Matthew Levine
Deserted Pier
Inspiration piece

Bridge Back
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

*********************************************************************************

Grass
By Carl Sandburg

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work —
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

*********************************************************************************

“Oh Yank, you are very, very, good,” exclaimed the guide. Jimmy O’Hara had just solemnly declared that there was no way on God’s green earth the American assault troops had taken the bunker on the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach that Jimmy and his wife, Anne, and their old friends Bob and Gail Brady, were standing in.

It was a lovely June morning in Normandy on D-Day plus 67 years. Jimmy was gazing out the forward firing slot of the bunker at the sea. The low tide had just turned and was about where it was on D-Day. The beach ran for 200 yards of utterly flat, hard-packed sand from the water’s edge to the bunker. The MG42 that had stood here fired 1,200 rounds per minute. It couldn’t miss.

Jimmy turned and looked out the bunker’s enfilading firing slot. This was worse. The MG42 had swept down the entire width of the beach. There was no cover. In about an hour, 2,000 young American soldiers had been killed on this 500-yard section of Omaha Beach.

“I have to tell you,” the guide was saying to the others, “Your man, the Marine here, knows his stuff. I’ve been doing this tour for eleven years and nobody has envisioned the actual course of action here as he has.”

“Well, it is a really nice beach,” Bob Brady was saying to the guide. “I live on a nice beach quite a lot like it in La Jolla, California. I have a hard time imagining men killing each other on it.”

Jimmy had met Bob Brady on that beach close to half a century back. Wind & Sea beach was the primo surfing spot in San Diego. Jimmy was a salty, 26-year-old recon Marine on leave. Bob was a 21-year-old yeoman just discharged from the Navy after a four-year hitch.

Now Bob owned vast swaths of San Diego real estate. He was a big man – he looked like an old pro football lineman. He wore his snow-white hair shoulder-length, sported a Wyatt Earp handlebar mustache, raced Ducatis in Italy every spring, and did exactly what his wife, Gail, told him to do.

Jimmy thought about the difference just five years had made in their memories. D-Day was something out of a history book for the Bradys and for Anne.

Sixty-seven years back, Jimmy had listened to the live D-Day reports on the radio as they warbled in, rife with the familiar static and the washy underlay that came when words were squeezed out of cables that lay under the sea.

Then he had gone with his Mom and Dad to the Cathedral to pray. It was jammed. They recited the Rosary. As Jimmy chanted the ancient, rhythmic, soothing words, he closed his eyes and envisioned their prayers swooshing away from the Cathedral like barrage rockets up and over the Atlantic and down on the rotten Germans at the Landing Beaches.

The Brady’s and Anne were indulging Jimmy in this expensive full day custom tour with expert guidance supplied by a former English, SAS Paratrooper. For them, this could well have been a tour of any famous battlefield…Agincourt….Waterloo.

For Jimmy, D-Day was a shimmering day in his memory and in the history of man. Jimmy knew he couldn’t change the past. He accepted that he would never be old enough to volunteer to fight in WWII. Even so, he was forever deeply connected to the action, to the men and women who did the fighting and the dying.

Frank, his Unitarian minister, had told Jimmy that there were only two prayers: “Please” and “Thank You.”

Coming to this beach and standing in the midst of the battle, as he envisioned it, was Jimmy’s “Thank You” prayer for the men who had died to keep him safe when he was a child. The Nazi’s had murdered more than a million children. They would have murdered many more if they hadn’t been stopped.

This is a very beautiful beach, he thought. Even these bunkers and all the chunks of debris the authorities had decided to leave in situ were definitely second fiddle to the long, flat, glistening surge of the incoming tide just a few inches deep flowing over the killing ground – as if it were powered by a continuous, steady, puff-cheek, exhale along the ancient, pure, utterly flat, hard-packed sand.

“I am the grass.
Let me work.”

They traipsed along in silence back down the beach to the exit for the road and their van. They passed a jumble of sundered concrete and re-bar. Without thinking, Jimmy said, “This was definitely a big time secondary – really humongous.”

