Matthew Levine
“Sirens”
Response

The Bliss of Luck
By Robert Haydon Jones
Inspiration piece

Just before he woke on the day of his 20-year, cancer-free anniversary, Jimmy O’Hara gobbled yet another fierce, slurpy kiss from Rose Marie Restaino and she arched under him the way only she could and he just couldn’t hold any longer, he tried to hold, but he couldn’t hold, he couldn’t hold and the raucous, guttural groaning and moaning suddenly ceased and his eyes swung open wide as if Rose Marie had flicked his eye-switch.

Somehow, during the night, Rose Marie had stalked him again and balled him again. It had been fifty years, but she hadn’t changed. She still called him James. She still demanded he leave his wife. Rose Marie and her arch were still so hot and heavy that Jimmy blushed all over. He was completely under her control – a timid participant in this overwhelming, no-prisoners, sex. It was very, very embarrassing. It was fantastic.

He peeked over at the other side of the bed and was relieved no one was there. Anne was already on the road headed for her usual early morning spin session.

Lately, as he crested north of his seventy-seventh year toward heaven, Jimmy’s dreams were so enriched with vivid detail they seemed far more real than actual experience.

But, of course, sleep itself was a blessing. Sleep had been the first surprise gift of his recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. And what a gift it was!

He would never forget the morning after his first natural deep sleep in recovery. Every part of his being was totally refreshed. What a surprise!

During his 17 years of addiction, Jimmy had completely forgotten about deep good sleep. It had been a thrilling, unexpected blessing to wake renewed and restored again. Then, eight years into sobriety, the lung cancer came and the death sentence prognosis came and the experimental, brutal surgery and the morphine and then the stop and start of the horrific chemo and then the wild dreams of healing and hope and CT scans that were clear – – way against the odds. (Less than ½ of 1 per cent got five-year survival with small-cell lung cancer.)

He made it through the chemo. Six months out, he even got good sleep back again.

Seven years out, they declared him a civilian. Mr. CANCER FREE.

CT scans every six months. Then every year. Nine years out, his buddy, the young oncologist, had left for big bucks running a new pharmaceutical that made DNA specific cancer drugs. From then on, a new, substitute oncologist, saw him yearly, scanned his blood tests and CT scans without comment and told Jimmy to book himself back.

No respect. No, “Jesus, you’re a friggin miracle.” Just, “See you in a year.”

Now Jimmy had opened his eyes to a special dividend day. It had been twenty years since his surgery. He intended to swagger a bit through this CT scan.

Jimmy breakfasted like a champion and took the train on in to New York to play his 20-year checkup like a hero with the attending staff. In fact, he laid “The 20” on them all. (And any poor bastard patients within earshot in the humongous waiting room.)

“This is 20-years of recovery from small-cell lung cancer for me”, he loudly declaimed to the very pretty young blonde receptionist. “Oh, congratulations, sir,” she said

He knew the black, blood-draw lady from way back. Years ago, he had astonished her by guessing her home parish in Jamaica. So, now, he slapped palms with her and told her this blood-draw was real special. “This is 20-year-proof blood”, he said. “I kicked the shit out of small-cell lung cancer.”

The CT scan tech, a rail-thin Latina in her mid thirties, with braids and a sad, acme damaged face, misunderstood him. When Jimmy ran his 20-year brag at her, she said, “Sir, even if it is twenty years, you still have to get your CT scan.”

Jimmy had planned to run “The 20” when he met with the oncologist to go over his CT scan results, but he never had the chance.

The moment he was ushered into the office, his oncologist, a burly grey-haired man in his early fifties with a buzz cut and aviator glasses, rose up from behind his desk, grasped Jimmy’s right hand with both of his and said, “I’m so sorry Mr. O’Hara, your scan shows a large new tumor in your left lung right on the cut line from your surgery.”

Jimmy felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. The dread flooded in. The dead man walking dread suffused him. The oncologist escorted him to another office suite for an immediate conference with the surgeon and the biopsy specialist. None of the doctors made eye contact with Jimmy.

