was empty. I never said a word to the publisher and the powers that be about the silent mutiny that had occurred. On Friday the entire staff came in to see my ineptness and humiliation. They were shocked when the trucks rumbled in with bundles of newspapers. Each of the staff grabbed one and pored over it, hardly believing that an issue had come out. I gave them time to finish reading the paper, then walked out, letting them mull over and discuss their consternation and surprise. The next Monday, we were all in the newsroom. On the blackboard slug sheet were the story assignments and names. “Gentlemen,” I said to the still somewhat shocked staff, ”here are this week’s assignments. I expect the stories to be on my desk by noon on Wednesday. If they’re not, you will be slogging with the infantry by Thursday!” And I walked out. All the finished stories were on my desk by Wednesday.

Charles Kray is a veteran of many years in the editorial chair. He is now retired and writes poetry and short prose for his own enjoyment. Although a native of Cleveland, Ohio, he has lived in Carson, California for a number of years. Kray has a short story collection due to come out early next year. See his poem “Apologies to Kipling,” on page 19.

RAYMOND JOHN FLORY

INTERLUDE

“Daddy — Daddy, take me for a walk in the park,”

seven-year-old, blue-eyed Ellie pleaded. Her father, a thin man in a gray suit, sat intently reading the evening newspaper. “Go ahead, John,” his wife suggested. “It’s been a long time since you and your daughter have been alone together.” Her attractive face wore a tired expression. “It will be dark soon, and it’s been such a lovely day.” John reluctantly tossed the newspaper aside and peered at his wife, then he frowned and glanced at his daughter, eager to take a jaunt with him. He sighed. “Okay, Ellie. Let’s not take too long; your daddy has his paperwork to do when we get back.” His wife slowly shook her head. “Business! Business. That’s your world,” she said. “Isn’t it?” He stood as Ellie tugged at his arm. “Gloria, it takes money to keep up this Long Island home of ours. That’s why I take my job seriously.” Gloria smiled at Ellie, then glanced at him. “Your daddy will love taking you for a walk.” He took his daughter’s hand. The door closed behind them. His thoughts were many miles away — the advertising agency on Madison Avenue. He’d worked hard to get where he was today. He was right behind E.J. Harrison, the top account executive with the firm, so near the top; he couldn’t stop now. He walked in silence, Ellie skipping beside him. Near the edge of the picturesque park was a weather-beaten bench. “Look, Daddy!” His daughter called as she leaped over a trickling brook. Her red dress twirled as she did a pirouette. She was happy. He sat down on the park bench. She was singing a nonsense childish song. John listened. Then he watched the reflection the ruby-red sky made in the quiet brook. She continued to bounce about in the tall grass. He closed his eyes, and intermingled with his child’s happy voice was a robin’s twilight song. It had been almost a year since he’d heard the sound of a bird, he realized. Or maybe he had, but the sound hadn’t penetrated his ears ... “Daddy. Daddy!” Ellie’s voice, shrill with excitement, opened his eyes. “What, Ellie?” he asked. She fell into his lap. He loosened his tie.

“Look, Daddy!” She held out her tiny fist. She grinned and opened her hand. In it was a pansy. He took the flower from her as her eyes searched his. “Daddy — what a beautiful flower — just like a face.” John examined the pansy. Then he smiled. She was right. It was only a pansy, but there was something poetic about it. The purples, blues, and yellows were perfectly blended. Ellie pointed out the various colors to him, bringing a grin to both of them. Then he realized how much he had missed the companionship of his family. His work had come first. He felt sheepish and ashamed. He’d have to find more time to relax and enjoy nature. “Daddy,” she said happily, “I’d like for us to come here more often.” Things at the office were important. But not the most important thing in life. “Of course, Sweetie,” he took her tiny hand. “Ellie, let’s walk to the bridge over there.” She skipped beside him. Deep down inside he felt rich — rich in the things money can’t buy. The western sky was crimson as they stood on the small stone bridge. Twilight was here. Day was done. Elliie looked up into his face, and whispered, “Daddy, I love you.”

