Tag: silence

A Necessary Pause In Transmission

1 April 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Peter Devonald

Solace has a song for you, waiting, waiting, amongst the torrent.
If you don’t choose a day to relax your body will choose one for you.

Noise corrupts and absolute noise corrupts absolutely,
loud whirr of technology never stops, incessantly, ceaseless,

Instead sit in nature, listen, listen, to bird song and insects
reaffirm connections beautiful and obscure.

Take time to read, enjoy and endure your deeper self.
Be someone else, briefly, brilliant and captivating, memory.

Reconnect with friends, remember, remember, the times before
it all changed with vibrant neon, obsequious pleasures, glinting.

Recall the times before you weren’t connected to the miracles,
when simple pleasures were miracles enough to live exquisite.

You know what you really need, you always did, glimpsed
through endless noise and rain, you saw yourself, standing there.

The noise can wait a week without you, trust me, believe in me,
believe in silence, the seas, sagacious shift to embrace serenity.

Peter Devonald is winner of two Heart Of Heatons Awards, Waltham Forest Poetry and joint winner of FofHCS Poetry Award 2023. He has been published extensively and has two Best Of Net nominations. Poet in residence at HAUS-A-REST. Visit www.scriptfirst.com or https://www.facebook.com/pdevonald.

Defining Silence

29 June 2023 / Editor

Nonfiction by Candy Hamilton

As I take notes on Latin influence in Indo-European languages, playground noises easily distract me. On the school playground across the street, a dozen or so kids are shifting in some ad hoc football game, full of passes and soprano yells. Long after the bell shrills over the thuds on the playground. Mostly the voices blur, but now and then from my living room rocking chair, I distinctly hear, “No it didn’t go out. No we don’t need ’em.” I have much more to do than watch youngsters celebrating a warm fall day, but nothing better to do than watch surrogates for my grandchildren three hundred miles away, so I lean forward in my chair to peer through the storm door window.

Two kids weave their bicycles through the ad-lib formations without bothering the football players. I’m watching two ballet performances winding through each other. One boy, (They are all boys, I think) taller than the others, already has that loose-limbed walk that comes with adolescence and for some never disappears. Slack arms pumping faster, more flowing than his legs, he moves as if his muscles and bones float in water. He knows nothing about gravity, and his shoulders have a life of their own.

Finally a smaller boy actually catches the ball and runs triumphant toward the fence—straight toward me. If he knew I was here, now standing behind the door, perhaps he’d leap the fence, the road, score his touchdown through my front door. Green Bay style. Perhaps he’d prefer to leap the tree where the birds and squirrels make up the cheering section, or perhaps they sound more like coaches cussing and raising hell over so many dropped passes.

The kids don’t have a running game except for chasing the ball bouncing in its oval wobbles around the paved playground. A break in the action, and finally I notice the empty parking lot—no school today. These boys have scrimmaged through a perfect unending recess while I dreaded the arrival of teachers or a principal full of discipline.

Then the kids start a kicking game, pretty much straight up straight down, so that one kicker catches his own punt—the only catch in this game. Nobody cares. They just want to run, kick, and yell the freedom of their day-off. The bicycles join two rollerbladers, a moving horizontal backdrop to the vertical kicking game.

One last thud and the players disappear, only their voices (words even less discernible) walking back through the trees. They wander off in all directions, pairs, threesome, a little round one churning his legs to keep up, three spans of his legs to the others’ steps. Only the squirrels and birds and I remain to consider an empty, silent playground. Now so many distant words run together, they are like silence; the same as the blend of squirrels, birds, refrigerator hum, my breathing, the occasional turning of a book page, no silence at all.

Having celebrated the freedom of ignoring school bells, the kids go home to complain they have nothing to do. I do not have to hear those words to know they say them.

Candy Hamilton, an award winning journalist and poet, has also published essays and short stories in many literary magazines and national publications. She lives in Rapid City, S.D., with three rescued dogs and a ridiculous number of books.