The surgeon said the scan looked bad. The tumor was quite sizable and since he was missing the upper lobe from his previous surgery, he wasn’t sure how much lung function Jimmy would retain. The biopsy guy said that he would do the needle biopsy the next morning and chances were Jimmy could return home that afternoon. Some times the lung collapsed – and some times there were other complications. He said there was a very slim chance the tumor was benign. It looked bad. The needle biopsy would tell them exactly what the deal was.

Jimmy called Anne and told her the cancer was back. She was shocked and horrified like he was. She would accompany him to the biopsy the next day. She loved him.

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

The train back to Westport was jammed. The July 4th weekend was just three days away. The only open place Jimmy could find was in the head car, a middle seat on a six-place double.

As he took his place, Jimmy realized he had inserted himself into a mother and daughter summer day trip that occupied both six-place seats at this end of the car. Jimmy sat between two attractive, very shapely women in their early forties. He was facing a voluptuous, early fortyish woman in a scanty summer outfit. Next to her, were two girls in their tweens or early teens. In the seats across the aisle were another mother and five more tweenish or early teen girls.

The women were in high spirits and so were their children. They were discussing going to the beach for a cookout. Each child would bring her musical instrument. They would have a jam session.

Jimmy was intrigued. Seven pretty young girls, all musicians. Eager to play in and on the sand. Jimmy sat there and looked as the conversation swirled around him. He wished he’d brought a newspaper. The women seemed pleasant. They were mothers. They were sexy. Jimmy recalled these were the kind of women he fantasied about as an adolescent. He looked over the one he was facing and she looked him right back and smiled knowingly. She was quite used to being desired.

The young girls also seemed comfortable in their own skin. The slender red-haired girl across from him was telling her friend she was abandoning piano for keyboards. She said she liked the idea of being portable.

She smiled at Jimmy when she said this. He gave a careful, lips only, no-teeth-showing, smile back.

Jimmy did not begrudge the women their relative youth and casual sexuality or the girls their absolute youth, beauty, and limitless future. But it was very hard to put up with. He wanted to tell them that their sex and their youth did not absolve them for not knowing or caring that he was dying of a cancer that had pounced back on him after twenty years and caught him right as he was showing off how lucky and good and cancer proof he was and made him make a squeak like a mouse right in front of eternity.

Actually he wanted to tell the very sexy woman sitting opposite him that the day would come when her luscious body and her matching mind wouldn’t stand a chance. For that matter, he yearned to tell little Miss Keyboards that, one-day soon, no one would care what she played. Or if she played. No one would care.

But Jimmy didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell them he had just learned he was going to die from a cancer he had beaten twenty years back. He didn’t tell and he didn’t weep so they could see. He looked at them and, every so often, gave them a safe, lips only, no-teeth-showing, smile.

Later, as he walked along the road to his car in the parking lot, Miss Keyboards and Company passed by him in a Range Rover. At least he thought they did. It was a car jammed with chattering women and girls. He wondered if they noticed 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 the express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Matthew Levine
“Compo Beach, Looking North”
Inspiration piece

The Band Played On
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

Looking back, Jimmy O’Hara realized there were only a very few times in his life, when he was so carried away that before he realized it, he was shouting as if his voice could change things — shouting as if the power of his yell could really make all the difference.

Life had made him cry out only a few times. That was enough to stamp each of those times as special. Even when it wasn’t a matter of life and death. (Although twice his screaming had saved his life.)

He saw the little surfing deer about an hour before he left with his wife for the special outing to the racetrack that the Hunt Club had arranged for the Executive Committee. An undefeated, five-year-old mare was running her last race before retirement and all the truly fortunate people in this part of the world were going to be there.

Jimmy got dressed up in his fancy outfit way too early – so, as usual, he waited while Anne primped and changed outfits and then primped some more like she always did.

His i-phone had transformed waits like this into opportunities. Jimmy watched a U-Tube video his sister sent him of a young deer cavorting at the water’s edge of a barrier beach. The footage was compelling. The little deer played with the surf just like Jimmy had played with the surf his first time.

