tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88417750844285733352024-03-13T00:20:57.437-07:00Onager EditionsSidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-46722358597367428512018-11-28T19:22:00.000-08:002018-11-28T19:27:09.361-08:00Kafka in Pennsylvania<span style="font-size: large;">PASSERS-BY</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">by Franz Kafka</span><br />
<span style="color: #3333ff; font-size: medium;">translated into the patois of middle-Pennsylvania by Hans <span class="correction" id="">Upph</span>-<span class="correction" id="">Ovryerhed</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #3333ff; font-size: medium;"><span class="correction"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">LIKE IF YOU'RE SHLEPPING your ass up a hill at night and see some dude a ways off because there's a full moon, and this here dude is running at you full-bore, well, you don't tackle the <span class="correction" id="">fucker</span> even if he is some whipped out little piece of <span class="correction" id="">shit</span>, if you know what I mean, and even if there is some other <span class="correction" id="">fucker</span> panting after him. You play it smart and let the bastard blow by you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Because it's night, even though there is a full moon. And like what the <span class="correction" id="">fuck</span> do you know, maybe these <span class="correction" id="">assholes</span> are just having a game of tag or something. Or maybe the two are chasing some other mother<span class="correction" id="">fucker</span>. Or maybe the second guy has a grudge against the first dude, maybe for something he didn't even pull. And maybe he's going to <span class="correction" id="">snuff</span> the fucker. You might even get sent up as an accessory. If you know what I mean. Or maybe they don't even know each other at all and are merely running home <span class="correction" id="">separately</span> to get laid. Or like maybe they just always like to go jogging at night.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Anyway, like you're too tired to grab anyone, even if you had the balls to. And haven't you had a few too many beers, and are a bit <span class="correction" id="">shit</span>-faced. You watch the two men disappear into the darkness, thankful that you didn't stick you're nose in it. If you know what I mean.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #666666;">translation copyright 2007 <strong>Onager</strong>Editions</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">***</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">Hans <span class="correction" id="">Upph</span>-<span class="correction" id="">Ovryerhed</span> was born in East Germany. Accused of being a snitch for the <span class="correction" id="">STASI</span>, he fled his homeland and moved to Trout Run in central, Pennsylvania, where he still lives. He has had many jobs, and currently works as a grocery-<span class="correction" id="">bagger</span> in a supermarket. On Sundays he is an usher in a Slovak Catholic church. Han's goal is to translate all of Kafka's work into the middle-Pennsylvania dialect. This is his first published translation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #009900; font-size: medium;">***</span><br />
<span style="color: #009900; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #009900; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-25283578907138666232018-10-29T18:30:00.001-07:002018-10-29T18:35:44.936-07:00Remembering Richard Rutkowski<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<a href="http://onagereditions.blogspot.com/2014/09/four-poems-by-one-man.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Four Poems by One Man</a></h3>
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<strong><span style="font-size: small;">AT TWELVE</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><u>Jan Wroclaw</u></span><br />
<span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-size: small;">She bends her head</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">over her tablet, drawing</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">splendid maidens and silky</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">steeds that surely fly.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Outside the room wars</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">rise and fall again.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">THE VERY LAST LILAC</span></strong><br />
<u><span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;">Jan Wroclaw</span></u><br />
<u><span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><br /></span></u><span style="font-size: small;">There are all these gods,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">these voices that went dead,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">all these reasons why</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">we forget</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">some sons will rape</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">and some will kill,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">and sons will weep</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">for what happens to the seed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">BARTONSVILLE IDYLL</span></strong><br />
<u><span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;">Kenneth Oldmixon</span></u><br />
<u><span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><br /></span></u><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Fire Is.</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It fills the road with sun</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">striking cries of children, forging</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">fields to copper sung</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">with a clang of children.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Come brazen as the grain</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">banging your thighs and ring</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">your hair,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">make me the liturgy of seed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">KETURAH CANDY (1858-1869)</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><u>Kenneth Oldmixon</u></span><br />
<span style="color: #400000; font-size: small;"><u><br /></u></span><span style="font-size: small;">Hello lover! How does it go</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">down there? All stone and leather?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Or settled to the mulch of our</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">best years. Do shards of lace</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">tease the tunnels of your bones?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I need to touch and thrill a rise</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">of skull to know if laughter</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">leaves a scar or tears erode</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">some way out, to trace</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">my maze of now become, a face,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">although it hardly matters.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">* * *</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="color: #400000;">These poems are from a portfolio printed in 1989 at AXIAL PRESS in Hublersburg, Pennsylvania, by Richard Rutkowski. Twenty-four sets were made. The portfolio was hand printed by Rutkowski using the silk-screen process. There were also four illustrations by E. M. Hollis. The poems and illustrations were all created by Rutkowski himself, and attribituted to the various imaginary authors. Richard Rutkowski died several years ago, and AXIAL PRESS is no longer in operation.</span><br />
<span style="color: #400000;"><br /></span><span style="color: #400000;">* * *</span></div>
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<span style="color: #400000;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #400000;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #400000;"><br /></span></div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-46894832468186807022018-09-27T17:39:00.000-07:002018-09-27T18:26:08.827-07:00Lock Him In, Lock Him Out? Hmm. . . .<h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="color: #666666;">A Poem by Sasha Thurmond</span></span></h3>
<div>
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Broken pipe beneath my house</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Plumbers come to fix the spout</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Snake they find behind the pipe</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Four to six feet I'm a fright</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
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<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Call to boss with their report</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Quit the job till snake aborts</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
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<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Pest Control he comes on out</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Under house he scoots about</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Says the snake had gone outside</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Never see him till I die</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
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<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Sprinkles dust around my house</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Says all snakes will now stay out</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
What a very happy day</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Lock him in, lock him out ? Hmm...</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Plumbers come to try again</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
See the snake, they can not win</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Take a break til pest man comes</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Now the three compare and hum</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Plumbers say that they'll be brave</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Get the pipe fixed that same day</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Now I wonder what to do</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Snake is in, snake is out ? Hmm...</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Pest man said to cut my grass</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Spot a snake and kick his ass</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Then I wonder long and hard</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Snake in grass rang very far</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
The orange man could go ajar</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Lock him in, lock him out ? Hmm...</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
* * *<br />
<br />
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<b>Sasha Thurmond </b><i> is an artist and writer who lives on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals and who also finds time to write, paint, and take photographs. She is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at Cornell University, where she studied with Steve Poleskie. </i></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
* * *</div>
</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
</div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br clear="none" /></div>
<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
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<div class="yiv7266624834m_3705750643964261041yiv9065572887gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
</div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-33243170928001336422018-08-29T18:18:00.003-07:002018-08-29T18:18:17.359-07:00A Letter from Richard Russo<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="aolmail_mcnTextBlock" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody class="aolmail_mcnTextBlockOuter">
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<a href="https://authorsguild.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=727ad03949c981c140a2bf125&id=f92a27c085&e=e225581fd3" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: #007e9e; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><strong>The Writing Life: Still Ours to Defend</strong></span></a><br /><br />Back in 2013, I wrote an open letter to my fellow authors urging them to join the Authors Guild, especially those who, like me, have enjoyed the best the writing life has to offer. The AG’s core mission has been to protect authorship by defending copyright, but also, more recently, to help emerging authors prosper in a publishing ecosystem that is endangered (and here I have the rare pleasure of quoting myself) “by downward pressure of e-book pricing, by the relentless, ongoing erosion of copyright protection, by the scorched-earth capitalism of companies like Google and Amazon, by spineless publishers who won’t stand up to them, by the ‘information wants to be free’ crowd who believe that art should be cheap or free and treated as a commodity, by internet search engines who are all too happy to direct people to online sites that sell pirated (read ‘stolen’) books.” Those of us who made our names before the digital revolution, I argued, had it easy. Advances were larger. There were more publishers to buy our books, more newspapers with pages devoted to reviewing and advertising them. Publishers, less driven by numbers, played a longer game, waiting patiently for talented young authors to break out. Debut authors were sent on costly book tours to meet the independent booksellers who would ultimately make their reputations. Those of us who benefitted from these advantages, I maintained, owed a debt not only to subsequent generations of writers who are emerging into a diminished publishing landscape, but also to readers impoverished as a result of not knowing (how could they?) just how much breathtaking new talent was in the pipeline.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
