Jonathan Ottke
Inspiration piece

Diving in December
By Ash Martins
Response

Frank smiled as he watched everyone. The log cabin buzzed with energy during winter break. Have you ever seen such a beautiful family? he asked himself.

Bobby and Christine were his by blood, but he was fond of Damon, though he was Francine and Eddie’s kid. The whole lot of them had gotten together all these years for holidays, birthdays, sporting events, dance recitals. Frank knew he was a fuck-up in a lot of ways, but one thing he was sure of: he was a family man.

His heart still swelled a little when he looked at Francine even though they’d been divorced since the kids were in diapers. She was obviously as happy as ever with Eddie and, he was a pretty great guy, Frank thought. No one knew this would be Frank’s last Christmas at the cabin. The illness was advancing quicker now. The doctors gave him six more months. He didn’t want to burden the family, so he kept his diagnosis to himself.

Georgia perched on the arm of his oversized cozy chair in the corner, drawing Frank out of his thoughts momentarily.

“Bobby wants to go skiing after breakfast. How ‘bout it, dad?” He loved that his daughter-in-law called him dad, though he was her in-law.

“Augh,” he grumbled. “I’ll just watch from the veranda. Too damn cold out there.” He spoke gruffly but with a half-smile. Truth be told he didn’t know if his body could handle the exertion.

“Your loss!” Jordan hollered as he ran by in a pair of cartoon-printed footie jammies with his new ski goggles squishing his cherubic face. That damn kid sure is a handful for only being eight. Wonder what he’ll be like at sixteen. Frank mused. Probably as bad as me. Or worse. He chuckled inaudibly. He felt a little bad thinking that way about his great grandson but couldn’t help it. He knew what kind of kid he’d been. The smoking, the drinking, the cars, the girls. Oh, the girls.

Henry came over with a mug of something-spiced-and-spiked, a family tradition at the holidays, and silently held it out to his grandpa, his amber eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. Henry was notoriously heavy-handed on the “spiked” part of the drink. Frank took it with a nod of gratitude and held the warm mug with both hands to ease his arthritis.

Frank wondered if Henry would ever marry or have kids. He’d been terribly shy growing up, which Frank found odd. He figured the oldest grandkid would’ve been more outgoing, having gotten all the attention for the first two years of his life. Henry and Frank had a special bond, though. They were men of few words, free of flowery speech and platitudes.

That’s part of why Francine left him, as a matter of fact. Said he “couldn’t express himself” or some bullshit. He told her, “When you fight in two big wars, you don’t come home the same man. You don’t talk about your feelings because if you let those demons in, they’ll consume you.” Well, he didn’t say it in so many words. In fact, he said very little. So, she left him for Eddie, whom she’d met at the tennis club while she was recovering from childbirth after their youngest was born. Eddie could, evidently, express his feelings. He never had to hunker down in the trenches, Frank had thought bitterly in the early days of Francine’s second marriage. Eventually his bitterness had faded as life carried on and took Frank along with it.

Christine shouted over the family’s ruckus that breakfast was ready. She was the more organized, responsible one of Frank’s two kids. Bobby was more laid-back. The go-skiing-after-someone-else-cooks-breakfast type. Frank wondered how his kids turned out so damn different. He shrugged the thought away and shuffled to the table, which Ingrid had set beautifully.

Oh, Ingrid. She’d been through some of the hardest trials in life but was still the sweetest soul. Ingrid was Frank’s granddaughter. At only thirty-seven, she’d already lost her spouse to colon cancer, earned her PhD in biochemistry and was blazing trails in her field, and had had two kids, Jordan, and Karina. When Ingrid smiled at you, it was like being warmed by the summer sun after a dip in a cold pool. Frank couldn’t really conjure that description himself; he just knew that’s what it felt like whenever Ingrid smiled because that warmth reminded him of his yesteryears. Yes, Frank’s grandkids were the apples of his eye. Henry was his sit-in-silence buddy, and Ingrid was his bringer of warmth and joy. Though he truly loved the whole family, those two were something special to him.