The guide did a little jig. “You are definitely the real deal, Yank,” he shouted. “No one knows this stuff unless they were here or went to school on it like me.

“The fact is two companies of Rangers were landed over here by mistake. The tide pushed them off course. As it turned out, they had landed on a relatively soft spot. They worked their way around to the rear of that bunker we were just standing in and took it out.

“Then they started cleaning out the other interlocking bunkers in the Dog Green sector. They tossed a satchel charge into a bunker right over there. Well, it turned out to be an ammo locker for the entire area and it blew up. The explosion killed 17 of the Rangers and God knows how many Germans. It marked the end of organized resistance on the beach.”

Jimmy kept silent. This wasn’t a place for talking. They climbed up the exit steps to the road. They turned and looked back down at the beach. It was hard to imagine that the greatest armada in history had landed here. That thousands of soldiers and French civilians had been killed and maimed here.

In thirty years or so, Omaha Beach would be like Agincourt or Waterloo or Verdun. Even when the old soldiers all died out, D-Day would endure in living memory until the last child of that time who remembered that day died. Thirty years would do it.

Jimmy looked back out over the beach at the glistening incoming Channel. He recalled a D-Day photo of a very young American soldier sheltering behind a star-shaped “Hedgehog” obstacle about twenty yards from the shore. Bodies were bobbing all around him. He looked terrified.

“Thank You,” Jimmy said out loud. “Thank You to you and all your comrades on behalf of myself as a child and as a man and on behalf of all the children and all the people you helped save from being murdered.”

Jimmy felt a surge of happiness. He had got his Thank You out. He was grateful he had the time and the money to travel to Normandy. He wondered if he might be the last such D-Day child to come to Omaha Beach.

They drove on to the American Cemetery overlooking the beaches. The guide had all the facts. 9,387 young men interred here – their average age, 22. The cemetery was dedicated to the youth of the world.

They meandered through the plots. Then Jimmy and Bob Brady and the guide walked on out to the plots closest to the cliff overlooking the beaches. The women found a bench and settled down on it. It was clear they felt they had seen enough.

Bob Brady said, “It is just so sad. I never expected this. It is too sad for me to stand. I feel bowled over with an unbearable grief. I feel I am doing wrong standing here.” He turned to the guide. “Do you know what I am talking about?”

“I do know what you’re talking about,” the guide said. “I expected that the veterans of D-Day and their family members would be emotional and almost all of them are, but the grief hangs heavy here. Most of the people I guide through the cemetery don’t want to stay long.

“It is hard on me too. Maybe the beauty of this place amps up the sorrow… the cliffs, the sea below, the greenery, 150 acres of geometric white grave markers. All I know is that almost all my clients get jumped by it.“

The three of them stood there for a few minutes in silence looking out over the white grave markers – and the sea.

On the way back to the hotel, everyone kept silent. It wasn’t an unfriendly silence. It was soothing. The women went up to their rooms. Jimmy and Bob conferred and tipped the Guide exactly 20 per cent. The guide said he was grateful. “I won’t soon forget you, Yank,” he said.

“Nor I, you,” Jimmy said.

After the guide left, Jimmy and Bob had a drink in the bar. “I’m still bummed out,” Bob said, “and I don’t know why. I mean we won the war. We stopped the Nazis. Why am I so sad?”

“Well,” Jimmy said, “We just visited a cemetery with 9,387 young men in it. I don’t think we are supposed to be happy.”

The guide had urged them to be sure they visited a nearby ancient bridge built by the Romans in 30 BC, so they left the wives napping in the rooms and drove on out about 12 kilometers till they saw the bridge just off the road about a half mile back.

It was a beautiful arch. Jimmy whipped out his iPhone and took a picture of Bob Brady pointing the way to the arched bridge in the middle distance.

The river had changed course over 2,000 years. The bridge now spanned the ravine the river had left. A remnant stream tinkled at the bottom of the ravine. There was no one else in sight.

Jimmy and Bob clambered up the old riverbank. There was a sign saying they should stay off – but the 2,000-year-old bridge beckoned and they strode across.

