Matthew Levine
“Rip Tide”
Response

By The Sea
Robert Haydon Jones
Inspiration piece

Jimmy O’Hara often wept as the crash boat banged through the chop Sunday nights returning him to the mainland, to the railroad, to the city, to his empty apartment — stark, useless and absurd without his wife and children, who dwelt barefoot from Memorial Day through Labor Day in the shack Jimmy rented nestled behind the deserted dunes of Whalehouse Point on Fire Island.

“Wept” is the proper word – although there was no audible boo-hoo accompaniment. The tears would well before the jam-packed crash boat was half way across the bay. Occasionally, tears would trickle down and he would blot his cheeks and blow his nose like it was allergy.

Once he looked up as he was blowing his nose and a man about his age caught his eye and nodded knowingly. It helped not to be alone with his tears. But it was disquieting. The guy understood. But he wasn’t weeping.

From the time Jimmy stepped on the mainland till his return on Friday evening,  he soldiered relentlessly through the week like the veteran mercenary he was.

He worked fiercely at his job, which was unusual, since he was very talented and working hard at his profession was regarded as very uncool.

The truth was he felt an absolute failure not being with his family in the shack behind the dune. When he was done working, he drank in pubs with people he had come to know. He drank hard. He gobbled the pub food. Or he would go on to a restaurant with a few of his drinking companions.

Women frequently asked him up. He was a good-looking, successful, young man. Maybe three or four times a summer, he said, yes. He rarely repeated and he stayed through the night only once.

On Wednesdays, he would catch the last five races at the track. He hung out at the finish line in the Club House with a group of eight men he had known in the Marines. Once in a while, he cashed a big score. Usually he broke even.

This summer, the Fourth of July was on a Friday. Nobody was working Thursday, so he came out Wednesday straight from the track. He was feeling very good. He had hit a nice score –a blind lucky number bet – that was the Triple. He had collected $7,300. And it was a long, 4-day holiday.

He could see his two boys, eight and nine, jumping up and down as the beach taxi headed along the water’s edge toward his shack, which was the only dwelling within a mile. Every week his boys got a little blonder and a little wilder. He hugged them hard and gave them the usual candy bars.

He went in and kissed his wife on the cheek. His wife was not a hugger. Jimmy had learned not to take it personally. He told her it was good to see her. He told her he had missed her and the boys. She didn’t say anything. She was reading The New Yorker magazine.

He kicked off his shoes and socks and took $6,000 in cash out of his sport coat and gave it to his wife. He told her he had picked a lucky ticket at the track and she could put this extra money in any cookie jar she pleased.  She took the wad of money into the bedroom and spread it out on the sheet and carefully counted it out twice. It was his annual salary just five years back. She put the money in the drawer with her lingerie.

It was still two hours till sundown, so Jimmy put on a bathing suit, grabbed the beach blanket and a new novel by an old friend and went over the dune with his boys. It was half tide and the surf was relatively quiet. Even so, it was fierce.

In early June, a 70-foot fishing boat had run on to a sand bar at night just 40 yards off shore. The crew was sleeping and the mate at the helm was drunk. Miraculously, the crew made it to shore in a life raft – but by day’s end, the surf had smashed the fishing boat into pieces.

Jimmy horsed around with his boys in the shallows. They knew to keep close. The fact was that every summer, the undertow, drowned half a dozen swimmers on Fire Island. Just this Memorial Day, a rogue wave had swept away two fisherman right from the water’s edge.

Playing with his boys was great fun. He could hug them in the rough house. They hugged him back. The roar of the surf was an exciting undertone. They were the only people on the beach for as far as the eye could see. It was very private. And wild in a very special way.

After a time, they went back to the blanket. The boys were playing with miniature replica trucks – working on fort complexes in the sand and tide pools. It was about an hour before dark. The gulls were busy. The air and the light of the evening sun were toasty. His wife was still in the shack reading, but it felt like heaven. The memory of times like this was what would trigger his tears in the crash boat.

Then his son’s had a territorial squabble about their forts and the oldest boy went back to the shack over the dune with his truck in hand. Evan, the eight-year-old, kept right on with his construction projects – incorporating his departed brother’s forts into his complex.

Jimmy relaxed. The evening sun felt mighty fine. His towhead son splashing in the tide pools was the epitome of beauty. Jimmy opened the book he had carried out and started to read.

