Tag: life (Page 4 of 6)

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First & Last

18 September 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Travis Stephens

I am the first brother,
the worst brother,
first to go to college
a little college, Tier 3, maybe.
The first to think it possible
to work with my brain
instead of my hands &
almost do it.
I am the worst at
staying in touch,
moving west,
then north,
then south & staying
west until the salt tasted fine.
I am brother divorced with no children.
Last to mortgage. Broke.
I was the first to go gray & to
write poems about our family.
Brother drunk.
I stood by the graveside of
one brother,
standing with the others.
Somebody cried.
Somebody said say something.
Say something.

Travis Stephens is a writer and tugboat skipper who lives in California with a muse and her extended family. His book of poetry, “skeeter bit & still drunk” is available on Amazon or at Finishing Line Press.

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Life at Large

3 September 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Judith Yarrow

I sail the little boat
of my consciousness
on the great sea
of the universe

tossed about
by waves invisible
to me and toward
a faint horizon

maybe a harbor
or maybe just a cloud
receding. Still I sail.

Judith Yarrow lives in Seattle, Washington. She’s been published in Women’s Words, Cicada, Bellowing Ark, Backbone, Aji, and others. She was the featured poet in Edge: An International Journal, and her poems have been included in the Washington State Poet Laureates’ 2014 and 2017 collections.

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The Train

1 September 2022 / Editor

Fiction by Beth Ford

Macy would always remember the day she became a train. It was the tail end of winter, and she had had enough.

The kiddie train in the city park had shuttered what felt like ages ago now. A flood of rainwater had barreled through the park, upending earth, sidewalk, and tracks. And, of course, covid now made the tiny train cars too close for comfort so they remained locked away.

Which meant here they were, with Brendan melting down alongside the mini train tracks because there was still no train. She had walked them past the loop of track on the way back to the car, not thinking it would be a problem. But after telling him twice the train was not running, he had started crying. She wasn’t even sure how he remembered the train. He couldn’t have been more than three the last time he rode it.

She tried to be understanding. Everyone had reached their boiling point by this stage of the pandemic, adults included, so who could blame a child for acting out? Though the fact remained hers was the only one making a scene in the park this morning. The tantrum reached a new level of shrillness. She had to do something.

She knelt in front of her son. “Why don’t we be the train?” she asked.

He paused his screaming long enough to look up at her. He was interested, at least.

“Here. Get on my back.” She turned so he could get piggyback, then she stood and walked alongside the tracks. She felt a tug on her shirt at the shoulder and heard a loud sniffle, which probably meant the fabric had become a tissue. She ignored it and forged ahead. “Where is the train headed today?” she asked.

“Mexico!” he shouted.

Mexico? Where did he get this stuff? “All right, the 3:10 to Mexico it is.”

“Make the train whistle, mommy!”

She had to try a few times before a convincing whistle emanated from her lips, but eventually he was satisfied.

They began to attract attention. An older couple laughed and walked by with a wave. A woman and her son watched for a moment before approaching. The boy was a bit younger than Brendan, dressed in a blue t-shirt with a robot on it.

“Want to join our train?” Brendan asked from his perch. “We’re going to Mexico.”

The boy looked up at his mother. She shrugged. “Do you mind?” she asked Macy before taking position behind. The boys shouted as they went along, lots of chuga-chugas and choo-choos, and the occasional, Faster! The group had almost returned to their starting point when a little girl fell in at the rear of their train, parent unidentified.

“We’re reaching the station,” Macy said. “You boys better put on the brakes.”

Brendan made a whooshing sound she assumed was meant to be the sound of the train slowing. Behind her, the other boy simply shouted “Stop!”

She pulled up to the same tree they had begun under and let Brendan down. A mother ran from the direction of the duck pond to claim the little girl. “Sorry!” she said. “She got away from me for a moment.”

“No worries,” Macy said. They all introduced themselves. The kids grinned, thoughts of tantrums temporarily dissipated. For a brief moment, normalcy seemed restored. The sun peeked through the leaves above them, brightening the last winter chill out of the air.

“So,” she asked, “Same time next week? Different destination perhaps?”

Beth Ford lives in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her short fiction, poetry, and a novel excerpt have appeared in Embark Literary Journal, The Scores, Sangam Literary Journal, fresh.ink, and The Journal of Undiscovered Poets. For more information, visit http://bethfordauthor.com.

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Paperboy

2 July 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Cosmo Goldsmith

From my bedroom window, overlooking
this tableau stillness of sheds and fields,
there is movement below
among the avenue of chestnut trees.

A paperboy ghosting through stippled shade,
luminous orange postbag strapped tightly
across his thin shoulders, first job perhaps,
so young he seems, restless and impatient,
eager to complete his round on schedule,
and keep in check the heavy tread of time,
those allotted hours and binding routines.

This is the crossover point he has reached
where suburbs give way and the fields begin;
a whole future unfolding before him
in misted prospects of treetops and hills.

