All Over the Place: Teacher

By Michael H. Brownstein












After the letter came telling me I would be changing schools
due to low enrollment in the school where I had taught
a half dozen years – and liked a lot – the eighth graders
an interesting bunch – I was sent downtown for my next assignment.

Side Story: Why write political poetry?

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

A comment on Michael H. Brownstein’s poem “Spring” prompted a question relative to his two political poems, “Welcome to the Masquerade Party” and “Death by Indecision.” The question is: Why do you write political poems? —Moristotle

Reply by Michael H. Brownstein

A Little Slice of Fife – Part 3

St. Andrews!

By Marshall Carder

And so we set off for St. Andrews. The train up from Liverpool was particularly eventful and certainly would have made for some lively and interesting conversations among the local English folks, if they were naturally inclined.

A Creek Runs through It

By Chuck Smythe

In eastern Colorado, the Continental Divide makes a great sweep to the East at 40 degrees latitude, where Arapahoe Peak towers only thirty miles from the Great Plains. This bend funnels the great westerly winds, which pile up there and fall over a mile to the prairie, picking up speed as they drop. The ghost town of Caribou, which I visited in our recent story “Snow Hiking in Colorado High Country,” is just below Arapahoe Peak, and the wind howls through town like a Banshee much of the winter.

A Little Slice of Fife – Part 2

The dream emerges

By Marshall Carder

As the weekly rounds turned into years, the bonds between everyone grew despite all of the on-course antics. There were many scenes of high drama, like the time Brooksie told Christian after a round that he had better seek professional help because he was the craziest person Brooksie had ever met, which was saying a whole lot considering his background in psychology and Synanon. You see, Wells had adamantly disagreed about the final resting place of one of Brooksie’s balls and a full-blown shouting match had ensued complete with all manner of denigration. And normally that type of behavior could have resulted in a parting of ways, but for Golfers it meant nothing after the next t-time was made. Such is the power of the game.

Joan Marie Knows Them All (a poem)

By Ralph Earle









I know a few: robins, starlings —
for the rest, the tenacious
deep deep peer-up peer-up peer-up
swelling shifting layer over layer,
teaberry teaberry teaberry teep
on the branch ch- ch- ch- ch- ch-
with the sky just barely not dark.

Sketches from the Twin Cities: Spring Sounds (like)

A sort of poem: similes of middle-school music students

By Geoffrey Dean

A recent distance learning music lesson of mine asked middle-school students to listen to Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons after reading his sonnet “La Primavera” (in English). Asked what spring “sounds” like to them, most wrote birds chirping, but a number of the 200+ responses were “one-of-kind.” I was moved by the many thoughtful and beautifully-phrased answers, and amused by some whimsical or even slightly jaded ones.

A Little Slice of Fife – Part 1

What is it about golf?

By Marshall Carder

One senses a magical anticipation just before a round of golf. It’s much like that feeling you had as a child on Christmas Eve, wondering what your presents would be, hoping for the perfect gift, even seeing yourself holding it, and yet all the while knowing that you could end up with a bunch of ugly clothes from Grandma. And I guess that’s why the game has had such an allure to so many for so long. Because you know there’s such a thing as a perfect score, and you can hit every shot, if only in your mind. And even though the game might never deliver that perfect score, there are moments when the shots are timeless and brilliant and would be good on any course, in any tournament. That is the game’s hook. That is what keeps us coming back.

All Over the Place: An Hour Ago Nothing Much Happened

By Michael H. Brownstein

What is it
– today –
– a week ago –
sleeping in the dragonfield mines?
:the breath of passion flower overhead
the jaws of the dandelion
the strength of blood tulips
craning their stems through the shadow growth

Acting Citizen: Sheep and Fish

Facebook is to blame for this

By James Knudsen

“A horse, a saddle, and land.” Those are the three things my maternal grandfather suggested I ask my father for when it came time for me to start making my way in life. My grandfather was born in the village of Doze Ribeiras on the island of Terceira, one of the major islands of the Azores archipelago. Born Laurentino Domingoes Cota on February 9, 1900, he came with his family to the United States at the age of seven. First by ship across the Atlantic and then by train crossing the American continent. One of earliest stories of his life is of him losing his hat when he stuck his head out the window of a train. He pleaded with the conductor to stop the train, but I suspect his lack of English and being only seven did little to advance his cause. The family settled in the San Joaquin Valley and joined the growing community of Portuguese immigrants whose families remain a significant part of the Central Valley today.

Coronavirus Math & Russian Roulette

Dr. Anthony Fauci

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

[Re-posted with corrections.]

After listening to Dr. Fauci the other day, I began to wonder if a 1% death rate from coronavirus was imaginable in America. Seems far-fetched, but the flu of 1918 killed somewhere between 700,000 and a million people in America – when the population was in the range of 103 million. Our population is approximately three times that today, so take 700,000 and multiply by 3 and you get 2.1 million. Factor in modern health care, modern communication, etc, and you maybe cut that number. But factor in a couple of screw-ups by the fed...imagine...and you could get to a 1% death rate.