Raymond John Flory is a frequent contributor to Bell’s Letters Poet, Conquistador, Joyful Noise, and Writers Gazette, among others and has established an award program for fellow poets called The Explorer Award. Formerly a longtime publisher of a poetry and short prose periodical called Explorer Magazine, he lives and writes in South Bend, Indiana.

SYED AFZAL HAIDER

COLORS OF A DAY

On a cool day the sun and rain are playing hide and

seek. It is bright and sunny one moment, dark and cloudy the next. Dressed in a blue oxford shirt, a gray argyle cardigan, a Harris Tweed jacket, and a long silk scarf from time past around his neck, James drives to Memorial Park, a fancy name for a graveyard. Looking at the Old Orchard Movie Theater from the iron grid gates, he backs up his Saab on the grass, making a half circle, and parks his car with an appropriate view, facing the graves. He turns off the clapping windshield wipers and sits in his car listening to Gregorian chants in the rain. Visi sunt oculis insipientum mori illi autem sunt in pace, alleluia. In the eyes of fools, they may seem to die, but they are in peace, alleluia.

When the rain turns into a drizzle, James climbs out of the car and sees the tire tracks his Saab made on the grass. The muddy grass feels alive under his feet. The large oak tree over Susanna’s grave is barren of any leaves. The drizzle of the rainfall feels more like a continuous pour under the tree. James stares at the tombstone on Susanna’s grave. It reads the same as it did five years ago when it was laid there. So we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night ...

So said Lord Byron. No graffiti, no gang signs. Standing by Susanna’s grave under this huge oak tree, he feels a moment of peace. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The sun comes out momentarily. It is bright. Graves around are covered with freshly cut evergreen pine. A few graves have fresh-cut flowers. Another has yellow and red plastic tulips in a green plastic bowl. There is no need for plastic flowers anywhere, especially not in a graveyard. The French at least bring glossy glazed ceramic flowers; red and green, that say, “Regrets Eternal.” James brings no flowers,

he never does. Unless one could build a Taj Mahal over the tomb of a deceased one, James thinks, one should leave the dead buried without decoration. It would be different to have a yellow rose delivered everyday, better yet, and practical, would be to have neon signs put on the crypts of loved ones. Names, flashing in red or green, and a purple pansy with green leaves or a red or yellow rose, with a photosensitive eye that would automatically turn the neon sign on after sunset. Graveyards can be pretty grim at night. It instantly gets dark again like someone had overloaded the circuit. The wind begins to blow hard, trembling the trees, creating a haunting echo, the rain coming down heavily. James walks back to the Saab to find some incense to burn on Susanna’s grave. The box of incense in the glove compartment is empty. He sits there cursing the rain. He gets out of the car, in the midst of ponderous rain, and walks back to Susanna’s grave, water dripping from his hair and nose. He kicks the tombstone a few times, like someone kicks the tire of a car in a used car commercial. James is sitting in La Gloria, an old favorite restaurant, across from an empty chair at a table for two in a world of his own. He looks out of the window. A gray day is turning dark. He absently watches a neon sign across the street. “Chop Suey,” it says in green, “Carry Out” under it flashing in red, that he keeps reading as “Carry On” to himself. He leans forward and observes on each side people sitting in couples at the parallel tables for two. On the right, three tables down, is a locked double glass door that looks into the entryway. James keeps looking over and over again through the closed glass doors, as if his looking will bring her back. Life may go on after one dies. Or like in a movie, after “The End,“ nothing happens. The characters on the celluloid sit still in a reel box. His mind wanders. During the adversity of being born, one fetus said to his twin, “We are not dying, we are being born. It is not life after death, it is life after life.” One could always see life crawling under the dirt. Some virus always survives, but when we die, we die for good. His waiter returns. James orders carne asada for dinner, with flour tortillas. He hears Susanna say, “Only gringos order steaks in a Mexican restaurant.” He looks toward the closed glass door. She is not there. He smiles to himself and orders another margarita. A woman arrives with her own man and she and her man sit down at the next table for two. A dinner alone, like masturbation, is a private affair. One doesn’t want others to be watching while one eats. Looking toward the entryway, James glances at her. She has long brownish-blonde hair, pale gray face, thin lips, and large hazel eyes. She is wearing army fatigues under a khaki woolen army coat. Thin lips complains to the hostess about the heat. She says it is boiling in here. She asks that the heat be shut off. She is an ex-hippie, presently a vegetarian, James can tell. Observation of interpersonal behavior in everyday life is more entertaining than TV commercials. People with difficulty in interpersonal relationships, who wear overcoats in summer and short sleeved shirts

