She’s Gone

Broadside Artist: Mare Blocker

Author: Jason Quigley
Workshop: Danmoore
Anthology Title and Year: The Pedestal of Everything Wonderful, Fall 2000
Page # in anthology: 29, 30

She had that look in her eye, staring at me with a fine mixture of discontent, hate, love, disbelief, frustration and confusion. “What the fuck, dude? How long has it been this time, the fourth time in our two-year, almost three-year relationship, that you have held me hostage with the impression you were clean, only to drop this bomb on me that you have been strung out the past few months? Of course, you got ‘clean’ six months ago, so who the fuck really knows?
     I see the tears welling up in her big, beautiful, brown eyes. I see her already broken heart break, the heart she had already declared dead as my words rip and tear through her fragile soul, pouring blood out onto the floor for the two of us to wade in. “I am so sorry, Lynn. So sorry,” I reply able to look her in the eye, ashamed and confused as hell.
     “I can’t believe you asshole! Your self-loathing, ‘oh pity me’ existence, once again choosing dope over love, over me, death over life, blah, blah, blah. Fuck you!” she screams out, with tears pouring down her face, turning away from me and frantically collecting her purse and coat and so on to leave my world.
     I can’t stand myself. I can’t expect her to stand me, but I am so scared to be alone. “Lynn, wait!” I cry out, “Let me explain.” But I know and she knows that there is nothing to explain. I don’t understand the person inside of me who calls the shots and initiates the decision-making process that leads me to this slow, miserable, suicidal lifestyle. What can I possibly try to explain?
     “I told you last time, Michael, that the next time would be the last time. Like the time before that and et cetera, but this is it! I have to go, and don’t follow me, ever. You don’t love yourself, even though you are such a selfish, self-centered bastard. You have little respect for yourself, so how can you share with me what you don’t even have for yourself?”
     “Um, uh,” I interrupt.
     “It’s a rhetorical question. I don’t need this shit! My life is miserable enough.” She storms out the door, taking no time to gather herself. I feel that fine line that ran from her heart to mine snap as she slams the door, and a harsh flash of reality sinks my heart into my stomach.
     Something has got to give, I think to myself. The shit I give all my love to, all my life to, has now taken the last thing in my life that I had to lose, my first real love, my best friend.

Praying to the Powerful Forever

Broadside Artist: Inge Bruggeman

Author: Lora Lafayette
Workshop: Cascadia Community Connectors
Anthology: The Sparkle in the Grit, Fall 2005
Page: 180-191

As a child, I was scared – always scared.
But I noticed the working of life –
the colored popcorn kernels
tossed instead of rice at some civil union.
The taste of Bit o’Honey
that always stuck to my teeth.

At the Ocean, I was never scared,
there is where I used to pray –
even before I knew the concept of God
or the practice of prayer.

My father told me that ocean stones
are too powerful to keep,
and that sand boulders are
light and crushable.

I waded in the life-infused tide pools,
sea tarantulas doing battle and
bright anemones waving about,
unafraid of the suffocating air
above their watery homes.

The blazing, brilliant finger –
stretching across the illumination
stroking the horizon’s infinity.
And I watch as it sinks into Homer’s wine-dark sea.

The timeless dream of artists
to tame with description
and finite palettes,
the feral and inexhaustible

forever.

Elephant

Broadside Artist: Warren Buss

Author: Marian George
Workshop: Urban League
Anthology: Everyday Revolutions, Fall 2004
Pages: 50-53 (excerpted)

And that’s how it went for a while. I knew when I came home every night she would be there. I thought about drinking more to block her out, but having her there somehow made me drink less, or at least it was more thoughtful, more the way you drink when you are listening to Miles or Ella or when it’s raining steady and the night is otherwise quiet. And after a while I started to really look at her, really study her swaying and her thoughtful eyes with those long lashes. She never said a word, but after a few weeks she began to get sort of translucent, like I could see right through her. God she was so beautiful. And then looking right at her I saw my father before he died and the kid who helped bury my most loved cat when I was ten, and the greatest shame of my life and running, running, running. And she never looked away from any of it. Never moved. And it wasn’t all bad stuff. There was the memory of a fantastic beach house and garden I once called home and a great director and friend who pried open something in me that was rapture, transport. Then one night I came home and she was gone. And for a while I kept expecting her to come back. But it’s not like a stray cat, you know. It’s not like you keep putting the food out on the porch and the visitor, your friend, returns.

