Elizabeth Dougherty
“Time to Strike”
Response

Ed Burns
By Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

Would you know him if
you passed on the sidewalk?

The way you can spot Quebecois
even before they speak—
their poise and couture their
shiny well-done hair
their straight-up posture
and pants hemmed to just
the right ankle height

And you—
schlumpy fleeced like a
farmer or a mechanic
studied by an actor
who must play a farmer
or a mechanic
despite his manicured
fingertips and pore-
free skin

He’ll thank
you from the podium
invite you to the set
drape an arm on
your shoulder
to smile wide for
a photo

And he’ll mean it the thanks
the kind words he speaks
will think of you fondly
for a minute over
cognac served poolside
in the Hollywood hills
where the stars shine
always night
and day.

————————————-

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.

Asiatic Arecas, inspiration piece 

By © KJ Hannah (Channie) Greenberg

Asiatic arecas, all lambent in the sun,

Tall stepstools to celestial balls,
Inclusive to a one,
Bring a susurrus of social gaffes.

We laugh at adolescent acts,
At glugging, snorting, plus igniting.
We point at awkward dramas’ casts
Stare toward shy jilliken girls.

If plinths, glasses, mallets would not whirl,
Like merry-go-round riders,
There’d be no fear of injury, no trees birled;
Just here, there, somewhere, confused denizens.

So to modern party scenes, such gatherings, amen.
Pugnacity among glittery, costly, confettied props,
Brings troubles now and then, when
Healthier behavior models seem lacking.

Certain friends console hosts’ hacking
Desired peacemaking skills,
Offer up cajeput’s or weed’s backing
To cover up their fun.

————————————-

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.

Hela
By © KJ Hannah Greenberg
Response

Hela has birds for brains.
Penguins, really. They sit
Upon her noggin, squawk
At cats, devour raw fishes.

Except when her niece,
Estelle, makes origami
From the Sunday news,
Last week’s edition.

So much folding,
Fussing, bustling,
Creasing, pleating,
Corrugating culls

Auntie’s response, her tears
Over: obituaries, women’s
Pages listing besties’ divorces,
Babies born to everyone else.

No drink of fashion fades,
Does erase pain. Exclusion
Persists like a proud avenue,
She parades across leftovers

————————————-

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.

Amanda C. Brainerd
Response

Origin Story
By Michelle Greco
Inspiration piece

I’m from a neighborhood
where kids put you in a schoolyard headlock
in third grade.
I’m from stained glass. Jesus
looks down on everyone—melancholy.
I’m from sneakers strung
on telephone pole wires.
I’m from a place with no trolley cars
but plenty of subwoofer bumps.
I’m from Rasta and black
and spiked Kool-Aid, though I’m none of
those things.

I’m from cilantro y arroz amarillo,
platanos.
I’m from mangoes eaten whole
in a garden growing a pine tree.
I’m from a snowball thrown
by my aunt’s teenage boyfriend
to the top of our brick apartment building—
the mark lasted all winter.

Then I asked her what love felt like
because she knew everything then.
I’m from a rusty-red Honda with a
kickback/stickshift tapedeck.
I’m from Metallica and Guns N Roses
and the Doors.

I’m from thick black hair and
bangs that stuck to my face
when my four-year-old self sweat.
I’m from frontyard kickball
with all the neighborhood kids
until dusk, the youngest asking
me about owls because
I knew everything then.

I’m from greased-back ponytails
and hoop earrings with my name in them—
though I’m none of those things.
I’m from urban but strut high-class
and speak city slick.

I’m from Battlestar, Doctor Who,
space ships that pew pew.
I’m from pixie cuts, red dresses,
lipsticked velociraptors.
I’m from rum then whiskey—
the burn that runs warm.

I’ve known love, I’ve known lust
and I know nothing now but this—
I contain multitudes.

————————————-

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.

Jonathan Ottke
“Thanksgiving Moon”
Response

A Very Special “Thanks” Giving
By Cheryl Somers Aubin
Inspiration piece

“No,” I told my sister when she called the other day, “we’re still waiting.”

Waiting for the biopsy results on my son. Actually, it seems like we have been “waiting” ever since the first diagnosis of a rare skin condition some eight months ago.

The rash that started with one smallish spot on the back of our 18-month old baby boy and quickly proceeded to cover his entire torso. It was supposedly a viral rash (not contagious) that would go away shortly on its own. But it didn’t.

The first visit with the dermatologist confirmed it was an unusually severe case in an infant, but “just a rash” nonetheless. Yet, it was unusual enough that he took pictures for the class that he teaches. We were given some cream and told that, at the very most, it would last 16 weeks.

So we patiently. Sixteen weeks came and went but the rash did not. As some bumps disappeared, others appeared.