“You know, Jimmy,” Bob Brady said, “the men who built this beautiful bridge are long gone – but when I look at this bridge I don’t feel sad.”

“Well,” Jimmy said, “I don’t think we are supposed to be sad.”

Matthew Levine
Only Coffee
Response

The Genesis of My Astonishing Rise to Fame & Fortune
By Robert Haydon Jones
Inspiration piece

First, because I know you will wonder, I have it on good authority that according to the ancient “Rules & Traditions,” my telling you all this is totally OK. So, please, don’t be spooked. I assure you — reading this does not put you in any sort of jeopardy.

The fact is you reading this story (and thinking it is terrific) is exactly what is supposed to happen!

One Saturday in October, I went to an Estate Tag Sale at a big, old mansion that had been owned by a rich, old recluse no one had seen for forty years.  Well, the house was shabby, but the contents were a wonder.  Before it was over, this Tag Sale had morphed into perhaps the most famous auction ever held in these here parts.

According to the local paper, there were paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Renoir, Monet, Remington, Wyeth, Sarka, Homer, Sargent, Duffy, Matisse, Wyeth, Pinot and many others. There were 32 rooms of exquisite antiques.  (The Suits of Armor alone fetched more than $3,000,000.) The library housed one of the best private collections in the world.

I attended out of curiosity – the price tags were way out of my league. As it turned out, there were hordes of gawkers like me there – and the highly efficient folks running the sale for the estate had set up tables and bins with lower-priced items for us.

In the library was a bin full of old, leather-bound books all priced at $7. I combed through it and found a rare first edition published in 1893.

The title was in gilt: Hymns of Zarathustra (Avestan).  I’m a Rumi fan – and I’ve long had an interest in Zoroastrianism. So, I was thrilled.

Frankly, I was sure the appraisers had made a mistake. Even though this sacred book, bound in rich, Morocco leather, was written in a dead language that no one living could speak — and very few could read — it was a rare, beautiful, treasure. I paid the $7 and hurried out.

To get out, you had to exit the main house into the attached garage.

Three horse carriages, two stagecoaches and five hand-built prototype luxury cars had been housed there. Each car had its own pit and lift. The word was the cars and coaches had been acquired by celebrities and museums.

Here too the sale managers had several tables and bins filled with a jumble of items priced for the hoi polloi. There was nothing for me there – but as I neared the exit, I paused at the last table. On it were scores of dingy lanterns and kerosene lamps. I had to wonder: In a mansion chock full of treasures, why all the crummy lamps?

An old, tall, thin, black man in a snazzy red vest and a Yankee cap was sitting there with a cash box. He must have read my face.  “You’re too darn late,” he said gravely. “We had maybe twenty museums in here an hour ago. It was a real mob scene.

“A lady from a museum told me it was the most extraordinary private collection of antique illumination objects she had ever seen. We had the interlocking, windproof, lanterns from Napoleon’s coach go for $1.6 mil. Teddy Roosevelt’s portable chandelier fetched $600,000.

“This stuff here was for the stable hands and gardeners I guess. T’aint pretty but it did the job.  Lit up the darkness. You want one?

“Take your pick for $7.”

Well, I didn’t really want one. All that was left were old, ugly, wick lamps and lanterns. But for some reason I suddenly felt this was a bargain I couldn’t resist. I took the old lamp that was closest to me and counted out seven dollars in singles.

“Much obliged,” chirped the old guy. ”Here’s a bag for your lamp and that book you got. You know, these lamps shine up real good. Give it a rub when you get home – you’ll see what I mean. Hey, is that the Hymns of Zarathustra written in Avestan you got there? That’s one of my all time favorites!”

When I got home I rummaged around in my garage for something to polish the lamp with but all I could find was an ancient can of Brasso, which I believe was probably a relic from my time in the Marines decades back.

I gave the lamp a few swipes to no avail and so I left it in the garage.

Recently, Alice, my wife, had issued a “not one more piece of junk” fatwa that I had learned the hard way to take very seriously.