Untitled

Broadside Artist: Clare Carpenter

Author: Margaret Bullis
Workshop: VJB
Anthology: A City of Words, Summer 1999
Page: 100

The worst job I ever had was also the most interesting. I put myself through the senior year of high school by setting pins at the local bowling alley. It paid the glorious wage of seven cents a line.

There were a lot of Filipinos working for the Bumble Bee Tuna Cannery. They liked to bowl and they were good at it. Every time they made a strike they would throw a piece of change down the alley to the pin setter. On a good night you could go home with two dollars in change in your pocket.

Not Applicable

Broadside Artist: Diane Chonette

Author: ’Okawailele
Workshop: Human Solutions
Anthology: Called to Speak Stories, Spring 2007
Page: 107

The mail brought the form.  It came with an itinerary of events to celebrate the twenty years since high school graduation.
            Those twenty years had taken me down paths rarely traveled; ones I never thought
I would take.  At 18, I had no inkling of the mental illness that would strike.  Nor did I understand all that would mean.
            The form started out with my name already filled out as was my address.  It was
the blanks that caused my realization:
            Occupation NA
            Spouse NA
            Spouse’s occupation NA
            Children NA

            I was non-applicable.  I was part of society’s fringe - one of those that did not - that added not to the weave or web.  My function was a reminder that you should fear what may happen to you or a loved one.  My function was to be pointed at as a drain of resources - a meaningless life form.

            I threw the pieces of paper away.  The not applicable has stayed with me.

The Floor Creaked

Broadside Artist: Diane Jacobs

Author: Paige A. C. B. Balter
Workshop: Reflections Coffee House
Anthology: Stillness is the Opening, Fall 2003
Page: 158

Distillation

Broadside Artist: Carla Schultz

Author: Eleanor Benecki
Workshop: Transgender Group
Anthology: And We Flew, Summer 2008
Page: 96

Supported by itself
across ancient oak floorboards,
oak beams
shafts hewn of light
of dust
of beings.

Light at first
evaporating
inkblot fingers
dots, drips
trickled to drizzle
the thinnest wet line
of thought.

Pure devoid
of mossy hollows
slithering grass snake
dipping thrush
now free to wait for other things
nourished by the now

flowing.

Music in Three Parts

Broadside Artist: Barbara Tetenbaum

Author: George Mayer
Workshop: REACH - Ritzdorf Apartments
Anthology: Echoes, Fall 2006
Page: 26

A saxophone, no          Violins sliding          from Ireland through the hills of Tennessee      
a duet          Do it!          sweet like the dew          fiddling around lazy too          fiddling around all day with you          you like it!          I hear a dog bark          outside the room          playing by yourself          or with someone new

A guitar          no, time out of time          going to school          Ivy League          from the West Coast           or the East Coast          or no Coast at all          coasting, coasting down a hill   
green, big          warm sun on your cheek          wind blowing through the saxophone trees         vibrating the reeds by the lake          the drums are in the raindrops          listening for the cymbal but there is no thunder          a time out of time

Thrumming, thrumming          Humming, humming          Latin, Cubano          a big guitar the size of a cello          a fellow is holding it under his arm          the waves are beating on the shore          the guys behind are a chorus of encouragement          a step back, a step forth or from side to side      RHUMBA          a deep rhumba, a prayer          the salsa sauce sweet from the sea          waves of sound like a seafood stew          all the flavors          the ocean and you          listening is tasting tasting is dancing          sea     see     sea     si!

Blank Paper

Broadside Artist: Sandy Tilcock

Author: R.D. Sage
Workshop: New Mezz Connection
Anthology: The Roots of All the City’s Lamps, Fall 2002
Page: 273

blank paper
silent pen dancing

A Shift in Focus

Broadside Artist: Shu-Ju Wang

Author: Anita Page
Workshop: SUN
Anthology: The Silence Underneath All Sounds, Spring 2001
Page: 201

There was a change in the air. Something different…The clouds looked the same, the same breeze cooled me, but something…“shifted,” I guess, is the closest word I can find. I looked carefully at the cedars, firs, and the hills, checking out the hawk flying above. Everything looked the same. Ahh. The shift was inside me. I saw how the rabbit froze at the shadow before the hawk struck. The breeze playing with the aspen leaves so they seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. A crescent of a dying moon to the east and bright warmth of the sun to the west. And through all that I could see, all that I could hear, small or feel, I could hear music, music from nowhere and everywhere proclaiming that Life Was – not good, not bad, just Was.