It was hard to read under these circumstances. He would scan a few lines and then check on his son. It was herky-jerky. His son seemed to be doing just fine, so he read two pages through.

When he looked back up, his son was gone. Jimmy stood up. He looked up and down the beach and on the dune. His son was gone! He ran along the water’s edge and scanned the surf. There was no trace of his son. He ran back up the beach and up the bluff and looked at the path back to his shack. There was nothing. His son was gone!

Jimmy felt he was about to vomit. He ran back to the beach and yelled and screamed, for his son again and again. There was just empty beach. The gulls were finishing up. Night was descending. His son was gone.

Jimmy gathered up the blanket and trudged on back up and over the dune on to the path back to his shack. His son was gone. It was Jimmy’s fault. He wondered what his wife’s reaction would be. She would be sad. After a time, she would be angry at him. Very angry. Would she ever be sad for him? He didn’t have any idea.

When he opened the screen door to the shack, he had to step over a mammoth fort his two sons were constructing with their blocks. They were running their trucks back and forth.

Evidently, Evan had slipped away and gone over the dune and returned to the shack while Jimmy was reading the two pages. Jimmy looked at the boys again. Evan was alive! It was almost too good to be true.

Jimmy had never felt so lucky. Dinner was on the table. His wife had opened a bottle of Margaux. She smiled at him. She wearing a short, red satin, off the shoulder, dress he had never seen before.

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Many, many, years later, Jimmy O’Hara sat on another beach and wondered if he would ever feel strong again. He had just been two months in the hospital following radical surgery and chemotherapy for lung cancer. He felt so weak he knew he was still very close to death’s door.

His amazing second wife had pulled some strings and they were ensconced, all expenses paid, at a fabulous resort on the Kona coast on the Big Island in Hawaii. When they first arrived, Jimmy had behaved badly.

When they walked on to the beach and went swimming, the big puckered wounds on Jimmy’s chest and back drew a lot of attention. One couldn’t help looking at them. They were ugly. They were scary. Guests looked – looked away – then stared at Jimmy’s chest.

“What are you looking at?”, Jimmy would yell. “What’s the big deal? Didn’t they tell you to watch out for the sharks?”

After a day or two, Jimmy behaved. But he still had occasional bad days. This morning when they got to the beach, the red flags were out for dangerous surf. But the lifeguards were not at their stations. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition had just been delivered from the mainland and the lifeguards were clustered around a copy.

Jimmy left his wife on the chaise lounge, strode up to the life guards and chewed them out for dereliction of duty out like they were his Recon Marines and he was their bad ass, highly decorated, Captain.

Fortunately, the word had already traveled on Jimmy and the lifeguards heard him out. A couple of them said, “Yes Sir.”

Jimmy went on back to his spot on the beach and his wife on her chaise and told her he had given the Lifeguards the required correction. He wondered if he should speak to the Resort Manager. He felt strongly that competent cadre would never have allowed the Swimsuit distraction in the first place. But he decided to let it go. His wife agreed that was best.

Even though the red flags were up, Jimmy decided to take a swim. His wife asked him to be careful. He said he would be careful.

He looked for a guest he could swim with. Jimmy knew surf. You never swim alone. If the undertow grabs you, you never fight it. If you do, you will exhaust yourself. You relax and go with the flow. Later on, you’ll be able to swim parallel to the shore and come in safely.

There were just a few guests by the water’s edge on the entire beach. Jimmy picked out a guest in his early forties standing by himself about fifty feet down the beach. He was a pale-skinned new arrival.

Jimmy walked up to him and said hello. The man said hello and stared bug-eyed at the scars on Jimmy’s chest. Then he prepared to dive into an incoming wave.

Jimmy said, “You should have seen the other guy.” And dove with the guest into the wave.

But Jimmy had dived to ride the wave out and the guest’s dive was the other way to ride the wave in. When Jimmy came up, he was alone. He immediately felt a raging current. The undertow had seized him. It felt like a wild thing. He had a flash of a horse’s flank under his hand after he had taken the horse on a long gallop.

He was headed out to sea! Next stop, the Marshall Islands. Jimmy tried to swim out of the undertow and back toward shore. He was so weak! Just six or seven strokes and he was exhausted. Just treading water was difficult. The current was so strong and he was so weak.

He looked in at the beach. Everything was normal. Most of the guests reclined on chaises. A few children were playing in the sand. Four college boys were tossing a football around. His wife was looking out at him.