The deer skitted about the edge of the surf and then advanced further until –- whoops a wave walloped him back –- then more surf line dancing until another deeper foray, another wave wallop and another hasty retreat. Jimmy had to smile. It was just like his first time at the seashore.

“The deer and me have this approach to the sea in common”, Jimmy thought.

The dancing deer got him thinking about the famous race mare they were going to see. The mare loved being loved. When the crowds cheered, she pranced like a fancy circus horse with a plume. For four years, she had won all of her races. She would rally from what seemed impossibly far out of it, charging down the stretch and drawing away at the wire.

She was a mare now, but she was still prancing like a filly. She pranced in the paddock and on her way to the starting gate. Then after she came from way, way back and won for fun — she pranced some more while the crowd cheered her on her way to the Winner’s Circle. She was a prancer and a dancer. She loved attention. Jimmy had to smile.

“We have this approach to being loved in common”, Jimmy thought. “The prancing race mare and me.”

Jimmy and Anne went to the mare’s last race via limousine with the three other couples from the Hunt Club. They had a box in the Clubhouse right on the finish line. The track was jammed. The unbeaten mare was everybody’s darling – and this time she was running against the boys. The best colts and geldings in the world were vying for the $5,000,000 purse. Still, she was a heavy favorite to win and head into retirement and the broodmare farm undefeated.

The clubhouse dining room was overcrowded and loud. There were droves of attractive women in designer dresses with elaborate hats. It was as if the track was throwing a gala for the mare and had invited anyone who had read Black Beauty. Fortunately, the Chairman of the Racing Authority was a member of the Hunt Club, so Jimmy’s party was ushered into a private dining room.

Just ten tables. A special menu. This was what being a Big Shot was all about!

Jimmy hadn’t been at a racetrack for at least five years. The last time had been a Belmont, with a Triple Crown possibility. It was strange. Thirty-five years back, in his bad old days, he went to the track four or five times a week. He stood on the finish line with the wise guys.

Now he was dining in a VIP room. Back in the day, a famous tout had told Jimmy that as far as the regulars were concerned, the Belmont Stakes was just the 8th race of the day. Jimmy wondered what the tout and his regular buddies would make of a day like this. A hundred thousand people come to see a mare prance.

He zipped through a dozen delicious Wellfleet oysters. His tablemates ordered another bottle of Champagne and more canapés, so Jimmy drifted out of the dining area to watch a preliminary race.

It was a 6-furlong stakes race for two-year-olds. He read the program and saw that he knew one of the owners. On impulse, he peeled off a $100 bill and played Easy Buddy to win. Two minutes later the gate opened and Easy Buddy rocketed away to a big lead and went wire-to-wire for a 4-length win. He had gone off at 10-1. Jimmy was up a grand!

It had been a long, long time since he had backed a horse. As he watched Easy Buddy come into the stretch with a comfortable lead and start to draw away, Jimmy felt the warmth of blessed Good Fortune throughout his being. This feeling of sanctification – of grace suffusing him – was the high he had chased for all those miserable years he had thrown his money and his life away at the track.

God, it felt wonderful! The sweet warmth of the entry of the Grace of Good Fortune. No wonder he had chased after it and after it and after it in the face of defeat after defeat. Then, suddenly the addiction was lifted from him. One day he was crazed as usual for the horses, the next day he was not. Next to the gift of life, it was the biggest gift he had ever received.

As he walked away from the cashier’s window, with his $1,100 in hand, someone yelled, “Lucky Jim!”

Jimmy looked for the voice and saw Tommy Ferrone and Phil Palazzo, two of his wise guy companions from way, way back. The years had been good for them. They were wearing Zegna jackets and all the fixings. Jimmy had heard they had risen to upper management positions in the Cosa Nostra.

“Hey, Tommy, hey Philly, how you doing?” Jimmy said.

“Doing good, Lucky Jim. Doing good,’” Philly said. “Where you been? It’s been a long time.”

“Just doing my thing with the family”, Jimmy said. “ I’m a total civilian. Out here today with the wife to see the mare along with the rest of the entire friggin world.”

“Well,” Tommy said, “You’re not exactly a civilian. I see you just cashed a nice ticket, Lucky Jim. I remember you used to drive us crazy out here with those long shot specials of yours.”