At eight months, the rash was mostly gone, and we were told the scars on his little body would eventually fade. But a small rash still persisted. New bumps had appeared in his armpits and along his upper legs. This, I could tell, was worrying the doctor as it had worried my husband and me. That is when the doctor decided he wanted to schedule a biopsy — to rule out a rare type of cancer.

I was fine holding my son’s hand while my husband held his other one. Two nurses held his legs down and apart. I hummed a song I’ve sung to him (a silly one I made up) since we first brought him home from the hospital, and I kept telling him it would be okay. He just kept saying ow, ow, ow. The doctor assured us that Charlie was feeling only pressure, no pain as he sliced out one of the bumps and put a stitch in his leg. It was only afterward that I started to cry.

That day, I spoke to my dad on the phone and he said, in his “fatherly voice” (the one which I knew I’d better pay attention to), “Don’t you borrow trouble, Cheryl! Your son will be just fine.” I really needed to hear that, in spite of my father’s lack of medical credentials.

As the days passed, I prayed often, “Please, God, not my little boy.” Charlie, seemed to be aware in his own way. He regularly pointed down to the Band-Aid on his leg and said, “Boo-boo doctor,” and then “Okay soon?” I told him, “Okay soon, Charlie. It will all be okay soon.”

Eight days after the biopsy, I was rocking my son to sleep for his nap. The phone rang. It was the doctor calling. The wait was over, and the news was good. “Okay soon” was finally here. “Okay soon” was finally now.

On past Thanksgivings, I have suggested that everyone say what he or she is thankful for (this is usually met with a lot of groaning and whispers about me being awfully corny). I suspect this year, though, they will all join me in giving thanks — that the wait is over, the fear is gone, and we are all “okay now.”

————————————-

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.

Jonathan Ottke
Reflections glass
Inspiration piece

A Sign
By Cheryl Somers Aubin
Response

As I look for a sign from my father I wonder…

Will it be a white feather from an angel’s wing
that floats down and I capture in my hand?

Is it the small white porcelain angel I found in
a box I had not opened for 15 years, but
did so yesterday? Is this little angel your sign for me?

Is it the call of the mourning dove that rested
outside my window and cooed, just as I was talking with
Charlie about searching for a sign from you? He thought so.

Or is it the mention of Proust in a literary journal,
and then again, the same day, in a novel. Should I study him now?
Is there a message for me in his words that I need to know?

Will it be the first notes I hear played from America, the Beautiful?
A song you remembered, even after you had lost your memory of me,
and yet we sang together, your voice strong and deep.

This morning, I heard the mourning doves again, and I smiled.
As I write these words I hear them once more. Do you send these doves to me?
Are you with me in my grief? Are you sending me your love? Are you here?

————————————-

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.

Paths We Laid
Kamika Cooper
Response

we used to be linear

raised up from the village seeds our great-grandmothers spat
we were bathed in Spring rains and thrived on compost riches
as we tried to escape the strong foundation lying just beneath the surface
we, identical and one, traversed the paths that were laid out before us
and when were sated, bored, and too familiar, we made our own

one day we glanced left and right to find that we had moved
we smiled shyly, pretending we were weaker than we were
but there was no weakness to our impetuous youth in the face of the lightening
and the attacks of hail year after year, almost withering on sun-drunk Sundays,
we simply kept moving because we had no other choice

but we used to be linear

we danced in rhythmic unison to wind songs our ancestors taught us
we found ourselves swinging from our own roots to become more of this,
a little less of that and sometimes nothing at all if weariness overcame us
the paths we laid down intersected and converged like a million woven thatches
and the village soil decreed that growth was mandatory, change inevitable

today we look left and right to find space, new growing petals upon us
the paths have taken us far away from the soil of the home we once knew
the strength from those early days gives us the courage to persevere
we, thoroughly hydrated with dreams and consistently growing toward the sun,
used to be linear and identical but today, we are infinitely dimensional

we are on our own

_______________________________________________
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.

Can’t Say Love
Kamika Cooper
Inspiration

Can’t say that another has ever made me feel this way
I float on hopes and dreams of her like she is cool blue water
safely depositing me ashore, never quite quenching my thirst because
I am always wanting more and more of her, though not all of her
simply the makings of her and I

Can say that she has made me feel wind-swayed
like strong trees with beautiful leaves succumbing to her as she
exhales, exhales, exhales her essence causing them to swirl with joy
her laughter soothes me and my anxieties abate
just her presence moves me but I

Can’t say that she can feel the same way, in fact, to her
I can be the rock without the roll and a warm heart when others are cold,
but never the one she’ll be loving while she’s growing old

Can’t say that my heart can discern what my head has learned
about this unspoken love, this silenced love, this non-reciprocal love,
this can’t say love

_______________________________
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 Tingle
Response

Honey Tangerine
By Hildie Block
Inspiration piece

Irene, the 12 year-old granddaughter of Holocaust survivors takes some risks in an orange grove with a boy named Jesse. 