So, what’s changed in the last five years? Answer: quite a lot, and not nearly enough. Author incomes, here in the U.S., but also in Canada and much of Europe, continue to decline; many of us live at or below the poverty line. A tiny percentage can make a living through writing alone; the rest have to supplement their income by teaching or taking on other work or marrying people with more lucrative careers, strategies that have been known to lead in the end to exhaustion, writing less, and self-loathing (which many of us suffer from already). Traditional publishing continues to consolidate and contract, and many of the largest houses are part of conglomerates that demand books yield the same profit margins as flat-screen TVs, in effect squeezing out important midlist books that were never designed to be bestsellers. Writers are often told that the success of their published books depends on their ability to promote themselves on social media. Additionally, many of the trends that alarmed us in 2013 continue unabated. Those of us who make things—books, songs, films—continue to lose market share to those who distribute what we make. Government continues to side with Big Tech by viewing anti-trust issues solely in terms of low prices for consumers. Many digital magazines not only expect us to work for free but to thank them for the opportunity to “get our names out there.” Despite Guild efforts to spotlight the problem, some publishers continue to offer writers unfair contracts. And every year, it seems, the National Endowments for the Art and Humanities have to defend themselves against slashed budgets. If all this weren’t bad enough, the internet continues to ambush potential readers with click-bait mini-narratives (“You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!”) and social media ensures that we’re sufficiently outraged every moment of our waking lives such that we’re unlikely to sit down with an actual book.</div>
<blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
In other words, like our friends in the newspaper and music businesses, we’re still getting our asses kicked.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
And yet, the news is not all bad. The price of e-books has stabilized and many readers seem to have remembered the pleasures of the printed page, even as self-publishing and new digital platforms offer opportunities for writers that didn’t exist in 2013. Independent bookstores, written off for dead five years ago, are staging a comeback. The Eye of Sauron (Amazon) seems to have been distracted away from us (furry-footed Frodo and Samwise) by the events on other, larger battlefields (the rest of Retail). And there are other reasons to be cautiously (okay, <em>very</em> cautiously) optimistic. Big Tech, it seems, suddenly has a lot to answer for, thanks in part to the EU, but also to Guild authors like Franklin Foer and Jonathan Taplin, who have sounded the necessary and long-overdue alarm. Moreover, there’s the distinct possibility that other winds that have been blowing in the faces of creators may in the not-too-distant future be at our backs.</div>
<blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Tech Giants like Google and Facebook and Apple are all moving into the content business, which means (and what a bitter pill this must be for them to swallow!) they need us “content providers.” That means more book options and, for those of us who want to make the pivot into TV and film–writing, more opportunities there.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
So, we’re basically good, yeah?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Well, no. That term “content provider” should give us pause. We can all hear the sneer, right? Traditional publishers may have underpaid us, but at least to them we were poets and painters and songwriters, terms that implied both respect and ownership of what we made, at least until we’ve sold it to them. The tech ethos is different. To them, we’re often seen as mere hirelings. And since those who hire us are in the business of business, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders to pay us as little as they can get away with and to make certain we understand that we’re mere workers, not partners in the enterprise. The conflict, of course, is as old as art and commerce, but today it’s playing out algorithmically and those algorithms have not been designed for our benefit.</div>
<blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
If we creators don’t fight, the massive transfer of wealth from the creative sector to the tech sector that we’ve been witnessing since 2013 will most certainly continue.</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Which means, my friends, that I must end this appeal as I ended the last one, by reminding you that the writing life, even as it changes before our eyes, is still ours to defend, and that we’re stronger together. If you’re not a member of the AG, please join, and if you are one, please forward this to your writer friends and invite them. We’ll be working for all authors in any case. But as I said back in 2013, there’s such a thing as being too late.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong>-Richard Russo</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
August 2018</div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-7720733788543408882018-07-29T18:09:00.001-07:002018-07-30T18:18:38.978-07:00My Grandfather's Ferarri<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Stephen Poleskie</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My maternal grandfather came to America
from Poland<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At a time when there was no Poland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Soldiers had come to the family’s farm
to take away their horses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When his father protested an officer
replied; “We will be back for your boy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So he put his son on a boat and sent him
off to America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There he worked in a coal mine, married
and begot three daughters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When his lungs filled up with black dust
and he couldn’t work anymore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">His eldest daughter, my mother, dropped
out of school to support the family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many years later I visited my relations
on their farm in Poland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They talked excitedly about my grandfather
and the letters he had sent them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He was a banker and had three daughters,
who had all gone to college.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And have you ridden in your
grandfather’s Ferrari? someone asked me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And how could I tell them that my
grandfather only drove an old Ford?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And that those letters he wrote had been
just his American Dreaming </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">* * *</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;">Stephen Poleskie’s <i>writing has appeared in numerous journals in the USA and in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, and the UK; as well as in five anthologies, and been three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published five novels and two books of short fiction.</i></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i> Poleskie lives in Ithaca, NY. with his wife the novelist, Jeanne Mackin. website: <a href="http://www.stephenpoleskie.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">www.StephenPoleskie.com</a></i></span><br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">* * *</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-34022904620380922872018-06-29T18:12:00.000-07:002018-06-29T19:02:41.371-07:00Silhouette<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQRIoQ51_h7Lw6edpeIq6779a-FLjIhJOsTX5tmryP1SL17RC1xQNOB0Oiu94NRc24N2KEag_htEVq5OS9R4xZvSCr2T8oETsY10PAeWktUHJi1Y74di_lPA4kzSjd6FS79ALGXIcuk0/s1600/puzzlebaptise.+F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="264" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQRIoQ51_h7Lw6edpeIq6779a-FLjIhJOsTX5tmryP1SL17RC1xQNOB0Oiu94NRc24N2KEag_htEVq5OS9R4xZvSCr2T8oETsY10PAeWktUHJi1Y74di_lPA4kzSjd6FS79ALGXIcuk0/s320/puzzlebaptise.+F.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<h4>
Sasha Thurmond</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN">Silhouette...where are you?</span></b><span lang="EN"> Here kitty, kitty, kitty!
Damn that druggie former friend and his dealing girlfriend. She let Silhouette
outside. I was just there for one night before I'd catch a flight back home to
the east coast where I was born. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">The condo complex was ticky-tacky endlessly all the same and the repetition
and the people staring at me as I drove around and around with my passenger
door wide open hoping Silhouette would hear me and leap in the car, making me joyful
and myself again. Not a car he'd recognize since it wasn't mine. I just
borrowed it...declared I was taking it to find my cat and my ex-friend had no
say in the matter at all. Ricky Ticky Tavi, like a mongoose I was gonna find
him if it was the last thing I ever did in my spiraling life, I swore to God. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Damn...I got a D.U.I. in that dinky little Mormon town in Idaho where I
went to ski for a winter; like what a great idea while my boyfriend was in jail
so at least I could lay low and traverse the law and chaos I tried to escape
since my life was gone like Silhouette was.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Wow....what a stupid idea, like most of mine were on the merry go round I was
living. I took a geographic , for fun or something...returning to the saner
parts of my childhood excluding all the drama and combustible parents and
dysfunction. Now I was not only estranged from my boyfriend...I lost my key to
responsibility and love and care who had always been my touchstone.
"Silhouette...where are you? Here kitty, kitty, kitty." Everyone
thought I was nuts and out of control and an accident waiting to happen.
Waiting to happen? It already had happened time and time and time again. Maybe
I should believe it and turn it around myself. Right...not so easy a thing to
do, I secretly had discovered but swiftly dismissed as an aberration of my
mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Holy smokes...the state troopers found me hanging over the Snake River in
my car but they saved me! That damn blizzard disoriented me on my way home from
the cowboy saloon where my car wouldn't start when the bar was closing. I was a
cocktail waitress...my job to earn money and ski the incredible, awe inspiring mountains.
What a blast I was going to have. I was an avid skier who learned as a young
child when the roses were red and smelled like an overpowering perfume
confection. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">However, like Thomas Wolfe said in 'You can't go home again. " I have
to see a thousand times before I see it Once." Now...I said the state
troopers saved me. Then why did they take me to the county jail instead of
taking me home? I was being victimized, treated unfairly, what a joke they
convoluted my untenable situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"Silhouette ! Where are you? "Now people were waking up in the
ticky-tacky rows and they are curious who the woman was wending her way with
her car door open and screaming something incoherent. My mind was screeching,
my heart was pounding I couldn't go home again without him. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">Those Mormon neighbors of mine banged on my door every Sunday morning
inviting me to walk with them on the Mormon Path and learn what they knew about
life and salvation. It was sort of sweet but me, spend seven hours every Sunday
doing whatever they did all day long was definitely not for me. I was always
nursing a hangover and needed to recoup by sleeping like Goliath. They even
gave me a Mormon Bible the entire fifteen person family had signed. Do you
think I should have read it? Or the Bible? Or the Koran? Or Anything about a
Higher Power ? I sometimes thought I wasn't worth saving...fleetingly before I
reminded myself how fun and unfettered my exciting life was. "Don't tie me
down." Yeah.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">"Silhouette...." My voice was getting hoarser, the hours were
passing like a tortoise and the damn car was running out of gas. A gray
apparition whizzed by me mentally and clunked down flat on my lap! Holy
smokes...it was Silhouette climbing up my chest !! "Silhouette...you're
with me again...I won't ever let you get lost again. It wasn't your
fault...maybe mine for hanging around with sketchy people. But never again
Silhouette. We're going home again." I hoped that Thomas Wolfe could
enlighten me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN">* * *<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<b>Story and illustration by Sasha Thurmond </b><i>who is an artist and writer living on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals and who also finds time to write, paint, and take photographs. She is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at Cornell University, where she studied with Steve Poleskie. </i></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
* * *</div>
<span lang="EN"></span><br />
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: small;">
</div>
<br />