“No,” Jimmy said, “I’ve been out of it for years. I just bet this bird because I noticed his owner is a friend of mine. I’ve been away so dam long, you could almost call this win ‘beginner’s luck’. ”

“You gonna bet the house on that mare?”

“No. I’m done for today. Like I told you, I’m a civilian. Anyway, I’d never go for a 3 to 5 shot.”

Tommy and Philly exchanged a look. “Well, Lucky Jim,” Tommy said, “me and Philly are glad to hear that because the rest of the world, even the pros, think she’s a lock to win. And they couldn’t be more wrong. Our guys around the country are up to their eyeballs with action on that mare – and you know what? We’re booking it all. We aren’t laying off a nickel.”

Jimmy was surprised. This was the classic overlay situation where it was good business sense to layoff as much of the action as possible. You would only be taking this kind of action as a service to your good customers. The vast majority of the action would be coming from football and baseball customers.

“What’s going on?”

The angle was that the mare’s jockey, Bill Jones, had OD’d on heroin just last night. He had been in a crib with two high-priced hookers drunk as a skunk and as high as a kite. Earlier that evening, he had returned to his apartment in the Village much earlier than planed and had walked in on his fiancée, Candy Divers, having sex with his so-called, best friend, Marc Lieberman.

Bill Jones had run off into the night. Fortunately for him, the hookers had plenty of Narcan on hand. They injected Billy after he had turned bright blue all over – and in no time he came back into the world.

It was dawn before he could walk. He had the shakes bad. He pleaded with the hookers to give him some more heroin. One of the hookers called Tommy and told him what had happened and asked him what to do. Tommy had asked her if she was sure it was Billy Jones, the jockey. She said she was real sure. She said she felt real bad for him. He was a straight arrow. A nice guy who had lost his way.

Tommy told her to clean him up and to give him a half dose shot of the Narcan like it was heroin. They sent a driver to pick Billy up and book him into a hotel so he could get some sleep. At 11, the driver woke him up – gave him coffee with two shots of grappa and drove him out to the track.

Right before they got to the track, Billy Jones got sick all over the back seat. He had the shakes again. The driver gave him another coffee laced with grappa and he steadied down good. He thanked the driver and gave him a $100 tip. He told the driver to bet it on the mare.

It was a sad story but Jimmy had to laugh. “You guys, always looking for an angle. That mare is a whole lot of horse. Billy Jones may be sick – but if he can stay on her, I reckon he’ll win.”

Tommy Ferrone and Phil Palazzo weren’t laughing. “Like they say, Jimmy, that’s what makes horse racing”, Tommy said. “As a friend from way back, I’m glad you’re not betting on the mare. As your friendly bookie, I’ll be glad to take any amount you want to wager.”

When Jimmy got back to the table, it was clear he hadn’t been missed. He’d been gone ten minutes. He had made a thousand dollars and had said howdy to a life he had been very lucky to leave.

Later, his wife asked him to put a bet on the mare for her – and he did. A $10 place ticket. Jimmy passed on the race. At 3 to 5, he wasn’t even tempted.

As it turned out, the mare was much the best horse in the race. As usual, she dawdled at the start and trailed the field going into the first turn. Jimmy expected her to start moving up at the half mile pole on the backstretch but it didn’t happen. She started her drive much later than normal. She went inside, checked in back of a wall of tiring horses, then swung outside and came again.

Jimmy urged her on. “Come on,” he yelled. “Come on! Get her up!”

Everybody was yelling.

“Come on” Jimmy yelled, “Come on!”

The mare galloped by the field, closed on the leader and bounded by him at the wire. She was clear by a length but she had been beaten by a head to the finish line. Billy Jones had moved her too late.

A drawn out groan from the crowd said it all.

Later, during the television interview, Billy Jones cried and said the loss was on him. The TV commentators were too respectful of Billy to agree. He was such a good guy. It was a shame that the mare had lost – that she would not retire undefeated – but it was just one of those things.

