Purifying Wind

What an honor to have my lyric essay "No Place Like It" included in this new anthology published by Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press. Many thanks to editor d. ellis phelps!

You can order a copy by clicking here.

Dusk - Lyric Prose by Marie S. Bates

Photo courtesy of Marie S. Bates.* 

All quarantines are not created equally.

It's one thing to be sheltering in place in the U.S. in my comfortable middle class home and quite another to be in lockdown in Valencia, Spain in an apartment with a small balcony.

Thank you to Marie Bates for sharing her experience with us in this ultimately hopeful piece.





Dusk
by Marie S. Bates

  

On Tuesday evening, - Earth Day eve - I found myself dreaming of long walks in mossy forests, smelling wet soil, of standing beneath towering pines, and passing sparkling green ferns trembling under the weight of a recent rain shower. As I perched on an air conditioning fan box taking up half the standing room on our tiny balcony, I felt about as disconnected from anything Earth-y as one can. I stared out at the concrete apartment walls on each corner of our intersection and thought about the separate lives unfolding in those cubes stacked on top of one another. They remind me of the cardboard dioramas many of us made with our kids; a different scene arranged carefully with Elmer’s glue in each shoe box. An ant farm also comes to mind, its many chambers sandwiched between plastic walls, a transparent community for us all to goggle. Or they can also look like the stratified layers beneath the Earth’s surface, each layer comprised of something different but stuck together to function as a whole. It’s amazing what pops into your head when your life hits the pause button. I sighed deeply and tilted my head up to scan the cerulean sky at dusk. What a beautiful, clear evening. That’s when I saw the bats. BATS! I thought maybe they were swallows going in to roost or pigeons, but these were tiny and I heard them calling out to find their way as they searched for food. Swooping and flittering like tiny pieces of tumbling black paper on the breeze, they darted through the air, solo and in pairs. I heard their squeaks echoing and bouncing off the walls and over rooftops. Two of them dove so closely over my head I nearly ducked. It was surreal, and I loved every magical second. It gave me hope to see this evidence that our planet still has its wild places among us. I got lost in the moment and couldn’t say how long this went on but it was over much too soon. It was exhilarating to watch and part of me wanted to be up there with them. The weather is very mild and the skies are clear tonight, perhaps I’ll get to see them again at dusk. I’ll be looking up.

Photo courtesy of Marie S. Bates.

                              

  

*About the top photograph, Marie says, "There's a police helicopter flying over the rooftops. And that tower (Torres de Quart) at the end of the street was built in the 15th century. The pock marks were from cannon fire sustained in 1801 during the Napoleonic wars."

           

A New Anthology from Sonic Boom!

Thank you to Shloka Shankar, editor of Sonic Boom, for including my flash story "Hunter's Moon" in What I Hear When Not Listening: Best of the Poetry Shack and Fiction.

Here's a description of the book:

"Curated from Sonic Boom issues one through fifteen, this collection brings together the best pieces that were published under The Poetry Shack and Fiction sections of the journal. Embark on a journey that explores selfhood, love, and our shifting place in the world."

To order a copy, click here.

Some Thoughts on Beauty

The joke's on me:

Last month I told my classes I was going to stop giving homework assignments this spring.

Well.

We're now in the third week of writing from online prompts.

Last week, the assignment was to write about beauty. About something, someone, some place that's beautiful.

Which got me thinking about Sleeping Beauty, or Aurora, as she's called in some versions of the story.

Why is she beautiful? Is it because she's blond? Nice? A victim?

Here's a draft of what I came up with:




On Beauty



Aurora –



a princess,



beautiful, 



not because she is a princess

not because she is rescued and kissed

not because she is fair or female or rich –



beautiful because

she’s alive

and having slept for so long,



she loves everything –

from a shard of toasted almond between her teeth

to the honeyed oak of the spinning wheel against the whorls of her fingertips –



she is now moved by the rolling opulence of blue-gray clouds tinted with amber light

and the gleaming black feathers of the crow’s everyday coat

and the glistening and wriggling worm's skin, pink as a cherry’s petal, in the jeweled grass –