And all I can do is watch and observe
from the opposite end of the telescope,
from the shrinking lenses of my vision,
for all my outlooks are gently receding.

The world out there belongs to him.

Cosmo Goldsmith is a ‘semi-retired’ English teacher with a passion for all forms of creative writing. He has taught in both the UK and Greece and still divides his time between these two countries.

Who Knew

23 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Barry H. Gordon

Someone wrote tenderly,
knowingly,
of the death of a classmate,
as we casually prepared
for the reunion
of the living
next summer.

Who knew, Durbin,
that your oddness,
your awkward efforts
to connect,
were linked to years,
fourteen we are told,
in a foster home.
And who knew
of the heartache
you carried at graduation
because your father
hadn’t survived to see you
walk across the stage
of life.

And who knew
really much of anything
about the true you,
or the true me
for that matter.
We just walked across
that stage
and most of us
kept on walking.

Still, I am jolted
to hear
you have dropped out of line
and I have missed
my chance to know you.

Barry H. Gordon is a retired psychologist and a published author of Your Father, Your Self and two co-authored books. He is an emerging poet who has been writing poetry throughout his career.

Jeffrey died healthy

20 June 2022 / Editor

Fiction by Mike Paterson-Jones

Jeffrey was a fifty looking, thirty-year-old man who was not good looking. He was overweight, with lank unkempt dark hair. He rarely smiled, mainly to hide his teeth which were crooked and stained. Jeffrey worked as a shipping clerk and his employer had him out of public view in a corner office. Jeffrey lived in rooms above the shipping business in a dingy street near the docks.

Jeffrey had no friends except the cat that came to his door every night for food. He did not have any family. He was an orphan. After work he always went to the diner down the road for a sausage, an egg and a large pile of fries liberally covered in ketchup. Having eaten, he would walk slowly back to his rooms where he lay on his bed and listened to the radio. He loved to listen to jazz guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. He longed to be like them.

One evening he had an ice-cream as well. Afterwards he felt bloated and decided that he should go for a walk. Without noticing, he found himself away from the docks in a strange area. He was about to go home when he noticed that he was outside a pawn shop. In the window was a solid body guitar and amplifier for sale for a hundred dollars. It took him two days to pluck up the courage to go and buy the guitar, but once he had bought it, he only put it down to work, eat and sleep.

Jeffrey discovered that he had a talent for the guitar. Within months he was playing many of the pieces he heard played by his favourite musicians. As he played more confidently, he played his music more loudly. He didn’t need to worry about disturbing his neighbours as he didn’t have any after dark.

On the day that marked Jeffrey’s tenth year with the firm, his boss planned a party for him after work at the office. It was a Friday. Jeffrey had never had an alcoholic drink but was persuaded by his colleagues to have a beer and then another. He liked the feeling the alcohol gave him and became more talkative. He told his colleagues about his guitar. One of them suggested that Jeffrey get his guitar and they all went to McGinty’s along the road. Friday was ‘Talent Night’ at McGinty’s.

Well-oiled by five beers, Jeffrey stepped confidently up to the microphone and played and how he played. He was a virtuoso on his pawnshop guitar. The crowd in the bar stopped drinking and talking and just listened. Jeffrey played until he was exhausted and very drunk, a condition that seemed to have little effect on his guitar playing ability.

Jeffrey woke the next day with a massive hangover. As he gradually surfaced, he discovered several things. Firstly, he didn’t really like alcohol. Secondly, he had left his guitar at McGinty’s and finally discovered that he had an agent. According to what was written on a folded McGinty napkin, his agent was a Sue-Beth Combrink. He did vaguely remember her. By that evening he felt somewhat better and made his way to McGinty’s where he was greeted fondly by the bar’s patrons.

Jeffrey asked for Sue-Beth. The barman explained that Sue-Beth was a ‘lady of the night’ and wouldn’t be in for another hour. When Sue-Beth arrived, she went straight up to Jeffrey and greeted him with a kiss. She was a blousy blonde nearing her ‘sell-by-date’ in her profession. Sue-Beth sat a bewildered Jeffrey down in a booth and explained that as his agent she was going to put him on the map on the local music scene. Jeffrey just said nothing and listened. She told him that one of her clients was a music promoter who had a loving wife who would not like to know about her, Sue-Beth.

The next few months passed in a busy blur for Jeffrey. Sue-Beth paid for new clothes for Jeffrey, who now did three gigs a week at McGinty’s and had stopped being a shipping clerk. She enrolled him at a gym and personally cooked all his meals, healthy meals. Sue-Beth took him to a dentist who removed all his front teeth and replaced them with implants. The new Jeffrey was trim and good looking, and his fans loved him. She also applied pressure on the music producer and in less than a year Jeffrey had two albums in the US Top 40.