Two Is Enough: Thanks to Judy

Detail

Two paintings saved

Paintings by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

Shirley painted these two scenes over 35 years ago. When we went to Australia in 2008, our CPA friend, Judy, wanted to keep them in her house, and thank goodness she did, for otherwise we would have lost both of them. For, like morons, we left our home to rent fully furnished, including other, larger paintings (one about 4' x 5'), all in expensive frames. All gone now.
    Judy is a good friend. She helped us out of a lot of situations while we were in Australia. She has been a life saver. On our return to Tahlequah, she returned the paintings to us so they might once again hang in our home.

Father’s Art: Works of Billy Charles Duvall [4]

Detail of 3rd painting

Three Paintings of Dancers

By André Duvall

When launching this series, I envisioned each installment of my father Billy Charles Duvall’s artwork having some unifying theme, technique, or history. Dad easily came up with the theme of today’s three original works: dancing. Each painting shows a dancer in movement, drawing our eyes to the details in the folds and colors of their clothing. Dad creates striking contrasts of each dancer with the colors and stillness of the surrounding environments, yet each dancer seems right at home.

West Coast Observer: American Hypocrisy

By William Silveira

In the New York Times article “A Former Farmworker on American Hypocrisy” (May 6, 2020), Alfredo Corchado accuses our government of hypocrisy when it says workers formerly considered “illegal” are now “essential.” Much of what Corchado discusses was known to me. I grew up in Tulare and have resided in Tulare County my whole life. My father was a farm owner with 400 acres of farm land south of Tulare. At the time I was growing up, we raised sugar beets, cotton, milo, barley, and alfalfa. We also had pigs. My brother and I irrigated these crops and cut, mowed, and raked the alfalfa. In our spare time we were expected to help out with the pigs – fence maintenance, health care, and feeding.

Snow Hiking in Colorado High Country

Detail

Introduction & Afterwords by Chuck Smythe

Photos by Ed Schmahl

A couple of friends and I have been doing weekly “social-isolation hikes” out here in the high country of Colorado (Caribou Top). Colorado in the spring, it’s wonderful! Ed Schmahl’s photos from our April 30 hike try to illustrate it, but, as Moristotle’s poems attest, if you weren’t along you can’t really get the wonder. Ed sent me the four photos that appear here with the note, “Let’s go someplace up there again!”

All Over the Place: Cherita

By Michael H. Brownstein

Ai Li is the editor of The Cherita website, and the founder of a type of poetry she calls Cherita, from the Malay word for story, or tale. A cherita poem has six lines arranged in three verses, with no title. It sort of tells a story. The main format of a cherita is 1‑2‑3: a 1‑line verse followed by a 2‑line verse, followed by a 3‑line verse. A cherita terbalik (inverted cherita) has one of the other five possible sequences of 1‑, 2‑, and 3‑line verses: 1‑3‑2,  2‑1‑3,  2‑3‑1,  3‑1‑2,  or 3‑2‑1.

Boldt Words & Images: A poem

Eliot in 1934,
by Lady Ottoline Morrell

With apologies to TS

By Bob Boldt

Don’t worry. I won’t be leaving the planet without a fight. Old Screwtape will have to pay dearly for this soul.

Goines On: Guardian angel?

Click image for more vignettes

Goines had years ago reestablished contact electronically with Landi, a friend from when the Goineses still lived in California in the ’80s. Landi now sent him one of those “chain” messages, this one with the subject “Poem Exchange,” which called for him to send a poem to the first email listed.

A Trial Lawyer in Court

Image from “Mrs. Nelson’s
American Government”

Like directing a play

By James T. Carney, Attorney at Law

I was recently involved in a case that well illustrates what trial lawyers do. The case had to do with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, and included a good deal of esoteric discussion about ERISA, which I won’t bore you with. The case in question boiled down to a brass and knuckles fight over whether or not a couple who divorced after having been married in a religious ceremony had subsequently reunited in a common law marriage.

Side Story: Word count’s bane

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Paul, in a comment on April 20, you acknowledged that, “since I have worked as an editor and writer, sure, I have some thoughts to share on the subject of the importance of word count versus fully telling a story. And maybe I could even chare those thoughts in 250 or so words, or maybe a few more....”
    Please write those thoughts up, for another column in this informative and thought-provoking series, “Side Story.” (And be sure to accumulate your word count.) —Moristotle

Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [16]

Click image for more posts

16. At night the rain would invade

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Real people

Click image for more vignettes

Goines used to think of time spent watching movies or TV series as “escapist” – time away from “real life.” For that reason, he was caught off guard and surprised, a few episodes into watching the Israeli TV series Shtisel, to realize that the characters of most of the dramatizations he watched were as real to him as the actual people he interacted with. Goines truly cared about some (or most) of the characters he encountered in various dramas, perhaps especially in the case of Shtisel.

