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September 5, 1957

Jack, I can see you on that New York corner waiting
For the Times, knowing a review was coming out,
knowing something good might happen.

In that classic photo, you stand by the corner
window, a Lucky Strike dangling from your lips,
an Orpheus in a black leather jacket.

That night you’d never forget. Going out at dusk
you got an early copy of the Times. The next day
On the Road would be on the streets and highways.

You’d be celebrated as the beat. Who was to know
how your life would change? Who could understand
it all? Who could imagine what would come?

You drove across America,
always on the move and always moving on,
searching for wherever that somewhere never was.

Peter Krok, the editor of Schuylkill Valley Journal, serves as humanities director of the Manayunk  Roxborough Art Center where he has coordinated a literary series since 1990. Because of his identification with row house Philadelphia, he is often referred to as “the red brick poet.”  His poem “10 PM At a Philadelphia Recreation Center” was included in Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. His book, Looking For An Eye, was published by Foothills Press.

Confluence

After a postcard of van Gogh’s “Bedroom at Arles”
If, in some night, I saw beyond
The newest moon,
And my thoughts would carry me on
To where un-bounding time
Once ran for us, but soon ran past-
I’d turn up the postcard I almost sent
To show you van Gogh’s bedroom at Arles,
And I’d set to stare
At the slats of wave made fast
Where the floor was a pitch to climb or descend,
If there were time to draw us in
And try to be at rest in that room,
In its waited way
That dangles all the feet
Above the flooding of the ground,
Leaving the bed un-touched and dry:
But the looking glass over the basin-
It must be broken, as it’s blank. Or
This room really has no door leading on from any hall,
But rather, in plan, has only the fourth and lunar wall.
And yet now, from here, we both of us glare-
Without a shadow to chase.
And time-pricked in this
-Can only desire for more of itself
To sprinkle now, like a brief thread
Drawn all ways through a needles eye.

Sean became a poet at Haverford College, the best of Philadelphia’s suburban Quaker schools.  He currently reads and writes at “Rutgers…the State University of New Jersey.”  He shares his name with a boxer, a comedian, and an alleged IRA member; we apologize for any confusion this has caused.

 

Bundle of White Flowers

Every time I see a bundle of white flowers
I think of my mom on hospital bedsheets
borrowing her last lungs of air. Before
passing it on, sharing it with the rest of us
as a cooling wind makes her way through
bamboo. My sisters and brother sat
arrayed in a semicircle, waiting all night for
her to die. I had to leave. Why was I in such
a rush? My mom was unconscious as
I leaned in and whispered, “See ya later,”
a nervous laugh caught a wave around the
room and I left and it was such a hot June
evening outside. My mother was so small
and frail, shrinking as the hours crawled
into closets. Yesterday my heart stopped
and started and stopped for a few beats.
I stood there with no heartbeat and it was
kind of annoying because I was busy and
had work to do and I asked mom if she had
lent me some air from Mount Fuji, if she
could squeeze her hand around this
reluctant thing in my ribs or send an errant
spark from New Jersey, whatever the
burning did not consume.

Roy Word Smith. Lives in Bucks county, loves to visit Philadelphia every chance he gets. He finds poems and stories growing out of sidewalk cracks and purring cats. He doesn’t have much education but like Einstein, feels imagination is more important than knowledge.

When Harry Left the Trees

Harry’s wife stopped me and started to
say things, so I listened.
“You know Harry never had it easy,
especially in 1964.
He didn’t want to fight,
or kill anyone for that matter.
I married him without a ring and a wedding dress.
All he did at our wedding night
was to stare at his own face in the mirror.
Harry told me that after the war
he still continued to hide out
and called it force of habit.
He used to sleep under the bridges,
in farms, and stole chickens and corn.
Sometimes on hot nights he played dead
and slept in morgues to keep cool.
He said one time he even refused the open
legs of a prostitute cause he had forgotten
how to make love. He said he made paper birds
and whistled their tunes to blow his fears away.
He had many interrupted sleeps, hearing death
screaming into his ears.”

 

Fereshteh Sholevar was born in Tehran where she studied literature and foreign languages. She received her Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Rosemont College. Fereshteh has published six books of poetry, two of which are bilingual: And the Blue Continues in English and Spanish, and Walking with the Moon in English and German. Her Name Was Samira, a novel, was published by Infinity Publishing in 2012.  She won the Editor’s Choice award  from Philadelphia Poets in 2011.