The table was set with shimmery charger plates and glittery pine cones. Artfully folded cloth napkins looked like flowers lining the table. The oversized river rock fireplace cracked peacefully with a fire some early bird had lit. Probably Christine. Frank sighed happily as he looked around the table. Eddie patted Frank’s shoulder on his way to his seat. Christine brought her spiced fruitcake to the table – her holiday specialty. Ingrid followed with a bowl of fresh fruit and a plate of sausages and sliced ham with cloves. The scrambled eggs were already on the table in a fancy glass dish. Damon popped open champagne for mimosas, and everyone cheered as the cork ricocheted off the chandelier.

Jordan bounced around Ingrid as she set the food down, asking if he could try a mimosa this year. Karina elbowed him playfully.

“Maybe when you’re thirty,” she teased.

She silently eyed her mom and raised her eyebrows hopefully, as if to ask if she could have one, though? Ingrid laughed and said they both were welcome to enjoy some fresh squeezed OJ in fancy glasses, but that champagne wasn’t for developing brains.

“Typical scientist,” the twelve-year-old chortled.

Now that everybody had gathered, they sat. Except Frank. He wanted to propose a toast. He wasn’t much for words, but in this moment, he wanted to tell them how much he loved them and was proud of each of them. There were many things he wanted to say. He placed one hand on his chest and held up his mug of something-spiced-and-spiked with the other. (“Real men don’t drink fruity drinks,” he had always said. Ingrid always gently replied, “That’s malarkey, grandpa. ‘Real men’ drink whatever the hell they like.”) His eyes gathered a single tear. The family looked at him still standing, twinkle in his eyes, slightly surprised by this uncharacteristic show of – well, whatever this was.

Frank’s chest tightened, he assumed with emotion, though he wasn’t terribly well acquainted with that sensation, even at 82.

“Well,” he began. “H-here we are,” he hesitated.

He wasn’t actually sure what to say. He hadn’t planned this. He looked around at each face at the breakfast table, pausing last and longest on sweet Henry’s, then dear Ingrid’s.

In that moment, Frank felt a familiar, happy rush, like he was back at the neighborhood pool of his youth. He felt cold water shock his head and glide down his lithe body as it deftly sliced through the water – he’d been perfecting that dive all god damned summer. He was a favorite for the state competition next school year, his senior year. He rolled in the water playfully like an otter before surfacing for air and popping out onto the poolside. Frank felt the slightest singe on his tender, pink, summer skin as he laid on the scalding cement. As he let himself melt into the pavement, he heard the familiar crashing of a cannonball breaking the water’s surface next to his head, and a few feet away, the high-pitched screech of the lifeguard’s whistle. Some little shit must’ve been running on deck again. Can’t they follow basic directions? The rules never change. Frank rolled his eyes irritably.

But the haze of childhood memories faded as quickly as they had enveloped him, and Frank found himself back in the family’s cabin, only he was lying on the dining room floor. He looked up to see them all leaning over him in a semicircle, their faces filled with shock and fear. Frank realized in that moment that what he had thought was a cannonball was his something-spiced-and-spiked crashing to the floor, the lifeguard’s whistle was Ingrid’s desperate scream, the rushes of cold and warmth were spasms of his failing body.

Henry took Frank’s pulse and wondered aloud, to no one in particular, if he was supposed to start CPR? Eddie rushed to call an ambulance. Ingrid knelt and clasped her grandfather’s hand. There was so much he wanted to say to her but never would. Frank was a man of few words, even until his last breath. He looked dimly into Ingrid’s honey-brown eyes, noticing how unusually large they were, like a harvest moon, and when he felt the warmth begin to wash over him again, he dove into the pool one final time.

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Jonathan Ottke
“Day at the Beach”
Response

Time Stop
By Ash Martins
Inspiration piece

Seagulls catch waves of

Wind blows fast and hot and dry

Air smells of wild mint and sea so sweet like

Candy shops line the boulevard

Families walking dogs and kids

Playing chipmunks in the rocks make time

Stop lights are few between

Life is simpler here

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Amy Souza
photography
Inspiration piece

Overcast
By Kamika Cooper
Response

“What are you doing here?”

Gretchen sat cross-legged, making swirls in the sand with her fingers. She had been sitting peacefully at the ocean’s edge for the past hour, the currents and birds providing a soundtrack for her brooding.

Jack looked down at her, trying to quell his excitement. “I came to be with you, maybe take you to lunch.”