“Opa, what’s under that blanket?”

“Vat, dis?  Here?” Opa pulled back a corner of the blanket, showing a wooden handle, worn smooth, and a trigger, like one from a Western.

“Is that a gun?”

Opa pushed his sleeve up revealing 3 digits of a black tattoo.  “Shotgun, nu sure, your Oma’s, nicht wahr.  Trusts no one to keep her safe.  Why a shot gun?”  Opa shrugged, “Who knows.  Now help me lift the bait and poles into the trunk, Irenya.”

I handed Opa the yellow and white plastic bait bucket, fishing poles and then his tackle box while the April sun burned through my rainbow t-shirt.

* * *

Spring Break in Florida, every year with the grandparents.  Not a choice.  As Holocaust survivors, they didn’t feel I was safe home over Easter.  Mom said that dad’s family had been through too much to argue.  We Jews were snowbirds solely to avoid the post-passion play attack that never actually happened in suburban Philly.

My dad didn’t talk about it.  My mom, after taking Oma Bettina to tea once, told me never, ever, to talk about orange marmalade — and some story that couldn’t possibly be true about her surviving, and saving them all because she broke down and ate orange marmalade on toast with the Nazis at the camp.  Mom’s straight line lips stopped just short of it all making sense.  At twelve, I guess was too young to hear it.  Something bad, though, I could tell.  She broke, she gave in, she saved them, but she maybe did stuff she wasn’t proud of.

Dad simply said, “Survivor’s guilt.”  Whenever Oma or Opa talked about the Nazis they just cried out and said, “those bastards.”  That’s how I knew we were done.  “They took our guns.  Those bastards.”  “Took out your father’s tonsils without anesthesia.  He was just a Junge, a boy. Those bastards.”  “Those Hunds, those dogs, those bastards.”

* * *

Inside the white Ambassador, I asked, “Opa, can we stop at the stand?” 

“Nur, sure, just don’t tell Oma!  She’ll be having schvitzes already we are so late for dinner. We don’t want she should hunt us down mit her gun!”  He smiled.

Inside the orange stand, I wandered around the necklaces that all cost 96 cents (4 cents sales tax in Florida), while Opa talked to the man behind the register.

“Hey, I bet you’ve never had a honey tangerine!” – a tanned boy with the sleeves sliced off his grey sweatshirt had slid next to me while I tried on a turquoise ring, also 96 cents.  I had, but I just looked at him, wondering where this might be going. 

“Why?” I swung my hair over shoulder and ran my tongue over my braces.  I rolled my Lip Smacker between my fingers in the pocket of my cutoffs.

“The best ones are still on the tree,” he lowered his voice, “and the best tree – I know where it is.”

I loved honey tangerines samples at the stand and Oma would never buy them.  “Fancy-schmancy oranges,” she’d say.  “For fancy-schmancy people.  Not refugees. For us, oranges are plenty fancy.”

I glanced over at Opa still talking to the man behind the register.  I could hear, something about President Carter and protecting Israel.  They argued – I heard him “Ich weiss schon!  I know it already! But Israel, it’s the only place where we will never be the foreigner, the outsider.”  Opa loved President Carter, even though he called him the peanut-eater.  I turned to the boy.

“So where’s this tree?”

He was half way out of the stand before he waved “C’mon, I’ll show you.”

I followed the boy down the path and didn’t look back once; we wound our way through the sweet smelling orange grove, and he ducked through rows of green and orange trees– I glanced back and couldn’t see the stand. 

“Hey, Are we getting close?”  He smiled, showing a greyish front tooth.  How had I missed that?  “What’s your name?”

“Why, are you going to write me a letter when you go home?”

“Maybe,” I said. “You never know.”

“Jesse.”

“I like the name Jesse.”

“I bet.”

“No, really.”

“I bet I know some other stuff you’d like.”

I looked at him hard, wondering why we’d stopped walking.  “So where’s this tree?”

“Over there,” he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.  “Why, you getting tired?  You need a rest?”

“No, it’s just,” I ran my teeth over my braces again, “I probably should get back.”  A vision of Oma wringing her dishtowel haunted me.

“NO!”

I was started by his tone.

“NO!  You came this far!  Come, it’s amazing, I promise.  The juice from this tree.  You must see it.” He lowered his voice, “You must taste it.”

My feet seemed to think enough was enough, but my mouth was watering.  Oma always worried.  There was nothing to worry about!  It was 1978!  America!  “Okay, but let’s do this thing; I have to get back.”