Jimmy realized right then that the surgery and chemo had addled him. He realized he was fighting the impulse to wave his arm at the lifeguards and call for help. He realized that he was seriously considering drowning in the next two or three minutes as preferable to asking those louts he had just chewed out to save him.

Just as he decided he would ask for help, his wife stood up and four lifeguards ran for the water. Two had outsized surfboards to use as flotation aids. When the first lifeguard got to Jimmy, he said, “Just playing it safe sir.” Jimmy said, “Good to see you. I had maybe twenty seconds left.”

It didn’t take long for them to swim him in with the big surfboard. It looked routine. Nobody except his wife was paying attention.  The guests were taking the sun. The birds were chirping as normal. The little kids were busy in the sand. The college boys had gone over to the beach bar for drinks.

“Thanks, men,” Jimmy said. One of his rescuers said, “You’re welcome, sir.”

His wife said, “You really are crazy, Jimmy. I’m glad you didn’t drown.”

Jimmy said he was glad too. Then, he talked to her about how surprising it was that everything on the beach was so normal even while he was seconds from drowning.

Later, that afternoon back in their room, he lay down to rest and a wave of gratitude swept over him for the heroic medicine that had saved him from cancer.

The big sadness came then. And he wept. They had saved his precious life.

His wife let him go and when he was done she hugged him and held him.

That evening while they were in the ballroom dancing, he saw a blonde woman in a short, red satin, off the shoulder dress and he immediately understood for the first time that he was already the luckiest man in the world long, long before he survived lung cancer.

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Fox Time
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

Jimmy stood behind a bush with his boys just outside the cage and waved and made monkey sounds at the big tiger lying there about thirty feet away. The big cat looked at him. Jimmy edged a little closer and stuck his hand further through the bush closer to the cage.

“Here, Kitty, Kitty,” he yelled. The tiger blinked his eyes once and continued to gaze at Jimmy.

“Stupid, sleepy, lazy, tiger,” Jimmy yelled.

He was hoping for a big reaction from the tiger so his eight and nine-year-old sons would have a special show. They didn’t have zoos like this in Connecticut. This new zoo in South Dakota featured open, “approachable” cages — landscaped so big bushes grew all around the bars of the cages.

Jimmy was frustrated. He felt a little foolish.

He shouted, “Hey Felix, wake up!” and pushed his hand even further through the bush into the cage.

The tiger blinked again and Jimmy’s hand touched something. A millisecond later, his brain realized he was touching the fur of another tiger hidden by the bush – he yanked his hand back and a big paw smashed into the bars where his hand had been and the people around the cage, yelled, “Whoa!”

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

Until the red foxes came into his life, that encounter all those years back had been Jimmy’s only contact with a wild animal.

He had lived most of his life in a Connecticut coastal town. As a boy, he heard the sound of the sea every day. At bedtime, it was a splendid sound to slip away into. Later, he lived a few miles inland in the same town in a renovated 18^th century ferry landing building that overlooked the terminus of the big estuary that coursed through the center of town on its way to the sea.

The estuary isn’t famous but it could be. It puts on a spectacular daily variety show featuring different animals, birds and fish depending on the season, the time of day and the state of the tide.

After he married, he moved two miles inland to a stately, white, “Gatsby” house on acres of rolling meadow running down to a river that feeds the estuary. The river teems with fish and turtles. The meadows are home to a flock of wild turkeys, a big red tail hawk, four crows, an owl and a herd of deer.

It is the last parcel of river bottom meadow left in his town. It is beautiful. Similar meadows along the river had been “improved” with tennis courts and basketball courts as newcomers from New York moved in and put up big houses. Jimmy had a friend with a lock mower cut his fields twice a year and left it at that.

When a coyote den in a nearby town was discovered with a pile of bones and 14 dog collars and 8 cat collars, Jimmy considered surrounding his land with special tall fiberglass fences to protect his pets. But he decided against it.

Jimmy and his wife, Anne, loved the meadows and the house and the old copper beach and the water from their artesian well. They knew they would have to sell and leave some day but when they really had to sell after forty-one years, it was a shock. They were still alive and they were leaving.

Their downsize was in a town up the line and back from the water, although there were still a lot of water grasses and reeds that reminded Jimmy of places where you could hear the sea. They had quite a few near neighbors here – which was sort of a fun prospect. There was a Jesuit university nearby, and just half a mile away, the housing projects of a big city rank with poverty, homelessness, and gang violence.