in winter, who wore plaids with stripes before it became fashionable. The waiter brings his margarita, and attends to the next table. The hazel-eyed woman in the woolen overcoat orders guacamole and enchiladas suizas with cheese filling. Her male companion, who sits on a chair across the aisle from James so that he can’t observe him well, orders chicken enchiladas with mole sauce and a glass of rosé wine. If life could really happen after death, he thinks, it would be fun to run into the deceased and departed. Anything for once. Nothing is in the stars. Besides, it could always go wrong. His thoughts get muddled, his carne asada arrives. He orders himself a Dos Equis. “Carry On” is burning much brighter in the darkness when he walks out of the restaurant. He drives to see River’s Edge at the Biograph. With much difficulty, he parks his car in a tight space on Lill Street. He lived at an address on this street for over four years during the sixties. Those were his days of learning medicine, training to be a child psychiatrist and playing doctor at nearby Children’s Hospital, as well as with the nurses, who lived in a dorm across the street. Walking on the old familiar street, he thinks of Olga Wojcik, the landlady, who used to sit on an old oak rocker on her neatly painted white porch, waiting to die. The old widow was fearful of aimless dope-smoking hippies and radicals without a cause moving onto Lill Street. She didn’t know that at least one was already living in her house upstairs from her. Olga, God bless her soul, wouldn’t permit the boys living upstairs in the three bedroom, furnished apartment she rented out, to have any girls in the house past ten at night. “Are you suggesting that it is permissible to copulate until that hour, but not thereafter?” James remembers asking her. The old Victorian is long gone now. Olga sold it to some developer the year James moved out to live with Susanna. James crosses the street wondering how often we bury our dead. One needs to learn to celebrate death. By the Three-Penny Theater where they are showing Compromising Positions, a black woman of the night, wearing a blond Afro wig, a red satin blouse, and tight black pants, approaches James and asks if she can show him a good time. Knowing full well what she is offering, James inquires innocently what services she is rendering. Looking into his eyes, moistening her thick red lips slowly with her long tongue, she says, “If you desire, I can vacuum your brains off. Honey, I am Talitha Terrific. I can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.” He holds her hands warmly, like they were old friends. James thanks her profusely and tells her he truly appreciates her offer, but perhaps another night. On Lincoln Avenue two doors from the Biograph Theater, at the entrance of Howard Cohen’s used book store an obese young man, standing in front of a red neon sign that says, “Closed,” calls out to James. “How are you, Dr. Malik? You look well.” Standing on the sidewalk, James wonders for a moment who Dr. Malik is, then realizes that it is himself, but he can’t recall who the obese stranger is. His face looks pained, a doughboy, puffed up like a birthday