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<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-55491165227540151792018-05-25T19:12:00.000-07:002018-05-26T18:00:45.286-07:00Goshen<b>by Kevin Swanwick</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p3" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> I</span></b></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Seated between two hills</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>north & south</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">sleeping at appropriate times –</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>mostly free<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s3" style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"> from </span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">its wetland past –</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">capturing dew points along<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">North Church Street</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>on stubborn crabgrass</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">urgently marking the jagged joining</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">of ancient slate slabs</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">all strangely formed</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>in strakes</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">processing to welcome travelers at<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>its ambiguous center.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We moved with attentiveness</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">across those wedged stones,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">shifting over epochs</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>crooked & precarious,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">markers for the habitual</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">stroller & child handlebar-gripper</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">whose body memory could marshal<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>phantom steps & pulsed clenches</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">striding or riding safely to church,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">the meat market or toy store.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">But visitors beware.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Peopled early by workmen</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">cleaning catch basins before newly</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">car-driving villagers crisscrossed the</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">madly formed square;</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>converging streets</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrapping buildings closely</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">across from the sunken park of green</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">that softens the stark facade of steepled</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>limestone history.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Harriman Square,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>a magical singularity</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">bereft of organizing traffic lights</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">& marked by its solid white bullseye;</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>an unreachable point but</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">forming the statuary base for our</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">beloved sentry Chief Walker,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>erect, white-gloved & spit-shined</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>half-smiling, arms & hands</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">slicing the air</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>with mechanical precision</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">bright eyed; his peppered police whistle</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>bringing pitched order to chaos</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">while his august form draws</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>every housewife's gaze.</span><br />
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s2" style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;"><b>II</b></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Outsized & punching upward,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">holding a county seat, posing questions</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">about appearances & the oddness of</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Rio Grande creek channeled & directed</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">out of sight in subterranean solitude<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>a sluice</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">quietly moving under our feet<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">but peek-a-booing at grade</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>near the end of Canal Street</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">where young boys who made plans<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">to build a light raft & pilot through<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>its dark tunnel</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">were at last repelled by the stench of sewage</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">from the leaky history of busy pipes;<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">hidden, rusting capillaries</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>offering quiet witness</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">to organic hushed humanness</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">elderly & unattended, discharging slop</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">while above ground tattooed</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>seasonal horsemen chattered<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>on the corner of Main</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>& monied gents passed by,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>acting as if no one were there.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Courtesy ruled the dissimilar habitués</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">flinging curiosity aside with directed attention –</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>horse grooms at their bars,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">dairy farmers at the hardware store –</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>no time to stop & eat,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">lawyers & bankers at Howell’s Luncheonette,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">policemen strolling past the Occidental Hotel<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">silently keeping order while scheduled train stops</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">announced themselves & cars halted</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">for the arm-folding railroad signal;</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">an opportunity for happenstance & short</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>conversation.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The indifferent tracks formed rhythm & geometry</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>& stretching along Green Street,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>home to black villagers,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">connected two sides of town<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">hosting both border & exchange<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s3" style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>for </span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">melanin mixing</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>or tentative greetings;</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">a coupling geography offering<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">glimpses forward & from its</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>proud purlieu</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">the mirth of gentleman John Bruen,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">black & brilliant, The Ole Hasher</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">who knew those tracks –</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal;"> </span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">man of prose & wisdom,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">dapper, handsome, pen in pocket<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">offering chat as he gathered thoughts</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s3" style="color: black; font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>f</span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">or the next newspaper scribbles,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">local & universal, our brass tacks<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>village sage.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>III</b></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Revenants loiter</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">at this lowland crossroad<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>pressing immortality</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">where the French Canadian horse groom</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">smiled at the gum-snapping waitress</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">& others, stomach-ulcered & drunken,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">stumbled across Greenwich Avenue</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>to flophouse quarters,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s3" style="color: black; font-kerning: none;">f</span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">ugacious & filled with wraiths from</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>knife-fight pasts,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>murmuring unknown entreaties.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Through history-filled senses</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">listeners might hear,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">between the metered jolts of<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>that oversized diaphone</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>fire horn,<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">youngsters arguing about trotters & pacers</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and who is held champ –<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">knee-raising Greyhound or<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">well-hobbled Dan Patch, imagining<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>a showdown of equine gods.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p6" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s5" style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-stretch: normal;">“</span><span class="aolmail_gmail-s6" style="font-kerning: none;">What if Stanley Dancer</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">could have driven old Greyhound too?”</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Dispassionate doppelgängers at work,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">evenly matched & giving open track<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">to trotting & pacing kings,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">letting the aged, pounded clay decide.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And across town a knowing horseman’s ear</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span>could discern</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">the dissonant rhythms of<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">left-side hoofs to right-side hoofs</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">changing forward position & pelting the track</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">against the syncopated & symmetrical</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">alternations of an old grey stud.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What if & what about;</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">so full of remnant recesses</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p5" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;">in its ghostly décor, is Goshen.<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p1" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p4" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; margin-left: 137.4px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space">* * *</span></span><br />
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></span>
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<div class="aolmail_gmail-p1" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Kevin Swanwick </b></span> works in the software technology industry and resides in the Hudson Valley of New York with his wife Kathy, two daughters and their dog Dante. Kevin has returned to poetry after a long separation. His published short fiction and essays can be found at The Strange Recital podcast and Elephant Journal.<span class="aolmail_gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p2" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p2" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 15px;">
The poem Goshen arises from the firsthand experience of a 12-year old horse groom’s assistant at the Historic Track of harness racing in Goshen, NY and the interpretive memory of a middle-aged man. Their reunions occur in poetry.<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p2" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 15px;">
* * *</div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail-p2" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-72987467460911142462018-04-25T19:01:00.000-07:002018-04-30T18:46:08.547-07:00Zippy Came Homea short story<br />
<br />
<b>Sasha Thurmond</b><br />
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<b>So.....I decided to do this elaborate set design </b>outside on a glorious china-blue skied day with cream puff clouds sailing along like Samson with no place in particular to be or go and find Delilah. Zippy would be the star riding astride a hand chiseled, salmon colored stone horse head I have at the head of my cemetery for all of my beloved animals who have lived out their wonderful lives here in South Carolina, where I somehow managed to land like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who tapped her ruby red slippers wishing to be anywhere but Flanders Road where Tommy had died, and I knew not who I was nor where I was supposed to go and be me with all my horses and cats and guinea hens, and chickens without him. </div>
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I know I said that Zippy is the star of this story......but as always, in my long complicated life.....things always get to be more complicated and contangled confangled and combustible and disputable, distorted, clandestine or dined may be more appropriate since that's where a lot of the filial familial family explosions erupted., suffocating, conflagated a 1957 White and red Chevrolet convertible we grew up in as the all American Pie Family cruising along in a dream life of success and Glory. Who could ask for more??? Much Much more and far less than ever was or needed to be or should have been or could have been if God Bless America things worked out like OUR BESTEST OF DREAMS. Better than they ever are ? Better than we really are ? or were or could have been or just don't bother to be bothered about it all at all. Now that would be sanity....but be careful....you just might get what you want ! No Surprise.....I'm my Father's and Mother's third child. God Bless my older sister, brother, and younger sister. Actually, we all were extremely blessed and privileged, and talented. It's just that sometimes things can all just go askew so badly that no sense can be made of it all forever after.</div>