All Over the Place: Spring

By Michael H. Brownstein












All winter the lilies broke through earth,
an easy winter,
splashes of snow now and then,
a few mosaics of frost,
houseflies did not know to die,
ground hogs did not know to hibernate,
everywhere great bald eagles over the Missouri,
the early caw of crows,
a grand scheme of geese,
ponds did not freeze,
and today a worm surfaced,
a robin dropped from a tree
and the wonder of life began its renovations.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Poetry & Portraits: May

Drawing by Susan C. Price

May
By Eric Meub

Sweet friends, I never hear you once complain.
      You linger in your alabaster urn
Behind the jewelry box and the Guerlain.
      One evening, angel host, you’ll have your turn.

Goines On: More masked men

Click image for more vignettes

On their trip to Costco that day, the next piece of music was lively, and Mrs. Goines said it sounded like ballet music. An image of Trump dancing on stage and reciting tweets forced itself onto the screen of Goines’ imagination. He slapped the steering wheel with some glee. “Someone has to be composing a comic opera of Trump. History claims no bigger fool…Would the role be for a tenor or a baritone, do you think?”

Two Is Enough: Life as senior citizens

By Vic Midyett

Fear not, you who are young'ens, for life as a senior citizen can still be hilarious!
    I had planned to get my hair cut on the day the government morons decided to close the barber shops. My hair had gotten a lot longer than I like and was batting my forehead.

Six Years Ago Today: Missionary Kid

Raja

By Vic Midyett

[Editor’s Note: This Missionary Kid story originally appeared on May 6, 2014. The author was reminded of his story about Raja when he learned from a cousin in India of a story about Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma titled “32 Years Without a Weekend Off: This Elephant Doctor Treats 700+ Jumbos Every Year!” by Jovita Aranha. Make your day by reading both Vic’s and Ms. Aranha’s stories.]

I was about six years old when we got Raja, a half-grown elephant. He was about the same height as Dad. We didn’t have him long, because his appetite was bigger than Dad’s wallet. For several weeks though, I enjoyed his company immensely. I have no picture of Raja, so this one will have to do; Raja was about the size of the smallest of the three elephants.

Adventures from Bulgaria: Belasitsa and the 3 Dogs

Detail from 12th photo

By Valeria Idakieva

Stuck at home in the middle of coronavirus lockdown, I am following the current social debate about going out of your home. While reading comments like “So, you can take your dog for a walk, but you can’t take your child for a walk!,” a memory of three dogs that followed me on one of my hiking adventures occupied my mind and made me go back two years and look through the pictures I made during that adventure. I am not going to take a side in the debate whether it is right to take your dog but not your child out; I think there should be a way to take both of them for a walk, even in quarantine time.

Side Story: Stalked by wild dogs

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Ed, you commented that you were “stalked by a pack of wild dogs once,” but gave no details. Please tell us more. I’ve heard of people having horrible confrontations with wild dogs – and wild hogs – but so far I have avoided both. —Paul Clark

Reply by Ed Rogers

All Over the Place: Death by Indecision

By Michael H. Brownstein








1.

We’re in the bank:
I’d tell you a coronavirus joke, a customer said way too loud,
but you wouldn’t get it.

And I didn’t get it – not at first –
but others smiled.
No one laughed.

Recommending Emergence Magazine

Illustration by Jia Sung

To meet a global need

By Moristotle

Thank our colleague Bob Boldt for sending me the text of Emergence Magazine’s op-ed “Finnegas” by Paul Kingsnorth, a writer living in rural Ireland. Mr. Kingsnorth opens with the statement, “I would like to tell you a few things about this virus and the lessons it should teach us, all the things we should be learning. I would like to add my voice to the crowd and be heard above it.” As you can see, the op-ed is timely.
    We have inserted a few links into the excerpt, for your convenience. And, following the excerpt, we provide some information about the Kalliopeia Foundation and Emergence Magazine.

Two Is Enough

And so are these two funnies

By Vic Midyett

Ol’ Zeb, the fish-catchin’est old fart that ever was, always caught his dinner of fish. By and by I came across Ol’ Zeb and asked him how that came to be. How did he always catch enough fish for dinner?

Goines On: Curled sidelocks

Click image for more vignettes

The Goineses had been watching the Israeli TV series Shtisel, a fictional story about a conservative (Haredi) Jewish family in Jerusalem who adhere strictly to their interpretation of Jewish law and values. The men wear religious vestments and curl their sidelocks. The Goineses found these people’s customs fascinating. But hardly anyone in the huge Shtisel family seems happy, and it was impossible to watch the series without sharing their sadness.