Is It Better to Sleep

I am trying, I am trying
to be right with my mind again.
for what else should I be trying
and to what end
when all the night around me
rises to my room
like the waters of a lake?
I want to make the call
the nightblind hours
refuse to make
and patiently distill-
the sky mercurial,
slick as a kill.
Again, the dead have come full soon
to shed themselves
thin as a moon.
Thin as the horizon’s
cold, blue arc.
Every season
is their season.
Every evening, their mark.

 

Luke Bauerlein’s work has previously appeared in the NY Times, Mid-America Poetry Review, Shot Glass Journal, and elsewhere. He currently lives in West Philadelphia, and writes songs and performs with the band, The Late Greats.

Returning Home from the Fertility Clinic

She destroyed the garden in her good pants—

Cherry tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers and lettuce—

Using a spade, rake, and hoe.

Using her bare hands.

She trampled ordered rows, snapped stalks,

Raked it all under, and tamped the ground flat.

She was methodic. In possession of herself.

How could I stop her?

She had to get back at her body.

She had to get back at the earth.

After, she sat down in the dirt

And rubbed her raw hands.

Michael Phillips has published short stories and poems in several journals, including Pebble Lake Review, River Walk Journal, Dark Skies Magazine, and The Monongahela Review (Forthcoming). He lives with his wife in Downingtown, PA, and works as an editor for a nonprofit healthcare research institute.

Why I Need to Downsize

Because I looked for two months for the wind-chimes.
Because those soundless bells were stuck in that desk drawer the hole time.
Because I hate dust.
Because I hate to dust.
Because I have less energy and don’t know why.
Because disability is a time-bomb for some.
Because I mostly don’t eat healthily.
Because I started my sixth decade.
Because I forget.
Because I remember.
Because I can’t always hold morning in a fist of wanting.
Because people can build on what I give away.
Because there isn’t enough success.
Because I want more than I can.
Because dropped things sink.
Because I must know necessary from nostalgic.
Because what I need to pray for is changing.
Because I will want this draft tomorrow.

Nancy Scott, Easton PA, is an essayist and poet.   Her over 600 bylines have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and newspapers, and as audio commentaries.   Recent work appears in Breath and Shadow, Contemporary Haibun Online, Foliate Oak,  Stone Voices, and WordGathering.  Her third chapbook, co-authored with artist Maryann Riker, is entitled “The Nature of Beyond.”  Her essay “One Night at Godfrey’s” won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest.  

Tricking Your Monkey Mind into Writing

When do you have time to write in your day? Is it at 6 a.m. when everyone but the dog is asleep? Or midnight, when the same rule applies? Lunch time? Or maybe it’s not really a matter of time (confess–you spend at least some of your free time skimming blog articles, or seeing if your ex has any new Facebook photo updates of his ugly baby); maybe it’s a matter of only thinking you want to be a writer, without, you know, actually writing anything.

I’m in a phase like that now, a kind of long one— years even. But I also know myself fairly well. When I decide on a project, I can be committed, though I need both a schedule, a daily practice, and a specific goal in mind, even if it’s just writing for a certain number of days in a row (note: this does not apply to National Novel Writing Month). I know that some people totally get into the challenge of writing five billion words a day for one of the longest months in the year, but I personally find it just a short cut to self-loathing (to offer an inspirational aside, I read recently that David Foster Wallace wrote the first draft of Infinite Jest during NaNo *).

I can’t seem to write unless I have a deadline pressing like a vulture on my back. I have found, however, that I respond to made up challenges and deadlines. You’ll have to find out what motivates you—praise from others, reaching a certain word count, jealousy that yet another story by Josh Ferris has been accepted in The New Yorker–but here are a few suggestions for making sure writing is part of your daily life:

1. Sign up for 750words.com. This is a free, private blog that counts your words for you (750 words a day being the goal), and gives you these badges when you reach certain goals. You can sign up for monthly challenges or just track your word count. You can sign up for daily email reminders and see your progress. The site also gives you a peek into your subconscious mind, showing what words you use the most, and what your themes seem to be given those words.

2. Enter a writing a contest with a deadline. Philadelphia Stories offers two: the Marguerite McGlinn National Prize for Fiction and The Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry. Pick up a copy of Poet’s and Writers and you’ll  find plenty of other contests to spur you on.

3. Take a class. Temple’s Continuing Education program has night classes in various genres, and so do many other universities around the tri-state area. If you have a little extra money and are free in the evenings, a weekly class where you can talk to other writers, have specific writing assignments, and get feedback can be highly motivating. You can find a whole list on this very website here. Downside: some courses cost more than others and require you to be registered in a program. In that case, consider looking for a writing group that meets regularly in your area. Most of those are free, though  depending on the group, you may find that the participants tend to talk less about writing and more about their personal lives.