I went into my den and was examining the old book when the back doorbell rang.  My wife was out at the gym so I went to the door and opened up.

An enormous bald man who looked like the epitome of a circus strong man was standing there.  He was dressed in a 3-piece Tom Wolfe white suit. He was holding the lamp I had left in the garage.

“Good Afternoon, sir,” he said.  “My name is Marid. I am the Jinn of the lamp at your service. May I come in?”

*******************************************************************

Well, like you, right now, my first reaction was to smile. I suddenly realized that I was the subject of some sort of slow developing prank. I had a hunch that the old black man in the red vest who had sold me the lamp was behind it somehow.

The question was: “Why?” It seemed some folks were expanding a lot of effort on a prank that had nowhere to go.

“Sure,” I said. “Come right in Mr. Marid.  Would you care for some coffee? I’ve got plenty left from breakfast.”

“Oh, blessings on you, Mr. Jones,” he exclaimed, as we stepped into the kitchen. “I yearn for the taste of coffee – it has been such a long time since I quaffed a good cup of Joe.” His faintly accented voice was deep in a pleasant, manly sort of way.

He carried the lamp held out in front of him pressed between the palms of his huge outstretched hands. I decided that the occasion called for a fresh pot – so I ground the beans, boiled the water up and poured it on through.

He sat in the breakfast nook as I worked. It’s a pleasant, sun-dappled spot that looks directly out at the Aspetuck River that flows through my land about fifty yards away.  He talked non-stop as the coffee brewed:

I was a kind man. My house was a wonderful, blessed, refuge.

My wife was unusually beautiful (he gestured to a recent photo of her on the wall.); I should not be frightened; why wasn’t I frightened?

There was no reason for me to hurry. The three wishes thing did not apply to him. The Number of wishes per lucky visitor was more than 1 and less than 77.  He was forbidden to say the exact Number.

I asked him if he knew the man in the red vest back at the tag sale and he said yes, of course, he knew him. He had known him for a very long time.

I told him I had surmised that was the case. I poured the coffee out into mugs and we clinked them together and had some sips. It was great coffee. He told me it was great coffee.

His mug was empty. I poured more coffee into his mug and he smiled at me (he had quite a few gold teeth) and said, “Blessed are the brewers of Joe.” For some silly reason, I said, “Amen.”

It was only coffee – and I had made it – but now I was feeling totally stoned. I tried to speak but my words were not coming out of my mouth as sound but rather very slowly tumbling out of my mouth on to the table letter by letter like pieces of a Scrabble game.

He smiled indulgently at me – then he gathered the pile of letters together and shuffled through them. He was humming Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in E,

When he lifted his huge hands – there was what I had been trying to say all spelled out: I FEEL TOTALLY STONED. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

There was a strong scent of cinnamon in the air.

He told me not to worry. He said, “Don’t forget, technically, you are my Master – I am here to serve you.”  He suggested I have some more coffee, which I did. It was really great coffee.

Then he told me he liked being with me. He liked me and my house and the river.  He told me to relax and he would tell me more. So, I closed my eyes and he told me a lot. But I wasn’t hearing words; I was hearing music of heart-rending beauty  — like I was listening with super headphones to 10,000 violins played by gypsies.

I think he told me everything.

Jinns were created right along with men and angels. Men were made from clay – Jinns from smokeless fire. Men and Jinns had occupied caves together for thousands of years.

When men left the caves, they forgot about Jinns.  He told me there were hundreds of varieties of Jinns. Some good, some bad. Like angels. Like man.

He told me that once every ten years all the Jinns of the world gather for 49 days in a huge cave. He told me that at the end of the 49th day, every Jinn had to “Return to Station.”

His current Station was the lamp. Why? He didn’t know why.

Finally, he told me I did have wishes coming. How many? He was forbidden to tell me the exact Number. “More than one, less than 77.”

“I love what I do,” he said. ” When a human being like you can ask for anything, ANYTHING, and have your wish granted – it’s like a lightening bolt of ecstasy – like you being directly connected to God through your wish – like you were directly connected to your mother with the umbilical cord.  I am the cord.”

