The Ghost, J.Visconti

THE GHOST
By Jason Visconti

He sashays his sheet with a good haunt.
He rides up his airspace like the tail of a wing.
When he lifts, the color of rooms change
and the sky spits up a sheen of black.
He flutters out of range.
His bird self sighs on landing.
He draws you in on a single draft of despair.
He whips himself up then disappears.
The moon will take him,
a cellar of soot under night’s torch.
Then a hazy film of white light.
A dart at the stars of the sky--
fanning into the night.
A cold chill of hollow unbroken.
A wind at such heights.

Winning the Prize, J.Yung

Winning the Prize
Janet Yung

The lawn and garden award sign mysteriously disappeared from Ellen’s yard. It had been there the night before, but now was gone. Ellen didn’t notice it was missing when she went out for the morning paper or when she watered the pots of geraniums and petunias lining the porch.

She was dressed and on her way to work when she spotted something wasn’t right about the house. At the curb, it came to her. The sign, announcing the much coveted award was hers, was gone.

The award was a fleeting thing -- given annually to only the best manicured and designed front yards in the neighborhood. Judges surveyed the area throughout the month of June and then green signs announcing this yard was worthy appeared before the Fourth of July. In August, the signs would be collected, stored over the winter till next growing season.

This was the first year Ellen won the award, beating out the competition on either side.

“Well, I suppose it’s your year,” Mrs. Hobson, Ellen’s neighbor to the east conceded when the Hobson’s yard had been overlooked.

“You’ve been a great inspiration,” Ellen replied in a nod to the loser. Then, Mrs. Hobson began to ignore Ellen, pretending not to see her while Ellen was in the yard, pulling the errant weed from the prize winning shrubs and beds of impatiens.

“I think Mrs. Hobson is unhappy about the award,” Ellen confided to her husband, Larry who laughed off the suggestion.

“Don’t worry about it,” Larry said, but Ellen couldn’t help it. She went outside to give everything another drink and pluck out the spent geranium stems. Holding the hose, her eyes kept drifting to where the sign had been planted, imaging if she studied the spot long enough, it would reappear. Ellen felt eyes on her and when she looked up, spotted lace curtains falling back into place in Mrs. Hobson’s window.

Inside, Ellen rummaged through her junk drawer in the kitchen, digging out the phone numbers for the neighborhood association.

“What are you doing?” Larry asked, in the kitchen for an after dinner snack.

“I’m going to call Laura and find out if the signs were picked up early.” Larry shrugged while she dialed the number.

Five minutes later, Larry was back in the kitchen. “What’s the verdict?”

“Humm?”

“About the sign?”

“They haven’t picked them up yet. Laura said sometimes kids take them as a prank.”

Then, Ellen gathered up the kitchen trash and headed for the dumpster. It didn’t do any good to fret about it. Opening up the lid to deposit her trash, she spotted the sign. It was at the bottom of the bin, covered in red sauce. She dropped the lid as the back door to the Hobson’s slammed shut.

The Shower, C.Effinger

The Shower
By Christy Effinger

I didn’t mean to get drunk at the baby shower, honest, but I couldn’t find a shot glass in Haley’s kitchen, so I had to pour the rum straight into my punch. What kind of housewife doesn’t keep a shot glass in her kitchen? I have five or six squirreled away in mine. While the other women played some game that involved sniffing at melted candy bars in diapers—no, really—I downed two glasses of spiked punch. Then, while they played a game trying to guess the width of Melissa’s girth, I downed two more. I wandered into the living room just as the women passed around the ultrasound picture. When the picture came to me, I held it up to the light. “It’s precious,” I cried, “just precious,” and then someone told me I was holding it upside down.

Fireball Lily, B.Hatfield

Fireball Lily
By Brad Hatfield

I sit in the garden of the Baccarat resort,
with an untouched drink, writing a report.
I see no contradiction, nothing athwart,
in the lily’s beauty and lethal sangfroid;
bright orange bursts cunningly deployed
on a solitary stem--and poison alkaloid
surging in its veins. Pygmies in Cameroon
mix this flower to tip crude harpoons
and fell young bucks in the shade at noon.

Fish Harbor, J.Henry

Fish Harbor
By Jack Henry


i remember
the clang of halyards cry
well before the dawn

long thin bows cut
silver glass
sending tides
of rise and fall

a longing bellows moan
of the inner harbor
buoy greets them
as they go, off to
chase a crimson sun
gulls in their wake
as slowly gather speed

lights dim fade exhaust
as angry pistons kick
w/soulful force

i can hear the men
on the black wood decks
laugh, drink
coffee and go about
their day

we settle back to slumber
three hours before
a mid-week rise
no other sound, or sight
or thought crosses
through my mind, other
than the gentle creak
of a world spinning
around

--

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Stop Worrying So Much, M.Russell

Stop Worrying So Much!
By Maranda Russell

"Tension is what you think you should be. Relaxation is what you are." Chinese Proverb.

This quote really spoke to me. I have spent so much time tense and anxious about all that I feel I should be that I'm not, and all the things I think I should be doing, but can't. If I could just learn to be me, and be content with that, I could truly be relaxed. At peace. Tranquil. And that sounds heavenly to me.

I am a naturally wound up and nervous person that is seldom at peace. I am constantly looking for a cause to fight, an injustice to fix, a nit to pick. If I feel sick I start imagining I have cancer. If someone is late, they died in a car wreck. I am the meaning of the word worrywart. My boss at work is always telling me to "calm down skippy!" But one of the things I worry the most about is how I feel I'm not good enough. I haven't achieved enough, I haven't made a big enough difference in the world, I haven't made my million so I can give it to the poor.

So I'm thinking I really need to learn to relax. Be happy with who I am and where I am at in life. Not feel so useless if the kitchen is dirty and the cats stink. Or if I stink for that matter. It's pretty hot here today so I probably do stink. But maybe that's ok. I can always go take a bath. Is it really worth feeling like a failure because I don't always smell like a delicate rose? Or beating myself up because I ate some oreos and my pants are a little tight? Maybe instead I should thank God I'm not starving to death and that I have clothes to wear at all. I can't help but think when I am at the end of my life, I will look back and regret wasting all this time worrying about things I can't change and striving for what is always out of reach.

Spring's Sleeping, A.T. Leverton

Spring's Sleeping
By Adam Tod Leverton

What causes the spring
to wake in fits
like the restless sleep of a drunk man?
The dogs barking in heat
the birds-winging exhausted to roost?
No. It is the old woman
stooped over, wearing slippers,
sweeping the dirt with a too short brush,
muttering curses under her breath
She has disturbed Spring's sleeping.