Goodnight Sweet City Goodnight by Mike Matter Goodnight sweet city, goodnight Hold your evening close by and ready the mid-morning-missed realization of sunrise Fly your noise through the heights of the rich and poor alike then scatter your ash over the higher A dream lies filled with visions of height and glory seasoned with an agonizing challenge, joy, grandiose […]
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Driving into a storm graying a cloud-mottled sky, mist climbs the building towers, umbrellas shudder below. A broken water line arcs an icy sidewalk, stoplights fail, freezing the intersections. The side street crosswalk cop spins and whistles, pauses cars as he passes the ladies on. Buses bounce a pothole lane, side panels milky with engine-melted ice. Street breezes worry […]
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Of Meringues and Mindsets My mother used to make lemon pies when somebody died. “Because my pies were beautiful, all fluffy and white,” she said as if it all made perfect sense. And I wondered at her logic. Was it as flawed as I initially believed? Maybe the soft white topping to the bitter yellow center […]
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My Poor Mother’s Country Land by, Melissa R. Mendelson Green earth sways and rolls. This is my mother’s home, But mother, please forgive me. They don’t know the wrong they’ve done. Blue skies have fallen. The gray clouds have come, And here comes the thunder, Rolling in, Screaming at all they’ve done. Chorus: What have they done? […]
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Liberation “We heard a loud voice repeating the same words in English and in German…”1 May 25 1940, the first transport of thousands were marched through those gates. Gates that opened to what a select few called the Final Solution. But to those on the inside, the Final Solution had yet to come. Their Liberation Their Freedom Numbers painfully […]
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DISAPPEARANCE 1. I considered the phoenix— into the fire, a quick release of gas, the efficacy of ash. But does one truly rise? Is it a spirit or a conscious recollection of the past? 2. Those who acknowledge nothing swim comfortably in the dark. The salt of their mother floats them. The mulch of their father awaits […]
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They’re usually poor people, sometimes considered the flotsam of society, always in the way at the grocery store, at the post office. They can’t find their money, if they have any. They’re never in a hurry. They have nowhere to go and you’re always in line behind them, a busy man with people to see, appointments to keep, deadlines to meet. You try to […]
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Sending My Love Across The Distance Our childhood was shared with laughter and tears. Two grown women talking over coffee warmed up my mind whenever I thought ahead, but where has that future gone now? We never saw that distance grow between us, and now there lies the bridge built between where I stand and where you are. Our […]
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Plain Girl Pretty Rose was a plain girl from a small town. She sang in the choir, never missed Bible study, left for the big city after high school. She worked nights in a shanty diner next to a bar where working men gathered. Depending on how much the men had to drink Rose looked appealing but she ignored […]
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“FOUR” CAST The earth’s been here four billion years, But humans mere four million. How often has the atmosphere Received a “global killing?” Have comets many seared the skies, Volcanoes oft erupted? What oceans parched till desert-dry And climates left disrupted? How many times has planet warmed, Engorged with greenhouse gasses, While glaciers melted and reformed […]
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