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O.K. just had to let that all out. Now.....how exactly did I land in a psychiatric rehabilitation facility for fourteen days? It most certainly isn't like Eagle Hill in Sandy Hook Newtown, CT (where all the young grade school children were killed), Carrier Clinic in Belle Meade, NJ, Guenster House in Bpt.,CT, Silver Hill in New Canaan,CT (3 times) and all the A.A. meetings and institutions for one thing or another and the ones I forget and can't in script if I don't remember what I DIDN'T FORGET AND THE JAIL PLACE ALL WOMEN SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR AT NIGHT BECAUSE OF THE OVERFLOW OF WOMEN WHILE NEW BUILDINGS WERE BUSY BEING BUILT BUT SO MANY WOMEN WERE COMMITTING MORE AND MORE CRIMES SO QUICKLY AND BRAVELY AND DANGEROUSLY THAN MEN TYPICALLY DID THAT RING AROUND THE ROSY AND ALL THE STUFF DONE IN THE PLAY GROUND WHEN WE ALL WERE KIDS AND JUST KIND OF TRYING TO HAVE A GOOD DAY. WHERE DO ALL THE PEOPLE GO? the STEEPLE IS STEEP, AND SO IS THE HILL, AND THE CAT IN THE HAT IS NICE TO BEHOLD. TICKTOCK TICKTOCK. </div>
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Oh....by now I bet you think (misthink) that I Fell Off the Wagon. Nope. I lost my beloved Zippy and Came unglued. My neighbors (adoptive Family) found me on the ground in a fetal position, and the cops and ambulance whizzed me off to the Emergency Room in the hospital. It all began when I set up the scene outside for pix of Zippy. When complete, and I did get a bit carried away, I put Zippy on the top of a horse head stone statue I have and started snapping photos with my cell phone. The sun was bright and it's really hard to see what I'm seeing because of the glare of the sun which I was trying to keep behind me. I just kept clicking, figuring I'd come up with some cool stuff to work with. Then this vase of roses blew over breaking this antique vase of mine and I rushed to pick up the pieces and bring it all inside, seeing as I had bare feet and didn't want Zippy to hop down on it. As I got to the top of the steps, I threw the glass shards and vase on the floor and rushed back for Zippy who was GONE !!!! I ran around like the Mad Hatter, but no luck finding Zippy. I became a whirling Dervish, got frantic, got delusional, got hysterical, didn't answer anyone's phone calls at all cuz I didn't want to be an alarmist or drama Queen, or me, or anything on the X-Files.</div>
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Ultimately.....Mom called 911, thus my fortnight at in the Acute Care Unit at the local hospital. It was just fine and helped me sort stuff out. I was very weary, however. My new friend Jim picked me up. We got Tuxedo, my black and white dog, up from my vet's, and home we cruised. It was later that evening when the door was a knocking. My neighbor Sarah was there asking me if I loved her."Of course I love you Sarah. You know that!" "Do you really really love me Sasha? Well let me give you a hug and a kiss and prove it to you; then I'll give you this." She hands me a little blue cat carrier and inside I was afraid was a new baby cat and I swore I wouldn't replace any of my cats YET in my life. Although...without Zippy a kitten wouldn't be such a bad idea. Except pets tie one down, and without much money to pay for their care when one travels......things can become awfully expensive. Why do you think I haven't seen my mom in 9 years ? Anyhow......it wasn't a kitten........................It was ZIPPY !! ZIPPY CAME HOME TO ME!! WHAT A HOME COMING GIFT FOR HIM AND MYSELF !! I THOUGHT I WAS DREAMING !!!! </div>
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<b>Story and illustration by Sasha Thurmond</b> who is an artist and writer living on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals who also finds time to write, paint, and take photographs. She is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at Cornell University, where she studied with Steve Poleskie. </div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-51724323800131685472018-03-28T19:10:00.000-07:002018-04-03T19:18:54.334-07:00Ash Wednesdaya short story<br />
<h3>
Stephen Poleskie</h3>
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<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
e and I watch from the pricey perch of our four-star
box seats as the grainy intaglio of the city vanishes before the phosphorescent
darkness of evening, a whirring and ring-ding-dinging escalating up from the
streets below. Nonstop the motorbikes and scooters circle, their two-stroked
voices screaming through mufflers long gone—or perhaps gutted—their vanished
baffles aching the way amputated limbs still ache. An undecipherable roar of
panic shouts up from the hallucinating square, parti-colored insects gone
berserk, invading the soul of the city, any city, it is all the same at night
when you want to sleep; which I did, but he did not.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
I
don’t remember that there were so many motorbikes in this city. He remembers
the sound from <st1:state w:st="on">Veracruz</st1:state>,
where we had gone together, and where he and I had eaten fresh oranges from a
stand on the Zocalo. But then he and I had never been in this city before. He
cannot recall that this place contained such a tall building as the one we are
in now, and I do not remember that it was a hotel. “The tallest buildings, the
skyscrapers, are usually stuck up to be office buildings,” I remark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
“Corporate symbols,” he adds, “usually in some
odd post-modern design, perhaps an open checkbook, the pages peeled back, leering
down on the rest of the city.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
Please allow me to introduce myself. He is
Johnny and I am John. We both were christened John but he chose to become
“Johnny” back when world leaders were known by names like Tony and Bill. That
was then. Can you imagine Angela Merkel today going by the name “Angie.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
He
and I pass our time observing the whirling traffic, as it is not yet the hour
to be doing anything else. The road around the square—actually a circle—is
parted with tractor-trailers which seem so tiny from our vantage point,
intermingled with a squadron of cars appearing much smaller. Even the biggest
of them, those that carry mighty names like “Navigator” and “Explorer,” appear
small from up here. The sleepless mopeds are the smallest, even smaller than
the people astride them. “A man should not be larger than his mount; it is
against the natural order of things,” a famous artist who rode a Triumph
motorcycle, but who painted monks on donkeys, once confided to me in all
seriousness. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Why are
there so few motorcycle riders circling the square? he and I wonder. Where are the
Hondas that we had ridden in our pinch-penny youth? Gone like our youth? The
motorcycles passing below us now are mostly Harley-Davidsons, not
transportation but modern folklore, an image ridden by wannabe outlaws—in
reality bankers and stockbrokers on their way to an endless chain of Hard Rock
Cafes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Little
by little the Mardi Gras curious arrive from far and wide to inhabit the
square, a traveling carnival of unfortunates, who no one pays much attention to
but each other. In the midst of a disorder that makes the square tremble, everyone
performs their own act—and everyone is their own audience. The crowd floats,
undulates, teenaged girls with naked bellies, and almost naked breasts, snorting
their way through the pathless tract. Leaning over the railing of our hotel balcony,
he and I watch as below life ebbs and flows in a great and eccentric spasm of
frenzy. On one corner a circuit of applause opens up as a grinning homunculus
displays his more than full-sized penis while peeing on a lamppost, someone's
dancing daughter daintily dodging the splatter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Show
us your tits!” The call comes up from
the street to a group of young ladies disporting on a balcony below us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“First
show us your cocks!” the girls echo back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
A
deal is struck and on the count of three: One, Two, Three! both sides reveal
their attributes to much applauding and cheering from the passersby.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
There
is a party going on behind us. A festive gathering has gathered in our room,
there are so many people we do not know, yet they keep coming. I don’t have a
room but a suite. I am here alone, so why do I have a suite? I do not like
parties—he does. He is not alone. He is with me. Is this his suite? His party? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Hello!
How are you?” a man wearing the frock and collar of a priest asks. The priest, wearing
a sash of red, a cardinal perhaps, has been holding up the frivolity in a
corner of the room.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
At
this moment I don’t know how I am, but he answers for me, “I am fine . . . Your
Eminence.” Then he asks what I did not really care to know: “And how are you?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“By the grace of God I am fine, and may He
bless you too my son,” the red-sashed soul saver says adding, “it is good to see
you again. We haven’t been together for such a long time . . . since you were
an altar boy. I believe we have some catching up to do.” He smiles, pressing my
hand with his ringed finger, and turns away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Bless
me Father for I have sinned. . . .” we spout after his fleeing form, not sure why,
perhaps out of habit, for we by our beliefs are not sinners.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“You
must feel sorry for your sins, my son, do penance . . . mortification of the
flesh, and all that. But there is no
time for it now . . . let’s get together tomorrow,” the priest shouts over his
shoulder, his black robe flowing him back to the party.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
A
woman with the face of a spider appears; although I admit to never having seen
a spider’s face close up. She asks him or me where the drinks are.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“The
drinks are in there.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Did I
say that? How does he know the drinks are in there? We haven’t been in that
room yet; we have only been out here looking down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Where?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“There.”
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Did I
point, or just nod my head in a general direction?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Oh! I’m
sorry . . . wrong room. . . .” the spider-faced lady says backing out and
turning to me. “There are two men going at it on a bed in that room.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Who
is going at it on a bed in where!?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“They
are on a bed in there . . . be careful not to disturb them.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“What
are they doing in my bed in my room?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Your
room is through there. . . .” Did she point, or just nod her head in a general
direction?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“But
that’s where the party is. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“What
a lovely view . . . you can see the
entire city,” the cardinal says returning with a cup of red wine in his hand. The
blood of our Lord Jesus?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“But
my room is in the back of the hotel,” I protest, “I have no view. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Then
you are not in your room . . . you must
be down there.” his eminence says
pointing to the busybody street.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
We
see a man in a dark blue jacket and pants riding a light blue moped. He is a
very tiny man on a very tiny moped. Why is the man weaving in and out of
traffic? “He is so small that he can
pass under trucks. Watch him cut in and out as the trucks slow for the traffic
light,” I say.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Look!
The moped rider is there . . . all the way to the front . . . next to the first
truck,” he says pointing excitedly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Hello!
Are the drinks out here? . . .” a woman with the face of a painted weasel—although
I admit I have never seen a weasel with a painted face—asks, popping her head
through the door.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“No. The
drinks are in there.” I can’t remember if we pointed or merely nodded in a
general direction, but the weasel-faced woman does not go away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
‘What
are you watching? . . .” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Look!
See that moped, the light blue one, he can pass under tractor-trailers . . .
watch him, there he goes!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“I
just adore mopeds, but I would never ride on one . . . too dangerous,” the
weasel-faced woman says going back inside, trailing a scent of talcum powder and
liver pate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“The
truck is accelerating . . . where is the moped?” Father Frivolity asks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Watch,
he will come out the other side . . . he always does.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“I
don’t see him!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Keep
watching. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“The
truck is too fast . . . the moped can’t keep up . . . the rider and the moped will be crushed!”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“No,
he’ll come out the other side. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Are
you sure? I don’t see him anymore,” the cardinal says turning away. “Where did
you say that the food was?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Back
in there Your Eminence.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
A
man, who had been conceived late in his mother’s life and who had therefore
lagged in growth, but who had, nevertheless, ridden his moped through the city’s
worst flood, and coldest winter, lies motionless on the street. As the senile
intemperance of fortune would have it, a tractor-trailer driver swerving to
avoid the dumped moped squashes the unseen body of the fallen rider, who is
further ground to pulp by two following trucks before anyone notices.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Are the
drinks out here?” a lady with a face like a ladybug asks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“No,
they are back in there,” I nod, but the dead rider can neither point nor
gesture with his head.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Say
. . . aren’t you the guy who did that TV show?” the woman says, squinting at me
through her ladybug eyes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“No,
he did the TV show.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“That’s
funny. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“What’s
funny? The TV show? . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“No .