The good news was their downsize house was in an enclave of well kept eighty-year-old houses on a beautiful, well-maintained street with lovely old trees. There was work to do on the house but they had nice a big backyard spilling past a bountiful apple tree to a tangle of brush that separated their yard from the next property.

The children had gone long ago – and now all the grandchildren were grown and far away. So now, even on holidays, Jimmy and Anne were alone with Duncan, their 3-year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Duncan was the last of a long line of Cavaliers Jimmy and Anne kept. As a puppy, he had been shown the ropes by Percy, an extraordinarily beautiful and sweet Cavalier who had suddenly been afflicted by cancer when he was just six. The vet euthanized him. The family still mourned him.

Before they made the move, Anne had the Invisible Fence people do a careful survey of the new property and install their latest equipment in the front and the back. The Invisible Fence trainer introduced Duncan to the new boundaries of his outdoor life in just about forty minutes. The next day, Jimmy and Anne let him out and watched him.  Duncan was safe. He respected the boundaries front and back.

A week later Jimmy and Anne were breakfasting on pancakes on their screened porch, which was pleasantly illuminated by the morning sun. It was spring. The apple tree was blooming.

Anne suddenly screeched, “My God, look at that!”

Jimmy looked out. At the far end of the yard, four animals were lying down in a semicircle. They appeared to be basking in the sun. There were two big ones and two little ones. Jimmy looked again. The biggest one got up and turned and looked Jimmy’s way. It had a wild face. There was a red tinge to its fur. It was a fox! Jimmy had never seen a fox  in person. Now he was looking at a fox family that evidently lived on his property.

Just then, Duncan, banged up against the plate glass door of the porch barking furiously. Now all the foxes were on their feet looking toward the house. Then, they turned as one and trotted off into the foliage. Duncan kept barking. They had to bring him in off the porch to get him to stop.

That was the start of Fox Time for Jimmy and Anne. They immediately consulted the Internet for information on foxes. Foxes mated in the first quarter of the year. They had a gestation period of just 51 to 53 days. They were widespread in the state. Foxes had to live in the open spaces between neighboring coyote’s territory.

Foxes are omnivorous. They prey on mice, squirrel, rabbits, cats and small dogs like Duncan. Some foxes have rabies. Some can spread a fatal form of mange.

Jimmy thought about taking his old, sniper-scoped, Springfield 03 out of the Cosmoline and shooting the foxes. It would be an easy shot. Just 75 or 80 yards.  If he killed the Father fox, maybe the others would run away. But then again, maybe another male would step up.

Jimmy and Anne hoped that maybe the fox family was just passing through. But early next morning, as Jimmy was brewing the coffee, Duncan started barking and yowling – pushing against the porch door.

Sure enough, the fox family was back. The two babies were play fighting with each other. The mother was stretched out on her back in the sun. The father sat on his haunches looking straight out toward Jimmy.

Jimmy was fed up. He pushed Duncan back off the porch, opened the back door and stepped out. He was going to yell – but all four foxes had already plunged off into the brush.

Jimmy and Anne went back on the Internet. Foxes are never a threat to humans. They always seek to avoid confrontations. They do prey on small dogs and cats – but not with humans in the near vicinity.

This information was of great consolation. They began to allow Duncan to cruise the backyard so long as one of them was out there with him.

They relaxed. Then one morning, just as Jimmy emerged with Duncan out the porch door, he started to growl and run toward the back. The male fox was standing there. Duncan was acting like he wanted to make friends! Jimmy shouted, “No!” and the fox bounded away into the bush.

They decided on a new routine. The foxes usually came out for the sun in the early morning. They restricted Duncan to the front yard until noon. It worked. The foxes took the sun on a regular basis in the morning.  Duncan never encountered them.

Anne and Jimmy were now very interested in the foxes. They used field glasses to see them up close. Jimmy was struck by how wild their faces looked. The male fox especially had a fearsome jaw line. He definitely was a biter. The foxes rolled around in the dirt like dogs. They scratched themselves like dogs. The baby foxes were very cute – they were constantly play fighting — just like dogs.

They decided to take Duncan to the Vet to make sure he had all the shots he needed. The Vet’s assistant said Duncan was fine with his shots. She told Anne that the red fox is notorious for having the babies play around to distract a victim – and then the mother jumps out from hiding and kills.