The wonderful music suddenly stopped. “I know what I want,” I said. “But I am embarrassed to say it.” I was making sounds again – but my voice sounded like a little kid’s.

“No worries”, he said. “But you have to say the words. Then I’ll make the standard, official, Pronouncement.  Afterward, I’ll hang out in your garage until you or someone else rubs the lamp.”

“OK, Mr. Marid,” I said. “Get ready. Here come the words.”

*******************************************************************

Later, when Alice came home, I didn’t hesitate. I took her to the garage and showed her the lamp and told her what had happened.

She heard me out and we went back into the kitchen.

She rinsed out the mugs and put them in the dishwasher. I was surprised to see that Mr. Marid and I had consumed the entire pot of coffee.

Alice was smiling. “So, what’s going to happen? Am I going to wake up tomorrow forty years younger?”

“No,” I said. “I like you just as you are. So does Mr. Marid.

“This is all about yearning. As you know, I’ve wanted to be a writer all my life but I’ve never had success. My only published story was on that website run by a pudgy young man, who paid me $9.48 on Pay Pal and then proceeded to pick my other submissions to pieces.

“So, I told Mr. Marid that I wished that I could write a story that every reader would treasure in a deep sort of way like a pleasant memory from long ago.

“I told him I wished that the story would have so much power that 77 Movie producers would yearn to do a film based on it.

“And 77 TV producers would want to do a series based on my story.

“And the Movie would win an Oscar. And the TV Series an Emmy.”

“Well, what did Mr. Marid have to say about your wish?” Alice asked.

I told my wife I could give her an exact quote of Mr. Marid’s response:

 “Your wish is my command!”

Bonnie Lebesch

Transparent   

I was married once, to Maxine, she died of cancer seven years ago, after just five years of marriage.   After enduring the empty days following as best I could, I found a dog that seemed happy to see me.  I called her Max, which gave me a good excuse to keep talking to my wife. She’s furry and has a wet nose and climbs onto the bed every night and does her best to take over before dawn.  She’s a lovely mutt, basset hound ears on a retriever body.  Max’s favorite spot is a dog bed by the couch in the living room where we sat and watched TV.   She loves honey mustard on her dry food.  She’s a little overfed and I have a bad habit of feeding her from the table. Around the time I first saw the plant, Max stopped eating much of her dinner. 

I’m a botanist, and in my fifties and all the literature says my most creative years are in my wake.  The younger minds at the lab seem to be making all the breakthroughs. The people I work with are researchers, witch doctors, bureaucrats, all of us on a long term federal grant to find novel solutions to implacable ailments.  We specifically seek cures in things of the earth and our field people spend a lot of time in jungles and other wild areas, sending back curiosities. We’ve had bugs, lizards, and other creepy things that were new to us, but mostly we get plants.  A few show promise but of those most don’t show us any miracle.  Of the plants, the ones that don’t work but that I find intriguing I bring home.  Most die, because my Minnesota home is so far from the tropics, where virtually all of our subjects are found.  The plants I don’t take a shine to are destroyed, fed to an incinerator, for the plants we work on are sometimes dangerous in themselves.

 The plant?  I nicknamed it ‘Transparentus Amazonus’ and I know it’s silly.  It was discovered, like so many of our subjects, in a dank Amazonian rain forest. It was run through the usual battery of tests by the bright young minds but failed to impress them.  It was on a shelf to be destroyed when I first saw it.  I took it home, curious to determine why its leaves were transparent. 

 I never did unlock the transparency clue but learned Transparentus was a magnificent organism. The leaves are transparent when they bloom, and remain that way until the plant matures, a three month wait, and then the leaves take on the look of tanned leather.  The leaves secrete a sap that tastes awful – don’t ask – and the sap dries up at maturity. The bright young minds tested the sap but – as I said – – it failed to interest them.  If I were to spend the rest of my life on this plant, and I could, I’m sure I’d find the transparency was a defense mechanism; that’s how these things usually play out. 