. . that you both look so alike.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Amidst
her senseless conversation time passed unnoticed, swallowing the whole empty
period. A diffuse whiteness filters up from the square overtaking me with
sleepiness. I turn in to turn in but find that my room is indeed occupied: “Excuse
me . . . what are you two doing on my bed in my room?” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“This
is not your room . . . your room is in there,” the man on top grunts, and
gestures with his head, not breaking his carnal cadence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“But
the party is in there. . . .”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
He
asks the people in bed if I could use their mirror for only a moment. He looks
in the mirror; the reflection I see is not my face. The face he sees is the
face of a woman. From that time on his, or her, world will be not worth living
in, at least not until this time next year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
Somewhere
a clock strikes midnight. As it is now Ash Wednesday, the music stops, and the
square empties of revelers. Hoping for enough miracles to become a saint, the
frivolous cardinal comes down to the street and brings the dead moped rider
back to life, who upon opening his eyes flies into a murderous rage at having
had his blissful state disturbed. He immediately rolls under another passing
tractor-trailer in an attempt to end his life once again, but it cleanly misses
him, and he lies face down on the street crying in disillusionment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
“Now
don’t get me wrong,” the resurrected moped rider sobs, pounding the pavement
with his fists, “I have no disrespect for the church; however, it is precisely
along these lines that all this got started.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><o:p style="font-size: x-small;"> </o:p></i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>Stephen Poleskie’s</i> writing, fiction, non-fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous journals in the USA and in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, and the UK; as well as in five anthologies, and been three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published five novels and two books of short fiction. Poleskie has taught at The School of Visual Arts, NYC, the University of California/Berkeley, and Cornell University, and been a resident at the American Academy in Rome.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Poleskie lives in Ithaca, NY. with his wife the novelist, Jeanne Mackin. website: <a href="http://www.stephenpoleskie.com/">www.StephenPoleskie.com</a></span><br />
This story initially appeared in <i>Other Writings Merida </i>(Mexico)<br />
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-90199261963422116942018-02-23T17:53:00.000-08:002018-02-23T17:53:56.042-08:00An Onager Encore / Chiaroscuro<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.8px; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b>CHIAROSCURO</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">an essay by</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.8px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jeanne Mackin<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wherever chiaroscuro enters, colour must lose some of its brilliancy. There is no shade in a rainbow, nor in an opal, nor in a piece of mother-of-pearl – John Ruskin<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">LIGHT CAN BE SLOWED DOWN, can be made to reconsider its own path, its own desire for velocity. When light passes through glass, moving from thin air to that other more substantial material, it slows and makes a slight detour we call refraction. Refraction is matter’s way of saying: “Let’s rethink this.” Shine light through a diamond and it slows its speed by almost half because of the density of the crystal. If you lived inside a diamond, you would be twenty-five when your peers were fifty; you would live twice as long, and twice as slowly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That Thanksgiving Day it was warm, and humid, so after dinner we went outside, full of a strange energy. In the western sky over the new-growth forest, we saw a triple rainbow. A double happens once in a while, but there were three in the sky that day after the storm, one inside the other, and we looked at them, knowing we would never see such a thing again, no matter how long we lived. The rarity of it locked us into silence; we grappled with the event the way medieval star gazers must have contended with comets or halos around the moon, with wonder and fear as well. Wonder and fear refract our direction, bend it into new paths.The wonder takes hold of us and says “I have caught you. The fear says “I am going to change you whether you wish it or not. From now on, up will be down, and inside will be outside.” But wonder cannot last. Colors fade, especially in a rainbow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After matter emerged from chaos, the first miracle was the creation of light, and with light came time. With time, came shadows. When the triple rainbow began to fade, we came to ourselves, the way sleepers awake, slowly and with confusion. We went back indoors carrying new desires with us and I wished I had seen the triple rainbow when I was a child, not a grown up. I think somehow things would have been different. I cleared the table of our dirtied dishes and glasses and the vase of yellow garden mums.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">JEANNE MACKIN is the author of several novels and has published short fiction and creative nonfiction in journals and periodicals including </span><i>American Letters and Commentary </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">and</span><i>SNReview</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">. She was the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society and is an award-winning journalist. She has taught creative writing in the MFA Program at </span><st1:placename st="on" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">Goddard</st1:placename><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;"> </span><st1:placetype st="on" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">College</st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;"> in </span><st1:state st="on" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;"><st1:place st="on">Vermont</st1:place></st1:state><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.8px;">.</span></div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-130732495675498172018-01-26T19:21:00.000-08:002018-01-26T19:28:59.471-08:00Francium, an essay<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.4;">Jeanne Mackin</span></div>
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<i>Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable. That execution which is least comprehensible and which therefore defies imitation, other qualities being supposed alike, is the best.</i></div>
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Ruskin</div>
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FRANCIUM IS A METAL SO RARE we can only guess at its color. With a half-life of twenty-two minutes and a melting point so low this metal would be liquid at room temperature, it is an element of dream time. Scientists speculate that at any given moment less than thirty grams of it exist on the entire planet. It is measured in atoms, not cupfuls, and even the atoms are measured in thousands, not billions. They have to be trapped in laser beams in a magnetic field, briefly floating like snow flakes in the glow of a street light and then melting back into a great unknown. Francium is so rare that we don’t even have a use for it. We will live our lives without ever seeing this metal, without experiencing its catastrophically brief existence.</div>
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There was a boy once, like that. By accident, though there may be no such thing, we sat next to each other in a pub in <st1:city st="on">Boston</st1:city>, listening to revolutionary songs of a different country. I saw him from the corner of my eye, never looking straight on, his black hair and white skin, the kind of coloring you often find in people who recite from memory lines from Yeats. We drank brown foamy beer and drew codes in the sawdust floor with the toes of our boots. He was with his friends, I with mine. Yet we knew we were together. His arm slowly, inevitably curled around my waist, under my coat, where no one could see it, but I could feel it. We didn’t look at each other. We hadn’t spoken a word to each other, yet we belonged to each other. This is not a true story, you see. It is a story of unstable elements, of unknowable colors, of rare metals and all that we cannot see of existence, all that cannot be imitated. It is a story of solitude and rarity.</div>
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The door opens. A cold wind blows into the pub, and the codes in the sawdust of the floor are wiped away by the draft. We shiver and grow aware, leave behind the dream time. His arm snakes away back into its private <st1:place st="on">Eden</st1:place> but it leaves behind this memory of a boy and a cold night and that knowledge of rarity, of immeasurability. The memory lasts longer than the moment and that is how we know we are, and have been.</div>
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We exist in a single moment surrounded by before and after, and when the boy who is and always will be a stranger removes his arm from around the waist of the girl who is a stranger, the moment changes, before and after changes. We measure such moments by atoms of the unexpected, not cupfuls of what is known. And sometimes the atoms of the unexpected create larger memories than those cupfuls of what we know. What is the half-life of such a moment, that decades later I am still trying to measure its atoms?</div>
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JEANNE MACKIN<i> is the author of seven novels and numerous stories and essays. She is also the author of three mysteries published under the name Anna Maclean. Her novels have also been published in England and Japan. She has worked as a journalist and as a science writer at Cornell University where she received a number of national awards. She has taught writing at Ithaca College and in the MFA Creative Writing faculty at Goddard College.</i></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-89490639007115350722017-12-21T19:01:00.001-08:002017-12-21T19:12:22.293-08:00The Vanishing Invader (or, Bug From Krypton)<div class="aolmail_aolmail_gmail_quote" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica; font-size: 13.3333px;">
A Short Story by Terry Mooney<br />
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I'm up at 6:30am to get ready for my morning 5-mile jog. I shuffle into<br />
the kitchen and hit the light switch. My rambling morning thoughts are<br />
interrupted by a quick movement on the floor. A large palmetto bug,<br />
probably about two feet long (so it seemed at the moment), was doing the 5K<br />
run down the hallway. Like most people, I despise these invaders! They're<br />
gross!</div>
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I wasn't about to let this critter escape, knowing that he/she would go<br />
home and then return with an army of brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews,<br />
and long-lost uncles. But, I hate smashing them, or stepping on them<br />
because then I would have to use a jack-hammer and backhoe to remove<br />
his/her entrails from my shoe.</div>
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I grabbed the windex bottle and sprayed the beast. He/she immediately<br />
flipped over on his/her back and started break-dancing (I know it wasn't<br />
yoga because the legs were moving too fast). I then walked away for a few<br />
minutes to let the invader die in peace (or agony). After about fifteen<br />
minutes, I returned and was surprised to find the critter still doing the<br />
back stroke across the floor! I decided a stronger approach was needed to<br />
deal with this behemoth. I then sprayed him/her with a 50-50 solution of<br />
bleach water.</div>
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Wow, now his/her legs were traveling at least 78.7 mph ( roach speed ). I<br />
know this to be true because I just happened to have a roachometer mounted<br />
on the wall. Also, I could now hear him (male voice) screaming something<br />
in a dialect I wasn't familiar with. He was probably either using dirty,<br />
filthy, curse words, or pleading for me to dial 911. I ignored him and<br />
left for my morning jog.</div>
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When I returned, he was gone! WTF? Was this a BOS? (bug of steel)...from<br />
the planet Krypton? I'm thinking that his relatives tracked him down and<br />
claimed his body for a proper burial. Next time, I may have to bite the<br />
bullet (not the bug) and pound the alien with a sledge hammer!<br />
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And how was your day?</div>
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Terry Mooney<i> is a retired NASA computer expert who lives in West Virginia where he writes stories and works on his artworks. You can find him on Facebook. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/terrygmooney">//www.facebook.com/terrygmooney</a></i></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-52473892757094021742017-11-21T18:20:00.001-08:002017-11-21T18:27:10.099-08:00A Short Story by Sreemanti Sengupta<div class="MsoNormal">
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had told everybody I was a lesbian.</span></b><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
I should have seen it coming on the day I nudged the girl next to me to ask
what ‘fuck’ meant. She turned to me and kept chewing on an over-chewed gum, her
face ruptured and taut with knowledge. Somebody threw a chair with a loud clamouring
noise whenever somebody tried to talk. They changed those secret glances like
fake currency notes. I must dance I thought, as I watched her thin white bare
shoulders jiggling in front of me, in front of the boys. I looked at the vague
disco lights and I felt hungry. I looked around for a place to sit, I felt
hungry. “Where can I get a bite?” My escort looked at me with jiggling
shoulders, a ruptured face taut with knowledge. It was 1 am in the night when I
looked outside my window. There was bad music playing and I had been asked what
would I do if I was asked to give a blowjob? Someone told me I looked like
Sharon Stone. I thought of Tagore and Keats when someone accidentally stabbed me
with a burning fag. I opened the window. It was immersion day for Lord Ganesha.
Naked Uncle peered from the opposite window. He was of course, very naked. I
was hungry. “Where can I have a bite?” I asked them. They gave me a steel
tumbler of vodka and cold drinks. She was dancing. They all laughed, their
faces were taut with knowledge. I saw the naked ladies coming up from the sea.
When I walked into the water, it was clear, I could see through to the crabs
and the snails. He pushed me over in fun. Someone called out the marks in the
vernacular paper. They read out my essay. For weeks afterwards, whenever I said
something out of the ordinary, they labelled me as the exotic. They did it with
their fat faces, their rimless frames and their thigh length skirts. I came
home and banged the door shut because I didn’t know why I didn’t have my
periods yet. My father looked away when I came running out to greet him in
summer wearing a torn white chemise. My left breast slipped out. “I would tell
him to suck my breast” I had said. They had all sneered at me and they went on
jiggling their bare white shoulders under the lights and in the river of very
bad music. I understood this was a place where people could come home and wash
dirty laundry at 1 O’ clock at night, this was not a place to be hungry. She
told me it was bad blood that I was flushing out of my system. I looked at her
face for signs of a white lie. It was calm and taut with knowledge. I needed
someone weird enough not to feel weird. I do not know what he needed. I had
slapped him the first time. It was just like a Bollywood film. “Is she
alright?” my boss had asked. They had made me dance like a courtesan. They had
cut me a cake on my birthday out of pity. They all thought it was sufficiently
brave to cuss a drunk and powerful man over the phone, that too after downing a
couple of beers. I had walked right past those men to get those two cans, right
past the guy at the telephone shop who sent me heartbroken SMSes at night. They
all told me I had beautiful eyes. “You looked liberating” he said the night I
foolishly danced to the bad music, the night he said, “the trees look like
peacocks at night” I could have thrown up, right there on the quality of his
ideas. He smelt bad. One night when I was sexting him to bed, I asked him about
love. I remember his face. I remember the shack, the sea, the women shaking off
the sea water from their bodies. “Isn’t it nice that we can watch these
semi-nude ladies together with a beer?” I felt hungry and I said, “Where can I
have a bite? He licked his lips and looked at me. His eyes, those eyes, were
taut with knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sreemanti
Sengupta</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <i>is an advertising
professional based in Kolkata. She writes experimental fiction and poetry and
has been widely published in the print and electronic media in places
like Mad Swirl, Paragraph Planet, Certain Circuits, Bare Hands Poetry,
Onager Editions, Ppigpen and many more. Her published works have
been read at the City Lights Book Store in New York and her haikus translated to French
by celebrated poet-collagist Bruno Sourdin. Sreemanti has self published ‘First
Person’, an experimental novella in collaboration with Brazillian
artist/photographer Ana Vivianne Minorelli. The book is now available online.