That information really scared them. The fact is they had already fallen for the trick. The babies were very cute. Jimmy and Anne looked forward to seeing them almost every morning. They had become distracted. They had almost completely forgotten that the mother or father would pounce on Duncan if given the chance.

They went back on the Internet and clicked on to Amazon. The very next day they had a shiny, battery-operated, electronic, wildlife-deterrent canister. The brochure said the canister would emit high-pitched sounds that foxes, squirrels and all sort of varmints could not abide.

They set the canister up right where the foxes like to take the morning sun.

The foxes did not appear for two days and Jimmy started to feel a little guilty. All the foxes had been looking for was some morning sun. Duncan’s life would be perfectly fine if he kept to the front yard. Hell, Jimmy walked Duncan for a mile at the park almost every day.

The next morning Jimmy came down for breakfast a little late. He looked out. The Father fox was standing by the canister. He lifted his leg and urinated on the canister. Then he walked to the other side of the canister and urinated on it again.

He trotted back into the bush. Then he trotted out again with the wife and kids. They took the sun as usual.

Anne was out for her spin class. When she returned, Jimmy told her about how the fox had christened their fancy wildlife-deterrent canister – and they had a good laugh.

They decided they might as well live and let live as far as the foxes were concerned. They realized that as long as they kept an eye on Duncan, all would be well.

As the summer wore on, the fox family visited almost every day. Jimmy looked at them with the field glasses quite a lot. The babies were getting bigger. The father’s fur was quite beautiful – Jimmy had never realized how red, red foxes were.

Jimmy took a lot of photos of the foxes with his iPhone. He had enough to fill an album.

Jimmy discussed the fox family with a next-door neighbor at a cocktail party. The neighbor said he often saw the foxes passing through his property but had not realized they took the sun in Jimmy’s back yard. They wondered where their den was.

The next day the neighbor came to Jimmy’s door and told him the Father fox was dead. He was lying in the street about a half mile away just before the entrance to the projects. Jimmy was shocked. He didn’t know what to say.

He told Anne. She was surprised. Unsettled. Jimmy found the whole thing hard to believe. It seemed very unlikely that a fox would be on a busy urban street. Maybe it was a dog. He drove the half-mile up and over to check it out for himself.

There was no disputing it was the Father fox. Jimmy recognized him. He was one dead fox. He had been hit hard – probably several times. He lay on his side with his guts spilling out. His eyes were open. His jaw, was relaxed – his big, red, tongue lolling – his killer bite exposed for all to see. Jimmy took some photos. Then he drove to the other side of the road and took some shots from that perspective.

The fox family has not returned. Three days after Jimmy saw the dead fox, a large male red fox walked out of the brush, lay down in the early morning sunny spot and after about twenty minutes, rose and walked away.  Since then there have been no visitors.

It has been months now. Even so, Anne and Jimmy are vigilant when Duncan is out in the back. But as the days go by, the Fox Time is becoming time they look back on like all those years in their old “Gatsby” home.

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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.

Lizzie Parker — Split — digital photo

Response

Jennifer Fendya

Inspiration Piece

Enantiodromia

Even now a nation tumbles into old drama

Religion offered mankind immortality, almost

Each new atom – no! the inmigrant ones – dance

‘round our Mother, inviolate, absolute

Evening news anchors nighttime television

I’m okay. Dad reads over my increasing anxiety

Endings need a nice touch. In olden days,

romance! Onward messenger,

into Abyss

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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.

Diana K Sharp “I’m Right Here”  water color and mixed media

Response

The Lunchroom

Hildie S Block

Inspiration piece

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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.

Diana K Sharp

Inspiration piece

Stained Glass

Hildie S Block

Response
The painting means something. What, I’m not quite sure. Something, the colors, the lines. It was just on the edge of what I could . . .know? Just past –

“Wait, what?”
She shook her head.
“You never listen to me. I swear mother, I mean it just doesn’t matter to you does it? Mom?”
“No– I mean what did you say– I want to know. . . ”
“Does it really matter? I come here. . . I think you are lonely . . . I feel so bad and then you just look out the window and don’t listen. I should go.”
“Listen, sweetie,” I grabbed for her hand. I turned it over in my hand. This hand which had been the chubby hand of a meowing smiling toddler, was now coarse, polish chipping and cracked. “Honey, when was the last time you got a manicure? Not very professional — the judge — ”
“Okay, so that’s it. I’m out of here.”
“No wait, Sera– have some tea. There are more cookies. . .”
But she was gone.

