Driving North by Quentin Lucas

After driving north for six hours the sun pulls itself up in the East and the purple dawn extends its hands out to the red gold of sunrise. A few more highway miles under the tires and the small dirt road appears.  Sparrows shoot out of a small shrub as the car rounds a corner and begins down the hill.

Along the overgrown path birds sing their hymns to the sun while crickets bade the moon goodnight. At the end of a path a cropping of rocks cradles a hot spring.

Floating on her back, steam rises from her navel.

Driving North by Merimee Moffitt

After driving north for six hours

we pitch the tent and make tea
play lantern dominoes again the 
other campers settling into rv’s, Airstreams
it’s ok what we did and what we do
we shared the sand between our toes
 We’ll cook an elaborate breakfast
then continue north to the border.  We’re 
heading home after forty years, 
back to our birthing grounds, 
our youth, like some kind of turtle or bird
some mammals who crave the company
of siblings before the end of this visit, the end
of our earthly flesh.  
 

Shelter by Katherine DeBlassie


After driving north for six hours,

she stopped and parked the car
at the foot of a mountain
she didn’t know the name of.
The rocks were shaped like
animals preparing to sleep
for the winter. It was getting
late, the sun was pressing itself
into that slit in the earth that 
made it disappear taking the last days
of summer with it. She hoped to 
make it home soon, that someone
would be waiting for her, that she could
offer a piece of warmth that would hold
them over until spring.

Awake before the sun

“Awake before the sun, 

She decided to fear no color.

She would paint her room orange

And her fingernails green.

She would dye her hair blue 

And wear polka dots over stripes.

She would wear red shoes

And a purple hat.

She would plant pansies

And daisies and trumpet vines.

And for dinner she would eat her vegetables.”

Dorothy Lynne 

Awake before the sun

Awake before the sun, she decided to benchmark her electronic devices to compare with when the solar storm would hit. Her clocks were fine, each blinking midnight as always. Her iphone showed her email and the weather forecast. She went to her office to read the electronic version of the Times. She read an article about food trends in the city, she read a couple of editorials and

then read about the solar flares that had been increasing and now were predicted to be aimed for a direct hit on earth. The article was fascinating and as she read about the possible consequences the first ray of daylight hit her shades presaging a new day without…

D. Sanchez

Procrastinating Poesy

Awake before the sun, she decided.

Aim: draft a poem by dawnbreak.

 

Boiling water,

Feline fodder,

Screaming kettle,

Streaming words.

 

Chores before the fun, she decided.

Aim: scour rime from dinner plates.

 

Limited larder,

Bygone ardor,

Gleaming glasses,

Teeming forms.

 

Write after the run, she decided.

Aim:  craft a sestina by noon.

Teresa Blankmeyer Burke

Prompt #1: The Milk of Human Kindness

The Milk of Human Kindness

Jacq Marie Jack  

 

Blue holes fascinate me.  When I received an invitation to join a group of fellowscientists investigating oceanic blue holes found nearAndros Island,Bahamas, I eagerly accepted.  On the appointed day of the trip, the expedition organizers instructed us to report in the pre-dawn hours to a private airport nearFort Lauderdale,Florida, where the trip organizer randomly assigned us to small private planes for the flight over the Gulf Stream to our destination,CongoTown,Andros Island,Bahamas. 

 

We boarded the plane in sleepy silence.  After we took off, the noise in the plane prevented introductions or discussion.  The turbulence during the flight kept me focused on not loosing the meager breakfast of orange juice and a sweet bun that but I gulped down at the airport which became increasingly difficult as the plane descended over the island of Andros and landed on the bumpy, rutted tarmac.  

 

When I stumbled off the plane, the blast of hot tropical air and blazing sun stupefied me.  Sweating profusely, feeling queasy and dehydrated, I crouched in silence with my fellow travelers under the shade of the plane’s wing out on the tarmac as we waited for the rest of the planes to arrive.

 

I noticed a dignified, professorial, white haired gentleman crouching by my right side when he stood up and walked off the tarmac and over to a coconut tree.  He took off his shoes, shimmied up the tree and brought down a coconut.  He descended, put his shoes back on, picked up the coconut, and walked back to the plane.  I watched in silence as he raised the coconut above his head and slammed it down the tarmac where it broke open.  He knelt down, scooped out the fresh milky meat with his hands, brought it to me and said, “Here, eat this.  This will make it better.”  And it did.  

 

Prompt #1: Dark Voice

Dark Voice

Beverly Jose Sacoman

When I was thirteen my mother put me on a Greyhound bus bound for Oklahoma City.  It was a long, long ride that began in the afternoon from Santa Fe and ended the next day around noon.  It was mid-September and still fairly warm but I knew Oklahoma was going to be hot.