4. Sign up for Internet blocking apps. If your main problem is a lack of focus and attention while trying to write–if you’re like me and will latch onto any excuse to stop writing and Google something (for example, “best fiction writing apps”), you might find it useful to try an online tool that will temporarily disallow you from tweeting a pithy line of text you’ve just written or checking your email to see if you have any more holiday coupons from Pottery Barn. Anti-Social, FocusWriter, and Think are three of the ones I found while distracting myself from writing this article by reading this article.
Those are my suggestions, but do whatever it takes. Butt in the chair, that’s the first rule. Then, go.

(*This is a made-up fact, i.e. fiction).

Aimee LaBrie received her MA in writing from DePaul University in 2000 and her MFA in fiction Penn State in 2003. Her collection of short stories, Wonderful Girl, won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction in 2007 and was published by the University of North Texas Press.Other stories of hers have been published in Minnesota Review, Pleiades, Quarter After Eight, Iron Horse Literary Review, and numerous other literary journals. Her short story, “Ducklings” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Pleiades.

A Still Pond Means Certain Suffocation

last frigid winter the koi pond was a sacrifice
each fish a gilded canvas of mottled
orange, flecked gold, and white blotches
slipping under an icy crust
then slower
until
the snow
brushed from the thick, ice plate
unveiled their decorative performance
suspended like ornament glass.

 

Phylinda has enjoyed living in Philadelphia for ten years. Visit her website phylindamoore.com for links to more poems.

A Broken Arm, a Mended Heart

From the get-go I thought, “this guy is dangerous.” By day, Kris was the web geek at the first magazine I worked for. But in his free time, he was an adrenaline junkie. He climbed 14,000-foot-tall mountains, skateboarded in empty swimming pools and, on a fat-tired bicycle, careened down steep, rocky hillsides.  Each Monday, he arrived at work with a new bruise or glistening red wound from the weekend’s folly.

One winter, he took a six-week sabbatical from work so that he could bike across Siberia’s Lake Baikal, the oldest, deepest lake in the world. Of course, in winter, it’s not really a lake at all, but a 400-mile-long swath of ice sandwiched between jagged rocks. On his list of gear to pack were studded bicycle tires, a sleeping bag rated to -40F, and a screwdriver in case the ice broke and he fell into the churning, subfreezing water (he’d use the screwdriver to claw his way out). Another time, he nearly plunged 1,500 vertical feet off the face of Oregon’s Mount Hood. By luck — or divine intervention — the tip of his mountaineer’s axe caught in a fissure of ice and stopped him mid-slide. He went on to summit the mountain, triumphant.

Kris was also dangerous in the sense that he was fiercely attractive. At the office, he fastened his long, wild, curly hair into a ponytail. He wore short-sleeved button-down shirts that complemented his broad shoulders and climber’s biceps. Behind his glasses shone ocean blue eyes that could slice through your soul.

Adventure was his lifeblood. He had grown up a free-range kid on 300 acres in central Wisconsin, where he’d learned to hunt, climb and ice fish. He loved the cold, and insisted he’d teach me – a timid girl from Atlanta – how to snowboard. One January night, after he hosted a happy hour for several coworkers, I lingered. He set me up with boots that were two sizes too big, strapped me to the waxed fiberglass board, gave me a few pointers, and nudged me down the hill behind his apartment building. I thought snowboarding was easy and fun…until we got to the real slope in Vermont a few days later. During my inaugural run on the bunny hill, I tumbled and broke my arm.

That was our first date.

I could have cut my losses and walked away right then. Bones heal, after all. I wasn’t so sure about my heart.

Avoiding pain had been my personal mission since I was five. My childhood home was dominated by brokenness and heartache, beginning in the early 1970s with my older brother, who was born severely developmentally disabled. He had seizures and threw violent fits and had to be monitored around the clock. My brother couldn’t help who he was, but that didn’t stop my parents from grieving. Back then, having a disabled child was a disease, and my parents didn’t have a cure. They had me, and later, a “normal” son. But we weren’t enough. Dashed hopes had already metastasized into resentment, lies and fury.

Dad eventually moved out.

After that, my mother was on a quest to fill the emptiness in her heart and beat back the depression that was engulfing her (and us). The men she pursued – some married, others womanizers – had no interest in the mother-of-three package deal, especially when it included a special needs kid. Even so young, I knew there was no way for these relationships to end well. My role was to keep the peace, to buffer her pain by shouldering some of the parenting load while she disappeared into the night. When she collapsed on the bathroom floor sobbing after yet another breakup, I was also her therapist. I told her what she wanted to hear, that everything would be all right, that her Prince Charming was still out there, somewhere. Meanwhile, I vowed never to follow in her footsteps. I resolved not to treat my heart so recklessly.