 I sat the plant on a window ledge in my bathroom, the dampest spot in the house, most similar to its Amazonian roots.   At night, with my neighbor’s back porch light on, the beams hitting the plant cast light in a faint, milky shadow.  It had a sickly sweet reek, a hint of organic rot, so it wasn’t going to make it as an air freshener.  But it was amazing to look at and I didn’t mind its stink. 

 Max sniffed it the first day, as she did all the plants I brought home, then turned away, not unusual.  She wouldn’t come into the bathroom when I called her, because the plant was there.  At first I suspected the smell drove her off until I thought of what dogs like to roll in. 

Did I mention its growth rate?  I had to repot it four times in four weeks. No wonder the Amazon is full of plant life.

How did I discover its curative powers?   I’m sure you’ve guessed, it was Max.  She was eating less and less, left more of her food to dry up in the dish. From being portly, one evening I picked her up and felt her ribs for the first time.  Then it became plain to see that she was starving, and I guess I’d been denying there was a problem.  I got on the phone and I took her to the vet.  I held her protectively on the examining table, feeling her heart thump – Max definitely had lab coat syndrome.  The vet gingerly got her mouth open, then shone her light in.  “Hmmm…” she mumbled thoughtfully.  “I’d like to give her an X-ray.”

What do you say?  “Sure.”  That initiated a two hour wait, and after walking Max around a small park like setting turned into a minefield of dog turds, I was paged to the examining room.  The vet showed me x-rays that could have been images from a T-Rex.  “There’s a tumor.”  She touched a spot.  “In her stomach.  I could operate,” she began, “but we don’t know if she’ll even wake up from anesthesia.”  There was concern in her voice, if not trepidation – would it just be hard on Max or did she doubt her own surgical skill, I didn’t ask. 

Max was exhausted so I took her home.  “Max, I didn’t know.  And I’m not sure what to do.  Maybe I can call another vet, get another opinion.”  I cried much of the way, Max licking my hand. 

The next morning the plant had tipped over on the shelf from its own weight and I had to set it on the floor. 

I watched Max that week more closely, looking for signs of weakness, signs of deterioration.  When the day came that she couldn’t climb the steps to the bedroom, that she couldn’t at least drink milk – her favorite –  that point where her life was too miserable to continue, I would have to put her down. 

On the fourth day, Max jumped up the steps two-at-a-time, energy she hadn’t had for years.  She wolfed down a full plate of food and showed no sign of losing it; she ate everything put before her and I had to tap her nose when she made a play for some cake I’d set on the coffee table.  On the sixth day I weighed her inexpertly and she’d gained three pounds.  And there was no ignoring the smile of a healthy, happy animal.

That was Saturday.  I watched her Sunday, wondering how she’d turned the corner, and twice I saw her approach Transparentus and lick its sappy leaves.   Each time Max licked it, she licked it clean, but came back for more.  She licked the leaves at least four times that day, I know, I set up a video monitor. 

I remember thinking, perhaps my best work is not behind me.  This was as valid a path of discovery as exists.  I had found a cure for stomach cancer, in dogs.  Besides my personal joy at Max’s health, I started getting ambitious. 

I tried an experiment of my own: I took a leaf and crushed it and collected roughly twice the sap I guessed Max had licked.  I estimated how much sap represented four doses a day, and sprinkled it on her dinner.  I didn’t have toxicity data, though I knew she could handle small doses.  I just prayed more of it would be even better.  Scientists do more praying than you’d be comfortable seeing.

She seemed to grow younger; she had more energy and barked and chased squirrels. How long had she been sick, I couldn’t help wondering.  A few days later I took her back for a checkup and the vet was amazed to find the tumor in complete remission.  “I’ve seen tumors go away, but never this fast.  We got lucky this time,” she said, beaming.          

Last Tuesday I set the pot on the garage floor — did I mention that it grows fast and takes up more and more space — to water it, when the phone rang.  When I returned, Max had chewed down every bit of Transparentus, to a woody stem that dried up and died.

I had sent off a sample to a friend who has recently contacted me; Transparentus Amazonus is what gardeners call an ‘annual’.  It blooms just once, from a bulb.  We’ve been told by the scientific community that a cure for cancer is out there somewhere.  Like a train barreling past, I just saw it and wonder where it will stop next. 

