Highways and Byways: Broad Street Diamond, Griffith, Indiana

By Maik Strosahl

I saw a picture recently in an Abandoned Railroad forum. It was identified as a crossing in Griffith, Indiana, that was one of the busiest in the nation.

Story Challenge #5

Write a poem for its story

By Moristotle

Thanks to Michael H. Brownstein for today’s challenging beginning, something quite different....
    It points to a story in poem form. As Michael suggested in his submission: “Finish this as a poem poem, a prose poem, or even as a work of flash fiction.” I understand “flash fiction” to be a synonym for “short short story” (only a few hundred words).

Westward (prose lined as a poem)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

I had all but forgotten Mary Oliver until listening to a recent Sunday morning NPR program. A quick read of a couple of her poems reminded me of how her writing is often described as “unadorned.” I think that is as an understatement. Her writing is sparse, vivid, brilliant prose. But is it poetry – and is she a poet, as she is generally described?
    In attempting to sort out her work, I’ve arrived at what is likely a stupid question: What exactly makes most of her work poetry, as opposed simply to great prose written in a funky, disjointed fashion? Examples abound at “10 of the Best Mary Oliver Poems.” Thinking about this brought me to my own bit of prose, which I chose to turn into an alleged poem by breaking it down in a funky, disjointed fashion. I titled it “Westward”:

Bellator Senex: People are a lot like cars

[Editor’s Note: Both Ed & I were born the year of this pickup –
him on today’s date, me 5 days later]

By Ed Rogers

People are a lot like cars. When new, they all (except for a few lemons now and then) run great, look great, and are able to fly down the road.
    Not all cars are equal, however. Some have parts that wear out before others. Some are driven too hard and just can’t endure the strain; they end up in the junkyard before their time. Others are cared for and pampered, but still break down.

A Message of Compassion

By Blake Adamson

Sometimes our lives feel meaningless and full of darkness, like we’re dropping endlessly into a hole. Other times, our lives are too bright, like looking directly into a spotlight, revealing all our flaws and insecurities to the world, most of all to ourselves.
    In these times, compassion is our greatest weapon. Not a sword in hand, but a branch held in the beak of a dove – a symbol of mercy and of new beginnings. It’s a lesson worth learning again.

All Over the Place: The Shunning of Stanley McTick

By Michael H. Brownstein

Sometimes a wind is but a breeze and all of the birds twitter fretfully across branches, fish swim to the surface and study the weight of their skin, and dogs circle tightly in place before they stretch their long noses as far as they can stretch, their faithful tongues loose and hungry.

Sketches from the Twin Cities: A tricolor improvisation

By Geoffrey Dean

The early morning hours hold seemingly limitless potential – for reflection, for creation, for getting the day under control before it’s really started. This morning, for about an hour, I continued a three-crayon improvisation that I had started the day before.
    The three crayons (yellow, orange, and blue green) were the ones that happened to be out at my daughter’s coloring station. She had been using ink stamps on the same stretch of paper, but I did not try to incorporate the blue and red blobs from her stamps. I gave myself over, as completely as I could without conscious effort, to the very act of putting lines – straight, wavy, intersecting, of unclear origin, destination, purpose, relationship – on paper, of layering colors and textures and noticing in passing how they mix, change, and morph as they move through the space.

Tuesday Voice: A poem

The Cameraman

By Ed Rogers

The sun: its light filtered by the cloud of war. You: seeking the reason for the contamination, raise your camera. The camera’s eye captures the visualization of life and death as the beams of light slide in and out of the smoke and dirt. Each click of the camera highlights the destruction; each turn captures new horror.

A prose poem

Battlefield

By Ed Rogers

The clouds of smoke drift on the winds of battle; the burnt rubber and fuel assault your senses like a monster from a childhood nightmare. The rubble of war machines litter the field...no longer the proud, victorious steeds that carried warriors into battle. Now, the coffins of contention lie silent.