but mostly it’s the heart,

the beating heart

of every being,

even the hearts of those who mean her harm –

that she holds in awe –



not because

she’s a masochist or a fool

but because in this moment she sees



even Carabosse –

the “bad” fairy –

the one who stomped and spit and swore when she wasn’t welcomed –

the one with molting robes and a tongue of rotting meat

and brittle kernels for teeth –


Aurora knows this being, too, once had a newborn heart 

that wanted nothing

but to beat in peace,

like butterfly wings rising from a leaf –



oh



Aurora

the princess

awake now

but still dreaming



of massaging the knots of rage lodged between Carabosse’s shoulder blades

until her enemy sighs,

puts away her poisons and plots,

and gradually begins to roll and chirp and lick and purr and arch –



yes



Aurora dares to imagine



Carabosse in front of a mirror, delighted

with the ragged bump on the bridge of her nose

and the syllables of her name that sound

like the rustle of bamboo shielding her hut from a thrash of storms,

like the hush-a-bye swaths of pink stripes in the evening sky

and like the redolent voice of pines

singing in the star-pricked night:



Come, Beauty, come Carabosse,

for you have always been,

will always be,

one 

of us.





© 2020 Linda Ferguson

Three Sisters - Memoir by Pam Mayfield

Less really is more sometimes. Pam Mayfield paints a poignant picture of three sisters with just 121 words in this nonfiction story. Enjoy!



Three Sisters
by Pam Mayfield

In our first house I bunked in a bedroom shared with two younger sisters. We had a double bed the three of us shared, each of us always claiming the same spots: Theresa next to the wall, me on the outside, and Jeannie in the middle. Having been fed by Alfred Hitchcock the stuff of nightmares, Theresa faced the wall to look out for creatures breaking through it, while I was facing outward, ready for the fight, if needed, with any intruders. Jeannie, always protected, was in the middle.

In the morning, Theresa and I would often wake with our hair completely entwined in Jeannie's little hands, as she had wrapped our hair round and round her fingers as she slept.

About the Author:
Pam Mayfield is an animal lover who admits to not always getting enough sleep.

Out of This World

Many thanks to Shawn Aveningo Sanders and Robert Sanders for including two of my poems in their new anthology The Poeming Pigeon: Cosmos.

Within this collection, you'll find luminous writing by Pattie Palmer Baker, Colette Tennant, Dale Champlin and many, many other poets. Special congratulations to Rebecca Smolen, a former student, and LAW Fraser, a current student, who both gave stellar readings of their work at the Cosmos book launch on Saturday, February 22.

You can click here to order a copy of the book.

Two Poems by Tina Klammer

Enjoy these two powerful poems by Tina Klammer. 

What Do Women Want?

 by Tina Klammer

I want to be the first face you click on before you’re out of bed.

Me, in Bali, at the pool

In Cancún or Thailand—

Me in a bikini and a huge floppy hat.

I want you to click

And swipe

And tag

And follow.

See my big lips?

See my joy?

See how I live my life

With purity

And selfies

And postings

My meta life?

What do women want?

People to love me. All the people.

All the time.

People I don’t know. People I’ll never know.

People who buy the smoothie I’m shilling.

My joy can be your joy.

And then you’ll love me more and

I’ll dive into

The pool and

Emerge

Like a fucking mermaid but

I’m just like you.

A real person except

You want to be me

And I want you to.

Skin Remembers

by Tina Klammer

On a whim I invite my boy into the bath with me.

He is six, but is so drawn to the steam and bubbles

That he cannot help but stick in his hands and forearms

All the way to his pushed up sleeves.

When his shirt starts soaking up the water I finally relent,

“Ok, you can get in.”

His clothes are off in a flash and I see

How little his body still is.

Narrow hipped and bird chested,

He steps into the tub and is immediately submerged

Up to his armpits.

I reach my dripping arms out to hug him

And suddenly remember the babies,

His sister and he.

Those babies are gone.

The only thing left of them are

Pictures on an old phone,

Stored away in the cobwebs of a harddrive.

I can never touch or hold them again.

But for this instant, as I hold him

Skin to skin

In the close warmth of the bath,

It all comes back.

The miracle of a new creature

Both human and more than human.

The oneness of his skin on mine,

His smell, his own warmth and aliveness.

I revel in it. 

About the author:

Tina Klammer is a writer and soon to be Master Gardener living in Portland, Oregon with her family.  Her work can be seen in publications such as True Parent and Country Pleasures magazines.