She is also the editor at her self-run ezine ‘The Odd Magazine’ (now in its 14<sup>th</sup> edition)
which features alternative creative art, poetry, photography, interviews and
more from across the globe.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-61970147450879058362017-10-23T18:43:00.000-07:002017-10-23T19:08:09.151-07:00Henny is Smart<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Two Poems by Sasha Thurmond</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Soft breeze wafts in summer dog days</span></div>
</div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Glancing out kitchen window I see </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny scratching outside of her cage</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance inside watching Henny his tart</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lucky Henny finds chicken buffet</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance wondering how she escaped.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Scratch scratch... Henny is smart.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Crowing loudly Lance wants out too</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me content to watch through the pane</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Scratch scratch... Henny is smart.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Heavy alert, here comes my dog Tux</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I race outside yanking truck door ajar.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Tux wanting a ride more than a treat,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He vaults inside and I slam the door shut. </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance crowing loudly, still ready for war.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny franticlly scrambling about </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me using bare hands to guide her inside</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance held his point till she was back at his side. </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Me securing gate to their lovely abode,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white;">
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Scratch scratch...smart Henny was home.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Two</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny is smart....scratch scratch...</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lancelot and Henny were as happy a couple</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">as couples can be....but I like more eggs</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">which two hens can lay</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I got Solo from my neighbor's huge lot</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Solo was sweet, and tan mottled feathers </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">set her apart.....but Henny is smart...</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">scratch scratch</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Out of the blue, things popped in my thoughts</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">even again, past ones that flopped</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bent on success to turn this around, </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I left the gate open, just slightly ajar</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny and Solo clucked back and forth</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">finally Solo edged her way out</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny is smart...scratch scratch...</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">once things seemed safe, Henny walked out</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance wouldn't join them, remembering well a previous jaunt</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When I had two dogs on leashes I held,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I let all my chickens free to explore out of their digs.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">soon I was dragging behind my strong team,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">released them both when my face hit the dirt </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chickens scattered every which way</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance was mangled and down for the count</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">grabbing his legs, I placed him back in his cage</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">where he was dead, but safely away .</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Five minutes later, Lance came back from the dead...even I was happy he did.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> This time I kept my distance and watched the hens feast,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">after a spell, I herded them back toward their cage.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Henny was smart...scratch scratch. Soon she joined Lance</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">safely back inside .Solo was scared flapping wildly while running away</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lance got brave flying out to save her from me.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I scooped her up after a chase, me after her, and Lance after me</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">next he lanced me with both of his spurs</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">but I managed to grab Solo during our flight</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I sprinted away clutching my prize, but suddenly she wet me</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">right on my shirt, I lay her down gently back in the cage</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">but something was wrong...she was motionless and gone.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I pivoted and scrambled out of the cage</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">just in time to elude Lance's rage.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Rebuking myself I locked the door shut</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">again I had two, and Henny is smart...scratch scratch.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">* * * </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;"><b>Sasha Thurmond</b></span><span style="line-height: 18.48px;"> <i>is a graduate of the Cornell University MFA program where she majored in printmaking. She lives on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals, and sometimes finds time to make art or write poems or stories.</i></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.48px;"><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></i></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.48px;"><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; line-height: 18.48px;">* * *</i></span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'times new roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-51185658461625504792017-09-23T18:00:00.002-07:002017-09-23T18:18:26.981-07:00 A Poem by Mike Foldes<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b>Subversive</b></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
A swift current flows in my veins.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Salmon swim upstream, clearing</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
The rapids between heart</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And lungs, fingers and toes.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Destitute, inside a box of planks,</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
I hide out from Main street,</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Where fishermen will mistake me</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
For a runaway, their prime catch.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Spiders tickle my eyes under</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Tired lids, their legs play octaves</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
On yellow ivory of the old piano.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Make no mistake, caterpillars</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Caterwaul, grasshoppers drink</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Green tea, and mysterious earth</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Piles up in a ball floating famously</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Through someone else’s inner space.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
You are the ice cube in the glass.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
We watch each other melt.<br />
<br />
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<div>
<b>Mike Foldes</b> <i>is the f<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ounder and managing editor of Ragazine, an online literary magazine. He</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> is also the author of "Sleeping Dogs, A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping," and "Sandy: Chronicles of a Superstorm," with artist Christie Devereaux." </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Download at www.Smashwords.Com and www.Amazon.Com</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">editor@ ragazine.cc </span></div>
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<a href="http://ragazine.cc/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">http://ragazine.cc</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ragazinecc/Twitter</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Join Mike on MySpace and Facebook</span><br />
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-49397649488200318772017-08-24T18:40:00.000-07:002017-09-03T18:10:33.586-07:00Ecliptic Awakening: Sasha Thurmond<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; position: relative;">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1fp__FVE2VfzaYUNsTA0ORcm2ktiegTNvrCDpyzNmm30ChfbqiL2MTijC4zcEZM1qUNwo6qjCHqIcLl_wn9NN_rkTD1HJlF69rii9POkNdQjsXoDzwxJXPH6asdysBd8LGQ0npBGzxo/s1600/SashaGrayind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1fp__FVE2VfzaYUNsTA0ORcm2ktiegTNvrCDpyzNmm30ChfbqiL2MTijC4zcEZM1qUNwo6qjCHqIcLl_wn9NN_rkTD1HJlF69rii9POkNdQjsXoDzwxJXPH6asdysBd8LGQ0npBGzxo/s320/SashaGrayind.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by Sasha Thutmond</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.8px;">The beast</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Within me broods in quintessential power and despair amidst my personal, and desperately driven chaos. Why do the hairs on my back strike heinous gashes only against an eclipsing sun when no one can see them?</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My life as a free spirit is light years away from the tragic, and complicated one I fell into.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Horror fans my raging anguish and conflicted essence.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Can I fool my fervent darkness and yield to the light of day?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My captor says I can't. My condemnation is to live alone in misery.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But then, the opportunity to help other men, women or beast will be impossible.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Let the good in life transform me and through this selfless act, I shall help others</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">find redemption and joyful days toward infinity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">* * *</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18.48px;">Sasha Thurmond</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 18.48px;"> is a graduate of the Cornell University MFA program where she majored in printmaking. She lives on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals, and sometimes finds time to make art or write poems or stories.</i></span></span></span></span></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-85929452171008803452017-07-26T19:22:00.002-07:002017-08-24T18:37:39.026-07:00Two Tompkins County Poems<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stephen Poleskie <b> </b></span><br />
<b style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Stone Quarry Road</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I bought
the house on top of the quarry my friends asked,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">why do you want
to live so far out of town?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now the town has
moved closer to me and my friends say,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">you can walk to
Wegmans from where you live.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My road has
become the short-cut to the malls on Meadow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">for the people driving
from the southern end of Tompkins County.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">All day and all
night long the traffic roars up and down my hill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">My home was much
quieter when I lived “so far out of town.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And yet the deer
still sleep in my back yard,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the birds do
sing at dawn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the lilacs bloom
in the spring,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And I can see
Cayuga Lake from my upstairs windows,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the rain water
flows freely over my falls,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the speeding
drivers will stop <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">for a parade of
wild turkeys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Treman
Park</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Water
cascades mightily over the falls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
group at the bottom stares in awe <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">at
the power displayed by the now unfrozen liquid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
a rare sunny winter’s day in Tompkins County,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">people
are wearing shorts in February.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Today
is Presidents’ Day so the schools are closed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Everyone
appears to be out and about,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">walking
in a park that remembers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the
long absent crowds that come with summer,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">but
is now filled with people happy to see each other <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">if
only for one of those few bright days<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">that
by chance slip in between winter’s gray.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The two above poems appeared in a collection of Tompkins County poems compiled by The Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca, New York as part of their 2017 Poems in a Pocket series </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqzgZ2us9JaKNIcBXjOvim6n-J8tjA0VmYx-xGBCSZehxOUVtDbIOnpS8wIekFeoAPTJ-s9UDqx3U7pcT4fGDOXC90TjIQJ0VujwYPJCoJjDEYfi54oBYsQZ1WH8wZFhT7Vjf61eAw_U/s1600/Stephen+Poleskie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqzgZ2us9JaKNIcBXjOvim6n-J8tjA0VmYx-xGBCSZehxOUVtDbIOnpS8wIekFeoAPTJ-s9UDqx3U7pcT4fGDOXC90TjIQJ0VujwYPJCoJjDEYfi54oBYsQZ1WH8wZFhT7Vjf61eAw_U/s200/Stephen+Poleskie.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>Stephen Poleskie’s</i> writing, fiction, non-fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous journals in the USA and in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, the Philippines, and the UK; as well as in five anthologies, and been three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published five novels and two books of short fiction. Poleskie has taught at The School of Visual Arts, NYC, the University of California/Berkeley, and Cornell University, and been a resident at the American Academy in Rome.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;"> Poleskie lives in Ithaca, NY. with his wife the novelist, Jeanne Mackin. website: <a href="http://www.stephenpoleskie.com/">www.StephenPoleskie.com</a></span></span><br />
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-52662911727974806592017-07-16T18:03:00.000-07:002017-07-17T18:47:07.618-07:00Verlaine Boyd: Two Poems<div id="aolmail_AOLMsgPart_2_f989299d-0c83-4370-b3b3-498a984bd1e0" style="background-color: white;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Flat File </span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">Sorting through </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">His drawings/</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">Prints/works on paper</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">I come across ones</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">I’d never seen</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">New friends</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">Among familiar faces</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">I’m an archeologist</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">Digging up the past</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">Eager to know</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none; font-weight: normal;">The whole picture</span></div>
