Cathy Stevens Pratt
Inspiration piece

Below
By Cara James
Response

fins on the surface
make your heart
beat to the sound of Jaws
clenched in wonder.
dolphins are dangerous
like men are dangerous.
their smooth bodies beg
to be felt more deeply
than you should swim.

but it is not the one
who calls lonely in the night
who won’t look into your eyes
who gives you the STD
that you must fear.

it’s the one who sends you flowers after you tell him
who smiles from his eyes when he wakes up beside you
who waters down your worries with words like
obscene and love and
there’s only you and me.

you must go below
where shafts of light
are held in suspense
by hydrogen and air
and there is nothing but
deep blue darkness all around.

forget not that he is wild, dear,
and be with him.

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Amanda Meyer
Pop
Response

Memorial Day in France
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

The time was spring
The day was fresh
The railroad clicked and clucked
The bag was filled with wine and cheese
The baguette and napkins tucked
The Vineyards and the olive groves
The Baudelaire in hand
The visits to the gravesites done
The special parade, the band
All over now as the easy part
Remained to enjoy the tour
To ease the memories, the sound of taps
The military band, the tales endure
So many countrymen buried here
And in European corners north and south
Dreaming below an earth renewed
So different these days from the river mouth
No longer destroyed by war and peril
But seemingly new and green and bright
Memory clicked through the slides of the vineyard
The wine cork popped in the vineyard’s light.

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Brian MacDonald
Inspiration piece

Jesus of Prometheus
By David Taranto
Response

Oh, they must not have

been saved

to begin with.

Pry yourself from the grip of Christ.

You are the object

so heavy He cannot lift it.

Hands raised not in blessing,

but those of a heavenly father

or friend

who has simply had it

and backs away.

2,000 years is a long

day at the office.

The money-changer’s tables are ripe

for the flipping.

If God is a parent, he’s guilty

of caring with negligence

for his six-billion whining babies crying

in some pantheonic restaurant.

Red holes,

evidence of things

we must see.

Because all else is brick

and marble

and gold

and plaster

with a heart on its chest

to convince us it’s there

since its

cold,

dead

eyes

cannot.

An idol borne of man’s heart,

God made in Man’s image.

The meek inherit the earth,

cold and hard.

Those who hunger and thirst

hunger and thirst.

The merciful receive

a shoe to the back and a puddle in the face.

The pure in heart will see

one day. They’ll see.

The peacemakers will be called

‘thugs’ and ‘feckless.’

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Jay Young Gerard
“And Then What Happened”
Inspiration Piece

and then what happened
By Lisa Nielsen
Response

A girl pretends to be asleep,
her mother runs barefoot across the lobby of the apartment building.
She is screaming, “help me help me call the police.”

The man in question is slumped at the kitchen table
surrounded by plates overflowing with cigarette
butts and a bottle of jack daniels on its side,
the sticky brown liquid dripping to the floor like honey.

Neighbors gather at their peepholes.
A man steps out from behind a metal door.
His wife yells, “put some pants on”

The three of them had returned from a family gathering on long island.
The visit ended in its usual way – pleadings from aunts and uncles to stay
to sober up, to stay in the guest bedroom to be driven home
in the morning by someone else, not him. the mother says
“we’re fine.  Stop worrying”.

and so began another swervy ride back to Brooklyn,

the road of which was punctuated by beeps
then irate stares then stunned faces from passengers
in more thoughtful cars.  the little girl looked over at them,
her hands in prayer in the back seat.
she knew the world was turning against her.

police arrive.  voices are raised.  the man leaves.
her mother will be on the phone for hours, telling
and retelling the same story,
the monotony of which lulls the little girl to sleep.

and that’s what happened,
and that was just the beginning.

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Jay Young Gerard
“Calm Up”
Response

Gravel strewn like breadcrumbs
By Lisa Nielsen
Inspiration piece

Broken cement sprouts
chrome and glass and angles reminiscent of Kandinsky

Thru the looking glass below
sketchy unfinished sidewalks
welcome the lanky saunter of the hopeful.
Is this the view you were hoping for?  Has your rage placed well
between armoire
and divan?

Loneliness is a tower but you can’t feel its strength.
I am the inside scoop, the seeds of what made
you, threaten me daily.

Allow me to revel in this revelation:
there’s nothing left of us.

I’m that passerby, not tripping
over your bad intentions.

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Amanda Meyer
“Spring Rain and Kite Strings”
Inspiration piece

Kitestrings
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Response

Kite strings like slings of stars

Wallop the hand and sting the sky

Air puffs and spits of wind

hand twirling as kite spins and twirls delighting the eyes of night

smell of sweet rain washed grass pilots the feet

running through the brush and bramble eyes upward thrilled by the dance

crickets chirp and dogs run free

trying to catch, trying to race, trying to capture

the magical form that tears through the sky and jumps, cavorts, teases

with Olympian skill

Kite strings… rainbow colored GPS of the air

Kite strings… unnoticed but essential to the airship that all are following

with smiles, expectations and thoughts of happiness and surfing the wind.

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Lisa Kilhefner
Response

Sardine Machine
(Monterey Bay Aquarium Kelp Forest)
By Adam Cornford
Inspiration piece

They shoal in sweep formation, swarming gleam
with tail-flick wave through smooth curve like a wrist
volplaning pivots, wheels, quick tinfoil stream-
line motion shines a mirror-clouded twist;
upspiraling, the myriad uncoils wide
slowly to merge, a heartform of barbed glass
in ripple assembly, pours to hanging glide,
mingling of angles in bright matrix mass…
Then, turning, round side eyes, a chorus line
of sight, as startle vision multiplies–
Unarmed armada, designerless design
of silver seraph unison, you replicant rise
around no throne but hunger’s, endless flight
breeding in tiny metonymies of light

for Hart Crane

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The Symptoms (The Signs)
By Gabriel Stelian-Shanks
Response

Right as you woke
the pale blooms opened
as if you were sun

As if they knew
dew rose on your skin
before the day did

And dream-soaked eyes
peeked out of bedsheets
as if you bloomed too

You blinked, I think,
as you lied, said we
weren’t morning people

Because dawn breaks
when you grin, yawn, stretch
and then I’m cured

Of a sickness
I didn’t know
I had.

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Brigitte Nowers
Inspiration piece

Invasion
By Terah Van Dusen
Response

There were just
four of us left
shape shifters
children and men
women and children
__

at night we sat watching
the winged-rats take flight
casting the spells upon our enemies
not one soul owned a gun or an arrow
obtuse peace–lovers, they said
there were just four of us
shape shifters
left

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Cathy Stevens Pratt
Response

In the Distance
By Cara James
Inspiration piece

In the distance is a boy
at the end of a string
at the end of a kite
at the end of the world —
laughing and free.

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