Jimmy was amazed at the civilian crowd. It was not just one of those things. It was a terrible ride. When he got home, he looked at the replays of the race again and again. There was no question the mare was much the best in the race. Much the best. Billy Jones had urged her on way, way too late. And yet the commentary about the loss was restrained. Too bad. Just one of those things.

Tommy and Philly and the syndicate had cleaned up. Some times, inside information can really make all the difference. But, then again, as a famous Jockey, Eddie Arcaro had said, “Nobody wins at the races like the bookie in the jockey’s room.”

Jimmy forgot to cash his wife’s winning place ticket. He still carries it in his wallet in a secret compartment right under the big bills. It is a memento. Of what he is not exactly sure.

———————

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 the express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Moving Circles No.2
By Jackie Wood
Inspiration piece

She’s Always Blowing Bubbles
By Terry-Anya Hayes
Response

……The house
…is full of them,
all sizes all
sun-
…shaped, sun-
…………..colored
………each
..circle
perfect-
ly innocent
…..this infinity
…….of see-through
…..wanderers
trans-
…….fixed no sheen
………………or shiver
……………………to be seen —
………………………..tableau vivant?
……………………or message born
…………….in Picasso’s
………..champagne
……..bottle?

——————————————————
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.

Tracey Riehl
“Forest Waterfall”
Inspiration piece

Think of How He Moves
By Barbara Black
Response

NO, IT WAS YOU awash in a violet light, was what he had said, the white of the moon in the corners of his mouth. On the trail the next day, she was the first to have seen the opening, but she hesitated. He was the “adventurer,” but adventure was really his way of altering a world he didn’t like. The first sign that it was an error was when he stepped in front of her and his bulk seemed to grow. She was now hidden in his shadow, become like any other tree in the woods starved of light. At that moment her skin thickened and deep corrugated furrows appeared on her palms. She felt her feet grip the earth, clenching stones. The moss, the ferns, the red cedar fronds suddenly seemed like a very slow form of devotion. All that could be known would now be locked in soil and cells. Her thoughts were to be sand, humus, and the fertile deaths of tiny creatures. She thought she said to him “Don’t go,” but her breath came out powdery and yellow. “Was it,” she had said the night before, “someone else you had wanted in the crowd?” Somehow she had always got things wrong. He stood with his back to her, under lichen hanging like silvery skins. She thought he spoke, but his voice was a river surging through a storm channel. He stepped into the opening, into the curtain of water, exchanging one element for another. The man who had answered “No, it was you awash in a violet light,” had reclaimed his right to walk toward a pulse she was unable to hear, in his mouth a thousand suns, in hers a core of cambium.

———————

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 the express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Seth Leamer
“Respite’s Sunset”
Digital Collage
Response

Café Respite
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

Cobbled alley café tucked in
August in Georgetown lazy feel
For years we imagined in quiet and din
A stop at Leopold- a pastry, a meal
And so it happened an afternoon free
In a staycation pause with time to spend
And after a swim, a telephone call
It was off to the café at the canal’s rough end.

How strange I was thinking in Austrian mood
As I read during day “the Lady in Gold”
Embedded in Vienna as the characters danced
After seeing the movie- the story now told
In great depth Master Klimt and the lovely Adele
In Austrian magic before the great fall
And now to eat schnitzel In the Leopold café
Brought the book and the times in a great wild recall.

Rain was predicted but we challenged the call
And sat out on the terrace with the lush waterfall
As Crepe Myrtles breezed down we sat in content
And schnitzel and wine saw an afternoon spent.
We love the same food and agree on the wine
We inhale unique places and the feel’s quite divine
We talked as birds tripped near the table to find
The crumbs of the sacchertorte, the sweet fruit of the vine.

But once home the sky darkened and a footnote was planned
Watermelon martinis a recipe new
Long glasses and colors that screamed of the summer
Though the watermelon surprised in a deep yellow hue

It’s the moments in life that create the true joy
Excitement, surprise, and the will to soar high
And the friends that share dreams and convention be dammed
To live full and live free ‘til the moment we die.

———————————-
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.