<div style="font-family: helvetica, arial;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><br style="font-weight: normal;" /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Lament for a Lady</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">My right-hand man</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Left me</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And now I must</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Handle all the</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fix-up clean-up</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pay up and</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Keep up alone</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is too much</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">To keep track</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of if in fact</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is what</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am expected</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">To do and still </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Have time to</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Put words to paper</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Write poems</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">And other fictions</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Think thoughts</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Profound and witty</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m all caught up</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">In getting by</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Making do</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Life’s small triumphs</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">The nitty gritty</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Scenarios </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Of survival</span></div>
<div style="font-size: small;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
</span></div>
</h4>
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</div>
<div id="aolmail_AOLMsgPart_2_f989299d-0c83-4370-b3b3-498a984bd1e0" style="background-color: white;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Verlaine Boyd is a writer who lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York. She has been published widely and can be reached at her website: </span><a href="http://verlaineboyd.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">verlaineboyd.com</span></a></i></span></div>
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* * *</div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-35944179503955200392017-06-30T18:16:00.002-07:002017-07-16T19:55:38.746-07:00A Poem to Marina Abramovic by Mike Foldes<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">O, Marina (Distended Version) Abramovic</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I do not want</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">to see anyone</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">cut themselves.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I do not want</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">to see anyone</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">hanged.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I do not want</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">to carry a body</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">to the grave,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">or to an ambulance</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">because they have ingested</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">too many colored pills,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">put a needle</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">between their toes,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">into lifeless arms</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">or under eyelids.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Who done up</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">these sorrows,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">anyway?</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Assessing, subtly</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">casting stones</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">in some direction</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">directionless living</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">observer, observed</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">subject and subjected,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">jackal and slave.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">How unclever to discover</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">in the deeply enriched</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">entrenched echoing ego</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">asshole observers</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">sitting up straight</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">straight up your ass, man,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">straight up your ass,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">veil of veils…</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">vile pleasure in pain</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">mixed autonomy</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">mild anxiety</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">that can, too,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">be mined</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">if one has a mind</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">to</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">bringing out the best</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">where the worst</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">is the best it gets.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Imagine that</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Cling to your carpet</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One with carpet</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">One with wall</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A squall gathers</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">At the door,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A squall gathers</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In your belly,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">A squall gathers</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In the room</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Where everything</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Moves magisterially</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Passing priests pissing</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Blood on the path</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">To purgatory,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Barking dogs,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hissing cats,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In holiday season</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anthropomorphic</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Medial lobotomy</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Claustrophia</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hydrophobia</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Santa Claustrophobia</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Take a flyer.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">What the fuck else</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">can happen.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">* * *</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<div>
<b>Mike Foldes</b> <i>is the f<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ounder and managing editor of Ragazine, an online literary magazine. He</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> is also the author of "Sleeping Dogs, A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping," and "Sandy: Chronicles of a Superstorm," with artist Christie Devereaux." </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Download at www.Smashwords.Com and www.Amazon.Com</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">editor@ ragazine.cc </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<a href="http://ragazine.cc/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">http://ragazine.cc</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ragazinecc/Twitter</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Join Mike on MySpace & Facebook</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.48px;">* * *</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-19903302099948217292017-06-18T18:59:00.000-07:002017-06-18T19:01:27.138-07:00A Memoir of Delirium & Dementia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXAEcYAHazupVJZeF5v8bIEss3aVDqEECjdZXdtyhD9TDY6FqHSkiwhriPaXwiyYwOP7ieIfAThSRNXi_Df7WfpeEkJkemsIMTZlQdxVPtIRQK1lyRYadCY-NyPaDJsRQlw2qk97X5Fg/s1600/GirlBehindCov0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjXAEcYAHazupVJZeF5v8bIEss3aVDqEECjdZXdtyhD9TDY6FqHSkiwhriPaXwiyYwOP7ieIfAThSRNXi_Df7WfpeEkJkemsIMTZlQdxVPtIRQK1lyRYadCY-NyPaDJsRQlw2qk97X5Fg/s320/GirlBehindCov0001.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Girl Behind the Door/Stephanie Dickinson/ Rain Mountain
Press/ April 2017<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The subtitle of this book is “a memoir of delirium &
dementia.” I would say it certainly is that. Several of the chapters have also
appeared as short stories in various journals. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I found the book very hard to read; not that the writing was
difficult, in fact the writing is quite fine. The main problem was that I had,
in the not too distant past experienced the death of my mother and felt too
close to the scenes that were created. These were incidents that I had put to
the back of my mind. And while I had never been shot by a friend, accidentally or
otherwise, and lost the use of my arm; I have had a number of motorcycle
accidents that have left some parts of my body functioning less than perfectly.
This is even more so now that I am no longer a young man.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, Stephanie was wild in her youth, or so she tells us in
this memoir; but weren’t we all. Reading through the book I kept finding
parallels to people and situations that I encountered in my younger days. The
question was did I want to be reminded of these moments of my past. We were
Poles in Pennsylvania not Czechs in Iowa; however, the only difference was the
geography. My friend Price, who was my
competitor for best writer in high school, who became a high school teacher,
and who drank himself to death competing in a drinking contest at a local bar,
could easily have been an inhabitant of Dickinson’s sadly changing Iowa landscape.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where Dickinson excels is in the understanding she shows of
her mother and the descriptions of their relationship. She reveals herself in
conflict with the woman, loving her for who she is, but wanting to escape from
all she stands for. I found myself relating strongly to these parts, as I had
made similar choices in my past; choices I tell myself worked out well, but wonder
still what might have been. As I write
this I am flipping through <i>Girl Behind
the Door</i>. Tomorrow I shall begin reading it all again. I am looking forward
to Stephanie Dickinson’s next book.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sidney Grayling<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-77892407493139331422017-05-27T17:31:00.001-07:002017-05-28T19:19:18.481-07:00Hunters, gatherers and modern man<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<i style="font-size: 11pt;">a poem by</i></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Mike Foldes</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">They fed themselves</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And fed upon themselves.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
They tried wet roots</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And dried mushrooms</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Bamboo shoots</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And intoxicants</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Berries, beans, seeds</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And choke cherries.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Animals that moved</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And those whose bodies</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Lay still at water’s edge,</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Hunted, gathered.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<h3>
II</h3>
</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
They fed themselves</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
And fed upon themselves</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Advancements notwithstanding,</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Technocrats and alley cats</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Much changed</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Remaining animal at the core.</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
The upright man</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
On hands and knees</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
Goes begging</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
at the open door</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
The door at water’s edge</div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
That moves no more.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
* * *<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<div>
<b>Mike Foldes</b> <i>is the f<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ounder and managing editor of Ragazine, an online literary magazine. He</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> is also the author of "Sleeping Dogs, A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping," and "Sandy: Chronicles of a Superstorm," with artist Christine Devereaux." </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Download at www.Smashwords.Com and www.Amazon.Com</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">editor@ ragazine.cc </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<a href="http://ragazine.cc/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">http://ragazine.cc</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ragazinecc/Twitter</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Join Mike on MySpace & Facebook</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.48px;">
<span style="line-height: 18.48px;">* * *</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-59549923763955306502017-05-15T19:22:00.000-07:002017-05-15T19:40:29.252-07:00A Story by Sasha Thurmond<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz30ShErntjjmgzSHFxMYs683BgTPt9vrWA6V2yUsOSzdh4d5X4hC40shvp3K_S6cNX-Nk4NN_oibwOO_FKA-Erx2n_6RQxgA2O2Opkg0nv2KZnn6uACvLey3e5DLyW0yNMKtKDCCYV0/s1600/flashjawopen8.jpgggg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz30ShErntjjmgzSHFxMYs683BgTPt9vrWA6V2yUsOSzdh4d5X4hC40shvp3K_S6cNX-Nk4NN_oibwOO_FKA-Erx2n_6RQxgA2O2Opkg0nv2KZnn6uACvLey3e5DLyW0yNMKtKDCCYV0/s320/flashjawopen8.jpgggg.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<h2 style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Our dragon disappeared</span></h2>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My castle, my Queen, my children, my subjects, our home, love, and power, our Kingdom,</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">we fought to preserve it all, we fought for freedom from our enemies, and others who threatened it, including adversaries within our own castle walls.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What fuels life and one's heart to keep alive the desire to live well, not just for survival?</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Writers, artists, musicians create their craft through their word, their images, their songs, their deeds as heartfelt expressions. The amount of things people seek in a lifetime is daunting.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My juvenile dragon, named Zippy, was missing. I tore up my lair while desperately trying to find him.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our moat and our castle walls weren't guaranteed protection. My dragon was gaining empowerment to protect our kingdom . However, he was still very small and was also the family pet that the children played with out of sheer fun and glory.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> I promised them their beloved dragon Zippy would be home soon. He was on a mission. I knew it would break their hearts if I was wrong, but they, and I, needed hope. A loyal dragon was worth it's weight in gold.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our soldiers were preparing for a battle with a neighboring country who wanted to conquer us, and take our land and entire Kingdom.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My mind was busy planning for the approaching war, and I checked out all our entrances and exits, how secure our castle walls were, and how many soldiers were staying home to fight the invaders from inside the castle walls. </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Looking high at the top of curtains draping from one spire, I thought I saw something that varied from the curtain's pattern. I summoned a ladder and though I was King, I climbed up it myself to investigate this oddity. As I drew closer to it, I held my breath....blinked my eyes, and prayed that what I saw was true.....that I had finally found Zippy ! </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sure enough it was, but he was ice cold and in a dormant state that dragons lapse into when they become too cold or are ill. Zippy allowed me to pick him up without protesting as he tried to awaken. I descended the ladder cautiously so as not to drop Zippy He had been lost for three weeks. He had lost a considerable amount of weight, and was very dehydrated.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I immediately placed him on the hearth of a blazing fireplace, and summoned food and water for him. I headed to my children's bedrooms to awaken them, and tell them that Zippy had indeed returned to us, and told them to go see him with their own eyes. They clamored out of bed and rushed off to the great hall where Zippy was thawing out.</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">While they fussed over him, I reflected how fortunate I was that Zippy was home safely, and my promise to the children had come true </span></div>