“This is where I need to be right now.”

“I get it.” He sat next to her, wanting to put his arms around her. Instead, they sat in silence, the ocean mist kissing their faces. For him, the news was cause for celebration; This is what he wanted from the moment he laid eyes on her.

Gretchen looked up with tears in her eyes. “I cannot believe I allowed this to happen. I can barely take care of myself! What am I going to do with a baby?”

Jack wanted to respond and reassure her, but he remained silent. She had been distraught since taking the home pregnancy test. She came out of the bathroom, handed him the positive test stick and walked out the front door.

“I am no one’s ‘Mommy’. The very thought of it is absurd. I did everything right. I didn’t miss any days of birth control, we used extra protection… I just don’t understand. I can’t explain it, but I know that I am not meant to have kids.”

As far as Jack was concerned, Gretchen had simply under estimated herself and he was going to help her to see things differently. After poking holes in condoms for the past five months, his dream was coming true. He was going to be a father, have a family. He was thrilled and knew that Gretchen would come around.

“I know this is not what you wanted and the timing is bad, especially with your new job. But I love you and I am going to take care of you and our baby. We can get married, be a family.”

“Married?!” She laughed through her tears. “Listen, I love you, Jack. I enjoy what we have had over the past year. But as I told you when we met, I am not the marrying type and never will be. It is not my intention to hurt you, but I am no one’s wife or mother.

“So what, are you planning to abort our baby?”

She went back to making swirls in the sand. “I don’t know.”

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Paula Lantz
50”h x 40” acrylic and collage on canvas
Inspiration piece

Lisa Kilhefner
Response

I’ll race you to where the night sky meets the waves,
where cerulean melts the moon.
We can watch the colors, lying quietly side by side
(not a dance or rhyme or wiggle,
so careful not to quiver)

We roll over the cliffside, chasing those nocturnal coos
and whispering to no one.

Yellow glow starts seeping through
as though it has some permission slip,
like it could ever be blue.

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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.

Amy Souza
Inspiration piece

Me and Mary Lou
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

I want to tell you how Mary Lou and I got together but I warn you this story is all about sexual addiction and then the inevitable consequences over the decades.

When I met Mary Lou, I was just about all finished with my marriage to Emily. I had married her because she was pregnant with my child. Emily was three years ahead of me at our college in Ohio. She was a handsome, blonde woman who lived a couple of towns up the line from me in shoreline Connecticut.

On the first vacation back, Emily’s father met our train in New York State and dropped me off at my home. I liked her father. He was a cheery, attractive man. He worked in advertising. He wore a beautiful, expensive, sports jacket.

I was seven years older than Emily. I had gone straight from high school to the Marines. I had served two hitches, mostly overseas. I had been a highly successful recon sniper. But I had been very badly wounded when one of my buddies had an accidental discharge. They worked very hard at fixing me but they just couldn’t do it. They gave me full disability and another, really big deal, medal.

So, I rested a few months and then I went off to college. You wouldn’t know it just to look at me, but I was a monster. I had been a great sniper. I had killed at least 322 men over five years. It was very difficult, very dangerous work. I excelled at it. Then, suddenly, I couldn’t do it anymore.

I had just met Emily on the bus to the train station in Ohio. It turned out we were near neighbors in Connecticut. She offered me a ride home and I was glad to get it. We sat together on the train and we had s splendid conversation as we moved East. I liked Emily. She was very blonde and very attractive. I thought about fucking her sixteen ways to Sunday. I knew exactly what to do to ruin her forever. And ever.

By the time summer vacation ended, I had gotten Emily pregnant. We got married in a Catholic Church in Emily’s hometown. Then we headed back out to the college. We moved into brand new housing they had just built for vets with family like me.

Our son was born right on schedule. I hate to admit it, but our second son was born just eleven months later. The fact is I never did get around to breaking in Emily the way I intended. She was too damn busy taking care of our infant children. In fact, she moved back to Connecticut and delivered our second son there.

I did well in college. I finished up in two years and went on to work in New York as a copywriter. In no time, I was making serious money. The problem was that Emily was now a homemaker. I liked Emily but I needed more than a saint with me in the bed.

Fortunately, my job had me traveling a lot. In those days, I spent a lot of time on the West Coast. Before long, I had a bungalow in Santa Monica and the agency also paid for a pleasant studio apartment off Third Avenue in Manhattan.