Tracey Riehl
“Sunset Boat”
Inspiration piece

Little Pea
By Barbara Black
Response

I have a pea coat for you. Put it on.
No, we will not go to church, my love.
We’ll lie under the tree and eat apples,
down to the core. Silent leaves will fall
upon our hair. I will gather them
to stitch into pajamas.

Slide your fists through the sleeves. I’ll button you in.
We’ll go to the canyon, throw sticks in the pools,
follow them all the way to the sea’s green mouth.

Raise your face to me. Let me look in your eyes.
I see tiny people in a boat sailing to your home.
Let me blow through my fist. I can send you there.

———————

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 the express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Amy Souza
Painted cloth
Inspiration piece

In Your Presence
By Kay Syrad
Response

The day you arrived
I heard a man say he could turn time into space
with twelve bottles of Turkish cologne
an ivory shaving brush, and evidence of waiting

later, we ran from the steep red rooms
towards a ribbon shop in Marylebone
murmured our disappointment
over tea and Florentines in a dark café

The day after you arrived
a lean man, a sinewy man, typed my symptoms
into his computer, it took an hour
he could make no promises

but he opened the window a fraction
recommended an app for staying alive
explained the word ‘depersonalisation’
and let me charge my phone

Two days after you arrived
our friends came by, radiantly
and we flew over labyrinths
burst in and out of laughter

until darling served a luscious dish
that rose and rose in the charming heat
and their simple faces longed and lapped
at the sweetness

Three days after you arrived
I stood upright for a man who said ‘do not deny
the violence, do not interrupt
the intelligence, yours or theirs

do not be angry or sad or shy’
he said, ‘only dress in this blue cotton
wrap yourself in flowering flax
and cry out for the reasoning of kindness’

Four days after you arrived
they brought platters of salmon and rye
the buds of pink camellias, cases
and boxes full with their lives

and from below they coaxed into light
a journey and a field, knowledge of water
and how a mother and daughter and father
can know each other and speak

Five days after you arrived
ten wrote rhyming lines for ladies’ Leap Year
brave or unrequited, hopeful, hopeless
Gwen only wanted understanding

and a girl sailed from small Ireland
to Brooklyn that very evening
her eyes high and fresh
and full of ardour or sacrifice

Six days after you arrived
we were seeking answers, what I am,
you are, neither body nor mind, not two
but one: ‘I am itself is God’

and I will not whisper ‘consciousness’
but drop it from the lexicon
say uh-uh in its place
drift and dream and gulp freely

Seven days after you arrived
five women saved the planet with words up-blossoming
backs against the night glass
London trembling with spark-silver

sparkling recklessly
while we gave our earnestness to the room
blind in the killing spotlight
yet bringing forth, holding, sighing

Eight days after you arrived
my wing was torn out
you had to lift me from the sacred bed
lay me down in beech leaves wet with rain

one pain at a time
is all that can be recognised
let relief be imagined quietly
in the dark of afternoon

Nine days after you arrived
I showed you to the sun-draped bench
we rested there together
I studied slivers of scarlet red on you

saw all at once in depth and surface
your flying heart, your echo heart
the risks you’d taken, the lonely postmarks
all that you had wrought and given

———————

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 the express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Jonathan Ottke
Response

In Remembrance of Tilly
By Mary Lucas
Inspiration piece

There are a few places from my past I visit in my mind and heart when I’m looking for warmth and safety. My grandparents yard in Michigan surrounded by an acre of garden. The kitchen in the home where I ate most of my childhood meals; a knotty pine wrapped room with a clothes washer at one end and the sink where we washed thousands of dishes at the other. And, in a genuinely special place in my heart, the back seat of Tilly.

Tilly moved to the neighborhood when I was in fourth grade. The Gallo family arrived from Ohio shortly before their moving van. Two vehicles appeared in the driveway: a late model brown station wagon with wood paneling on the side, and a bright turquoise second car. As we introduced ourselves to our new neighbors Mrs. Gallo presented her much loved car “Tilly”, making it clear that “Tilly” was a “she”. I regret there are no photos to help identify Tilly’s auto family tree. It could be a trick of memory, but I believe she was a Ford. Her small, rounded body places her birthday in the late 1930’s or 1940’s, before auto curves turned to fins on longer, leaner vehicles.

