A l’heure
Response piece by Aimee Fullman

Predestine
Inspiration piece by Heidi Mordhorst

when does

my eyes flashed before my life
back when I was
                 nothing                 nothing
but a twinkle in the cosm’s
blinking eye

my eyes flashed
                my lashes fluttered
back before they
                circling                circling
lit upon the sparkling darkling
sphere of earth
back when I was
                open                open

my eyes flashed before my life

A Body of Glass
By Aimee Fullman
Response

I stand here a body of glass, half empty but unfrozen
Ready to stand as the center of my own fractured atlas
Forever stained and fingerprinted in an uncanny every-changing equilibrium
Aware that just hanging in the “balance” could actually be a form of suicide
Trying to embrace my often mismatched puzzle with jagged edges
Pieced together I can only hope like some kind of Gaudi mosaic
That from a certain angle with the right light reveals a perfect poetry
As the sparkling reflections of all my tiny gritty grains
Dance together in an infinite Kaleidoscope

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I Will Not Be
By Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

The strong one. The sane one. The safe one. The whole.

The CEO. The CEO’s assistant. Wrangler, rodeo clown.  The Shit.

Chief of police, captain of the Starship Enterprise. Leader of the free world.

Beekeeper at the White House. Man who paves the street. Woman who schedules which street the man paves.

A rock-n-roll star. A country swinger. A bluegrass banjo picker.

Oscar nominee, behind-the-scenes star, voice on the other end of the radio.

Long-haul trucker. Creator of a fashion empire. Designer of a game-changing product.

A color expert, lightning bug. Juice-maker salesman/retail goddess. Sideline reporter. A meltdown.

One more person who denies global warming. A drowner of puppies. Face on the side of a milk carton. Maker of knockoff handbags. A stream-of-consciousness baker. Bag full of glass.

_________________________

Note:  All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it.  Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and writing permission fro the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

A Juicy Chicken
By Urmilla Khanna
Inspiration piece

Year 1955

When the Passenger train crunched its brakes and stopped at Deori, a small village in Chattisgarh, India, several passengers climbed into the crowded third-class compartment. The train was fairly empty when I boarded it in my home-town Raipur for my eight hour journey to Medical School in Nagpur. I was able to get a good corner seat and tuck my trunk securely under my bench. At every stop, however, crowds were piling in; men, women, children, umbrellas, bundles of possessions, surais filled with water and tiffin-carriers with aromatic curries.

Amidst the new-comers in Deori was a diminutive woman, her nine-yard sari tight around her waist and hips. I looked up from the magazine on my lap and we made a brief eye-contact. The woman had come with a basket balanced on her head. The basket, covered with thin muslin, had six or eight chickens with their feet tied so they would not escape. She made her way to my booth and stood before me, chickens and all. She folded her hands, lowered her shoulders slightly and begged that I allow her to slip beneath my bench. I gave her a friendly smile, got my sandals out of the way and made room for her. She pushed my trunk to the far side of the berth and disappeared under my seat rearranging my carry-on bag and other small items around her. Her chicken made an occasional kut-kut sound but were mostly silent. The train took off and all was well.

When the Ticket Collector made his rounds, I handed him my ticket. As he was punching it there was a soft kut-kut. TC’s ears perked up. He located the source of the kut-kut and searched under my seat. The woman emerged, smelling of stale sweat, coal and dust. Clutching her basket, she stood before the TC, her chin up to meet his gaze. She was short and he was tall. Her sari, that may have been maroon when new, had turned brown with impregnated dirt and grime, a sharp contrast to the TC’s starched white trousers and a blue and white cap with a stately logo IR, Indian Railway, embroidered on the rim.

The toothless woman gave a pleading gesture, lowering herself to touch the officer’s feet.

“It will never happen again,” she said in the vernacular.
“But you must buy a ticket every time you travel,” he scowled. “You know it is illegal to travel without a ticket.”

She said she understood but did not have money. She begged that she not be fined for an offence so meager. Or worse still, be thrown out of the carriage.

“It will never happen again, sir” she implored. “My market is in Bhandara, just a couple stops away. I’ll definitely get off in the next hour or two. By evening when I have sold my chickens I will have money.”

The officer stood still for a moment deciding his next move, his eyes resting on the basket.

The woman removed the muslin cover and the chickens came alive. “Take this one, Sir. Very healthy and very juicy,” she said lifting a bird from the basket and holding it up to him. The bird clucked and fluttered, shedding its downy feathers all around. The TC’s eyes widened and his lips curled into a faint smile. He took the bird, shoved it under his arm and walked away in silence.

Fears abated, the woman squatted squarely in the narrow floor-space between the opposing berths of my compartment, the remaining chicken safely tucked under the seat.

“Sala, haramzada” she mumbled loud enough for her audience to hear. “These rich rascals have no shame and no pity for the poor. What did he do for me? Nothing! The train was going to pass through Bhandara anyway.”

The train chugged along slowly, spewing smoke and particles of live charcoal. I gazed out the window. The farmland was dry and barren. Cows, exhausted from heat had settled in the minimal shade of an occasional tree that swept by. Poverty was visible everywhere.

In Bhandara when the woman got off the train, she did not exit via the front gate, another check-point for tickets. She could not afford to lose another chicken. She hurried across the tracks and through the railway yard, her bowed rickety legs stumbling over each other. In minutes she was gone, leaving me nothing but memories.

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Inspiration Piece

Brushed Blue
by Kathleen Jordan

Like a lint Roller the wind
Picks up leaves and earth and the tiny delicate last petals of summer
Rolling them into a painting of our lives at the moment
Temperatures rolling and waving from near freezing
Into the 60s late summer warmth and back
Down to the chill, the reminder
That we are in November
And the dark comes very early
The time has changed
Our clothes have changed
And jacket blanketed we face the wind and prepare for
Cooler times and the dark
Which we would like to avoid.

