To Kiss the Granite Choir – A Textured Work of Fiction
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Announcements
So, my mentor and friend and big brother Michael Ashley is an amazing short story writer and he has recently been published. I encourage everyone to read his story of a Mediterranean war culture that uses their voices as weapons. The prose is beautiful and borders on poetry. The story is called To Kiss the Granite Choir. So please check out the link. http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=59
He Said
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
there’s an X over his lips,
right over his word-search mouth.
we’re all waiting for him
to circle the letters
instead of scratch them out,
to highlight the diagonals he’s missing
and to realize that the most obvious ones
are right along the edges
of his square puzzle tongue–
they’re just backwards.
he’s old enough to speak
but his voice is jumbled into giggles
bouncing around the whites of his teeth
and squeezing into awkward screams
and high-pitched pleas.
He’s hungry.
but i can’t quite put my finger on him
before first discovering that
his pamper isn’t full
he’s not tired or scared or hurt
and I don’t know what he needs
because
he just ate.
and sometimes I can’t help but
ignore him;
this two-year-old action movie
dressed as a silent film.
i went home to see him
a few days ago.
I still can’t believe
how big he was,
playing with two years siting in his corners,
in time-out until March 13th,
parading inches and shoe sizes
because he’s not going to be as short as life is.
there were blue moons
orbiting his eyes
taking turns shining
between blinks and smiles.
his dimples–
the only punctuation preventing
the spread of his lips
from being a run-on
into the rest of his face.
He was different.
sorted out into a few neon covered
horizontal, vertical
diagonal and backwards letters
with the faintest scar
of an X over his lips,
right over his word search mouth–
“I love you,” he said.
Slow Down, Mona Lisa
Posted by David Warner | Filed under Poetry, Print
I knew her like God knows the horizon
Like she was a watch I built
from a jazz flutes last song,
a baby’s first words,
and a blind painters masterpiece
effortlessly brave and spontaneously graceful
but still cute and magnetic
with the unparalleled passion of someone
whose life’s work they could never enjoy
like I made her tick
and I made her tock
but I could tell that everytime her hands moved
we were closer to being over
so I held them still
so time wouldn’t pass for us just one night longer
I cherished her meticulously
counted her heartbeats
as she pulled my ear closer to her soul
I could feel each individual hair stand up
in the half a square inch region of my wrist her finger circled
I was hooked
like a kid with a puzzle he doesn’t know is missing pieces
Curious and fascinated and terrified and vulnerable and furious
all jammed in one second every second
til the minutes mount and all that’s left is heart break
’cause his mini Mona Lisa doesn’t have a smile anymore
he lost it throwing a tantrum
’cause he couldn’t get her eyes to glisten
the deep brown they were supposed to
Mona Lisa won’t smile for him
like she won’t hold my hand
she just wants to move
I just want one more chance the stop time with her
she can spend it with someone else
I just wanna love her like tomorrow is on vacation til next week
slow down, Mona Lisa
let’s live between the seconds
cause minutes turn to hours
and hours into lightyears of space
from which I can only see you as you once were
be my sun just a lil while longer
not some distant star that waves
on the off chance there’s a clear night in NY
you’re more than just a passing measure of my growth
to be forgotten
then remembered just to orient my memories
let me part your hands and slip my fingers in between
so we can feel the earth stand still beneath our feet again
let me lay you down
so the sandy soul inside your hourglass
sits still
I know they say you won’t wait for me
that I’d just be wasting you
that I can’t stop you or bring you back
but what they say has never moved me
only you can
and without you I’m stuck in a broken clock
I tick tick tick tick tick tick TOCK
in the same spot for however long it’s been since you left
so slow down, Mona Lisa
let’s ignite eternity and watch the flame burn forever
let me piece your smile back together second by second
hold it together with what glues hope to happiness
and rewrite the night with you
slow down so I can love you
For A Friend
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
all i could feel was my own stillness
skulking between my bones
dragging the ballad of her sunken chest against my flesh
her pendulum smile was small
skeptical
of place
of light
of face
of time
she mumbled agony between her words
i am fine
i see her crack beneath my gargantuan concern
questions tumbling in stone columns
like the apocalyptic musings of rand
she shrugs and flees to the comfortable gap between her hands
how could this happen i ask
her eyes are dying acrobats
all they know is sweet release and disbelief
recovering air and sweating stars
leaning towards a cosmic precipice
till the giant fists of gravity pummel them into oblivion
her recollections sound like a homesick accordion
and an orchestra of misplaced crickets
frantic and riotous
there is a violence in not knowing
in not wanting to remember
the quiet of his eyes and the footsteps of a moment
when the sky quits and comes tumbling down
on humanity in all its war torn glory
there is something muddled in her composition
the advent of nose to looking glass
she is not quite sure of her anatomy
not as much confidence in her collarbone
no sanctuary in her spine
i wonder if she taught herself how to fall
in the star struck span of a second
holding onto the horizon for dear life
like a jittery sun sinking into oceanic sidewalk
did she notice the pavement was bleeding
when she peeled herself from its deep sea depths
did she lose her earth legs in a titanic shipwreck
and leave her tongue somewhere starboard of protest
i wonder if she knew breath
was a black pearl wonder
too easily taken and
damn near impossible to reconstruct
i wonder if she wished her father was the moon
ever watchful marvel of a man
with a crater for a mouth
and wrinkles that concede the world is ugly
wished he would swallow silence
and never want any more answer
from his slender moonbeam of a daughter