As Simple as That

30 May 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Dale Ritterbusch

My daughter sends me
a photograph of her cat, her lone cat,
lying on her bed next to two other
cats, her boyfriend’s cats
that have just moved in.

They seem to like being together,
no turmoil over the turf,
no petty jealousies
evinced as they lie there, resting
in a cat’s repose.

I think of times lying next to my wife,
just lying there, no movement,
merely an occasional touch,
a hand trailing lightly
along the arm, the shoulder.

It is as if we were cats;
nothing profound escapes our lips,
nothing of importance
to communicate, to fill the silence.

What is profound is the silence,
the touch, the recognition
that this space is filled,
that words are an unnecessary encumbrance
like an additional blanket
when we are already warmed enough.

Dale Ritterbusch is the author of four collections of poetry. He recently retired as a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. His creative work is currently being archived in the Department of Special Collections at La Salle University.

The Smart One

21 May 2023 / Editor

Fiction by Lexie Kauffman

“Does anyone know what a heuristic is?” My professor’s voice echoes throughout the expansive biology lab accompanied by the chittering of critters living in the dozens of glass terrariums that line the room. The projector pull down screen shows a stark white PowerPoint slide with only “Heuristic,” written in black text, at the very top. The fluorescent overhead lighting beams onto the class full of unfamiliar faces. Everyone looks older and wiser; they look like they know what they’re doing.

It is my first class on my first day of college and no one knows me. I sit alone at a table meant for four, palms sweaty in the humid room, debating if I should answer the question; but this is my blank slate, my chance to make a first impression on my class and professor. This moment creates my new identity, completely separate from high school.

I can picture the definition of heuristic, painstakingly written out in my AP Psychology vocabulary journal. It sits on the second page of Unit 7.5, nestled between “Algorithm” and “Trial and Error.” The word “Heuristic” is written in red pen, quickly underlined to make it stand out. Underneath lies the definition in black pen: “A rule of thumb problem solving strategy. It makes a solution likely, but it does not guarantee it.” Below that, written in blue ink, is the example: “i before e except after c.” The journal lies forgotten in my bedroom 100 miles away. The black and white composition book with only my name on the cover sits abandoned on an empty desk in an empty bedroom.

I know what a heuristic is. I could easily raise my hand and explain it, but a quick glance reveals that the room full of upperclassmen is confused. No one else knows what a heuristic is, so I stay quiet.

This silence is my new identity. After thirteen years as the “smart” one, I can’t do it again. I owe it to little second grade me who sat suffocating in an observation room as administrators watched her perform academic tasks to test her IQ. I owe it to that outcast that was the only student from her grade in the gifted program.

The silence is synonymous to my response when I was asked at eight years old, “You play video games? I thought you just went home and read textbooks.”

I deserve the silence after teachers called on me for thirteen years, regardless of the status of my hand, because they knew I could answer or ask a relevant question. I revel in the silence, this moment where I am choosing to take control of my intelligence and who knows about it.

It’s powerful, but why does it make my stomach sour?

In my head, I hear the screeching voice of my psychology teacher begging me to raise my hand, insisting that this exact moment is why she filled her class with so much passion.

I imagine my high school gifted teacher’s disappointment that I am letting myself stay silent. If I was in his classroom, I would be teaching the class for him.

I feel my mom’s sadness that I am hiding my intelligence: the part of myself that I place most of my worth in.

But, behind the loud wall of those that have helped me grow and learn, are the sobs of younger me, wondering why she doesn’t have friends, asking why she’s always bored, questioning why the only time she’s chosen first is for group projects.

Everything I’ve ever done is for her. The fancy plaque from graduation was earned by my hard work and dedication, but it belongs to the lonely smart girl that nobody understood. The gold-plated name applies to both girls, but it truly belongs to the one alone in the tiny closet of a gifted classroom, doing group activities alone with the teacher, completely isolated from her peers. I earned that plaque for the girl who sat by herself on a bench engrossed in a new book every day at recess because no one shared her interests. I had to make it mean something, because otherwise all of the pain and heartbreak that public school brought would have been for nothing.