     I don’t remember much about our circumstances, I mean the why of my mother shipping me off alone to my uncle’s family so far away.  I suppose she just couldn’t manage (financially or psychologically) a budding teenager.  She probably thought I would do better in a different school, different surroundings.   And besides, my baby brother had just been born a week and a half before.

     Well, once I got myself settled on the bus, in a seat to myself, my stiff upper lip began to slowly relax as I watched the day and the scenery pass into dark.  But once the dark settled in I began to get colder and colder.  By midnight or thereabouts I was freezing.  I kept turning this way and that in a futile effort to warm myself between my arms and the cold seat back.  I was absolutely miserable and disheartened in my thin cotton blouse with the short, short sleeves.  But then, out of the dark behind me came a woman’s voice,  “It gets so cold at night on these busses.  You really should have brought a jacket.  Here, cover yourself with these newspapers.”  Over the seat she handed several sheets of much read newspaper and I said a thank you back into the dark.  I then wrapped myself up as best I could in the Santa Fe New Mexican feeling extremely grateful and blessed and  (surprisingly) a lot warmer.  I slept pretty comfortably in my cocoon all the way to dawn and the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

 

 

 

 

 

Prompt #1: Fleeting Moment/The Stranger

by Amy Cordova

Many years ago, when my sons were young, we planned a camping trip for our summer vacation. As I was loading the car, I realized that my library books were overdue. So, on the way out of town, I stopped at the library to drop them off and pick up something to read on our trip. At the time, my marriage was on the rocky road, and I was overcome by deep sadness and anxiety. The Library was located in downtown St. Paul, Mn and was one of my most comforting places on Earth.
It is huge , several stories high and of magnificent late 1800′s-early 1900′s architecture.
The Art section was on the third level, so I pressed the button for the elevator. My young boys ran to the children’s section.
Just as I pushed the button, I noticed a scraggly, homeless man approaching the elevator. He carried a pasteboard suitcase that was tattered and taped. No one else was in sight. He was staring and smiling at me…. and I felt uneasy.
As we entered the elevator, he struck up a conversation. I was growing more uncomfortable by the moment.
He said, ” I am a Viet Nam Vet and I can’t tell you how happy I am that I found you. I have your gift.”
At this point, my breath strained and the interior of the elevator closed in on me, feeling like a prison cell.

And then, as he spoke, he opened his suitcase and there, inside , lay thousands of fragrant, red rose petals !
I was dumbfounded by the contents and dizzied by the scent. “These are magical!”, he whispered.
He invited me to scoop up as many as I wanted. I scooped a handful and clutched them to my heart.
His expression, so angelic, and filled with such loving kindness, caused me to wipe the tears that streamed down my cheeks. As the elevator door opened, he turned, nodded, and walked back down the stairs.
I kept those rose petals for years, until they turned to dust. But, I will never lose the memory of my “angel unaware”.

Prompt #1: The Goat Man

The Goat Man
Diane Styma

It was hot that day, and I still owned a car. I was rushing off towards the JFK airport in that triangle of highways including the Van Wyck, the Cross Island and the 678 where I often get lost and end up going to another borough. As a former California nut, I did not have money on me, and I did not have working air conditioning so my windows were open to let the humidity cool me. I was sweating more because I was about to run out of gas and since I had done this three or more times before, I knew that if I kept moving, I could glide on fumes, but if I stopped and stopped and then accelerated, I ran a great chance of coming up empty in a bad part of town. Of course, this was a day when I either forgot my cel phone or did not have minutes left on mine. When the surface street traffic got incredibly slow, as if in New York City there is a thing as slower, I saw the gathering of water-sellers and pan-handlers taking advantage of us car people sliding by them.Nervously, I glanced down at my gas gauge wiggling below the red E-line. My eyes slowly panned up to see legs of man but they were backwards, as if the knees articulated like a satyr. It was then that a man clearly disabled but strong, tan and aggressive approached my window. My friends had instructed me to roll up windows and lock doors in this situation, but instead I saw humanity and an opportunity to talk to this stranger. He said: “Do you have money?” At that moment, I transformed from meek me to an assertive character I barely recognized. I said, “No, do you?” The stranger with odd legs looked at me funny. I would imagine this was a first. In that pause of his begging and usual denial, he was stunned so I snuck in another sentence: “I need $5 for gas. Would you give ME some money?”

And he did.

He reached into his sweaty dirty pocket and pulled out lots of greens and peeled off money for me to buy gas. Of course, I said I would come back and repay him. And of course, I forgot, or never meant what words came out of my mouth.