An old, bright turquoise car stood out on the street in a small, rural town in Illinois in the early 1960’s. But to fully appreciate Tilly you had to climb into her black interior. The old auto leeched old leather, dust dropped from years of shoes, boots and sandals and a strong overtone of oil. Tilly’s back seat was a rich, dark, musky atmosphere punctuated with harsh sounds of gears changing, unlike the slick automatic transmissions of the other car pool cars that carted us to school and back.

Several of us squeezed into the back seat in those days before child auto safety laws, we were transported in Tilly land. The bumps in the road were a little more pronounced than in the newer cars driven by other mothers. We slid around on the leather seat and worked to keep our stacks of books secure on our laps. It was an adventure.

The Gallo family had moved to town so Mr. Gallo could open our first full grocery store complete with a full produce section, wide array of brands and products and much lower prices than our neighborhood markets could offer. As the profits from the new store quickly piled up Mr. Gallo wanted to share the wealth with his beloved wife – he wanted to buy her a new car. I was privy to many of the conversations when he offered to buy her any car she wanted. She never looked at him when we brought up the subject; she just shook her head and mumbled “no”. We all knew she meant it.

Tilly stayed with us through grade school. Once we transitioned to middle school we could take the bus. I don’t remember what finally brought about Tilly’s end but I’m sure it came down to keeping her Mrs. Gallo’s passengers safe. One weekend Mr. and Mrs. Gallo went car shopping and a new car was placed on order. Tilly’s days were numbered.

Mr. Gallo arranged for the new car to be delivered to the house so they wouldn’t have to drive Tilly away to trade her in. All of us old car pool kids were lined up across the street as an enormous, shiny bronze station wagon swept to the curb. A man got out of the new car, quickly took Tilly’s keys from Mr. Gallo’s outstretched hand, and drove Tilly away forever.

As Tilly turned the corner at West Walnut and headed for Main Street, out of site, Mary Gallo stood sobbing uncontrollably by the driveway. Her husband put his arms around her and kept murmuring that it would be OK. “Look at your beautiful new car!” he said. “But I want my Tilly,” was her answer. I lived across the street from the Gallo’s until I was twenty one and that was the only time I saw Mrs. Gallo cry, except when her father died.

I never learned the full story of Tilly and why Mrs. Gallo was so attached to her. Yet I shared her love for the old car. I shed some tears of my own as Tilly was driven away. Throughout junior high and high school there were mornings I would look across the street to the driveway where Tilly used to sit, longing to climb into her back seat once again and ride into a simpler time.

————————————–

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.

Brian MacDonald
Inspiration Piece

Superpower
By Anne Nowselski
Response

I would not like to turn into a bird.
But I would fly.
It would be so wonderful to step out my window
and take off into to the air.
To ride with clouds and wind.
The world a blur beneath me,
a freedom that happens in dreams.

I would use my power for practical things.
Getting to work would be simple, maybe fun.
Instead of being trapped in a metal box
I could dance over the trees
The drove of engines far off like a memory.

Everywhere becomes closer.
Visiting exotic cities like it’s next door.
No more endless waiting in lines.
Nor fears of mechanical glitches.
a control of my own fate.

——————————————————

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.

Kamika Cooper
“Becoming Literate”
Digital Illustration
Response

#149
By Robin R. Peace
Inspiration piece

A few hours ago
Something was nestled in my womb
It started off small
I never really noticed it at all
But then it happened
A burning ray of light
The something began to grow
It began to expand
The pain spreaded to every core of my body
I was being raped, all over again
I went numb, unable to cry for help
The something kept growing
Ripping and tearing tender muscles
Pushing and prodding into all my intimate places
It forced itself out of my womb
Into my heart
Into my mind
And screamed out of my throat
With a wail of a banshee
I could not stop it
The impulse drove me
I picked up pen and paper
Stories and tales from far away places
Sprang from my wrist
I became one with the something
As it pulled me down into its world
Its voice became my voice
I was remade in its image
The creative fire that burns
Saved me as it raped me
And now I long for its violent embrace

__________________

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.