Both of my residences were “staffed” by beautiful women. But I never worked weekends. I was almost always home. As I said, I liked Emily. She was a terrific mother. Before long, I was making really serious money. Ten years out I lived in a beautiful home with a fabulous pool and grounds. I had a million dollars in savings.

The problem was my relationship with Emily had withered. She was very unhappy. So was Yours Truly. I got along fine with my sons — but the awful truth is that I yearned for Mondays like a regular person yearns for Fridays.

Then one Monday morning, I shared a seat on the train to Manhattan with Mary Lou. That really is the end of the story. Mary Lou was married with three children. A year later, I left my wife and family. Two years later, I married Mary Lou.

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Stephanie Ross
Response

The Magician’s Box
By Stefanie A. Shilling
Inspiration piece

climb in
lay yourself down
stretch

time stops
in the magician’s box

outside, the shiny tops spin
reflections glimmer
bouncing lights

then comes the first cut
make yourself smaller
to avoid getting hurt

bend your knees
pull them up to your chest
your feet are the first to go
you don’t need them to stand anymore

bury your face
or they will bury you whole

shrink yourself
to organs and bones and skin
folded and stacked
ever-so-neatly

because after all
you are magic too.

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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.

Timmy McKay
“Seeds Sleep”
8″x10″ Acrylic on Cedar
Response

Earthy Lapis
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

The seeds sleep

Closeted in cold, damp soil

Recovering strength sapped by red-hot days

Of summer sun snorting their fragrance, licking their petals

Shrinking and sanctioning their flowery beauty

Pushing them to withered end

They sleep—winter cold, fresh, deep washed

     in teeming rains and snows

Until a warming wiggles them free and slowly

Their green slim arms reaching

They begin spring dancing, growing,

   smothering their coughing, sneezing

And blowing out renewed flowers, haughty and headstrong

Faces colorful and swaying into summer

The music of their brush toned petals

    stroking the air,

      bowing in the wind

Gracing the universe.

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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.

Jay Young Gerard
“Homelessness”
Inspiration piece

Not the Blight You’re Thinking of
By Lisa Nielsen
Response

i watch your grueling hunchbacked body
meandering side to side while frustrated commuters twist about to get around you

you’ve been amassing pain and bitterness as if it were your birthright
the resulting inheritance is a million electrodes
and daily spams
amalgamating into an unrelenting you

motion is crucial, even sleep is nothing more than rotating bones in a fit of despair

imagine being on guard, not like we all are with our game of emotional charades,
but truly every moment taken up with a sword
and shield

imagine that
so think before you sneer and disregard

not all of us are brave enough to wear our monsters on capes

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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.

Jay Young Gerard
“ReEmergence”
Response

scenes from an italian restaurant
By Lisa Nielsen
Inspiration piece

you’ve grown smaller
from last I saw you,

he is larger than
your prize

that house you coveted
has bars

he takes up the space you once lived in

I engulf you in a jarring hug
your jutting bones bruising my flesh

i’m afraid to ask what sickness has taken all that weight
when you show us before pictures, “I was 155 pounds there”

You looked so healthy,
instead I say “you always looked good,”
as if that would encourage you to eat

i want to follow you to the bathroom
tell you you don’t have to do this,
you don’t have to go back to the table and sit
with him

his eyes, glazed, droopy, his words slurred, you’re his prize too
but the cost is not as high

i want to take your hand and feed you
i want to let you know it is not so lonely to be alone

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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.

Cristal Brawley
Inspiration piece

Stability Not Stabile-ity
By Diane Mayr
Response

“The aesthetic value of these objects cannot be arrived at by reasoning. Familiarization is necessary.” — Alexander Calder

It looked to be
something created
as an art project–
an homage to
Alexander Calder.

A stabile chair
if you must have
a name for it–
metallic, colorful,
collectible?

But, there it sat
on the sidewalk,
next to the trash,
awaiting the Friday
morning pick-up.

In need of a chair
that’ll wrap around
me in comfort, I knew
familiarization is
more than aesthetics.

The city garbage
truck pulled up. It’s
efficient crew jumped
off and put an end to
any and all reasoning.

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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.