When it came time for me to date, I chose buttoned-up, glowing Southern boys who vowed to keep me chaste until our wedding day. What these conservative gents lacked in passion and adventure, they made up for in piety. I was allured by how steadfast they were as much as by their stable, two-parent upbringings. In so many ways, I was still five years old and pining for a whole and happy family.

When the relationships ended (never dramatically, but more with a cartoonish wah wah wah of unreturned phone calls or it’s not you, it’s me), I was sad, but not heartbroken. A heart can’t break when it’s shuttered away. I was so determined to live in opposition to my mother that I discounted the most important element of romance: attraction.

Now here was Kris. I couldn’t get enough of him, and it terrified me. His voice was infused with passion and kindness and a yearning for life, and I just wanted to be around him and hear him speak more. In the beginning, that’s all we did. We talked, sometimes until three in the morning, sitting in the passenger seat of his Jeep with the heat cranked and my legs sweating. Or sprawled on the futon in my apartment after cooking elaborate, messy dinners together – me with my one good arm. We discussed books and travel and movies and music and all that we dreamed of doing, of being.

For all his risk taking, it was weeks before Kris ventured to kiss me. He waited until my arm had healed and we could properly embrace. The moment was like throwing gasoline on a smoldering coal.  

It wasn’t long before I started joining him on adventures. We flew to London on a whim one weekend because an airline was selling round-trip tickets for $199. He’d seen the advertisement and said, “I’ve never been. Wanna go?” His optimism and spontaneity were infectious. We went camping in three feet of snow just for the hell of it, and stayed up all night, cocooned in our down sleeping bags. The stars were so thick against the black winter sky, like nothing I’d ever seen before. I gazed up and saw for the first time a future that didn’t have to be defined by my past.

Eventually, we moved into a 150-year-old farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania. The house sat on eight acres and was bordered by an organic farm on one side, a tree farm on another, and a Mennonite family farm across the road. Kris continued to chase his next adrenaline fix – scaling mountains, adventure racing, backpacking — but now he had a home base, with me. We loved to bicycle, and from our front door we could piece together 50-mile undulating loops that toured the patchwork quilt of Dutch Country and never once crossed a busy street. On Sunday mornings, we awoke to the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages, our neighbors heading off to church. We bought eggs, bread, and organic produce from the neighboring farms and cultivated our own salsa garden full of tomatoes, peppers, onions and cilantro.

Kris loved it because it reminded him of where he’d grown up. I loved it because it was the exact opposite of how I’d grown up. He begged me to sleep with the windows open. His body craved the smell of grass, trees, dirt. But I resisted. My childhood home had been burglarized several times, once in the middle of the night while we were home, cowering under our beds.

“Don’t you know I’ll protect you, city girl?” he asked me with a warm smile as he slid open the rickety old windows and let the cool breeze pour in. I looked into his face, so genuine and loving, and knew he’d do anything to keep me safe. It took a while, but I leaned into this man, and I began to see that risk does not equal recklessness. He took chances in life, but not with my heart.

Kris likened our relationship to a tandem mountain bike ride on a sinuous trail. A journey not without steep climbs and rocky patches. But the smooth parts? The white-knuckle downhill stretches of trail that make you giddy, that take your breath away? Pure bliss.

So it seemed fitting that one day just as I was descending the rockiest trail I’d ever dared to ride, feeling the panic-thrill that comes from suspending caution and reaping the reward, I found Kris at the bottom of the hill by a mountain stream, down on one knee. He was caked in dirt and grinning ear-to-ear. My knight on a silver bicycle.

“You’ve been my adventure partner, my best friend, my anchor,” he said. “I want you to be my wife.”

My heart pounded from exertion and the realization that he was sincere, that I could have it all – safety, adventure, and passion – for the rest of my life. I peeled the sweaty leather glove off my left hand and let him slip a ring onto my finger.

            We rode away and never looked back.

 

Gina DeMillo Wagner began her career as an editor for Rodale Inc. in Emmaus, Penn. She now writes for magazines including Forbes Travel Guide, Backpacker, Outside, Wired, and Experience Life. Her personal essays have appeared in Role/Reboot, Elephant Journal, Mama Moderne, and more. She is at work on a memoir and lives with her husband Kris and their two children in Arizona.