And I found myself back at the window, staring at the tracks the rain made against the pane as they raced each other down and counted down the minutes until the nurse came to bring me to dinner.

I didn’t realize my eyes were closed. I really thought I was still staring out the window. But now that I think about it, I mean really think — like I try to when they are doing tests to see if . . . Well I’m not sure what — to make sure my brain is still . . . Well, when I’m in that thing and there’s the banging — I think. I try to count as high as I can by threes, it gets boring. I try to do the digits of Fibonacci, but that gets too hard. I try to think.

Like now. I realize I’m lying on the bed, the lights are out, but I can see the hall light from under the door and see some glare outside the window. But I don’t exactly remember all the things that happened to get me here.

When my eyes were shut, even now when I shut my eyes, SEE? The painting? Oh, no, you can’t see can you?

The painting. There’s something about this painting. I wish I could tell you. It’s like a watercolor — it’s like my window when the raindrops chase each other down. At the same time it’s the stained glass from the church –

Oh god no. NO NO NO.
That’s what it is.
I was happier not realizing that.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
I can’t remember that — of all things that — NO NO NO
What? Why are you grabbing me????
NO NO NO NO
Ow. Another needle.
Soft bracelets holding me to the bed.
Just breathe.

They think I can’t hear, like I’m not there — I’m invisible. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m dead. No. I can see my chest rise and fall if I open my eyes a slit and look past my nose. I’m not dead.

“She had another –”
“I know, that’s why I came.”
“We don’t know if she’s getting worse. If there are seizures—Well, you may need to make other arrangements. The social worker –”
“I know. I think it’s my fault.”
“No, dear, of course not –”
“I agitated her. I shouldn’t come.”
“You’ve got something on your skirt — let me –”
“It’s just dog hair. The damn dog.”
“But your mother — I don’t think that’s it at all. Sometimes – “
(There’s a buzz)
“Do you need to get that?”
“Just a minute –”
“I can’t right now — I’m with mom — jury’s coming back — are you sure? — okay — I’m coming–”
“Sorry — I’m in court — their — my father’s case –”
“Do you need to –“
“Yes — well — yes, in a minute–”
“Let me just tell you this — you know we have a lot of patients in this wing, in the memory wing — we see a lot of things — and sometimes –“
“Yes?”
“Sometimes — maybe not your mother – “
“I should probably go–”
“Sometimes memories — well, they come back — but the poor dears — they don’t understand them — or they are scared by them. One time there was a gentleman –”
(The buzz again)
“I really need to go –“

Scared. I’ll show them scared. The painting — it was not a painting. It was a window. There. A WINDOW. Oh god. It was a window, the window, in the church. OH THAT BEAUTIFUL CHURCH –

The funny thing about earthquakes, you know, well there are lots of funny things — but one of them — the animals seem to know. I mean my Maverick, he knew. He was hiding under the bed that Sunday. But did I pay him any mind? No, silly furball of a dog. “Here Maverick, here boy! C’mon out — walkies!” but he wouldn’t so I just shrugged and went on my way to church. Your father was driving. You know, that old blue Honda of his. Loved that thing. Always started. I used to tease him about it. “So boring,” I said, “No surprises.”

I loved that church. So old and beautiful. Even the pews were worn, but they had history. All the people who sat in them. All those souls.

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. It’s shaking. The Windows. The Windows. OH GOD they are flying — they are breaking apart — it’s like watching blood splatter. OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD.

Ow. Needles. Bracelets.

Your father was in that painting, you know. It was a watercolor. Painted with tears. That’s how they make them. And your father, he was in the painting. Right there in the middle. Crown of thorns. Beautiful streaks of color. They were like cells. Spidery, like nerve cells. Reliable. Like memory.

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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.

Lizzie Parker – Narrow Lane

Inspiration Piece

Jennifer Fendya

Response

The Anthropocene

They came and knocked on our doors
this morning, each one asking,
“Will you rise and fall in with us?
Will you come up the downslide?”
It was early and still, the sky a pale envelope,
a shroud winding its way through
the emptied streets, like fingers
of some God, like in Egypt that one night.