<div class="aolmail_gmail_default" style="background-color: white;">
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Zippy heard we were preparing for battle, he wanted to go with the troops to fight our enemies, but I told him that until he was older, his job was to protect all the children and keep them out of harm's way. Zippy was exuberant and gladly went back to being the family pet. In time, he knew that he would be the protector of the entire Kingdom.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">* * *</span></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">Sasha Thurmond</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;"> is a graduate of the Cornell University MFA program where she majored in printmaking. She lives on a farm in South Carolina with her horse and other animals, and sometimes finds time to make art or write poems or stories.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18.48px;">* * *</span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman';">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.48px;">illustration by Sasha Thurmond</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-2697308471236652252017-04-28T19:02:00.000-07:002017-04-28T19:14:52.091-07:00Two Poems by Jack Hopper<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><b>GREENWICH
TIME</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Gratefully the eyelids close<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">but not entirely, just in case<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">a dream drops by unbidden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">but welcome at any hour,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">like my now dead West Coast friend<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">who mid-beers used to call so late at night,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">forgetting the three-hour difference<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">so both coasts were for him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">“<i>11 o’clock and
all’s well</i>!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">I’d listen just a little<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">then laughter began<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">and my ears swung wide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">We’d go like that for an hour<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">from Wittgenstein to Bach,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Woody Allen to college profs we’d had<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">till eyeballs ebbed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">and ears creaked on their hinges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Then said goodnights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">and fifteen minutes later<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">said good night again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">And all was well,
was well. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"> <b>AS IF</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Clutching a pen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">as if it could spring light<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">and illuminate a line,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">I listen for the right<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">word, hoping I have <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">an ear to hear it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Outside, no sound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">No passing plow,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">no shovels shoveling snow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">Only the hill, waiting<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">to echo something<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">I’m expected to say, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">And batteries of crows <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">gathering as if to challenge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">questions I’ve yet to ask.</span><i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"> </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";">* * *</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><br /></span></i>
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , "serif";"><b>Jack Hopper </b>is a writer, chiefly of poetry. He has been an editor for the academic publisher AMS Press and a co-founder of Cayuga Lake Books. He has published three books of poetry, most recently, <i>Doubles: Poems 1995 - 2012.</i> He founded and edited, <i>Works, A Quarterly of Writing. </i>He lives in Ithaca, NY, where he has been the Poet Laureate for Tompkins County. You can learn more about Jack on his web site: <a href="http://www.johnhopperauthor.com/">www.johnhopperauthor.com</a></span><br />
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<br />Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-1299832577315477042017-04-14T18:23:00.000-07:002017-04-17T17:52:47.061-07:00Two Books From Djelloul Marbrook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lRNAH1RSLs0JphjtfJjJaSxqtTxbyKSBTdaXQXZpmNsrBdGx5k7bsVzbaNa1c9c-rVEnO61oHmf7ADp6_lpDWHFCvTzZyXSfNFIIBIRdQurPqbWqvq-hCQJm_u6fiEah4W8t2lo9zCc/s1600/DjellolM0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lRNAH1RSLs0JphjtfJjJaSxqtTxbyKSBTdaXQXZpmNsrBdGx5k7bsVzbaNa1c9c-rVEnO61oHmf7ADp6_lpDWHFCvTzZyXSfNFIIBIRdQurPqbWqvq-hCQJm_u6fiEah4W8t2lo9zCc/s320/DjellolM0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Rarely do I receive</b> two books from one author in the same mail, especially where one is a work of fiction and the other poetry. However, this was the case the last month, on the day before the big snowstorm, when I received copies of Djelloul Marbrook's latest releases; <i>A Warding Circle: New York Stories </i>and <i>Riding Thermals to Winter Grounds.</i> Both books were engaging and skillfully written. I was glad to be trapped inside with them while the snow melted. I thought of Marbrook, who lives in the Hudson River Valley and was probably hunkered down in the same storm over there.<br />
<br />
<i>A Warding Circle: New York Stories </i>contains a novella and several short stories. The works reveal the author's intimate knowledge of New York, both the city, with its devious art world, and the state, especially the Catskills. The book is dedicated to the well-known artist I. Rice Pereira, who was Marbrook's aunt.<br />
<br />
In the title story a young woman artist is struck by lightning during a storm in the mountains. She finds that her mind has been turned around and all the conventions that she has lived by now seem absurd. Based partly on the life of Marbrook's aunt, it describes a world where an artist's success is often determined by things other than their artistic merit.<br />
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<i>Riding Thermals to Winter Grounds </i>is Marbrook's fifth volume of poetry. There is a great deal of crossover here. While the stories in the fiction book are infused with poetry, these poems become rather narrative. This results in some very powerful lines, such as: "And then, near the end of my life, I become the man I wanted to be without the fuss and bother of giving a damn."<i> </i>Lines like this also seem to establish a leitmotif, if you will, for the book: the words of a man grown old enough to be comfortable with what he has become. And what Marbrook has become is an excellent writer. He has a background of many years writing for newspapers, which shows in the way Marbrook has mastered his craft. These are two of the most powerful books I have had the pleasure to read in some time.<br />
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SG<br />
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* * *<br />
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<br />Sidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02535593493525787043noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8841775084428573335.post-51367848978841538102017-03-29T17:37:00.000-07:002017-03-31T18:39:16.605-07:00Kinga Fabó: Three Poems<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
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<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong>The Transfiguration of the Word</strong></div>
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<strong><br /></strong></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
Open, the sea appeared asleep.<br />
Carrying its waves.<br />
A pulse under the muted winter scene.<br />
Throwing a smile on the beach.<br />
<br />
A nun-spot on the hot little body.<br />
A color on the broken glass.<br />
A gesture that was once closed.<br />
Lovely as the sea stood up.<br />
Throwing a smile on the beach.<br />
<br />
I wanted to remain an object.<br />
But, no, immortality is not mine.<br />
I am too strong to defend myself.<br />
Waiting for punishment.<br />
<br />
This and the same happened together.<br />
Silently, I sat in the glass.<br />
Only the spot wandered on the naked scene.<br />
Sounds <i>did not continue</i>.<br />
<br />
Only an omitted gesture.<br />
Happiness like an unmoving dancer.<br />
Beatings on naked, bony back.<br />
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And the sea will no longer be immortal.</div>
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<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<em>(Translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Martha Satz)</em></div>
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<em><br /></em></div>
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<em><br /></em></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<b>The Suskind Perfume</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">Now the maestro is rather uninspired</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">Baptiste procure one like in the olden times</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">follow her scent the woman</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">turns her head it’s foggy steal her</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">smear and wrap her in a sack</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">let her soak in grease for a time</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">to preserve her </span><span lang="EN-US">volatility</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">with her every drop</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">the grease sucks her in</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">she cajoles you to follow</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">the scent on the bodies</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">of every other women</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">do you recoil – on all?!</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">What happens if your yearning</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">drives you mad</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="EN-US">follow her scent</span></div>
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<span lang="HU">_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _</span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">(and you, fair scent will evaporate)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span lang="HU">(Translated by Gabor G. Gyukics)</span></div>
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<span lang="HU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Androgen</span></b></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">The bees are tough, hard to break virgins.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Virgins, but different from us humans.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">They have no ego. Hermaphrodites. Like the moon.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Butterflies. Phallic souls.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Soul phalluses in female bodies.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">The daughter, daughters of the moon</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">allured me but only until</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">I figured them out.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">As lovers.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">I got tired of my ego.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">And theirs too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">I’m bored of their services.</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">It wedges an obstacle between us. Neither</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">in nor out. In vain</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">I keep trying. I can break through</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">mine somehow.</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">But his? How?</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Selfish, inspiring</span></span><span lang="EN-US">;<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"> but for what?</span></span></div>
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<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Is he like this by nature,</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">subservient, dependent?</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">On me? That’s dispiriting.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">He doesn’t even suspect, that I depend on him.</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">I am the stronger, the unprotected.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Tough as a woman, austere.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">Delicate as a man, fragile, gentle.</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">What would I like? I want him to</span></span></div>
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<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">wrestle me gently to the floor,</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">penetrate me violently, savagely.</span></span></div>
<div class="aolmail_MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<span class="aolmail_gmail-oneclick-linkoneclick-available"><span lang="EN-US">So I can become empty and neutral.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Impersonal, primarily a woman.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">(Translated by Gabor G. Gyukics)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">* * *</span></div>
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<span lang="HU"></span></div>
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<span lang="HU"><b>Kinga Fabó </b>is a Hungarian poet. Her latest book, a bilingual Indonesian-English poetry collection<i>Racun/Poison</i> was published in 2015 in Jakarta, Indonesia.</span></div>
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<span lang="HU">Fabó’s poetry has been published in various international literary journals </span>including Osiris, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Screech Owl, The Original Van Gogh’s Ear, Numéro Cinq, Deep Water Literary Journal, Fixpoetry, <a href="http://lyrikline.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;" target="_blank">lyrikline.org</a> and elsewhere as well as in anthologies.</div>
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<span lang="HU">Two of her poems have been translated into English by George Szirtes and are forthcoming in </span>Modern Poetry in Translation Spring Issue introduced by Szirtes.</div>
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* * *</div>
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