balloon, too much medication and drugs. His beard is unevenly shaved, his large eyes wide open, his pupils dilated. He is wearing a navy blue woolen sailor’s jacket, buttoned up to his neck. Upon close examination, James recognizes the face. A patient, a boy from his days at the Morton School for Boys, more than ten years ago, now a young man. But the sailor’s name slips James’s mind. “I am fine,” James says cheerfully, not thinking what he has said. Shaking what’s-his-name’s hand, James warmly asks “And how are you?” “I’m pretty messed up,” says the sailor, withdrawing his hand immediately. “I’m pretty messed up,” he repeats quietly. “I just got out of the pen. Same old story. Someone planted some drugs on me. What’s the difference? I’m the one who got caught.” There is a red halo around his face from the neon light. “Life can be a terrible thing,” James says, meaning it. “Too much pain and suffering.” “Yeah,” says the stranger, looking down. His head moves involuntarily in a catatonic motion. There are accompanying sound effects, like he is ready to throw up, but he doesn’t vomit. The doughboy recomposes himself and stands at attention like a soldier, his face stoic. “What happened to you couldn’t be explained,” he says. “It only happens in the movies, or to people you don’t know like John Lennon.” The doughboy pauses, his face droops, he lowers his eyes, and asks, “How is your son?” Five years ago, while walking to the studio on Labor Day, Susanna, weekend weather woman at Channel 34 was gunned down by a deranged fan. Susanna’s death was a front page story, James’s mourning is private. The violence and loss devastated him and their son Benjamin, now a sophomore at Antioch College. James has yet to find his reality. He looks the other way and says nothing. “My grandma heard it on the six o’clock news and called me at the school,” continues the doughboy. “But we already knew. It was Sunday before Labor Day and news was on every channel. All the boys at the school felt sorry for you and your son. But you look good now. Do you have a girlfriend?” James looks at the sailor absently. Sailor convulses again and makes profound noises, but once again he doesn’t vomit. “Do you remember my grandma?” asks the sailor. “She sometimes came to my family meetings.” Reaching into his pants pocket, the sailor takes out a key ring. There are no keys on it. An oval-shaped yellow medallion with “Hollywood” written across it in black is loosely dangling from the ring. James acknowledges the grandma by nodding his head, but he can’t remember who the grandma was. He can’t place the face. “She took me to Disneyland last year,” he says. “I always wanted to go there. It’s better than the movies. Grandma loved movies. If life

could only be like a movie, with happy endings. And even when sad, they would have appropriate music in the background.“ Susanna hated movies with sad endings, James remembers. Moving his hand toward James, he says, “My grandma died last year. I want you to have this. When I’m not in the pen, I’m in a halfway house. As you can see, I am a man of few possessions. I have no place of my own and I have no keys.” James stands there quietly for a moment, wondering. How he hates walking into a dark house, when he pulls into his driveway late at night, he sits in the driveway with the engine turned off for a short while before he walks in. He puts his hand on the sailor’s shoulder, and says with a smile, “You never know when your grandma may return and ask for it.” The sailor smiles. His teeth are yellow and decaying. He puts the key ring back into his pants pocket. What else could he have said, James wonders. He takes a twenty dollar bill from his wallet. Giving it to the doughboy, he says, “Despite the bad dreams and nights in the darkness, one should continue to eat well and enjoy a good movie.” “I can’t take it,” says the sailor. “I ask, and accept quarters from strangers, but I spare friends and family. What I’ve learned from life is ...“ he continues, like he has attained wisdom from having traveled over the seven seas, “if you don’t die, you always wake up the next morning. How and where you sleep at night is another story.” James nods silently, looking toward the theater marquee. “Are you going to a show?” asks the sailor. James nods again, absently. “Go on,” says the sailor. “I’d miss a slow boat to China first before I would be late for a movie.” James hugs the doughboy awkwardly, breathing a musky odor of perspiration and patchouli oil. He walks away. One plays the hand one has been dealt. Besides, it’s a desolate evening. Everything can be explained if one chooses to think that way, he says to himself as he walks toward the movie theater. The art of living is not only in how one loves, it is in how one apologizes for one’s self. He presses his mind again, but the name of the doughboy continues to elude him. All he can recall is the longago diagnosis and the medication: major affective disorder, manicdepressive illness, circular type. Rx: lithium carbonate. Not a split personality — split reality — both the patient and the doctor.

Syed Afzal Haider’s short stories have been published in various journals including Rambunctious Review, The Journal of Pakistani Literature, The Saint Ann’s Review, and in the anthologies by Penguin Books, Oxford University Press, and Milkweed Editions. His first novel, To Be With Her, is forthcoming this winter. When he is not working on his own writing, he is busy as one of the editors of Chicago Quarterly Review. He lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife.

