The Collector
Nick Winkworth
Inspiration piece

Sketchy
Anthony Valade
Response

Sure man, I’ll let you taste a sip of disaster.
But hell no, it’s just my opinion you’re after.
I could twist the curves once caught up and then magnify a slot out –
Just right before I’d say “If it’s that damaged, give it up now.”

Hope is just a slogan made to keep from being morbid.
Even calls and shots taken in account could keep away yesterday’s misfortune.

Confident that I’m right;
I want treasure –
“Give a half-shirt.”

Keep lending all that’s mine;
It’s still a laugh –
“That’s all you have? Sure.”

Tend to keep in mind;
“I’m not a villain, just a master.”
“But a master with no plan keeps selling everything for scrap dirt.”

Can’t drink enough of what your after,
Want to sing along but I’ll learn the practice when I’m louder,
You could be me with a for sale sign around your neck.
I’ll look the other way if our eyes ever met.

Keep applying pressure –
Cause these wounds keep getting better –
Cause I keep a case ash urns in the room beside the cellar –
Just a bit more and I’ll be there –
And no one will ever wear –
This last suit, I’ll keep it because I’m the only one that cared.

Don’t let the town go on
I’m just a piece
“Let’s split it.”
“I’m me.”
“You’re cheap.”
“You see these razors sticking out of my cheeks.”

_________________________

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Promised Land
Nick Winkworth
Response

From Nowhere (Comfort Zone)
Anthony Valade
Inspiration piece

Silence at its fullest,
Keep it quiet, drag us through it.

Wish I was calm as well as crooked,
So far it’s fingertips out the window all the way to the park.

Excuse me, can I take a photo?
Excuse my right to tear up hearts.
Location’s nothing but a “who knows when.”
When the gun fires into the yard.

Got a reason to killing, standing right behind your ass.
This pistol is loaded with a handful of glass.

From Nowhere – Call me weird.
From Nowhere – Call me weird.

They say you’re going to regret it.
Sandbox diggers in a promise land.

There’s just one thing to do though,
Drink the water – eat a hole right through your hand.

_________________________

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.

Nick Winkworth
Response

Hospice
Donna Kendall
Inspiration Piece

When she’s rocking in a chair of silence,
swaying between now and then,
her world may not be silent
as she drifts into the distant past-
To listen.

Her senses focused inward
on voices near and far –
those melodies from long ago: a child’s laughter, a lover’s song,
the winds that moved her life along- and blew the echoes
Into the stillness.

The rush of youth just slipped away
leaving wordless images that make her smile
and so much empty time to fill –
to fill with thoughts, and thoughts, and thoughts
While waiting.

No words can set today apart when today comes once again,
yet ticking moments in these precious weeks
are gifts that some receive
to have that time to listen, remember, and reflect –
In peace.

Beneath the Balcony
Nick Winkworth
Inspiration Piece

Lingering Light
Cynthia Grady
Response

I remember the sun-baked warmth of an afternoon,
where no birdsong could be heard,
not a winged-creature buzzed,
I stood becalmed, relaxed, redeemed
Inside a honeyed silence.

Sunlight, like snowfall and love, transforms everything it touches.
I want the steadiness of the sun,
to look long enough to recognize everyone I meet.
I want the radiance of the sun,
to shine brightly enough to love everyone I know.

I want the sun’s flaming reach, the sun’s restorative ways.
I want to wrap a shawl of lacy shadows
around the shoulders of any stony façade.
I want the love that lingering light leaves with us.
Poets, have your moons– I want the sun.

The Poetry of Baking
Nick Winkworth
Response

In This Kitchen
Cynthia Grady
Inspiration Piece

The kitchen is where
my ambitions stir. Hopes
rise like bread dough
atop the fridge
in cornered warmth
(punch it down,
it doubles in size).
Tomatoes on the sill
ripen into dreams.
In the morning’s glow,
echoes of my father’s voice
swirl like flour dust.
His ghost rests on the stool
sifting, sifting, sifting,
the morning light shifting.
Here in this kitchen,
soups never lack spice.
Neither bakers nor poets go mad.
Here, poems feed the world.

The Speed of Love
Nick Winkworth
Response

The Vaguery of Us
Lisa Nielsen
Inspiration Piece

There is constant motion
There is the speed at which you think you know me
There are sinkholes
That turn into minefields
Then there’s us

Cornered in a café
A conversation ambling
And dissipating
Into the piles of china and silverware
And the squish of restless shoes
Waiting

Fingers form steeples
Mouthing a whisper

If these lips could talk
They’d want an answer

The Prospect of News
Nick Winkworth
Inspiration Piece

The Jagged Key
Lisa Nielsen
Response

The jagged key’s anxious dance

I want a moratorium declared
on the loitering of information
and the morgue of offerings
that mock my life.

Have I become so desperate
that I’ll consider
jumping out of planes (despite my fear of gravity),
cruises (despite my fear of the ocean) and
sushi (despite my fear of mercury poisoning)?

Yet, a wish is made that I will open
the portal into my own private universe
and see the bidding
as more than a handful of paper.

Remains
Nick Winkworth
Response

The Box
Hildie S Block
Inspiration Piece

I’m opening the box.

