By Sandy Coleman

Response

Hawaii

By Tyler Brewington

Inspiration piece

In the language there is life, in the language there is death. I wanted an ambitious renovation of the nest. The nest filled with water and proved just as dangerous as the open sea. I got in in very good time and got, with the dolphin, excellent stabling. I pitched in, I swam for the shark. I mean in support of, in solidarity, and also I swam towards the shark. If there was an outlet here I wasn’t using it. If I had been in Rome, architecturally, I would have said this reminds me of Rome. I looked out to the beyond. It wasn’t a place where people go to have fun, but it happens sometimes. I flew home. Ma’am, I was told at the airport, don’t show me your bikini. Ma’am, I have to find your bikini on my own.

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Sandy Coleman
“Elsewhere”
Response

The Map
By Laura Shovan
Inspiration piece

She emptied her son’s backpack

after the bus put up its wheelchair lift

and drove away, after she rolled him

up the ramp and through their front door.

Once there was a map in his backpack,

mirror image of the pale blue T-shirt

she had dressed him in that morning, freshly laundered,

now streaked with God-knew what.

The map of his shirt said a black smudge was finger paint

(it was nearing Halloween, his aide wrote,

they were doing spiders), green was grass from recess,

the glowing orange splotch – not a pumpkin –

Miranda “borrowed” a highlighter from the teacher’s pen jar,

drew a lopsided heart on his shoulder.

The brown was chocolate (they told Robbie

not to share his MnMs, but….)

When her son died, she thought about the map.

If he had worn a map on the last day, what would she know?

The spider and the grass, the misshapen heart,

chocolate melting on a quiet tongue.

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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.

Sandy Coleman

Response piece

Beyond the Horizon

Mixed media on canvas

Ray Sharp

Inspiration piece

BIRDS

There must be birds
beyond the horizon. We feel
their wings beating in the wind,
hear their murmured conversations
roll ashore in waves, and it grieves us
who remain rooted to the still earth.

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.

Sandy Coleman

Letting Go

Response

Shades of Gray

By Ray Sharp

Inspiration piece

I wrote you a poem

in a small and even script

words like bird tracks

in wet sand

but I inked them out

with furious black smudges

and set it afire

dropped it and watched

words turn to ashes

and float across

your view of the moon.

Cremation, phoenix.

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. 

Sandy Coleman

Response

Charisse Cecil

Inspiration

Farewell, stairwell

I’m ready.

I’m standing in these slotted
shadows, leaning against this
cinderblock wall that is coated in countless layers
of paint vainly attempting to cover generations
of ubiquitous crew tags and psychedelic
profanity.

Under this metal staircase, where I used to huddle
with my girls, harmonize to hip hop soul
pop rhythm & blues slow jams and practice
lyrical freestyles in an impermeable cipher
that the boys could not enter unprepared
for verbal battle.

The light shone through the slats and created
stripes across my loose-leaf paper,
shining on my algebra homework
brightly enough for T. to copy my answers
while I crushed on him so hard
that I didn’t mind doing all the work.

Tucked  inside that acute angle under the stairs
with T., I tasted my first kiss – a heady blend
of heat, his sour apple Jolly Rancher
and my pink lemonade Bubble Yum
that made all those late nights of memorizing
theorems and formulas worth every
missed must-see TV show and girly conference call.

Whenever I hear the crunch of broken glass
and discarded Newport filters underfoot,
I remember the night L. forced me to my knees
under those stairs and pressed my face
against his open fly, when he was supposed to be watching
me while my mom went around the corner for groceries.

Under this stairwell, I learned one source of my power
that will take me beyond this stairwell and these shadowy halls.
The power is in my mouth –
to recite rules or rhymes,
to sing songs or wail battle cries,
to give ardent pleasure or exact excruciating pain.

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.

Sandy Coleman
Moonlight Lady
Collage on canvas
Response

Waxing and Waning
By Annmarie Lockhart
Inspiration piece:

crescent moon
on a clear-sky night
she shines center stage
in front of a deep dark
velvet curtain with
a handful of stars
scattered like glitter
across midnight

a silvery sliver of
her full brazen self
she emanates light
weak and pale

she glows
but does not grab
she is beautiful
but subdued
she shows
but does not tell
she is eyecatching