CYBERCONNECTIONS

GERALD BOSACKER, The Best and Worst of Bosacker, all together in one spot... http://www.bosackerbooks.com SHELLY BRYANT, http://web.me.com/shelly-bryant SYED AFZAL HAIDER, www.chicagoquarterlyreview.com MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON He is also publisher and editor of two poetry/ fiction sites â&#x20AC;&#x201D; both presently open for submission: birdsbywindow. blogspot.com; petriclegacy.mysite.com. Author Web site: poetryman.mysite. com. Audio MP3 of poems are available on request at promomanusa@ gmail.com. From Which Place the Morning Rises available at lulu.com; The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom, www.iuniverse.com. PAMELA LASKIN Her two latest books can be purchased from the publisher: Secrets of Sheets, Plain View Press, 2008; Ghosts, Goblins, Gods and Geodes, World Audience, Inc., 2008. (Also available on amazon.com); a chapbook: Bending the Bones, Pudding House Press, 2009. And the link to The Poetry Outreach Center is 1ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/humanties/ poetry. MARY L. PORTS shadowpoetry.com, thetaylortrust.wordpress.com. LAVONNE TAYLOR lavonneland.com,vonnieshealthspot.com, thetaylortrust.wordpress.com, http://issuu.com/the-taylor-trust/docs/ttt_ spring_2009a. If you would like your Web site listed here, please notify us. We will be glad to add it to the issue you are appearing in as an author or if you are a subscriber.

AND THE WINNER IS ... Many readers have mentioned to me that it is very hard to pick any one favorite poem out of the selections in each issue. I find that comment complimentary to the authors and to me. First, to the authors because a comment such as that shows their work has touched the hearts and minds of the readers. Second, to me because I have chosen to publish the poetry that affects me in some way and I’m pleased when others are also moved. Poetry is a versatile medium that expresses, often in a succinct and artful way, the tragedy, the joy, the comedic, the ironic, and more, that takes place in the human condition every day. Much of our lives are spent encapsulated in the worlds of our own creation. When a brief moment of connection and resonance takes place, it is a joy forever. That is one of the great satisfactions for me — providing the opportunity for us to connect with one another, if only on a brief, transitory basis. Following are the results from the spring issue of The Taylor Trust. — Editor

FIRST PLACE

Page 43 A Child’s Passing Page 58 Focus Page 64 My Heart Is So Full

SECOND PLACE

Page 24 Confusion Page 40 Gremlins on the go Page 68 Bird ~ Extinct Page 69 Window Page 72 The Wait Page 79 Nature’s Mosaic

THIRD PLACE

Page 19 Our Loneliness Page 25 Peguis Creek at Sunset Page 27 Love Poem to a Private Page 37 Heartbreak in a Paper Bag Page 41 Breath of Spring Page 49 Downstairs the Dark Studded Page 53 Time Page 54 Charley Plays a Tune Page 63 Makeover Page 67 Dear Miss Rigby, Page 71 Gymnastics Page 74 Identity Page 77 Another War Lost

HONORABLE MENTION

Page 13 Choosing Our Own Names Page 19 The Hawthorn Page 23 Tangle … Page 38 Joint Tenants of an Unincorporated Area Page 43 Playing Jazz Violin Page 44 Slavery Page 45 Awaiting Afflatus Page 47 An Instant Page 47 A Tear Page 47 A Passing Train Page 47 The Kiss Page 48 Middlebury Poem Page 49 Things that Shine in Quebec City as the Sun Falls Page 52 A Senior’s Wish Page 55 Rod Stroked Survival With a Deadly Hammer Page 55 Bird Feeder Page 56 In Support of Jones Very Page 57 Laughter Page 59 Woman Page 61 Projection Page 65 Adults Don’t Read to Their Children Anymore Page 66 The Forgetful Fisherman Page 70 In Sherwood Forest Page 76 Students of Poetry Page 78 We Are Planting