So, I say nothing. The professor proceeds to explain the definition of heuristic and how it applies to the particular slide of information. I’m only half listening because the definition is already scrawled in black pen in my new college-ruled notebook.

He changes the slideshow to the next topic. Text fills the screen accompanied by a grainy black-and-white photograph of Charles Darwin. I let out a little sigh before lifting my pen and starting to write. For the rest of the class, I remain silent.

Lexie Kauffman (she/her) is a Creative Writing and Publishing & Editing double-major at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. When she’s not reading or writing, she is most likely watching Netflix with her friends. Previously, her work has been featured in Rivercraft.

Strategies for Defeat

9 March 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Erin Lunde

Are you mad at me? means: I’m worried about something I said to you/about you/around you a few days ago.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m waiting for you to be mad about the thing I said to you/about you/around you a few days ago.

Are you mad at me? means: You’re never mad at me, so I know I’m ridiculous.

Are you mad at me? means: You’re never mad at me.

Are you mad at me? means: Why aren’t you ever mad at me? Why aren’t you ever anything at me?

Are you mad at me? means: I feel like a child.

Are you mad at me? means: Take care of me like a child.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m waiting.

Are you mad at me? means: Something happened and I want you to know it.

Are you mad at me? means: Something happened and I didn’t tell you about it.

Are you mad at me? means: I am so mad at myself.

Are you mad at me? means: I should have told you about that thing that happened the other day and that it continues to happen every day.

Are you mad at me? means: I should tell you.

Are you mad at me? means: I probably never will.

Are you mad at me? means: Why don’t you ever ask me?

Are you mad at me? means: About anything?

Are you mad at me? means: See, it’s happening again, right now.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m mad at you, but you’ll never know because you won’t ask:

Are you mad at me?

Erin Lunde writes in Minneapolis, MN where she lives with her family of five. Her writing is published in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Bangalore Review, Intrinsick, Openwork Mag and others. She writes “Fiction at Five” on Substack; she’s on Instagram @everythingerinlunde, and at erinlunde.com.

Snow

8 January 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Charlene Lyon

Snow is gravity pulling crystals
which knit into a blanket
tucked under
the sleeping trees.

A muffled, fluffy quiet.
Interrupted by scrunch scrunch boots
and the woodpecker knocking
on doors for brunch.

Charlene Lyon is a writer and poet from Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Cleveland Magazine, Northern Ohio Live, Sun Newspapers and elsewhere. Her poetry will be featured in June as part of Standing Rock Cultural Arts’ 30th anniversary calendar in Kent, Ohio. She enjoys a good espresso and walking under trees with her beloved husband.

A Rare Snowstorm

14 December 2022 / Editor

Special Selection for the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Issue

Poetry by Sarah Bruenning

There was snow in the forecast, for the last day of the year and the last day of our trip. We heard that the town wouldn’t know what to do with it – that snow was rare here, even in December. I worried that the stretched, sloped driveway would be impossible to get back down, and that the table you booked months before would sit empty. The day before, the winter sun convinced us otherwise as we climbed over the orange clay and brown desert rocks to get to the closest vortex that looked out over the valley. The day before, the sun was so warm that you had to take off your jacket halfway through our hike, and the daylight was so bright that it ruined the polaroid I tried to take up top. We ate at the pizza place in town for the second time and drove past the nice restaurant on the way back to note where it was. The day before, we dragged our thin blankets outside to sit and drink under the clear sky. The next day, we woke to the silent kind of snow already dusted over the desert rocks and the driveway and our two lawn chairs in the garden.

Sarah Bruenning recently graduated with an MFA from the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Her poetry has been published in Glassworks, River & South Review, and Stonecrop Magazine. She also works as a reader for Boulevard.