Jeffrey was making a lot of money, closely controlled by Sue-Beth. She did however allow him to buy himself a 1968 Ford Mustang. It was black with white upholstery and its chrome gleamed. Jeffrey loved to drive it fast. One night he took the Mustang onto the freeway. He was going along the straight at well over the ton and approaching a curve. He took his foot off the accelerator, but it remained depressed. The accelerator cable was stuck.

The police found a dead Jeffrey in the mangled remains of the Mustang. It had missed the curve and hit a large tree on the road verge. Sue-Beth was momentarily upset but quickly consoled with a hefty insurance payout. She continued to live, wealthy, but at least Jeffrey died healthy!

Mike Paterson-Jones is a retired chemistry professor living in the UK.

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The Clock

17 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by James Blears

We bought the clock when I was ten, two or nine,
I just can’t recall, but it had a fine chime.

I do remember it ticking day and night, all in all,
Tutting, like a maiden aunt, perched on a table, in the hall.

But as minutes and months and years went by, it’s time keeping,
Became slack, then a joke and finally a downright lie.

It lost respect by losing time, so no one consulted it any more,
For when it promised it was three O clock, it was past time for a tardy tea
At well after half past four.

And then one day with its hands at noon,
Not a moment too soon, and not that far from our front door,
It’s pulse just ceased, and it was no more.

James Blears is a British journalist based in Mexico City since 1992.

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A moth and her flame

10 June 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Thai Lynne

the children fall asleep
my skin absorbs the violent silence
and I come alive: unfolding, expanding
like a set of lungs, a deep breath
and I exhale stardust and simplicity
but there is a restlessness in letting life decide
which direction to point my painted toes
and when to lean in but my body resists
there is a prickling under my skin
and its name is not Satisfaction
I leave it outside the door with the snow on my boots
and I unfold inside this house that isn’t mine
the flickering heat of the fireplace
is like aloe on my sunburnt skin
soothing the ache beneath and I yearn for the peace
that comes from living with intention
as though I were the architect of my own life
rather than a spectator, and I envy
this house pregnant with purpose
and its name is Contentment
a place where those of us
the weary Empaths, overwhelmed
can curl up with a glass of wine in the hot tub
and flirt with desire and design
and oh! the spicy heat that drowns us
under the burden of a life not fully lived
can either wear the mask of crippling defeat
or shining renaissance
I choose the fire.

Thai Lynne is a stay-at-home mom of three, who works construction part-time with her husband, is pursuing a BA in Creative Writing and a freelance writing career. Her work has appeared in Borrowed Solace Magazine, The Hunger Journal, Twist in Time Magazine, Zimbell House Publishing, Dodging the Rain and elsewhere.

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Don’t Bury Me Alone

22 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Nancy Machlis Rechtman

I don’t want to die
Alone on a bare floor
And have a stranger come upon my body
Lifeless with eyes wide open
Wondering why no one was there
To say goodbye.

And I don’t want my soul to hover
Watching those I loved wracked with grief
Saying all the things I longed to hear
When it would have meant something
But it’s too late
Like missing a plane
Or a train
Because you forgot your ticket
But instead, you forgot your words.

Don’t bury me in the cold, hard ground
Where gravediggers struggle to make headway
Their shovels slamming into earth like steel
That refuses to yield space for a wooden box

Where visitors might feel obliged to stop by once a year
To shed a few tears
And dust off a headstone
And maybe leave some flowers that will soon wither and die.

But instead, scatter my ashes by the ocean where I’m home
Where the waves lap gently at the sand
And the sun warms the soul
Where I can drink in the life that I’ve left
And no longer feel alone.

I will be there in your dreams
You’ll hear me in the wind
And maybe if you think of me
You’ll find I’m in your heart.

Nancy Machlis Rechtman has had poetry and short stories published in Paper Dragon, The Thieving Magpie, Quail Bell, Goat’s Milk, and more. She wrote freelance Lifestyle stories for a local newspaper and was the copy editor for another local paper. She currently writes a blog called Inanities at https://nancywriteon.wordpress.com.

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Salsa y Reggaeton Went Silent

20 May 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Gigi Guizado

Salsa y reggaeton went silent
No soundtrack to my dreams

Don’t know what it means…
My soul was lonely

I surfed
and thought moonlight becomes you

drawing me closer
as if I were the tide

You have trouble sleeping too
Don’t know why…

Sometimes you make my heart sing anew
like light sparkles on the water

Or hips, feet, arms entwine
keeping time on the dance floor

Don’t see you much anymore
in and out like the radio

on a country road
…

Your rhythm stays with me
like the shore recalls the sea

Moonbeams shine on all things
solid, liquid, no matter the distance

More faithful than sound
face in the sky sings his silent lullaby

Sandy-eyed memories rock me to sleep
Dreams are the drumbeat of motivation

Gigi Guizado is an actor, writer, and theatre translator based in Las Vegas. Her micro-plays have had productions or staged readings in San Francisco, Las Vegas, and London, UK. Her poetry and translations have been published by Adelaide Literary Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, and Asymptote Journal.