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Inspiration pieces:

Prayer
By Uma Gowrishankar

Life is a large poem, I live out day by day,
words strung as prayer beads. The warm seeds
from the ancient tree in the Himalayas press
my nerves, blood vessels; take secrets to my heart
like the underground river that carries in its cells
knowledge of the valleys and hills it does not get to see.
I kneel on my grass mat, roll a word in my finger,
let it fall between silence to search for my voice.

Just beneath existence
By Uma Gowrishankar

When words vaporize, speech freezes
and muscles atrophy in the hollow chest,
prayer is hard to extract. Then I step
into the chamber of pain, kneel down,
surrender like heap of clothes a washer man
piles to wring. In that dark stillness
I stoke the coal, it glows like an amber bead.
Soon vapour-like dawn breathes out
from the neck of a heaving volcano.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Inspiration Pieces:

Prayer
By Uma Gowrishankar

Life is a large poem, I live out day by day,
words strung as prayer beads. The warm seeds
from the ancient tree in the Himalayas press
my nerves, blood vessels; take secrets to my heart
like the underground river that carries in its cells
knowledge of the valleys and hills it does not get to see.
I kneel on my grass mat, roll a word in my finger,
let it fall between silence to search for my voice.

Just beneath existence
By Uma Gowrishankar

When words vaporize, speech freezes
and muscles atrophy in the hollow chest,
prayer is hard to extract. Then I step
into the chamber of pain, kneel down,
surrender like heap of clothes a washer man
piles to wring. In that dark stillness
I stoke the coal, it glows like an amber bead.
Soon vapour-like dawn breathes out
from the neck of a heaving volcano.

————————————–

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Photo: Fish Out of Water, Columbus, Ohio 2012, Rebecca Parker

INSPIRATION PIECE

Angler’s Meditation
By Linda M. Rhinehart Neas

The water, barely warmed by the rising sun,
moves in ripples and flows – over rocks
covered in rich green moss so thick
one could imagine a tiny universe existed
within the lush borders – an island in the sea

Like an actor waiting the call to stage
the trout sits beneath the surface
facing the current as it passes over
the rainbow scales that catch the light
announcing the treasure waiting below

The angler stands knee-high – Colossus
of the stream – patiently casting his line
tempting the fish with hand-tied delights
yet, content to simply “be” – here and now –
a man fishing by a moss covered universe

RESPONSE

A Traveler’s Meditation
By Rebecca Parker

Oh, the places I go to find home

My deepest thoughts an insistent companion
Conscious that my destination might come too quickly
On a path of inquiry towards a more open heart
As I release the fermenting turbulence du jour

The miles fly by while my mind finds its own plane
An almost complete separation from my eyes and hands
Even, as they judge carefully the distance and sense, reflecting
Scenic shifting light and shadow, all around; a soulful matter of life in my own time

Toujours en route, but my journey feels holy
A precious period of conscious distance from the world
Embracing contemplation and stillness through movement
A state of longing expressed through perpetual relocation

Each trip, another chance to experience the new sounds of silence
To allow an improvised symphonic accompaniment; I listen
For the rush of the wind, the tread of a heel, the splash of a fountain or the burble of a street
Even the bumps in the road give me hope for a coherent crescending coda

A song carried within and divided by three
A longing for understanding and a heart in pieces
Knowing love is not based on location
Nor distance measured in miles

A gypsy apart and alone, always perceived as somewhere else
Though connection to the road prevents total independence
While offering the complicated taste of freedom to ponder
The omnipresent tension between interconnectedness and self-determination

Fervently wishing for stability
Yet dreading its everyday inertia
Doubting if any one place or person will ever truly suit
But willing to pay the tolls of time to anticipate and continually discover

The irony of having to plan to be able to live in and for the moments
To feel a radiance burst forth from the eclipsed parts of me that must live in hibernation
Until awakened by a specific person, place, presence, memory, experience that
Illuminates as I renegotiate each separate intertwined relation with the other

An exploration of fusion in compromise with integrity and fullness of self
An exchange of sacred story bartered for perspective and sustenance
In the search for balance between freedom and security
The right kind of adventurous curiosity or just another type of avarice?

It is haunting, this dichotomy of achievement through destined flight
This is my Everest, as I look down on the beauty of setting a course
Off the grid to tempt lost bearings; this is my high
Knowing the unexplored, always circles back to the familiar

Arrival to the infinite meditative labyrinth
Spiraling ever higher back to the source
Oh the places I go, to find home
Within me and always somewhere else

Take this all down to the last bite.
Regurgitate everything held in mind.
Throat on fire, hopeless surprise.
Cope?
What’s the point if it’s all a lie.

Raising temperature,
Past the pressure,
Taking it to the last stop of revenge or climatic soul stalking, residential.

Cough, sewer spit wars.
Tongue and run, can’t get enough of those nights of course.

Oil it up and burn it out.
Don’t want to be in this body now.
If this could be different,
I’d set you on fire with spirits.

Too much poison, sounding like a rabid cat.
Squirming and screaming,
Get it out!
You can’t!

So what’s the music or what’s the anthem of this confinement count?
Chemical doses cost us to lose out.

Nostalgic cannibalistic integrity.
Wish you knew what you really mean.

Essential lifestyle with what they see.
Calming expressions,
My legs feel weak.
I wish I stopped killing myself last week.

Response Piece, Grounded by Rebecca Parker