“As you wish, Irene”

“How do you know my name?”

“You think you are invisible?  How often do you come to the stand?  It’s just blocks from your grandparents, right?  They talk about you.”

“Maybe I should get back.”

“Maybe.  But you won’t.”

“What?”

Jesse had backed me into a tree; his hips were against mine, and even though I was scared, I had never kissed a boy before, I didn’t fight to get away.

“Irene,” he started and pushed his whole body next to mine, and reached up and grabbed a tangerine.  Still against me, he thrust his thumb in and broke it clean in half then squeezed so the sweet honey juice ran down onto both of our faces.  I barely got a taste before –

“Ireneya!  Ach du lieber!  Halt!  Get away from her!” Oma’s voice as I never heard it before, loud and broken, “Boeser Hund! You bastard!”

“Bettina!  Nein!  Nein!  Bitte nicht!” Opa was racing to catch her.

I barely heard the crack.

————————————-

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.

Michelle Greco
“Explosive Bloom”
Gouache in Sketchbook
Response

My Girl Angel Is As Shallow As Sin
By Jenny Cutler Lopez
Inspiration piece

I meet Angel by the metal payphone outside 7-11. I stroll outside with my breakfast, a giant-sized blueberry Slurpee. It is a sugared flight from the cod I slice and fry and serve and, after my shift ends, the cod I steal from the food court.

Angel is as fragile as a newborn bird shoved from the nest, gulping air on the edge of a busy sidewalk. She clutches the payphone. Tears drip onto her toes. I know just how she feels. Free-falling nausea. But she also seems as vicious as the leashed feral cat at her feet, shoving it with her boot whenever it swipes at her. She looks like her cat: black hair, golden streaks, light eyes narrowed in hatred.

I hang back under the narrow awning to escape the lidless prairie sun. Two months of unrelenting summer heat. Two months of Calgary city buses to turn up for the morning shift to cut up dead elk and deer and pig at the sausage factory. Two months of slicing fish at the food-court for the afternoon and dinner crowd. Two months since I moved into an apartment close to downtown, mouse-ridden until I bought two kittens.  And over a year since I hitchhiked 3000 miles to the prairies with my boyfriend. I still sense relief when I think how many trees and lakes and cities separate me from home on the east coast.

Angel hangs up the phone.

“You ok?” I ask.

“My boyfriend’s an asshole,” she says.

“Yeah, they all are,” I say. I straighten my forearm to show her a bruise. “Wanna cigarette?”

“Sure.”

I hand her a John Player Special and a zippo.

The first inhale of the day sears my throat.

At sixteen, Angel is two years younger than me and half the age of her boyfriend.

T.L. is also her pimp.

“He’s on his way up here,” says Angel. “He’s pissed. He had to bail me out last night.”

“Oh.” I exhale.

We discover we both pay cash-only to Trudy: the fat slumlord who cools herself behind a rattling desk fan which spins cigarette smoke and stale sweat around a cramped second-floor-apartment-turned-office a few blocks from the 7-11. Angel and I live in the same neighborhood – and we both live with our boyfriends. We both know of the drunk senior citizen who stumbles around front of the 7-11 slurring shameful comments at teenage girls.

We discover we traveled the same highway. Angel escaped Drumheller, what movie cowboys would label a one-horse town, hidden in Alberta’s Badlands 50 miles northeast of here. The same town I hitchhiked through last year. The endless burnished fields a hypnotic finale to a three thousand mile odyssey.

We share a second cigarette. T.L. saunters around the corner of the 7-11. His legs are too long for his torso, his goatee and eyebrows sun-bleached. He squints when he speaks.

“You owe me money bitch,” he says, not caring who hears.

I wonder if I dare burn him with my cigarette.

“Let me come home and I’ll pay you T.L. I promise.” She twists her arm out of his fingers.

A few days later, I see T.L. and Angel on the city bus, a few seats ahead of my boyfriend and me. The bus strains up the hill when I hear words crack the air like a rodeo whip, “Hey asshole. That’s no way to talk to a woman.”

“Mind your fucking business,” says T.L over his shoulder to the farm-boy in military uniform. I ring the bell for my stop – our stop – and Angel, T.L., the soldier, my boyfriend and I file off the bus.

The soldier strides past Angel and shoves his face right up to T.L. so their noses almost touch. Rising waves of hot asphalt and bus fumes cage us.

I say to Angel, “You wanna come back to my place?”

“No,” she says, her eyes fixed on the soldier. “That asshole better not hurt my boyfriend.”

T.L. slides his leather belt from his waist. He cracks it on the parking lot.

The soldier laughs like he doesn’t care who hears him.

___________________________________________________

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.