Ainsley Allmark
Passionflower

Inspiration Piece

dani harris
passionflower 

response

.

two tiny sparks
made of  stardust
and comets’ tails
drifted aimlessly
…each alone and lonely…

time did not exist
…existed endlessly…
until the moment
when they chanced
upon one another

consciousness
took shape…
life began…
time moved forward…
and they were lonely no more

for aeons
they joyfully danced
and sang and played
across the cosmos
always together

their friendship grew
into a deep and special love
until at last
the two sparks
became one soul

the gods had watched
fascinated yet skeptical
a decision was made
the one soul was split in half
and put into two humans on Earth

two gifts were also given ~
the souls were allowed
to be reborn over and over
and they would always
recognize one another

lifetime after lifetime passed
…each and every time…
the two souls found one another
and their love became deeper
and their connection grew stronger

finally
the gods understood
…even split into two…
neither soul was complete
without the other

in celebration
the gods created the passionflower
as a symbol to all
of  what is possible
when love is true

.

——————————————————
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.

Ainsley Allmark – “Hiding”

Response piece

dani harris

Inspiration piece

Judy Weinberg

Iron Woman

Response Piece

Grace Burns

Deja Vu

Inspiration

You have returned as
someone other than you

to smash any semblance
of peace and balance.

You bring fear and the unknown,
fear of the unknown.

I have lived this before.

Now I am older, smarter and
toughened by irony.

You do not exist until you
make your intentions known.

You will not be acknowledged
until you give me reason to do so.

You are nothing unless
you decide otherwise.

——————————————————
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.

Judy Weinberg

Door Latches

Inspiration piece

Grace Burns

Mr. Gorbachev – A Double Cinquain

Response

I have
been excluded
again. How many times
can one recover from perceived
cruelty?

You built
this wall around
you. Only you can tear
it down. I am powerless to
do so.

——————————————————
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.

Amy Souza
Acrylic with alcohol dissolve on paper
Inspiration piece

Peace Pond
By Bobbie Troy
Response

I watched from the gate
while a calligraphy of fish
stroked through the pond
as if trying not to disturb
the water

I loved the lily pads and carp
that you added over the years
they shone at night
by the light of the colored paper lanterns

but your iridescent skin
and what I imagined to be
your iridescent soul
really made my heart leap
then suddenly sink

it was your world
and yours alone
I felt like an American Samurai
not wanting to intrude
on your festival of peace

Author’s Note: Samurai is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: “In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau. In both countries the terms were nominalized to mean “those who serve in close attendance to the nobility, … (Wikipedia.com, 9/28/11)

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Jane Hulstrunk
Response

Blues
By Charisse R. Cecil
Inspiration piece

My music, my mood.

Billie and Miles.

Melancholy and mellow.

The berries

in my morning muffin.

His bow-legged, boot-cut,

denim-clad swagger.

The funky-sweet blend

of sweat, liquor, tears and sex

in every foot tap on the juke joint floor.

The bruises that hide

behind Bronze Base #5.

Branford’s band and Spike’s “Mo’ Better.”

B.B. and Lucille.

The Franconia-Springfield metro line.

The steely eyes of young Minister Malcolm’s

devils.

Langston’s weary and big sea.

The Saturday night cabaret voice

Singing in the Sunday morning choir.

Sea -deep sorrow.

A saxophone’s moan.

My hopes,

caked on and cracking

like Aunt Minnesota’s

electric

sky

eye shadow.

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Kristi Conley
Purple Moose
Inspiration Piece

Haiku on a Purple Moose Head
Lisa Eldridge
Response

I.

Big Purple Moose Head

You are more than just your head

But that’s all I see.

II.

Why are you purple?

I have so many questions.

Are you a real moose?

III.

Where is your body?

Did something happen to it?

Where’s the rest of you?

IV.

Well, Purple Moose Head,

You don’t share your wisdom, but

Your smirk speaks volumes.

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.