Boldt Words & Images: The First of Many

Fiction?

By Bob Boldt

[Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this short story appeared on Moristotle & Co. on August 29, 2015. The author has revised it for our world four and a half years later.]

Overhead, bullets whistled past me in the cold dark amid the falling drizzle. Some shells made a complaining, metallic clank as they struck the side of the overturned dumpster I had scrambled into. I was trying to dodge the first barrage that had made the street a sudden killing zone. In the process, I smashed my head on a large hook that protruded out of the side of the damned thing. Doing my best to ignore the stinging pain, I cautiously ran my hand up the side of my face, hoping for the best and dreading the worst. Moisture. Not the wet of the rain, but a thicker substance. Blood? I licked my probing fingers, and the warn, salty, iron taste on my tongue confirmed my fears.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [15]

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15. The bats always came slapping

[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.]

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 3

Some hiking trials

By James T. Carney

The first day of our hike, we covered 14 miles of relatively level but gradually rising territory. We probably gained a total of 800 feet in elevation but it was so gradual I didn’t feel it. I did feel the 14 miles, however, and I was overjoyed when we reached the headquarters of the Cameron Clan and picked up the van to go back to Alltschellach. We were scheduled to return to the Cameron headquarters the next day, but we would first visit the statute to the British Commandos (akin to our Special Forces) who had trained in the Highlands before going off to fight in World War II.

All Over the Place: Welcome to the Masquerade Party

By Michael H. Brownstein












There is no element of surprise with a quarantine,
No understudy to take your place,
Masks and eye protection have been ordered.
They lay in cartons on warehouse shelves,
They have been here for months – perhaps years.

Acting Citizen: Sightseeing

Road trip

By James Knudsen

With the exception of some twelve months in the 1980s, equally divided between Tennessee and Okinawa, and a similar amount of time in 2001-02, spent in Korea and Thailand, I have lived all of my 55 years in California. One would assume I know the Golden State quite well. I don’t.

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 2

Assembling at Alltschelach

By James T. Carney

The history summarized in Part 1 was far from my mind and from the minds of my intrepid companions as we assembled for our first trip as a trio on a wet, rainy day in Glasgow. My long-time friend Detmar Straub had accompanied me to Montenegro and the Pyrenees, and my local friend John Shortridge had gone with me to Machu Pichu, the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park. We would now go on the epic Great Glen Way, which crosses Scotland from the Atlantic to the North Sea through a geological fault that is clearly visible on any map of Scotland running northeast from Fort William to Inverness.

West Coast Observer: A slap against Devin Nunes

By William Silveira

The title of a March 14 article in the Washington Post asks its readers to “Raise your hand if you have not been sued by Devin Nunes,” implying, of course, that Congressman Nunes has sued a lot of people. Columnist Dana Milbank states that “The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee has, aided by a lawyer with a colorful past and a flair for invective, sued just about everybody who criticizes him.” Everybody who criticizes him. Well, that includes me, and he hasn’t sued me yet, so I guess I need to raise my hand. Or, maybe I’m next.

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 1

The author on the trail
[September 2, 2019]

Some history before hiking

By James T. Carney

The Scottish Highlands have always been considered the heart of Scotland even though only a small percentage of Scotland’s current population of some 6 million live there. About 600,000 live in Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, and most live in the Lowlands of the South. Who are the Scots and how do they relate to the rest of the British?

Goines On: Holocaust Remembrance Day

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A poet friend of Goines reminded him that April 21 was Holocaust Remembrance Day and asked Goines to write a poem for the occasion; a poetry website was soliciting poems for its “Yom HaShoah” observation.

Side Story: You knew Paul Newman?

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

Paul, you or someone said you used to know Paul Newman? There is obviously a story here. Tell!
—Chuck Smythe

Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Most people think of Paul Newman (1925-2008) as a famous American actor. I knew him as a race car driver. Preparing for the 1969 movie Winning, Newman took a driver’s course on the famed Watkins Glen road course in the Finger Lakes region of New York. From then on, acting may have made him rich and famous, but racing was arguably what inspired him.

All Over the Place: Compassion Moves the World

By Michael H. Brownstein

After the sculpture “Compassion Moves a World,” by Julie Rotblatt-Amrany^*

In the days that followed
The blue ink of sea broiled over

A child, a vulture, a lack of seed.
Everything spreading outward.

Boldt Words & Images: Coincidentally

Composed on Friday the 13th of March, 2020

By Bob Boldt

[Preamble: If a poem requires explanation, then it is a failure. Of course, even “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” still remains opaque to many (if not most) readers. I had hoped that, if the reader were unable to draw any connection between the images in the poem below, they might at least be entertained by its juxtaposition of images and my take on appearance and reality and how the effigy of a woman’s torso can house a scorpion. I will say, though, that the “Marienbad” reference is to the 1961 film Last Year in Marienbad by Alain Resnais.

Goines On: World project

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Goines sat alone idling, motors purring, /Engines of both mind and body conferring, / The body’s awaiting mind’s to spur him / To whatever allurements might bestir him.
    Goines tried to remember the name of the woman who lived with that other woman whose name both he and Mrs. Goines could remember. Goines was finding that many names once familiar to him had faded and maybe entirely disappeared, though sometimes some of them seemed to flicker anew and sound their presence.

Side Story: California versus Colorado

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

What besides snow drove you from Colorado to California, Shirley Skufca? My wife and I both love Colorado.
—Chuck Smythe

Reply by Shirley Skufca Hickman

The Old Me

By Kyle Conley

[When this poem was  originally published (on April 15, 2020), the lines between “Life’s too short to pick out flaws” and “Yes I stole a pill...” were inadvertently omitted. With some embarrassment, we apologize to both author and reader for this egregious mistake. The omitted lines were restored on May 12.]

Woke up just now to the sound of pouring rain
my mind racing and I can’t relieve the pain.
Things aren’t the same. Looks of disdain
everywhere I look, with their feeble minds focused
on the trash you think I took.
They bit your hook.