I’m breaking the law.  You aren’t allowed to do this after someone dies.  Not right after. Not race from the hospital to the bank right after.  Not grab the only child by the wrist from the death-bed-side to the bank, let’s go, right after.

I’m opening the box.  I wonder why we didn’t do this last week.

But last week I didn’t have the key.  The executor had the key.  I didn’t get the key until it was too late.  For it to be legal.

The box is nearly empty.

He says, “That’s all there is” and cries.  The executor seems to want there to be more for me.  I stare at him and wonder why this is happening, why him, why now, why this day.  His visage reflects mine, same age, same exhausted grief lines. I wondered for a minute what it was like to work in an office side-by-side someone as they were dying like he had with my mother.  Day after day.  Then to see it happen.  Actually.

I say, “That’s nothing.  That’s paper.  Paper.  Money, more paper, more money on paper.”  I don’t even know what it means.  Some of it looks like withdrawal slips.

But suddenly I resent the idea that my mother could be boiled down, reduced to something that could fit in a safety deposit box.  That she could be reduced to a line on a bank statement.

“This doesn’t matter,” I say and it’s true.  In the big picture, this isn’t matter, this doesn’t matter.  I search his face for an answer but it is not there, just a reflection of pain that is probably on my face.  For a second, I want him to embrace me, but that second passes.  I’ll be fine back home, with the cat.

“It wasn’t worth it,” I say and he takes it the wrong way.

He looks at me horrified, as if I am the monster.  He scoops up the remainder of the insides of the box, and deposits it into my lap.

“Put it away,” he snaps, “somewhere out of sight.  I’m opening the door.”

I shove, push, suffocate, poke — the money and the slips — into my bag.  I compact them down as deep as I can.  And cover them up.  Magnetic buttons close.  The deal is done.  Whatever sin I’ve committed by opening this box without the grace of the law, it is sealed.  Bile rises in my throat.  I swallow hard.  And cough.

The door is open.  The executor hands the box to the bank attendant, who takes the box and slips it back, wordlessly into its slot in the vault.  The glass door to the vault closes with a click.  The vault door slides shut, the gears and wheels are spun. All manner of lock engages.   A lever is depressed.

The executor runs the back of hand across his eyes and then puts that hand on my shoulder.  “That’s it then.”  I nod.  “You okay?”  I nod, the same untruthful stop sign of a nod.

Weeks later, I return with the lawyer and the executor to open the box, but it is empty now.  The lawyer shakes his head.  “There are things I’ll never understand,” he says.  And it is true.

I put a small urn into the box. And this is also true.  She did fit into the box.  And something else, too.  I’ve added to her ashes, ashes from the things I burnt.  Things that will always stay in the box.

Sometimes fire purifies.

Sometimes secrets are bonds.

I press the key into the palm of the executor.  He looks at me, “But we are done.”  His hand closes on mine.  Firmly.

I stare at him, into his face, his eyes.  “She wanted it this way, you know, just this way,” he said.  “She wanted me to rush you over there.  She whispered it to me, and gave me the key.”

I stared at him, tried to bore holes into his skull, his brain, his soul.  “She wanted this?  Then she didn’t really know . . . “ I trailed off and froze in thought.

“What?” he demanded.  “What do you think she didn’t know?”  What didn’t she know?  Maybe she didn’t know the law.  Maybe she didn’t know how I felt about laws, rules, being good.  But these seemed so unlikely.

Moment of clarity and I see.  The tangle.  The web.  She had a plan; this was no accident. “Take the key,” Again, I push the flatness of the safety deposit box key into his palm and then pull my hand back.

“But we are done,” he repeats himself, as if the second time I will listen.

I shook my head.  “You have no idea.”  And this, too, is true.

My Friend Across The Street
Nick Winkworth
Response

Greg Adkins
Inspiration Piece

It was 11:45 when the sky burned. Well, I should clarify.. 11:45pm. But
you couldn’t tell at that moment. It might have been 11:45 am for all we
knew. The only thing we knew for real was the the sky was on fire and we
had no time. The men were running and telling us we had to get out, we
couldn’t take anything, we just had to go. I asked them if I could take
Dalmy, but the men said no. They said they’d take care of Dalmy, so I
turned and ran with my family. Mom was scared, Dad was scared, Jennifer
-my stepsister- was scared too. She kept saying something about how she
didn’t want to leave her boyfriend, but he was gone already and why did
he join the army all of a sudden. It was very confusing.

I remember we ran to the shelter and had to stay in there for a long
time. Men would come down occasionally and tell us that we all had to
learn to live here for a while. It wasn’t going to be easy, but we could
do it. We had to cooperate and make sure we all shared. It was ok though
because I liked to share. I shared my toys with that boy from the other
side of the street all the time. I wish he was here too. Someone said
something about them not getting out in time. I don’t know what means.

So the nice men keep coming down and telling us all something about
dispersal rates and that we’re safe in this big room and we’ll be ok as
long as we keep working together. Dad keeps crying and Mom keeps crying
and Jennifer keeps crying. Lots of people cry. I’m sad too, but I don’t
want to cry because people say my smile helps them. So I’ll just keep
smiling and helping people smile too. I like to smile.

I guess I should go now. Some more men just came down and said something
about a crack in a wall somewhere and we weren’t safe anymore. We have
to go. I hope I find my friend from across the street.