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

Covers, front and back: Beloved Baby Pasha ocicat in apple tree. Photography by LaVonne Taylor. Page 6: Girl with Letters: Silhouettes, clip art, Dover Publishing. Page 20: Acacus Mountains in Libya, Unknown. Page 23: Glamour Shot, Unknown. Page 24: Old School Ruler Book/Photo Album, http://www.flickr.com/ photos/agnesthered/3313985224/. Pages 25: Bottle of wine and wine glass, http://www.elitepicnic backpacksblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/wine.jpg. Page 27: Dark Woods, courtesy of poet, Michael Lee Johnson. Page 30: African dancers, http://www.google.com/imgres? imgurl=http://img2.allposters.com/images/adc/10062212C. jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.allposters.com/-sp/African-Dancers. Page 34: Jesus and Judas, http://media.photobucket.com/image/drawing% 20of%20Judas%20and%20Jesus%20together/raziahproductions/JudasIscariot_wa.jpg. Page 39: Empty chair, unknown. Page 47: Father & daughter in car, http://fotosa.ru/stock_photo/Fancy%20 by%20Veer/p_2946310.jpg. Page 48: Butterfly stencil, Nature Stencil Designs, Dover Publishing. Page 52: Steaming cups, www.annemini.com. Page 62: Drawings of wolf and bear, http://desertwolfpackinc.com/images/ GrayWolf_2-Drawing.jpg; Native American, grizzly bear wildlife pencil drawing by western Artist Virgil C. Stephens. Page 64: Pocket watch with chain, www.DalveyFHW.com. Page 80: Sun rising over the hilltops, unknown. Page 81: Doves, www.drawrm.com. Page 84: Hummingbird nest, www.yvern99-flicker.com. Page 91: Stone bridge, Autumn http://www.encore-editions.com/ americanart/amart16/thumbs/Childe_Hassam_-_The_Stone_Bridge_1904_ os_30x33.jpg. Page 97: Computer monitor and globe, clipartheaven.com. Page 98: Parade Drummer, Silhouettes, clip art, Dover Publishing. Page 99: Camera, clipartheaven.com.

THE TAYLOR TRUST: POETRY & PROSE WRITERS’ GUIDELINES SUBJECT MATTER

Prose: We will consider for publication all subject matter, except that which contains gratuitous profanity and/or blatantly pornographic material (the determination of which will be made at the discretion of the editorial staff). Word count for fiction or essays can run as long as 2,000 words or be as short as 100 words (“flash fiction”) as long as the story is well written, makes sense, and contains a denouement. Poetry: All styles considered. All subject matter will be taken under consideration for publication except that which contains profanity and/or pornography (the determination of which will be made at the discretion of the editorial staff).

DEADLINES

Spring 2009 issue – January 31 Summer 2009 issue – April 30 Fall 2009 issue – July 31 Winter 2009 issue – October 31

MANUSCRIPT COVER SHEET

You will find a template attached to this document. Each time you are preparing to submit a manuscript to the lead editors, copy and paste at the beginning of your document, then fill in the information specific to each manuscript you submit. Keep this template on your desktop for use with each and every manuscript you work on. Always include a professional bio with your manuscript submittals.

MANUSCRIPT SPECIFICATIONS

Important: All manuscripts must be typed, hand-written submissions will not be considered for publication. Font: Time New Roman Point Size: 12 Line Spacing: Double Line Length: 6 inches

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Heads, Subheads, Decks, Breakheads And Run-In Heads (if there are any): Boldface for easier readability. Reprints: Previously published manuscripts will be considered. The primary rule being that there is an elapsed time of at least a year following the first appearance of the work in a nationally distributed publication and that the author currently holds publication rights to the work. Local and regional publications will be exempt from the year’s gap rule. The preferred method for submitting manuscripts is: Body of email to: lavonne. taylor@sbcglobal.net. Subject line: Manuscript submission. Attachments from unfamiliar sources will not be opened. If you must send via the US Postal Service, address submissions to: The Taylor Trust: Poetry & Prose Attn: LaVonne Taylor PO Box 903456

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION FORM Instructions: Copy this form and attach it to the top of your manuscript. For digital submissions, it must appear as the first page of your manuscript. Author Name: _______________________________________________________ Author Address: _____________________________________________________ City: ______________________________________ State: _________Zip: _______ Title of manuscript: __________________________________________________ Manuscript Type: (Circle One) Fiction Nonfiction Poetry Submitted for inclusion in which issue? (Circle One) Spring Summer Fall Winter One-time-only publication rights for print journal with concurrent one-time-only rights for publication on web log www.thetaylortrust.wordpress.com. The author retains all North American rights. Author Signature: ________________________________________ Date: _______ Note: For digital submissions, electronic signatures are accepted. Please include a professional bio.

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