Narrative
By Terri Connellan
She starts up high, facing north
towards slow mist,
watching the sea wash
into the rain’s drift below.
She is called to the beach
as if to a baptism, bride-like,
white as the air, stepping
down the rough rock stairs.
She narrates her life,
writes as she walks,
as if the sand and shells are
the bones of her story.
And the pieces connect her:
an imperfect white oval shell,
a fig leaf from a canopy,
the sketched black lines
of a creature’s moving home.
Cool and tight limbed,
she ends in another place,
as if washed by waves,
her contours, clear and shell-lined
as the Borromean grottoes
of Isolabella,
her white shining lights
coming home.
Terri Connellan
lives and writes in Sydney surrounded by beach and bush. She has been an avid
student in Poetry for the People Levels 1 & 2 in 2009-10.
Dear One
By Kris Becker
If only you would
Be revealed to me, no more
Windows, no more opaque.
If only your skin
When I touch it would submerge
My doubt. Why do I doubt?
Because we kiss.
Because everything happens at once
(The rain, the fruit which splits in the
rain).
Kris Becker lives in Port Townsend,
Washington where she’s a community volunteer and consultant to non-profit
organizations. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University
and enjoys grant writing, literature, gardening and traveling.
What the Obituary Didn’t Say
By
Kim Klugh
was that she preferred a tidy life, uncluttered,
with all the crumbs and dirt swept
up and out the door
all surfaces scrubbed free of grime
and gleaming with no traces of her being left
upon the counters nor the floor.
Few were those she
drew close
they who knew her said--
no surprise that when her heart-beat stilled
no funeral was unfurled.
She’d not endure a corporal viewing
no line of gawking mourners
no final glimpse she gave
of burial she’d have no need
since she spurned the grave.
Down by the river-side a small assembly waited
while her wishes they carried forth as ashes
each scooped a palm-full and released her
among the ripples, among the rocks and water
she’d abide down deep amid the sand and silt
well below darting shadows cast
by trawling marble-eyed catfish
sifting, scavenging
through bone dry ash.
Kim Klugh
writes from Lancaster, PA. Her publishing credits include the Intelligencer
Journal, BusinessWoman, “b” magazine, Susquehanna Life,
Central PA Magazine, Byline and
Lancaster City Living. An essay of hers is included in the Adams Media My
Dad is My Hero anthology. Her
poetry has appeared on vox poetica and in Eclectic Flash.
A Mosaic Coming To Life
By Laura Cococcia
***
Red loves purple because it’s not blue or green. Too often, red feels
the burden of having to be paired with blue to celebrate patriotism and green
to celebrate consumerism. Red likes that purple can be a bit different, living
on its own, with few obligations.
Indigo loves my friend Olivia, who, in turn, loves indigo just as much.
They can often be found together sporting the latest denim outfit or painting
landscapes.
Anxiety wears flat-soled sandals. It wishes it wore fast running
sneakers.
Jealousy eats granola for breakfast, by choice. While eating in
martyrdom, jealousy wishes it had eggs, pancakes and sausage and loathes anyone
who does.
Most people know that fear rents space at the top of the Empire State
Building. What few people know is that fear actually owns a large,
well-decorated 5 bedroom house in suburban Connecticut and often pays visits to
the wives in the neighborhood who wondered how they ever got there.
Blue borrows a wedding dress since it would like to experience, just
once, the beauty of the day when women all over the world are looking for blue
to share. Blue, of course, promptly returns the dress to its owner.
Pink sings boldly, loudly and slightly off pitch – but just belts it
out.
Truth tastes like watermelon, coming into our lives very infrequently,
but enjoyed by so many. Refreshing. If truth were always in season, perhaps it
would taste a bit more like peanut butter.
**
Laura Cococcia is the
editor of The Journal of Cultural
Conversation. A self-designed cultural anthropologist, she is a
voracious reader, world traveler, hiking fanatic, excited activist and good
friend. She works in global marketing with a fabulous crowd of creative folks
and is a freelance writer for various publications.
Dandelion
By Mac Antigua
A white card.
Hardy sixteen point ivory card stock
When held, its firm edges dig into the heart of a handshake
My name centered in bold, formal, formidable arial
hovers above the title of Director of National Recruitment & Expansion
and sits subservient to the logo of
a Native American hand in vibrant red and orange,
with rays that emanate from it’s palm to represent the three generations that
proceed us, and the three generations that arrive after us
A score is stacked rigidly on my desk, while hundreds more rest in a nearby cabinet,
smelling of crisp, corporate citrus.
Others hide in suit jacket pockets, wallets, and glove compartments. Like agents incognito,
sleeper cells waiting for activation.
This is my status. Symbol.
Akin to a Chase Bank 30-year mortgage,
or my cobalt blue 2009 Subaru Outback.
An affirmation that it was worth getting that postgraduate degree.
The mark of noble surrender amongst my former coterie of nonprofit
mercenaries
This is not just a business card. This is the currency of chilly conference plenaries, my
communion offering at cold call meetings.
The dandelion seed head that will take root in on other desks, in other suit jacket pockets or other
glove compartments. Hopeful that it will germinate into prosperous reconnections.