There’d been rumors of avatars.
Others had evicted, convinced
the embodiments were mere
story-telling and lies to keep us
hopeful, pacified. Some crept elsewhere
to seek veils and vacancies. We stayed
and searched inside for mirrors, waited,
whispered into plates and blankets,
looking around each other’s dreams.

It was an abandoned stage set
when we hesitated outside, it seemed
for a period piece, the civilians of old
having gathered in the square, in the dark,
torches lit and blazing, shadows cast
of monsters and ministers all around
and the frenzy of collective fear creeping
up, crawling along the skin, their very
humanity buried deep below
in the dirty dank earth, their accounts
now long closed, their shout-outs
combusted in one last twittering gasp.

So, emptying, the cobbled-together movement
of a body politic, galvanized, discharged
into the street, our current running upstream
in counterrevolutions, evolution
successively generating and selecting for
this moment of transmutation. And we left
our echoes behind and climbed alongside
them, honeyed and reverent, over
embankments and into the cloud, dimly
recalling crisp curtains, the sweet smell
of gardens, and one red brick chimney.

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.

Nancy Ramsey

Protect

Response

Trust
© KJ Hannah Greenberg
drkarenjoy@yahoo.com

Inspiration

I signed out AMA, against medical advice. At thirty-five weeks, the baby’s lungs were mature. My phobia of hospitals and of unnecessary interventions would harm him more than would my rejecting those medicos’ offer to keep me under observation. Messing with my endocrine system, too, could lead to premature birth.

Six weeks later, he was born with a full head of hair and a weight of over ten pounds. He went immediately to size two diapers. Today, he’s a full-blown teenager. Sometimes, we have to trust the softest whispers.

Nancy Ramsey

Freedom

Inspiration Piece

Umland
© KJ Hannah Greenberg
drkarenjoy@yahoo.com

Response

In a habitable attic, a grey woman looks at albums.
Her candle flicks light and shadow on yesterdays.

Under the circumstances, her arts/crafts training,
Reliable, but not indefatigable, remains lacking.

There’s no point in jumping from soaring garrets.
Memories buoy mistakes, no matter the contexts.

Save for some peregrine others, thrumming over
Most early episodes benefits no set aside ghosts.

Turning pages, she brings to mind adults as babies,
Weighs up whether her grandkids unyoked her soul.

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.

Jennifer Fendya — “that kind of girl” — digital photo
Response

Terah Van Dusen
Inspiration Piece

The Way of a Woman

Once, early on
in our relationship
I shared a hotel room
with my man and four
of his buddies

There were two beds so
Steve and I got one, two
buddies shared one,
one slept upright in a chair,
and one fellow slept on the floor

Steve didn’t hardly touch me
at all that night
He was like that, respectful
(not of me but of his friends)

In the morning, I tip-toed out
the door into a barely-there
Portland springtime and in my
royal purple longcoat I
skipped down the road
for coffee and some
roll-your-own cigarettes.
I stopped to put a rose in my hair

I found a place for coffee and, with the help
of a cardboard holder, brought cups back
for Steve and each of his friends
I placed a cherry blossom into the
tic-tac sized hole where you
drank from

Then I offered it to them, feeling a little crazy
One of Steve’s friends told me:
Oh, you’re that kind of girl,
a compliment no doubt that
made me blush
but I couldn’t
make a peep
out of shyness
and in my head the
words were screaming:
I’m not a girl, I’m a woman!

but I didn’t say anything then
cause I didn’t want to
scare ‘em off

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.

Jennifer Fendya
Inspiration Piece

Terah Van Dusen
Response

Bird Song

I drove myself far
down the Requa way
I wanted to see myself fly
I shooted right there
from the seat in my car
I was singing Desperado
along the way
I shouted names that
I hadn’t heard in a while
I shouted devil and demon
and such
I whispered out loud
all of the pain and I stood there
and I watched it all flood
Down the hills
down the roads
down the windows of home
came a tumbling a sorrowful song
it sounded much like a thundering roar
it sounded like family, a devil, a whore
it sounded familiar more
it sounded so familiar more
I sat there and watched it all flood
I remembered the card tables the lanterns
and the saltines of home
I remembered the piano that nobody played
I remembered starving and chewing
and bleeding some more
I remembered the blank stares and
the barbed wires of home
I was a child disgusted
with home
so I drove myself far
down the Requa way
I wanted to see myself fly
away.